Saturday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Accused of racial bias at work by someone, and I feel sick over it" and posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum. The original poster provides a long and detailed description of what appears to be an innocent interaction that resulted in her being accused of racial bias. The original poster feels strongly that the allegation is wrong and is very upset about it. She asks how others would handle the situation. There are a range of responses running from suggestions that the original poster simply ignore it to advice to contact the accuser and try to resolve things. Some posters criticize the original poster for being overly emotional. A few of those who respond agree that the original poster was guilty of racial bias, though the facts that were presented do not support such a conclusion. Much of the the thread is devoted to analyzing the details provided by the original poster and drawing conclusions about where mistakes had been made. Some posters conclude that gender rather than racial bias may have played the greater role.

Next was a thread posted in the "Off-Topic" forum titled, "If you're from Virginia and don't like Maryland". The Virginia versus Maryland rivalry is nothing new to DCUM. There are near constant debates over real estate, businesses, state and local governments, and universities in the two states. The original poster, apparently unaware of the trove of threads in the DCUM archives documenting these disputes, asks why Virginians don't like Maryland. Even a fully comatose individual could probably rustle up enough working neurons to predict that the first response would be "drivers" and, indeed, that is the case. Maryland drivers are renown throughout the region for their poor driving habits. In fact, most of the first two pages are devoted to driving. Of course, Marylanders speedily cut into the discussion with no warning, aggressively following every negative post far too closely, to blow their horns of indignation. "Maryland is the richest state" they declare while accelerating the wrong way into a thread that is not about what people like about Maryland. I wouldn't say that this thread breaks any new ground, but if you are interested in a condensed overview of the pros and cons of VA and MD, this thread provides it.

Third was a thread titled, "I believe that admission to elite schools were much more meritocratic 20 years ago versus today" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster — who undoubtedly walked 10 miles in the snow up hill both ways to get to college — lists a number of arguments supporting the contention made in the thread's title. Most of these are related to testing but grade inflations is also blamed. I only read a few posts in this thread and see that there are posters both agreeing and disagreeing with the original poster. One of those responding believes that today's college students are higher achievers than in the past. However, a poster identifying herself as a college professor claims the opposite, saying that today's students perform much worse. I think much of this debate hinges on how "merit" is defined. The original poster clearly puts considerable emphasis on testing and grades. Critics of standardized tests believe they don't provide an accurate evaluation of a student's abilities. To use the baseball metaphor once employed by Ann Richards. There are many who are born on third base and believe that they hit a triple and therefore should merit the privileges of that achievement. In contrast, those born on first base but who have been able to advance to third due to their own efforts may well be the more meritorious. Posters such as the original poster tend to fixate on cases in which someone born on first base but who manages to work her way to second is given an opportunity. The fact that third base is more advanced than second is objectively true. Who has actually achieved more is a topic for debate with no clear answer and which of the two deserves more merit is the fundamental argument of this thread.

The last thread I'll discuss today was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. While I have only read a few posts in the thread titled, "'Justice' a new documentary on Kavanaugh", I suspect the thread is a huge waste of time. The original poster links to an article about a documentary that is premiering at Sundance about the allegations of sexual assault lodged against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The original poster asks whether Kavanaugh can be impeached if the documentary proves that he lied during his confirmation hearing. This is a highly hypothetical start to the thread given that nobody has had the chance to view the movie and therefore has any idea whether such proof will be offered. Nevertheless, opinions about Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford are so hardened that simply mentioning their names is enough to provoke a heated thread. I am really not interested in reading a rehashing of the same arguments I've read numerous times previously and, hence, won't read this thread. But, if it interests you, you know where to find it. However, I would suggest a better strategy is to watch the film once it is available and then return to discuss it.