Google is a deal breaker.  The less contact I have to have with them the better.

Ummm . . . 

I don't know enough about the technical details to be sure, Kurt, but . . . 

When those of us who use gmail reply to a post made by you, doesn't that put "them" in "contact" with you, to the same extent that would apply if you had made the original post from a gmail account used solely for this list (as Bruce suggests above)?

Perhaps even more so, since your "thepaw.org" address is included above.

If you were to use a gmail account to post, it would just be referring back to itself.