DCUM Weblog

The two most active threads yesterday were ones that I've already discussed and will skip today. That means that the first thread for today's post was actually the third most active yesterday. That thread was titled, "Do younger teens really do nothing all summer?" and posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. The original poster says that her 14-year-old son thinks the original poster and her spouse are being unfair because they require him to participate as a counselor-in-training at a half day summer camp and volunteer one evening a week. He claims that most of his friends are either doing nothing or only a 2-hour crew activity and, therefore, have more free time than him. The original poster thinks that her son has plenty of free time as it is and he wastes that playing video games. She asks whether what her son says about his friends is really true of most kids. Most of those responding say that their kids are involved in some structured activities. Counselor-in-training positions are popular as is volunteering. Many are involved in some sort of sport and quite a few other posters say that their kids are attending summer camps. A few even have jobs. But some posters prioritize allowing their children to have free time. Just about the only controversy in this thread involves a poster who accused parents who arrange structured activities for their kids of not wanting to parent and not wanting their kids to simply "exist". "Just let them be kids for awhile", she argues. Posters such as this one seem to have an idealized view of childhood in which carefree children spend their summers playing with friends, having their own adventures, and keeping themselves entertained. While there may be a few examples of this sort among the posters' kids, for the most part any free time kids have these days is filled by screens. In contrast to the oft-stated concern that kids spend too much time playing video games, the anti-structured activities poster didn't seem to be concerned about that, saying that there is nothing inherently wrong with playing video games. Moreover, while that poster suggested that parents force their kids into the structured activities, a number of posters argued that their kids want to do those activities and that don't need to be forced. None of the posters expect their kids to be busy every minute of every day for the entire summer. But, they also don't want their kids to be sitting around bored or doing nothing but playing video games all summer. What is clear is that some kids are able to take the initiative to find activities with which to keep themselves busy while others need a bit more engagement from parents.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "pit bull on a plane" and posted in the "Pets" forum. The original poster says that as she was debarking from a regional airplane, she noticed that a pit bull had been in the seat behind her. This caused her to wonder what would happen if the dog had "snapped" in the confines of a small airplane. She asked for advice about what to do if that happened again in the future. This thread was reported a number of times with the accusation that the original poster is a troll. So, let me commment on that first. I can't say whether the poster is a troll or not. What I can say is that she has been creating a large number of threads, mostly on fairly mundane topics. She was also the author of the thread that I discussed yesterday about hiding a trip from a friend. Whether the poster is a troll or just has a knack for provoking engagement I can't say. While I have not read every post in this thread, I am fairly comfortable saying that it is unlikely that the original poster received any useful advice about what to do about a pit bull that suddenly goes bersek in an airplane. The most common reaction was to ask the original poster why she was concerned about a dog that she hadn't even noticed during the flight. In the original poster's defense, she was asking about what to do on future flights, not the one that she had just completed. The second most common reaction was to argue about put bulls. In the pets forum there are two topics that are guaranteed to launch flame wars. The first is whether pets should be adopted from shelters or purchased from breeders. Posters will fight like cats and dogs over that topic. The second is pit bulls,. There are posters who detest pit bulls, considering them to be unreasonably dangerous. In fact, one of the main arguments against adopting from a shelter is that many of the dogs are at least part pit bull. There was actually a thread in which a poster attempted to document attacks by pit bulls. The thread reached 23 pages before I locked it. I locked it because a pro-pit bull poster kept posting off-topic posts which the anti-pit bull poster would report. There was a constant cycle of anti-put bull post, off-topic post, and then a report to me resulting in my removing the post. This went on long enough that I got tired of it. In the case of this thread, posters on both sides of the pit bull debate showed up. The anti-pit bull position is, of course, that the dogs are dangerous and should be banned. None of these posters would want to be on an airplane with a pit bull and they don't think pit bulls should be allowed on airplanes. They would ask to move or leave the plane if they were seated near one. The pro-pit bull position is that it is not the dogs but the owners who are the problem. In the case of this dog — which most of the pro-pit bull posters don't believe even existed because they consider the original poster to be a troll — the dog was very well behaved and not a threat to anyone. The dog obviously had a good owner. Any behavioral issues with a pit bull are the fault of the owner rather than the breed, these posters say. In any case, they argue, dogs from other breeds also attack people. Personally, I believe that if you are on an airplane and suddenly attacked by a pit bull you should do exactly the same thing that you would do if you were attacked by a poodle or a great dane. I am not sure what that is, but I don't think that air travellers need to learn specific anti-pit bull defense responses.

