The Most Active Threads since Friday

The most active thread over the weekend was the thread about Virginia's new policies regarding transgender students about which I already wrote. So, I'll move to the next most active thread which was titled, "Gosselins" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. I have led a fairly fulfilling life to this point with little to no exposure to the Gosselins. I would have been quite happy to keep things that way. I have heard the family's name in passing and I understand that there was a reality television show called "Kate Plus 8". But, beyond that, I know virtually nothing about them. So, this thread is very confusing to me with lots of names being cast about by posters who seem to have very detailed knowledge of everyone involved. The thread was started back on May 15 by a poster who simply asked if the "the twins" were graduating from college and where "the septuplets" were going to go to college. This was a major gaff by the original poster that was quickly pointed out. The Gosslins have "sextuplets", not "septuplets". The thread sort of languished until the past few days when, apparently, various members of the family began giving interviews criticizing each other. That reignited the thread which gained 12 pages over the weekend. I, of course, am not going to read the entire 28 pages of this thread or even the new pages. The only thing I could conclude from skimming some of the recent discussion is that this is not a thread that I am going to be able summarize. Posters have different opinions about different family members, but there is too much that I don't understand for me to have any idea about what anyone is talking. All I can say is that the family is divided and, similarly, posters are divided. I have been happy living in blissful ignorance regarding this family and I prefer to continue to do so. Therefore, rather than delve into the details of what is going on, I am just going to throw up my arms in resignation and leave it to those of you who are interested to read the thread for yourselves.

The next most active thread was posted in the "Sports General Discussion" forum. Titled, "Summer swim absurd age rules", the original poster says that record breakers in her summer swim league are all participating in an age bracket below their true age. She wants to know why summer leagues are set up this way. Posters respond saying that the kids were at the age for those brackets on June 1st. Apparently, there was a long thread about this last year and some posters are frustrated with the entire topic. The thread might not be among the most active if it weren't for the posts by posters complaining about the topic being revisited. Several posters whose kids have summer birthdays say that summer swim leagues are the only instance in which kids with those birthdays have an advantage and that summer birthdays are otherwise a disadvantage. These parents argue strenuously that other parents not take this one beneficial circumstance away. Despite, as I understand it, this being a recurring topic on DCUM, this is my first exposure to the debate. My immediate reaction is that it is very similar to the endless "redshirting" debates. Parents are very concerned that another child might get an advantage over their child. But, based on this thread, they don't have very good proposed solutions. Some think the kids should move up a bracket as their age changes but other posters argue that this disrupts relay teams. Moreover, the season is only six weeks long so kids might only be moving for a couple of weeks. Several posters argue that this is simply not an important issue. According to them, the kids don't care, it doesn't always have that big of an impact on performance, and summer leagues don't have have much influence on scholarships. Posters propose metrics other than age such as height for dividing into brackets. This elicits some snark as another poster argues that alphabetical order by middle name is the most fair method.

The third thread that I'll discuss today was titled, "Post SCOTUS Ruling: Let the Essays Begin" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The thread's title refers to the recent US Supreme Court ruling that prohibited race being used as a factor in college admissions. Chief Justice John Roberts who wrote the opinion seemed to leave a fairly large loophole by saying that nothing prohibited essays discussing the impact of race on an applicant's character. The original poster of this thread quotes a supplemental essay question from Sarah Lawrence College's 2023-2024 admissions application that quotes Roberts' words directly from the ruling and uses them as an essay prompt. He wonders if other colleges will follow suit. Reading a few of the posts in this thread, several thoughts that I've been having on the affirmative action controversy finally coalesced. The fear of affirmative action has been used by various groups to pander to White and Asian students, encouraging them to resent what were described as unfair advantages given to underrepresented minority students who were less qualified. This helped keep attention away from the more significant advantages received by those with wealth, connections, power, and influence. Now that affirmative action can no longer be used in admissions, the thinking that less deserving minorities are going to unfairly take places that rightfully should go to White and Asian students has not magically disappeared. Rather, now the fear is that college admissions officers will use essays to continue giving unfair and undeserved preference to Black and Hispanic applicants. Those with this concern also seem to believe that the courts are their best hope for combatting this and, therefore, promise legal action. But, as other posters point out, in this example at least, it will be difficult to find legal issues with an essay prompt that directly quotes from a Supreme Court opinion. Based on what I can see from skimming this thread, it didn't stick to the topic of essays for very long. Instead, it devolved into a rantfest of racial grievances, sort of a racial Festivus. Posters justify the possibility of elite schools having nearly entirely White and Asian students because of the dominance of Black players in the National Basketball Association. What is missing in this analogy is that colleges and universities have concluded that diverse student bodies have significant educational benefits. Diversity strengthens the schools and leads to improved educational outcomes. If the NBA thought that promoting athletes from underrepresented groups helped the teams to either win or make more money, they would do it. But, education and basketball are not the same thing, so the same lessons don't apply.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "IRS Whistleblowers and Devon Archer - House Oversight", the thread was originally started to preview what were then upcoming US House of Representatives hearings at which allegations against Joe and Hunter Biden were expected to be aired. As it turned out, Devon Archer, a former board member of Burisma — a Ukrainian company with which Hunter Biden was previously associated — cancelled his appearance. The whistleblowers did appear and, depending on your political leanings, either provided solid evidence that Joe Biden is corrupt or had no evidence of value suggesting any corruption on Biden's part. Essentially what is going on is that House Republicans are reacting to the investigations and impeachments of former President Donald Trump and attempting to use their House majority to undermine Biden. Unfortunately for them, they have had repeated failures. Or, as one poster in this thread suggests, Lucy had repeatedly pulled out the football before they could kick it. But the House Republicans and their DCUM supporters are ever hopeful. A series of embarrassing failures doesn't deter them from predicting that the next hearing will finally result in evidence of corruption. When the two whistleblowers finally testified, Biden opponents were certain that this time was successful. But, not so fast, argued Biden supporters. There are a lot of allegations they say, but no proof. On and on it goes. This thread is 27 pages long and I am not sure that it really advances the discussion at all. Republicans are desparate to link Biden to corruption, but just are not being able to do so in a convincing manner. However, the truth simply doesn't seem to matter to many of the anti-Biden posters. They are happy to spin, misconstrue, misrepresent, and outright lie if it will advance their cause. The pro-Biden posters play virtual whack-a-mole attempting to correct the record. For example, one anti-Biden poster drafted a series of allegations that, taken at face value, made a good case against the Bidens. But, this post was immediately refuted by a poster who identified six separate falsehoods in it. This is amazing considering that the first post was only three sentences in length.