I love this idea of highlighting a comment of the day.

So Christopher, do you really go through ALL the messages to come up with the comment of the day?

Must be challenging

As Comments Editor, Christopher has access to a tool which makes it a little easier to read all comments.

Come to think of it, you can visit the Fresh Comments page and get almost the same thing!

The main difference is that the Fresh Comments page is easier to read... cough, new design, cough.

Whichever tool he uses, Christopher is obsessive about the comments and we're so glad. :)

So, just to keep score:

Sussman Comment Awards: 2

Sussman Editor Picks: 0

Got the hint, BC managementarians.

:-)

Yep - Suss is good when he comments on others' posts, but his own don't have that scintillating wit:)

I joke, I joke!

he's very modest though...

I'm the opposite - I need to focus less on writing good pieces and more on writing good
comments.
:)

vielen Dank Herr Rose!
(Thank you very much Mr. Rose!)

On the Fatima one, I'm going to say that #435 may prove to be the most enduringly useful comment (though perhaps I'm biased). But I'll graciously bow to two-time winner Al Barger.

I'll agree that it it is a fine literary souffle. I just hope some will glance at #435 and understand where that souffle comes from.

It isn't quite as amusing as I'm sure we'd all like it to be.

So the comment of the day from Al is his comment about how good someone else's comment was.

I still don't understand how you judge these things.

...and it's better researched than #425

uao: Regardless of your bias and welcome as your enthusiasm is, your comment - fine as it indeed is - was posted today and therefore could not be chosen as Comment of the Day for Friday. And this is Al's first CotD, it's the second time the article and the comment author were the same. Sorry for the ambiguity.

Roger: What can I tell you? I'm English and just have a funny way of looking at things. Have you read any of the articles and the comment streams they generate? There's a lot of extraordinary writing on this site from both the url'd up BlogCritics and the ID unverified commenters. In this case the comments have surpassed the original article and it seemed worthy of, well, comment.

uao: re #11 - Metaphorically speaking, if she uses her obsession to keep her eyes upturned and focused on the devine she might make it through the rest of this incarnation with some degree of serenity - as she did last time

I do appreciate your #435 and the work you put into it.

Thanks MDE. I really was trying to help on all fronts, and it did take time.

And your first point here is kind of what I'm hoping, too.

Thanks again :)

uao: Did you read my message?

Christopher Rose:

I wasn't suggesting that I wanted "Comment of the Week Distinction". I didn't.

I just don't think Al was very sensitive to the person who made his thread a good one, and your slipping in your pick right under a difficult post that I thought might help this woman, or her family, or BC to champion Al's blithe self-satisfied remark kinda bugged me.

Damn right he owes thanks.

She's an artist. And head trauma victim and childhood abuse survivor. If we go by her own words.

I woulda rather you had decided against nominating Al twice in a three week span and found some other deserving commenter (not me) who hasn't won your prize.

Yes, I do read the articles and comments, but, and this isn't a knock on Al, there wasn't much to that specific comment. All he was saying was how good he thought Mary's previous comments were. Comment 423 by Al in the same post is better, but I understand its the Christopher Rose Comment of the Day, and leave it at that.

I don't know if there can be a set of criteria for "best comment." Since Chris is pretty much the enforcer below the Amazon belt, he's probably looking for a good cross section of thoughtful, powerful, concise and memorable words, because comments are what separate Blogcritics from CNN.

That and traffic.

If I were making judgments I would hide behind the definition of pornography as my own policy for picking the best comments.

"I know it when I see it."

As well as,

"Whatever makes me ejaculate."

Roger: I was quite tempted by #422 as well but I finally chose the one I did because it had the necessary restraint I was looking for in the flow of words I wrote. Al also made the point that Mary's writings were a "fair literary souffle" which I thought worth highlighting in the context of the the overall mania of her work. I do regret your righteous indignation but remain unbloodied and unbowed.

uao: I repeat, Al has only had one CotD. ONE!!!!!! And I already said your remark, written TWO DAYS LATER, is great. And it's Comment of the DAY, not week. Sheesh. *wanders back to Comments cubbyhole*

I realize that now. Al has one win, twice it was an author commenting on himself. I still think it was a remarkably insensitive pick, when you have literally thousands to choose from.

Comment of the day, week, whatever. I protest your choice, on grounds that it elevates Al on the basis of quipping about a troubled woman who is trying to communicate with us as best she can, and who has obviously survived an abusive, and harrowing life.

That you don't understand this point I'm making makes me think that taking a comment out of its context and lionizing it should only happen after decades have passed.

Becasue as witty as your pick might be, it came at the expense of a real, living woman who is hurting, and she has expressed in very frank, and often well-educated language the demons she is facing.

Give the prize to her, then, if she's responsible for Al's satisfaction.

We're just miscommunicating here, I think. Sorry if I seem testy, but after spending the hour it took to piece together her story, I feel a tad protective about her further exploitation.

Nothing personal in all this, but this is just how I feel about it. Why humiliate her further, whether she's conscious of it or not? I'm sorry.

uao: Sorry for belabouring this but I only get about 400 to 700 comments a day, not thousands.

I am not yet convinced that Mary reborn literally is not playing with us all or is genuinely unwell. Her own website seems quite linear and coherent so maybe this is just an artistic temperament flexing itself. She's got a fierce temper though, I expect she'll tell me off (again) herself if she's miffed.

Nonetheless, your comment obviously took a lot of work to put together and I appreciate the good and noble sentiments behind it.