Yesterday's most active thread was a bit of a surprise to me. Titled, "2024 AP Exams - Results", and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum, the thread was literally about the results of the 2024 advanced placement exams. Started at 4:33 a.m., the thread was meant to alert posters that the scores had been released three minutes earlier at 4:30 a.m. I was a bit surprised that parents would be up at 4:30 to check their kids' test results, but then I noticed that the original poster was in California. Still, that would be 1:30 a.m. her time. Clearly, my dedication as a parent is not measuring up very favorably because I would be sound asleep at either 1:30 or 4:30 a.m. I would find out about my kids' test results if or when they got around to telling me about them. Because many of the parents posting in this thread were obviously learning about the results before their kids — who were likely still asleep — had had a chance to check them, there was some discussion about whether the parents should stay mum until the kids saw their scores themselves or go ahead and tell them. There were also concerns expressed that checking the scores was an invasion of the kids' privacy. But most of the thread was simply posters posting the results. Those whose kids received all 5s (the top score) were obviously thrilled. Some were pleased with a 4 but some were a bit let down. Some posters argued that the difference between a 4 and a 5 is minimal and doesn't indicate much about a student's abilities. Scores of 3 were a bit more controversial. Some colleges award credits for a 3 and, therefore, several posters were satisfied that their kids had received 3s. But others viewed 3s as disappointing. I didn't read the entire thread which is currently 18 pages long, but I did notice several posts saying that scores this year had improved over previous years. Some attributed this to better prepared students and pandemic set backs finally being overcome. But others argued that the tests are getting easier and that high scores should not be taken that seriously. AP scores are particularly important to those students who are applying to universities in the United Kingdom where ACT and SAT results are not accepted but AP exams are required. Therefore, in some cases, these results will determine where kids will be going to college next year. Despite the concentration on scores, there is quite a bit of additional discusion on the topic of AP exams. If you are not familiar with the exams or are interested in deepening your knowledge, this would be a good thread to peruse.

Just as most days last week, the most active topics over the weekend were political. The first of those was titled, "ABC News interview TONIGHT with Biden" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster started this thread in the late morning on Friday in anticipation of the recorded interview of President Joe Biden that ABC News was going to broadcast that evening. The original poster expressed his opinion that the interview would be too short and the fact that it was pre-recorded would be insufficient to demonstrate Biden's cognitive fitness. The interview was scheduled to be recorded in the afternoon which the original poster described as Biden's "functional" window and would be conducted by George Stephanopoulos, a former Bill Clinton White House staffer. None of this was reassuring to the original poster. Others were even more strident in their criticism. Several posters were certain that a conspiracy was in the works. Biden would be provided the questions in advanced, they said. The interview would be edited, they claimed. There is no evidence of the first and ABC News explicitly denied the the interview would be edited. One poster even predicted that artificial intelligence would be used to fake or enhance the interview. The thread was already 15 pages long before the interview even aired. Once ABC News started the broadcast, posters posted their reactions as they watched. Most were not impressed. Once again Biden's voice sounded off and every stumble over a word resulted in a rash of posts. Biden's skin tone which had taken on an orange hue reminiscent of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump's, was also the subject of many remarks. There is very little indication that the interview had successfully achieved its goal of assuring the public that Biden has the cognitive ability to run the country. The problem that Biden faces is that he is not currently a good communicator. His critics are assuming, or at least arguing, that Biden's communications struggles reflect problems with other skills necessary to serve as President. I am not sure that this is a good assumption, but Biden and his team are doing little to convince the public otherwise. This thread is currently 55 pages long and I am unable to read it all. But shortly after the interview ended it appears that the thread started going off topic and simply turned in to a presidential campaign free-for-all thread. In a way that is fitting. There is nothing that Biden can do to convince diehard Republicans that he is fit for office. Similarly, plenty of Democrats are willing to vote for Biden even if he has to be propped up like Bernie in "Weekend at Bernie's". As such, Biden's performance in the interview is of little matter to these folks. As for those who are basing their vote on Biden's fitness for office, based on the little evidence they provided in this thread, they want to see more of Biden in order to better make a decision.

