DCUM Weblog

The thread about the Gaza war has been the most active thread every day since Hamas launched its attack on Israel. On Friday that thread reached 1,000 pages so I locked it and started a part 2. Despite being locked Friday evening, the thread was still tied as the third most active thread over the weekend. The new thread, titled "Gaza War, Part 2", and, of course, posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, was easily the most active. The thread has already grown to more than 150 pages. There is no way that I can keep up with a thread that is growing at that rate and, as a result, I have read very little of the new thread. Rather than discuss the thread itself, I thought I would provide some of my observations of the two threads. The first thing to understand is that the majority of the participants are pro-Israel. "Pro-Israel" does not mean "Jews". Not all of the pro-Israel posters are Jewish and not all of the Jewish posters are necessarily pro-Israel. Moreover, "pro-Israel" describes a fairly wide spectrum and these posters are not always in agreement with their opinions. For instance, some of these posters are very quick to label almost any criticism of Israel as "anti-Semitism" while others are more measured and less likely to make such accusations. One result of this is constant complaints about criticism of Israel being called "anti-Semitic" and equally common responses by pro-Israel posters saying that they do no such thing. Based on what I've seen, both claims appear to be true. There are quite a few questionable accusations of anti-Semitism and most pro-Israel posters are not cavalierly tossing around the term. My second observation is that some of the pro-Israel posters have been posting incessantly. I noticed one poster who had posted over 200 times in a 24 hour period. That comes out to one post approximately every 7 minutes, but since the poster presumably took breaks, posts were not spread equally over the day. We have mechanisms in place to alert to potential bots that occasionally plague the site and multiple posters have triggered those alerts. They are posting faster than we expect humans to be able to do. Consequently, these posters simply don't have time to read carefully, consider their replies, or compose thoughtful responses. This results in responses that often are simply repeated talking points that generally do a poor job of addressing the post to which they are responding. Moreover, the original post is often misrepresented or distorted. My experience when posting messages that didn't align with pro-Israel views was a bit like dropping chum into a shark tank. There was an immediate onslaught of responses and by the time I had replied to one of those, several more had been added. While some of those responses were serious and clearly were posted in good faith, many were little more than knee jerk reactions that demonstrated little thought and did nothing to further a serious discussion. I was frustrated to see even some of the serious posters take my posts out of context or purposefully ignore the nuances that I had purposely included. I also acquired my own personal troll who followed me from thread to thread posting misrepresentations of my posts in completely unrelated threads. Obviously, many of these same things are happening to the pro-Israel posters, but that just reinforces my criticism of these threads. Posters are prioritizing quantity over the quality of their posts. It seems that a sensible process of "read, think, respond" has been replaced by simply "respond".

Yesterday the Gaza war thread continued as the most active. But, with a comparatively paltry 464 new posts — almost half of the previous day's — interest may be flagging. The next most active thread was, like the Gaza thread, posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "Huge mass shooting incident in Lewiston, ME", the thread was created just after news broke about the mass shooting that took 18 lives in Lewiston, Maine. At first, the thread concentrated on reporting details of what had happened and who might have committed the atrocity. It is a sad reality that in the aftermath of these shootings a significant number of people are poised to spring into action if they can take political advantage from the identity of the shooter. In this case, multiple posters immediately blamed Hamas or Arabs. I removed those posts and I suspect many Arabs and Muslims gave a sigh of relief when the shooter turned out to be a White American with no connection to the Middle East. Once the shooter was identified and details of his background were provided, left-leaning posters began painting him as a MAGA right-winger though the evidence of this was rather thin and based on his meager social media history. Others focused on his clear mental health issues. Gun proponents have latched onto mental health as their primary means of deflection from demands for gun control, but in this case mental health is obviously an issue. Despite the professed interests in mental health always evidenced by gun proponents in the aftermath of mass shootings, they never really seem to do much about it. To the contrary, in 2017 Congressional Republicans passed a resolution, which was subsequently signed into law by former President Donald Trump, to make it easier for those with mental illnesses to purchase guns. As such, it is difficult to assume much sincerity on the gun proponents' part. Predictably, there was considerable discussion of gun control in the thread, but with what has become an equally predictable refrain that after Sandy Hook, posters know gun control is not possible. One poster noted another phenomenon that I've also seen, including in this thread. Whenever gun control is discussed, gun enthusiasts seize the opportunity to flaunt their knowledge of guns and to speak contemptuously of anyone not capable of field striping an AR-15 while blindfolded and correctly naming every component. For instance, if a gun control proponent argues that extended clips should be prohibited, they will likely be met with a response along the lines of "it's a magazine not a clip so your opinion is invalid". One notable development arising from this shooting is that moderate Democrat Jared Golden, who represents Lewiston and who had previously opposed banning assault rifles, changed his position and now supports a ban. Of course, gun proponents will argue that there is really no difference between an AR-15 and a Red Ryder BB gun so it is impossible to draft legislation for an effective ban.

