DCUM Weblog

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Who are these families with household incomes of $45k or $60k? $70k?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster cites the salary levels mentioned in the thread's title as being necessary to received college financial aid. He is surprised that anyone with a child of college age would have such incomes and wonders who they are. Before this thread even had three replies it was reported to me by someone suggesting that it be removed. I believe that person's concern was that thread would result in bashing poor people. If so, such fears were misplaced. Instead, the thread is mostly posters criticizing the original poster for lacking intelligence and providing examples of those who earn salaries at such levels. The most frequent example was probably single parents. Many posters provided stats showing average incomes which demonstrated that the original poster was very out of touch with salary levels. Quite a few posters described their own personal experiences of either growing up in such a household or living in one now. This is an interesting corrective to the prevailing perception that DCUM posters are all well off. One poster, who said he owned a business, described using loopholes to keep his reported income low and qualify for aid. Needless to say, this did not go over well with many posters.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Please don’t let your children eat common allergens while playing on public playground equipment" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. As the title says, the original poster urges parents to not allow their children to eat foods to which many children are allergic on public playground equipment. Because of the severity of the original poster's child's allergies, this practice essentially makes it impossible for the child to go to playgrounds. This thread is 15 pages long and I only have time to read the first couple of pages. But, that is enough to know that there is a huge fight between parents who consider eating peanuts while climbing on the monkey bars to be a God-given right that will not be infringed and those who are not above physically assaulting someone in order to confiscate their snacks. Beyond that, rather than summarize the thread more accurately, I want to comment on two aspects of the responses that stuck out to me. The first is a topic that I may have brought up before in one of these posts, so forgive me if I am repeating myself. That is the importance of the first response. It has been a longtime observation of mine that the first response is often essential in setting the tone of the thread. In this case, the actual first response was the original poster adding more detail to the initial post. But, the next response was from a poster who essentially ignored the original poster's concerns and asked what she would do when the child goes to school or college, obviously unaware that accommodations for children with allergies are common in both. This poster continued opposing even the most mild of sacrifices and made clear that she wasn't interested in anyone's issues but her own. I think this clearly established the tone of the thread right from the start. The second thing that stood out to me involves the same poster. Admittedly, DCUM can be a pretty rough place at times with posters often being unnecessarily harsh. Frequently, this is blamed on the region's culture with residents of the DC-area being described as unkind or overly competitive. The original poster was even guilty of this, alluding to "dog eat dog D.C.". But, the poster responsible for the negative posts and who adamantly insisted nobody mattered but her was not posting from the DC area and appears to be a couple of states away. In my experience, actual DC people are more than willing to make reasonable accommodations for children with allergies and I would hate for this thread to give the opposite impression based mostly on the unrepresentative posts of someone from outside the area.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Conservative confusion over schools" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster has composed a thoughtful post describing how Republican elected officials such as Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have exploited fears over public schools to their electoral advantage. Much of what the original poster touches upon has been discussed in other threads that I've summarized, but the original poster provides cohesive overview of what has been happening. Somewhat surprisingly, I didn't notice this thread, which was just started yesterday, until now and it has already reached 15 pages. I don't have time to read the entire thread, but from what I did read, the discussion has mostly gone as one would expect. Certainly, many of the liberals that dominate DCUM agree with the original poster. What is notable, however, is the nature of the conservative response. Conservatives, at least as I saw in this thread, don't seem capable of addressing the issues raised by the original poster directly. Instead, the conservative reaction is one that is worth being looked at more fully. Republicans have a well-established opposition to public education. More recently, Republican operatives, especially Chris Rufo, discovered that fanning parent concerns about public schools could be turned to their political advantage. Rufo explicitly turned Critical Race Theory (CRT), something that he acknowledged that he doesn't even understand, into a major controversy which, in part, propelled Youngkin into the governor's seat. The Republican strategy has been to either outright invent horror stories involving schools or massively distort the reality. They've found that if they can get their story out first, corrections or explanations of the truth generally get drowned out. This manufactured "truth" not only lives on, it becomes accepted reality within conservative circles. This "realty" is then used to justify Republican attacks on public education. The upshot is that the Republican response to what the original poster describes is to talk about "groomers", "pedophiles", and CRT, with very little of what they are discussing having a firm basis in reality. The real world impact of DeSantis' actions, in particular, is mostly ignored.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Was this rude of me?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster describes having a lazy Saturday during which her husband went to the gym and then generally relaxed at home. During that time, the original poster tended to their child and did some housework. Needing a break and also wanting to finish a work project, the original poster suggested that her husband take their child to the park. Her husband seemed put out by this request and the original poster asks if she had been rude. I personally would have no issue with the original poster's approach and several posters who identified themselves as men similarly said her request was fine. Some posters argued for a more direct approach and, frankly, I found most of their suggestions far more off-putting than what the original poster described. But, what pushed this thread to 9 pages and put it at the top of the most active list was one particular poster. There is an Internet phenomenon known as the "reply guy". These are men who are prone to respond to women in ways that are generally inappropriate. DCUM has its very own reply guy who, when joining this thread, described the original poster as "manipulative" and selfish. In true "reply guy" fashion, he would not give up and was still posting on what is currently the last page of the thread. In the course of the thread he accused the original poster of being a liar, of being "passive aggressive", of having "poor organizational skills", of being "an abusive person" and "mentally ill", and of precipitating an inevitable divorce. Ultimately, the reply guy worked himself up to the point where he declared the child involved did not even belong to the original poster's husband. As entertaining as this fellow is, I've blocked him. Though generally posters like this have plenty of experience being kicked out of forums and know how to find their way back.

