Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I wish this meta-discussion would take place elsewhere.  It's really off-
topic.
  

    

I thought the interview was over
  

    

I have hidden <230> and asked indra to either repost it without chanson's
words, or get chanson's permission to include.
  

    
I am not permitted to quote from the ravings in the WELLmembers-only
News topic because it is apparently "against the intent of YOYOWs", but
here is a reply I just made, from which you can perhaps deduce the
tone and content of what I was responding to:

"You lot really surprise me. Why wouldn't you want to have Kevin
Mitnick talk on here? If I had a system like the Well, I'd love to
invite people like that, who've had such bizarre experiences.

"Also I challenge any of you to point out the *real* harm - not just
the puerile, meaningless insults - in anything Geno wrote. By contrast,
there seems to be real malice in here, a real desire to hurt.

"You are livid, so enraged, about Geno's coprolalia, but someone in
News referred, if I remember right, to the Bhopal postings as a "sob
story". This would be beneath contempt if it weren't so un-sane.

"Truly the only sane way to respond to you is to keep laughing."

------------

I don't think the News discussion is being misrepresented. I've now
had emails from about four people telling me they've been
electronically lynched in there for being positive about this
interview. All this is marvellous material for the follow-up book that
I have half-planned, more about which later.

As for my earlier post, which was hidden, here it is again with the
offending quote (apologies to YOYOWs!!) removed and paraphrased
instead.

--------------------


Thanks to <wjamesau> for #228. That's where all the bitching and
mithering about this topic is going on, safe in a WELL-only conf where
you can't read it. 

Here's some stuff I posted in there:

     news 2528: News from Around the Well (6/1/1999+)
     #1254 of 1256: Indra Sinha (indra) Fri 05 Nov '99 (02:17 AM)

So this where you're all slagging off inkwell.vue topic               
 52, safe where the outside world can't see you. Hahahahahahaha!

I wish you'd said all this there, given Geno and I a chance to
respond. But don't worry, I guess the WELL is safe enough from
barbarian attack, cos you can pull up the drawbridge, hide behind
the palisades, and peep out from time to time to see if Geno's 
out there.  

The interview ends today and I am desperately behind with my new
book (fiction, set mostly in India, not a word about modems,
cyberspace or anything of that sort) so I don't have time for it
any more anyway although I'll look in from time to time.

I did suggest to Cynthia some days ago that she might just like to
scrub the whole topic :), but she didn't, so there.

Thank you Cynthia, David, Reva, for putting up with me and my guests
for the past fortnight. You can relax now.


        --At this point I had quoted from someone called <chanson>
who had suggested that the, allegedly, worthwhile bits of this
interview could be extracted and posted separately, without the dross.
According to Well rules I shouldn't have quoted the person without
their permission, sorry for that. But you have the gist. I replied:
     
   #1256 of 1256: Indra Sinha (indra) Fri 05 Nov '99 (02:38 AM)

Hey, inkwell.vue hosts, please don't take <chanson>'s suggestion.
Who's going to decide which are the "worthwhile posts"? Take my
word for it. On their own, there are *no* worthwhile bits. 

The interview should be read as a whole, garbage, puerility and all,
because that's just how it is. The whole point of my fucking book is
that by editing reality to suit our preconceptions, by editing out the
pain and aggravation and anything that disturbs us, we also
cleverly manage not to see things like Bhopal, and then when
something opens our eyes, we say "Oh dear, I didn't realise it 
was happening".


Boy, they *fucking hate* us! :)

I love it! Geno, you're a star. My dear old mate, never change, never
die. You're one of the few sane creatures in this insane world.
  