The two most active threads yesterday were both threads that I've previously covered. The Gaza war thread saw somewhat of a revival of interest and gained over 800 new posts. The Speaker of the US House of Representatives thread was second with 325 new posts. The Republicans finally managed to elect a speaker so maybe that thread will see a decline in interest. Both of those threads were in the "Political Discussion" forum, as was the next most active thread. Titled, "When the smallest doubt is treated as support of the other side", the original poster complains that political partisans require full support for their cause of the day and consider the slightest disagreement to be unacceptable. This is a 12-page thread and I don't have time to do more than skim a few pages of it. But, I see that a number of examples of events, political causes, or topics are presented in which this type of thing has occurred. A point with which I agree may have been made earlier in the thread, but I noticed it in a post on the last page. That post suggests that social media and online communication has probably contributed to this phenomenon. In a world in which support for a cause is represented by changing an avatar or through short bits of text, there is little room for nuance. To the contrary, everything becomes very black and white. The response I referenced above also touched on what I think is the other side of this coin which is a hypersensitivity to disagreement. In subsequent posts, the original poster listed a number of things she claims that "you can't say". In fact, you can say them. No law prevents you from saying them. But, if you say them you may well have someone disagree with you and state their objection. As the saying goes, if you can't take the heat, don't go into the kitchen. In addition to the folks who are ready to pounce at anything less than full compliance with their agenda, there are a whole bunch of people who are very heat adverse and don't want to go anywhere near the kitchen. Going back to social media, I think that it reinforces both of these tendencies. The medium does not encourage nuance and polite phrasing is rejected for more directness. But, the type of thing that might be acceptable when said privately between two friends is unwelcome when it is essentially a public rebuke posted on social media. Another aspect of this may be rooted in the American two-party system. Whereas many countries have multi-party systems that provide for a variety of views, our two-party system encourages picking a side. This is reinforced when the media interprets "objectivity" as presenting "both sides". There are many issues that have more than two sides, but those nuances get lost. If increased respect for the views of others could be combined with everyone having a bit thicker skin, we might all be better off.

Yesterday, once again the Gaza war thread led as the most active thread. But, with less than 500 new posts, interest in the thread may be waning. The most active thread after that one was titled, "WWYD? Being asked NOT to bring a new spouse and children" and posted in the "Family Relationships" forum. This thread managed to produce 14 pages of posts in less than 24 hours. I've long been astonished that these threads produce so much interest. A significant number of them turn out to be the work of trolls — another thing that baffles me — and the rest are normally suspected of being trolls even if they aren't. I am convinced that there is a significant number of posters who simply enjoy drama regardless of whether it is real or invented. I guess there are worse passtimes, and I should hardly complain since this one earns revenue for us, but I don't understand it. In this thread, the original poster says that her brother who has children with his first wife is married to a woman who has her own children. His first family does not accept the second and has told the original poster's parents that they will not attend their traditional Thanksgiving gathering if the second family will be there. The original poster asks whether they should invite her brother without his new wife and step-kids. The original poster authored a handful of replies and then disappeared after the first couple of pages. But that didn't prevent the discussion from continuing without her. One of the most common responses was that this was not her business and she should stay out of it. Another common response was that everyone should be invited and the kids could work things out for themselves. But, even more common was for posters to offer their own stories of being in such situations. Some of these posts became subject to more discussion than the original poster's situation. The thread also provided an opportunity for a number of posters to opine on their own views of marriage. On the 13th page of the thread, a poster identifying herself as the original poster provided another response that included details about which posters had previously been speculating. Another weird phenomenon of this and other DCUM forums is posters claiming to be the original poster when they are not. In this case, I can't say whether this was the actual original poster or an imposter. But, frankly, I don't think that matters to most of those participating in the thread.

