DCUM Weblog

The two most active threads yesterday were both threads that I discussed in yesterday's blog post. So, I'll start with the third most active thread yesterday which was titled, "United just randomly reassigned my seats" and posted in the "Travel Discussion" forum. The original poster explains that she paid extra for tickets on a United Airlines flight in order to be seated together with her three children. However, just as they were boarding the aircraft, she found out that United had changed their seats without notice. As a result, all three kids were seated away from her. The original poster admits to being the type of person who is annoyed when others try to change seats after boarding, but in this case was happy that the flight attendant managed to get her two youngest children moved to seats next to her. The topic of seating for families on airlines has been recurrent in our forum and I have written about several such threads which were among the most active topics on various days. President Biden has even weighed in on the topic and airlines have been promising to do better. Nevertheless, several posters in this thread recount experiences similar to that of the original poster, several of them also on United. Another poster told of her husband's ticket being changed to an entirely different flight after he had already obtained a boarding pass. They were not aware of this until the poster boarded the plane and her husband was prevented from joining her. She had to leave the plane to even find out what was going on. Our travel forum is frequented by a number of posters who delight in telling others what they have done wrong. In this case, the original poster was criticized for not checking the family's seat assignments earlier. Other posters made excuses for the airline, for instance suggesting that the aircraft type had changed. Some posters argued that precisely because airlines act so cavalierly so often, the original poster was wrong not to be keeping tabs on things. Several posters suggested that at a minimum, the original poster should have the fees she paid to be seated together refunded. At least one poster expressed hope that the original poster might have gained a new-found sympathy for those who try to change seats in order to be together with family members.

The most active thread yesterday, by a good measure, was titled, "3 children dead in private Christian elementary school shooting in TN" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The thread is obviously about the shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, TN that left three young students and three adults dead. In addition, the shooter was killed by police. In the few months that I've been writing these blog posts, I've summarized multiple threads about mass shootings. I've noticed increasing cynicism in how posters respond, with this thread going in that direction from the very first post in which the original poster, tongue-in-check, suggested the cause of the shooting was that the Christian school had "had too many doors and too little God". The original poster then went on to offer nothing beyond "Thoughts and prayers". Clearly, the original poster is satirizing pro-gun politicians such as US Senator Ted Cruz who responded to a school shooting in his state of Texas by suggesting that schools should only have one door. I understand the inclination but I also believe that the killing of innocent people, especially children, should be addressed with a more serious tone. When children are laying dead on a classroom floor, humor probably should be avoided. If there is another thing that I wish posters would learn, it is to wait for the details of such events. In this case, posters almost immediately started making jokes about a drag queen or a trans person committing the shooting, as if such a thing were unthinkable. When the shooter subsequently turned out to be a trans man, those jokes lost much of their luster. Mass shootings are always politicized now and this one had immediate political dimensions. Some posters wondered if it was a hate crime targeting Christians. Others, morbidly and inappropriately, were pleased that what they believed to be conservatives had been targeted. When information spread that the shooter was a woman, posters discussed that unusual development given that almost all mass shooters are male. When Nashville's police chief repeatedly used female pronouns to describe the shooter who he also said was transgender, several posters interpreted that to mean that shooter has been assigned male at birth and transitioned to female. That provoked some posters to declare that the shooter really was a man. It turned out that the police chief was actually misgendering the shooter who had been assigned female at birth but identified as male. The reaction among some posters to the news that the shooter was transgender can only be described as just short of orgasmic. What had looked to be another wave of calls for gun control could now be refocused on the current conservative pet issue of anti-trans activity. Very little is known about the shooter's gender identity such as how far down that path the individual had progressed, what, if any, type of care had been provided, or even how long the shooter had identified as trans. I would advise everyone to slow down a bit and try not to get ahead of the facts.

