News Item

Yesterday's USA TODAY had a front page story by Mary Beth Marklein titled, "Low-income students scarce at elite colleges." The article says that "rich kids are . . . far more likely to land in the nation's most prestigious schools"-- and that the majority of students at these schools are from high-income backgrounds.

Add to this the fact that Ivy-League grads have a near-monopoly on positions in NYC publishing and major glossy magazines (on the east coast even the shittiest staff position at the shitties freebie "alternative" paper is manned by an Ivy Leaguer) and what you have is our literature dominated by people from a narrow segment of American society.

Decisions about which authors are published and which receive publicity are being made by what in effect is an aristocracy.

Is it any wonder that today's "hip" literary writing is insular and clueless-- or that the present system is not discovering any great American writers?

(After establishing democracy in Iraq, we should bring some democracy to the United States!)