The three most active threads yesterday were all posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. However, one of those was a thread that I discussed yesterday and will skip today. Still, half of the topics I will discuss today are political. The first of those was titled, "It is insulting to us American voters that we have to choose between a senile old man and a criminal". The original poster says that she is furious and cannot vote for either President Joe Biden or former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. She says that it is completely unacceptable that American voters have been put in this position and that the whole world is watching in horror. The worst part about our current conundrum is that it was not caused by our political system breaking down, but rather our political system working exactly as it should, at least in terms of selecting candidates. The Republican Party had a hard-fought primary with a number of credible candidates. Those candidates included several sitting or former governors, a U.S. Senator, and a former Vice President. Trump, as a former President — as well as a cult leader — always had an advantage. But the other candidates had a fair opportunity to defeat him and simply failed. Trump is clearly his party's preferred candidate. The Democrats' situation was somewhat different. It is rare that sitting Presidents face contested primary elections with anything other than token opposition, especially when the President has been successful as it can be argued that Biden has been. The stiffest opposition from Biden was from "uncommitted". But while the system functioned as designed, the institutions within that system have been weakened and/or are dysfunctional. Trump was twice impeached but each time the Senate, acting mostly along partisan lines, refused to convict. In the case of Trump's January 6 related impeachment, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell even agreed with the impeachment, but argued that Trump, as a former rather than sitting President, should be dealt with by the courts rather than Congress. It was the same McConnell who had previously engineered the appointment of three Supreme Court justices selected by Trump, once by refusing to confirm a nominee and once by rushing to confirm a nominee in record speed. The judicial system has simply not been up to the task of handling Trump and his Supreme Court picks are further assuring that he will not face legal consequences. On the Democratic side, most voters likely believed that Biden was going to be a one-term President. A bridge candidate who would defeat Trump, get the country back on track, and then prepare the ground for the younger generation. But somewhere along the way Biden, if he had ever agreed to this in the first place, changed his mind. Again, the institutions that could have played a role in easing him out failed. Mechanisms are grinding away now that may result in Biden's replacement, but whether that comes to pass is still an open question. The real challenge facing us is how we can strengthen the institutions that are fundamental to our democracy but which have simply not been functioning adequately. I don't really have an answer to that question.

Yesterday's most active threads were again dominated by political topics, even when the topics were not in the political forum. The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Biden weighing whether to drop out", and was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to a New York Times article that currently reports that President Joe Biden has told allies that he understands that he must quickly convince voters that he is up to the job if he is to salvage his presidential campaign. This article originally said that Biden had talked to these allies about dropping out. While the current version of the article contains a quote from Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, denying that claim, the claim itself is missing. The article provides no information about why the original claim was removed or even any notice that it has been dropped from the article. After New York Times reporters tweeted out the claim that Biden had discussed dropping out, Biden campaign officials strongly pushed back saying that they had only been given 7 minutes to respond to the report and would have denied it then if they had had time. The upshot is that this thread is based on an allegation that has been removed by the newspaper and rejected by both campaign and White House officials. The discussion in the thread is mostly about who would take Biden's position at the top of the ticket. The most obvious choice is Vice President Kamala Harris. Legally, the campaign money raised by the Biden-Harris campaign can only be used by Biden or Harris. Nevertheless, in this thread, there is strong opposition to Harris. Posters are concerned that she is not popular and that her weaknesses can easily be exploited. Some posters argue that she should be removed as the vice presidential candidate, but that would mean that another campaign would have to start from zero in terms of money. Other posters suggest that she remain as the vice presidential candidate, but someone else be selected to run for the presidency. According to campaign finance experts, that arrangement would legally be a new campaign and could not access the current Biden-Harris money. Realistically, Biden and Harris are the only two candidates. Personally, I don't understand the opposition to Harris. Yes, we can all think of our dream candidates, but none of those are realistic options (unless either Biden or Harris is your dream candidate). Biden and Harris are both currently polling about the same against former president, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. I would think that Harris has a much bigger upside. Moreover, Harris's writ as candidate would be fairly simple. She would only need to support reproductive rights, support gun control, demand that corporations lower prices, and attack Trump on a long list of topics. Beating Trump does not require sophistication. It mostly requires demonstrating that you are not Trump and that you still maintain significant cognitive capability. What would be really damaging to Democrats is a long, drawn-out, process to determine whether Biden will stay or go. If he is going to step down, he needs to do it quickly. If he is not going to, all the Democrats calling for him to move aside need to shut up. Democratic infighting at this point is really not needed.

