DCUM Weblog

I took Memorial Day off from writing which means that today I will discuss the most active threads over the past four days. Many of the most active threads were ones that I've already discussed and will skip today. Frankly, the threads that were left over were not that interesting and it is kind of disappointing that they were popular. First among those was a thread titled, "Kate spending time with ‘birth family’". This thread was disappointing because it is about the British Royal Family, and more specifically, the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton. That is guaranteed to attract crazies of all sorts. Moreover, the original poster did a spectacularly poor job with the original post. The original poster did not provide a link supporting the claim in the thread's title or provide any further information about the allegation made there. Instead, the original poster implied that the Princess had moved in with her parents, something that appears not to be true. Rather, the original poster seems to have misread, misunderstood, or misrepresented an article in "The Daily Beast". According to the Daily Beast article, the Princess will be spending time at Sandringham, the country house used by the Prince and Princess of Wales. The article explicitly says that Prince William and their children will be there as well because it is a school holiday. Her "birth family" will simply be visiting. But, why bother with the truth when fiction is so much more fun? Posters immediately engaged in all sorts of speculation that the Princess is dying, that she and William are divorcing, that William wants her out of the way so he can engage in affairs, and on and on. These Royal Family threads present a problem for me. I don't like them and would be happy to delete every one of them. But posters enjoy them and continually create them. If the threads involve either Kate Middleton or Megan Markle, they will provoke a slew of reports. There was a poster who was particularly determined in this case to report any post that she thought was even the slightest disparaging of Middleton. As such, this thread immediately became a headache. Anytime I got up from my computer I would return to find a mailbox full of reports. I quickly determined that I was not going to spend the Memorial Day weekend removing posts about the Princess of Wales, someone who will never read this website, has to deal with much more visible criticism daily, and is not going to be harmed in any way by a bunch of raving lunatics on DCUM. The result is nearly 40 pages of some of the most outlandish conspiracy theories that you can imagine. I finally locked the thread last night, mostly to save my email inbox from the hundreds of reports the thread was generating (mostly by a single poster). But at that time discussion was focused on a theory that the Palace had hired a "body double" to appear as Kate in a recent video. Intermixed between the various conspiracy theories were complaints by posters who are certain that Kate is near death but are upset that she is not publicly working until she takes her last breath.

The two most active threads yesterday — the Fairfax County Public Schools boundary changes thread and the Jennifer Lopez thread — were ones that I've already discussed and will, therefore, skip today. The next most active thread was titled, "Cuts" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. This thread was started five days ago by a poster complaining that Montgomery County Public Schools had conducted a "midnight massacre" and cut about 100 teaching positions. The poster warned others to get ready for bigger classes and asked why this is not a bigger story. The first issue with this thread is that there was no source provided for the original poster's allegation. This led some posters to doubt that it was real. Other posters accepted it as fact, but attempted to justify the cuts. One argument was that while positions were being cut, many of them were currently unfilled. If there is a current teacher in the position, that teacher will be offered an opportunity to transfer to another school. As such, these are not job losses. Contrary to this, some posters said that actual layoffs are in the works in some cases. Another argument was that in a school system of 14,000 teachers, 100 teachers being forced to transfer to different positions is not really that significant. Soon enough reports of positions being cut at posters' schools arrived and provided some evidence of the veracity of the original poster's claim. Discussion then turned to what might be cut other than teaching positions. The main target was the MCPS central office which poster after poster criticized as bloated and filled with high-earning staffers that either do little or lack competence. Two days ago, the Board of Education held a meeting to discuss the school system's budget. According to posts in the thread, teachers were barred from entering the meeting. When a small group managed to push their way in and attempted to start a protest, the meeting was recessed and after the break teachers were again prevented from attending. Based on teacher reactions in the thread, these cuts — whether of positions or employees — are one more factor contributing to already high levels of frustration among teachers. There are many warnings that more teachers will leave rather than put up with increasingly difficult work circumstances. As one poster wrote, "MCPS trying this after arguably the worst year most of us have ever had… is just laughable." The poster then went on to say, "This is going to be the straw that broke the camels back for A LOT of teachers in the county … good luck next year when there’s no one there to staff their huge classes."

