Hello St Marks

I did skip through a couple of chapters in this one; but in my defense, it was dull. Which was surprising, because journalist Nicolle LaPorte's account of the recent Varsity Blues college admissions scandal, 'Guilty Admissions: The Bribes, Favors and Phonies Behind the College Cheating Scandal', should have been fascinating. A story about uber-rich Californians paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to get their privileged kids into tier one colleges should have been an entertaining train wreck, or at least a nuanced reflection on entitlement. But it fell flat; there was no drama to the nonchalance with which parents paid up and later pretended not to know their 'donations' were illegal bribes, or that presenting their unexceptional kids as sporting superstars to gain 'side door' entry into Yale was a bit dodgy. I was struck by one parent who said she had no idea the payments were bribes because she'd been signing whalloping great big donation...