Pet:
>    1. Since NFL plagiarized Hovanessian's book (was ATH a transplanted
> Armenian, and how long did he live?),  was the 40-year-old work as
> bad as the newer one? Did it have any substance?

Good question! Peter, Kirt ?

Pet:
> shamelessly plagiarized Redbeard (and Ayn Rand).  Might's morality
> seems well echoed by Wolfe and Arlin...                           Pet
>

Speaking of NFL, they finally did respond to the charges of plagiarism
on the raw list. I hope Peter does not mind me posting their response
here; jr is certainly getting testy about raw-food posts appearing in
raw.

Here is their response:
--------------------------------------------------------
Subject: response from NFL
Precedence: bulk

Gene and others,

Thanks for the time you took to put together your posts, but you don't seem
to get it.  You act as if we care about names, labels, or reputations.
Other people put names and labels on us, we are ineffable -- we don't give
a damn what this miserable cooked-food world thinks about our activities.

You ask for apologies?  I apologize for absolutely nothing.  A monkey in a
cage thinks I'm a coward, a baby with a rubber nipple in her mouth filled
with cooked cow's milk thinks I'm a coward -- and you want me to apologize
for raising some hell in this ridiculous world?  You want me to apologize
while kids are having bread, meat, cheese, soda, candy, medicine, and other
ridiculous eatables shoved down their innocent throats by their addict
parents?  You want me to apologize while cooked filth is being spewed into
my atmosphere, my environment, my planet?  How dare you.  Why don't you get
some guts and go against the grain every day like we do here.  Why don't
you get some guts and put all your energy into stopping some of the
sickening cooked shit that is destroying our environment?  You want
apologies???  No, in fact these new developments on these internet lists
have given me and my partners some new motivation to raise the stakes a
bit.

The bottom line is this: We don't play by your society's rules, and we
never will.  We do what we want to do and take what we want to take and
give what we want to give.  This world is full of cowards, and certain
individuals in the raw-food "movement" are obviously no different by any
means.  In fact, I've found some raw fooders to be even MORE superstitious
and complacent than the average unconscious cooked eater.

Regarding plagiarism, I once heard the inventor of Apple Computer,
billionaire Steven Jobs describe how he developed the GUI (Graphical User
Interface) system which became the operating system for Macintosh and in
turn Windows.  He took all those ideas directly from Xerox corporation --
they were totally plagiarized.  If he hadn't done that, no one would be
using the easy-to-use computers available today.  The key was, he was able
to market that idea to the world.  And you are all better off for it.

You want us to moderate our message on TV?  You want us to moderate and say
that cooked eaters are ok, that animal eaters are even better, that bread
is a panacea?  I think not.  You've only seen the tip of the iceberg
lettuce.

Burn bridges, not your food.

Stephen
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, that second to last paragraph appears to be as close as the NFL
came to actually admitting to plagiarism.

I responded to this on raw, questioning Stephen why, if they really do
not care about their reputations, did they threaten Peter with a
lawsuit for libel and slander, and why, if society's rules do not
apply to them, do they charge money for "their" book (a society thing),
why did they copyright it, and why did they threaten Peter
about posting selected portions of their copyrighted "work". We
have so far received no response, and I certainly don't expect any
more from them on this matter for now. jr and others have labeled
me as a "mailing-list terrorist", so I doubt that I can push the issue
there much any more for now . It was interesting while it lasted.

I think that there was some positive benifits to be had for these
revealations appearing on raw; a variety of people have now began
to question the viability of an all fruit diet, some have even
vocally distanced themselves from the NFL, and I have received a
good number of private emails thanking me for posting Peter's and
Kirt's findings on raw. Perhaps the raw-food movement will be somewhat
better off from these revealations being made available, and that
we can move forward.

So, they did not come outright and say "yes, we did it", and they
certainly did not show any remorse for it, but at least I sense
some closure in the issue. Ward, I thank you for your tremendous
initial efforts, Peter, for your detective work on the NFL book,
and Kirt, for your reinforcement to Peter's post.

I plan to keep an eye the appearance of zealotry on the raw list,
and will comment on misrepresentations and dishonesty as I can
(and as long as jr will tolerate me), but I will spare the folks
on raw any more venom on the plagirism issue, unless, of course,
the NFL invites me too (:

Regards,

David