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Rant: ‘you look amazing’" and posted in the "Expectant and Postpartum Moms" forum. The original poster is a new mother and, as such, is "exhausted and struggling". Nevertheless, "at least 10 times" other people have told her that she "looks amazing" or something similar. Because this compliment does not match how she is feeling, it is awkward for her and she is annoyed by it. She ends her post by saying, "Don’t comment on anyone’s body ever, but especially a hormonal new mom." This is a 12 page thread and I don't have time to read the entire thing. But, obviously a thread of this length is going to contain a lot of different opinions. The first thing that I will note is that the original poster does not seem to have returned to the thread after the first post. However, another poster who feels very much the same way as the original poster took over and posted nearly 30 times. So the original poster's viewpoint was very well represented even if she herself was not. The basic argument of the original poster and the poster who agreed with her is that by focusing on a women's appearance, her friends and acquaintances were missing the physical stress and emotional challenges the she was undergoing. Because they looked good, people assumed that they must feel good and that simply was not the case. Moreover, they don't even agree that they actually looked amazing. They concede that they lost weight and they attribute the compliments to that and nothing more. In their opinion, others are focusing exclusively on weight and missing the signs that they are somewhat in distress. Some posters are concerned that the original poster may be suffering from postpartum depression and urge her to talk to her doctor about it. Others explain that people are simply trying to be nice. Moreover, they say, some women appreciate the compliments. But a number of posters support the other two women in arguing that comments about people's bodies just shouldn't be made. I suspect that there is somewhat of a generational divide on this issue with younger people generally being more sensitive about comments about appearances. This is reflected in one post in which the poster stated that only "old women" think that others appreciate being told that they look amazing. My thinking is that a lot of people are more or less on autopilot when it comes to informal conversations. It might be common to ask another person how they are doing, but only in unusual circumstances does anyone really want to hear a litany of things bothering the other person. Telling a new mother that she looks amazing is a simple way of offering reassurance and support. Almost no one is going to tell a woman that she looks stressed and haggard. The bigger problem is not listening. Several of the posters describe replying to compliments by explaining the struggles they are encountering and having that shrugged off. In many cases, people simply might not want to deal with it or may not know how to react to it. But, that, more than the compliment, is where the focus on improvement should probably be.

The most active thread yesterday was the one about Fairfax County Public Schools boundary changes in which posters are stridently debating boundary changes that haven't been proposed. I'll skip that thread since I have already discussed it. The most active thread after that was titled, "Do many people pick publics because of money?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster says that she chose to attend a private university and because her family did not pay for it, she used a combination of loans and financial aid. After graduation, she worked in investment banking with a salary high enough to pay off her loans quickly. Now she is surprised that many students are choosing state universities rather than private colleges. She wonders if this is due to financial concerns and implies that, if so, that would be a bad decision. Whether by accident or intention, this poster managed to offend many other posters. She had very strong opinions, starting with her contention that private universities are almost by definition better than state universities. Next was her belief that attending a prestigious private university would immediately lead to a high-paying job. Her overall tone suggested that attending a state university is misguided and short-sighted, something with which fans of state universities did not agree. In response, posters pointed out that college costs are significantly higher now than they were when the original poster was a student and, hence, loans tend to be larger and not as easy to pay off. Several posters argued that state schools such as the University of Virginia provide a better education than many private universities and, for in-state residents, at a much lower cost. The original poster's attitude was influenced by the fact that because she and her husband have significant income, the can easily afford the high costs of a prestigious private university. Her suggestion that others should just as easily be able to pay — or, if not, could take out loans that wouldn't end up presenting a financial burden — put her pretty firmly in Marie Antoinette territory. Many posters were quite unapologetic about the fact that they were choosing state colleges for financial reasons. The University of Virginia in particular has many fans on DCUM and posters argued that being able to get an education that rivaled that provided by many top private schools at a much lower cost made a lot sense. Moreover, posters pointed out that not everyone wants the same experience for college. Some much prefer the environment of large state universities. As I have noted in several earlier blog posts, there has been an anti-Ivy League trend on DCUM recently and this has developed into disenchantment with many top private universities. This played into the thread as well as many posters displayed hostile attitudes towards top private universities and clearly didn't share the original poster's respect for them.