missingpoints Classic
First posted: 05 March 2005
Those earphones are ubiquitous. In school campuses and in the Makati area at least, every third person I run into is wearing an earpiece of sorts. From the white iPod earbuds to those Nokia half-headphones, a lot of people walking around seem to be wired to something or another, listening to music. It's like a William Gibson novel come to life.
Of course the big question is why. Why do people (at least the ones I run into) feel the need to listen to music all the time? Has this always been a latent want satisfied only now, when portable music players are really small enough and cheap enough to carry around?
Is it impatience? Does having nothing to do bother us city folk so much that we need to give our brains a constant buzz so they don't go on standby mode? Do we always need something to process that we feed ourselves a stream of information when our brains are supposed to be on downtime?
Is it a sign of loneliness? Do we need to fill every silence with a background layer of pleasant sound so we don't feel alone? Or is it the opposite? In wanting to be alone do we cut ourselves off from the rest of the world by shutting ambient sounds out?
Perhaps it's a pop culture thing, this desire to lay a soundtrack to our daily lives. Influenced by television and the movies, everyone may want some kind of theme song for every waking moment, from getting on the bus to just before going to bed. I can understand. I know someone who puts on the Star Trek theme on the way to work and the Batman (animated) soundtrack whenever he drives home to Antipolo. Heck, I'm having visions of someone strutting down a sidewalk with "Staying Alive" blaring in his ear, shuffling in his best Travolta impression.
But is it really a need?
I find it silly. I love music as much as (perhaps more than) the average guy yet I don't feel the need to immerse myself in it all the time. For me there's nothing like getting up in the morning to some rock music or playing a jazz track at work to stimulate creativity. I like Beethoven and Moby and Sonic Youth but I don't think it's healthy for anyone to keep those headphones on all the time.
My guess is it's another case of demand created by hype. No one needs music pumped into them all the time but the act is considered cool so people begin to feel the need to stick something into their ears so they can be cool, too. No one really needs to spend for them but having one means you're one of those people who can (or whose parents can) afford to drop P15,000 for a portable music player.
Of course there's nothing wrong with having a portable music player and using it. It becomes unnatural only when one spends every waking moment listening. The problem is not in owning one, the problem is being owned by one.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Bad Writing
In "The West Wing" NASA's PR guy compares himself to Sam Seaborne, saying "we're both writers." Sam responds by saying "only if you extend the definition to anyone who can spell."
ETC, 2nd Avenue, and Jack TV employ the same writer to create their on-air promos. He probably got his job based on a spelling test, too. At first I thought they just gave the work to whomever in the marketing department was free, but the mistakes are too consistent to be written by more than one person (or team).
Pronunciation aside (can't they ever get Ellen and Maury's surnames right?) the spiels suffer from a lack of understanding of the nuances of the english language. Calling "The Office's" Pam as "the righteous receptionist" completely misrepresents both the character and the word "righteous." And let's not get started on "Friends."
If freelance writers are reading this, please send your resumes to Solar Entertainment. They might not realize it yet, but they need someone good to write for them. Don't worry about spelling, there's Spell Checker in MS Word.
Unfortunately there's no Stupid Checker.
ETC, 2nd Avenue, and Jack TV employ the same writer to create their on-air promos. He probably got his job based on a spelling test, too. At first I thought they just gave the work to whomever in the marketing department was free, but the mistakes are too consistent to be written by more than one person (or team).
Pronunciation aside (can't they ever get Ellen and Maury's surnames right?) the spiels suffer from a lack of understanding of the nuances of the english language. Calling "The Office's" Pam as "the righteous receptionist" completely misrepresents both the character and the word "righteous." And let's not get started on "Friends."
If freelance writers are reading this, please send your resumes to Solar Entertainment. They might not realize it yet, but they need someone good to write for them. Don't worry about spelling, there's Spell Checker in MS Word.
Unfortunately there's no Stupid Checker.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Boom!
Screw 'dem slate jumpers. In the 2007 elections the clincher is not whether the opposition actually unites or is splintered by a third force. What really matters is who owns the rights to "Boom Ta-rat Ta-rat."
Per mlq3, Miguel Zubiri has it. Let's just hope he can dance better than Mar Roxas.
Per mlq3, Miguel Zubiri has it. Let's just hope he can dance better than Mar Roxas.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Medium
I wrote this as a reaction to a conversation I had with someone from the call center industry. Juan Miguel Luz also says something similar in today's Inquirer.
* * * * *
The irony is that those advocating English as the medium of instruction is schools don’t seem to understand what “medium” means. They are as ignorant of English as the students they want to educate. Both houses of congress as well as the pundits and industry leaders who keep egging them to pass legislation mandating English as the medium of instruction automatically assume that doing so would improve English proficiency.
