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The poor Chancellor is seeing her party thoroughly routed, coming in third place behind the right-wing populist movement Alternative für Deutschland in state elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern—at least if exit-polling is to be believed—and I wonder if this might be indicative of wider-sentiment that’s presently being dismissed as ‘bitter.’
The Chancellor assumed her signature stance (it must be awfully hard to find something to do with idle hands when there’s so much attention on them) during encounters with the press immediately afterward—and there’s even a name for that pose, the Merkel-Raute (Merkel’s Rhombus), which her political party endorsed the emoji version of above. Seeing her standing with poise reminded me of a rather astute observation about other politicians mirroring that gesture (people unconsciously adopt mannerisms like these, usually out of deference) I saw a few weeks ago, like it was some gang-sign for those in the know. I’m convinced that Frau Merkel is the leader of some Illuminati (the hands framing the All Seeing Eye) coven that includes Theresa May, David Icke, Gordon Brown, Jean-Claude Juncker, C. Montgomery Burns and Dora the Explorer. What do you think? I worry that we might now know too much for our own good.

by jove!

Unlike with other planets, astronomers had never been privy to a glimpse of the polar regions of Jupiter beforehand—since this gas giant and its constellation of satellites just fails to reach the critical mass of sustaining nuclear fusion and is more like a star with its own solar system than part of our own has no significant tilt to its axis.
With other worlds, scientists can spy the poles, given enough patience when the planets lean into their seasons, but being so massive, Jupiter is not obliged to (or maybe it does but tilts the rest of the solar system with it). Though already primed with excitement of seeing a wholly new face of Jupiter, no one was quite prepared for the vision of its aurora at the southern pole, a huge blue polygonal typhoon that looks like a completely new planet, rather than the expected continuation of autumnal, harvest-coloured storm bands. Meteorologists and astronomers alike are intently studying these preliminary findings, hoping to be able to explain the fluid-dynamics and dynamism of the down-under.

redoubt and ravelin

The always interesting Kuriositas has an engrossing feature on the concrete and steel behemoths, the Flak Towers that form to this day a considerable portion of the skylines of some of the cities defended from Allied airstrikes during World War II.
These poignant reminders, whose terminology comes to us from the mouthful Flugabwehr- kanone, like remnants of the Atlantic Wall and pillbox bunkers along the beaches that are too sturdy to be easily demolished are not just sentinels of a muted, recent past—many urban centres, like with this tower in Hamburg, have decided not to try to raze these structures and live with their legacy (which was not only offensive but also provided shelter for tens of thousands during air raids) by repurposing them in innovative ways. Be sure to check out the full photo-essay on Kuriositas to learn more about the flak towers’ past and future.

them!

Reading a bit like a formicidic version Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the research of Polish entomologists into an ant “colony” discovered subsisting in a derelict nuclear weapons bunker yields quite a few unexpected findings, via Super Punch.
That the ants could carry on at all under such harsh and deprived conditions is remarkable to begin with, but even stranger is how they go through the motions of eusocial behaviour (more on the insects here and here) absent a queen or off-spring of their own, the population only being replenished by hapless outsider ants that fall through holes in the ventilation shaft and are obliged to join their ranks. The environment in the bunker is not at all suited to ants, being constantly cold and nearly devoid of food sources. Scientists are not speculating that the ants stave off certain starvation by somehow feeding on radiation, but rather gruesomely guess that the ants are surviving off the ecology that has established itself in the ants’ rather extensive graveyard (among the normal conventions that they try to keep up in these very abnormal conditions) and are in a way cannibals once removed—or zombies outright.

churfrankenland

We had heard of the Kurhesse region or even Churmainz previously (referring to the principalities’ electoral passing influence) but never before the term Churfranken, which was adopted not too long ago by a consortium of towns, villages and singular destinations along the River Main between the Spessart and Odenwald mountain ranges to promote themselves. We took advantage of the extended weekend to take a drive through this area and saw a few of the sites.
First, we toured the grounds of Schloss Mespelbrunn, an early Renaissance moated castle and keep still owned by the same noble family, governor of the Archbishop of Mainz six centuries on. We had the briefest of tours before being inundated with the crowds from a tour bus that had just arrived, but we were able to navigate through the trophy room ourselves and marvel at the authentic state of the elements and embellishments.
We clung to the river’s banks, crisscrossing several bridges and saw quite a lot along the way before stopping in historic Miltenberg. Here too, we unexpectedly found ourselves overwhelmed with crowds—there was a huge festival going on, but had a nice walk through the town nonetheless. Established as Roman fortress because of its strategic and defensible location, the town prospered throughout the Middle Ages because of its deposits of red sandstone, a distinctive building material much valued all over Europe.
The market, town gates and scores of half-timbered (Fachwerk) houses were absolutely charming and well-preserved. Among the main sites is the inn Zum Riesen (the Giant), whose registration documents dating back to the early 1400s make it one of the oldest, continuously running hotels in the world, with its guests including Holy Roman emperors, kings, generals, Napoléon, chancellors and Elvis Presley. We’ll have to return here soon and explore more.