January

The college admissions process continues to produce threads that are among the most active. Yesterday's most active thread, for instance, was titled, "Anyone else thinks the whole college admission process is a total farse?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster, who presumably meant "farce", assures us that she is not bitter but rather feeling helpless about the college application process which apparently has not gone well for her child. She is most bothered by claims that colleges review applications "holistically" which she does not believe is possible given the huge number of applications that they receive. In her view, colleges are lying to kids. Just about anyone whose child didn't get admitted to their first choice college seems to dislike the current application process. However, there is little agreement about what to do about it. Some posters want to adopt a system like that in Europe in which admissions are primarily based on the results of a single exam. Others propose limiting the number of colleges that can be included on the common application. Many posters are convinced that colleges are intentionally marketing themselves to students who will never be accepted simply to collect the application fees. Other posters attempted to explain how they think the process actually works. If they are correct, which I have no way of knowing, the original poster is essentially correct that the vast majority of applications don't undergo holistic reviews. Some posters argue that if students correctly set their expectations, they will get into one of their targeted colleges. Similarly, posters suggest that college admissions are too often tied to parents desires and egos rather than what is realistic for their children. This causes undo pressure and leads to disappointment.

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "De facto 'as is'" and posted in the "Real Estate" forum. The original poster has previously purchased four houses, but is in the process of buying a home in northern Virginia for the first time. A home inspector found several items, some of which are fairly big ticket, that needed repair or replacement. Based on the original poster's experience, he expected that he could submit the inspector's report to the sellers and they would then negotiate an amount that the sellers would cover. However, the sellers refused to provide any money in response to the inspector's report. Therefore, the original poster considers this to be an "as is" sale even though it was not advertised that way and asks if this is normal in northern Virginia. Without explicitly saying so, many of those responding make it clear that this is fairly normal behavior for sellers in northern Virginia. Many of those responders criticized the original poster because they believe he should have noticed many of the items the inspector identified before making an offer and other items would not normally be considered in such negotiations. Other posters are more sympathetic to the original poster and agree that there should be some negotiation. Posters on both sides of this argument agree that the original poster should simply walk away from this purchase if he is unhappy about the seller's refusal to negotiate. Much of the thread is devoted to analyzing the list of items identified by the inspector. Many argue that only items that present safety hazards should be covered. The original poster at first estimated that the cost to repair things would be $15,000, but after several posters suggest cheaper alternative ways of addressing the issues, he seems to conclude he could get by at a fraction of this price. As a result, the original poster seems to be reconsidering whether this is even that big of a deal and is going to take the days he has remaining before being required to respond to consider his options. The original poster is fully prepared to walk away from the deal and mentions from that from now on he will negotiate offers with the expectations that sellers will not be willing to negotiate inspection findings.

Yesterday's most active thread was one I didn't even know about until this morning. Yet, it managed to reach 17 pages in just one day. Titled, "Check your phone at the door" and posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum, the original poster says that she noticed in other threads that some parents have a policy of having their children's friends leave their phones at the door when they come over. The original poster thinks such a policy would be appealing and encourage socializing rather than having all the kids sitting around staring at their phones. I would have never guessed that this would turn out to be such a controversial topic. Several posters say that they would be offended if their child were asked to turn over their phone and that they would expect their child to refuse. These parents can't fathom not having the ability to immediately get in touch with their kids. One poster goes so far as to suspect that parents with such policies plan on abusing her child. Other parents either have such policies or see the benefits of them. One parent seems fixated on porn and appears convinced that if she didn't take the kids' phones, they would all be watching porn in her basement. Another parent describes having her child's friend video a tour of her home and then put it on TikTok. One irony I noticed is a number of instances in which phones were confiscated, but other screen-oriented activities such as video games or movies were allowed. I am not sure that exchanging Instagram or TikTok for Grand Theft Auto really encourages socializing, But, my main takeaway from this thread is that there are a significant number of parents who consider it essential that their children have their phones with them at all times. More than one parent described buying their children Apple Watches so that they could still be in touch even if phones had to be turned over.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Having an overweight teenage daughter is so hard" and posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. The original poster is venting because her 16-year-old daughter is overweight and getting heavier day by day. The poster makes clear that she has not said anything to her daughter about this, but is concerned because her daughter gets very little exercise and, despite eating healthy food, has gone up 4 pants sizes in the past year. The original poster is very discouraged and not sure what, if anything, to do. One of the first things I learned after we started DCUM is how much the first response in a new thread can influence the resulting discussion. Another unhelpful phenomenon is a negative poster who joins the thread early and insists on contributing endlessly. This thread suffered from both of these blights. Not only the first, but also the second response were nearly identical suggestions that the original poster should herself get therapy. I thought that both responses were inappropriate due their implication that the original poster's concern was not valid. Moreover, one of the two posters turned out to be one of those who treats a DCUM thread the way a starved pitbull might treat a raw steak. Once she got her teeth into it, there was no way she was letting go. So, while other posters offered the original poster support and advice for how best to address the situation, this poster continued to focus her acrimony on the original poster. Thirteen pages in, she was still repeating the same criticisms of the original poster that she posted on the first page. As a result, the thread is as much a debate about the original poster as it is a discussion her daughter's weight gain. Weight, especially a woman's weight, is an extremely touchy subject on DCUM at the best of times. Add in an argumentative poster like the one I've described and it is no surprise that the thread was the most active of the day.

