Thursday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "CVS Sangamore" and posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics" forum. The original poster provided a link to a video filmed within the CVS store located on Sangamore Street in Bethesda showing a man stuffing a bag full of items pulled from the stores's shelves. Behind him, another man casually exits the store carrying a similar fully-loaded bag over his shoulder before the first thief follows him out. The video documents one of several similar robberies that have targeted CVS stores in DC and Bethesda recently. Some of the stores have been robbed multiple times in recent days. The original poster and most of those replying want something to be done about these robberies. But, posters can't agree on who is to blame. The most popular targets for criticism are "liberals" who are allegedly soft on crime, are accused of defunding the police, and said to have ordered the police to stand down. Other posters point out that it took police 45 minutes to respond to the robbery and blame the police for not doing their jobs. The police are defended by posters who argue that it is a low-paying job in which the risk/reward balance often discourages officers from acting. One poster is intent on blaming Amazon and eBay, posting an excerpt from an article reporting that organized groups orchestrate these robberies and resell the stolen goods on online marketplaces He wants them to crack down on the sales. Posters warn that if these robberies continue, the stores will close. The point to recent store closings in San Francisco which has become a sort of poster child for conservatives.

The next most active thread was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "No one posting about trump town hall?", the thread is obviously about the town hall CNN broadcast featuring former President Donald Trump. Most of those responding are critical of CNN. The network filled the audience with Republican and Republican-leaning voters who became a cheerleading squad for Trump as he stream-rolled CNN's host Kaitlin Collins. As always seems to happen in the political forum, posters mostly just reiterate their previously-held positions. Posters who don't support Trump are further incensed by his behavior. Trump fans think he did great. Trump opponents who are pessimistic about President Joe Biden's chances in a rematch with Trump attempt to hijack the discussion to complain that Democrats don't have a better candidate. Several posters express concern that Collins will be scapegoated for the event, a prediction that doesn't seem to have materialized. DCUM posters generally have a difficult time staying on topic, but posters in the political forum are absolutely terrible about it. One reason is that changing the topic is a popular tactic to avoid addressing difficult topics. Rather than address the many faults displayed by Trump during the event, conservatives would much rather talk about shortcomings they see in Biden. As a result, this thread goes all over the place, diverting to posts about Joe Manchin, Kamala Harris, and even Don Lemon. One irony of the broadcast is that while Trump supporters were ecstatic about his performance, the Biden campaign also reacted favorably, even creating a commercial featuring clips of Trump from the town hall. Similarly, a political action committee backing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis also tweeted criticism of a list of points that Trump had made, asking how Trump's statements could "make American great again?" So, despite the avalanche of criticism CNN received, both Trump and those running against him seem fairly pleased with the event.

The third most active thread yesterday was titled, "Is Peter Stuyvesant having the same problems as TJ?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster is referring to "Stuyvesant High School", a public college-preparatory high school located in New York City, and "Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology", a public magnet high school located in Fairfax County, Virginia. The original poster asks whether the two schools still get a large number of admissions to top colleges. Like me, several posters wondered to which problems at TJ the original poster might be referring. This question was never really answered to my satisfaction. Several posters mentioned the well-covered and repeatedly discussed changes to TJ's admissions process which were aimed at providing opportunities to a more diverse group of students. However, students admitted under that system have not yet reached graduation and, therefore, would not impact college admissions. There was some dispute among posters over whether the most recent graduation class had suffered a disappointing record in college admissions with some posters claiming that it had, and others saying college acceptances were about normal. There is a lot of discussions about the admissions changes at TJ. There is some discussion of the demographics of Stuy and differences between it and TJ. But, most of the thread is devoted to the same old debate about whether diversifying TJ's student body negatively impacts that academic caliber of the school. There is a group of posters who are adamant that lower-performing kids are taking spots from their more deserving children. That same concern is simply transferred to the college admissions process where some posters believe the same thing is happening again. At least one poster is placing his hopes on the Supreme Court's decision in a case involving Harvard University's admissions policies. However, as much as that poster expects a Court ruling he supports, he continues to be pessimistic that universities will react in a way that he hopes.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Money and Finances" forum. Titled, "What is your HHI and how much do you save?", the original poster reports an annual household income of $360,000 and says they save $3,000 a month. For the most part, those responding appear to stay on topic and simply report their incomes and the amount that they save. Some posters have situations that require a bit of explanation, but for the most part things are pretty straightforward. Most of those posting appear to be doing a pretty good job saving money, but a few are proudly not worrying about the future with one poster saying he "lives for today". There are a few divergences such a discusion of private versus public schools and the advantages provided by generational wealth. Another fork in the discussion dealt with "intergenerational living" in which different generations of the same family share living arrangements. This allows greater savings and some posters argue attributes to the financial overperfromance of cultures that follow this tradition.