The Horror. The Horror.

In these times, what kind of sacrifices are our super-rich making?

It's rough out there.

A nose job in a hospital with a private nurse in attendance had been something of a rite of passage for Joan Asher's children. But when her fourth and last child was ready for her own rhinoplasty recently, Ms. Asher asked her to postpone it.

The financial markets were simply more out of whack than her 16-year-old's proboscis.

"The other noses were more prominent," the stay-at-home mother from a tony New York City suburb in Westchester County told her 16-year-old daughter. She could get hers done when things settled down.

Ms. Asher was able to let her daughter get her nose job before school began after plastic surgeon Alan Matarasso said he could do the procedure in his office operating room on Manhattan's Upper East Side for about $2,500 less than if they went to a hospital, stayed overnight and hired a nurse. At home, Ms. Asher stayed up most of the night after the surgery, putting cold compresses on her daughter's eyes every 20 minutes. "She was fine," she says. "It came out great.

In other horrors:

For her 50th birthday, Annette Pucci, a New York retail manager, planned to treat herself to a facelift by cashing in $15,000 in stocks. But after consulting with her husband, a manger with Consolidated Edison Inc., she realized their stock portfolio had taken such a hit that it was out of the question.

"It was a very big disappointment," Ms. Pucci said. Her consolation: a $1,200 Botox treatment she had this week instead.

Expensive jewelry -- one of the few bright spots in the luxury-goods industry until now -- appears to be a new victim of the financial crisis. Patricia G. Hambrecht, who helps private clients buy and sell high-end jewelry, this week watched a client in the financial-services industry slash his budget for his wife's wedding anniversary present to $20,000 to $25,000 from $50,000.

It's nice that the Wall Street Journal is out there reporting on the real suffering going on in America.

Via Roger Ailes.

Fake Breasts in the Green Zone

Neurotic Iraqi Wife has an amusing unhinged rant about western women in the Green Zone. She is in the Green Zone herself with her Iraqi husband. I quote in part:

All I see around me is shallowness. Shallowness, Old age and Double D boobs. Yup I said BOOBS. The plastic fantastic phenomena seems to have migrated to the GZ. Everywhere I look, I see tight tshirts with headlights sticking out (don’t these people freeze?) and Im a woman mind you yet theyre right there in your face. I cant help but stare, how about those pumped up testosterone male species who in some cases haven’t had “natural” pleasure for the past 5 or 6 months? Im sure their fantasies have gone beyond Angelina Jolie. Get them a small lamb, and they will jump its poor bones. A disgusting and disturbing thought, I know. So yeah, I guess the money everyone is making here is being well invested. Self invested that is.

There is someone I know, A US expat who changed her looks completely. Two years ago, she probably was a size 24UK and now she is down to probably a 10UK. YESSSSSSSSSS. I kid you not. She had an operation. A few months back, she went under the knife AGAIN to remove the excess sagginess that her drastic weight loss caused. She got a completely new set of teeth which cost her $50K or so she said. She “enhanced” the look of her boobs. She plumped her lips. She bottoxed her face. And god knows what else. Look at her now, and she is a different human from what she was before. VERY DIFFERENT. I preferred her looks then. I preferred her attitude then. She was far more friendlier, far more genuine. Alot of people who work here and get that insane amount of money just lose it. They go buy insanely expensive cars and houses and after a few months they run out of money, and guess what? I see them working back in the GZ again!

Now I don't really know what to make of it, but it is interesting to hear the perspective of an anonymous Iraqi in the Green Zone about the Westerners there. Now judging by the rest of her blog, she's not kidding when she calls herself neurotic, but that doesn't delegitimize what she's saying here.

Plastic Surgery in South Korea

I've linked before to posts about rampant plastic surgery in South Korea.

Here is a very disturbing post from Scribblings of the Metropolitician about the subject, with frightening before and after pictures. Pretty stomach-wrenching. Great commentary on the matter as well, particularly about changing standards of beauty there.

This is first-rate blogging and I highly recommend reading it.