First in buses, later with tumbrels?

Some enterprising soul is organizing bus tours from urban NYC, and other NE locales through the exclusive, affluent exurbs in Connecticut, pausing to observe the spacious, 5,000-sq-ft "colonials" nestled into multi-acre, manicured estates, some with stables and grazing equines.

FAIRFIELD, Conn. – A busload of activists representing working- and middle-class families paid visits Saturday to the lavish homes of American International Group executives to protest the tens of millions of dollars in bonuses awarded by the struggling insurance company after it received a massive federal bailout.

About 40 protesters sought to urge AIG executives who received a portion of the $165 million in bonuses to do more to help families.

"We think $165 million could be used in a more appropriate way to keep people in their homes, create more jobs and health care," said Emeline Bravo-Blackport, a gardener.

She marveled at AIG executive James Haas' colonial house, which has stunning views of a golf course and the Long Island Sound. The Fairfield house is "another part of the world" from her life in nearby Bridgeport, which flirted with bankruptcy in the 1990s and still struggles with foreclosures and unemployment."

"Lord, I wonder what it's like to live in a house that size," she said.

Another protester, Claire Jeffery, of Bloomfield, said she's on the verge of foreclosure. She works as a housekeeper; her husband, a truck driver, can't find work.

"I love my home," she said. "I really want people to help us."

One wonders how much longer before the community spirit of exurban cConnecticut rallies to arrange regulations to prohibit such civic-minded entrepeneurship.

In previous crises, the rich learned by hard measures not to flaunt their wealth; a lesson yet to be apprehended by our leading lights, apparently.