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "study shows how 42M recipients spend their food stamps" and posted in the "Political Discussion". The original poster quotes from a recent study conducted by The Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) regarding the use of food stamps. The report shows that junk food, especially soft drinks, are the leading purchases with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funds. The original poster asks whether the program should be modified so that soft drinks and junk food are no longer covered. EPIC is a fairly new "think tank" formed less than a year ago by Paul Winfree. Winfree served in the administration of former President and current cult leader Donald Trump. As such, EPIC clearly has an agenda. Even so, their findings are consistent with other studies of the use of SNAP benefits. As posters point out in the thread, this reflects deeper societal issues. One poster puts things very succinctly, writing, "Junk food is cheap. Healthy food is expensive." Moreover, poor people who rely on food stamps often live in food deserts where healthy food is not readily available. Many posters argue that junk food is promoted by extensive marketing and the use of SNAP benefits for junk food is encouraged by corporate lobbying. Some posters go even further and claim that the government and private equity investors actually want to encourage unhealthy lifestyles in order to kill people off. One poster is especially fixated on Blackrock and "Globalists" who he insists have a "depopulation" agenda. Several posters argue, however, that junk food is actually expensive and provide examples of healthy food being cheaper. In response, another poster points out that even in cases where healthy food costs less, it takes longer and requires more effort to prepare. This can create unwanted stress in families that are already struggling. There are two distinct points of view in this thread. One, which is basically represented by the original poster, suggests that poor people are intentionally choosing to spend tax payer money on junk food, creating more problems for both themselves and society, and the solution should be to simply prohibit this. The other point of view is that poor people face significant constraints that discourage them from eating healthy, some built right into the SNAP program, and that the solution is to provide more accessible healthy alternatives. The second group doesn't necessarily oppose prohibiting junk food, but simply doesn't view prohibition as addressing the actual problem. Some posters made an effort to create grocery lists that showed how a healthy diet could be achieved on a budget. Other posters responded by pointing out what had been missed in those lists and where the lists were not practical. However, one poster who actually bothered to read the report suggested that much of this discussion missed the point completely. I'll quote that poster at length:

The most active thread over the weekend was the one that I've previous discussed about Fairfax County Public schools boundaries. Posters in that thread have worked themselves up into a frenzy and have now started a petition to oppose a boundary change that nobody had proposed. The most active thread after that one was titled, "Can we analyze jennifer lopez?" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. While the competition is fierce, this thread might be the most absurd that I've come across in this forum. The original poster accuses Jennifer Lopez of having a level of narcissism beyond anything that she has ever seen and, based on the title, is inviting other posters to analyze Lopez. I am sure that I can think of something more ridiculous than asking a bunch of people who almost universally lack any relevant qualifications and do not have first-hand access to the subject to conduct psychological analysis, but I would have to really work at it. Obviously, this a clear cut situation in which the responses will say more about the posters writing them than about Lopez. The first poster to respond more or less turns the tables on the original poster, writing, "She’s got you so hooked that you want to analyze her even though she allegedly repulses you." Another poster presented my own view fairly accurately, saying, "Nonsense post. Projecting based on what you think people are feeling based on photos?" A number of posters either don't view JLo as narcissistic or are willing to forgive her for it. They see her as a hard worker who has earned what she has. As one poster put it, "She looks incredible and to look like that you must be extremely self-disciplined." There are differences of opinion about her abilities as an actress or a singer, with most posters, even some who generally don't have a lot of appreciation for her, concede that she has at least some talent. But others aren't even willing to grant that to Lopez. Before long the thread turned into a discusion of Lopez's relationship with Ben Affleck, to whom she has been married for nearly two years. Lopez has had a rocky road when it comes to relationships and was engaged to Affleck over 20 years ago. Now there are apparently rumors that their marriage might not last. Posters were busy analyzing photos to see whether or not Affleck was wearing a wedding ring and debatting the significance of the couple arriving individually to an event be leaving together. One indicator of the quality of the "analysis" generally conducted in this thread is that any photo that showed JLo appearing happy was immediately alleged to be "staged" whereas any photo showing her to look like a normal person trying to get someplace without being hassled was used as incontrovertible evidence that her life is a disaster. With all of her wealth, I am sure that JLo can easily afford top notch mental healthcare. But, if it is ever needed, she can obtain psychological care free of charge from a host of eager DCUM therapists. What they lack in qualifications is certainly make up in obsessiveness.