Unlike the past two days, the most active threads yesterday were not all political topics, though half of them still were. The most active thread, however, was not political at all, unless you include family politics. Titled, "Napping on vacation when you have kids?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum, the original poster is upset about her husband's nap routine. On days off, weekends, and vacations, the original poster's husband expects to have a two-hour nap each day beginning at 4:00 p.m. The original poster is especially frustrated by this with regard to vacations. This forces the family, which includes their two tween/teen children, to return to the hotel each day for nap time, depriving them of two hours a day that could be spent on other activities. Moreover, since the original poster doesn't feel the children are old enough to explore strange cities on their own and the hotel pool does not allow the children to swim without supervision, the original poster doesn't get to enjoy downtime herself during her husband's nap because she has take care of the kids. The original poster thinks that her husband is being unreasonable and wants to know if she is wrong. There is a surprising amount of interest in this topic which produced 21 pages of responses in less than a day. For her part, it seems that the original poster bowed out after the second page, perhaps not wanting to waste vacation time on DCUM. Also surprising was the amount of support shown for the original poster's husband. DCUM, at least as represented by this thread, is apparently very pro-nap. A fairly common type of response was for a poster to explain that they make a bazillion dollars a year and normally work 25 hour days, but on vacation they like to take a nap. In fact, very few posters seem to take issue with the original poster's husband's nap habit. Rather, they provided ideas for the original poster to accomodate it. Many posters thought that the children were old enough to do activities on their own, despite the original poster's reservations in that regard. Even if the kids weren't able to go to the pool or venture out into the city, they could at least read or have screen time while their father napped. Several posters argued that the issue wasn't the two-hour nap, but rather the inflexibility of its timing. Not all activities lend themselves to being back at the hotel at 4, they suggested and they didn't like the idea of being forced to plan around a daily nap at that time every day. Other posters said that they intentionally plan in such a manner so that they can have their daily naps. A number of posters advised the original poster to simply plan their day and go about their activities, allowing her husband to depart for his nap and catch up with the family later. That way, only his day would be interrupted. A considerable number of posters worried that the nap requirement was caused by a medical condition such as sleep apnea. But this idea was scoffed at by posters who consider daily naps to be completely normal.

For the second day in a row, all of the most active topics were posted in the "Political Discussion" forum and all but one are related to the presidential debate. The shortest of these threads is 12 pages and the first one is over 50. So I am unable to read all of the posts in the threads and will only provide an overview of the topics. The most active thread yesterday was titled, "The President is Above the Law". This thread was started back in January after oral arguments before the Supreme Court regarding the question of whether former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump has immunity for his actions related to the January 6 insurrection attempt. During the hearing, Trump's lawyer was asked whether a president could order Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political opponent and enjoy immunity for the act. Trump's lawyer argued that Congress would surely impeach a president who did such a thing, but short of impeachment the President would have immunity. This led to the original poster creating this thread. Yesterday, the Supreme Court released its decision in the case, granting considerable immunity to the President. In her dissent, Justice Sonya Sotomayor returned to the example of Seal Team 6 being used to murder a political opponent, claiming that the majority ruling granted immunity for such an act. The majority ruled that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for "core constitutional powers", those duties specified in the Constitution. In addition, the Court ruled that presidents have presumptive immunity for "official acts", actions undertaken in the course of acting as president. Finally, the court confirmed that presidents enjoy no immunity for private acts. On the face of it, this sounds fairly reasonable. But, as they say, the devil is in the details. The Court also ruled that evidence involving acts for which the President is immune cannot be used against him. This presents a significant hurdle to prosecuting a president for crimes that were unofficial acts and for which even the Court agrees, there would be no immunity. As Sotomayor explains in her dissent, imagine that the President gave an official speech during which he stated his intention to prevent a political rival from passing legislation by any means. That would be an official act for which the President would have the presumption of immunity. If the President later hired a private hitman to murder the rival, that would be a private act, but the President's public admission of intent could not be introduced as evidence to support a murder charge. As things stand, the case against Trump has been remanded to the lower court where Judge Tanya Chutkan will have to review the case in light of the Supreme Court's decision. If the actions for which Trump has been charged appear to core constitutional acts, he will have immunity. It is very unlikely that any of Trump's January 6-related actions will fall in that category. However, there will certainly be an argument that the actions were official acts for which Trump should have the presumption of immunity. It will be up to Jack Smith to demonstrate that the acts were, in fact, private. One thing that is already clear is that some evidence, such as that involving Jeffrey Clark, will no longer be admissible because it involved official acts.

