{"id":1415,"date":"2007-03-30T05:00:09","date_gmt":"2007-03-30T10:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-mar-30-2007\/"},"modified":"2007-03-30T13:51:13","modified_gmt":"2007-03-30T18:51:13","slug":"unrequired-reading-mar-30-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-mar-30-2007","title":{"rendered":"Unrequired Reading: Mar. 30, 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yeah, yeah: make with the links.<\/p>\n

I’ve been reading a lot about Afghanistan’s history and how the country ended up in such bad shape. Here’s a piece from Spiegel on the possibilities of legalizing the country’s opium trade<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I think Daniel Gross exaggerates the “CDs are dead” argument so he can make his counterargument that they’re still a commercially viable medium<\/a>. Still, he brings up some good points about their market.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Paul Di Filippo has more great ideas than he has time to write about, so take one<\/a>!<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I wish anything I did — besides my approach to dating in college — could be described as “brutalist”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Mad Mix gets more than he bargained for<\/a> from The Wicker Man<\/em> (the original version, natch).<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Some rappers have terrible names. Here are 25 of them.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yeah, yeah: make with the links.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[25,27,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-big-business","category-literature"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-mP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1195,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/yeah-brock-you-hit-him-so-hard-he-has-an-afro-now","url_meta":{"origin":1415,"position":0},"title":"Yeah, Brock! You hit him so hard he has an afro now!","author":"Gil","date":"November 7, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Official VM buddy Mitch Prothero sent over a news item about how the Washington Wizards' two centers got into a brawl last week. He was amazed that Brendan \"Brenda\" Haywood showed some fire, body-slamming Etan Thomas. I, on the other hand, was amazed that Haywood \"[tore] out at least two\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8442,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/library-of-america-fuck-yeah","url_meta":{"origin":1415,"position":1},"title":"Library of America: Fuck Yeah!","author":"Gil","date":"December 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Library of America was having a 20% off sale a few weeks ago. Also, they discount the books on their site\u00a0AND they're a non-profit doing the Lord's work, so I kinda splurged. If necessary, I can explain myself: Thoreau - Walden - I never read it, and there's a seminar\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "0-fer"","block_context":{"text":"0-fer","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/0-fer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5854,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/leading-a-visual-life","url_meta":{"origin":1415,"position":2},"title":"Leading a Visual Life","author":"Gil","date":"January 6, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a 7-or-so-minute video about Scott Schulman, a.k.a. The Sartorlalist: Yeah, he looks a little crazed-German-stalker-y in some of the street scenes, but I enjoyed the narrative, so hey.","rel":"","context":"In "Fashion"","block_context":{"text":"Fashion","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/fashion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":202,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/holy-crap-2","url_meta":{"origin":1415,"position":3},"title":"Holy crap","author":"Gil","date":"April 19, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Yeah, withdrawing troops from Iraq is going to prevent terrorism in Spain. Till then, do you mind if we drag policemen's bodies from their tombs and light them on fire?Talk about barbarians at the motherfucking gate...","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":270,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/i-bet-i-outlive-you","url_meta":{"origin":1415,"position":4},"title":"“I bet I outlive you!”","author":"Gil","date":"June 3, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I was thinking about George Tenet's resignation today. It struck me as weird timing. I mean, yeah, it came years too late, but it seems to be awfully odd that it happens just now, with the election impending.But then it hit me! He wasn't caving into pressure! He was waiting!George\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4610,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/lost-in-the-supermarket-halloween-edition","url_meta":{"origin":1415,"position":5},"title":"Lost in the Supermarket: Halloween edition","author":"Gil","date":"October 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Halloween's comin'! Time to eat way too much candy and suffer intestinal distress! Or, to phrase it another way, it's, uh, time to pass the hot pumpkin: Yuck. I don't know why this needs to include a party music CD, but I guess I've led a sheltered life. (Yeah, I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Lost in the Supermarket"","block_context":{"text":"Lost in the Supermarket","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/lost-in-the-supermarket"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}