Glimpses of a country from a sunday newspaper

"Mr. Steger, 51, ... has banked more than $2 million. The $1.3 million house he and his wife own on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean is paid off. The couple’s net worth of roughly $3.5 million places them in the top 2 percent of families in the United States.

Yet each day Mr. Steger continues ... working as a marketing executive for a technology start-up company... Most mornings, he can be found at his desk by 7. He typically works 12 hours a day and logs an extra 10 hours over the weekend.

“I know people looking in from the outside will ask why someone like me keeps working so hard,” Mr. Steger says. “But a few million doesn’t go as far as it used to. Maybe in the ’70s, a few million bucks meant ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,’ or Richie Rich living in a big house with a butler. But not anymore.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/technology/05rich.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all

"My younger daughter had her kidneys removed and got a kidney transplant... and it could get to the point where she becomes uninsurable at some point in the future and so if that happens and she needs another operation for another half a million dollar, i'd like to be able to afford that." excerpt from the video in the article.


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A competitive gymnast for most of her life, Heather Benjamin has traveled the country and won her share of awards. But last year she developed a fear of jumping... so she talked to a sports psychologist.

“It made such a difference,” she said... “We worked through the fear, and that has let me relax. I would tell anyone that it’s worth it." Heather was 9 at the time.

In the pursuit of college scholarships and top spots on premier travel clubs, the families of young athletes routinely pay for personal strength coaches, conditioning coaches, specialized skill coaches like pitching or hitting instructors, nutritionists and recruiting consultants. Now, the personal sports psychologist has joined the entourage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/sports/05minds.html?hp

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"Middle America; In places like Carpentersville, Ill., where nearly half the population nis now Hispanic, assumptions about life in a small town are being challenged. And to some, a birthday party for a 1-year-old in a public park is a provocative act."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/magazine/05Immigration-t.html?pagewanted=all

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