    
            I still remember the night
         the gas leaked. I was sleeping with my three children 
         Nazma, Shareef and Iqbal beside me. I woke up with a panic
         because it felt like some one was choking me. The room was
         filled with pungent smoke. I thought some one was burning
         chillies to ward off the evil eye. The smoke got heavier and
         heavier. My husband and children too got up and started
         coughing. The children were groaning that they could not
         bear it. So we carried the children in our arms and joined
         the surging crowd outside, all trying to get away. People
         were running blindly. Many were falling down. By then my
         eyes had become so swollen that I could hardly open them. I
         had my dupatta covering my eyes. I was carrying four year
         old Nazma and my husband was carrying Shareef who was six
         and Iqbal who was two years old. I had gone a little
         distance when Nazma started  making gurgling and choking
         sounds. I pried my eye lids open and saw there was froth
         coming out of her mouth. I looked around but could not find
         my husband. So I went inside the nearest house I could spot
         and asked for some water for Nazma to drink. At around 2 in
         the morning my sister's husband who was on duty at the Union
         Carbide factory came looking for us. He too was in a bad
         condition. He told me not to stay in the house because the
         gas was still leaking and it was getting thicker and thicker
         inside the house. But I could not go anywhere so I spent the
         night with the family. In the morning my eldest brother came
         to fetch me. He took me to the dispensary at the Carbide
         factory. There they put some drops in my eyes, that's all.
         My husband who had been looking for me with the children
         also reached my brother's place. After four days we went
         back to our own home. The children could not keep any food
         in, they were vomiting all the time. My eldest son Shareef
         died after three months. We tried everything to save his
         life. Took him to different doctors, spent a lot of money
         but he didn't survive. Three months after that I gave birth
         to a son. We named him Yosouf. He was born sickly and had
         strange looking yellow coloured eruptions on his neck. When
         he was about a year old, I was still breast feeding him, he
         died in his sleep. Another daughter was born to me -
         Shahbano. She too was sick all the time, we lost her too. 
         My son Iqbal is not growing properly, he is 16 years old now
         but looks like he is 10 or 12. My  husband used to carry
         cement bags before the gas, but he hasn't been able to work.
         Both of us have this burning in the chest. We went to
         different private clinics as long as our savings lasted.
         Doctors charged 50 to 100 rupees for every visit. When we
         had no money left we had to go the government hospitals. But
         visiting government hospitals was so tiring and it seemed
         like a waste of time. The doctors there would write down the
         medicines we were supposed to take before we even finished
         telling them about our problems. The tablets they gave me
         made me feel worse.
  

    
Forgot to mention, that story was told by a woman called Hajra-Bi.
This is the story of a man called Jewan Shinde.
 
         I used to be an
         autorickshaw driver  and around 12.30a.m on the night of the
         disaster I was driving through Bharat Talkies going towards
         home. I suddenly started feeling really hot. At that time I
         could not see any signs of the gas or the turmoil of
         afterwards. I got home and went to sleep not thinking
         anything more. Around 2.30a.m I suddenly awoke to find that
         my quilt was on the floor despite it being a winters night.
         Outside there was screaming and shouting of 'bhago, yaha se
         bhago'. ("Run, run away from here".) There used to be a food
         inspector who lived opposite our house and I could hear his
         voice outside. From inside the house I shouted asking him
         what was going on. He shouted back that gas had leaked from
         Carbide and that I should not open the door. By this time
         smoke had started seeping through from under the door. That
         was when the coughing started. I, my wife and my two sons
         (aged 4 & 6 at that time) felt as if we were choking.
          
         
         It felt like someone was
         burning chillies. I got really scared and out of fear I
         opened the door. Outside everyone was running, screaming,
         nothing could be seen - the thick fog hung everywhere. It
         was clear that we were being poisoned - the stench of
         rotting potatoes was strong. I took my family to the
         landlords house who stayed one door away. The gas filled
         their house also. 14 people, my family and my landlord's
         family then all climbed into my autorickshaw and I started
         going towards new market. I, by mistake took the wrong road
         - instead of going towards the cantonement, I headed through
         Qazi Camp. Everywhere there were people running, vomiting,
         men and women wearing almost nothing. The cloud still hung
         thick. Many people tried stopping the auto and begged for
         space, but what could I do? Driving through Qazi camp I
         started to feel faint and I thought I would lose
         consciousness. My landlords wife, Rama Devi kept saying
         'himat rakho, is gadi ko bahar nikalna hai'. ("Have courage,
         we've got to get this vehicle out of here".) 
         
