Liza:
>It has been very useful to me to know whast the "party line" is, and to see
>and understand what the challenges are,  and where they come from.  All this
>foolishness and politics is actually helpful, since it has helped me to
>understand what biases and "axes to grind" come to bear on supposedly
>objective research.

Yeah, before internet it was very hard to get an overall view. The closest
there exists to an overview of the raw scene is probably Joe Alexander's
"Blatant Raw Foodist Proopaganda" which surveys some of the different
ideologies--now dated with little mention of RAF. Otherwise, each raw book
is pushing its own narrow slant and it seems certain people like to have a
"scripture" of some kind. With very little experience one can spot an
instincto, or a Ehret groupie, or a Sheltonian, or a Wigmore groupie--from
a cyber-mile away.

>I must say, though, that after reading these posts of the last two days, I
>wish that some of you veterans could have been around in the last few months
>of my experience on another couple of lists, where I have felt a little
>isolated and kind of running out of patience.

Ha! You were/are a bright spot on jr's list--that's for sure. Actually,
Liza, feeling kinda isolated and exasperated from exchanges with "flakes"
is all it takes for you to earn your "Veterans of Raw Foodism" badge--the
trouble being, of course, that who would want to wear such a badge ;)

>There sure do seem to be a lot
>of "flakes" around, and a lot of people who seem to use the unaccountability
>of the internet to posture as authorities on any subject and give a lot of
>advice.  It took me a little while to figure this out.

You seemed hip to it early on from what I could see...

>This seems to be true, from what I have run across on other lists.  But these
>people, or groups, appear foolish and I am sure will not have any big effect
>on a raw-food "movement" in any long-term way. Most people are smart and
>sensible enough to recognize greed and simple-minded theories.

That's what I always keep telling myself ;) But considering jr's raw list
it sure looks otherwise most of the time. I count the flake/sensable ratio
at _least_ 6 to 1 over there, with newbies popping up outta the woodwork
regularily. You might not know how unique you appear on that list ;)

><< Blatent plagerism, pedophilia, lying, bullying--sometimes it seems the only
>thing left unreported is raw skinheads and/or raw mass murderers. >>
>
>LOL!!  I think they're mostly too timid.  I once made the mistake of writing

That was no mistake of writing ;)

Seriously, if they are mostly too timid, then I gotta say I'm as frustrated
with them--those who hold silence in the face of NFL's tactics--as with
those who support their ways explicitly. If rawists don't want to be
represented to the world by the most vocal extremists then they'll need to
eventually stand up and be counted--not in anonomous suggestion boxes at
expos but in real time. They'll need to let NFL know en masse that they
don't speak for them. David's recent example is a start, as is your
continuing reasonableness...

><< It really appears that reason will not defeat unreason, especially in the
>arena of fringe diets. >>
>
>Some people are desperate to have a simple solution.  So what?  Don't even pay
>attention, once you see that's what they are lookiing for..  I delete those
>messages without reading them - I don't have enough time to bother with that.
>I wouldn't let foolishness like that bother me.

You appear to be suffering from my own brand double speak/thought ;) I
"should" be dismissing them. I "shouldn't" be frustrated. But there it is
regardless.

>There are too many people who
>have valuable contributions, or who are asking honest and intelligent
>questions, that could benefit from your attention!  Anyway, that's my
>attitude.

Well, there's always the archives ;) There are very few topics I haven't
piped up about to this list over the years, including a few posts I wish I
could take back. ;) And they are all in the archives with a great search
engine. The best part about searching the archives is that you'll get all
the different views on a topic from a couple years worth of posts--not just
from whoever is hanging around the list with the inclination to contribute
to a thread at the moment a question is asked.

Strangely, retyping that kinda stuff up everytime a standard question is
asked again seems less important than trying to stand in the extremists'
way a bit. But having been booted from jr's list <prideful beaming> has
been good for the soul. Actually the existence of that list probably
contributes to this list being so reasonable. The "flakes" have their home
and don't much muss up our neighborhood ;)

I do wonder sometimes though, what a reasonable newbie might think if they
only stumbled onto jr's list and never knew there were other lists, and
plenty of other rawists around. How embarrassing. :( ;)

Cheers,
Kirt