I’d like to second the opinion of Jeff Lawrence, publisher, Boston’s Weekly Dig, in his Aug. 20 letter, “Admissions Committee Should Come to Its Senses.”

Since our newspaper has been rejected twice by the admissions committee in 1995 and ’97, I feel almost sick to my stomach when reviewing AAN papers around the country by which ours is allegedly measured: “alternatives” featuring soft-serve cover stories on poetry slams, riding in traffic helicopters, and endless blather on the Burning Man Festival and the like abound.

I can’t imagine that half the papers in the AAN would make the cut if they were re-judged by your admissions committee. The true test of an alternative newspaper should be if it is seen as the first barricade to the tyranny of the status quo by the readers it serves. And as the light by which tyranny is diminished.

Happily, I feel we have that spirit in Northern Michigan, bad as we are.