In the news today, a rich guy bought himself a whole island. Now everything on the island belongs to the rich man. Fifty miles of beaches? Five hundred homes? The hotels, the stores, and the farms? They all belong to the rich man now.

The news this morning: America continues to be a society starkly divided, in which a wealthy fortunate minority diligently works to prepare its own children for a future of perpetuating their social and economic dominance, while the less fortunate majority struggles simply to survive. It's Tuesday.

A fifth-grader from New York's PS 195 was told by the school's principal he would not be allowed to read a speech on same-sex marriage to the school, and must pick a different topic.

Holman Jenkins, like any good upper class white male member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, is absolutely perplexed by America's "Inequality Obsession." Look America, the whole "I am concerned about the alarming levels of income inequality in America" thing? Yeah. It's getting to be kind of... how can Holman Jenkins put this politely... an obsession. Not cute.

Here's the type of blatantly contradictory and self-harming political belief that Americans are famous for: during this recession, support for redistribution of wealth has actually gone down. (This is why every American political economist is for shit, historically.) Researchers publishing in Scientific American suggest the problem is that we are willing to throw the poorest members of society to the economic wolves in order to ensure that we always have someone to look down on:

In New Hampshire—whose culture we're suddenly learning all about, in piecemeal fashion—the parking situation outside the state's new, $3.3 million liquor store is probably causing a lot of anxiety for residents who have ever voted for Ralph Nader at some point in their lives.

The Way We Live Now: Traditionally. We're subtly reverting to the days of yore. When women were paid in buttons. When the Hamptons were sleepy beach villages. When money was...controlled by Second Life sex fiends. Well, semi-traditionally.

Lord Brian Griffiths of Fforestfach is a vice chairman at Goldman Sachs Intl., a life peer under England's nobility scheme, and Christian theorist of "biblically based wealth creation." Just the man to explain how Goldman's taxpayer-financed bonuses are perfectly moral.

Right in the heart of the Xmas-to-New Year's News Dead Zone, Mayor Bloomberg announced a sweeping change in the way New York City will measure poverty. The national standard remains tied, more or less, to the price of milk. Income and "annual cost of buying basic groceries" have determined who is poor in the US for four decades. Bloomberg would like to add other, more realistic standards—rent, utilities, child care—while taking into account "the value of financial assistance received, like housing vouchers or food stamps." Mike hopes this more exact method of defining who is the worst off compared to him will spread to the rest of the nation, and improve distribution of federal, state, and local aid. Also it will probably mean that there are a lot more poor people in New York than previously counted. Maybe you're one of them!