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "B-CC lockdown" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, which was the scene of a person allegedly carrying a weapon on Monday, went into lockdown yesterday around 11:30. To say that communication was inadequate is to massively understate things. There was literally no communication other than the fact that the school was locked down. Montgomery County police responded as if they were storming the beaches of Iwo Jima, arriving in an armored vehicle, dressed in fatigues, body armor, kevlar helmets, and carrying assault-style rifles. Needless to say, this sent panic through the B-CC community. Communication was so bad that B-CC teachers, one hiding in a closet, were using DCUM to try to find out what was going on. In the absence of real information, rumors swirled. At some point it was announced that there had been a "threat", but what what type of thread was not specified. Multiple posters said that it had been a bomb threat. Others said that the threat had been issued by the same individual seen with a weapon on Monday and that he was in the principal's office negotiating. Later it was reported to have been a "swatting" incident in which a fake call had been made by someone claiming to be in the school with a rifle and pipe bombs. For hours there was mass confusion. Many kids had been outside the building for lunch when it was locked down. Others were stuck in school. Worried parents had no idea what they should do and many rushed to the school. Other posters tried to calm everyone down, but with little success. Posters could not understand why the school would be locked down rather than evacuated in response to a bomb threat. This was explained subsequently when it was learned that the threat also involved a gun. The two recent incidents have parents at their absolute wits' end. They are frustrated with the school's principal, they are frustrated with MCPS administration, they are frustrated with the Board of Education, they are frustrated with the County Board, they are frustrated with the County Executive, and they are frustrated that, as far as they can tell, nothing is being done to fix things. This all culminates in feelings of helplessness and most off all, the parents are frustrated about that. From what I can deduce from posts in this thread, the discussion on the school's mailing list was out of control and even caused the school's PTSA president to announce that she will not serve next year. With regard to both Monday's incident and yesterday's, the school and school system seem to be hurting themselves and increasing parent disenchantment by not being more forthcoming with information. Based on some posts in this thread, it is possible that Monday's event was much less than it has been described and that there may not have been a weapon at all. But anger over the lack of response in that incident may have contributed to the large scale response in this case, which according to the last reports was triggered by a call from hundreds of miles away and probably should have been treated more skeptically. School officials clearly need to do a better job of explaining what they are doing and why they are doing it, and do this in a timely manner.

Much of the discussion yesterday involved politics. The most active thread was titled, "David Trone for senate" and was posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics" forum. This thread was started just over a year ago when US Congressional Representative David Trone announced his run for Maryland's open US Senate seat. The reason the thread has so much interest now — adding 11 pages yesterday — is that on Tuesday, Trone lost his Senate bid, suffering defeat in the primary election to Prince Georges County Executive Angela Alsobrooks. Trone spent over $60 million of his own money on the campaign, making this an extraordinarily expensive defeat. Much of yesterday's discussion focused on Alsobrooks. Trone had a significant financial advantage and had been running commercials for a year. Polling, likely influenced by Trone's greater name recognition, generally showed him with a significant lead. The fact that Alsobrooks not only won, but won convincingly, came as a surprise to many, perhaps most, of those in this thread. Trone supporters had difficulty accepting it. One thing this thread does is to provide insight into how voters make choices. I am not sure that a single poster could name a single policy difference between Trone and Alsobrooks. Reactions are based almost entirely on personal characteristics. For instance, the fact that Trone is rich or that he came across to individuals in an unpleasant way. Alsobrooks is dinged for having been prosecutor previously and, in the view of some, as lacking charisma. Many posters express concerns that Alsobrooks, as a Black women, will not appeal to voters in many parts of Maryland. They are also worried that her opponent, former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, will be a strong candidate with whom she will have difficulty competing. There is no doubt that Hogan is a credible challenger who will not be easily defeated. But many posters in this thread stress the significance of having a Democrat rather than a Republican being sent to the Senate. The Senate balance will impact everything from Supreme Court appointments to abortion rights. Personally, I think the concern about Alsobrooks' race and gender are overblown. Maryland recently elected a Black governor, so race shouldn't be a concern. Maryland has also previously elected a female Senator. Moreover, being a woman may give Alsobrooks an advantage. I have no evidence to back it up, but I think that there is an unspoken belief among many that, all things being equal, a women will be more likely to protect abortion rights than a man. I suspect that may explain some of Alsobrooks' strength against Trone. But, this is especially true when the woman's opponent, as will be the case with Hogan, explicitly opposes abortion. Many posters in this thread provide data from the primary voting to demonstrate why Alsobrooks should probably be considered the front-runner at this point. She showed strength in all Democratic strongholds. Hogan, on the other hand, lost 30% of the vote to a gadfly best known for heckling at basketball games. Nevertheless, persistent Trone fans refuse to see anything positive about Alsobrooks and throughout yesterday's posts continued negative attacks on her.