The fact is that it would do just the opposite and it will take down with it math, science, and other skills as well.
Any educator – quoting studies done by educators and linguists – would tell you that the best way for anyone to learn something is by using the language they are most comfortable with. Heck, common sense would tell you that. Good teachers instinctively know this, lapsing into Tagalog or Taglish when teaching a concept in, say, Geometry that students can’t seem to grasp. Forcing them to use a language that their students are unfamiliar with (or are just beginning to learn) would just make the task more difficult for everyone.
The idea behind the drive to make English the medium of instruction is simple: that it is in our best interest to improve our English speaking skills. With this I agree. I am of the firm belief that the more languages we learn, the better we will be, not just as workers but as people in general. Besides, if this is our ticket out of poverty, then why should anyone oppose the learning of English out of a sense of false nationalism?
But the proponents are approaching it the wrong way. For non English speakers, the best way to learn English is to learn it AS A SECOND LANGUAGE. This means assuming that the students DO NOT KNOW HOW TO SPEAK ENGLISH in the first place.
I had an interesting conversation with the principal of a Chinese school that teaches its students Chinese as a second language. He said that he does not mention this to the parents and grandparents (using instead the term “fresh approach to Chinese-language learning” in the school brochures) since it would cause some sort of uproar. The grandparents would resent it if the school implied their grandkids were like ordinary Pinoys.
However, he continues (and succeeds) with a second-language approach since most of the kids sent to him are 4th and 5th generation Chinoys who grew up speaking Tagalog. Teaching Mandarin the same way it was taught to their grandparents would just confuse the hell out of the children.
Our lawmakers and industry leaders harbor the same mistaken notions as these Chinese grandparents, feeling outraged (or worse not even acknowledging the idea) that students today do not know enough of the language to use it as a tool for learning. They assume that all kids know how to speak English and are just out of practice.
The fact is these kids DO NOT KNOW HOW TO SPEAK ENGLISH in the first place. Teaching them using English without teaching them the English language first would just be STUPID.
How can anyone learn anything when the teacher speaks in a language they can’t understand? If all our professors showed up tomorrow speaking German, we non German speakers would flunk. Sure, after a semester or two listening to them we’d probably be conversant in the language, too, but it would be at the expense of other things we need to learn.
Of course the old fuddy-duddies would claim that they were educated during a time when a “No-Tagalog Policy” was enforced in school, complete with fines. But a quick listen to their spoken English would just prove my point. (“Bye and bye,” anyone?) Except for the young, sosyal congressmen, none of them would pass muster in a call center today. (Not even Mike Defensor, braces notwithstanding.)
To further complicate matters, most teachers – especially in the public schools – do not know how to speak proper English either. Forcing them to teach their classes in English would result in further catastrophe.
By all means, teach students how to speak English but don’t delude yourselves into thinking that having teachers speak English all the time is the best way to do it.
* * * * *
The irony is that those advocating English as the medium of instruction is schools don’t seem to understand what “medium” means. They are as ignorant of English as the students they want to educate. Both houses of congress as well as the pundits and industry leaders who keep egging them to pass legislation mandating English as the medium of instruction automatically assume that doing so would improve English proficiency.
The fact is that it would do just the opposite and it will take down with it math, science, and other skills as well.
Any educator – quoting studies done by educators and linguists – would tell you that the best way for anyone to learn something is by using the language they are most comfortable with. Heck, common sense would tell you that. Good teachers instinctively know this, lapsing into Tagalog or Taglish when teaching a concept in, say, Geometry that students can’t seem to grasp. Forcing them to use a language that their students are unfamiliar with (or are just beginning to learn) would just make the task more difficult for everyone.
The idea behind the drive to make English the medium of instruction is simple: that it is in our best interest to improve our English speaking skills. With this I agree. I am of the firm belief that the more languages we learn, the better we will be, not just as workers but as people in general. Besides, if this is our ticket out of poverty, then why should anyone oppose the learning of English out of a sense of false nationalism?
But the proponents are approaching it the wrong way. For non English speakers, the best way to learn English is to learn it AS A SECOND LANGUAGE. This means assuming that the students DO NOT KNOW HOW TO SPEAK ENGLISH in the first place.
I had an interesting conversation with the principal of a Chinese school that teaches its students Chinese as a second language. He said that he does not mention this to the parents and grandparents (using instead the term “fresh approach to Chinese-language learning” in the school brochures) since it would cause some sort of uproar. The grandparents would resent it if the school implied their grandkids were like ordinary Pinoys.
However, he continues (and succeeds) with a second-language approach since most of the kids sent to him are 4th and 5th generation Chinoys who grew up speaking Tagalog. Teaching Mandarin the same way it was taught to their grandparents would just confuse the hell out of the children.
