{"id":2030,"date":"2008-05-02T05:00:31","date_gmt":"2008-05-02T09:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=2030"},"modified":"2008-05-01T18:16:38","modified_gmt":"2008-05-01T22:16:38","slug":"unrequired-reading-may-2-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-may-2-2008","title":{"rendered":"Unrequired Reading: May 2, 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Friday, dear readers! Time for all sorts of oddball links I didn’t have time\/motivation to write about!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The real Orange County is an odd place, according to this scare article from BW<\/a>. The writer tries to portray the OC as being on the verge of financial collapse, but has to qualify that by pointing out that its unemployment and foreclosure rates are much better than the rest of the country. In fact, if you read between the lines, it appears that a lot of the unemployment and foreclosures in the region are happening to . . . mortgage brokers!<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I can probably draw an analogy between pharma companies’ reliance on blockbuster meds that are facing patent expiration and this piece about live music performance industry’s reliance on aging superstars<\/a> to draw fans. In fact, if the Rolling Stones wait a few years, they’ll be able to buy a generic version of Fosamax!<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I can’t do any better than this GTA IV headline: It’s Not Just About Killing Hookers Anymore<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

In college, a black pal of mine used to refer to Jesse Jackson as a charlatan. I’ve always loved that term. Now Heather MacDonald busts it out to write about Jeremiah Wright<\/a> and his “theories” of education.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Whew! I thought I was the only one with compromising emanations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

That’s great it starts with an earthquake birds and snakes and airplanes and Lenny Bruce is not afraid<\/a><\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I-think-icon, I-think-icon<\/a> . . .<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I have no words to describe the beautiful creepiness of this post and its images<\/a>, so that’s it for the week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s Friday, dear readers! Time for all sorts of oddball links I didn’t have time\/motivation to write about!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,46,12,17,19],"tags":[131,132],"class_list":["post-2030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business","category-design","category-pharmaceuticals","category-politics-explicit","category-urban-issues","tag-grand-theft-auto","tag-indians"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-wK","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":660,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/auto-asphyxiation","url_meta":{"origin":2030,"position":0},"title":"Auto-asphyxiation","author":"Gil","date":"September 7, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Peter M. DeLorenzo is an automotive industry consultant who also writes a weekly column at the Autoextremist. He pulls no punches, despite the fact that some of his livelihood comes from the companies he criticizes in the column.Anyway, this week's column (it'll be replaced by Sept. 14, and the archives\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":818,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/hello-hamas-goodbye-fatah-here-i-am-in-camp-grenadea","url_meta":{"origin":2030,"position":1},"title":"Hello Hamas, Goodbye Fatah, Here I am in Camp Grenade(a)","author":"Gil","date":"January 27, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday, the Palestinian populace had parliamentary elections, and the Hamas party won a ton of seats. The NYPost cover today screams, \"HAMASTAN,\" and predicts a Taliban-like state of religious oppression will take over the Palestinian territories. I don't think that's going to happen, mainly because I don't think the vote\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2488,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/waiting-for-the-eclipse","url_meta":{"origin":2030,"position":2},"title":"Waiting for the eclipse","author":"Gil","date":"September 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I haven't slept well lately, so I assume my fourth estate alter ego has been working overtime on plumbing my mind for good arts articles. What's in today's edition of the Official Newspaper of Gil Roth? a walking tour of the architecture of Park Slope, a review of an exhibition\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":842,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/in-a-barrel","url_meta":{"origin":2030,"position":3},"title":"In a barrel","author":"Gil","date":"February 13, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Nice post by Andrew Sullivan, ripping up Stanley Fish for \"post-modern claptrap\": Yes, Fish has read Nietzsche, hence his homage in the sentence: \"The first tenet of the liberal religion is that everything (at least in the realm of expression and ideas) is to be permitted, but nothing is to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3086,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/lab-laffs","url_meta":{"origin":2030,"position":4},"title":"Lab Laffs","author":"Gil","date":"December 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Reading over the signs and kits at a nearby Lab Corp. location (routine blood draw for my physical), it occured to me that there really should be a death metal band named Fecal Occult.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1989,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/head-meet-wall","url_meta":{"origin":2030,"position":5},"title":"Head, meet wall","author":"Gil","date":"April 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"John Crudele, the very good business columnist at the NYPost, regularly warns us to take the Labor Department's monthly employment figures with a grain of salt; the birth\/death model they employ can fudge a lot of employment stats. The numbers that came out today are pretty depressing -- a loss\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}