Oh yes, it’s as macho as it sounds. And that’s also what informs the anti-Claudine rhetoric that’s on the interwebs, i.e., Twitter and Facebook. So in a fistfight that began between two men, the backlash has been on the one woman in the story; and while it’s been fascinating watching Raymart and Mon Tulfo going at it on television, the backlash has been more strongly against the woman. (more…)
Ricky de Ungria: “<…> perhaps because we have not shaken off our feudal cast of mind and psyche that inhibits us from critiquing the ideas of the “elder statesmen” in our fields as a result of a kind misplaced measure of deference or respect for elders, and that allows us to accept conveniently their word as “law” so we don’t have to bother with it anymore as we go on quietly with our own desperate lives?” (more…)
when my friend TJ Dimacali asked if i had seen this rappler piece, my response was a resounding “no” just because i keep from going to rappler when i can. in the past month or so though, people have been alerting me about certain articles and kinds of writing that point precisely to its, uh, identity crisis? or just its biases (kayo na ang nagtitinda ng magnum at coke at naglalagay ng obvious PR pieces under “lifestyle” and “business” instead of just having them put ads, and you put the bs in bias, really).
this piece though is not so much about biases, as it is about spin. about a slant that might have seemed acceptable, but is actually quite irresponsible. read the source material here and here and you will find that none of these talk about the rainbow (the physics for which may be read about here). but this rappler piece claims that scientists “have created new rainbow colors” and as such we can now let go of the ROYGBIV to remind us of the colors of the rainbow. TJ says (boldface mine):
In fairness to Rappler, I think they have the right idea trying to make science more popular.
But they really need to get their facts straight, and should be more careful before they blurt out something as outrageous as “Scientists make new rainbow colors.”
That kind of misreporting serves only to confuse lay readers and further adds to their misunderstanding of scientific concepts.
Just because an atom emits previously unseen frequencies doesn’t mean that these don’t already exist (or are unknown to exist) in the rainbow. All the scientists are saying is that they made an atom produce “colors” that it wasn’t able to before.
But it’s not as if these “colors” (frequencies) were heretofore unknown! It’s just that this particular kind of atom was never known to emit those frequencies before.
In short, the scientists simply meant that the frequencies were “previously unseen” from an excited atom PER SE, not from the entire known visible spectrum
To suddenly jump to the conclusion that these are “new rainbow colors” is just preposterous. It’s bad science and bad science journalism.
What worries me is that the article is gaining circulation in social media —spreading laughably false information to people along the way— and Rappler hasn’t even bothered to correct it.
and just so it’s clear, TJ did alert them about the gross misreading of the source material (those words are all mine), but rappler didn’t respond. or have yet to correct the piece as of this writing.
this piece went up yesterday on that horrid cover for March that FHM Philippines was set on putting out. which it has pulled out, announced via that official statement posted on their website. that might be a success, but seriously? why is that official statement not a public apology? it needed to be an admission of having made a mistake, full stop. (more…)
in September of last year, in a conversation about the PNoy government that was riddled with questions from a British filmmaker newly met, i found myself talking about the disappointment that is Malacanang. the palace with a three-headed communications office that takes pride in being connected to the people, and yet has proven time and again to be releasing either the wrong information, too much information, or just not speaking up when it should.
that conversation led to many things, though an interesting tangent was this: the new-acquaintance-turned-friend tells me that he had sent a proposal to Malacanang in the mid-2011 to do a docu-film on a-day-in-the-life of PNoy, an inside story of the Palace and the President’s life kind of thing, much like those done for and on Obama. the proposal had landed on the lap of employee #1, who works within one of them communications offices, who had seemed interested in the project, and promised to take it up with his superior. my filmmaker friend was optimistic. (more…)