I have not posted here before, since I have only just returned from a trip to visit family -- my niece graduated from college, my brother played Willy Lohman in Miller's "Death" and did a very, very good job at it thank you, and various other matters of lesser joy.

So I read the first page of this, said to myself, "Well, it's Max's ball, glove, bat, and baseball diamond" and have only decided to post now. And, this will be the ONLY post I make here.

1. Shambles, this is not Hyde Park corner. This is and has been a moderated (in your words, censored) forum. You have no more "right" to "free speech" here than you would sitting around the family table at home. Many times I have started to read your posts and bogged down after the first paragraph. Frankly, I find them only slightly less dull than pornography or the old "National Union Catalog." I have never finished any of them. You have one drum and one drumstick and you beat it without rhythm or let up, like a child with a wooden spoon and saucepan.

2. The 'Cat changed during the last couple, since I joined it back in what? '02? I have tried to bring some silliness and humor (or humour, for those who don't spell correctly) to it after reading too, too much bashing in "serious" threads. I hope that it has helped lift some of the gloom-and-doom atmosphere, to help others "lighten up." These are serious times, but that does not mean that we have to go around constantly beating on each other. Even in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia there were jokes, and history has shown that laughter is one of the things that tyrants fear most.

3. A healthy discussion is give-and-take, listening as well as talking and responding to what others have said. It is NOT vituperation dumped upon the head of someone who disagrees with you (contrary to what the so-called "National Debates" would lead you to think).

4. I suggest that before you post your opinion you should be ready and willing to back it up with dispassionate, objective facts -- and these are NOT necessarily found on a website that agrees with you. Try reading -- dare I say it? -- books (you know, those old fashioned, non-digital things with pages and binding?).

And that is all I'm posting here.