Most men internally refer to themselves as "ore"

That from a discussion of the revisions to the list of Jōyō kanji over at No-sword. "Ore," the more aggressive, self-elevating male first person pronoun, is apparently in the official list of commonly used kanji this year.

I've always wondered about that. Although there are some hints in interior monologues in literature, often personal pronouns are left out altogether, making it difficult to pin down what pronoun characters would refer to themselves with in the absence of social considerations.

Some photos of architecture

Here are a few photos of a new addition to the University of Virginia's Campbell Hall (appropriately, the architecture building). It really has a great modernist aesthetic, showing off the austere beauty of unadorned concrete, metal and glass. I really like it! It's especially nice in Charlottesville, where, for some reason, everything must pretend to be built with brick, even buildings that no one would ever really build with brick.

At the right is the old building it attaches to (brick, of course).

For some reason they felt the need to fill the framing holes with these plastic things. It just looks kind of cheap. Is this normal? I can't be sure, but I think in buildings I've seen before they've just been left open.

It's Intentional

Great post from Acephalous on convincing people that comic imagery is worth analyzing:

As anyone who teaches funny books or films knows, the task of convincing students that the scene before them is anything other than incidental would try Job's patience....

I've designed an introduction to visual rhetoric assignment that forces students to understand that all comic and film images are obscenely overdetermined. On the first day of class, I'll present them with Alan Moore's script for the eighth panel on the first page of The Killing Joke:

NOW WE ARE LOOKING AT THE POLICE CAR SIDE-ON SO THAT WE SEE THE UNIFORMED OFFICER STANDING FACE-ON TO US OVER ON THE LEFT AS HE STANDS WITH HIS BACK TO THE CAR AND COMMISSIONER GORDON FACE-ON OVER TO THE RIGHT, LEANING AGAINST THE CAR AND DRINKING HIS STEAMING COFFEE, MAYBE LOOKING UP WITH A QUIZZICAL AND CONCERNED LOOK OVER THE RIM OF HIS CUP TOWARDS THE EXTREME LEFT OF THE FOREGROUND, WHERE WE CAN SEE THE BATMAN ENTERING THE PICTURE FROM THE LEFT, IN PROFILE. SINCE BATMAN IS (a) CLOSER TO US AND (b) TALLER THAN EITHER THE COMMISSIONER OR THE PATROLMAN IN THE BACKGROUND WE CANNOT SEE THE TOP OF HIS HEAD HERE ABOVE THE BOTTOM OF THE NOSE AS THE FRONT OF HIM ENTERS THE PANEL ON THE LEFT. HIS EYES AND UPPER HEAD ARE INVISIBLE BEYOND THE TOP PANEL BORDER AND ALL WE CAN REALLY SEE IS HIS MOUTH, WITH THE BIG AND DETERMINED SQUARE JAW AND THE GRIM AND DISAPPROVING SCOWL OF THE LIPS. THE BATMAN DOES NOT APPEAR FROM HIS POSTURE TO SO MUCH AS GLANCE AT EITHER GORDON OR THE PATROLMAN AS HE WALKS PAST THEM EVEN THOUGH BOTH OF THEM STEAL GLANCES AT HIM WITH DIFFERING LOOKS OF UNEASE. THE PATROLMAN LOOKS UNEASY JUST TO BE IN THE BATMAN'S PRESENCE, WHILE GORDON LOOKS MORE CONCERNED ABOUT THE BATMAN'S POSSIBLE STATE OF MIND. RAIN DRIPS FROM EVERYTHING, INCLUDING THE BATMAN'S JUTTING AND GRIZZLED CHIN. GORDON GIVES THE LARGELY-OFF-PANEL VIGILANTE A PENETRATING LOOK OVER HIS COFFEE CUP, AND THE BLUE LIGHT ATOP THE CAR WASHES OVER ALL OF THEM AS IT CIRCLES.

No Dialogue.

Then I'll ask them to draw it. After assuring them that I did indeed say draw it, I'll let them have about ten minutes to transform Moore's prose into stick-figure theater before showing them how Brian Bolland interpreted it.

Discussion will ensue. I'll show them the scripts to other panels—ask them why, for example, Moore insisted the receptionist at Arkham Asylum be reading Graham Greene's The Comedians—and if all goes well, I won't spend the next few months reading essays about how in this panel Alan Moore wanted Batman to punch someone in the face so he told Brian Bolland to draw a picture of Batman punching someone in the face.

Unlike photography or film, where things can enter a frame because they just happened to be behind the subject, everything in a comic frame is placed there intentionally.  And since every additional element added to a frame increases the work required (and therefore the cost) to produce it, you can bet that authors/artists aren't chucking stuff in randomly.  A comic panel is quite deliberate, and should be analyzed as part of the narrative.  We have no compunction about picking apart, parsing and analyzing the minutiae of sentences in literature, and there's no reason narrative art shouldn't be subject to the same analysis.