Wednesday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Same college, same sorority, many of my prettiest sorority sisters did not marry well. Who did?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster has, for whatever reason, gone on a Facebook safari to check the current marriage and socio-economic status of her sorority sisters. Twenty years after graduating, the original poster finds that many of the prettiest women fared poorly in marriage. On the other hand, average looking women who attended "ritzy private day schools and boarding schools" all seem to have married well and been successful in their lives, both financially and personally. She asks, "Is there something to this?" To put it mildly, the original poster's observations were not received warmly. She was accused of being shallow, stuck in 1953, and being on drugs. Some posters pointed out that she really had no idea what was actually going on in someone else's marriage and finances. Others asserted that this was nothing more than wealthy people marrying other wealthy people and, hence, no big surprise. One poster who said she came from a wealthy background explained that social and peer pressure naturally led to what the original poster describes as "good marriages", though the poster was not convinced such arrangements were actually "best" for everyone and recognized that there are multiple paths to happiness. Other posters contributed stories of their own experiences and observations. But, frankly, this thread couldn't keep my interest past the second page. So, I can't comment on anything beyond that point.

The second most active thread yesterday was posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. Titled, "Gwyneth Paltrow court case", the original poster asks if anyone is following the case. Since Gwyneth Paltrow is not someone on whom I keep tabs, I didn't know there was such a court case or what it might involve. The original poster provided no information to help educate me, though she did advise those in similar situations as me to "Google it". From what I can glean from the few posts that I read, she is being sued due to an incident on a ski slope in which she either ran into or was run into by another skier. Most of the posts that I read seem to support her version of events and suggest that she is being wrongly sued. While I have only skimmed a few pages of this thread, it appears that most of it does stay on topic and related to the trial. However, there are inevitable diversions into other aspects of Paltrow's life such as her involvement with Goop and what, I guess, can best be described as uniquely scented candles. There are also several, probably unnecessary, posts about Paltrow's appearance. Readers of this blog will know that I am not a huge fan of threads about celebrities and, as such, I don't really want to put much effort into discussing this topic. About the only other thing I can say is that I have seen far worse threads about celebrities, but that is not saying a whole lot.

The third most active thread yesterday was titled, "DC Begins School Boundary Study" and posted in the "DC Public and Public Charter Schools" forum. In 2013, the District of Columbia began a process of revisiting school boundaries and largely adopted a feeder system in which elementary schools have specific boundaries and middle and high schools adopted the boundaries of the elementary schools that fed into them. A law adopted at that time required reviewing boundaries every 10 years. Therefore, DC has just launched an effort to review boundaries again. The previous effort appears not to have adequately addressed many of most pressing issues related to school boundaries. For instance, Alice Deal Middle School and Jackson-Reed High School (formerly Wilson High School) remain overcrowded. Boundaries around Capital Hill are confusing and arbitrary. As such, many posters in this thread hope those problems will be resolved by this review. Boundary changes are controversial because people have often bought homes based on the schools for which they are in-bounds. Nobody is happy about being zoned out of a school they feel they have indirectly paid to attend. Moreover, the schools with the most demand are for the most part situated in the least integrated parts of the city, adding a racial component to any boundary changes. There is a natural struggle between solutions that theoretically make the most sense and those that take practical realities into consideration. To take one example that is discussed in this thread, Shepherd Elementary School currently feeds to Deal Middle School and from there to Jackson-Reed even though it is located on the opposite side of Rock Creek Park and closer to Ida B. Wells Middle School and Coolidge High School. On many levels, it makes sense to change Shepherd's feeder pattern. On the other hand, Shepherd is one of the few Deal feeders with a significant number of students of color and is an important contributor to diversity at Deal. On a political level, Shepherd Park, the home of the school, is a base of political support for Mayor Muriel Bowser and her own home is inbounds for the school, making this a particularly touchy issue.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum and titled, "WHOA! USC went over $90,000 a year startling this fall!". The original poster says that the cost to attend the University of Southern California was the first that she has seen to reach $90k a year and wonders how middle class and upper middle class families will be able to afford college. Several posters point out that the original poster's claim is a bid misleading. The $90,000 figure is the estimated cost of attending which includes food, housing, incidental expenses, and so on in addition to tuition. The actual cost might be somewhat lower, but the point remains. Several posters weigh in to share their experiences with college costs which are objectively horrendous in many cases. Several posters say that they have chosen in-state schools as cheaper options. As always happens in threads related to college costs, there are many posters who argue that middle class families have no business pursuing elite private schools. There is considerable debate about the actual benefits of expensive schools and whether their costs can be justified. Some posters see the expense of college as a failure by the country to provide for its citizens, pointing out that even the cost of public universities is getting out of hand. A few posters argue that costs are due to universities providing unneeded amenities with one poster claiming that colleges now look like "expensive resorts".