It's spring break and I'm in Toronto (headline from NYT travel section, "A Revitalized Toronto Pins Its Hopes on the Hobbits" meaning the new musical based on Lord of the Rings which opens here tomorrow night.)

Alex is at work now and he has thoughtfully collected a few local Filipino newspapers for me to peruse. I've been studying the Philippines for a class in Social/Cultural Geography.

I'm not going to get into all of the political stuff but it's important to know that the president in the Philippines, while ostensibly elected, only really serves at the pleasure of the upper class and the military. If the president is well-liked by those groups, then mass protests will be quelled. If, however, the president has pissed off the wealthy and the military, then the mass protests are allowed to continue and the military says, in effect, "Hey president, good luck with that uprising. You're on your own." Liked or loathed, the mass protests seem to be part of the deal.

Anyway, the Philippines are considering changing their government from a presidential system to a parliamentary system. I'm not really sure how all that works but it does give an opportunity for lots of fun abbreviations and general verbal playfulness.

The switch in constituion requires a charter change, abbreviated everywhere as cha-cha. One group of officials supports a constitutional convention, or con-con, while another thinks that an assembly is appropriate, a con-ass.

Right now this is more exciting to me than the boring-ass primary election that Illinois held yesterday.