>If I  am subscribed  to a  list as  LDW@USCMVSA, and  USCMVSA's nodentry
>contains :Internet.MVSA.USC.EDU, which path is my mail going to take?
 
It will  be routed to the  closest LISTSERV to USCMVSA,  and delivered to
the mailer  on that machine  with a hostname of  USCMVSA.BITNET; whatever
happens from that point depends on  the mailer, presently it will deliver
via BITNET, if John changes this behaviour it may do something else.
 
The  :internet.  tag is  used  in  the other  direction,  ie  if it  sees
MVSA.USC.EDU it will route the message  via DISTRIBUTE to get as close to
USCMVSA as  possible, and finally deliver  to the mail with  the .USC.EDU
address.
 
  Eric