Tuesday's Most Active Threads

What would have been yesterday's most active thread is one that I ended up deleting. I'll talk more about that later, but the next most active thread was titled, "I do not want to see an NP!" and posted in the "Health and Medicine" forum. The original poster is upset because she wants to see an MD during her medical visits but is continually provided a Nurse Practitioner or other Advanced Practice Provider instead. Surprisingly to me, this thread reached 10 pages. That puts it beyond my reading stamina, so I'm not going to be able to say much about the thread. But, skimming the post, I see that a number of posters agree with the original poster, preferring MDs. On the other hand, multiple responders argue that the best nurses are promoted to Nurse Practitioners so they are happy to meet with them. There is some discussion about the reasons it has become so difficult to meet with a doctor. There is apparently a shortage. Posters complained about long wait times for appointments and then, like the original poster, having the doctor replaced by a Nurse Practitioner at the last minute. I believe the length of the thread can be attributed to debate over the qualifications and skills of nurse practitioners. Claims are made about training requirements and then those claims are disputed. I noticed at least one self-described nurse giving the idea that nurse practitioners are particularly skilled the side-eye. Her argument was that the increasing prevalence of online schools means that there are vast differences between programs and many nurse practitioners have not had experience as a nurse. Some see this primarily as a money issue with cheaper nurse practitioners replacing expensive MDs. Related to that, a poster argues that if they see a Nurse Practitioner, it shouldn't cost them as much but they get charged the same as if they were seeing an MD.

The next most active thread was posted in the "Off-Topic" forum though more than one poster suggested that it was more appropriate for the Real Estate forum. Titled, "Am I obligated to share with these neighbors?", the original poster says that she has lived her home for a year and that it has fruit trees. Last year the trees didn't provide much fruit, but this year they are growing quite a bit. Apparently the previous owners allowed neighbors to come over and pick fruit from the trees and the neighbors seem to have the expectation that they can do that again. The original poster is not interested in having people come on to her property in this manner and wants to know if it would be rude for her prepare baskets of fruit to be provided to the neighbors instead. Many posters think the original poster's proposal is perfectly fine and even generous. But others argue that it can be a big hassle to harvest all the fruit from trees and having the neighbors help out is actually a better solution. Some posters propose that specific harvest times be scheduled and publicized so that the original poster doesn't have to worry about people coming over unexpectedly. The original poster expressed concern about the possibility of someone getting hurt while picking fruit and there was discussion about possible liability. A dispute that appears to be partially based on a misunderstanding broke out between posters who view the original poster as unneighborly and unwilling to share her fruit and the original poster who insists that she wants to share her fruit but just doesn't want people coming over unexpectedly. Things got further complicated when the original poster said that her neighbors were not interested in scheduled times for harvesting but wanted to come and go as they pleased. As such, this created a dilemma for the original poster. She was was not willing to offer free access as had apparently been provided by the previous owners, but there didn't appear to be any solution short of that that would be welcome by the neighbors. That left her with the choice of being more gracious than she preferred or appearing unneighborly and possibly suffering the consequences. This led to a number of posters concluding that the neighbors were overly entitled and to suggest blocking all access to the fruit trees. But, others felt that the advantages of continuing the old arrangment outweighed not doing so.

The next most active thread was titled, "Truly amazing childhood travel experiences" and posted in the "Travel Discussion" forum. The original poster says that her child is seven and she wants to start taking him on "fun, enriching trips" with the family. She asks for suggestions other than Disney. Like the thread that I discussed yesterday in which posters listed the most beautiful places to which they had traveled, this one contains lots of replies that just list suggestions. Those suggestions range from Morocco to camping almost anywhere. Despite the original poster's very clear indication that she was not interested in Disney, there is considerable discussion about Disney. In fact, it is probably the most discussed suggestion in the entire thread. You could argue with some legitimacy that this is actually a Disney thread with a few non-Disney suggestions thrown in. Posters even get in arguments about Disney with fans and haters spending pages disputing a location in which the original poster has no interest. They even resort to calling each other "bullies". There has always been an active group of Disney supporters on DCUM and a number of detractors. If they want to fight about it in a thread that is about Disney, it's not that big of an issue. But, they practically ruined this one. The thread is currently 7 pages, but would probably be about 2 if the Disney posts were removed.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "LGBTQIA+ Issues and Relationship Discussion" forum. Titled, "Why so many homophobic people in 2023?", the original poster simply repeated the question in the title as the text of the post. As can sadly be expected these days on DCUM, the thread soon became full of inappropriate posts which I had to remove. This soon reached the point that I was no longer willing to exert the effort and locked the thread. I'll give my own answer to the original poster. I have said this before, but if you remember back to the aftermath of the Pulse Nightclub shooting, Republicans were in full support of gays and lesbians. Then Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump even promised in his speech to the RNC to do everything in his power to protect "LGBTQ citizens". Now, another Republican presidential hopeful, Ron DeSantis, has made anti-LGBTQ laws the foundation of his campaign. What changed to turn Republicans from one extreme to the other? The most obvious answer is the increased attention to transgender issues. It only took 6 replies before a poster blamed "the push for transgender rights" for "harming the acceptance and gains of LGB people". Republican politicians believe that transgender rights are the wedge issue that will bring them political gains. State after state has been passing anti-trans laws and everything from schools, to sports, to the marketing campaigns of multinational corporations has been riled by trans-related controversies. Some gay and lesbian individuals — including one very active DCUM poster who is a self-described "gay man" — have attempted to distinguish the gay community from the trans community. Despite their efforts, gays and lesbians are being caught up in the attacks on trans rights. The infamous law signed by DeSantis in Florida is referred to as the "Don't Say Gay" law, not the "Don't Say Trans" law because it impacts gays as well as trans people.

Controversy over trans issues came up in another thread yesterday, one that, as I mentioned at the start of this post, would have been yesterday's most active thread had I not deleted it. That thread was about a teacher at an area elementary school who, as the school apparently informed parents yesterday, is going to come out today as non-binary. The original poster of that thread claimed to be a "trans-supporting parent" who had already discussed gay and trans issues with her children and believed that trans people deserve full respect. But the poster thought that a teacher announcing that they were non-binary would "violate the sanctity of childhood". A very pleasant surprise to me was that there was almost unanimous support for the teacher and the school with posters arguing that the children would have no trouble accepting the teacher and explaining why the timing of the announcement made sense. But, on the 10th page of the thread, the original poster returned to write, "Not a disgusting freak with his privates mutilated or a poor confused nutcase who doesn’t know if he’s a man a woman a thing or a what. Yuck." I will not provide a platform to hate-mongers of this sort and, therefore, deleted the thread. So, to circle back to the question of "why are there so many homophobic people?" It's because posters like this one contribute to an anti-trans environment which ends up encompassing the entire LGBTQIA+ spectrum. Trump may not have known for what the "T" stood when he promised to protect the community back in 2016. But these days, far from protecting trans people, he is vocally opposed to the community and shows little concerns for any of the other groups represented by the letters he recited.