ly monograph. That is because entrepreneurs,rnboth academic and otherwise,rnsaw a need and met it.rnEven before the university presses beganrnto abandon the work of publishingrnprofessors in dialogue with their fields, arnsuccession to the university press beganrnto take shape. In the study of religion,rnthe American Academy of Religion andrnthe Society of Biblical Literature sponsoredrnScholars Press, founded by RobertrnFunk a quarter of a century ago and thernprincipal academic press in the field today.rnOld-line scholarly houses, such asrnE.J. Brill in Leiden, took up the slack.rnLhiiversity Press of America found arnniche for itself Peter Lang did the same,rnas did Walter de Gruyter, Mohr Siebeck,rnSheffield Academic Press, Routledge,rnand many others. Their counterparts inrnthe social sciences include TransactionrnBooks, among many others. Few universityrnpresses today compete in breadthrnand coverage with these and kindredrnimprints. And, ridden as they are withrnpersonalities and sectarian politics, somernof the once-distinguished universityrnpresses —Harvard, California, Columbia,rnand Princeton, for instance —turnrnout in the fields that I follow sub-standardrn—sometimes even weird —titlesrnthat attest only to the political clout ofrntheir faculty sponsors. But others, Chicagornand Yale, Johns Hopkins Universityrnand New York University, by contrast,rntake pride in solid and intellectually distinguishedrnlists.rnIn academic publishing, no onern”killed the book,” which thrives.rn—Jacob NeiisnerrnSt. Petersburg, FLrnOn EnvironmentalistsrnAs an environmentalist with fourrndecades of observation and experiencernwith The Cause, I would like to respondrnto Chilton Williamson’s May columnrn(“What Do Environmentalists Want?”).rnI think most citizens (and environmentalists)rnwant a safe, clean, long-lasting, biologicallyrndiverse, and desirable place tornlive. Even, eventually, a populationrnmore in balance with what our resourcernbase can sustain over the long haul. Thatrnis not now the case. Most of the environmentalistsrnI know would commendrnChronicles for its principled stand againstrnopen borders policies and are in a tizzyrnover the pecksniffery of the Sierra Club’srnargument that the United States is obligatedrnto be the Lifeboat of the World.rnWhether we live east or west of thern100th meridian, we environmentalistsrnwant safe water, thriving forests, and productivernsoil; more tiuth from miners, loggers,rnranchers, realtors, and recreationists;rnand more responsibility from Exxon,rnADM, Monsanto, reporters, Bruce Babbitt,rnAl Gore, and the now over-politicizedrnGreens.rnI haven’t asked my colleagues, but Irnpresume they would think that the polluterrnshould clean up his own mess.rnMost think that the worship of consumerrngoods that delights Wall Street is decadentrnand leads to a dead end. We thinkrnthat it is a radical act, not a conser’ativernimpulse, to dump filth into a river or tornpollute the air with no concern for thernconsequences. We admire WendellrnBerry, Ed Abbey, Aldo Leopold, WallacernStegner, John Muir, and others who ponderedrnsuch questions.rnLike Solzhenitsyn, we are not impressedrnby Al Gore’s promise of a technocraticrnnirvana, by the arrogance ofrnhumanism (wonderfully exposed byrnecologist David Ehrenfeld), or by thernliars for modernity and progress whornkeep telling us that every day the environmentrnis getting better and better.rnLike the Southern Agrarians, we haverna vision of what a decent world oughtrnto be.rn— David TillotsonrnLake Milk, WlrnCULTURAL REVOLUTIONSrnJ O E CAMEL today, the PillsburyrnDoughboy tomorrow. Who didn’t knowrnthat they wouldn’t stop with tobacco?rnAnd who didn’t know that Yale would bernin the vanguard of the next wave of shaking-rndown politically incorrect companiesrnwith deep pockets?rnResearchers at Yale are now advocatingrnthat junk foods be slapped with a “fatrntax.” Our “toxic food environment,” saysrnYale professor Kelly Brownell, director ofrnthe universitv-‘s Center for Eating andrnWeight Disorders, is seducing us into arn”diet that is high in fat, high in calories,rndelicious, widely available and low inrncost.” Writing in the journal AddictivernBehavior, Brownell and Yale graduaternstudent Katherine Battle contend thatrnthe government should subsidizernhealthy foods and hike taxes on “unhealthy”rnfoods that are high in fat andrncholesterol.rnOn top of our kids “being blitzed withrnmessages to eat more,” some 95 percentrnof the food commercials that the averagernchild sees are pushing sugared cereals,rnsoft drinks, fast food, and candy. “As arnculture, we get upset about Joe Camel,”rnBrownell asserts, “yet we tolerate ourrnchildren seeing 10,000 commercials arnyear that promote foods that are every bitrnas unhealthy.” The solution? “Junkrnfoods advertisements should be regulatedrnand excise taxes imposed on high-fatrnfoods just as they are on tobacco and alcohol.”rn”A whopping 7 percent of Americansrneat at McDonald’s on any given day,”rnsays Brownell. And worse, enticed byrn”value meals,” we’re swayed to chowrndown a “supersize” pile of fries alongrnwith our Coke and Quarter Pounders.rn”McDonald’s stated goal is to have nornAmerican living more than four minutesrnaway from one of its restaurants.”rnJoining this New Puritanism isrnMichael Fumento of the American EnterprisernInstitute. “The United States isrnthe fattest industrialized nation onrnearth,” says Fumento, with about threefourthsrnof us now “certifiably heavierrnthan prime health dictates,” up 12rnpounds per capita, on average, sincern1988. Fumento traces some of thernweight gain to the growth of variousrnfoods. McDonald’s hamburger, for instance,rnstarting out at 3.6 ounces, grew tornthe Quarter Pounder and then to thernArch Deluxe at 9 ounces. Butterfingerrncandy bars, beginning at 280 calories,rnsurged to 680 calories. Food stores, too,rnonce neighborhood mom-and-pops,rngrew into supermarkets and then intornmassive super-warehouses where we canrnload up on three-pound boxes of Cheerios,rnsweet relish in six-gallon jars, andrnAUGUST 1998/5rnrnrn