Cosmology

Humans have many different methods which attempt to answer fundamental questions about the nature of the universe and our place in it . Other methods include science, philosophy, metaphysics, esotericism, mysticism, and forms of shamanism, such as the sacred consumption of ayahuasca among Peruvian Amazonia's Urarina. The Urarina have an elaborate animistic cosmological system, which informs their mythology, religious orientation and daily existence.

Given the generalized discontents with modernity, consumerism, over-consumption, violence and anomie, many people in the so-called industrial or post-industrial West rely on a number of distinctive religious worldviews. This in turn has given rise to increased religious pluralism, as well as to what are commonly known in the academic literature as new religious movements, which are gaining ground across the globe.

Ice age

An ice age is a period of long-term downturn in the temperature of Earth's climate, resulting in an expansion of the continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers. Glaciologically, ice age is often used to mean a period of ice sheets in the northern and southern hemispheres; by this definition we are still in an ice. More colloquially, when speaking of the last few million years, ice age is used to refer to colder periods with extensive ice sheets over the North American and Eurasian continents: in this sense, the last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago. This article will use the term ice age in the former, glaciological, sense; and use the term glacial periods for colder periods during ice ages and interglacial for the warmer periods.

Many glacial periods have occurred during the last few million years, initially at 40,000-year frequency but more recently at 100,000-year frequencies. These are the best studied. There have been four major ice ages in the further past.

Surreal humour

Surreal humour is a form of humour, stylistically linked to the artistic ambitions of the Surrealists, based on bizarre juxtapositions, absurd situations, and nonsense logic. A general element of surreal humour is the non-sequitur, in which one statement is followed by another with no logical progression.

Humour which we might now think surreal has been around at least since the nineteenth century. Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass both use illogic and absurdity for humorous effect. Many of Edward Lear's nonsense stories and poems are also principally surreal in approach. Thus, Lear's "The Story of the Four Little Children Who Went Round the World," is filled with contradictory statements and odd images planned to provoke amusement.

"After a time they saw some land at a distance; and when they came to it, they found it was an island made of water quite bounded by earth. Besides that, it was bordered by evanescent isthmuses with a great Gulf-stream running about all over it, so that it was perfectly beautiful, and contained only a single tree, 503 feet high."

Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and of the Lazio province, as well as the country's major and most crowded comune, with concerning 2.5 million residents. It is situated in the central-western portion of the Italian peninsula, where the river Aniene joins the Tiber. As one of the prime cities in the European Union, the Comune di Roma has a gross domestic creation of €97 billion in the year 2005, equal to 6.7% of Italy's GDP the highest quantity of GDP produced by any single Italian comune. The current Mayor of Rome is Walter Veltroni.

According to fairy tale, the city of Rome was founded by the twins Romulus and Remus on April 21, 753 BC. Archeological proof supports claims that Rome was inhabited since the 8th century BC and earlier. The city was the support of Roman civilization that shaped the largest and longest-lasting empire of classical antiquity that reached its maximum extent in 117. The city was essential and in charge for the spread of Greco-Roman culture that endures to this day. Rome is also recognized with Christianity and the Catholic Church and has been the Episcopal seat of the Popes since the 1st century. The State of the Vatican City, the monarch territory of the Holy See and smallest nation in the world, is an enclave of Rome.

Leather in modern culture

Leather, due to its exceptional abrasion and wind struggle, found a use in rough occupations. The durable image of a cowboy in leather chaps gave way to the leather-jacketed and leather-helmeted aviator. When motorcycles were invented, some riders took to exhausting heavy leather jackets to protect from road rash and wind explosion; some also wear chaps or full fur pants to shelter the lower body. Many sports still use leather to help in live the game or protecting players: due to its stretchy nature it can be formed and flexed for the occurrence.

As leather can also be a metonymical expression for things made from it, the term leathering is as reasonable as tanning in the sense of a physical penalty applied with a leather whip.

Leather fetishism is the name commonly used to describe a fetishistic magnetism to people wearing leather, or in definite cases, to the garments themselves.

Castle
Castells are human towers that are by tradition built during festivals in many places in Catalonia. At those festivals, several colles castelleres meet and try to build the most extraordinary towers they can.
This tradition instigated in the southern part of the Spanish state of Catalonia at the end of the XVIII century. More purposely in Valls, near the city of Tarragona. The tradition later spread to other section of Catalonia and even Mallorca, and has become very popular. However, the best and most talented castellers are still found near Tarragona.
A castell is considered a achievement when it's properly loaded and unloaded, that is, when everyone has scaled and is in place, the enxaneta (the last one) climbs up to the top, climbs one hand, and then climbs down through the other side of the castell, and then everybody else comes down safely.