title: Read in a file and skip the header portion of a text file in Python
body: <p>I've taken a book in text format from gutenberg.org and I'm trying to read in the text, but skip the beginning portion of the file, and then use a process function I've written to parse the rest.  How can I do this?  </p>
  
  <p>Here is the start of the text file.</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt; The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana, by Vatsyayana
  
  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
  almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
  re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
  with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
  
  
  Title: The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana
         Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface,
         Introduction and Concluding Remarks
  
  Author: Vatsyayana
  
  Translator: Richard Burton
              Bhagavanlal Indrajit
              Shivaram Parashuram Bhide
  
  Release Date: January 18, 2009 [EBook #27827]
  
  Language: English
  
  
  *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KAMA SUTRA OF VATSYAYANA ***
  
  
  
  
  Produced by Bruce Albrecht, Carla Foust, Jon Noring and
  the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
  http://www.pgdp.net
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and my code that currently processes the whole file.</p>
  
  <pre><code>import string
  
  def process_file(filename):
      """ opens a file and passes back a list of its words"""
      h = dict()
      fin = open(filename)
      for line in fin:
          process_line(line, h)
      return h
  
  def process_line(line, h):
      line = line.replace('-', ' ')
  
      for word in line.split():
          word = word.strip(string.punctuation + string.whitespace)
          word = word.lower()
  
          h[word] = h.get(word,0)+1
  </code></pre>