Dear Stunning Heiress,

You don’t need to work and yet you love your job? No matter what happens, you’ll never go hungry or homeless? Your letter reminds me of the song “Common People” by William Shatner.

OK, so the boyfriend isn’t working out, your dad died young, and there’s that ugly nicotine addiction. So what? Dump the boyfriend, get a little counseling, and have your overpaid doctor write a prescription for some Wellbutrin and the patch.

You need some perspective. You need to realize how lucky you are. The vast majority of the world is just going to be happy to go to bed tonight having survived another day. Disease, hunger, and war are killing innocent people by the truckload right now .

How about trying to volunteer some of your time to a good cause? Resist the temptation to do fundraisers for MOMA. Instead, do actual work. Serve food at a homeless shelter, work some shifts at a battered women’s shelter, or help build houses with Habitat. This will give you the perspective you need and your life some real meaning.

Good luck!

Just because someone can't find empathy for an unhappy rich girl doesn't make them jealous. She (and really the majority of us living in the USA) are lucky compared to most of the world's inhabitants. Keeping this in mind is a real, constructive way to put our own problems in perspective.

My own experience with those who don't have to work for a living is that they either see how lucky they are and attempt to do something meaningful with their lives, or they fall into a funk of self-involvement.

Remember, only the permanently wealthy don't know the heartbreak of not being able to get out of a lousy situation and follow your dreams because you're too busy trying to make ends meet.

If you decide to report this to the IRS (and you probably should, as Cary argues), get a lawyer first. He or she will protect your career and interests. You actions may ruin your boss's life. The IRS does not tread lightly and tax evasion is a felony. Your boss may retaliate by trying to implicate you in something illegal or by firing you. His attorneys will try to spin this as a disgruntled employee trying to get even with his innocent boss. Protect yourself!

Tax returns are public. The boss's compensation is company busness. It doesn't take much to determine if he's reporting his income accurately.

This is a great article! I am 36. I learned to program in BASIC on a Commadore PET and a Vic 20. I used a tape drive. My required college course in programming used PASCAL!

The author is correct, nothing exists today that allows one to write a few quick lines of basic code. Kids are the worse for this loss.

This man is an electrifying public speaker. He is both eloquent and down to Earth. He is obviously smart, without being paternalistic. The comparisons to JFK are apt. In a world where a candidate's every word is recorded and where "likeability" is an important asset, Obama has a clear advantage over Clinton and Gore.

Another important advantage is that he does not have a lot of political baggage. The republicans skewered Kerry using his long senate voting record. How many terms did JFK serve before he was elected?

Democrats should hope he runs. Clinton is too divisive and Gore has too much baggage and snob appeal. Neither will be attractive candidates to the swing voters that will determine this election.

This article is complete speculation. No one knows the source of the e. coli. The only thing we know for sure is the strain and that it came from the gut of a mammal.

Make no mistake, this is an e. coli-related problem. Its not due to a preservative or some other cause hidden by a governmental cover-up.

Let the microbiologists do their job and track down the source of the contamination. They are hard at work. (They live for this kind of stuff.) They'll figure it out eventually.

This guy actually went undercover in a public high school and the best he can do is to say that teachers aren't effective, students aren't learning, and that students are on two tracks? Thanks for that bit of wisdom...

Public education in the US certainly has its problems. Unlike at Philips Exeter, these schools and teachers have a difficult task to achieve. Given that the students are unmotivated, the community uninvolved, and the school boards unqualified, its suprising that anyone learns anything at all.

However, its important to remember that public school graduates have been responsible for many great things in the world. Despite the difficulties, public school students do learn.

What would the folks at private academies do if they had to educate everyone who walked through the door? We have our answer in charter schools and the answer is "not any better."

After reading the letters, it occurs to me that to really understand our public school system, it might be necessary to be a teacher, rather than a student. Perhaps the author should consider trying the role of a teacher.

Prior to opting for graduate school, I earned a teaching certificate in the State of Ohio, including a semester of full-time student teaching. It was a very instructive experience.

Of course, despite the "job security" and "summer vacations" mentioned by some of the LWs, very few Stanford graduates will opt for public school teaching. The fact is that the best in our society do not usually opt for elementary or secondary teaching. Despite its obvious importance to our society, its considered a demeaning and underpaid profession.

So, I'm not holding my breath while I'm waiting for Mr. Randall to sign up for that public school teaching job.