         Terror had filled me from
         within. Street lamps looked as if they were dim candles
         burning. Peoples screams and shouts dulled by the thickness
         of the gas fog. By the time we made it to Kamla Park it
         seemed the gas was over. I then took my family to South T.T
         Nagar where someone known to Rama Devi lived. 
         
         I then tied a wet muffler
         over my mouth and went back into the city to find out what
         had happened. If I had known how poisonous the gas was then
         I would not have gone. I can not tell you what state people
         were in. Almost undressed. I saw an old woman at the
         government offices in a sari blouse and shorts just sitting.
         Bodies strewed the streets.

            At around 4a.m a man
         stopped me and asked me to take him to the station. I told
         him that all trains had stopped. But he insisted. We got to
         the station. Five corpses lay on Platform five. The man saw
         this and ran. 
         
         All night I roamed in my
         auto. Picking up as many people as I could, those who fell
         against my auto and dropped them wherever I could. The roads
         were full of people. The stampede of the dead and living.
         Police vans were roaming blaring 'evacuation.' I saw a dead
         buffalo, twice the usual size. Its tail stuck straight up
         into the air. 
         
         At around 6 a.m. I made it
         back to my house in Teela Jamalpura. The whole colony was
         desolate, apart from a few people who had not run. Most of
         them were vomiting outside their own homes. I opened the
         door of my house and thick gas started coming out. I left
         the door open and ran again. 
         
         I made it back to South
         T.T Nagar where my family was. By the time I got home my
         eyes were swollen and were red like tomatoes. By 10.30 that
         morning I took my wife and children and went back home.  I
         will never forget what I have seen.
  

    
This is the story told by Jubeda-Bi

            On the night of the
         disaster I had come with my husband and children to join a
         feast at my brother's place at Quazi Camp. We were coughing
         badly and I thought we will die. Then we found an auto
         rickshaw and the driver took us to Jehangirabad. We coughed
         and vomited all the way and our clothes were soiled. My
         daughter Shabana was four years old and she almost never
         stopped coughing since that night. She died after seven
         years. She used to get breathless and had pain in her
         stomach. No medicine worked. We spent so much money on the
         treatment of my daughter and husband there was hardly any
         left for other expenses. My husband too died with similar
         problems. My son Mehfooz Khan, thank the Lord, is physically
         okay. But something has happened inside his head. He is
         sixteen now but does not do any thing just sits in one place
         all day like he is lost somewhere. My other son Majid was
         one year old at the time of the gas. He has stomach problems
         all year round. A daughter, Rehana was born to me four years
         after the gas but strangely she has similar problems like
         us. She has fever all the time and her limbs get stiff and
         has spells of vomiting. 
         
         The gas has changed our
         lives in so many ways. After my husband's death I started
         working as a house maid. I get only 100 rupees a month but
         they give me food too. Earlier we would have new clothes
         more than once a year, now we get to wear new clothes once
         in two-three years. The children used to go to private
         schools buying new books every year. Now my son goes to a
         government school and there is no money to buy books. 
         
         
         I am really tired of
         taking medicines. Every time I take some pills in my hand I
         get in to a panic that I have to put them in my mouth. Even
         otherwise I get sudden panic attacks. My knees hurt a lot
         and my back aches all the time. I went to the government
         hospital and took treatment for a month there. But it didn't
         do me any good. Then my sister told me to go to Sambhavna
         Clinic. At Sambhavna I was treated with massage therapy. Now
         I can walk freely, though I am yet to be able to lift any
         weight. I am till under treatment and am hopeful that I will
         get alright without having to take any medicines.
  

