Conspicuous Consumption

Living well is still the best revenge. Just ask the national and international members of the L'Ordre Mondial who dined until they dropped at the Ritz-Carlton on Thursday night.

UNDERRATED 'Moral Orel' : Canceled in 2008 but still part of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim stable of twisted animation, this stop-motion series tweaks the 1960s series "Davey and Goliath" with its look and religion-inspired subject matter. But spending more time in creator Dino Stamatopoulos' warped world built around the morally grounded Orel Puppington and the damaged adults in his orbit, and the show quickly gets far darker — and funnier — than you'd believe. 'American: The Bill Hicks Story' : Consistently underrated in the U.S. while revolutionizing stand-up comedy in the early '90s, Hicks is the focus of a posthumous documentary about his brilliant career.

I spent many hours talking with officials during a 10-day trip to China. But what has stuck with me most vividly is not what I learned in government briefings but what I learned from talking with Chinese people about their everyday concerns. People in China are surprisingly anxious about their newfound prosperity. They worry about the economy producing enough good jobs for millions of new college graduates. They fret about the rising price of housing for newly married couples ?

Two years ago, I felt the full blunt force of the recession come crashing down on me. I lost my job of 18 years, writing and editing at this newspaper. With a tap on the shoulder and a summons to HR, I became just another casualty in the economic collapse that has reduced our nation's workforce by 8 million jobs. From the beginning, I decided I wouldn't waste an ounce of energy being angry at what happened to me or blame anyone ? including myself. I kept my eyes focused on the target: Keeping my family afloat in what is arguably the world's most difficult economic time.

Political songster Gil Scott-Heron got it right in 1974: The revolution will not be televised. Not, at least, on the ABC and NBC affiliates in Los Angeles. Nor will it appear on any of the network affiliates in Boston, or, most likely, in any other major American media market. But the revolution has made its television debut in such Canadian crossroads as Thunder Bay, Ontario, 100 Mile House, British Columbia and Red Deer, Alberta.

How insensitive! Portraits of homeless people, each holding a single treasured object, positioned among page after page of advertisements of frivolous luxury items--a particularly soulless, if not absurd, juxtaposition ("Treasures," photographed by Gregg Segal, Dec. 18). Did this reveal more than what was intended? Surely I'm not the only one struck by the realization that treasure is only relative, and conspicuous consumption is truly irrelevant. Carol Nahin Long Beach

The bad news is Measure B passed. The good news is that it passed by such a narrow margin. Imagine the outcome if the Irvine Co. had not spent over $600,000 on its campaign. Sally Anne Sheridan, Bill Vardoulis and Barry J. Hammond are now put on notice by the close to 50% of voters against Measure B that they, and the dense policies they represent, are a hangover from the conspicuous consumption of the '80s. With voters obviously becoming more educated with respect to what is at stake for the future of Irvine, any effort of the Irvine Co. to buy this continued representation will clearly be costly.

The simplicity movement is not new ["Planting Seeds for Simpler Life," Nov. 25]. Was it Thoreau who exhorted us to "Simplify, simplify!"? Nonetheless, I am delighted to see a resurging interest in the aphorism "Less is more." Though it may not result in more meaningful lives, practicing simplicity will certainly reduce debt and clutter. I find it noteworthy that this significant article appears in the Business section, which is all about maximizing material goods and encouraging conspicuous consumption.

How interesting to read Christopher Nyerges' article on trash-can food pickers ("Trash-Can Food Pickers Point Out Our Wastefulness," Other Views, Sept. 29). He surely knows what he is writing about. My husband and I waste nothing in our household. Both of us, coming from Depression-era families, have learned to utilize our foodstuffs in appetizing ways. I make "one egg plus" omelets--sauteing a bit of this and a little of that to be folded into breakfast eggs. I also use canned and packaged soups--diluting them two to three times as recommended on the directions and adding left-over vegetables, pasta, rice, grains, etc. All delicious and full of vitamins, minerals and good stuff.

