August

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "University of Alabama - ‘ peak neo-antebellum white Southern culture’ - NYT" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. As I have been required to read a great many threads from the college forum in order to produce these blog posts, I've noticed that discussions of southern universities almost universally devolve into culture wars. Conservatives tout the schools as having lenient Covid policies, a lack of "wokeness", and inviting campus atmospheres. And, yes, there is one fanatical University of Alabama supporter who is obsessed with the attractiveness of the women. Roll tide my good man, roll tide indeed. So, I guess that it shouldn't be a surprise that we now have a thread that skips the pretense of addressing academics and goes directly to the cultural war. The original poster of this thread critiques a recent opinion article in the New York Time by Tressie McMillan Cottom, "a sociologist, professor and cultural critic". McMillan Cottom takes a side-eyed look at the phenomenon of the University of Alabama's sorority rush. This is something that I had hitherto not known about, but which has become popular on TikTok. The original poster is clearly not a fan of either the article or McMillan Cottom. To say that his summary of the article is rather sophomoric is being generous. His primary point is that McMillan Cottom is "big mad". The irony is that I suspect the original poster agrees with nearly all of McMillan Cottom's points. But, whereas McMillan Cottom sees the situation as disappointing, the original poster likely takes pride in it. This thread is 21 pages long so I can't read the entire thing. But, I've read enough to see that, as expected, there are posters who don't like the article and posters who agree with much of it. The thrust of McMillan Cottom's article seems to be that Alabama's rush tradition is an unapologetic rebuttal of "woke" northeastern universities, though she doesn't use that word. She sees the sorority system has a means for women to get "close to the women who are close to the men who tend to dominate the state’s network power." According to McMillan Cottom, the system demands conformity, which leads to a lack of diversity and, as such, non-White women are largely left out. Reading the article I had two thoughts. First, McMillan Cottom was taking a very cheerless view of something that is generally considered to be full of fun and joy. Regardless of the validity of her critique, she had no hope of coming off as anything other than a scold and that is how many of those responding viewed her. Second, underlying much of McMillan Cottom's analysis is the fundamental fact that a system such as she portrays cannot simply be reformed by adding diversity. This is a point that she makes explicitly. The idea that women should seek power through the men they marry rather than due to their own accord is not one that modern feminism can accept. That is true for women of color as equally as it is for the blond, haired, blue-eyed, White women rushing in Alabama. The more of the article I read, the more that I understood that McMillan Cottom could not be simply seeking the doors of the sororities to be opened to a wider group of recruits, but rather the complete abolishment of the system. Therefore, I was not surprised to read — in the very last sentence of the article — McMillan Cottom's suggestion that Alabama Rush is a tradition that should be left in the past.

The thread that I discussed yesterday about the wife who is rigid about being on time led as the most active thread yesterday. Skipping that one, the next most active thread was titled, "A teacher who pronounces library as ‘liberry’" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. In her original post, the original poster simply says that hearing "library" pronounced as "liberry" is "like nails on a chalkboard". Despite the brevity of her post, the original poster touched on two separate issues, both of which provoked considerable response. Because the post appeared to be criticizing a teacher, many posters addressed that aspect. This often resulted in defenses of teachers and expressions of sympathy for the things with which they must put up. Others thought that this mispronunciation was more egregious because it was done by a teacher who is expected to be well-educated and might pass the mistake on to her students. The other aspect of the topic was about the pronunciation itself. Many posters argued that this pronunciation reflects a regional dialect or accent, something that some posters greatly appreciate. Others, including the original poster, argued that the pronunciation revealed an accent that demonstrated a lack of education. Some saw racial connotations in criticism of the pronunciation, while others said that individuals of various races said "liberry". Posters also brought up other words that are commonly pronounced differently depending on the accent of the speaker. Given the nature of language, especially English, in which the "rules" are often arbitrary or extremely flexible, I am not sure that pronunciations should necessarily be described as "correct" or "incorrect". Rather, I think it would be better to discuss "accepted" or "standard" pronunciations. In a subsequent post, the original poster herself seemed to find the regional pronunciation of certain words acceptable and not reflective of poor education, but continued to take issue with "liberry". This was clearly a subjective and personal conclusion. I was thinking about the topic of pronunciation recently after I started a new hobby that involves soldering electronic components. In the US, we pronounce "solder" as "sod-er". Those with a British accent pronounce it as "sold-er". Based on the spelling of the word, the British would appear to have the stronger argument with regard to the correct pronunciation. However, "solder" apparently came from the French word "souder", which has no "L" letter or sound. So, perhaps a point for the Americans. But the bottom line is that if you want to be understood and not thought to be mispronouncing things, you should probably adopt the accepted pronunciation of your environment. Conversely, if you think that someone else has mispronounced something, you might not want to immediately jump to conclusions.