    
            I do embroidery work with
         my three sisters Shabana, Paribano and Abida. We bring jobs
         home. Our eldest sister Farida used to work with us too. She
         died in '93. She remained ill ever since the gas, she used
         to cough a lot and complain there was burning in her chest
         and pain all over her body. My father too is very ill. He is
         a tailor but he can hardly work. Last week he fainted while
         at the sewing machine. We had to rush him to the hospital.
         One of my brother sells vegetables and one is a tailor. My
         brother Afaq has mental problems, he gets irritable at the
         slightest thing and some times becomes violent. We took him
         to the hospital several times but he was not getting any
         better. They say we should take him to private clinics but
         we don't have money for that. 
         
         My eyes burn a lot and I
         cant see properly. There is burning in my chest and pain
         too. Sometimes I think it is better to die than live with so
         much pain all the time. A year after the disaster, I was
         seven then, I fainted in the middle of the road and a
         motorcycle went over my head. But the army man who was
         riding the motorcycle was a good man. He took care of my
         treatment. I was unconscious for two months. My head still
         hurts at times. I also had a back problem. For a long time I
         could not do any work, couldn't even walk some distance.
         When the pain was too much to bear my mother used to heat a
         brick and place it on my  back, that and some light massage
         would ease the pain for a while. She also took me to the
         hospital. I had to take a handful of medicines and an
         injection every day. The pain would be manageable as long as
         I took all these medicines and if I stopped the pain would
         come back. Then one of my aunts told me about the Sambhavna
         Clinic. The doctor at Sambhavna told me to go for massage
         therapy. I am still on massage therapy and most of the pain
         is gone. I can now walk freely and am able to work. I don't
         have to take any medicines.
  

    
            I was just eight days old
         and still in the hospital when the gas leaked. My father who
         was with me then, told me, doctors put me in a glass box,
         but I still got gas in my eyes and through my breath. My
         father also got hit by the gas. My mother and elder sister
         and brother were at home. They did not run away, all night
         they stayed under a thick quilt. My mother went out to see
         what the commotion was all about and she got quite badly
         affected. She coughs all the time and gets fever often. Her
         body aches and she has pain in her hands and legs. My father
         has pain in his stomach. After the gas I they kept me in the
         hospital for about 15 days then all of us went to our
         village.  
         
            I study in fifth grade.
         Early this year I had gone to my grandmothers place. We had
         gone for two months but then my uncle broke his leg in an
         accident so we had to stay longer. When I came back they
         won't take me back at school. I liked going to school. I
         used to study Science, Hindi, Social Science and English.
         Most of all I liked studying science because you learn about
         how the body works and how things work. When I grow up I
         want to become a science teacher or a doctor. Most of all I
         want to become a good man. 

         I like playing cricket. I
         think the Indian team is the best in the world and Sachin
         Tendulkar is the very best. Azharuddin and, Nayan Mongia and
         Saurav Ganguly are pretty good too. When I play cricket I
         cant make many runs because I get breathless when I run and
         my chest hurts. I would like to watch cricket on TV but I
         cant because my eyes hurt and get filled with tears when I
         watch TV. My eyes hurt when I read. My friends too have all
         kinds of health problems.  I have many friends but there are
         about ten with whom I am closest. 
         
         We live right across the
         Carbide factory. So many people in our community are sick.
         So many have died. And people are still dying after they
         have been sick for a long time. People cant breathe
         properly, they often have fever, aches and pain in their
         stomach. Men and women have become weak. Lot of people can
         not go to work. 
         
         I do not know who is the
         owner of the factory. One of my neighbours told me they used
         to make poisons to kill insects in the factory. I think no
         body should make poisons. Why kill insects, or rats or any
         other living thing. They have their life and we have our
         own. Why kill? The poisons from the factory have come into
         our drinking water wells. There is poison all around. 
         
