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from the Times, about recovering addicts working on an organic farm in Westchester

On that sunlit July morning, a man from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, was leaning over rows of red kale, looking bewildered. He had been, he said, “addicted to everything, a garbage-head.” He was also new to the farm, and did not want to talk much about his past, or reveal his name. Instead, he kept his eyes pinned on another program participant, Bernard Cole, who was cutting off wilting leaves from kale.

“Those leaves aren’t good?” the man asked, perplexed.

“No,” Mr. Cole replied gently. “But see this one, see how it’s good?”

“No, I don’t know nothing,” the man replied dolefully. “I’m a newcomer.”

Several feet away, Mr. Crafton was cleaning lettuce, and eyeing it suspiciously. He is not fond of vegetables, and as a rule, he said, doesn’t trust any food that “doesn’t already come in a bag.”

“If it ain’t on a McDonald’s menu, I ain’t eating it,” Mr. Crafton declared proudly, peering out from beneath his straw brim, a wet, dripping head of lettuce in his hand. “I always been a picky eater.”

...

Mr. Long was shaking water off some lettuce, and the droplets were catching the sun and spraying a few men standing nearby. He laid the heads in a box bound for the farm stand.

As often happens during the slow hours in the field, the talk drifted back to the men’s former lives.

Mr. Crafton was speaking about the old Project Renewal farm truck, which was crushed on Sept. 11, 2001. Mr. DeArmas had driven it to the city that day to deliver produce to a farmers’ market near the World Trade Center, and fled on foot when the first tower fell.

“That truck was de-stroyed,” Mr. Crafton said to the others.

The group fell silent for a moment. Then: “I bet the drug dealers were having a field day that day,” Mr. Long said.

“No cops,” Mr. Crafton said.

Then another man had a thought.

“No cellphones,” he said.

“Oh yeah,” Mr. Long said.

from the Washington Post, on trying to survive on $300k/yr a few miles away

Steins grew up in the idyllic Queens suburb of Douglaston, specifically Douglas Manor, where mothers played bridge on a dock in Little Neck Bay. Her father was a savings-and-loan president who owned a summer house in the Hamptons, but Steins was grounded in the middle class in many ways, attending public school and working at McDonald's. She has lived in London and Johannesburg and has a closet full of fabulous clothes from jobs with Ralph Lauren and Anne Klein. Steins is still a black diamond skier, and she barrels down the mountain of life in much the same manner, tenacious and determined to stay upright. She is rarely wistful except for the topic of her marriage ending. "Because I grew up in divorce, I swore I would never put my kids through it," she says.

Now she sits at the head of the dining room table. Dinner is served at 6 by the nanny, but the same pandemonium and fatigue of any other house exists.

...

Whatever fantasies the underclass may have of the good life -- of small dogs in purses and Dolce and Gabbana -- are not on display here. The rugs are worn. Milk is spilled. A Marmaduke of a beast named Tyson hovers at the table ready to snuffle up pork tenderloin from the plate of a distracted child. "Tyson!" says Steins.

The funny part of this is that we've by this point in the story gotten a fair amount of information about how much Ms. Steins' community spends on non-essential overpriced consumer goods for their children, who think they can't live without them.

I suspect "the underclass" would probably settle for having to worry about the pork tenderloin the nanny cooked going to the dog.

Is this that irony thing people talk about? Is it more like rain on your wedding day, do you think, or a free ride when you've already paid?

WHAT?

Date: 2009-08-16 10:24 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Rich people spill milk? They don't have gyro-stabilized tilt-resistant milk containers and a cadre of eunuch milk-catchers standing by to intercept stray dropswith long-handled gilt pans?

"Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" has betrayed me!

Stefan

Re: WHAT?

Date: 2009-08-16 10:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jmhm.livejournal.com
Hee.

I'm sure all this haute-bourgeois grittiness comes as a bit of a shock to you.
(deleted comment)

Date: 2009-08-16 11:01 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jmhm.livejournal.com
Except that irony is dead. I'm sure you've heard.

Tragedy we can all relate to

Date: 2009-08-16 11:35 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
she's months overdue for a visit to her colorist, a telltale sign of economic distress

This is true even for the underclass, or so I'm told.

Re: Tragedy we can all relate to

Date: 2009-08-16 11:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jmhm.livejournal.com
You know, I'm sure her life is wicked hard right now, and she's faced with the fact that she's expected to keep up a lot of expensive things to keep the life she's committed to and that her children expect. I'm sure it sucks a lot.

It's just the idea that "the underclass" busy themselves with tinsel-dripping fantasies about rat dogs in expensive purses while she knows the reality of suffering that I find offensive.

Re: Tragedy we can all relate to

Date: 2009-08-17 12:13 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fledgist.livejournal.com
The idea that people aspire to owning purse dogs is gobsmacking.

A young woman brought one into my office. "Isn't she cute?" She simpered. "No," I said, worried about the little rat peeing all over my books.

Date: 2009-08-17 12:34 am (UTC)
sethg: picture of me with a fedora and a "PRESS: Daily Planet" card in the hat band (Default)
From: [personal profile] sethg
Having recently visited relatives on the Upper West Side who are probably making a bit over $300K, I suspect that "Now she sits at the head of the dining room table. Dinner is served at 6 by the nanny" is a mark of non-upper-class-ness or perhaps of loneliness. The nanny isn't serving dinner to the children in a separate room.

Date: 2009-08-17 12:43 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jmhm.livejournal.com
You know, it probably still sucks. It's the idea that it's suffering the lower orders know not of that peeves me.

Sucks to be them

Date: 2009-08-17 02:33 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] temima.livejournal.com
My fantasies about the upper class is that they afford regular medical and dental visits without wondering if the rest of their bills will overdraw the account.

Or even consider worrying about their bank account being overdrawn.

Re: Sucks to be them

Date: 2009-08-17 02:39 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] patgreene.livejournal.com
Hear, hear.

Re: Sucks to be them

Date: 2009-08-17 12:15 pm (UTC)

Date: 2009-08-17 04:32 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] theotherbaldwin.livejournal.com
*SPIT TAKE*

"Reccession parties"?

What the hell, that's like... cosplaying as poor people.

Jesus Christ.

Date: 2009-08-17 12:16 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fledgist.livejournal.com
If an atheist may quote the Bible: John 11 xxxv.

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