Friday, January 03, 2020

Reading dragon media blogs and comic books can improve brain power

The question whether our conscious personality survives after death has been answered by almost all races of men in the affirmative .
— James G. Frazer, born in 1854




Here be dragons …

… A History of Dragons Throughout Western Literature | Tor.com


Don't worry, be happy …




A world immersed in paranoid concerns of safety distorts one's outlook, which is detrimental to the ability to function and thrive 
3 Harmful Ideas That Are Weakening My Generation



Here’s a tradition that has persisted for generations: Kids huddle outside the doors of their local comic book shops—clutching their weekly allowance, babysitting money, loose change scavenged from between sofa cushions—just itching to get their hands on the latest issue of SupermanThe Amazing Spiderman, or Teen Titans.

And accompanying this tradition are the unenlightened parents who roll their eyes at the stacks of glossy paperbacks avalanching to the floor, sighing “Well, at least they’re reading something.”

Comic books and graphic novels have come to be regarded as a medium of pure, decadent entertainment. Yet literary scholars have started to study the unique language of visual narratives and how it influences and informs the way readers understand stories, and how our brains develop and understand codes and language.



Reading comic books can improve brain health — Quartz




Today is the 100th birthday of Isaac Asimov (1920) (books by this author)


“BOMB-O-GRAM FOR GENERAL SOLEIMANI!” Iraqi TV: Iranian military commander General Soleimani killed in Baghdad strike. “Gen. Qassim Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, was killed in an airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport Friday, Iraqi television and three Iraqi officials said. The strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, or PMF, the officials said.”
Weird, just after the Iranians attacked our embassy, the senior guys behind it get personally whacked by an “airstrike” of unexplained origin. Whatever could have happened?
UPDATE: Oh, this is sweet. Pointed out in the comments, Khamenei to Trump: “You can’t do anything.” Oh?