If you look in here often, and I hope you do, you might have noticed that comments are now disabled. That's because so many ninnies were spamming these hallowed pages with nonsense posts trying to get their idiot spam sites crosslinked. It didn't work. I set "must approve" for all comments at the outset, so none of the garbage ever saw print - except a few that auto-posted for an hour or so last week after the blog's host kindly upgraded the blog software. It took a little while for me to redo the settings and remove them.

Later in the week, I boiled over at spending so much time trying to keep back the increasing number of spammers, and extinguished commenting entirely. You can still comment, and you're welcome to do so, but you have to send comments to me in an email. Just use the "Contact" tab at the top, and do the usual thing in the screen that appears. If anyone ever wished for anarchy, the Internet is their wildest dreams come true.

Sad, sad, that it's come to this. I so wanted this to be an open forum, where I hold forth and everyone is perfectly free to agree with me in comments. Or not. I can't spare the time to police it, however. Even though the updated software has a collection of automatic spammer deleters, abuser identifers, repeat offender blockers, and other niceties. Would that the Internet were a place of civilization and decorum, like once upon a time was Congress and tennis courts and the Olympic Games. Tennis before McEnroe's notorious rages, Congress before a certain idiot South Carolinian's recent outburst, and the Olympics before Harding.

I played tennis and loved it - not professionally, of course - years ago, when players in the downtown courts in North Augusta congratulated opponents on good shots and miraculous saves. I tuned out of tennis when the McEnroes of the world - and there have been plenty - argued with the officials, threw tantrums, and reduced the game to a street brawl with nets. With the Olympic Games' sports commentators trying their best to fire up nationalistic emotions, and succeeding, I watched curling - mostly with the sound muted so I wouldn't have to listen to the commentators' drivel. It's not a game I fully understand, but it is interesting, with strategy, skill, and a bit of luck thrown in. During one of the finals, the commentator suggested that a team's best choice would be to run down the clock. Don't take any shots, just stall, to keep the lead and win the medal. To her credit, the other commentator acted offended. "That would not be sportsmanlike," she said, and "A curling team would never stoop to such a tactic." I'm paraphrasing. Consult the tapes for the exact quotes. Someone always has tapes.

Now, if I'd been justly and thusly chastened in public on national television I'd move on to another subject, fast. But the first idiot persisted. "It's all about winning, and that would win!" Somebody please turn this dummy's microphone off, or reassign him to the ice hockey rink. And do give the other commentator a medal, the Jay Gross Award for Appreciating Sportsmanly Behavior Despite All Adverse Indications.