I just started reading “Righteous Porkchop,” by Nicolette Hahn Niman, which chronicles Niman's adventures as an environmental attorney who begins her career by investigating the non-glamorous and severe problem of hog manure pollution on factory farms. The book's first surprise (for me) came on the first page, in the forward by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: a searing indictment of the CAFO/factory farming meat industry. It contains passages like this one:

There are always interesting things to read around here, like the current issue of _Academe: Magazine of the American Association of University Professors_. Among other related content is “Diagnosing Conflict-of-Interest Disorder: Big Pharma works in subtle but powerful ways inside the pages of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.” http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2010/ND/feat/cosg.htm

Dear Family,

“How easy and delightful life might be if we could do this, if when we had attained the position we wished, we might rest on our oars and watch the ripples on the stream of life.”

--Laura Ingalls Wilder, “Little House in the Ozarks: The Rediscovered Writings”

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Classes are in full-swing, here at Sara University. Some of my graduate courses, like “Healing the whole family,” and “Starting to Learn Who Your Child _Really_ Is,” and “Organ Meats 101,” are not part of any major I ever thought I'd pursue with such passion.

Dear Family,

The Wise Traditions Conference was a bit more than simple propaganda, inspiration, and meeting great people--it was also validation for this massive, challenging, unpaid job that Jeff and I have been doing. It was a chance to meet “colleagues” also in the “business” of healing their families, and who were willing to share honestly, reserve judgment, and laugh in a friendly sort of way when I--former-life-long-vegetarian that I am—approached the buffet tables at mealtimes with a mixture of disgust and delight and intellectual curiosity.