I want to take this opportunity to thank those of you who have been reading this blog faithfully. I can’t express how much I appreciate having the audience. The overall site traffic numbers have been increasing steadily, much of it being visits by previous viewers, which apparently means you aren’t sick of me yet. The only downside to this is that the spam comments I get have increased. It used to be one a week. Now it’s more like two a day. The spam has grown as the amount of site traffic has grown, so I guess I should consider increased spam the cost of writing posts that people seem to want to read. But I’ve had enough of it and I won’t put up with it any longer.

Because of the spam, mostly from Russia (we introduce them to capitalism, and they use it to give us spam), I am changing the comment feature on my blog. Your comments will no longer show up immediately — they will have to be approved first. I apologize for the inconvenience this might cause, and I really do not want this to limit your interaction with me on this blog. Please trust that as long as you’re commenting on an article and not trying to sell something, your comments will be approved. I check my e-mail pretty frequently, so you shouldn’t have to wait long. Hopefully after I have it like this for a while, the spam will stop, then perhaps I can switch comment approval off, but we’ll cross that bridge if and when we get to it. (Note: another option is to make people set up an account and log in in order to comment. I don’t like that option, as it makes it harder for people with mobile devices, but if others think that’s a better way to go, I’m willing to listen.)

On another note, I apologize for not posting as frequently lately. Work has been hectic and I am also frustrated by the fact that most of what I have been writing about has been looking at issues from a critical and often rather negative perspective. I don’t like to think of myself as a negative person, but apparently that’s what’s been coming out here lately, and I don’t like it. I need to work on that… Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts.