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Burn, Cool, Unload, Reload

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Just as many film savants had predicted, Oppenheimer bagged the Best Picture Award in this year’s Oscars. I saw the film days before the ceremony, and I, too, made the same prognosis. It just has the making of a classic: magnificent screen performances from its lead actors (Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey, Jr., and Matt Damon), fabulous cinematography, and an innovative screenplay. The last is hardly surprising since unconventional storytelling is one of the hallmarks of Christopher Nolan’s works. But just as many people found Nolan’s 2017 film Dunkirk a little confusing owing to its unconventional storytelling style, some people might also be hard-pressed to fo llow Oppenheimer ’s narrative, which jumps back and forward in time. People who are not familiar with the historical events from the end of the First World War to the beginning of McCarthyism in the United States would also be at a disadvantage. In other words, Oppenheimer is a marvelous film that will remind you of the 1941 f...
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The Curse of Intelligence

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Filipinos have always been known for placing a high premium on education. One does not need to be an anthropologist to know that. If one only bothers to cast a cursory glance at the facade of his neighbors' houses, one would instantly notice a common sight: a metal or wooden plate indicating that a son or daughter has made the grade by becoming a physician, an attorney-at-law, or an engineer. The Filipino attitude towards education can also be gleaned from the high respect accorded to people with long strings of suffixes attached to their names (MA, Ed.D., Ph.D, etc.). We believe that the achievements embodied in those suffixes make their owners a cut above other mortals. That is why, in addressing them in correspondences, or in introducing them during formal functions, omission of those suffixes is considered a horrible mistake.   This "fetish" for education or its trappings, however, is quite understandable. In a country where poverty is rampant, and manual labor is loo...
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Religion-Based Morality in the Classroom

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Having experienced teaching in several public schools, I have memories of former colleagues letting slip that they were integrating religion-based morality into their lessons. For instance, one of them once recounted to me how she explained to her students the evil of homosexuality in her Values Education class one afternoon. Citing Biblical passages, she told them that God had an aversion to homosexuals. Apparently, her premise was that the Bible was the word of God, and as such, was as irrefutable an evidence as one could ever wish to anchor her assertion on. I had half a mind to ask her what made her so sure that the Bible was the word of God—and not the hundreds of other books contending for the title—but the fear of offending her got the better of me. At any rate, I thought that engaging in a debate on religion was always a tricky affair, and I did not want to get myself entangled in one if I could help it. In retrospect, however, I realized that setting aside theological iss...
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