Yesterday most active thread was a thread that I've already discussed about the Montgomery County Board of Education elections. The primary was held yesterday, creating a lot of interest in that thread. The most active thread after that one was a bit surprising. Titled, "Why is Indian food always expensive?" and posted in the "Food, Cooking, and Restaurants" forum, this is not a topic that I would expect to be more active than Taylor Swift, the Gaza war, and bike lanes. Yet, here we are. The original poster started the thread by, as the title indicates, asking why Indian food is so expensive. According to the original poster, naan is always $5 a piece and palak paneer costs $22. Moreover, the original poster claims, this is true of every city, not just Washington, DC. The first four responses were all from posters in California who claimed that Indian food tends to be cheaper out there. Other posters also suggested cheaper options. Many posters responded saying that the relatively high cost of Indian food is due to the large number of ingredients and its labor intensive nature. As labor costs have risen, prices have followed. Some posters suggested that small family-owned restaurants are often able to rely on family members for staff and reduce their cost of labor. I am far from an expert on India, but I've always heard about its many languages and many different cultural groups. Given its diversity, it is no surprise that generalizing about the country's cuisine is not easy or even possible. I think that this explains much of the debate in this thread. Whereas some posters insist that expensive ingredients and labor-intensive preparation are required, others argue that neither of those are true and that, in fact, Indian food can be prepared at home cheaply and easily. It appears that both sides in this argument are correct. It simply depends on what specific Indian food you are discussing. Moreover, it also depends on how true you want to remain to the traditional recipe. One poster pointed out that butter chicken traditionally should rely on leftover tandoori chicken and therefore the first step is to make tandoori chicken. But another poster praised instant pot butter chicken. There are obvious differences in ease of cooking between these two styles. One of the more absurd aspects of this thread was a huge several-page debate about the cost of naan. A poster disputed the original poster's claim that it costs $5 a piece. However, several posters described recently paying close to that, if not more. Then a poster, relying on Google, took it upon himself to dispute their first-hand experience. As a result of this thread, I am probably going to be ordering Indian food for lunch. For the record, I will be paying less than the original poster claims to pay. I've always seen naan as the item on which Indian restaurants make their money and reluctantly pay more than I think it is worth. But even so, it will only be $4. Moreover, that is for garlic naan. Plain naan is only $2.50.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Sheryl Sandberg Releases Screams Before Silence, A Free Documentary About the Sexual Violence on October 7" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The war in Gaza and the resulting college campus protests have spurred an endless series of threads, many of which have been among the most active topics that I've discussed in this blog. This thread is one more of the genre. As the title makes clear, this thread is about the documentary "Screams Before Silence" which was led by Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook/Meta fame. The film is about sexual violence allegedly used by Hamas during and after its October 7 attack on Israel. My use of the word "alleged" will likely be controversial because a significant number of DCUM users do not think that there is anything "alleged" about this and that Hamas' sexual violence is beyond question. To be clear, I abhor sexual violence whoever it is committed by. Those who commit such crimes should be exposed and punished. Unfortunately, like so much else involved with the the Israel-Gaza war, sexual violence has been caught in the fog of war and the endless propaganda surrounding events. It is undeniable that in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attack, Israel and some of its supporters engaged in spreading manufactured accounts of atrocities. Many of these accounts made it into the Western media and become accepted as fact. Chief among these stories was the allegation of 40 beheaded Israeli babies, something that proved to be completely untrue. A number of other high-profile incidents similarly turned out not to have occurred. Just as these stories of Hamas violence were initially widely believed, allegations of sexual violence committed by Hamas has been accepted as fact among much of the public. A highly-publicized article by the New York Times initially seemed very persuasive in documenting widespread sexual violence. However, that article soon proved to be very problematic and has been shown to have relied on several discredited sources. Chief among these was ZAKA, an Israeli volunteer group that responds to emergencies to recover bodies. Israeli newspapers have documented that many of the stores of atrocities on October 7 that were later shown to be false originated with ZAKA. ZAKA's leader has attributed this to mistakes resulting from the difficult circumstances following the attack. Either because of intention or error, ZAKA's allegations must be approached skeptically. Like the New York Times, Sandberg's film relies heavily on ZAKA. As a result, critics of the documentary argue that its allegations are not to be believed. Defenders of the film point to a report by the United Nations that found "reasonable grounds to believe" that sexual violence occurred during the Hamas attack. While the report did find evidence to believe such attacks occurred, it did not find anything near the scale that is commonly claimed. Moreover, the report explicitly found that some well-publicized allegations were unfounded. All of this is to say that while there is evidence that some sexual violence did occur during Hamas' October 7 attack and has probably occurred afterward involving the Israelis being held hostage, the allegations of widespread and systemic sexual violence have not held up to scrutiny. This has provided justifiable grounds for critics to challenge portrayals such as that in this film. Unfortunately, as demonstrated in this thread, posters are less interested in separating fact from fiction than they are in utilizing the topic for their own partisan benefit. I eventually locked the thread when it devolved in simply another debate about all aspects of the conflict without specific relevance to the initial topic.