My Trouble with Chicken

This week, I watched the new Frontline called "The Trouble with Chicken." about the largest salmonella outbreak in U.S. history. It's also about Big Chicken and how unregulated it is. I've written here before about my obsession with and worries over industrial chicken. They partly come from the fact that there was a chicken processing plant beside my middle school, where my grandparents had worked, and when you drive to school on a road paved with chicken guts you think a lot about where your food comes from. Of course, that chicken plant has closed since then, and it's almost impossible to make a living as a chicken farmer in my hometown any longer. I've written about the issue for a long time. Here is a piece on how industrial agriculture fought new rules that would have made the industry more fair to individual farmers, and another on how they fought them again. This explains how it hurts farmers. This explains how the Obama administration decided to let poultry producers be their own inspectors. Here is my to-read list: a book on how America's food system was taken over by a few big companies by a New America colleague, and another book about the unrestrained growth of those companies.

What I'm Writing:

A column about all of the people of West Baltimore who can't vote.

What I'm Reading:

The cool thing about being a writer is that sometimes you get to read books and call it work. The downside is, sometimes you have to read crap books. It makes finding time to guilty-pleasure read one of my favorite detective series harder. Sometimes your agent reminds you of a book you always meant to read and forgot to. A former colleague and talented journalist Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux profiles Mary Koss, a sexual-assault researcher who is a lonely champion for a controversial third way of dealing with campus sexual assault. Here is a survivor who now feels she might have benefitted from Koss's type of program. The fascinating true story of a global drug market, parts one and two. Making sense of the MOVE bombing 30 years later.

What I'm Listening To:

Matthew Crawley Dan Stevens reads Murder on the Orient Express. And because one old-fashioned murder mystery wasn't enough listening material to cover my long walks, David Suchet reads Death on the Nile.

What I'm Watching:

The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is so sweet I almost couldn't stand it. Luckily, it's very funny, too. Get ready for the theme song to stick forever in your brain. The Mindy Project is dead, long live The Mindy Project. Rest assured, date night this weekend will involve Pitch Perfect 2, and maybe we'll kick it off with an encore viewing of Pitch Perfect. I will likely also be dragged to see the new Mad Max: Fury Road for payback, but at least it looks really good.

Cute Animal Pick of the Week:

Mimi loves Sean Brock. Get in line, Mimi.