Starting off today I would like to thank everyone who posted condolence messages in response to yesterday's post about my brother Doug. That meant a lot to me and I greatly appreciate it.

Since I didn't cover Thursday's most active threads yesterday, today I'll look at the most active topics over the past two days. The most active thread during that period was titled, "My wife is furious with me for not standing up for her when my brother told her off" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster goes to some length to describe a conflict between him and his wife. This is the second marriage for each of them and the original poster has one daughter from his previous marriage and his wife has three daughters. The original poster's brother has no kids, but has repeatedly taken the original poster's daughter on exotic trips around the world. His wife's children are jealous of the trips and would like to be included, an idea that the original poster knows is a non-starter with his brother and he warned his wife not to bring up. Nevertheless, the original poster's wife went behind his back to ask his brother to include her daughters in an upcoming trip. The brother responded very rudely and the original poster's wife now wants the original poster to stand up for her. He doesn't want to do that because he feels his wife was wrong, but he is now sleeping in the guest bedroom and wants advice about what to do. Many posters suspected this was a troll thread or copied from Reddit. I have no evidence to support either allegation. However, the original poster only seems to have replied once, which is sort of strange in a 17 page discussion. Most of those responding side with the brother, though some believe that he was unnecessarily rude. A few posters believe that the original poster's relationship with his wife is more important than his relationship with his brother and, therefore, all of the children should go on the trip or none of them. Of course, this being the relationship forum, several posters immediately told the original poster to get a divorce — advice that could be expected regardless of the circumstances.

My wife, Maria, grew up in the Eastern Orthodox tradition and our two sons were baptized in that religion. It is an Eastern Orthodox practice that the 40th day after a death is a day of remembering the departed. As such, I am going to devote today's post to memories of my youngest brother, Doug Steele, who drowned on January 8 while swimming in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of El Salvador. Doug was 54 and would have turned 55 had he lived two more days.

Doug was four years younger than me. When we were young, he never wanted to be left behind. Whatever I was doing, or our brother Greg was doing, Doug wanted to do it too and wouldn't take "no" for an answer. To keep up, he had to work twice as hard and do his absolute best. That imbued qualities in him that would last his entire life. At almost everything he attempted, Doug would excel. But, even if he didn't excel, he did his very best. Doug loved cross-country running and was a dedicated member of his high school team. He was short of stature and found it difficult to keep up with the long strides of the taller kids. But that didn't discourage him. He made such an impression as a runner that his high school cross-country coach traveled almost 3 hours in order to attend and speak at Doug's memorial service. As a high school wrestler, Doug set several school records and still holds the record for the most wins in his weight class. His wrestling coach described him as "the most productive wrestler in the 25-year history" of his high school.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Strange comment" and posted in the "Family Relationships" forum. The original poster explains that her mother-in-law gave her husband a check for $1,000 as a birthday gift. When the original poster's husband opened the card containing the check, apparently in the presence of both his wife and mother, the original poster immediately proclaimed that they could use the money for their ongoing home renovations. The original poster's mother-in-law interjected to say that the gift was for her son and that he would decide how to spend it. The original poster was upset by that remark and now wants an apology. In the two pages of replies that I have read, every single one of them sided with the mother-in-law. Given the normal treatment of mother-in-laws in the family forum, that is fairly incredible. One would think that the original poster would get the message and accept that she was wrong. But, in that case, the thread would not have reached the 18 pages it managed to accumulate in less than a day and I probably would not be writing about it now. So, no, the original poster did not accept that she was wrong. To the contrary, she continued to argue that she was perfectly justified in making a unilateral decision about what her husband would do with his gift. I don't have time to read all 18 pages but I jumped to the last page and see that the original poster is still arguing this morning. Therefore, this thread may continue for a while.

