After a long hiatus, Monday’s links return!

While a daily dose of death is hardly something most of us would consider pleasant, Diana Athill, in her article on the RadioTimes, opens with the thought that thinking about death a little bit each day is a good way to come to terms with its inevitability. Her article as a whole amounts to a thoughtful meditation on death, and overcoming the fear of it. I definitely recommend this take on humanity’s oldest conflict.

On more lively subjects, Alyssa Rose at the Good Men Projectdiscusses how our demonization of male sexuality hurts women and men alike. As a man, this is an article I am very glad to see. I agree with her arguments, and would add that our culture more or less considers all sex to be rape. Sex—especially when men are involved—assumes the function of asserting social dominance over others. We all suffer the psychological ramifications of this dogma, which warps an aspect of ourselves that is instinctively linked to affection. Give this one a read, and mull it over.

Those of you who have seen Iron Man 3 know that fortune cookies look Chinese, and sound Chinese, but are actually an American invention. However, according to Civilization V’s Civlopedia, the world is even stranger than that. Ice cream may look American, sound American, and even taste American, but is, in fact, a Chinese invention, and over 4000 years old. This little bit of trivia is at the bottom of the page, but you’ll probably want to read through the reams of fascinating history before it anyway.

As I mentioned in last week’s post, I will be keeping to one update a week for the time being. Once work on the book, school, and my search for a day job resolve themselves sufficiently, I hope to return to my usual three updates per week.

Stay tuned, and see you next Monday!