         Some people in my
         neighbourhood remind me that I stayed alive even though I
         was so small while so many people died. They make it sound
         like I brought on all this on the people. That makes me
         really sad. 
  

    
Only one other human being has ever called what happened in Bhopal a
sob story -- and that was an official of Union Carbide. 
  

    
            She died at 6.45 in the
         morning of 31st October, 1996 in the TB Hospital. She was
         four years old when she was severely exposed to Carbide's
         toxic gases. In the interview her mother gave she recalled
         "That night my little daughter was vomiting all over the
         place and soiling her clothes over and over. She was
         coughing and gasping for breath and crying that  her eyes
         were on fire.. She was very ill for over a week and we
         thought the worst was over. A few months later her problems
         worsened and she would get acutely breathless and bring out
         sputum when she coughed. She  continued to have burning
         sensation in the eyes. She got weaker and weaker and was
         wheezing all the time. She lost her appetite for food and
         stayed depressed all the time. Then we spotted streaks of
         blood in her sputum. We took her to different doctors and
         hospitals but her condition did not improve. She vomited a
         lot of blood before she died." The medical records available
         with her mother show that Raisa was admitted at the JLN
         Hospital on 7.8.'96 for 20 days with complaints of
         breathlessness, cough and anxiety attacks. Chest x-ray
         report dated 30.10.'96 from the TB Hospital mentions
         "Bilateral infiltration with cavity formation left mid
         zone". 
         
         All three doctors in the
         assessment panel in the Sambhavna Clinic's Verbal Autopsy
         project have opined that Raisa's death is attributable to
         her exposure to Carbide's gases and the injuries caused to
         her respiratory and neuropsychiatric systems. In their
         opinions tuberculosis was a complication that arose out of
         the injury caused to her lungs.
  

    
         We were sleeping
         peacefully that night. I got up to find the children
         vomiting all over. First I wondered whether it was some
         thing they had for dinner. Then I too started vomiting. Soon
         all of us, my husband and me carrying the children were
         running towards Lily Talkies. My three year olddaughter
         Nazma had swelled up so much like she would burst. We took
         her to Hamidia hospital. We stayed with her at the hospital
         for 15 days and then the doctors said she would not survive.
         We were feeling so utterly helpless because there was no
         doctor around who knew how my baby could be saved. She died
         on the fifteenth day. My husband Rafique owned a watch
         repair shop. After the gas he suffered the most in our
         family. He would need to sit under a fan. His mouth stayed
         open and he had those violent coughing bouts. Often he would
         cough blood. He was admitted to Hamidia hospital for three
         weeks and then sent home. Soon after early one morning at 3
         am he started vomiting and it would not stop. So we took him
         back to Hamidia. After a month of his being in the hospital
         the docotrs said now take him home we can't do anything to
         help your husband. I had bitter arguments with the doctors
         but finally brought my husband home. Then a Red Cross
         hospital was set up near our house. One month he took
         treatment there and then the doctor there said these drugs
         are not doing you any good, you might as well stop taking
         them. So I took him to the government's Shakir Ali hospital
         but the treatment there did little good. Though we were
         supposed to get free medicines the doctor there said if you
         want to get better medicines you should buy them from the
         market. One morning the doctor wrote a prescription and I
         worried all day about where to get Rupees five hundred to
         but all the medicines. My husband died the same evening at 4
         o clock. Meanwhile we had had to sell off the watch repair
         shop at a very low price. I went to the claim court with my
         husband's medical papers but the officials there said you
         have to get the "04 form"filled. They told me to come later
         in December ('92) But by then the city was aflame with
         Hindu-Muslim riots. I was not able to receive any
         compensation for my husband's death nor for my daughter
         Nazma's. My daughter Salma developed strange symptoms. She
         would itch all over her body and get round blue marks as big
         as a rupee coin. I took her to Hamidia then to Shakir Ali
         where they told me to take her to Indore. Bu then she was in
         a very bad state. She had high fever and her tear drops were
         red coloured. Also she complained of her head aching all the
         time. I took her to the government hospital in Jehangirabad
         where even after four months of regular treatment there was
         no improvement in her condition. Then I took her to a
         private clinic. They told me right in the begining that
         Salma's treatment will be long and expensive. I had no money
         left so I brought my daughter back. But then her condition
         worsened and I went back to the private clinic. At the end
         of her treatment Salma was only slightly better and I was in
         debt for Rs 50, 000. Till today we have not been abler to
         pay back all the money. Finally Salma got treated at the
         Sambhavna clinic where with Ayurvedic treatment she got much
         better. I too have been very sick after the gas. I do not
         remember falling sick before the gas. To keep the home fire
         going I did all kinds of jobs- sweeping, washing dishes and
         every kind of hard labour. My vision is blurred, I loose my
         balance while walking, I get very breathless and get panic
         attacks. When I tell my problems to the doctors at the
         government hospitals they say you are just making all these
         up. 
  

