Thanks for the kind words. There's a reason why critical ethnographies like fireflySun.com are rare. The academic community is so homogeneous and so closed, that it seldom makes the mistake of admitting into a training program someone like myself with the propensity for generating different slants on things. The selection criteria, which has a good ol' boy appreticeship quality about it, is largely social in nature, and there is enormous pressure on the applicant not only to have views similar to those of the faculty, but also to have demonstrated mastery of the standard operating procedures by publishing or co-publishing research as an undergraduate. So few independents like myself get in the door. (I'd reveal how I did it, but it would reveal affiliations and, by extension, my own identity). Once you are in the door, selection pressures give way to socialization pressures. It is at this stage where minor, non-deal-breaking wrinkles and imperfections are ironed out, which is more a process of addition than subtraction (i.e. subtraction usually amounts to withdrawing students). So a reinforcement system, a system of rewards and penalties, mold you in a series of approximations into clones of professors. Contingent on your slavish compliance and imitation is membership in a professional community and access to its generic sources of validation, guidance, and for the most part, identity. The vampire's bite has now had its full effect, and you surrender your individuality and humanity in exchange for immortality (tenure). Some students are forced out along the way, but many more are simply not let in. This reduces the number of hurt feelings. Many students go on to get their PhDs, far too many to ever be granted an interview for a tenure track position (i.e. job in a university). In effect, their careers are amortized into a string of adjunct teaching jobs in what amounts to the university's sweat shop.