Our lawmakers and industry leaders harbor the same mistaken notions as these Chinese grandparents, feeling outraged (or worse not even acknowledging the idea) that students today do not know enough of the language to use it as a tool for learning. They assume that all kids know how to speak English and are just out of practice.
The fact is these kids DO NOT KNOW HOW TO SPEAK ENGLISH in the first place. Teaching them using English without teaching them the English language first would just be STUPID.
How can anyone learn anything when the teacher speaks in a language they can’t understand? If all our professors showed up tomorrow speaking German, we non German speakers would flunk. Sure, after a semester or two listening to them we’d probably be conversant in the language, too, but it would be at the expense of other things we need to learn.
Of course the old fuddy-duddies would claim that they were educated during a time when a “No-Tagalog Policy” was enforced in school, complete with fines. But a quick listen to their spoken English would just prove my point. (“Bye and bye,” anyone?) Except for the young, sosyal congressmen, none of them would pass muster in a call center today. (Not even Mike Defensor, braces notwithstanding.)
To further complicate matters, most teachers – especially in the public schools – do not know how to speak proper English either. Forcing them to teach their classes in English would result in further catastrophe.
By all means, teach students how to speak English but don’t delude yourselves into thinking that having teachers speak English all the time is the best way to do it.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Crime and Punishment
Punishment
The Inquirer's letters section still carries comments from Pinoys and Americans questioning the propriety of Nicole's partying with US servicemen. Like most idiots from a century ago, they seem to think that a slut deserves to be raped because of the way she dresses and acts. (This is not to say that Nicole was indeed slutty; we know of her only from one incident.)
Most of the comments are of the what-the-hell-was-she-doing-drinking with horny soldiers variety, implying that the woman's actions should be enough to absolve the suspects of their crime. Newsflash: they're not.
Rape is a crime against the state, not against chastity. It's been that way for over a decade now. A woman's "reputation" is irrelevant. What's on the table is whether sexual acts have been committed against someone's will. The victim's drinking and carousing do not mitigate anything.
Rape is more than enough "punishment" for her lack of inhibition. Let's not aggravate it by suggesting the criminals go free.
Crime
The Metro Manila Film Festival criteria for "Best Picture" is plain retarded. Box-office take should never be part of the equation. The idea behind awarding well-crafted films is for people to take note and perhaps boost their earnings. "Enteng Kabisote's" blockbuster status is reward enough. There's no need to give them a trophy for achieving what any businessperson posing as filmmaker tries to accomplish.
The Inquirer's letters section still carries comments from Pinoys and Americans questioning the propriety of Nicole's partying with US servicemen. Like most idiots from a century ago, they seem to think that a slut deserves to be raped because of the way she dresses and acts. (This is not to say that Nicole was indeed slutty; we know of her only from one incident.)
Most of the comments are of the what-the-hell-was-she-doing-drinking with horny soldiers variety, implying that the woman's actions should be enough to absolve the suspects of their crime. Newsflash: they're not.
Rape is a crime against the state, not against chastity. It's been that way for over a decade now. A woman's "reputation" is irrelevant. What's on the table is whether sexual acts have been committed against someone's will. The victim's drinking and carousing do not mitigate anything.
Rape is more than enough "punishment" for her lack of inhibition. Let's not aggravate it by suggesting the criminals go free.
Crime
The Metro Manila Film Festival criteria for "Best Picture" is plain retarded. Box-office take should never be part of the equation. The idea behind awarding well-crafted films is for people to take note and perhaps boost their earnings. "Enteng Kabisote's" blockbuster status is reward enough. There's no need to give them a trophy for achieving what any businessperson posing as filmmaker tries to accomplish.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Inspired by...
...Indiana Jones and Lara Croft? Heck, more like ripped-off from.
Caught the premiere of Robin Padilla's "Asian Treasures" and wondered how long it will take for someone to sue them for copyright infringement.
The concept of adventurers gathering asian treasures is fine. Having the female lead as a spoiled rich girl with a bad boy for a bodyguard is a bit cliched but can still work. Dressing them up as Indy and Lara (even Angel's wetsuit is silver-gray) crosses over from being slightly derivative to totally copied.
What's sad is that there are so many original ideas out there, usually in comicbook form. Darna and Captain Barbell are nice but there is a lot of new stuff out there just begging to be filmed. Budgette Tan's "Trese" would make a great TV series (provided they followed the British model and made a series of only 12 episodes) combining mystery, horror, and pinoy pop culture. Think "Buffy" meets the "X-Files" set in Malate. Tobie Abad's "Diliman" is another cool urban fantasy deal that knows its sources and tries to come up with something original.
Of course the creators may not want to part with their pet projects just yet. Money notwithstanding, the idea of the work being bastardized and dumbed-down may just be too much for some writers. "Zsa-zsa Zaturrnah" is probably the exception.
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