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.

The Duchess (2008)

A story with an unexpected lesson on the devotion of mothers to their offspring. Being based on a true story, it's all the more surprising. Keira Knightley doesn't seem terribly attractive here. Dominic Cooper doesn't raise my blood pressure either. The acting and story carry the movie along well though.

Society without God by Phil Zuckerman

The author spent some time in Scandinavia where belief in Christianity would seem to be strong with nationalized Christian churches. Actually, Denmark and Sweden are the world's most secular nations. Despite this, they consistently rate as the happiest nations in the world.

The author has some interesting theories on why it turned on this way. The Danes and Swedes national religion actually has little in the way of competition. Supported by the government, the church is somewhat complacent compared to the heavy marketing, including Us vs Them message of the American churches.

An interesting question delved into by the author is the question of fear of death. The secular Danes and Swedes seem to have a healthy attitude towards death. They do not fear it, and understand it to be simple ceasing to exist similar to animal death. The author then makes the point, that this is probably a better attitude than the fear and uncertainty caused by the 'question' of heaven or hell.

[It's actually one hell of a crazy marketing tactic: create something which cannot be verified called a soul and say that it survives in another plane of existance where it's immortal, but it can either suffer forever or take it easy forever. In fact, it plays on the human aversion to loss. Does one accept this next to impossible explanation for existance or accept a more mundane one that the end is the end, and lose out on the possibility of heaven? Diabolical. And if it works on a community, it makes the population hugely more piable for enforcing norms. I.e. thou shalt not covet they neighbors wife or risk hell, etc.]

The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green (2005)

This is probably not a crossover hit, I don't think. The sex scenes aren't really explicit, but straight guys might still not find its generosity of male flesh something to go out of their way to see.

But as a gay film, I really liked it. The idea of romantic relationship self-sabotage is intriguing, though it obviously has nothing to do with my relationships. (Those don't need self- or any other kind of sabotage.)

The comic which the movie is based on isn't pretty to look at, but the movie is, with a number of young, cute, believably gay acting guys in the cast. Gay movies typically are low budget: and some can have horrific acting (Regarding Billy comes to mind), but the acting here is quite good and the story moves along well.

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A reasonably good movie with a similar (romantic self-sabotage) theme, but completely different story line: Boy Culture.