tadasana or yoga-on-ice

A correspondent from the local's Swiss edition gives an intriguing and inspiring review of a fusion activity taking place on the slopes that tower above the Engadine.

A veteran instructor of yoga and skiing brings her two skills together to deliver to the guests of the resort at St. Moritz a certain mindfulness and meditation when it comes to engaging in that seasonal sport that many visitors, however experienced, try to cram into one get-away weekend per year and maybe tend to be a bit reckless and rushed to get their money's worth. In addition to imparting techniques that can build on awareness and improve maneuvers (as mental and physical preparation—not that one assumes the tadasana, the mountain pose, while on a run), the pause and circumspection can also train hectic holiday-makers to take it slower and adjust their focus to savouring quality over quantity.

cifrão or surreal times

In response and in anticipation to a marked upswing in the trend, a group in Brazil has minted a form of alternative protest currency, called the Surreal—opposed to the real (reais), the fiat tender of the country, Der Spiegel reports (auf Deutsch).

Residents of Rio de Janeiro and the vicinity, having witnessed how big events have become a liability for host cities in recent years with kettling security and robber-baronage that hardly benefits the local economy, leaves environmental, and foremost precipitates a price-gouging that the group finds unacceptable, are expressing their displeasure with the watermark of Salvador Dali over their home-town venue, entertaining the Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft (the FIFA—Fédération Internationale de Football, otherwise soccer—World Cup) this summer and the Olympiad in 2016. Given the country's affection for sport, to stage such a rally, not against the well-deserved honour but the back-handedness of it, I believe says a lot.

shouts and murmurs or no. 2 pencil

The New Yorker has an excellent little extract regarding the Stanford Achievement Test proctors' effort to make the standardized college entrance exam more relevant to students, to assess the skills they need to develop in this brave new world.
Many questions are tailored to the internet environment. I can recall when the SAT was a bastion of stellar vocabulary and recognised rigour but maybe that demonstrates a certain immaturity.  I am not sure how in earnest the analysis is and suspect it's humourous, one question posed quotes a short passage from Jane Austin (already suspect) and asks how to best entitle a post with this content to draw in the most traffic.

i-spy or chivalric code

The various US government agencies that pose as very magnanimous monarchs, eager to dub subjects—and not just creatures of the court but also mercenaries, with the titles of Sir Top of Secret or Lady Confidential now has an expansive plan to walk back (bad link) their veritable jubilee, as quite a few notorious individuals holding a security clearance have proved to be less than loyal—at least in the estimation of the secret-sharers. I remember once watching an actual knighting ceremony, and as is the wont of tradition the band began playing the tune from Monty Python's Flying Circus (John Philip Sousa's Liberty Bell march, which is also performed on the occasion of US presidential inaugurations).
I suppose the panel of judges for beauty contests and OPM (the Office of Personnel Management, which actually bestows these honours) have about the same mentality. Ambitious or not, the uniformed services and associated civilian counterparts, from whom many careers are built as their networks, platforms and jargon require interpreters, aims to monitor every move of their title-holders—at least, every move on the internet, easily retrieved but also easily faked and only want the computer says. Having seemingly forgot that this sort of surveillance is already not only possible but also carried out, the spooks, trustees and petty tyrants are concerned about their privacy, but more to the point they also have concerns for the integrity of the actual secret business that they are doing, also subject to a continuum of voyeurs.