blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

I watched The Cove at the Cine Adarna theatre of the University of the Philippines on September 3. It was a free screening sponsored by Earth Island Institute .  The cinema was packed by environmentalists and advocates of keeping dolphins and other whales out of captivity. However, I had to ditch my environmentalist mode so I can watch the film more objectively and I had to see it with  my ASIAN AND THIRD WORLD EYES ! My assessment is that the documentary was well made but MISERABLY FAILS on  cultural and historical sensitivity . And so it can easily be criticized as an ENVIROIMPERIALIST attempt to trump down Japanese culture. First of all the film shows an all WHITE crew of environmentalists trying to save the dolphins. I do not see any problem with saving cetaceans and many Japanese do so too, but a balanced treatment would have been better if a historical aspect was introduced. Wholesale whale slaughter was first made an efficient industry by who else, White Eu...

No te olvideras is the the whole message of historical -romances- in- war movies like Mark Meily's Baler (VIVA films). It seems that every decade there is a big budgeted Pinoy Spanish era movie. Ten years ago we had Marilou Diaz-Abaya's Rizal (GMA Films). So those who saw it then can't help but compare Baler with Rizal . But that is where the comparison ends. Rizal is a hagiography with certain liberties taken while Baler is a love story with extreme liberties taken. Now one wag who happens to be gay once said on ANC TV when asked which is the most notable film of the last 30 years " Rizal is the most beautiful ugly movie made!" (Bernal's Himala was the best movie ever) I'm sure this movie critic cum wag will say the same thing if not worse! I saw Baler in the same Ayala cinema I saw Rizal ten years earlier. Worst of all since I bought my ticket quite late, I found myself in the same crummy seat from where I saw Rizal ! Baler can be forgiven for ...

Sometimes I spend good money on philosophy books. This is a lasting legacy of I having taught at Ateneo de Manila! If the Catholic Knight puts the sword on the "tyranny of relativism", theoretical physicist, Alan Sokal skewers the relativists in his latest tome, "Beyond the Hoax: Science,Philosophy and Culture" Sokal made history in 1996 when he sent a paper entitled "Transgressing the boundaries:Towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity" to a respected journal "Social Text". The paper passed review and got published. The problem is the paper was a spoof of gobbledygook proportions. Sokal wanted to expose the silliness of the academic Left and the social constructivists which he believed would be best served if their intellectual underpinnings had a dose of reason. In the so called science wars, the realist Sokal took to battle, postmodernists. Nonetheless, I find Sokal's chapter on "Cognitive Relativism in the Philosophy ...