The most active thread yesterday, by some measure, was titled, "I don't think I can be friends with moms who drive huge SUVs" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster says she has just moved to the suburbs and describes encountering a group of moms loading groceries at the grocery store who all had the same type of white SUV. The original poster found this hilarious but wonders if these women are concerned about global warming. I am fairly certain that this is a troll thread. The original post clearly seems designed to trigger as many people as possible and the poster has a posting history that suggests a certain amount of creativity has probably been employed. If the thread was indeed aimed at trolling, it was wildly successful as the thread generated a massive 24 pages in less than 24 hours. Probably as intended, SUV fans who were provoked came to the vehicles' defense. Some posters pointed out that the original poster's decision to move from an apartment to a house was also ecologically unsound. The original poster defended this choice by stressing that it was a small townhome with no yard. The original poster's attacks on SUVs were soon replaced by her defense of cars when posters argued that the original poster should be walking rather than driving. The poster found herself fighting a battle on two fronts with SUV proponents on one side and those arguing that she should have chosen a walkable urban neighborhood on the other. The brilliance of the perfect troll thread is that everyone knows that it is a troll, but they are still incapable of not responding. The bait is just too appetizing.

Earlier this month one of the most active threads that I discussed was focused on articles in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School's student newspaper describing drug use in the school's bathrooms. In that thread, parents demanded that something be done about the problem. It turns out that Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), did do something. The school system restricted access to the bathrooms. The most active thread yesterday, titled, "Bathroom security announcement" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum, was about that policy change. Generally, posters were in agreement that these restrictions are a bad idea. Some posters described the policy change as "collective punishment" which was unfair and would be ineffective. Many parents said that it would be harmful to students who had medical needs for unfettered bathroom access and menstruating girls. However, there was strong disagreement about what should be done instead of restricting bathroom access. As I have written before, the MCPS forum has a contigent that strongly supports the return of School Resource Officers (SROs), police officers stationed in schools. Other posters are not convinced that armed police officers raiding school bathrooms is the solution. Whenever someone mentions SROs, a poster or posters immediately bring up the failure of police at Parkland and Uvalde. Those schools were mentioned so frequently in this thread that one could be forgiven for thinking they were MCPS schools. Several posters complained that the school security guards don't do anything to stop kids vaping or using drugs in the bathrooms and want these employees to enforce school rules. Others who responded see the bathroom issue in the context of greater societal issues which should be addressed, particularly gun control (there have been a number of gun-related incidents in MCPS schools including a shooting in a school bathroom). It is unlikely that this will be the end of the bathroom controversy so this is probably not going to be the last thread on the topic about which I write.

Yesterday was a day on which people around the world gathered around their televisions for one of the most watched events of the year: the broadcast of Super Bowl commercials. So naturally, the most active thread on DCUM was titled, "Super Bowl commercials". Posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum, the thread managed to rack up 13 pages in just over 12 hours. Pretty amazing considering that most of our users were asleep during much of that time. Started with a prompt by the original poster to discuss the commercials, the thread is mostly a collection of opinions about the ads that appeared during the football game. Many users expressed dissatisfaction with all of the ads, opining that none of them were very good. Others found favorites, with the Dunkin' commercial being praised by several posters. Probably the most controversial ads of the evening were the "He Gets Us" ads promoting Jesus. Many posters pointed to the right-wing, evangelical Christian groups behind the ads, especially the family that owns Hobby Lobby. This provoked criticism from both liberal-leaning and anti-religious posters. However, posters who supported the message of the ads spoke up to defend them. Two commercials that featured dogs, one by the Farmer's Dog and the other from Amazon, were lauded by multiple posters. The Remy Martin ad featuring Serena Williams provoked some debate over the appropriateness of an athlete promoting an alcoholic beverage. At some point the thread was temporarily hijacked by discussion of the half time show and Rihanna's apparent pregnancy, though there was an entire separate thread devoted to that topic. One or two posters even posted about the game that periodically interrupted the commercials.