The two most active threads over the weekend were the thread about DCPS's release of PARCC scores and the thread about Arlington County Schools closing Nottingham Elementary School. I've written about both of those already, so I'll start with the third most active thread over the weekend which was titled, "Wife is super rigid about showing up on time" and was posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster says that his wife has always been strict about arriving on time to events. She believes that arriving late demonstrates a lack of respect for others' time. The original poster then goes on to describe a recent incident in which the couple, along with their three-year-old daughter were preparing to go to dinner at the original poster's in-laws home. The three-year-old began to engage in typical three-year-old behavior which delayed them. When the original poster's wife noticed that it was the time that they had planned to leave and their daughter was still not ready, she walked out of the house telling the original poster that she would take one car in order to be on time and he should come in the other car with their daughter when they were ready. In the original poster's opinion, it would have been alright to have been a few minutes late in this instance and he asks whether his wife is too rigid. As far as I can tell, the original poster did not provide any further input into this thread and may not have even read the responses. Most posters agreed that the wife is acting very rigid. However, several of them offered potential explanations that excuse the behavior. Some posters suggested the wife might have anxiety that causes her to want to be on time. Others suggested that the original poster, either being habitually late or by not always carrying his parental weight, might have triggered her. A few posters sided with the wife, agreeing that being on time is important. The thread eventually veered off of talk of the original incident and simply became a discussion of the importance of being on time. On that topic, posters were very divided. A number of posters described their frustration with those who arrive late to things and, like the original poster's wife, consider being late to be disrespectful of others' time. Other posters argue that being a few minutes late is normal and acceptable. Some posters even argue that being exactly on time is rude with one poster saying that she dislikes people arriving exactly on time to her home. Another poster consulted Emily Post about this, but there is still disagreement even about her advice. She says that it is rude to arrive early or more than 15 minutes late.

Since I didn't post yesterday, today I'll look at the most active threads during the past two days. The most active thread over those days was titled, "Republican Debate 8/23/23" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. This is currently a 28-page thread, most of which I haven't read. This thread demonstrates the limitation of a moderating system that depends almost entirely on one person and that person being me. I didn't watch the debate and wasn't reading this thread when it started Wednesday evening. But, as I prepared for bed that night, reports started coming in regarding inappropriate posts in the thread. Very shortly, my inbox was full of reports. Eventually the number was well over 50 I believe. Given the choice of reviewing the large number of  reports or sleeping, I chose sleep. Thursday morning was spent loading the car and heading off on a drive to take one of our sons to college. I decided that I wasn't going to be able to address the pile of reports still in my inbox and just deleted them. My feeling was that this thread would either be fairly short-lived or turn into a complete dumpster fire regardless of any efforts to save it and neither case made cleaning it up a priority. Arriving home in the early evening, I found my inbox filled a second time with another round of reports of posts in this thread. Again, I decided the reports were not worth my effort and deleted them. I'm sorry to those posters who took the time to report the posts. Generally I greatly appreciate your willingness to help moderate the site. But, there are times — hopefully few in number — when I'm just not available or have to prioritize my work. The result is that this thread is in what you might call a state of nature. If you are interested in what an unmoderated DCUM political thread looks like, here is an example. Based on the reports that I glanced at, there are many off-topic posts, several that are not factual, and a lot that are otherwise inappropriate. I also noticed from my very limited skimming of the thread that there are a lot of posts about Democrats which should be surprising in a thread about a debate in which no Democrats participated. But, it is not surprising since the favored tactic of conservative posters is to engage in "whataboutism", or replying to any criticism of conservatives by saying "what about" some unrelated Democrat. Recently, some conservative posters have even started arguing that "whataboutism" is a term that Democrats made up in order to stifle debate and shut down conservative speech. I can't think of any clearer acknowledgement of how wedded they are to this method of debate. But, it makes it completely unsurprising that the reaction of conservatives to criticism of the debate performance of Republican candidates was to criticize Jen Psaki.