In reminding me that football season is upon us, John E. Veblen of Sierra Madre quotes the sociologist-economist Thorstein Veblen: "Football has the same relation to culture as bullfighting has to agriculture." John Veblen doesn't say whether he's related to the great thinker, but a blood relationship may explain why he's able to quote him. I had a class in Veblen in junior college. All I remember is that he introduced the phrase "conspicuous consumption."

I spent many hours talking with officials during a 10-day trip to China. But what has stuck with me most vividly is not what I learned in government briefings but what I learned from talking with Chinese people about their everyday concerns. People in China are surprisingly anxious about their newfound prosperity. They worry about the economy producing enough good jobs for millions of new college graduates. They fret about the rising price of housing for newly married couples ?

In an ideal world, it wouldn't be necessary to reveal the sublime conceit of "The Joneses" in order to review the film. Alas, ours is a realm of planned obsolescence, next big things and false advertising. So for those who — reasonably — require more than a general endorsement of the movie's cleverness, timeliness and strong performances, here goes: A perfect-seeming family moves into an upscale neighborhood, generating envy and, yes, a scramble to keep up with them.

It has come to this at the annual Dubai Shopping Festival: free makeovers, car and home giveaways, and big discounts on plane tickets and hotel rates. Authorities and businesses in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, are going the extra mile this year to spur cash-strapped tourists to loosen their purse strings during what has become an iconic fete of conspicuous consumption. The 32-day sales-fest, which ends Sunday, has coincided this year with the global financial crisis, which has cast a shadow over the once-booming Persian Gulf.

Re "New rules of the road," editorial, June 4 It has taken $4-a-gallon gasoline to force drivers to give up their SUVs, not social conscience out of concern for the environment or road safety. How many people actually need two-ton behemoths that are unsafe not only for their occupants but for others with whom they grudgingly share the road? How much conspicuous consumption is enough? SUV owners having to give up their toys is the moral equivalent of fur wearers being splattered with blood by emotional animal activists.

Maybe it was just fortuitous that I witnessed the Coen brothers' latest masterpiece prior to reading your Nov. 18 magazine on home and holiday entertaining. Their movie "No Country for Old Men" advances the treatise that men and women of reason can only witness the downward societal spiral that humanity seems to be following, despite their best efforts.

I'm beginning to believe that you write about homes like that of Brian and Gigi Grazer ["The High Life Without Airs," May 26] in order to give your readers a good belly laugh every Thursday. How on earth can you classify a home with an 11,000-square-foot addition on a four-acre parcel in Pacific Palisades as "rich," but not "showy"? Are show-biz people so insulated from real life that they actually believe that this addition is only making a house "comfortable," and that it doesn't count as conspicuous consumption?

Re: "Newport's Rich Roll Out in a Good Cause," May 5. No sour grapes, a Rolls is not in my life plan. But the return on investments of well over $60 million automobile costs, entrance fees, preparation, shipping, security and related costs seems out of proportion as related to good business practices to net $50,000 from the event. The big winners were Conspicuous Consumption, Ostentation and Tasteless Display of Wealth--none of which can be justified simply to qualify for a worthless spot in the "Guinness Book of World Records."

UNDERRATED 'Moral Orel' : Canceled in 2008 but still part of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim stable of twisted animation, this stop-motion series tweaks the 1960s series "Davey and Goliath" with its look and religion-inspired subject matter. But spending more time in creator Dino Stamatopoulos' warped world built around the morally grounded Orel Puppington and the damaged adults in his orbit, and the show quickly gets far darker — and funnier — than you'd believe. 'American: The Bill Hicks Story' : Consistently underrated in the U.S. while revolutionizing stand-up comedy in the early '90s, Hicks is the focus of a posthumous documentary about his brilliant career.

The simplicity movement is not new ["Planting Seeds for Simpler Life," Nov. 25]. Was it Thoreau who exhorted us to "Simplify, simplify!"? Nonetheless, I am delighted to see a resurging interest in the aphorism "Less is more." Though it may not result in more meaningful lives, practicing simplicity will certainly reduce debt and clutter. I find it noteworthy that this significant article appears in the Business section, which is all about maximizing material goods and encouraging conspicuous consumption.