DCUM Weblog

The most active thread over the weekend was the Kate photo thread that had nearly 4 times the number of posts as the next most active thread. That thread, wouldn't you know it, was the thread about Meghan Markle's new lifestyle brand. So, apparently, DCUM has turned into a tabloid. The next most active thread, and the first one that I have not already discussed and, therefore, will discuss today, was actually a parenting topic. Titled, "DD wants the big bedroom, but I don’t want to give it to her & DH not backing me up", the thread was posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. The original poster describes a disagreement involving her nine year old daughter, herself, and her husband. The family is moving into a new house that has three children's bedrooms. Two are identical to each other while the third is larger and has built-in furniture that gives it a "girly" appearance. More importantly to the original poster, it has a door to the outside. The original poster would like her daughter to take one of the identical rooms and her 4 year old son to take the other. However, her daughter wants the larger room. The original poster is concerned about the door and she would rather remove the built-in furniture and convert the room to either a guest room or play room. The original poster's husband has agreed that their daughter should not get the larger room at this time, but has told her that she may be able to move into it in the future. This is frustrating for the original poster because this presents an obstacle to removing the built-in furniture which she also thinks is her daughter's main attraction to the room. Moreover, the original poster's husband thinks that she is being paranoid about the door. She wants to know what DCUM thinks about this situation. This seems fairly simple to resolve to me. Put the kids in the small rooms, convert the larger room, and assume that their daughter will forget all about moving soon enough. If not, deal with that in the future. But, few of those responding seemed to see things in these terms. To the contrary, quite a few of the posters would consider this abusive. One poster is convinced that having raised the daughter's hopes about the larger room, it would be mean to disappoint her now. She insists that the daughter should be allowed to have the larger room immediately. Other posters reject the notion of fairness and don't see a problem with one child having a larger room than the other. In contrast, fairness is very important to other posters. A few posters side with the original poster and criticize her husband for not supporting her. In addition, some posters are concerned about the outside door and consider that a safety issue. The notable thing about this thread, and what contributes to its length, is the strength of the feelings of various posters. To some, this is not a topic on which reasonable people can disagree, but rather one about which a few posters seem to think that their answer is the only valid one. As one poster sums things up, "Clear that the inmates are running the asylum in most of y’all’s homes."

The top three most active threads yesterday were all ones that I've previously discussed (Kate photo, soccer club merger, over-scheduled kids). Therefore, I am starting with what was actually the fourth most active thread yesterday. Titled, "What season is boys volleyball?" and posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum, this is not the sort of topic that you would expect to see as the first thread that I discuss in one of these posts. The original poster simply is curious about whether boys volleyball will conflict with her son's primary sport. You might think that this is a fairly simple question — I certainly did — but then you, like me, would be wrong. The answer is that boys volleyball is a Fall sport in Fairfax County Public Schools. What complicates things is that this is a new sport that will be introduced in the next school year. Therefore, the thread begins with a discussion about whether boys volleyball even exists within the school system. Once it is established that the sport has been approved, there is a dispute about whether there is interest in the sport. Many see volleyball as a girls' sport and claim that they don't know a single boy who plays the sport. Other posters point out that there is an active and popular recreation league that is proof of strong interest in volleyball among local boys. In addition, a number of posters point out that boys volleyball is popular in other parts of the country. Federal regulations require that boys and girls have an equal number of sports, so another point of discussion involved which sport would be introduced for girls. That turns out to be girls wrestling, which was equally, if not even more, controversial. Once again, posters claimed that they didn't know any girls interested in wrestling. However, another poster wrote that several girls wrestled at the high school her kids attend. In addition to the expected lack of interest in the sports, the other reason many posters were upset about the new sports was the concern that the sports might complete for space in gyms. Several posters argued that the limited gym space at their schools was already booked up and that there wouldn't be room for two more sports. Another objection was financial. Apparently, the cost of the two new sports was included in a budget which also asked for a 10% increase in funding from the County. One poster wrote, "It’s an irresponsible idea that came out of a small group of boys volleyball players and their parents badgering [the schools superintendent]". This poster expected that the sports would be cut before the final budget is approved.

