PORNO XXX

THREE-TIERED, COIFFED MANES STUDDED with Swarovski, delicate toes encased in hundred-thousand-peso heels, she in her blings and he in his Armani. Ah La Dolce Vita! Come one, come all! You have the money, come right in! Join the bacchanalia to end all bacchanalias! Debauchery unhampered, undeterred, unapologetic. The plumper the ruby, the wider space per square inch one is accorded in the next Sunday's papers' lifestyle section.

Come now my dear! The avatars that party in style are not all mean and selfish. They do have bleeding hearts for the poor and the needy. Proceeds from the caviar-and-champagne cocktails do regularly trickle down the bereft and the down-trodden...or at least, a portion of it.

And what, pray tell, is so scandalous about having your latest yacht cruise or your youngest niece's under-the-sea theme party for her very first sneezing in a penthouse club on the top floor of some condo plastered in screaming colors on one-pagers of your favorite broadsheet? Or the regular parade of your latest acquisitions? Or travels in some exotic island somewhere near the edge of the earth? These things are not without their noble purpose in the campaign against poverty in our sorry, reeking sewer of a nation.

Our poor and hungry need to be reminded not to lose hope. They need something onto which they could pin their impossible dreams. They have to be anesthetized and be spared from the pains of real time existence. They need to be constantly regaled with tales of sumptuous tables and gorgeous apparels and current hook-ups of children of higher beings and scions of some deity in business and government so that they would always hold their heads up high in worship of the gods that dole some token packed noodles and used clothing to them come Christmastime. They are already poor. They were born poor. They will die poor. Even the good book would tell us, "The poor will always be around..." Sorry for them. On with our orgy. It's alright to indulge...just be sure to always have some loose change in your pocket, or a doggy bag of scarcely eaten baguette or pasta or whatever to hand out of your car window to some god-forsaken urchins at the next red light; The better to assuage the nagging little voice from within that interrupts your every attempt at acting out an object of your inordinate cravings.

For as long as we keep the soup flowing in our feeding- program frenzy, fill hundreds of loot bags with rags and torn shirts from our annual wardrobe makeover rituals, and dump them on the colonies of these miserable and hopeless bottom-feeders, there really is no need to worry, nor be afraid, nor feel guilty. Let leftover foods rot in our pantry and kitchen counters! Let our garbage bins groan with the excesses of our egotistic lifestyles! Let wastage rule our every turn! Let's shield our crumbling consciences from all these anguish and despair! Let's very well keep things this way. Let's all sit back, relax, and have a drink...tightly clutching our one-way ticket, as we happily wait for the next hell-bound coach!