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Sanity Check - DH in Boxers" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster asks how appropriate it is for a middle-aged man to do outside chores and short errands wearing boxer shorts with no other pants. The fact this thread reached 10 pages and leads all other topics in activity yesterday really makes me wonder whether life is so good for our users that this is the most troubling type of issue they face or life is so bad that they are forced to escape by reading the most mundane thread available. Either way, there is near universal agreement that boxers belong inside pants and are not outerwear. Some posters might allow boxers in the privacy of one's home and perhaps even outside in circumstances in which the wearer was not likely to be seen by others. But, for most, even that's not appropriate. A few posters argued that boxers have the same coverage as shorts and, therefore, they don't think there is much difference. But, the difference for most posters is the existence of a fly on boxers. While the ease of egress provided to the male genitalia by a fly may be a convenience in the bathroom, it provides obvious problems in the front yard, let alone the hardware store. I had thought that the original poster was talking about her husband but it turns out that the original poster is the boxer-wearer himself. He followed-up with several pro-boxers-as-outwear arguments and even proposed that this might be an "Italian thing". This suggestion was contested by a poster whose spouse is "100% Jersey Italian". The poster later clarified that his boxers have button flys which somewhat solves the "unexpected appearance" issue, but the poster also admits that he now realizes his attire might make the family's nanny uncomfortable. Several posters are concerned that poor bathroom hygiene could lead to unsanitary and visually unappealing leftovers on the underwear. They much preferred remaining ignorant about this rather than being forced to confront it when encountering the original poster and his boxers. One poster went as far to question the original poster's endowment based on her disbelief that any but the smallest examples could be constrained by mere boxers. The reaction to this by the original poster was such that I had to remove it.

The most active thread since my last blog post was titled, "School Asking DC To Mask To Accomodate An Other" and posted in the "VA Public Schools other than FCPS" forum. The original poster says that she received an email from her child's school asking that the child wear a mask in a specific class because another child has a "medical situation". If the original poster's child declines, her child will be moved to another class. The original poster is suspicious that this might not be a real medical situation but simply a mother overreacting to COVID hysteria. In that case, the original poster does not want to subject her child to wearing a mask. However, if it is indeed a serious medical need, the original poster says she will bend over backwards to accomodate the other student. She wants to know how she can determine which of the two cases this actually might be. It was almost immediately clear to me — once I saw the thread which, unfortunately was not until just now — that this poster was trolling. In subsequent responses, the original poster (frequently without identifying herself), suggested that concern about COVID was limited to "drama queens" and liberals. The original poster later referred to masks as "muzzling her child" and threatened to "spit in the face" of another poster. Without identifying herself as the original poster, the original poster responded in subsequent posts saying that she is done with masking and would not ask her child to mask and also saying that she would simply said her child to school without a mask rather than responding ahead of time. While this poster is trolling, the thread touches on a serious topic. The State of Virginia settled a lawsuit filed by the ACLU by agreeing that peer masking is an acceptable accommodation for students who are at risk from COVID. Therefore, some Virginia schools are likely facing this issue, though it is anybody's guess whether the original poster's child is in one of those schools.