The Kate photo thread once again led as the most active thread, racking up more than 10 times the number of posts as the next most active thread (nearly 11 times in fact). The next most active thread was titled, "a final warning to high school students in the college admissions game", and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to a YouTube video by a current student at Princeton University who expresses strong disappointment with Princeton and warns high school students who are currently in the process of choosing colleges to avoid the university. He warns about a number of other top colleges as well. His main complaint is that rather than being a supportive environment, Princeton — at least according to him — is very cutthroat and, he believes, damaging to students' mental health. He advises applicants to ignore college rankings. He argues that instead, students should investigate the atmosphere of schools to ensure they choose a school with a supportive environment. Due to the video's name starting, like the title of this thread, with "a final warning" and the very depressed attitude of the narrator, I was a little concerned that this was a suicide message. But, hopefully that is not the case. Despite the serious nature of the video, I almost broke out laughing as I read the replies. Multiple posters blamed the student's distress on test optional admissions policies. Their theory being that he is an undeserving student who probably would have been filtered out by a low test score and is now discovering that he doesn't have the chops for Princeton. I don't know whether this demonstrates the posters' determination to protect Princeton from criticism or their one-track fixation on test optional policies. A number of posters wonder why the student simply hasn't transferred. Others just brush off his complaints with one poster even describing him and others like him as a "tik tok like ‘geniuses’" from whom she would never take advice. For the record, this video was on YouTube and the other social network is "TikTok". Other's suggest that while the student may be accurately portraying his own personal experience, he is wrong to extrapolate that experience broadly across Princeton, let alone other top universities. Some posters come to the students defense, though many of them tend toward offering explanations for his struggles rather than accepting that his description of student life at Princeton is valid. A few posters, however, do find the student's complaints to be believable. They point to a rash of suicides at Princeton and its relatively low freshmen retention rate as evidence that the environment might be overly stressful. The bottom line is that those posters who want their children to pursue top universities such as Princeton appear unlikely to heed this warning. Some others who either have ruled out the school or don't consider it to be a realistic option in the first place, find some solace in believing their children are better off elsewhere.

The thread about the photo of Kate Middleton and her kids again led as the most active thread yesterday. If you thought that thread could not get even more crazy, you were wrong. If you thought that it could, it probably even exceeded your expectations. The next most active thread was titled, "37 single, want a baby, make about 95k a year", and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster repeats what was written in the title, adding that she has never married, and asks what advice others might have for her. For some posters, this is mostly a question of finances. On that basis, many posters are concerned that the original poster might not have the financial means for raising a child on her own. Other posters are less concerned about finances but, rather, what they consider the "proper" environment for raising a child. These posters are adamant that a child needs both a mother and a father. As such, they suggest finding a man to marry. Others warn against this due to the likelihood of ending up with a poor choice of man. This warning is provided by several posters who say that they made exactly that mistake. But, by far, the most emphasis was on the need for a support network. If the original poster has friends or family who can pitch in and provide assistance, most posters encourage her to have a baby on her own. Some posters suggest that the original poster find single mom by choice groups which offer mutual support to single mothers. Almost by accident I stumbled across an odd situation involving the original poster. It appears that she only posted three times in this thread and, in the third post, claimed to have two children who share a bedroom in her $2.5 million home. I then checked what the original poster had posted in other threads and it appears that she alternates between two personalities. One is a late-thirties, single, childless women and the other is a mom of two grade school-aged boys. I'm not sure what to make of that. As if a split personality original poster was not enough to discount this thread, a troll also disrupted much of it. The moment that I saw the title of this thread I suspected that a frequent troll would gravitate to the thread. The troll whose posts I listed a couple of days ago is particularly opposed to single mothers and I fully expected that the length of the thread was likely due to her involvement. This turned out to be the case. She posted time after time about the importance of having a father involved. She followed her modus operandi of frequently identifying herself as a new poster when she was not. She also started posts by saying things like "I am not the pp", meaning she is not the previous poster though she was indeed the previous poster. It would be unfortunate that this poster destroyed the thread, but the original poster was long gone by then and her mom-of-two-children persona probably didn't need advice about single motherhood in any case.