The two most active threads yesterday were ones that I have already discussed and will, therefore, skip. The first of those was the Gaza war thread which racked up nearly 700 new posts. The second was the thread about the murders in Fairfax. That was has turned into more of a discussion of au pairs and the family's income than the crime itself. The most active thread after those two was titled, "Student with Gun found at Walter Johnson" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. The original poster simply pasted the text of a message from Walter Johnson High School's principal which informed parents, students, and staff about an incident involving a gun that had occurred at the school. Apparently, one student informed school administration that another student was believed to have a gun. Police were called and, when the second student was searched, a gun was found. No information was found suggesting that there was any threat to the school or an intention to harm anyone. Nevertheless, the situation is being taken very seriously. To explain the responses in this thread, a little background is in order. In Montgomery County, there is a group of high schools, including Walter Johnson, that have the letter "W" in their names. A second group of schools are joined in a consortium called the Downcounty Consortium, or DCC. The "W" schools are frequently considered to be better and more prestigious whereas the DCC schools are stereotyped as having more problematic students and not being as academically strong. It is fairly common for posters who are believed to be associated with a "W" school to make derogatory comments about DCC schools. Posters supportive of DCC schools, in turn, have developed chips on their shoulders. This conflict was apparent in the very first response to the original poster in which a poster claimed that she has been chastised for sending her kid to a DCC school and, in light of this incident, the "W" school parents should rethink their "false sense of security and superiority". I wish someone had immediately reported this post so that I could have removed it. But, since that didn't happen, the thread largely devolved into a rehash of the "W" school vs DCC animosity. Intermixed among the airing of DCC grievances were a few posts injecting other hot button topics such as some posters' desire to have metal detectors installed at schools and continued anger over the removal of police officers, or School Resource Officers (SROs) as they are called, from schools. Every few pages there is a post about the incident itself, the main one being that the 17-year-old student will be charged as an adult. But, for the most part this thread is a fight between "W" school and DCC school partisans with a few posts — almost seeming to be off-topic — about the gun incident.

The most active thread since my last blog post continues to be the Gaza war thread which added over 1,600 new posts. The most active thread after that was one titled, "Fairfax County Double Murder" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. Several months ago a thread on the same topic was among the most active threads about which I wrote. I eventually locked that thread after it degnerated into little more than lurid gossip. At the time, a poster asked whether a new thread could be created if or when there were additional news on the topic. I agreed that would be okay. But, when this thread was created on October 1st, it was not because of news updates, but rather by a poster asking whether there was anything new. There wasn't, so this thread lingered until this past Thursday when there was a surprise development. First, to review the facts. Nearly seven months ago, police were called to the home of Christine and Brendan Banfield in Reston, VA. Christine had been stabbed and Brendan told police that he had shot an unknown man who was later identified as Joseph Ryan. Also in the home were the family's nanny, Juliana Peres Magalhaes, and the Banfield's young daughter. Ryan was dead when police arrived and Christine later died at the hospital. Exactly what occurred has been a mystery with heated disputes about why Ryan was in the home. On Thursday, police revealed that Christine and Ryan knew each other prior to the event and they announced that they had arrested Peres Magalhaes and charged her with second degree murder in the death of Ryan. Nobody has been charged in Christine's death. The bombshell about Peres Magalhaes unleashed a flury of posts in the thread. Posters speculated about why Brendan had told the police that he had shot Ryan when it now appears that it was Peres Magalhaes. There is considerable speculation about the relationship between Brendan and Peres Magalhaes. According to news reports, Peres Magalhaes has been seen caring for the Banfield's child but it is "unclear whether she was still working in her capacity as an au pair". One poster produced a photo that he claimed came from Peres Magalhaes' Instagram account that showed Peres Magalhaes and Brendan looking quite cozy together in a restaurant. The caption on the photo suggested that the two were in a relationship. There is still no official word on why Ryan was in the home, leading to considerable comment and several theories. The murder mystery aspects of this combined with it being a local story — friends and neighbors of the Banfield's and Ryan have posted — has led to the thread having considerable interest.

