Friday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Chinese balloon flying" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Obviously this thread is about the Chinese surveillance balloon that has been flying over the US the past couple of days. The most revealing aspect of this thread is the large number of Chinese surveillance balloon experts that post on DCUM. The thread is literally full of them. Every single one of these "experts" blames the Biden administration for not immediately shooting down the balloon. The Biden administration's explanation that the military has disabled the balloon's ability to transmit any information of value and that shooting it down would present dangers to people and property on the ground is far from satisfactory to this group. China would not allow a US balloon to float unmolested over its territory they argue. Probably true. China does not share the US's concerns about the safety of its citizens and would likely be willing to sacrifice a few in order to make a political gesture. For many posters, this was simply further evidence that President Joe Biden is in the pocket of Chinese communists. For others it provided evidence for their latest conspiracy theory. For all the hyperventilating going on in this thread, the balloon didn't elicit much more than a shoulder shrug from actual experts — some of whom are quoted in the thread. Those experts were mostly  confused given that China could obtain equally good intelligence from its satellites. One salient topic that did come up in the thread was the amount of US farmland China has been purchasing. A number of posters found this to be much more concerning than the balloon.

Next was a thread posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum titled, "1st day back in office, this is truly horrible". It has been clear for some time that working from home is going to be one of the more controversial issues of the workplace. The COVID pandemic demonstrated to many employees that working from nome has several benefits. Employers, in many cases, are concerned that rather than working, employees working at home are spending all of their time on non-work activities such as posting on DCUM (a realistic fear). But, as the original poster of this thread demonstrates, you can waste your time on DCUM even when you are in the office. The original poster is quite upset that he has had to return to the office after working at home for some time. He is upset that he had to wake up early and is upset that he had to sit in traffic during his commute. He is tired and worried that he will get even more tired as the week goes on. By the end of his post he has threatened to quit and find a different job that doesn't have an office culture trapped in the last century. While DCUM has a lot of proponents of working from home, I am pretty sure even the most ardent of them is not overly comfortable having this poster represent them. The tone of his post is so whiny that only one post on the first page, other than two follow-ups by the original poster himself, was sympathetic to him. Even that one mostly contained constructive criticism. By the second page he does find a handful of supporters who also favor working from home. Eventually the thread moved beyond the specific complaints by the original poster and simply focused on the broader issue of working from home versus working at the office. Like the original poster, many of those responding believe that working in an office is for dinosaurs. On the other hand, some posters enjoy the office environment and find it preferable to working from home. But, most of those posters would be quite happy to have more people — especially those like the original poster — work from home. Not only would this reduce traffic on the roads, they don't necessarily enjoy the company of complainers.

The final two threads that I'll discuss today both address the issue of drug use in high schools. The first is titled, "APS overdose at Wakefield" and was posted in the "VA Public Schools other than FCPS". The thread is about the drug overdose of a student at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. Tragically, the student would later die. Few details are known about the specific incident, so much of the discussion in this 18 page thread is about broader issues related to drug use. Many posters promote training in the use of Narcan and for widely distributing Narcan which can be used to mitigate drug overdoses. Much of the discussion is about fentanyl with warnings that Xanax, Adderall, and Percocet tablets laced with fentanyl are presenting a grave danger. Additional warnings about the availability of drugs through social media are provided. As is common now in almost all school discussions, the topic of School Resource Officers (SROs) came up and was debated. There was also some discussion about whether drug use is more likely among students from "rough" neighborhoods or a danger regardless of social class. One unfortunate sidetrack occurred when one poster complained that a school basketball game was cancelled due to the overdose and resulting school lockdown. This provoked many responses criticizing the poster as insensitive. Posters also debated various ways to combat drug use in schools though most of the suggestions did little more than highlight just how difficult of an issue this is to address.

Last was a thread titled, "B-CC Student Newspaper Blows the Lid Off of Drug Use and Distribution in MCPS High Schools" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. The original poster links to two articles posted on "The Tattler", the student news site of Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. The first of the article describes drug use at the high school which seems to include widespread vaping, especially in school bathrooms. The article focuses on the dubious sources of illegal drugs with a dealer who was interviewed admitting that he has no idea what might be in the drugs he is selling. The article warns about the dangers of fentanyl which can be unknowingly included in such drugs. The second article included further interviews with a drug dealer, perhaps the same one from the previous article. He explained his methods of buying and selling drugs. Much of his business is conducted on the Telegram communications platform, though he also uses Snapchat. The dealer explained how he often sold drugs in school bathrooms but after security was increased had changed to other venues. Much of the resulting discussion focused on the responsibility of the Board of Education to enact more effective anti-drug policies and the role of parents in combatting drugs. Some posters were suspicious of attacks on the Board of Education, viewing them through the prism of recent right-wing attacks on school boards. Many posters complained that "not my kid" parents who were in denial were a large part of the problem. Another parent argued that a lack of resources to help with drug addiction was a huge problem. On the other hand, some posters did not believe the articles and said what was described did not reflect their children's experience at the school. This provoked some derision.