Yesterday's most active thread was obviously the thread about the Princess of Wales's photo, receiving nearly 1,400 new posts. I covered that thread yesterday and, therefore, will go on to the next most active thread. That one was titled, "Can’t face friends" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster says that her husband accidentally revealed that his longtime best friend has been having an affair with a college classmate for the last eight years. The original poster, her husband, and their children regularly socialize together with the other family and she is friends with the friend's wife. Knowing this information has made the original poster so uncomfortable about being around the other family that she canceled a planned get together this weekend. She believes that the friend's wife deserves to know about the affair but her husband is loyal to his friend. She asks what others would do. As could be expected, responses are all over the map. Several posters urge the original poster to simply forget what her husband told her and do whatever it takes to let it go. These posters argued that nothing good would come out of telling the friend's wife about his affair. Others argued that the wife deserves to know. They are concerned that if the wife learns of the affair and finds out that the original poster knew about it, she might blame the original poster. Another angle was to focus anger on the original poster's husband who has been hiding this secret and allowing his family to grow close to the other family despite knowing that things could blow up anytime. Some suggested that the original poster's husband should have a discussion with his friend, either to convince him to stop the affair or to let him know that the original poster now knows and is struggling with the information. Basically, put the ball into the friend's court. There was disagreement about how the friend's wife might react to being told about the affair. Many posters thought that she might already know or prefer not to know. They saw many scenarios in which revealing the affair could hurt the original poster's relationship with the woman. However, a poster who herself had been in the friend's wife situation says that she is very grateful to the friend who revealed her husband's affair. The poster says that friend was the only one who put the poster's interests first. In a follow-up post, the original poster says that she has settled on the "put the ball in the friend's court" strategy. She agrees with others that she and her husband need to be on the same page in order to protect their own relationship. The original poster is also compelled to end her friendship with both her husband's friend and the friend's wife. In the first case because she abhors what the friend is doing and in the second because she doesn't want to face the wife while keeping a secret from her.

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "Kate's New Picture" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. As best that I can tell, all the world's insane asylums opened their doors yesterday and the inmates all rushed out and immediately began posting in this thread. The thread was off the rails from the very first post in which the original poster linked to an article about a recently-released photo of Kate, the Princess of Wales, and her children. The original poster complained that "we only see her from the neck down?" and asked "Any conspiracy theories here?" The first problem is that the photo actually showed Kate from the neck up, not down. Second, the original poster was referring to a cropped version of a larger photo that appeared on the same page to which the original poster had linked. The original poster appears to have not bothered scrolling down. As for conspiracy theories? Of course there are conspiracy theories. Any thread on DCUM involving the British Royal Family has conspiracy theories. Poster after poster was apparently spending their day zooming in on the photo and doing a pixel-by-pixel analysis. Problems were found with the foliage, one of the boy's fingers, and the lighting on Kate's face. Posters questioned why Kate wasn't wearing a wedding ring. There was a discussion about the children's teeth and whether they have had braces. The thread would easily have been the most active of the weekend on this basis alone. But then several major wire services issued "kill notices" ordering publications to withdraw the photo due to "manipulation". This was like blowing up a nuclear bomb with an even bigger nuclear bomb. The crazies had been proven right. Never mind that despite the long list of irregularities that posters claimed to have found in the photo, I don't think any of them found the issue with Charlotte's sleeve that actually provoked the photo's withdrawal. But that was of little matter. For once their wild speculation had been proven correct. This completely opened the floodgates of conspiracy theories. Kate is in a coma some said, the couple is divorcing others suggested, Kate has been forcibly separated from her kids some claimed, a few posters even worried that Kate is actually dead. Personally, I'd suggest that she has been abducted by aliens but that theory is a little too mundane for this thread. When a vague statement admitting to the photo having been edited was published on the Prince and Princess of Wales's social media platforms, posters could not even agree who authored it. Some said it was William while others argued that it was Kate. At any rate, the statement did nothing to calm speculation. Rather, it had the opposite effect. Several posters said that they were previously uninterested in the Royal drama but this controversy had caused them to become keenly engrossed. Others were just along for the ride. As one poster put it, "You guys are nuts. I love it!!"

