Edgar Allen Poe and AS3

Part of Poe's lavish and vivid description of the attendees and the 
goings-on at a masked ball during a terrible plague which is sweeping the 
country--
"There was much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre,

something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have
excited 
disgust."
--from: THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH.

It struck me as a rather apt comparison to this environment-- with its 
constant tides of love and humor, its occasional eddies of temper, its 
eclectic mixture of gentlefolk, spammers, trolls, enlightened souls,
beloved 
dinosaurs, pompous ****heads, and unrepentant funsters. All of us with
masks 
in place, everybody mingling at this strange, never-ending party as we try

to avoid the plague of tobacco.

No? Or maybe that's just my take.