    
         I was two years old at the
         time of the disaster. Most of what I know about it is from
         what my mother has told me. We used to live in Quazi Camp
         then. My mother tells me, when the gas struck her she
         thought some warehouse that stored chillies, had caught
         fire. The room we were sleeping  got full of gas. All of us
         my mother , father my little brother Mubeen who was only
         eight months old and me all were coughing and vomiting  and
         we could not open our eyes.  My mother threw away the covers
         because she was feeling so hot. Outside people were shouting
         "Run Run"  and their was the noise of lots and lots of
         people running past our door. My mother wanted all of us to
         join the crowd that was running away towards the city. But
         my father stopped her, he said if we die, we all die
         together. So my mother held on to Mubeen and me and sat next
         to the open door thinking the wind will carry out the gas. 
         Instead more gas got in . My mother says her throat got so
         choked  she could not even cry out and groan. Father was
         huddled in one corner. Mubeen's stomach had swollen like it
         would burst. In the morning our uncle took us to the
         hospital and for eight days I had a bandage over my eyes.
         That's what my mother tells me. She says next morning the
         beds, clothes, walls and every thing else in the house was
         covered with  an oily film. 
         
         I study in 10th standard
         at the Government Girls School. I like maths best because it
         makes me think, use my head. Other subjects one can pass
         just by cramming but not maths.I want to be a lawyer when I
         grow up and I hope my parents don't get me married before I
         become one. When I am doing maths or reading a book   I have
         to stop every  few minutes because I my eyes begin to hurt
         and they water. As far as I remember I have always had pain
         and burning in my eyes. Some times I get black outs. Also
         some times like even when I am walking, all of a sudden I
         feel panicky. Breathing becomes difficult and there is a
         pounding in my heart. I have to sit down. I have very
         painful periods. My mother has to give me hot fomentation.
         Even with that the pain gets unbearable. I dread my periods.
  

    
         I was ten years old when
         the gas leaked. In our neighbourhood there was a house where
         snakes had built their nest. The people in the house used to
         burn chillies to drive away the snakes. On the night of the
         gas when all of us woke up coughing and gasping for breath,
         the first thought that came to our mind was that it was the
         snake cure gone awry. We opened the door and saw a great
         number of people all rushing past. Soon we came to know that
         it was gas coming from Union Carbide's factory. My father
         said " Lets not run away, because we will surely get
         separated from each other in this crowd and darkness. If we
         have to die at least let us die together". All of us were
         coughing and vomiting and it was getting more and more
         unbearable. My grandparents had come for a visit, they too
         were in a miserable state. We opened the door after about
         four hours. In the morning we went to a tent that had been
         set up on the roadside and got some medicines from there -
         eye drops and pills. But these were of no use. My four year
         old sister Asha died three days after the gas.

