The Way We Live Now: plumbing the bubble-less depths of despair. Some people get private islands, other people don't even get an orphanage. But nobody will be getting mail on Saturday. So equality lives.

Here is one article that will probably come in handy to many readers these days, because it addresses the common and widespread quandary of how to run a private island. Does that appeal to you? No? Perhaps a story of how to prune the out-of-control weeds choking your abandoned Detroit property would be more "up your deserted alley."

Why do we concentrate on our differences? We're all the same deep down. Family of man and all that. Whether running a private island or languishing in a makeshift Haitian orphanage consisting only of a circle of food-snatching tweens, we're all just trying to make our way on this crazy spinning rock, amirite? Some of us are moaning about how it's getting tougher for us to rent apartments in Paris, while others are moaning about the possibility of a dam bursting and devastating our storm-ravaged and poverty-stricken Mexican hometown. We all got problems, you know?

Well. Some of us have fat disability pensions despite our fine health, and awesome narco-subs for our narco-tics. But those people are a distinct minority, as are the wealthy Afghans who bought posh villas with your tax dollars. And you can be sure that even those people are going to be paying Fedex to send letters on Saturday, just like the rest of us.

Although of course it will represent but a trifling sum to the rich.

[Pic: AP]