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Biden's SOTU" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. This thread is obviously about the State of the Union address delivered last night by President Joe Biden. Interest in this thread was surprisingly intense, pushing the thread to 44 pages already. Obviously, I haven't read all of those pages, but I have read many pages throughout the thread. Right from the beginning, Republican-leaning posters set the bar for Biden incredibly low. Based on Republican expectations, it would be surprising if Biden were even able to walk to the podium successfully. Doubts about Biden's cognitive abilities spread to more moderate and even some Democratic-leaning posters. When Biden immediately launched into a combative and forceful speech, the thread turned into a combination of straw-grasping and outright denial. "He’s literally reading from teleprompter" one poster wrote, as if any president in the modern era would attempt such a speech without a teleprompter. "The man is literally drugged" wrote another poster. "He’s slurring his words", complained a poster with what would be a repeated criticism throughout the evening. But among Democrats, many of whom had clearly not been optimistic about the speech, there was a slow realization that Biden was clearly exceeding expectations. "He sounds great. Strong and confident", wrote one poster. Another opined, "Joe came out swinging. I'm actually feeling bad for Mike Johnson", referring to the Republican Speaker of the House who spent the evening seated behind Biden making various expressions of disappointment. "Johnson does NOT look happy and I'm loving it", noted another poster. Biden is a not skilled orator of the caliber of Barack Obama or Ronald Reagan. But, if his decades of political experience have done nothing else, they have prepared him for the rough and tumble that has characterized the most recent SOTU addresses during which Republicans routinely interrupt to heckle Democratic presidents. Last year, Biden successfully maneuvered Republicans into opposing social security and Medicaid cuts. At least one DCUM poster correctly predicted that Biden would repeat this tactic. "Last year was great in part because he went off script responding to the RWNJs yelling at him. So their Speaker is telling them to shut it but they won’t", wrote this poster. Not only did the Republican heckling not get under Biden's skin or throw him off kilter, he seemed to thrive on it. Biden taunted the Republicans, ridiculed them, and challenged them to stand up for their professed values. "I think he is doing an amazing job. He's so strong. He should have been getting this message out every single day. But I really hope that people are listening to this!" wrote a poster. The bottom line is that many expected "Sleepy Joe" but they got "Dark Brandon". This caused a notable change in the Republican spin. As one poster noted, "The GOP narrative pivots from ‘President Biden is too feeble’ to ‘President Biden is too aggressive.’" There is no denying that it was a good night for Biden, summed up by one poster as "This is a campaign speech." Indeed it was, and one that, if nothing else, probably calmed a lot of Democratic nerves.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Trans Non Binary - minority?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster says that she has toured at least six colleges in the last 2 1/2 months and on every tour at least one guide has used "they/them" pronouns. This prevalence of non-binary gender is much higher than the original poster has been told exists in the population at-large and she wonders if being non-binary is simply more common among college students. Anything related to transgender or non-binary gender is a hot button issue these days, but even I was surprised that this thread grew to 18 pages in just a few hours, at which point I locked it. The immediate issue I saw with this thread was that it appeared that many posters were significantly more interested in writing than reading. This resulted in many posters talking past each other. One poster repeatedly insisted that other posters did not know the difference between sex, gender, and sexual orientation despite almost every poster appearing to have a fairly solid understanding of those concepts. In response to the original poster's question about the prevalence of being non-binary, posters suggested that the numbers were actually higher than the original poster had been told and that numbers were higher yet among young people. Other posters pointed out that even individuals who are not non-binary often choose to use "they/them" pronouns for a variety of reasons. Therefore, the tour guides the original poster encountered might not necessarily identify as non-binary. The thread was soon bogged down in the normal tedious debates surrounding transgender and non-binary topics. One poster made an ill-conceived comparison of non-binary individuals to tomboys. This provoked nearly every tomboy who has ever set foot on DCUM to weigh in claiming that they never once considered themselves to be non-binary. Most of the thread is simply unreadable and, hence, I didn't read much of it. I think the only relevance to colleges or universities was some petty bickering about which posters would do better on their SAT exams. Given the inability of so many posters to communicate successfully, I wouldn't hold out much hope for any of them. The one conclusion that was easily discernible is that a number of posters hate when other people use pronouns such as "they/them". They view this as forcing them to categorize themselves in ways in which they don't identify and they resent it. They hate the idea of having a label forced on them so much that they demand that those individuals who choose to identify as "they/them" be forced to use one of two acceptable labels instead. Another irony that I noted is that many posters reacted to "they/them" pronouns by complaining about there being too many categories of gender. One of the main characteristics of identifying as non-binary is that it erases gender. So, if fewer categories is better, this would seem ideal.

