Save the text of a comment before you try to post it!

...in case there’s a problem

By Moristotle

A reader emailed me this morning, “I wrote a comment on...and hit preview, and my comment vanished!” And his wasn’t the only such email.
    In fact, I had a few minutes of very unusual activity surrounding my own initial attempts at commenting this morning. (Blogspot is only human.) But everything cleared up shortly and I was soon back in business, posting comments again with no problem at all. I didn’t even have to re-enter the initial comment, because I had saved it to the pasteboard before I clicked to preview.
    Always save the text of a comment to the pasteboard before clicking to preview or publish. And do it when commenting on other websites as well. It’s easy to do (especially after developing the habit), and it will save you from frustration and rework.

Copyright © 2021 by Moristotle

A caution about spam comments

Do not click on their links!

By Moristotle

Microsoft’s international take-down of the Necurs botnet, reported Tuesday in the NY Times, doesn’t seem to have solved the problem Moristotle & Co. have been having lately with spam comments trying to entice us to visit malicious websites.

SURVEY: Tell us how you read & comment on Moristotle & Co.

To help us improve

By Moristotle

As a follow-up to yesterday’s announcement and our invitation for readers to join our community, we have designed a survey to collect reader feedback on your practice of reading & commenting on Moristotle & Co.

How to locate a post's comments

There are several ways to locate a post's comments

By Morris Dean

Recently someone wrote me that he had received an email notification of a comment and he wanted to respond to it, "But now, after an avid search, I can't find the comment on the blog. How do I find it?"

Moristotle needs your help

The editors of Moristotle are always thinking of ways to expand our readership and encourage readers to add their comments. We've had many ideas. For example, featuring regular columns that we think will attract readers, and sharing post links on Facebook and Google+.

What's in it for YOU?

In a comment on Monday's post, I made the following offer, which I repeat here in the hope that a willing believer (or nonbeliever) will see it and would like to take me up on it:

Anyone, believer or non-believer, who would like to share what you believe (or don't believe), you are invited to do so in a comment here. And tell us what's in it for you, if you'd like to try to put that into words.

Another way of asking "what's in it for you" might be:

What is it about your beliefs or nonbeliefs that makes your life better?

Boldest comment yesterday

Comment #518, by HPLeft of Brooklyn, New York, on William Kristol’s October 6 New York Times op-ed piece, “The Wright Stuff”:

The phrase “God damn America” goes back at least as far as William James, a far greater intellectual than anyone in Bill [Kristol]’s failed but dangerous movement, in the aftermath of revelations of US atrocities in the Philippines during the Spanish American War. To criticize America when it is responsible for wanton acts, the kind that Reverend Wright likely has first-hand knowledge of, is the soul of patriotism. In contrast, to spin away responsibility for crimes against humanity and democracy, as Kristol and his like do every day, is the soul of treachery.

HPLeft was referring, I suppose, to the concluding paragraphs of Kristol’s column:

I pointed out [on the phone to Palin] that Obama surely had a closer connection to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright than to Ayers—and so, I asked, if Ayers is a legitimate issue, what about Reverend Wright? She didn’t hesitate: “To tell you the truth, Bill, I don’t know why that association isn’t discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country, and to have sat in the pews for 20 years and listened to that—with, I don’t know, a sense of condoning it, I guess, because he didn’t get up and leave—to me, that does say something about character. But, you know, I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up.” I guess so. And I guess we’ll soon know McCain’s call on whether he wants to bring Wright up—perhaps at his debate with Obama Tuesday night. I asked at the end of our conversation whether Palin, fresh off her own debate, had any advice for McCain. “I’m going to tell him the same thing he told me. I talked to him just a few minutes before I walked out there on stage. And he just said: ‘Have fun. Be yourself, and have fun.’ And Senator McCain can do the same.” She paused, and I was about to thank her for the interview, but she had one more thing to say. “Only maybe I’d add just a couple more words, and that would be: ‘Take the gloves off.’ ” And maybe I’d add, Hockey Mom knows best.

"Comments are no longer being accepted"

This morning and the other day, for the first times, I noticed the statement, "Comments are no longer being accepted," posted atop the comments section of a couple of op-ed pieces in The New York Times. I saw the first one on Friday, the morning after the vice presidential debate, warning any further readers from trying to comment on David Brooks's op-ed piece, "The Palin Rebound." Brooks's piece was so mind-bendingly, fawningly complimentary to Palin's showing in the debate that I felt an urgent need to ask Brooks whether he'd been smoking dope. Alas, after searching all over for the place to comment, I saw the notice. And this morning I saw the notice again, above William Kristol's equally fawning piece, "The Wright Stuff." Within only a few hours, enough ridicule had already been heaped on each of these right-thinking gentlemen, thank you. Enough is enough! The only question is:

Did Brooks and Kristol throw in the towel themselves, or did their editor call the fight to protect their dignity and their possibly injured ability to meet the paper's deadline for their next pieces?

I don't remember how many comments Brooks had suffered before further comments were disinvited, but Kristol (or his editor) threw in the towel before even 200 comments had been posted. While it's fun to wonder who stopped the fight and precisely why, I regret that "Comments are no longer being accepted" meant what it said. Even still fairly early this morning, I was already too late to ask Mr. Kristol whether, for example, Palin hadn't bewitched him? (Her voodoo pastor's incantation was intended, presumably, to protect her, not people on whom she herself might practice.) Not that similar questions hadn't already been asked by the hundred and eighty some commenters who'd gotten through. Like #23, by LGG of Orange County, California:

It's so heartening, Bill—may I call you Bill?—that you are so concerned with Obama's now-renounced pastor and church affiliation. I have no doubt, then, that you will as vociferously investigate and report upon Palin's associations with Muthee, the African witch hunter. Curious, isn't it, that we get 24/7 coverage of Wright's inflammatory comments, but one has to go to Yyoutube to see Palin being exorcised of witches by Muthee. Why is that, do you think? The clip of Palin being exorcised is certainly not a fake as evidenced by the fact that the pulpit upon which Muthee stands and behind which Palin stands is identical to that which multiple other clips show Palin speaking from when addressing her church's congregation. Things that make you go "Hmmmm."

10-7 Flash

I see that the number of comments on Kristol's column has now reached 525, which indicates either that several hundred comments were still being "moderated" (approved for posting) when the spigot was turned off...or that the floodgates were reopened, the editor maybe having decided that Kristol deserved comments like, say, #523, from Peter in Indiana:

Oh, Bill, there you go again, looking to the past instead of to the future! (By the way, did you happen to ask Palin about McCain's association with that economic terrorist, Charles Keating, or her own association with the witch-exorcizing priest? Or is sauce for the goose not sauce for the gander?) Here you are, being bamboozled by some pretty-face, Gidget-goes-to-Washington type who talks outside of both sides of her mouth, whose talk (when it's possible to understand it) is mostly vacuous, who spouts off baloney about the Constitution's take on vice president (but fails to comply with a Constitutionally valid sub poena), and your take is that the drivel is mostly the fault of her handlers instead of her inherent lack of understanding. Even the latter is a sign of the classic Republican who yaps about accountability and responsibility except when it comes [to] them—then it's always someone else's fault.