Thursday's Most Active Threads

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "Are top private colleges mainly for poor people now?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. I have repeatedly pointed out that thread after thread in the college forum is based on the premise that the college application process is unfair — it's always biased against whomever is authoring the post. A corollary to this argument is that financial aid is also unfair. The conventional wisdom routinely stated in the forum is that the very wealthy can afford to pay full price for colleges and the very poor receive generous financial aid, but those in the middle neither get aid nor can afford the costs. The original poster takes this a step further and asserts that only the poor are able to attend top private schools. She presents some data without providing a source and the data is later disputed by another poster, who also failed to provide a source. But, I believe the flaws in the original poster's argument are clear even without disputing her numbers. Based on her data, the cutoff for need-based financial aid is $200,000 annual income. Families in this income range are generally not seen as poor, especially outside expensive urban areas. She also ignores the fact that many middle class families amass significant college savings and, therefore, don't require as much financial aid. Also, merit aid may, in many cases, also help close financial gaps. Basically, the original poster proves something that I have noticed to be true for a long time. The best way to create a lengthy thread is not by posting a brilliant post which cannot be disputed in the slightest, but rather to compose a post full of obvious holes and shortcomings. Posters will eagerly respond to the second type in order to address its flaws. In this case, the original poster has provoked 17 pages of posts mostly disagreeing with one or more of her contentions.

The next two most active threads have already been covered in earlier blog posts so I'll skip to a thread posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum titled, "Northwood High School Students caught smoking unknown drug in bathroom that made security sick". The original poster excerpts a news article describing an incident at Northwood High School in Silver Spring in which two security guards entered a bathroom after smelling a strange oder. They later experienced vomiting and were briefly hospitalized. Two students admitted to "smoking an unknown drug in the bathroom". I don't have time to read the entire 9 page thread, but I've read enough to know that this has reignited concerns about drug use in MCPS bathrooms which seems to be a chronic issue lately. In addition, and as could be expected, it provoked calls for bringing back School Resource Officers (SROs), or police who are stationed in schools. It is not clear what SROs could have done that the security guards couldn't, but maybe their proponents believe them to be equipped with gas masks. As an aside, I accidentally discovered that a single poster had made four separate posts calling other posters "idiots" or, in one case, "a complete idiot". The irony of this is that I am fairly certain that in almost every case, the poster had misunderstood the post to which he was replying and was actually in agreement with the posters he was calling idiots. The same poster also struggled to understand a very common metaphor, even after having it explained to him. So, I am not sure that communication is his strongest skill. He is certain, however, that SROs must be returned and that only an idiot would believe otherwise.

The next thread I'll discuss was titled, "Whose side are you on: Airplane Movie Etiquette Edition". I'm so glad this thread made the most active list because yesterday I moved it from the "Off-Topic" forum to the "Travel Discussion" forum. I didn't read the entire post then and was curious to know more about it. The original poster was on a daytime flight during which a man a few rows ahead was watching "The Sopranos" on the in-flight entertainment system. A woman with a boy around 8 years old and a younger girl was seated in row between the original poster and the man. The show was unedited and considerable nudity was visible to the young kids, upsetting the mother. This eventually led to some exchanging of seats and the mother addressing the issue with both the flight attendant and the man himself (who was not cooperative). The original poster asks who was right in this situation and whether shows with nudity should be available on such flights. I think every response I read, which only included those of the first two pages, sided with the man. Posters thought that the mom had overreacted and could have found ways to distract her kids or otherwise prevent them from seeing the show. Some posters felt that shows with nudity should be edited before being made available for flights, but even they thought the man was within his rights to watch anything that was available. There was some debate about a hypothetical situation in which he was watching porn, but most posters considered that a different situation and not material to this discussion.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "Out of control college snowflakes at UC-Davis", the original poster discusses protests at the University of California, Davis in opposition to an appearance by Charlie Kirk, the CEO of Turning Point USA. The protests turned violent resulting in broken windows and two arrests. Opposition to right-wing speakers on college campuses has long been pointed to by conservatives as proof that colleges are bastions of liberalism that oppose free speech. In this case, despite right-wing claims, it is not clear how much of the violence can be blamed on UC students. The two individuals arrested were both unaffiliated with the university. However, there is an interesting discussion to be had about changing views about "free speech". There are clearly limits on what universities will allow to be said by public speakers. There is a growing view that these limits should include those who dehumanize or call for violence against others. Many of Kirk's defenders in this thread seem unaware of some of his more controversial statements. Recently, for example, he said on video that transgender people should be "dealt with" in the same way that men dealt with things in the 50s and 60s. Many considered this incitement to lynch transgender individuals given that was how many black men were "dealt with" back then. Kirk, of course, denies that is what he meant but I am not sure of an interpretation that is particularly good for him. An irony quickly brought up in this thread is that Kirk's organization was deeply involved in the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. At least one individual arrested for assaulting a police officer arrived in DC on a bus paid for by Turning Point USA. Kirk was called to testify before the January 6 Congressional Committee, but exercised his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to answer questions. As a result, many posters expressed skepticism of Republicans who do not condemn Kirk or January 6 rioters suddenly being concerned about UC Davis. On the other hand, many liberals happily condemned the violence at the university and called for those responsible for the violence to be charged, somewhat dampening conservative expectations.