Talk about a disconnect.

The cover of the October 1 issue of Newsweek featured a photo of Cecilia Nakabu, holding her daughter Jennifer at the Kintampo Health Research Center in Ghana.  The headline:  “Giving Globally:  How to Heal The World (Or at least make a real difference).”

Jennifer had malaria.  The cover story, part of a five-article “Giving Globally” series in the magazine, outlined her path back to health, and the worldwide efforts to develop new vaccines, and make existing vaccines available to millions who currently go without them.

Successive articles explored clean water initiatives in the desert, the One Laptop Per Child project, a Sudanese businessman incentivizing African leadership, and a piece by Bill Gates in which the Microsoft mogul, who has dedicated himself to tackling world health issues through his foundation, writes, “I believe we stand at a moment of unequaled opportunity … I’m now more convinced than ever that we can create a healthier world for everyone.”

Inspiring stuff, all.

But at the heart of the magazine – literally, right on the staples, if not also metaphorically – was the feature article in the Newsweek Enterprise section about the boom in customized jetliners that “heads of state, corporate chiefs and billionaires have begun turning into private flying apartments.”

Under the section header “Business Travel” (itself something of an understatement) the story details the explosion in these gaudy jets, outfitted with plasma TVs, gold fixtures, surround-sound audio, and other upgrades that can run their owners from $15 million to $60 million per plane – and that doesn’t include the cost of the actual plane.

For years, billionaire investor Warren Buffett “railed against corporate jets as an indulgence,” but he ended his holdout in the 1990s, and “wrote in this year’s shareholder letter, ‘returning to commercial flights is like going back to holding hands.’”

Anyone who’s flown this summer, or since 9/11 for that matter, can appreciate the sentiment.  Security lines are a shoeless headache, seats are cramped, and if you’re lucky, you get peanuts.

But whatever happened to sucking it up?  Whatever happened to dealing with it?  Have the super-rich gone so soft they’ve lost all tolerance for inconvenience?

Perhaps I’m too middle-class to understand, but it sounds to me like private jet owners simply believe they are so wonderful and so important that they deserve to be constantly swaddled in luxury.  Comfort is not enough for them; only pampering will suffice.

You know who else gets swaddled and pampered in our society?

Oh, I know what you’re thinking:  Back off these guys, man!  If they’re billionaires, surely they’ve earned their money.  What do you want them to do, give it all away?

No, not all of it.

A foldout spread in the “Giving Globally” section, entitled “Our Greatest Challenges,” outlined ten major issues affecting the world, and the grants made by private U.S. foundations to fix them.

For example, 61% of relief efforts in Darfur, which “has been called the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today,” have been funded by nongovernment donors, equaling $394.5 million.

But in 2006, just shy of $15 million was given in grants to relieve hunger and malnutrition.  Grants in 2006 for sanitation and clean water – globally, “1.1 billion lack access to clean drinking water, and 2.6 billion lack adequate sanitation” – were less than $50,000.

Now think about those customized 767s again for a second.  Remember the price tag?

And yet despite the story on the cover of the very same issue, the tales of these rich-boy toys inside were presented without a touch of irony.  Perhaps it’s not Newsweek’s place to judge whether such conspicuous consumption qualifies as aberrant behavior – undoubtedly, they want to appease their advertisers who cater to the high-net-worth crowd – but inserting that particular story in that particular issue strikes me as an example of highly-questionable editorial judgment.

Ultimately, though, my issues are not with Newsweek – they’re with the executive blowhards who brag about their corporate social responsibility and environmental initiatives, then fly me-first, gas-guzzling private jets because they can’t stand to be among the commoners in first class.

Google has gotten a lot of mileage out of its “don’t be evil” slogan, and yet one of the article’s anecdotes tells the tale of Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin outfitting their personalized 767 with his-and-his staterooms.  Is owning your own plane evil?

I suppose it depends on how you feel about holding hands.

Don’t get me wrong; I appreciate what comes after hand-holding.  But I also still appreciate holding hands.  It’s so simple, and so … nice.  It makes me happy.

And it reminds me that while I do have material needs, happiness never comes from more and more and more – it comes from remembering to appreciate little things like holding hands.

Maybe if the owners of these multimillion-dollar sky yachts could learn to appreciate a little thing once in a while, they’d begin to see how much farther their extra cash could go when directed toward a cause that impacts thousands, rather than indulged in masturbatory status symbols that benefit only them.

Go ahead, call me a bleeding-heart idealist.  Heck, call me a tree-hugging hippie liberal if you want.  That’s fine.  Just have the courage to say it to my face.

It won’t be hard to find me.  I’ll be sitting in coach.