I spoke with Jerry Large of the last newspaper in Seattle still standing a few days ago (before the flight attendant pried my iphone out of my hand) for his column, “Appetite lost for "The Omnivore’s Dilemma" at WSU,” about the continued interest in my bailing out the WSU “Common Reading Program” after it bought 4,000 of Michael Pollan’s book, "The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” and then canceled his campus trip due to costs. As I said to Mr. Large:

He [me] said he didn’t think WSU was reacting to outside pressure: "I said this isn’t something they would do, Floyd and the board. I was on the board for 10 years." WSU said it was a matter of money, so "I said, let me just cover the cost and let’s move forward," Marler said.

With the thought of airplane food in mind we had a chat about my thoughts of food policy gathered over 16 years of suing nearly every major food producer in the world – at least once.

"We have to rethink how we produce food," he said. That’s why he wanted to support a discussion of Pollan’s book, which deals with issues of safety, environmental impact, sustainability.

"In 16 years of doing this, I can count on one hand how many times (food-poisoning cases) have been linked to foreign products and I can count on the other hand how many times it’s been linked to locally produced food," Marler said.

The bottom line:

"Most of the cases are from mass-produced food shipped across state lines."

Anyway, back to thinking about writing a book.