Archive
02/02/09 - (2)
The Privileged
This morning, though with little appetite for recession tales, I wormed my way through the NY Times Sunday business section, Only to find myself inescapably mired in a piece on Fisher Island,
That previously inviolable 216-acre redoubt of the exceedingly rich, A mile off Miami, replete with fourteen pools, sixteen tennis courts, A nine-hole golf course, seven restaurants, a spa, and two marinas,
Where the elitest of the elite could park their condos and yachts, With impunity so assured, not even an asteroid could destroy them, Where, now, a quarter of the 695 palaces are on the market.
And as if this disclosure of "Paradise Lost?" weren't enough, Another front-page article awakened me to the incipient demise Of our love affair with malls, specifically the Mall of America,
With its 4.2 million square feet of retail-selling space, An eleven-thousand-strong sales, security, and custodial army Catering to forty million shoppers, each year —
More than the combined annual total of crusading pilgrims Who descend on Disney World, Graceland, and the Grand Canyon — Offering them a thieves' market of 520 stores,
Not to mention perks (an aquarium with hundreds of sharks, A seven-acre, twenty-four-ride theme park, An eighteen-hole miniature-golf course)
And certain necessities (twenty thousand parking spaces, Two hundred fifty video cameras, and its own holding cell, For rowdies, sex offenders, drug abusers, and murderers).
Tonight, I contemplate over-the-top luxury and shopping — The foundations of this land of opportunity — And feel privileged, with my $8.95 dinner, at my local café.
02/02/09 - (2)
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