February

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Most young men are single - most young women are not" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The thread, which was started with the original poster linking to an article in "The Hill" discussing a survey showing that 60 percent of young men are single while nearly half that number of women are unattached, gained a whopping 23 pages of responses in less than 24 hours. Given the length, there is no way that I am reading much of it. But, from what I see on the first couple of pages, discussion is divided between those blaming men for their own bad luck and those thinking these numbers don't add up. The numbers do raise the question of just with whom the women are involved? The answer seems to be a combination of "each other", "the same guy", and "older men". Another explanation suggested was that men and women view relationships differently and while a woman might answer a survey question by saying that she is in a relationship, the guy with whom she is involved might not view things the same way and, therefore, answer by saying he is not in a relationship. If this is true, the disparity might not be as stark. It would be kind of ironic if a guy dating three different women resulted in three women saying they are in relationships and one man saying he was not. This thread is ripe to attract DCUM's Incel Battalion, but I didn't read enough to see if they actually showed up. Even without their overt appearance, some posters were already arguing that society is biased against young males. In contrast, several posters insisted that young men need to put down their phones and start paying attention to other people if they don't want to end up single.

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.

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.

The most active topic yesterday was sort of a return engagement. While the thread is new, the topic is not. Diligent readers of this blog may remember that last month I discussed a thread about school calendars for the Fairfax County Public Schools. That thread was about 4 proposed calendars that had been offered for public input. A thread titled, "School Calendar 2023-2024" and posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum revisited that topic because the school board was holding a meeting in order to approve one of the proposals. Posters provided live coverage of the board meeting, posting continual updates to what was taking place. Interspersed among the updates was plenty of commentary from posters kibitzing the board activity. Based on what was posted, it appears that the Board approved a modified version of what had been designated the "blue" calendar. This calendar provides for the first day of school two weeks before Labor Day, includes a two-week Winter Break, and a one-week Spring Break. These were all things that DCUM posters seem to have wanted (though, of course, there was not complete agreement on anything). In addition, the calendar provides for a host of Religious and Cultural Observance days. These days mark significant religious and cultural days in a variety of traditions and may be missed by students without earning an absence. Teachers are not supposed to introduce new material on those days so that absent students doen't fall behind. These days were selected based on public input and recorded absences from previous years. In the end, DCUM posters seem relatively pleased with the outcome, though everyone had their own personal nit to pick. The calendar was approved for three years, though the second and third years might be tweaked somewhat.

The three most active threads yesterday were all threads that I have previously discussed. So, the first thread I'll address today was actually the fourth most active yesterday. Titled, "Satanic Temple to offer abortion services in New Mexico", the thread was posted in the "Religion" forum. The Satanic Temple is a "nontheistic religious organization" that "uses Satanic imagery to promote egalitarianism, social justice, and the separation of church and state". The group has "utilized satire, theatrical ploys, humor, and legal action" in order to "highlight religious hypocrisy" (all quotes from Wikipedia). Finally, it should be noted that The Satanic Temple does not believe in a supernatural Satan. The original poster linked to an article about The Satanic Temple's announcement of the "The Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic" which will offer abortion services in New Mexico. Clearly taking this all very seriously, the original poster is bothered that in order to receive abortion services, individuals must agree to conduct the Religious Abortion Ritual. The original poster apparently believes that agreeing to this ritual means joining a Satanist organization. In reality, the ritual amounts to little more than reciting two fairly mundane statements ("One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone" and "Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs" ) and membership does not appear to be a requirement. Many posters respond trying to convince the original poster that The Satanic Temple is not actually a group that worships Satan and pointing out that she is falling victim to their strategy of using satire to draw attention to their agenda. The original poster is not dissuaded and simply transitions into an opposing abortion generally. So, as a result, the thread basically turns into a debate about abortion rights. Ultimately, this thread shows the effectiveness of the The Satanic Temple's strategy. No other abortion clinic in New Mexico, nor indeed anywhere in the US, has been subject of one of DCUM's most active threads.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "S/O How do you justify having an affair?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. This thread was started amid a horde of similar threads about cheating. As a result, many of those responding assumed the original poster was the author of those other threads and berated her, in many cases assuming that she was a victim of a cheating spouse. However, it appears that the original poster is just someone who likes to start threads willy-nilly and for some reason wanted to put her own spin on the topic rather than join one of the similar threads. The original poster's approach is based on a lot of assumptions that may or may not be correct and her stated goal is simply to know how those who cheat can live with themselves. Very few of the responses address that rather narrow issue. Rather than describing how they live with themselves. posters explain the reasons for the affair. In many cases, this is lack of sex with their spouse and, hence, much of the discussion turns to arguing about the normal frequency of sex between married couples and what constitutes "enough". Affairs are probably the most frequently addressed topic in the forum and nobody should expect anything new to come from a thread such as this. If you are interested in seeing every single debate point ever made on the topic in one place, this thread might be a good candidate given its 24 page length. This thread, like others before it, is full of posters recounting their own experiences of being cheated on.