Incidentally, for those who have not spent time among persons who have suffered acute head trauma (and I spent a couple of years among a group of them, in a job capacity), they sound precisely like Mary does.

She is lucid, cannot put things in chronological order but remembers the dates, has a tremedous detail for names and places in her life.

Shared her deepest secrets with us about her family and her children and her abusive first husband and abuse she suffered at different times in her life.

With literary detail and knowledge of language she described her head injuries.

Her religious devotion is usually the deepest part of the brain in the truly devoted; that hold on the longest.

Her artwork on her page is textbook head-trauma rat, which often resembles staring into a dark tunnel or vortex from a precipice.

She really was an artist, she came from a musical family, where piano was passed down.

She bore three children.

There, but for the grace of absence of acute head trauma injuries and a religious upbringing, go us.

Her story is very compelling, dramatic reading. You have to wade through a lot of repetition, asides and insults (some of which are literary and astute), and spurious, deluded, head-trauma induced self-absorption. But it could be a novel, and someone may well write it.

She deserves any literary accolade this honor implies...

And that's my last thought on this. SOrry to start a fuss, I don't usually do so.

And her website is not "coherent". Obviously, she can use a computer well enough to post things.

Just read what she's telling you. It's all in there. And try to understand head injuries.

SHe's not playing with you; of that I am sure. And her demons are very real to her.

Oh, and if she is a fake, she still deserves the honor.

I thought if I picked one of her comments it would seem as though I was mocking her. Al's was both a little funny and a little respectful, without actually tagging her. I thought that would lead people to the source where they could make up their own minds as to what is actually going on...

Gosh, Christopher, all I wish is that you could have picked a different comment, maybe from a fresher article and fresher face, and left Al and Catherine alone. Especially posting your announcement when you did (although the thread has been silent since then; maybe you did the right thing?)

It would have seemed chivalrous to skip it, if nothing else.

But okay, difference of opinion on this one. I'll crawl back into my cubby, now. Sorry again.

;-)

Gee UAO, what's your beef with me? And why do you say that I was quipping or mocking Mary Reborn Literally? I was quite sincere in praising her literary merits, and rate them myself as more interesting than my original modest article.

Nor should you be making assumptions about what MRL "really" is about. I don't know if she's a head trauma victim, just putting us on- or if she is in fact the re-incarnation of the mother of Jesus.

If she were asking for donations for a tv ministry, I might become more overtly skeptical, and demand some evidence and such. As she's not seeking power or money, I'm more inclined to politely take her at her word, though I'm obviously agnostic as to her divinity.

This here also is a most excellent comment from me, and should be the comment of the day for Monday- except ol' UAO would have a heart attack in a fit of jealousy, so probably better not. It's not worth a life.

Sorry Al. I didn't have a particular beef with you. My beef was more with the pick and its timing, and I apologized to Christopher in your thread, and I'll apologize to you here in his thread.

If it had been anyone else who said the same thing, I would've still beefed.

Congrats on your win, hope your comment wins you another. No jealousy here, I promise.

It's alright, UAO. I don't know that this was particularly my most insightful comment ever, certainly not the longest or most involved. Monsieur Rose seemed primarily to be pleased with the exact TONE of how I'm taking to and about MRL. I'm pleased that he picked up on it.

My original point in the story was, I thought, significant- but not especially complicated. Simply, I was intending to cast doubt on my own doubts. I intended that it might be a good jumping off point for some theological/scientific discussion.

MRL, however, has taken it to whole different levels, with all the prophecy and judgment and scriptural stuff. It's really something.

Mary - How do your last five comments have ANYTHING to do with this post?

Are you going to bomb THIS thread too? Do you have enough grip on reality to understand that none of the posts or conversations on Blogcritics are about YOU?

Personally, when you start ranting on these posts, I think your comments ARE spam, and should be deleted.

Christopher, what's the policy on a deluge of comments from a single person that are totally unrelated to the post?

Bombtracks or not, I dig this line of hers:

"Unlikely that I called down five UFOs and was seen telling them to go back, that I am not ready yet."

That's some fresh imagery. I suppose all of the comments we read here at BC are themselves glimpses into sociology, as much as they are a discussion of a specific topic.

She has some excellent one-liners, and a way with a scathing putdown; only you've got to wade through a house of mirrors to find them.

But just like with a slow kid, if you keep talking about her, she will expand her base of operations to other threads; she's already infected a few others, but they didn't take.
This guy decided the best way to deal with her was just shut down his guestbook.

I still feel sorry for her, but obviously she won't go away, and ultimately, someone's going to have to decide what to do, should she start branching out.

She doesn't work; so she has all the time in the world...

I think I'm going to focus on doing a blog entry today; I keep feeling compelled to say things to her, and I know that probably isn't smart.

After some discussion backstage, the current thinking is to allow Cathy to, er, sub-let Mr Barger's Fatima article but delete any comments she makes elsewhere that are off topic.

I'd like to leave the three comments above in place to mark her passing from this post if that's okay with you three.

Cool, I think that's a fair and just idea. I'll stop baiting her. It's this damn weeklong vacation at home; idle hands y'know...

Fine idea, and my thanks to the Management for coming up with a compromise solution that works for everyone.

Now about those B5/Pretty Ricky threads...

Good picks.

Commenting on comments...that is meta!

But here I've just commented on the commenting of comments, which is really meta.

And if I was to comment on your comment commenting on comments? Would that be comment-tree?

w00t...glad to see this butt hole has gotten hosed...

my guess is that we have Phillip to thank for it, but i don't care who

death to -spam-bots-!!!

Excelsior?