Cutting luxuries? A nightmare!

There was a time when The Wall Street Journal billed itself as "The Daily Diary of the American Dream." These days it reads more like The Daily Diary of the American Nightmare. Because, of course, the ongoing economic crisis is causing real hardship in our country. Consider, for instance, the plight of Joan Asher.

Three of Ms. Asher's four children, the Journal reported, have had expensive nose jobs in a hospital, with a private nurse in attendance. But when the time came to operate on her youngest, a 16-year-old daughter, the money just wasn't there. What is a mother to do?

I have been reading a new edition of the Count de Segur's memoir of Napoleon's retreat from Russia, when soldiers of La Grande Armee didn't even wait for their comrades to die before starting to eat them. That must be what it's coming to in the tonier parts of New York's Westchester County, where Ms. Asher lives. The privations are intense! This anecdote has a happy ending. Her daughter did get the nose job, because the doctor agreed to perform the surgery in his office. Ms. Asher decided to nurse her own child at home, instead of hiring a nurse in the hospital.

Letter to Treasury Secretary Paulson: Things aren't that bad. Yet.

Or are they?

The Journal is all over the economic pain story. For instance, the paper reported that a buyer recently backed off a $15.7 million offer on a 10-acre oceanfront estate in the town that renamed itself Manchester-by-the-Sea. The listing broker, Lanse Robb of LandVest, tells the paper that he's lost millions of dollars worth of listings in recent weeks. Lanse, we feel your pain.

The pain is most intense down Wall Street way. You remember Lehman Brothers, the investment banking firm that proved to be a trifle over-leveraged for today's market conditions? Former Lehman Brothers president Joe Gregory has had to sell the helicopter he used to commute to work! Furthermore, the Journal reports, Mr. Gregory's $32.5 million home in the Hamptons has been put up for sale.

More astonishingly, Mr. Gregory's boss, Richard Fuld, has quietly put between $15 million and $20 million worth of his art on the market, according to the Journal. Mr. Fuld and his wife hope to sell the art privately in either Moscow or London, but may decide to auction it off in Manhattan later this fall. Just to keep everything in perspective, Fuld cashed in $139 million worth of stock between 2003 and 2007, according to the website InsiderScore.com. Forbes magazine reported that Fuld received $71.9 million in total compensation last year. All this for wrecking the US economy. Good work if you can get it!

On a happier note, the Fulds haven't had to put their private squash court up for sale, yet. Then you would know we were really in a recession.

Palindromes, Release 3.0
The Sarah Palin-dromes are still pouring in, so I haven't chosen a contest winner yet. (A palindrome is a word or phrase that reads the same backward or forward, the classic example being "Madam, I'm Adam.") Barry Duncan of Somerville, who has the word "palindromist" in his e-dress, sent in 11 Palin-dromes - "a reversible number," as he points out. I certainly like, "Ha! Rash Sarah!" and "Media harass Sarah? Aid 'em!" Duncan invokes the palindromist's motto - length isn't everything - and then submits the astonishing: "Put up SP? Won't I. Reviled to no. two? Veto VP, I. True! So Palin (a tundra-hard nut, a nil, a poseur) tip vote? Vow to not deliver it now. P.S. Put up!"

Professor Stephen Morillo of Wabash College in Indiana co-authored a seemingly endless Palin-drome with Bob Binstock of Cambridge that rivals Duncan's for length, but I can't understand it. I get the beginning and the ending ("OK, now I rep U.S. . . . I'm super! I won! K.O.!"), but the middle seems opaque to me. Their shorter submission, which I do understand, has a major wire service passing judgment on McCain's nominee: "Palin nil! - A.P." Cindy Kumin sent me "P.S. Do go, 'NO!' on (O, God) S.P." and John Cabot kicked in, "All I saw? Wasilla . . ." and "Party animal, am I? Nay, trap!"

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com.