New attorney general may investigate opera monopoly on federal subsidy,
protect country music poor boys

"I tend not to be an individual who has invested a great deal of my life
in opera," Sen. John Ashcroft told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in a 1997
intereview, noting that his musical tastes run to gospel and country.

"Now the opera gets a subsidy from the National Endowment for the Arts,
but, by and large, Willie Nelson and Garth Brooks don't. Those of us who
drive our pickups to those concerts don't get a subsidy, but the people
who drive their Mercedes to the opera get a subsidy."

   http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/10-11-97/cover_1.asp

Janos Gereben/SF, CA
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