Sensitive

Being sensitive could mean being especially prone to be affected, being vulnerable in a way. But it could also mean being particularly quick to perceive and accommodate. A suggestion that vulnerability leads to empathy, perhaps. Or, from an etymological point of view, that the ability and inclination to sense and feel lie at the root of both ...

Asses for Zebras

When the zebras at Gaza City's Marah Land Zoo passed away, there was very little prospect of finding a replacement---a sad commentary on how restricted and contrived everyday life in the Gaza Strip has become. The zookeepers, though, came up with the ingenious solution of having two donkeys stand in for zebras by painting them with zebra stripes. The fact that the acting zebras are still drawing the crowds suggests that the zoo is still more a source of entertainment (look, it's a zebra!) than a place for real learning (zebras are equine mammals which live on the African savannah and etc.)
On an off note, the Old Portuguese zevra, which gave rise to the zebra's name in English and many other languages, did mean "wild ass". So the choice of stand-in was perhaps not so inexplicable ...

Narcocracy

Isn't it ironic that the word can mean both a group responsible for enforcing laws governing (usually against) narcotics, and a dominant or governing group whose wealth derives from those very same substances? Might this not be a critique of how criminalisation does not work and is prone to corruption, a subtle suggestion that other approaches, such as legalisation, might work better?

Why Doctors Earn a Lot

A few Saturdays ago, due to exceptionally poor braking technique on the bicycle, I ended up with some pretty nasty, though ultimately harmless, injuries. As luck would have it, the batch of recruits we were taking then were due to have their Graduation march and parade the following Monday. It seemed to me a very bad idea to try and wear a LBV when there was a big open wound on one shoulder, so I took medical leave for the first time since enlistment. Geez.
I had to pay the doctor a good fifty dollars. It seems terribly expensive. The doctor made only the most superficial and general observations, prescribed a bunch of non-essential medications, most of which I didn't even use in the end, and breezed through any questions. Not to put down the medical profession, but I could have done this particular call myself. The only difference would have been that I wouldn't have had the authority to make out a certificate requesting medical leave. Damnit. I guess it's the price to pay to prove yourself a genuine sick case.
Does it have to be? If integrity were a more common thing in society, perhaps we could trust people to recommend themselves for sick leave without abusing the authority---but of course, History has demonstrated that it is not so wise to trust so much in human nature. That does not rule out exceptions in specific cases, when perhaps a supervisor is willing to accept his/her charge's claims of not feeling well as genuine without a professional opinion, based on the specific circumstances. In general, however, it would seem that the monopoly of the medical profession over medical leave is indeed a necessary evil. It is not a perfect solution---a physician might be inclined to give medical leave out freely to family or friends, for instance---but it's a roughly workable on, and better than nothing. Even if the added content of the "professional" opinion doesn't amount to much, the fact that the patient was willing to go to the trouble and expense of getting it supports the thesis that the medical problem was genuine.

Unworldly Landscapes

The icefields of Patagonia seem almost unreal from above, and I imagine on the ground too: so vastly different from the habitats we are familiar with that they may as well be a world apart, a landscape from a more distant part of the cosmos. (Or, perhaps, they were indeed sculpted by a Slartibartfast from an extraterrestrial, more advanced civilisation.)

So do, come to think of it, Arizona's huge and ochre-hued Painted Desert and surrounding mesas. These preserve the remains of an earlier age of life---one of dinosaurs---very much alien to us. But then this was the Earth millions of years ago, not some distant planet. Likewise, during Ice Ages in times long before humankind flourished, large parts of our planet would have borne more resemblance to the icefields of Patagonia than to the grasslands and forests we are familiar with today.
So these landscapes, so relatively rare on the Earth today and thus unfamiliar and "unworldly" to us, belong to the Earth no less than our dear old meadows and woods and tropical rainforests. They are only strange and distant to us parochial humans, in space and, much more, in time. The "world" encompassed in the adjective is a very much anthrocentric one, specific and limited in time and place.