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ONE of the distinguishing things about Blogcritics, something that makes it very different to old school mainstream media, is that we're all available, contactable and interactive.
We have some great writers and personalities here, both on the editorial side and the vital wider writer community; it's great, thrilling actually, to see them actually interact, through the Comments, with our readers.
The articles posted on BC, although complete in themselves, are like the opening remarks in a conversation; sometimes formal, often irreverent, rarely dull. If you want to shoot the schnizzle about your favourite new band, game, TV show, sport and movie or get seriously political over the hot button issues of the day, THIS is the place to come.
"The comments are what make Blogcritics a community." Eric Berlin
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"Have I said recently how I see comments as kind of the heart or psyche of BC? No? Well, I see the comments as..." Christopher Rose
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"I take comments moderately seriously" Dave Nalle
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As an immigrant, there are always many little adjustments to be made, some obvious like language or money, some unexpected and unforeseen. Making my new life here in Southern Spain has forced me to shed a lot of old skin and learn just how arbitrary are the seemingly natural ways of things.
One timely example, this Monday 12th December 2005, with just twelve days til Christmas Eve (or Noche Buena, "Good Night" as they call it here) is the giving of gifts, which in Catholic Spain doesn't happen until the 6th of January, the twelfth day of Christmas!
The Comment of the Day for today is from our own Matthew T. Sussman, who added the following Comment #15 to the Why Happy Holidays Is a More Respectful Greeting Opinion piece penned by Purple Tigress, who prowls the streets of Hollywood.
Political correctness is a very sincere intention. It's trying to suck any possible connotation that would offend somebody.But should the standard of PCness be "offend as few people as possible?"
Because in 10 years, will "Happy Holidays" be offensive to atheists like Michael Newdow who celebrate nothing in December?
So will our PC phrase then be "Happy December?"
But maybe that will be offensive to sadists and machochists who dont' want to happy, they feel pain.
So maybe our PC phrase will become "Have an enjoyable December?"
But maybe there's a group of people who don't like December.
So maybe our PC phrase becomes "Have an enjoyable month, whichever you choose?"
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Scott Butki
I love this idea of highlighting a comment of the day.
2 - reggie von woic
So Christopher, do you really go through ALL the messages to come up with the comment of the day?
Must be challenging
3 - Phillip Winn
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!
4 - Christopher Rose
The main difference is that the Fresh Comments page is easier to read... cough, new design, cough.
5 - Alisha Karabinus
Whichever tool he uses, Christopher is obsessive about the comments and we're so glad. :)
6 - Matthew T. Sussman
So, just to keep score:
Sussman Comment Awards: 2
Sussman Editor Picks: 0
Got the hint, BC managementarians.
:-)
7 - Aaman
Yep - Suss is good when he comments on others' posts, but his own don't have that scintillating wit:)
I joke, I joke!
8 - Christopher Rose
he's very modest though...
9 - Scott Butki
I'm the opposite - I need to focus less on writing good pieces and more on writing good
comments.
:)
10 - diana hartman
vielen Dank Herr Rose!
(Thank you very much Mr. Rose!)
11 - uao
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.
12 - RogerMDillon
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.
13 - uao
...and it's better researched than #425
14 - Christopher Rose
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.
15 - MDE
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.
16 - uao
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 :)
17 - Christopher Rose
uao: Did you read my message?
18 - uao
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.
19 - RogerMDillon
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.
20 - Matthew T. Sussman
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."
21 - Christopher Rose
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*
22 - uao
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.
23 - Christopher Rose
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.
24 - uao
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.
25 - uao
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.