Copyright 1998 by Thomas E. Billings; all rights reserved. Contact me for approval for possible re-publication/cross-posting. Just a little background information on my absence from the recent Raw Expo in San Francisco. I did not attend because Rose Lee Calabro, the Expo promoter, personally asked that I not attend, as she said that David Wolfe of Nature's First Law (NFL) was threatening that one or more of the following might happen: 1) the Expo would be disrupted (attacks on the SF-LiFE table at the Expo?), and/or 2) someone (NFL?) might attack me. Consider the situation: you are running an Expo and someone coming to the Expo threatens to attack another person at the Expo. The decent thing to do would be to advise the person making the threats (NFL, in this case), to not attend the Expo, and/or to provide security guards and bodyguards. Instead, Rose Lee chose to indirectly condone the threats by NFL, by asking me to not attend. A major factor in her rationalizations was that NFL represented economic interest to her: they paid for a booth, and were a featured speaker. (Side note: I hear the talk by David Wolfe had zero content and was boring.) Frankly, NFL does not frighten me at all. They are well known as plagiarists - i.e, the book "Nature's First Law" is in fact a massive plagiarism of the book "Raw Eating" by Arshavir Ter Hovannessian; "Raw Eating" was published in English in Iran in the 1960's. So, one might deduce that the NFL gang is willing to engage in misrepresentation to achieve their goals, hence literally *everything* they claim - including claims that they actually follow a 100% raw vegan diet - is suspect. However, as NFL does have, in my opinion, the "energy" of hatred around them, they do attract people of similar mind. Thus although I personally gave no credibility to NFL's threats, there was a slight potential risk of harm from fanatical, hostile followers of theirs. So, I honored Rose Lee's request, not out of fear of NFL, but as a courtesy to Rose Lee. Instead, I stayed home and finished writing a major new article for the Beyond Vegetarianism web site (URL below). (No doubt NFL will dislike the content of that article. :-) Note that the article in question will be on the site when open, but is not part of the sample articles available now.) Now let's evaluate the situation: it appears that money counts for more than decency here; some rawists (e.g., NFL and Rose Lee) appear to think that making threats of violence is OK, so long as the person making the threats promotes the glorious raw vegan lunch, and represents an economic interest. Ask yourself: Are such people "selling" their honor and decency - virtue, in a sense - in exchange for a raw lunch? What does that tell you about such peopler? Also consider the overall tactics of the various extremists (the list that follows is a general list and not specific to NFL): plagiarism, denial of reality, the intellectually dishonest crank science promoted by various extremists (e.g., "humans evolved as fruitarians", "fruit is just like Mother's milk", etc.), vicious and hateful attacks on people who don't eat the "holy 100% raw vegan lunch" (such behavior is the dietary analogue of racism), harassment, bullying, threats of violence, and so on. I ask you: are such tactics the key to the long-term growth of the raw vegan movement? Or are they instead a guarantee that raw vegan will remain the "lunatic fringe" of alternative diets? The answer to this question lies with you, for if you support or condone raw extremists, you are supporting the kind of negative behavior listed above. I hope you will visit the new web site I am involved in; the URL is below. Tom Billings Beyond Vegetarianism http://www.beyondveg.com