The sexual paradox : men, women, and the real gender gap by Susan Pinker

A book which attempts to explain the backsliding on gender equality which has happened. I.e. where women seem to actually be hitting a glass ceiling and fewer women go into previously entirely male dominated fields than one would expect by simply assuming the only barrier previously to women doing these jobs was discrimination.

The books basically says men and women are different. They have different goals. You will probably never have the same number of women interested in jobs dealing with competition and 80 hr/week jobs with huge pressure because women just don't enjoy that kind of job as much as men do.

Really it seems obvious, but for those having grown up with the ideal of absolute and interchangeable equality, it's a bit of a reality check.

Eternal Summer (2006)

A surprisingly good film from Taiwan about a gay kid and his nominally straight friend. It also gives a little flavor of life as a high school student in Taiwan, which seems a little less full of homophobic machismo compared to what one might encounter in the US. Still I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to have gone to school there.

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***Major spoilers***

The straight characters are a little too perceptive of what's going on with the gay character. How would they know what's going on with him? And what I would call pity sex seems rather unlikely to happen, though without it, the story doesn't quite work as anything except a tragedy.

Saturn in Oppostion (2007)

The replacement family: a movie partly about the friends of the gay couple and their problems. The protagonist is played by a real pretty guy. But otherwise a more pedestrian drama, at times focused on age differences and love.

Milk (2008)

I was amazed by the moving and well tuned portrayal of Harvey Milk by Sean Penn. He was able to take up some of Harvey's mannerisms, seemingly pretty naturally. The movie serves double duty by filling in a lot of the background of the story of gay rights, Anita Bryant, and Prop 6 which many today don't know unless they are history buffs or into reading about the topic. There is also a fine, if placid, soundtrack by Danny Elfman.

A few straight friends have said the movie was boring (actually they said they fell asleep watching it). I wonder if I wasn't gay if I would say (have done) the same thing. Perhaps. Hey folks, a forewarning: this is not an action flick.

All-American Rejects: When the World Comes Down

Not as full of hits as some previous albums, but some great melodic tracks like: I Wanna, Breakin', and [Untitled].

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Pink: Funhouse

Not as good as her previous album, but a couple nice tracks: Please don't leave me and It's all your fault.