You can't tell anything to people who don't want to listen. Especially those 
who stick their fingers in their ears and loudly chant la, la, la whenever 
somebody questions their beliefs. Very few of you have been around long enough to 
remember that notmilk.com's Robert Cohen was kicked off this list (not by me) 
on three separate occasions for being abusive against anyone who refused to 
speak evil of milk. Other zealots have appeared since, convinced that milk is 
the source of all ills, based on whatever beliefs that anti-milk web sites have 
led them to take as facts.

But there are facts and there are beliefs, and while the dividing line 
between the two is often hazy the extremes are clear as a sunny day.

I hope that people will continue to use the list in the valuable way it's 
operated for all these years, sharing daily experiences and hard-won knowledge.

If you post absolute nonsense, though, even if you try to dress it up with 
vague references to "a doctor told me" or with medical-sounding goobledygook, be 
aware that someone - probably me, but just as likely someone else - will call 
you on it. Absolute nonsense isn't hard to recognize, and it's impossible to 
defend. We've all seen that. 

If you want solid information on the way milk works in the body, there are 
people on this list who have true expertise in the subject. If you want to check 
what a doctor said, or worse, didn't say, lots of people here have been 
through years of struggle. If you just want to trade recipes, you'll be deluged 
with them. Whatever you want to ask or share about living with or without milk, 
somebody can help. The list waxes and wanes but always is available.

Just don't try to tell people that black is white, or that black is harmony 
and white is cinnamon. We're not buying.

Now I hope we can put this behind us and get back to the business at hand.

Steve Carper