Since I took the weekend off from blog posting, today I'll look at the most active threads since Friday. The first of those was titled, "This is getting ridiculous" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. At first glance, this is simply another in a long list of threads complaining about the alleged unfairness of college admissions. The original poster complains that her son — whose stats objectively are impressive — has repeatedly been waitlisted or deferred by top universities to which he has applied to study computer science. What makes this thread somewhat different is its focus on computer science and the substance of the replies. Whereas most threads of this sort tend to get bogged down in self-pity among White males and Asians who are convinced the entire system is rigged against them, the replies in this thread look at other explanations. Many posters point out that computer science is currently very popular and universities have difficulties expanding their programs given the high salaries that potential professors are able to command elsewhere. As a result, there is a supply and demand problem that is resulting in disappointing admissions results for many very qualified candidates. Other responses suggest that the original poster's son might not be as uniquely qualified as she believes and some posters hypothesize that admissions committee members are not sufficiently versed in technology to adquately understand the qualifications of the strongest applicants. Eventually the discussion does turn to the usual trope that equity is causing the best candidates to be rejected. But, by now, forum participants are well-versed in the argument and able to provide solid counter-points. One slightly new twist in this discussion is a debate about whether computer science is a dead end field that will be replaced by artificial intelligence. As is soundly argued in the thread, believing such a thing suggests a significant misunderstanding of the field.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "School punishment" and posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum. The original poster explains that her 2nd grade child got in trouble for talking during lunch and will have to eat lunch alone for a day as punishment. The original poster says that her child is well-behaved and this is a first offense. Therefore, the original poster thinks the punishment is inappropriate, she says that her child is very embarrassed by being forced to eat alone, and that prior for leaving for school the child was crying about being punished. The original poster asks what others think. Most posters agree that being forced to eat alone as a result of talking during lunch is an inappropriate punishment. However, most of those advise just accepting the situation and using it as a lesson about how life is not always fair. Many posters are in disbelief that children are supposed to be quiet during lunch and either think this is a ridiculous expectation or that there must be more to the story. The original poster clarified later that the children were told to be quiet for the entire lunch as punishment for being noisy previously. Many posters weighed in with posts that on the surface appeared to be reasonable, but were actually based on a false understanding of events. For instance, many posters accused the original poster of undermining the school's authority, even though the original poster stated several times that she had not contacted the school about the episode and had told her child to accept the punishment. Similarly, the original poster was repeatedly criticized for wanting her child to go unpunished, despite multiple posts by the original poster saying that she fully supported consequences for her child. It was just that she believed that this punishment which singles out her child for humiliation by being put on display eating alone was not appropriate. Quite a few posters focused on the child's reaction which they considered out of proportion to the punishment and wondered if the original poster was feeding the child's reaction with her own concerns.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Same college, same sorority, many of my prettiest sorority sisters did not marry well. Who did?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster has, for whatever reason, gone on a Facebook safari to check the current marriage and socio-economic status of her sorority sisters. Twenty years after graduating, the original poster finds that many of the prettiest women fared poorly in marriage. On the other hand, average looking women who attended "ritzy private day schools and boarding schools" all seem to have married well and been successful in their lives, both financially and personally. She asks, "Is there something to this?" To put it mildly, the original poster's observations were not received warmly. She was accused of being shallow, stuck in 1953, and being on drugs. Some posters pointed out that she really had no idea what was actually going on in someone else's marriage and finances. Others asserted that this was nothing more than wealthy people marrying other wealthy people and, hence, no big surprise. One poster who said she came from a wealthy background explained that social and peer pressure naturally led to what the original poster describes as "good marriages", though the poster was not convinced such arrangements were actually "best" for everyone and recognized that there are multiple paths to happiness. Other posters contributed stories of their own experiences and observations. But, frankly, this thread couldn't keep my interest past the second page. So, I can't comment on anything beyond that point.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Git into a huge fight with brother's date at a wedding and ruined dinner" and posted in the "Family Relationships" forum. The original poster describes attending a family member's wedding when, during dinner, her brother's date began discussing politics and making increasingly racist statements. At some point, the original poster began challenging some of the woman's statements, leading to a sort of low-key argument which made others uncomfortable and possibly prompting some of them to leave. Now many people are angry with the original poster, but she refuses to apologize and asks what should be done in these situations. Sadly, but I guess not surprisingly, very few posters sympathize with the original poster. Most of the initial responders suggest that she should have excused herself from the table. But, when the original poster explained that circumstances did not allow that, posters begin to put blame on her. I think the responses in this thread, as well as its length, are illustrative of where our society currently stands with regard to dialogue on race. On the one hand, there is a constant drumbeat that society is "woke" and even completely innocent statements are being characterized as racist and leading to individuals being wrongly "cancelled". However, at the same time, appeals to racism and increasingly overtly racist statements have become distressingly acceptable and anyone standing against racism is criticized as being "woke" (which for some reason is considered to be bad). More often than not, it is not the borderline or full on racists who are castigated, but those who refuse to tolerate their racism. As such, the original poster is the target of most of the criticism in this thread. Posters argue that the woman's statements probably were not that bad with more than one poster suggesting that she probably said the sort of thing that you might hear on Fox News. Well, exactly. That is part of the problem. Sadly, where much of our society stands right now, anything less than the most blatant racism is supposed to be accepted while those who challenge it are blamed for intolerance. That is clearly demonstrated in this thread. Some posters even appear to take a sort of joy in ridiculing the OP for being offended, implying that she demonstrates a deranged liberal mindset. To be fair, there were a few lonely voices supporting the original poster. Even more posters agreed her brother's date was out of line, though those posters generally felt the original poster handled things poorly.

