A definite must read for engineers or like-minded geeky people.

I found this book surprisingly practical, too. On a recent trip to Seoul, I read the whole chapter on the evolution of the fork on the plane, just as I was struggling to eat my in-flight Korean meal with chopsticks. It made me wonder how the West ended up with a fork while Asia went with something completely different. Right about then, the chapter talked about the evolution of the chopstick. Neat!

You can learn a lot about the development of culture from studying the development of our most basic tools.

Ostensibly a fictionalized account of the career of a 17th century actor, Edward (Ned) Kynaston, who made a name for himself playing women on stage. On a deeper level, Stage Beauty raises interesting questions about gender, love and sexuality.

In one telling scene, Kynaston (played by Billy Crudup) tells his companion that, in his experience, one person in each couple is “always a woman.” It would give too much away to put this quote in context, so I won’t.

I find it interesting to consider, however, how our modern concepts of sexuality—whether someone is homo or hetero—would not be seen as useful or important in a 17th century society. In that era, when marriages were usually based on anything but a romantic concept of love, and open discussion or consideration of sexual behavior of any kind was taboo, would anyone need to define themselves or others by sexual preference? It almost seems irrelevant.

It made me curious about what forces have been driving our current struggle to categorize sexual and gender roles.

Great album that doesn’t fit neatly into any one musical style. J. Ralph (professional name for New York musician Joshua Ralph) has no formal musical training but combines elements of opera, techo, and folk (at least that’s the way I hear it) to create catchy, sometimes haunting melodies.

You’ve probably already heard some of his tunes on Volvo and Volkswagon commercials.

Goes to show that you shouldn’t listen to film critics. This movie has been derided as “Erin Brockovich goes to Fargo” but it really isn’t that simplistic.

More than just a retelling of a landmark court case, this movie examines the complexities around the phenomenon of sexual harassment: why it occurs and why it is difficult for victims to pursue their attackers or change the situation.

In the movie, the traditionally male workforce at a large iron mine keenly resent a court decision overturning a company ban on hiring women. Located in an economically depressed rural area of northern Minnesota, the mine jobs are dangerous, but are also some of the best jobs available—and they are hard to come by.

The movie illustrates how normal people can do monstrous things when motivated by fear and provided with vulnerable scapegoats.

The men, afraid their place as breadwinners-and thus their identify—is at stake, take it out on the female workers at the plant—the abuse escalates from unrelenting verbal assault to physical intimidation and then sexual assault. Far from being just the crude blunders of men unaccustomed to working with women, these acts evidence a cruel calculus at work. They want the women to quit and they are using tactics most efficient at intimidating the women and isolating them from each other and from available resources for help.

The movie also highlights how the aggressors target particularly vulnerable women—those with personal histories that harm their standing in the mostly conservative small town community aroundt the mine (a single, divorced mother is the movie’s protagonist).

I think the movie also does good job portraying the nuances of responses from the victims. Many, not wanting to admit the true nature of the abuse, blame other victims for “bringing it on themselves” and for “rocking the boat” by persisting in complaining to company management.

It is an interesting examination of the root causes of situations like these and why change is so hard.

I also found the stark scenes of the cold, Minnesota winter to be a perfect metaphor for the difficulties of life faced by all of the mine workers, their desperation, and the isolation felt by the women there.

The one false note is the very pat courtroom confession scene that wraps up the movie and is too unrealistic.

Other than that, it is a great movie that really made me think.

Never made it through this either…loved this tag

Set in fictional Ruby, Oklahoma, a town founded by black families fleeing prejudice and persecution who hope to set up their own self-supporting Utopia away from whites. But in their quest to flee from evil and keep their town “pure” they end up embracing the fear and bias that they once sought to avoid forever.

If you liked The Motorcyle Diaries”, then you should watch this. It’s a documentary about the real Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara de la Serna, featuring interviews with his children and others who knew him.
It’s also a fairly balanced portrayal of the revolutionary (unlike the Diaries’ portrayal of him as a bland, sweet-faced pacifist).

Laurie Garrett is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of both The Coming Plague and the more recent Betrayal of Trust.

She is an amazingly thorough journalist, with an exceptional ability to relate scientific information in a way that the average person can understand it.

The Coming Plague is really several books in one: (1) it is a tribute to the epidemiologists, physicians, nurses and others who work in global public health and risk their lives to investigate outbreaks of deadly infectious diseases; (2) an expose of the political power plays, racism, and nationalism that affect what diseases get attention—and research funding; (3)a treatise on the true nature of infectious diseases—how microbes that cause devastating pandemics often hang out undetected in human populations for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, until shifts in human living conditions, behavior or the environment create the ideal climate for a new disease or syndrome to emerge.

For example—in one of the most interesting but overlooked parts of the book—Garrett explains how current scientific thinking holds that HIV has existed in humans for hundreds of years. Although occasionally causing isolated deaths, the retrovirus was not especially lethal until wars and social disruption in Africa, and the sexual revolution in Europe and the United States created ideal conditions in which the virus could spread and mutate. This contradicts established and deeply ingrained myths that the virus “emerged” suddenly in Africa in the late 1970s.

She effectively weaves together a story of how increasing urbanization, environmental degradation and human strife are the root causes that allow microbes to shift from being minor irritants to large-scale threats to human existence.

It’s an enormous and often emotionally-challenging read, but it is worth it. One of those books that will change your perspective on almost everything.
It’s better than just a good read. In writing The Coming Plague, Garrett performed an extraordinary public service.

Saw this interview with the author, Helenn Oyeyemi, this morning. She’s 18 and just entered Cambridge.

I have such amazing memories of this book from my childhood. I loved it! And, now they are making a movie, which, I have to say, looks like it’s going to be amazing. (And I am not a person who likes to see her favorite books translated to the big screen.)