The thread about the Gaza war continued as the most active thread yesterday with over 600 new posts. The thread about billionaires withholding funds to colleges that I've also previously discussed was the second most active. So, I'll start with the third most active thread which was titled, "People tell me being weird is a great thing, but I find it isolating" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster says that she hates being weird in the way that she thinks and the activities that she enjoys. Being weird has caused her lots of loneliness and she wonders if others can relate. I guess I just have to come out and say it. This thread is weird. The original poster absolutely, unconditionally, under no circumstances will explain what is weird about her. She does let on that she is "heavily obese", but that is hardly weird. As a result, it is very difficult for others to offer advice and it looks like the original poster eventually abandoned the thread altogether. Several posters also described themselves as weird, but in their cases they claimed to be normal or better than normal in their appearances. As such, they tended to attract normal people which was problematic for them because normal people can't relate to their weirdness. Some posters who are not outwardly weird even reported being rejected by groups of weirdos. This left them stranded in a world in which they are too weird for normal people but not weird enough for weird people. Eventually the thread was almost completely hijacked by a poster who is a woman, but much prefers to hang out with men. This is something she thinks is weird. This led to all kinds of debate about gender stereotypes and expectations for women. Then a weird thing happened when a poster announced that she was a "female farmer" which I don't actually find weird in the abstract, but I was surprised to find on a forum for "urban moms". But, I welcome the poster who provided one of the more elucidating responses. To further disabuse me of my notions of who frequents our website, a second poster immediately identified themself as also being a farmer. So, maybe I am the weird one. One poster attempted to politicize the discussion with a claim that the "Democratic left" celebrates "eccentricity" and being "offbeat". I have no objection to that assertion, but his claim that this is a bad thing was, frankly, weird. Conformity prevents change and, without change there cannot be progress. So, of course I celebrate those who are weird.

The thread about the Gaza war continued to lead as the most active thread yesterday with nearly 900 new posts. Another conflict which looks like it may continue forever — the selection of a new Speaker of the US House of Representatives — was the subject of the second most active. Moving to the third most active thread because I've already discussed those two takes us to sort of an oddball topic. Titled, "Montgomery County Council recognizes International Pronouns Day" and posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics" forum, the original poster complained that while Virginia was seeing the benefits of Amazon's HQ2, the Montgomery County Council had passed a resolution recognizing International Pronouns Day, something the original poster considered to be a joke. One of those responding embedded a 16 minute video of the portion of the Council meeting dealing with this topic. The event consisted of Councilmember Kate Stewart introducing a group of supporters of the resolution, most of whom represented local organizations, and then speaking about why she considered the resolution to be important. In addition, Council President Evan Glass and Councilmember Kristin Mink spoke. A few of the supporters also spoke and then the Councilmembers read the resolution. The resolution was the first item on the agenda and from what can be seen on the video, most Councilmembers hadn't yet arrived and had little to no involvement with the resolution. I mention all of this because many of the responses complained about the Council wasting time on what those posters considered an unimportant issue. But, in fact, very little actual time was lost. Many of those responding appeared to be quite angry that the Council passed this resolution, some even threatened to move out of Montgomery County. One poster — who could probably benefit from a government class provided by Montgomery County Public Schools — declared this to be another reason to homeschool. The resolution, of course, has nothing to do with schools. Of course, local government entities pass all sorts of ceremonial resolutions of this type. For instance, the Montgomery County Council also recently recognized National Farmer’s Day and National Service Dog Month. These are simply easy ways to recognize issues of importance to members of the community. There is certainly something ironic about posters spending 9 pages complaining about what they believe to be a waste of time. Personally, I would be in favor of a resolution recognizing "National Make Conservatives' Heads Explode Day", but that may have already been held on September 12 when the Council presented a proclamation "Celebrating the Drag Story Hour and Participants".