The most active thread yesterday was, somewhat inexplicably, the thread from some time ago about the merger of two soccer clubs. But I've discussed that thread before and will skip it today. The next most active thread was titled, "The golden age of American Jews is ending" and posted in the "Religion" forum. The original poster linked to an article by Franklin Foer in "The Atlantic" that was titled the same as this thread. The original poster provided a one sentence summary saying that anti-Semitism on both the right and the left is threatening to end an unprecedented period of prosperity for American Jews. This thread really should have been posted in the political forum because this is more of a political discussion rather than a religious one. Jewish identity is a complex topic that is not solely based on religion. Moreover, the complicated relationship between Jews and Israel makes things even more convoluted. It is very clear that most, if not all, of the examples of anti-Semitism on the left that Foer provides are rooted in political divisions, not religious. Some of those examples can reasonably be argued to not be anti-Semitic at all, though they can equally reasonably be interpreted that way. This all makes for a very difficult discussion to have, particularly in a forum such as DCUM. This was clearly demonstrated when a poster alleged that some American Jewish groups have promoted extreme practices in Israel and responded to criticism of those actions by labeling it anti-Semitic. The poster suggested that the groups have gone too far and concludes, "If being against genocide makes me an antisemite, so be it." Indeed, another poster immediately accused that poster of being an anti-Semite. This provoked a tangent into history and disagreements about what Israel is actually doing. Or, perhaps "tangent" is not the right word because that discussion dominated the thread from that point on, leading to me locking the thread. On one side are posters who believe that criticizing Israel's actions is perfectly justified and has nothing to do with the Jewish religion but rather the acts of the state and government of Israel. They see charges of anti-Semitism as a method of shielding Israel from legitimate criticism. On the other side are posters who see anti-Semitism as a motivation for many of the attacks on Israel. What one side sees as legitimate criticism of Israel, the other side often views as inappropriate attacks on Jews. One side views accusations of anti-Semitism as cynical exploitation of a delegitimizing designation while the other side views "anti-Zionism" to be thinly-veiled anti-Semitism. It is clear that anti-Israel discourse has reached unprecedented levels in the US and most American Jews have probably never previously encountered, and perhaps maybe never even envisioned, such widespread opposition to Israel. But, whether this reflects a rise of anti-Semitism that threatens American Jews as Foer would have it or is simply the same type of political activity that has previously been focused on other countries such as apartheid South Africa, is probably more a question of perception than something that can be established with precise certainty.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Unanimous ruling by SCOTUS" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The title refers to a decision by the US Supreme Court regarding a ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court that removed former President Donald Trump from Colorado's presidential primary ballot. As the original poster states, the decision to keep Trump on the ballot was unanimous, but that is only part of the story. As is so often the case with the US legal system, the details of this decision are important and not necessarily what one might think at first glance. While all justices agreed that Trump should remain on the ballot, four justices disagreed with the majority opinon that only Congress can remove a federal candidate. Justice Amy Coney Barrett sided with the three liberals on this issue. As the minority concurrence pointed out, the Fourteenth Amendment says that if a candidate is disqualified under that amendment, "Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability." The suggestion here is not that Congress would be undoing its own action, as the Court majority would have it, but rather removing a disqualification enacted by another body. By ignoring this, the majority has created a contradictory and confusing situation. The three liberal justices went even further in their disagreement, arguing that the ruling was far too broad and effectively meant that no candidate would ever be disqualified from holding the presidency under the Fourteenth Amendment. Another point that should be emphasized is that the Court did not rule on the topic of whether Trump participated in or instigated an insurrection. The ruling was very much not an exoneration of the former President. As so often happens in the political forum, many posters were less interested in the facts and more interested in scoring political points. Several posters claimed that this ruling meant that Trump could no longer be accused of being an insurrectionist. In fact, as noted, the Court was silent on this issue. A number of posters criticized President Joe Biden for attempting to defeat Trump in the courts rather than the ballot box. However, this case was originally brought by Colorado Republicans and Biden had no involvement. Nevertheless, posters spent a considerable part of this thread trying to tie Biden to various legal actions involving Trump. It is clear that many have bought into Trump's allegations that Democrats have weaponized the court system. What really is apparent is how Republicans have attempted to neuter all avenues for holding Trump to account. Republicans stymied two impeachment efforts because they claimed the matters were better settled in court rather than by Congress. This ruling says that the issue lies with Congress rather than the courts. Basically, Trump is a hot potato that keeps getting passed back and forth.