Pronunciation, and spelling

I've been doing some musing (OK, yes, and some fuming) about the link--or lack thereof--of spelling and pronunciation.

Sometimes, a line in a poem ends w/ a word that LOOKS like the word above it but isn't pronounced to rhyme with it.

The examples that have me fuming are the headlines that the NYPost sometimes runs (as you can tell from my "handle," I'm in NYC--Queens, to be exact) about Barack Obama.

They call him "Bam," and they seem to be trying to rhyme it w/ "Sam." I don't have any examples right now (but they'll come up, so I'll add one when I see it eventually). 

S'pose it would be too childish by far to vote for the candidates whose headline nickname will be least annoying?

I'm just checking to see how this works.

Did you know that the word "buff" (as in, a big fan) comes from the word "buff" meaning buff leather (which is an unfinished leather), and comes from the word "buffalo" (but not the American buffalo, also called a bison; rather, from European buffalo)?

That "buff leather" has also come to mean the color buff--a light tan.