The thread about the war in Gaza continues to lead as the most active thread with over 750 new posts yesterday. The next most active thread is somewhat related to that conflict. Titled, "Wealthy donors pull funding from from Harvard and U Penn for failure to denounce ‘antisemitism’" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, the thread is about wealthy donors to universities pulling funding to the schools because the institutions have not been forceful enough in speaking out against anti-Semitism. There are a number of different issues that come up in the thread. The first, something that the original poster touched on, is whether universities even have a duty to comment on political topics. Several posters pointed out that schools have issued statements in regard to other issues and that being silent at this time would be seen as condoning anti-Semitism. But, this immediately led to disputes about whether actual anti-Semitism is involved in these cases. After the the Hamas attack on Israel, many supporters of Israel demanded unequivocal condemnations of Hamas. Because almost everyone expected massive retaliation by Israel that would result in significant numbers of Palestinian civilians being killed — something that is now coming to pass — many of those issuing statements combined denunciations of Hamas with expressions of concern about Gazans. In some places, including a few colleges, there were protests in support of Palestinians and, in some cases, even in solidarity with Hamas. Any or all of these actions were labeled as "anti-Semitic" by various parties. In response, others argued that even in the most extreme of these examples, the activities were anti-Israel, not anti-Jewish. This touches on a long-running debate about whether being anti-Israel or anti-Zionist is anti-Semitic. Another long-running debate is about free speech and the ramifications of being punished due to speech. Several posters saw the withdrawing of funding as anti-free speech actions while others disagreed, saying that free speech often comes with a cost. Many objected to what they perceived as wealthy Jews using their influence to control what is considered to be acceptable speech at universities. But, one of the examples highlighted by the original poster, Jon Huntsman Jr, is not Jewish. Moreover, the trope of rich Jews controlling society is itself anti-Semitic. Universities have been hotbeds of contention over the Israel-Arab conflict for some time and it is clear that pro-Palestinian viewpoints have made significant headway among students. Whether reactions such as these will influence this trend one way or another remains to be seen.

The two most active threads yesterday were ones that I've already discussed. The first continued to be thread about the Gaza war. The number of posts in that one dropped to less than 600 which is about half of what the thread had been seeing daily. The second thread was also in the political forum and is about the new Speaker of the House of Representatives. That was revived because there will be a vote today that could result in Jim Jordan becoming Speaker. Skipping those threads brings us to a thread titled, "Homecoming dresses are so short!" and posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. Exactly a week ago I discussed a thread that I predicted was the kickoff of DCUM's annual "criticize how teen girls dress" season. The original poster (who, by the way is definitely not "judgy") continues that honored tradition by finding current homecoming dresses to be too short and "slutty looking". The thread immediately entered the predictable pattern of some posters agreeing with the original poster that girls are dressing like "street walkers" while other posters argue that teens always push the limits and that their parents didn't like the way they dressed either. But, then the thread turned to the suggestion that this all was a demonstration of internalized misogyny. As a poster pointed out, regardless of style changes, boys stay fully dressed while girls' attire becomes increasingly revealing. There was quite a bit of agreement with this notion, but then that discussion sort of got lost in a debate about whether criticizing how girls dress is "slut shaming" with the implication being that this was also misogynistic. Some parents described how they managed their daughter's fashion choices, in some cases requiring that biker shorts be worn underneath short dresses and in other cases helping to choose looser and longer outfits. There was also quite a bit of comment on a trend of which I was not aware in which girls wear sneakers with their dresses. One more big debate had on one side posters who argued that girls should either be taught or develop a sense of style. Rather than wearing what everyone else does, they should choose clothing that fits their style and body type and flatters them. The other side contended that girls don't need to do anything to please the first group, could wear whatever they wanted, and that the first group should leave them alone. Just as I was about to publish this post I received a fairly angry report demanding that I lock this thread because it was degrading high school girls. I decided to comply and, therefore, the thread is now locked.