The Way We Live Now: Suffering in relativity. Allen Stanford has no air conditioning. Haitian boat people are drowning. Baghdad security guards are getting killed. And back in Queens, we're barely scraping by, workin' in the Yak shop.

Mini-Madoff Allen Stanford is complaining about his conditions in jail in Texas: he's in a cell with eight other guys, no lights, and no A/C, in 100-degree heat. Which even the Post could only halfheartedly mock, because maybe they should fix that, if not for Stanford then for the other eight guys in the cell? Sounds hot.

Could be worse. He could be a bank guard in Baghdad. Eight of them got murdered in a robbery this morning, and the thieves made off with $7 million. It's not as cool when it's not a part of the movie Heat.

Could be worse. He could be a Haitian boat person. A boat carrying as many as 200 Haitians sank off the Turks and Caicos—more than 120 have been rescued, but many others are dead. "Some of the victims were eaten by sharks." Haiti is a land that puts the recession into perspective.

Working in the Yak restaurant in Queens doesn't sound so bad now.
[Pic (different disaster, same idea): Getty]