THAT DAMNABLE SPAM CATCHER

I have removed the "spam catcher" from this site.  This time you have my good friends Stafford Ray from Australia and Steve Glossin from Germany to thank.  When the "robot detector" isn't there, I get some guy, or machine, or algorithm, trying to put meaningless comments on my posts.  Since I have my blog set up to send me each comment by email when it comes in to the blog, I get them . . always from "Anonymous".  But it turns out they never make it onto my blog because the all-knowing and all-powerful Google intercepts and quarantines them.  So I guess the small problem I have of deleting the emails is worth a lot less than the grief some, if not all, of you gentle readers go through trying to decipher those mystery words.  So thanks, Ford and Steve, for gigging me to do it.  Come, read and comment, my friends, no more barriers.

Sheesh!  For just a second there I was sounding like John McCain.  That's not a good thing.

As I said recently, I've been slowly reading through a book my wife gave me for Christmas.  It's selected writings done for Rolling Stone magazine by the late Hunter S. Thompson.  This afternoon, while simultaneously watching Tiger Woods take over the lead in the Arnold Palmer Invitational, I was reading the section where the evil Richard Nixon finally gave up the ghost and resigned the presidency.  Thompson reports that a few weeks later he was wakened out of a dead (and no doubt drug and alcohol induced) sleep by a telephone call from Dick Tuck in Washington screaming that Gerald Ford had just pardoned the Trick.  Hunter said he went into panic mode because his story of Nixon's demise was due at the magazine in 24 hours and 15,000 words were already set in type.  The good doctor's version had Nixon sure to serve time in prison for his various crimes as President.  And now that was all excised by Gerry Ford.

Well, it's a good story as only Hunter could weave one.  As a true blue Nixon hater, I know I read it when it came out in the magazine but it did my heart good to peruse the words again.

A true blue Michigan State alumnus and fan who is a friend of mine was in Phoenix last night watching Louisville trash his team in the NCAA tournament, ending their year with only a Big 10 championship.  I was interested that he wrote bitterly on Facebook of Louisville's "aggressive style of smashmouth ball."  I was doubly interested because the New York Times this morning wrote how Louisville "beat the Spartans the way the Spartans beat other teams for years.  It bullied the perennial March bully, staggered the usual tournament tough guy..."  I guess a true fan can only see it one way.

Maybe that's why I prefer the gentler sports.  Golf.  Baseball.  Politics.

And by the way for those of you concerned about our godawful snow storm last weekend - it's all gone.  Actually it was pretty much all gone by Thursday as a high pressure system once again dipped into Arizona and the temperatures rose to the upper 60's.  Spring has returned.