The most active thread yesterday was the "Brutal week" thread that I discussed yesterday. So, I'll go to the next most active which was titled, "Did your FCPS go on a really pitiful field trip this year to the Smithsonian art museum?" and posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. The original poster describes her daughter's field trip during which they visited one of the Smithsonian art museums, but spent less than an hour at the museum and only saw three paintings. This was a huge disappointment. Several other posters responded to say that their children had the same experience. Some explained this by saying the the short trips were necessitated by the need for the buses to return to pick up students from middle schools. Regardless, nobody seemed happy about the experience. Several posters said that their children had been looking forward to the field trip because, due to COVID, they hadn't been on one in years. Later in the thread a couple of posters who said they have chaperoned such trips in the past explained that seeing only three or four paintings is normal, though some described spending longer periods of time in the museum. The discussion eventually grew to include other field trips, especially one to Jamestown and one poster described a field trip to Philadelphia. Much of the discussion focused on the costs of trips and the distances to various locations. I'm a little surprised that the topic of field trips could generate so much discussion, but there seems to be a number of posters for whom field trips are very important.

Today I'll look at the most active threads over the past three days. The most active thread during that period was the thread asking whether private colleges and universities are only for poor people about which I wrote on Friday. So, I'll skip that one today and go to the next most active thread which was also about colleges. Titled, "Colleges removing useless majors" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum, the original poster happily reports that a number of colleges and universities have dropped majors that the original poster considers "useless". Most of these are humanities majors, though one of the universities mentioned is also dropping mathematics. This phenomenon, as well as the original poster's joy over the development, highlights a long-running division in the DCUM college forum and in the discussion of education generally. An increasingly vocal and influential group increasingly views college and university, in the words of one of those responding, as little more than glorified vocational school. There is little appreciation of knowledge for the sake of knowlege or any major that might not immediately lead to lucrative employment. STEM skills are emphasized instead of the humanities which once provided the foundation of advanced education. DCUM has always had a significant number of attorneys participating and a number of them provide responses in this thread in defense of some of the majors being dropped, especially English, arguing that communications is an important skill for many fields. Personally, I am very concerned about this trend, if it is indeed a trend. I am a firm believer in a well-rounded education and I have a great appreciation for the humanities. During a time in which basic facts of history cannot be agreed upon, it is disconcerting that the US may be educating fewer historians. An art major may not develop the next life-changing invention, but life would certainly be changed by the absence of art. I really have a hard time understanding those like the original poster who express actual happiness about these majors being dropped. Obviously, if she doesn't want to study those fields, nobody is forcing her to do so. But why does she take pleasure in fewer opportunities for others ? This is a strange type of thinking that suggests the original poster might benefit from increased exposure to the humanities and a broadened mind.

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "Are top private colleges mainly for poor people now?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. I have repeatedly pointed out that thread after thread in the college forum is based on the premise that the college application process is unfair — it's always biased against whomever is authoring the post. A corollary to this argument is that financial aid is also unfair. The conventional wisdom routinely stated in the forum is that the very wealthy can afford to pay full price for colleges and the very poor receive generous financial aid, but those in the middle neither get aid nor can afford the costs. The original poster takes this a step further and asserts that only the poor are able to attend top private schools. She presents some data without providing a source and the data is later disputed by another poster, who also failed to provide a source. But, I believe the flaws in the original poster's argument are clear even without disputing her numbers. Based on her data, the cutoff for need-based financial aid is $200,000 annual income. Families in this income range are generally not seen as poor, especially outside expensive urban areas. She also ignores the fact that many middle class families amass significant college savings and, therefore, don't require as much financial aid. Also, merit aid may, in many cases, also help close financial gaps. Basically, the original poster proves something that I have noticed to be true for a long time. The best way to create a lengthy thread is not by posting a brilliant post which cannot be disputed in the slightest, but rather to compose a post full of obvious holes and shortcomings. Posters will eagerly respond to the second type in order to address its flaws. In this case, the original poster has provoked 17 pages of posts mostly disagreeing with one or more of her contentions.