Old Turtle by Douglas Wood

This was a nice book on diversity. I think one of the things people get the most worked up over is spirituality. It's one of those things that can touch a person more deeply than anything else, and everyone's perspective will differ, even if only minutely.

This book starts off with animals and rocks and trees each telling each other what they think god is, and each being's god seems to resemble the speaker. Then the old turtle stops them and tells them that a new group of species is coming, humans, and these humans are meant to be a message from god. The people come and everything is going well, but after some time, they begin acting in a not so nice way and nature tells them to stop. At this point, all of the rocks and trees and other beings that had said god was like themselves at the beginning of the book, began saying that they were able to see god in others, in what was actually the opposite of what they previously said. I guess the moral would be to have an open mind about that which is different from yourself, because it really isn't so alien to what you believe.

Kinky Boots (2006)

I love this movie. It's about a guy who owns a shoe factory, but the shoe factory is about to go under, so he strikes a bargain with this cross-dresser names Lola to make high heeled boots for men. Lola's such a flamboyant character and stands up to all of the crap people give her and keeps on going. She has such a strength of character that I guess I want to see from someone facing such adversity. Gender identity is such a delicate issue and I'm glad that there are such main stream movies as this that address the issue. It's a really touching movie and its both feel good and sad... if that makes sense, but I enjoy watching it every time its on.