StuartO)))'s New Writeups

We gotta get out of Des Plaines! (personal)

2013-04-25T16:35:53Z

Many of mankind's most enduring civilizations thrive in close proximity to rivers and lakes. We have always attempted to harness and tame Nature for our own purposes, yet our ways of life have always been shaped by her rhythms and by her temperaments. For example, in Indochina, wet rice cultivation is possible by channeling rivers into networks of terraces and many live in stilt houses to protect them from periodic flooding. Man's original highway for trade and transportation has been over water and some of history's great clearing houses, such as Venice and New Orleans, were built as close to the water as possible. The former city sits upon ancient pilings set into the marshland hundreds of years ago. In neither city will one encounter very many residences with basements.

There is another great center of transportation, also built upon reclaimed wetlands, that is not readily thought of in this same attribution as Venice, New Orleans or Singapore, not even by the people who live…

Editor Log: April 2013 (log)

2013-04-21T17:54:12Z

I first discovered Everything2 through a hit on Google which led me to riverrunâs writeup on Bhagavan Das. Months later, I became enamored with the content of the website and I felt the exciting urge to contribute something. Not just any old thing, but something that I had experienced first hand, something that I felt with passion. A passionate subject that should be shared with the world. I wanted my readers to not only know what I was writing about, I wanted them to care as deeply about my subject as I cared about it. Just as importantly, I wanted to write it well. I wanted my subject to be well researched and well-written. Since then, I have written many different things. Not all of them I have cared about as deeply. Yet, when writing anything, I try to judge what I am writing about from the perspective of our readers on E2 and I ask myself two basic questions: "What am I reading about? Why should I care?"

Lately, I have been…

E2 Bugs (thing)

2013-04-14T21:13:48Z

I cannot see a draft in another user's drafts even through this user says it is set to "public".

Instead of the usual "user has no drafts visible to you" it says, "htmlcode 'htmlError ' raised compile-time error:" Readily reproducible when trying to look at user A.M.Gulenko drafts, others. My info:Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 10.0; Windows NT 6.2; WOW64; Trident/6.0; ASU2JS) stylesheet:bookwormier

Vulva Original perfume (fiction)

2013-04-09T20:08:09Z

On April 9, 2013, at approximately 02:15 local time, a fire broke out in a warehouse district in Dhaka, Bangladesh which resulted in one of the most brutal and bizarre sweatshop tragedies experienced this year. In a country known for mistreatment of workers, and a widespread negligence of safety regulations and fire codes, even hardened anti-sweatshop campaigners, such as the Asian Human Rights Commission have been shocked and appalled by an operation which literally harvested the vaginal secretions from hundreds of women. As shocking as this revelation was, it took a horrifying deadly blaze which claimed the lives of dozens of "donors," to shed light upon this sordid business.

The company which sells "Vulva Original" advertises their product to be, "The intimate scent of a beautiful woman." Yet one witness, who declined to give her name for fear of disgracing her family, describes the dehumanizing shame of what it is like to work as a…

February 23, 2013 (log)

2013-02-23T22:13:58Z

I am back at it again.

When I last wrote about my involvement with Roller Derby, I had given up announcing and my wife, Virginia "Demon Cleaner" Tilton, had left the DuPage Derby Dames to skate with the Rockford Rage following a meltdown over fallacious allegations of misconduct. Virginia's stay with The Rage was brief and she left on good terms to work with a new league only half the distance to Rockford.

Actually Virginia's involvement with her new team, the Barbed Wire Betties of DeKalb County, began while she was still with the Dames. The Betties was founded in June of 2012. From the onset, Virginia helped to train the Betties every other Friday or so. When she left the Dames to join the Rage, she had to stop her training with the Betties as their practice days were the same.

Now Virginia is training and skating with the Barbed Wire Betties three times a week. In…

February 3, 2013 (log)

2013-02-03T17:28:46Z

Attachment is suffering. Desire is Pain. I desire to be left alone. When that desire is thwarted, witness the pain I inflict upon myself.

I open my eyes this morning and find myself alone in bed. The overcast winter morning illuminates the room in a soft dull bluish light. The bedclothes are warm and invite me back to slumber, but several nagging realities wake my reluctant mind: the aching of my full bladder, an uncomfortable tightness in my chest as I had forgotten to take my asthma medication before I went to bed, the gentle whining of the dog in his crate. A thankfulness registers in my mind that it is Sunday and that's my company issued Blackberry has not rung during the night. Still, I do not feel at ease.

I look up at the alarm clock on the headboard. 7:14 AM. I turn my head look to my Blackberry, I pick it up. I press a button and the screen appears. One message and several Facebook alerts. I check the alerts first, barely reading them dismissively. I…