Peter, Just a short note to thank you for your patience, and for helping take this initiative... [At 03:14 AM 3/5/97 -0600, you wrote:] >This will be the last post in this thread... that has long been overdue. I am sorry it went on so long, but guess I have a weakness for stepping in whenever I think someone's getting picked on unfairly. I'm just a sucker for the underdog. In any event, this thing had run its course with my own patience, too. Just don't have the time to deal with such ongoing activity, especially when it's primarily in the negative theme with which this "thread" seemed to exist. Doubt there was too much listening very closely to what the others were saying in the final debates. At least I didn't get the impression anyone at all got what I was trying to get across about there being room for all sorts of diversity of thought, strokes and approaches in this hopefully mutual effort to improve humankind's dietary beliefs and habits. Since the list you had before was called "veg-raw," when I first came aboard, but changed with the assumption of the new RAW instincto majority, during my traveling absence last year; and, in that my own feelings are admittedly pretty strong on the viability and ethical issues of the non-AF (animal foods) approach to dietary practices on this planet; I was obviously quite rapidly becoming a sort of festering anachronism and completely out of place here. Amidst all the charges of zealotry and fanaticism leveled at the NFL crew, I sensed a very strong current of the very identical zealotry and equal fanaticism coming from those making the charges against the NFL team being targeted! That's been my biggest disappointment with the list. I sincerely wish you all the very best and only hope that time will mellow the strong feelings of adversity towards the three young fellows who put out NFL. I may well be wrong, but seriously doubt it, however time will tell, won't it? I'm not arguing here that they (NFL) are without error, nor that you are...or, for that matter that I am, either; I'm simply saying that the level of maturity and tolerance I'd like to see on a list is so far a bit more attractive on the list that JR's set up, which is more my non-violent vegan venue, anyway. You should know that I received some messages from several lurkers on the list giving sympathy to my position, but, again, that position was never against you or my opponents or those of NFL...it was more against the lack of tolerance I encountered and the strong expressions of anger, if not even unmitigated hate I saw directed at three guys no longer even on the list to defend themselves. I repeat...the very same earmarks of fanaticism and zealotry of which the NFLers were accused of exemplifying. Martin Luther King and Ghandi demonstrated how powerful it can be to refuse to get angry, but to rather approach the enemy with love and understanding. This way they never endangered their own credibility by hypocritically engaging in the "eye for and eye" sort of mentality....and, more importantly, they got far more converts than they ever would have by attacking, victimizing and denegrating their adversaries. I think you'll agree that history has proven this to be true. If we rawists can't learn to get along with our own divergency of opinion; can't learn to treat one another with respect, then we're not going anywhere worth going, at least in my book. That's my opinion. If the NFL team has been guilty of this sort of hatred and anger, then this disappointment of mine is just as much for their consumption as for yours and those of my final few adversaries on your raw animal foods (instincto) list. Incidentally, have had some very rewarding fallout from all of this smoke and fire: A few of my early protagonists on your list have become great direct contact pen pals now, and for that I am very grateful to you and David. These former opponents have chastised me, and I them, but we moved ahead in a pretty swift balance of peace and mutual respect. It's great. Thanks! I trust that will be the case with us, as well. If you're the same Peter Brandt I knew when I lived in Malibu...who was from Germany and sold the dehydrated crackers and lived for a while in the hangar at Clover Field, then hi....and goodbye, for now. Love and best wishes to David, too, who I have known for many years from (my Malibu days). Cheers, Ric