I am inaugurating a new blog feature — a mostly-daily link round-up of things I read and found interesting.<\/p>\n
It’s primarily as much for my benefit as it is yours, the reader’s. I see something, I have thoughts, and then I forget about it or, worse, post a Tweet with the link and then never think about it again. The thing is, I’ll think six months later, “Hey, wait, I read some article way back when,” only then I can’t remember quite exactly what it was.<\/p>\n
These link round-ups will be eclectic because I have eclectic interests. This one covers Robert Plant, China, and Christmas songs.<\/p>\n
Some days I might have two or three links. Some days I might have ten or more. It’s a matter of what interests me that day.<\/p>\n
I’m using a WordPress plugin for this. It’s one I’ve had for a while, as I liked the concept of it, but I’ve never used. I suspect it may need some coding work; it was released a few years ago, then abandoned, and I’ve noticed that something about it doesn’t quite<\/i> work. That’s something I’ll need to look at.<\/p>\n
For our inaugural round-up…<\/p>\n
The High Spiritual Stakes of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’<\/a> – The Atlantic kicks off a series of essays on Christmas songs with this piece about the sinister message of the English carol “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” — and the peppy way that musicians cover the song now.<\/span> The Atlantic<\/em><\/p>\n Flying close to Beijing’s new South China Sea islands<\/a> – China is building islands in international waters in the south Pacific atop of atolls and coral reefs. One BBC reporter tries to visit them.<\/span> BBC<\/em><\/p>\n How do atheists celebrate Christmas?<\/a> – CNN wonders how atheists celebrate Christmas. Speaking for myself, Christmas involves putting up a tree, sending out Christmas cards, listening to Christmas music, giving out presents. In other words, the things other people do. I even call it “Christmas.” \ud83d\ude42<\/span> CNN<\/em><\/p>\n The crazy life and crazier death of Tycho Brahe, history’s strangest astronomer<\/a> – Born on December 14, 1546, Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe was more than just an astronomer and the last of the great naked eye astronomers. He was a badass with his own island, a reputation for dueling, and his gold nose.<\/span> io9<\/em><\/p>\n Why Ted Cruz Could Have A Real Shot At The GOP Nomination<\/a> – A look at why Ted Cruz could be the Republican presidential nominee in 2016 \u2014 his evangelical backing, the anti-establishmentarian mood, money, and his campaign organization.<\/span> NPR<\/em><\/p>\n Robert Plant Covers Elbow For British Red Cross<\/a> – The Led Zeppelin legend talks about his cover of Elbow’s “The Blanket of Night” for a forthcoming Red Cross charity album focused on the refugee crisis.<\/span> Mojo<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am inaugurating a new blog feature — a mostly-daily link round-up of things I read and found interesting. It’s primarily as much for my benefit as it is yours, the reader’s. I see something, I have thoughts, and then I forget about it or, worse, post a Tweet with the link and then neverContinue reading “Link Round-Up: December 14”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[3915,4104,468,64,4117,4282,4285,4284,3912,4283],"class_list":["post-29694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asides","tag-2016-election","tag-atheism","tag-china","tag-christmas","tag-elbow","tag-link-round-up","tag-robert-plant","tag-spratly-islands","tag-ted-cruz","tag-tycho-brahe","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}