The most active thread yesterday was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. titled, "Florida bans AP African-American Studies course from schools", the original poster links to a New York Times article reporting what is described in the thread's title. Briefly, the Florida Department of Education rejected an Advanced Placement (AP) high school curriculum because, the Departement claimed, the course is historically inaccurate and violates Florida law. The Departement did not explain which law the class violates or which parts were inaccurate. Last year Florida passed a law prohibiting teaching many race-related topics including those that might cause feelings of guilt or distress among students. While the law has been named the "Stop W.O.K.E Act", it might better be termed the "Snowflake Act" given its implication that Florida students have very tender feelings. Predictably, discussion in this thread basically consists of liberals condemning Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Departement of Education's action and conservatives lining up in defense. There is clearly a desire among some conservatives to return to a completely whitewashed version of American history that focuses solely on white Americans. Such views are reflected by posters asking why a class focused on African-American studies exists in the first place. I think the dilemma faced by posters who attempt to debate topics like this in good faith — regardless of political perspective — is that decisions like this are not made in good faith, but rather on the basis of raw politics. So, posters devote lots of effort to researching and explaining detailed substantive arguments while DeSantis, with his supporters' encouragement, is acting with all the nuance and sophistication of a caveman with a club. Both detractors and supporters of Florida's ban who attempt to intelectualize this debate are on a completely different wavelength than DeSantis who cares nothing about ideas, history, or law, but only about politics.

Leaving out threads that have already been discussed, the most active thread yesterday was titled, "Question for those opposed to legacy status" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The poster poses several questions to those who oppose legacy preferences for college admissions. When I read this post I thought that the original poster must not understand the topic of legacy admissions because the poster seemed oblivious to what legacy preferences provide. The first poster to respond to the thread seemed to be thinking along the same lines, beginning the post, "Not rocket science." For the benefit of those who, like the original poster, may be confused about this topic, a legacy preference is a preference given to college applicants who have a parent that attended the institution. This is often seen as a type of affirmative action for the wealthy, white, and well-connected. While the original poster seems to believe that responses to legacy admissions would be complex and potentially unworkable, opponents of legacy preferences view the issue quite simply: just ignore legacy status. This thread is 10 pages long and I don't have time to read much of it. But, from what I have seen, most of those responding oppose legacy preferences. Many explanations are offered to explain what is wrong with the practice. The only defense of legacy admissions that I noticed was sort of half-hearted, just pointing out that universities rely on alumni for fundraising and wondering how that might be impacted. Essentially, it looks like the original poster lobbed a softball directly over the plate and posters couldn't wait to step up and hit it out of the park. Hence, lots of responses mostly saying the same thing.