         My father used to work in
         a sweet shop making sweets. Ever since the gas he can hardly
         work. There are times when he thrashes about all night like
         a fish out of water. Most days he stays in bed. My
         grandfather used to get very breathless and cough a lot. he
         suffered  this for four years till he died.</FONT>
         
         <P><FONT SIZE="-1" FACE="Courier">I got married when I was
         seventeen. My husband used to live in the same
         neighbourhood. He is a carpenter but can work for hardly
         fifteen days in a month. He has cough, pain in the chest and
         can not see properly. He was not given any compensation
         because he could not present his medical records. During the
         Hindu-Muslim riots of 1992 his parents' house caught fire
         and all the papers got burnt. My parents could not get any
         compensation for the death of my sister and grandfather. The
         judge asked for papers, but who was thinking of papers three
         days after the disaster. The officials said that my
         grandfather did not live in Bhopal and we had to provide
         documents to show that he was with us on the night of the
         disaster. 
  

    
This interview is over.
  

    
[reposted from news]
On the Well, words are a kind of psychic blood.  Before
 dismissing that as the conceit of a sheltered class,
 consider it in a larger context.  Some disadvantaged
 people are willing to kill each other over the lyrics
 in rap poetry.
  

    


For all of Lizabeth's whining, she really would have gotten in so much
trouble had she read the book a little closer. She attacked me first
after I made an almost harmless remark about her sexual perferences.
She talked a lot about flaming but she didn''t seem to be able to
deliever anything but "...I'll go take my toys and play somewhere else!
<whine> <cry>..." The reasons Wellers are such horrid flamers
is that they actually take this shit seriously. 



-Jesus
  

    
This was, I thought, a very perceptive review about what I was trying
to achieve by mixing up realities, and demanding that we not edit out
the contentious and uncomfortable from our experience.

http://www.cplus.fr/html/cyberflash/98-99/BOL/livres-sinha.html

The interview is officially over, but I'll be back from time to time
-- hell I want to know how David and Patricia Chaplin-Loebell's dinner
at Girasole went. I also have one other thing from the book I want to
post.
  

    

This "sob story" bit is pretty embarrassing, but I want to point out that
only one person said that.  The vast majority of us are quite impressed with
what has gone on in this topic.

The number of people offended by the slutfucker's postings is pretty small,
too, for what it's worth.
  

    

For the record:


Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 18:15:36 -0800 (PST)
From: Christopher Hanson <chanson@well.com>
Subject: Reposting my post from news 2528 to to inkwell.vue

Elizabeth, David:  Thanks for letting me know about this.  In general, I
don't haved a problem with my posts in public or unrestricted independent
conferences being posted elsewhere on the WELL.  The world-readable aspect
of .vue conferences may force me to rethink that, but in this particular
case it's okay.

Indra:  It's okay to leave that post with my words in it unscribbled, but I
would suggest in the future that you request permission before posting other
people's words in a .vue conference.

Chris







Accordingly, I am unhiding <230>.
  

    
David, thanks. You're right. It is weird how this discussion has yawed
and veered wildly from one theme, one emotion, to another, through
these two weeks. I feel as if I've been stunt flying a Foxbat. Thanks
to you, Reva, Lizabeth and Cynthia for putting up with me and the
friends I asked along.

NB: A word to the wise. I'd like to say that though I love Geno like a
brother, and defend his right to be himself in the context of a
discussion about my book, he should probably be discouraged from
leaking into other topics. 
  

    
It's been an intteresting ride, for sure!
  

    
<tnf>
Thank you for not hiding or scribbling posts here;
for me, and for many others, this has been an exhilarating, magic,
sad, funny, vulgar, accepting and humane few days.

(indra)
Your book arrived to-day; thank you for writing it.

Nár laga Dia do lámh  
  

    
Well, I did scribble two posts in this topic...
  

    
never spotted them!

Anyway, you left the great bits untouched!