Fully six of yesterday's ten most active threads were threads that I have already discussed. That barely leaves me enough for today's post. The first about which I'll talk was the second most active thread yesterday. Titled, "MCPS teachers - what would you tell parents in your class(es) if you could?" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum, the thread is meant, as the title suggests, to invite input from Montgomery County Public Schools teachers about what they would tell parents if they had the opportunity. The thread begins with warnings that teachers are very busy, have very little extra time, and cannot do all that they would want. A parent responds to one of these posts by describing the teacher in question as a "failure in [the teacher's] life's work." In many ways, this is current state of MCPS boiled down to its most essential essence. Teachers warning that they are being stretched too thin and being called "failures" by parents in response. The real cherry on the cake is that just four posts later that very same poster responded by describing herself as a "distraught" parent who was beng "taunted" by teachers and painting herself entirely as the victim of bullying teachers. If this is the situation with which teachers are dealing — and by all accounts it is — no wonder they are quitting in droves. Who wants to deal with this kind of parent? But, the poster didn't stop there. When other posters patiently explained that anyone reading the school forums on DCUM would know that there is a teacher shortage and that the remaining teachers face severe resource constraints and the poster should be supportive rather than combative, the poster rejected the message. Instead, she replied saying that she was an "outsider to the special needs parenting community" — the exactly opposite of what she previously suggested — and accused teachers of being abusive and "narcissists" who gaslight parents. This poster is not representative of all the parents who post in the thread and, hopefully, is not representative of most parents with whom teachers have to interact, but it wouldn't take too many parents like this one to completely poison things. In addition to this poster, other parents seize this thread as an opportunity to air their grievances with teachers. Ignoring that this is the compete opposite of the intention of the thread, one poster suggested that they discuss the teachers' union and school closures during the pandemic. It's been clear for some time that there is a cohort of parents who are no longer able to discuss any other aspect of schools and education and, like a scratched record that repeatedly replays the same few notes, fixate on school closures regardless of the context. It really seems like many school systems are entering a vicious circle in which teachers are stressed to breaking, parents are more than willing to break them, and more teachers quit causing those remaining to be stretched even thinner. I'm not sure that this pattern can be reversed until the kids that experienced school closures have aged out and taken their parents with them.

The most active thread since my last blog post was titled, "Washington Post article about Fromer Farquhar Administrator" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. As the title suggests, the thread is about an article in the Washington Post describing allegations against Montgomery County Public Schools Principal Joel Beidleman. Beidleman had been the Principal at Farquhar Middle School but was recently appointed Principal of Paint Branch High School. The Post article describes 18 reports of inappropriate conduct by Beidleman that include "harassment, threats, retaliations, workplace bullying and other inappropriate conduct spanning at least 12 years". Many of the allegations involved sexual harassment. Despite these reports of misconduct, the Post says that Beidleman has been a rising star in MCPS and his most recent promotion would have seen his salary increase almost six-fold. Needless to say, nearly all of those responding in this thread are outraged by what is described. The MCPS administration, including Superintendent Monifa McKnight, is accused of covering up Beidleman's misbehavior and there are many calls for McKnight to resign or be fired. For many of those responding, what the article describes is emblematic of the corruption and toxicity of MCPS in which employees fail upward — being promoted after failing — and rampant bullying is allowed. Some posters in the MCPS forum have repeatedly argued that MCPS concentrates on equity and diversity rather than fundamental academics leading to a decline of the school system. For those posters, Beidleman — who is Black — represents all that they have been warning about. In their view, his faults were ignored in order to promote a Black principal in the interest of diversity. Even posters inclined to be a bit more charitable are agree that Beidleman, a Black Male in a field often dominated by White women, might not have been given as close scrutiny as others might have been. MCPS has promised an external investigation but, for the most part, posters in this thread are pessimistic that there will be any real reckoning within MCPS. Posters repeatedly express doubt that this controversy will result in additional transparency or reforms to improve the system, let alone punishment for those who turned a bind eye to Beidleman's alleged misbehavior for over a decade.