four-and-score

No matter what your jurisdiction or cachet, it is well-nigh impossible to be much more exalted than when Easter Sunday corresponds with 04-20.
The annual observance is derived from what was a daily ritual among California high school students, announcing, in code, that they would gather at a predeter- mined location at four-twenty in the afternoon to smoke. This call sign was transposed to the 20th of April (American time and dating style) as a holiday for Cannabis Culture. In honour of this coincidence, I thought it apt to direct ones attention to the beautiful gallery of microscopic slides of the marijuana plant's morphology that the excellent website Neat-o-Rama featured a few days earlier. The images are truly astounding and appropriate, like this extreme close-up of a growing bud, which looks like the other-worldly hiding place for a cache of colourful Easter eggs.

rückstoß oder harmonium

Loans that the European Union thrust upon Ukraine in its moment of crisis were not exactly given without stint, since among the terms and conditions were pledges for austerity, if an any way the loans could counter-balance Russian calling in of debts and payments in arrears that would completely bankrupt the country. These measures have taken the form of closing down mining and factory operations in the eastward-leaning east—in what's being touted as necessary streamlining, which is sure to exacerbate already tenuous sentiment.

And while these economic proxies for actual conflict are happening, there is actual spoiling for battle, which in itself, I believe, is only a cover for economic rather than ideological stakes. Rather than allow a partnership from Lisbon to Vladivostok to come into being, which would certainly rival American chances to regain prowess in market terms and political influence, the US is pushing NATO to adopt a policy of sandbagging rather than one of bridge-building and would like nothing better than to invest in a few skirmishes along this border region, which despite the cost, will yield high dividends by preserving the status quo and giving the military-industrial complex another outlet. It's strange how demurring statecraft and chest-pounding have become, heels dug in without quite appreciating the ground stood.

völva

The fantastic site of strange and curious travel destinations, Atlas Obscura, is hosting a week dedicated to some of the celebrated and unknown marvels of Iceland. There are quite a lot sights to see on the remote island, both awe-inspiring or odd—or just plain inspired like the pictured on-going construction of the massive “Arctic Henge” monument in the aura of the aurora near the northern village of Raufarhöfn, whose layout is not only the cycles of sagas and epic poems expressed in monolithic architecture but also aims to become a pilgrimage sight for neo-pagan practitioners.

strahlende

320° Licht is a massive installation that maps beams of light on the cylindrical interior of a decom- missioned gasometer in Oberhausen (in the Ruhrgebiet) to create a dazzling cathedral from twenty-one high powered projectors. The project is just part of a larger series hosted in that tunneling venue called the “Appearance of Beauty,” ,,der schöne Schein.”