Such things have a powerful impact in the tiny Gulf state, and may explain why Qatar is so far the only Arab country that looks likely to dispatch warplanes to help impose the no-fly zone.

ECONOMIST: The Arab world's reaction

My ailment is just another ambient backdrop now, another machine falling apart with no parts to replace the scrapped ones, another grim dispatch from the quadrants of the deadly dull but not yet quite deadly enough condition our condition is in.

NEWYORKER: Lostronaut

And despite, or perhaps because of, the serious worsening of the situation on the ground, the dispatch of American observers to monitor the now non-existent ceasefire seems no more of an immediate priority than it was before.

ECONOMIST: Israel and the Palestinians