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "why is mrs still a thing" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster noted that several of her children's teachers — of varying ages — prefer to use the title "Mrs.". The original poster thinks this is strange and wonders why they don't prefer "Ms.". On one hand, this is a fairly simple post that should be easily answered. On the other hand, this is DCUM. In a perfect world, posters — particularly those who themselves prefer to use "Mrs." — would respond with explanations for their choice and the original poster would leave the thread more knowledgeable and with a better understanding then she entered. But, sadly, DCUM is far from the perfect world. DCUM in an environment in which posting "I like dogs" will result in responses such as "Why do you hate cats?". Posters rarely answer the question asked, but rather the question that they think you meant to ask, or the question that they would have preferred you to ask. As a result, the post is addressed as part of a culture war. Posters imply that the original poster is being hypocritical because, as a feminist, she should support women's choice. This trend reached the pinnacle of absurdity when the poster who had brought up freedom of choice being a goal of feminism was herself responded to by a poster saying that the point of feminism was to give women a choice. Hello, you both are saying the same thing. Perhaps actually reading posts will result in more appropriate responses? Of course the original poster is not necessarily saying that those who choose "Mrs." should not do so, but just wants to know their reasons for that choice. Unfortunately for the original poster, almost none of the responders offered a reply that would provide such enlightenment. Plenty of posters described their own choice of titles, but not really offering much in the way of explanation for their choices. Other posters simply posted opinions about titles. One poster rejected her family name entirely, including her mother's maiden name, due to concern that the names had been used by male abusers in the past. An off-topic discussion regarding the entomology various words broke out. So, for instance, we were entertained with the history of the word, "hysterical". This discussion also highlighted the increasingly conservative nature of DCUM. I have to say that this is a disappointing trend in my view given the website's original userbase of progressive urban women. Now we have posters who equate choosing to be called "Ms." with being a man-hating, failure who will end up living alone in a cardboard box.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Siblings kids not invited to wedding" and posted in the "Family Relationships" forum. The original poster says that her sister is planing a "weekday, outdoor, daytime, destination wedding" for which children under 18 are not invited. The original poster apparently has two toddlers and one infant who will be 11 months old at the time of the wedding (though she didn't mention the infant in her initial post). Arranging childcare and the difficulties of being away from the infant child who she says she will still be nursing are daunting and she believes there may be an exception for siblings' children. Therefore, she asks how she might bring this up with her sister. Somehow, this thread managed to grow to 17 pages in a day. That activity has little to do with the original poster who only posted twice in addition to her original post. Rather, the first post contained enough red flags to create a frenzy all on its own. First, the description of "destination wedding" gave posters the idea that this involved an exotic island in the Caribbean or something along those lines. Then, it turned out that the "destination" is only a four hour drive away. The fact that the wedding is being held midweek, in the morning, and outdoors struck many as strange and invited significant commentary. Finally, the meaning of "no children" was debated with some arguing that this restriction does not apply to children under the age of one. But the biggest debates involved the original poster's statement that she would still be nursing one child. Before posters realized the child would be 11 months old, several thought that a breastfeeding mom would have a hard time being apart from the baby for the 3 1/2 hours the wedding and reception would take. Some posters argued that this could be resolved by pumping, provoking responses from moms who had difficulty pumping. I haven't read all of the thread, but I don't think a formula vs breastfeeding fight broke out. However, I wouldn't be surprised if it did. Things really took a turn when it was learned that the baby would be 11 months old at the time of the wedding. Many posters were adamant that the baby should be switching to solids by then and being apart for a few hours shouldn't be a problem. In her final post at the time of this writing, the original poster said that her in-laws would stay with the children and she and her husband would make a day trip of the wedding and reception. Despite this resolution, the thread continued for another five pages, so far, with all kinds of personal conflicts between different posters taking place.