The list of most active threads over the weekend was heavily dominated by political topics and all of today's topics are from the "Political Discussion" forum. The most active thread of all was the presidential debate thread that I've already discussed. The most active thread after that was titled, "As a Democrat, it all feels hopeless.", and posted, of course, in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster says that in light of President Joe Biden's poor debate performance it appears that Republicans will "sweep to victory". But, even if that doesn't happen, the Supreme Court has already severely limited the possibilities of implementing liberal policies. Meaningful gun control is not going to happen, efforts to protect the environment are being set back and will be even more difficult after the reverse of the Chevron ruling. In addition, the boundaries between church and state are being erased. The original poster asks what there is to be happy about. This thread is 43 pages long and, as such, I am unable to read much of it. What I did notice is that almost immediately those responding engaged in two behaviors that I have seen dominating more and more threads in the political forum lately. The first is related to the expression, "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." There are a number of posters who seem to respond with their own pet diagnosis, regardless of the specific topic. Early in this thread, for example, posters fixated on age and seemed to blame much of what is happening today on those who are over 60 and suggested things would not improve until those folks were no longer with us. This response is much like the knee-jerk reaction to blame everything bad on "boomers" that we see across DCUM. A second behavior, related in many ways, is to not only bring up a pet issue, but an off-topic pet issue. An example of this was a complaint about the Democratic National Committee not allowing more primary choices. But, with regard to off-topic posts, that was just the beginning. The thread is basically a collection of general gripes and talking points that posters want to share which mostly have no connection to the thread's topic at all. I agree with the original poster that now is a very dismal time to be a liberal Democrat. But to undertand how we got here, I think we need to take a wider view of things than posters in this thread seem to be doing. For instance, I have my own pet issue. One of the most significant changes over the last 20 years or so has been the vastly increased wealth disparity. An ever-increasing amount of the world's wealth is being accumulated into the hands of an increasingly small number of people. This disparity interferes with the proper working of all other systems on which our political and economic systems are based. That disparity has allowed billionaires such as Harlan Crow to essentially purchase multiple Supreme Court justices. It allowed Elon Musk to purchase what was not long ago the World's most influential social media network and turn it into a haven for Nazis. The attitude of billionaire class appears to be to exploit our world for every penny that can be squeezed out of it and then fly off to Mars. People over 60 and the DNC's influence on the primary are small potatoes relative to this. And, yes, the fact that those influencing events have little interest in anyone's well-being other than their own does not inspire much hope. 

The most active thread by a very considerable margin yesterday was titled, "Official debate thread get in here and bring your smile" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Needless to say, this thread is about last night's presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former president, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. The interest in this thread was amazing and while it was only created just before 9 p.m. last night, it has already reached 85 pages and over 1,100 posts. Obviously, it is not possible for me to read a thread of that length. As for the debate, what can be said? The bar for Biden had been set so low that I didn't believe there would be any way that he would not exceed expectations. Clearly I was wrong. Biden, whose voice was raspy apparently as a result of a cold, was difficult to understand, he repeatedly lost his train of thought, he constantly appeared confused and lost, and, perhaps due to camera angles, almost always seemed to be looking out into space. It's not so much that that Biden didn't reach the low bar that had been set, but rather that he precisely met the expectations that Republicans had set for him. The Republicans claimed that Biden is a feeble, tired, old man who lacks the mental capacity for the job. That is likely exactly how most viewers perceived Biden last night. Republicans are obviously overjoyed and practically dancing in the streets. Democrats, who panic even when things are going well, are completely beside themselves. The airwaves, as well as this thread and at least one additional thread, focused on how Biden might be replaced as the Democratic candidate. As I said in a recent post, replacing Biden is not straight forward and I have generally held the position that it is not going to happen. One hurdle that I don't hear mentioned very often is Ohio's deadline to be on the ballot that is earlier than the Democratic National Convention. The current Democratic plan is to formally nominate Biden through a virtual vote held before Ohio's deadline, in which case the convention would be purely ceremonial. It would take a true act of back room politics to convince Biden to bow out and then agree on an alternative candidate before Ohio's August 7th deadline. This would be an amazing feat and I am not sure that there is anyone in a position to make it happen. Of course Democrats could sacrifice the Ohio ballot position and choose a candidate at the convention, but there is an important Senate race in Ohio and Democratic turnout might suffer if there were not a meaningful Democratic presidential candidate on the ballot. Democrats might even be forced to run a write-in campaign for their candidate. Objectively, Biden had his moments during the debate. But by the time those came along, I think most people had already come to their conclusions about his performance. Moreover, the negative impressions will snowball as they are repeated incessantly over the next few days. While Biden clearly lost the debate, there is still a question of the debate's impact on the election. Plenty of posters in this thread were adamant that Biden could even do worse than he did and they would still vote for him. If polls over the next few days don't show a decline in support for Biden, the interest in replacing him will likely decrease. But, any significant drop-off will create additional impetus to find a new candidate.