Today I'll look at the most active threads over the weekend, starting with a thread titled, "2023 - 2024 school calendar" and posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. School calendars are a surprisingly controversial issue and each of our various school forums tends to have multiple contentious threads on the topic. In this case, the calendars in question are draft proposals for Fairfax County Public Schools which were published last week. School calendars must address a daunting number of often conflicting priorities. For many, the most important factor is for school calendars to align with work calendars so that parents and children are off at the same times. Others prioritize religious or cultural holidays. Some value long breaks that allow time for travel while others prefer short breaks that cause less interruption to the learning process. Everyone thinks there are too many days off while still demanding that their favorite days off remain. FCPS has presented four draft calendars that attempt to reconcile these differing preferences in alternative ways. Not surprisingly, all of the drafts have their fans and detractors. Probably the most intersting aspect of this thread is the justifications posters concoct for their preferred days off. For instance, I can't imagine that a large number of FCPS families are travelling cross-country by car lugging a cooler full of food and staying at Motel 6s along the way, which was why one poster claimed to require a two-week Christmas break. A few, maybe, but enough to justify planning a calendar around? Doubtful.

On Sundays my practice has been to review the most active threads from the previous week. Out of the top 15 threads from the past week, 11 have already been discussed in daily posts. So, I will just go over the four remaining threads. The first of those was titled, "Travel on Social Media" and posted in the "Travel Discussion" forum. The original poster simply asks if others post their travel photos on social media and whether they enjoy seeing other's travel pictures on social media. As can be expected, posting travel pictures has its fans and detractors. One of the reasons frequently cited for not posting such photos was safety. Posters don't want the world knowing when they are out of town. Others described posting travel photos as "gauche". On the "pro" side were posters that said they received ideas and inspiration from travel photos posted by their friends and hope that their own photos gave ideas to others. An interesting development in this thread was how much of the discussion was not about posting travel photos specifically, but rather the reaction by others to such posting. For instance, there were disputes about whether posting travel photos made others jealous. Posters detailed how they might mock those who posted travel photos behind their backs, provoking responses calling them "unhinged" or "seething". Posters debated whether unfollowing or muting posters who post travel photos is rude or a reasonable reaction. Some posters attempted to draw distinctions between posting one or two photos of an occasional trip and posting full-fledged photo albums constantly. The first could be tolerated but not the second.

Yesterday's most active thread was the redshirting thread that I discussed yesterday. So, I'll skip that one and go to the next most active thread which was titled, "Keenan Anderson - black teacher killed by LAPD" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. Anderson is a DC school teacher who was visiting Los Angeles. After becoming involved in a traffic accident, Anderson flagged down a police car. According to the police, Anderson began behaving erratically and multiple officers attempted to restrain him. Ultimately, the police would taser him seven times and, four hours later, Anderson suffered cardiac arrest and died. The use of force by police against black men is obviously a very contentious issue that has been much debated. As such, many posters have reflexive responses to incidents such as this. Some posters immediately blamed the police and the tasering, despite the fact the impact of the tasering is not yet clear. For other posters, there is apparently nothing that could convince them that the police acted wrongly. These posters are big on advising others to "just comply" and demonstrate no sympathy or understanding for those undergoing mental health crises. What is probably most striking is how different posters could watch the same video and come away with markedly different perceptions. Some saw a man in distress being confronted by police whose actions escalated things. Others viewed it as Anderson resisting attempts to prevent him from harming himself or others. Similarly, there are striking disagreements about the racial aspects involved, with some seeing racism as self-evident and others going to great lengths to deny that race had any role in the event.

Yesterday's most active thread was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The thread was titled, "WARNING before you send your child to an upper Midwest cold weather college" and quotes from an article lamenting the lack of sunshine in Michigan in early January. The poster warns about the dangers of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and cautions about all Midwestern states. As a native of the Midwest and graduate of the University of Illinois, I find the original poster's concern to be ludicrous in the extreme. Mark Twain is often credited with the saying, "If you don’t like our weather, just wait a few minutes", but at least one quote investigator has traced that expression to an anonymous resident of Chicago, a place where the sentiment is certainly fitting. The original poster may be shocked to learn that there are people who actually enjoy seasonal weather changes. Some of those responding share the original poster's antipathy for the cold and sometimes gloomy weather of the north, but others recall pleasant experiences in such places. Other posters note that the Pacific Northwest and parts of northern New York state also have similar weather. This thread is part of a trend where posters have fixated on weather as a major factor in college choice. This is the second thread about cold weather colleges that has been among the most active and weather was a big part of another most active thread about southern universities. The thread is also part of a second trend involving posters obsessed with the University of Michigan, which — as a proud Illini alumn — I am contractually obligated to hate. But, I actually have fairly fond feelings for the school.