Thursday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Son blind sided by GF" and posted in the "Adult Children" forum. Someone reported this thread yesterday asking if the original poster is a troll. I don't think she is, but I knew the minute I saw the thread that I would be writing about it today. The original poster's adult son has had a girlfriend for three years who has suddenly decided that she wants to move back to her hometown about 6 hours away. She wants the original poster's son to move with her. The son is not interested in moving because his friends and business network are located here. The original poster doesn't seem to like the girlfriend much and says that if her son and the woman would have a family, she knows she would never see her grandchildren. Knowing DCUM posters, I assumed that there would be a massive wave of responses telling the original poster to stay out of it. Indeed, one of the first responses was exactly that. But, there were a number of responses supportive of the original poster because her son had contacted her about the situation. In a follow-up post, the original poster described her son's girlfriend as having "misrepresented herself". That didn't go over well with many posters and provoked a considerable amount of criticism of the original poster. She basically bowed out of the discussion at that point, telling everyone to "Keep on hating". By that time, many of the responders were too invested in the thread to let it go and heated exchanges continued so that the thread reached 12 pages before the end of the day. Some posters sided with the girlfriend, saying that she had the right to change her mind about where to live while still dating and several suggested the original poster was herself a good reason to move away from Washington. Others argued that her son should take this opportunity to break up with the woman due to several negative characteristics they attributed to her. Critics of the original poster accused her of painting the girlfriend in a negative light and not being objective. Defenders of the original poster said that of course a mom wouldn't be objective, that is not her role. There is a huge debate about to whom a man can turn to for advice. For reasons not entirely clear to me, posters rule out moms. Others rule out friends. Dads get a vote of confidence, but that's about it. In addition, an incredible number of posters read only a couple of posts and immediately replied only to repeat the same thing that had already been posted numerous times on previous pages. When you boil the thread down, there are probably less than a half-dozen unique replies and one of those is some guy suggesting the original poster's son date "latinas and Asian babes".

The next most active thread yesterday was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "Biden administration waives 26 federal laws to allow border wall construction in South Texas", this thread led to significant cognitive dissonance. The basics of the story here is that, as the title says, the Biden Administration waived a number of federal laws to allow construction of barriers along part of the US southern border. But, this is a case where details matter and few of those responding, especially in the beginning of the thread, knew any details. Right-wing posters who are constitutionally-prevented from praising Biden were torn between proclaiming this action to be "too late" and laughing at him for apparently adopting Trump's policy of building a wall. The thread almost immediately turned into a general discussion of Biden's immigration policies. There are a number of threads about immigration and they are all so overwhelmed by Republican disinformation as to be unreadable. Since this one appeared to be following the same course, I stopped reading it. It may or may not be mentioned in the thread, but later in the day additional details of the Biden's action became known. Biden has not suddenly changed his opinion about Trump's wall. Even prior to Trump, US policy involved the construction of physical barriers in select locations. In fact, Trump's wall hardly involved new construction. Instead, much of it was simply replacing existing barriers. By carefully targeting the new barrier construction, Biden is following pre-Trump US policy. Moreover, Biden stated later in the day that he still does not think that a wall such as Trump envisioned would work. Biden said that the money being used for this project had been appropriated for this purpose and had to be spent. He said that he had tried to have it reappropriated, but Congress refused. Therefore, he had no choice but to spend the money. This is perhaps a bit misleading. While Congressional action required the money to be spent on barriers and it granted the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security the authority to waive laws to allow construction, the legislation did not require such waivers. Biden could have refrained from issuing the waivers and kept this project tied up in bureaucracy for some time. One further note, the new barriers that will be built are not of the type that Trump constructed. These will be built on "jersey barrier" foundations that will allow them to be moved. The bottom line is that this announcement does not indicate a change of heart by Biden about a wall nor extensive new wall construction.

Third was a thread titled, "How to handle? Tough-to-coach kid with a family tragedy" and posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. The original poster says that her husband coaches a sports team of sixth grade kids. The team is at a stage where the sport is getting competitive and tryouts are required. One girl on the team is not a very good player and has also been found to be "un-coachable" by the original poster's husband and others. However, the girl's mother just died and the original poster's husband cannot imagine cutting the girl from the team at this time. However, if he keeps her on the team, a more-deserving child will be cut. Every single poster on the first page of replies supports keeping the girl and cutting a more-deserving player. Several posters suggest the more deserving player can simply join another team. There is considerable discussion about the issue of the girl being "un-coachable". Several posters don't accept this designation for the child and suggest that it indicates a coaching problem instead. Others argue that "un-coachable" sixth graders do exist. Another major theme of the discussion is that kids' sports have become too competitive and serious. Posters argue that middle school sports should be fun and not taken so seriously. Many contend that the importance of the social outlet and support function that the team can play for the girl at this time are more important than the success of the team. But, there are posters with a contrary view. These posters argue that the coach has a duty to the whole team, not just this girl. As such, he should choose the best player. These posters either don't care about the girl's recent tragedy or don't think that being cut will make things significantly worse for her. Some of these posters argue that other players on the team may also be going through personal difficulties which are not being taken into account, so why should this girl's? Such sentiments infuriate the posters who think all perspective of the importance of youth sports has been lost. One poster states categorically that none of it matters.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Pets" forum. Titled, "Rehoming unadoptable dog", the original poster says that her ex-husband had adopted a 10-year-old pit mix dog that is aggressive towards other animals. Her ex-husband recently passed away and their daughter is very concerned about the dog. The daughter recently signed a lease with a place that has breed-restrictions and, therefore, can't take the dog. The original poster asks if it makes sense for her to take the dog and see if its aggressiveness has decreased. She has a three-year-old dog that is a significantly larger pit mix. The DCUM pets forum has a contingent of posters who detest pit bulls and anything having to do with pit bulls. Those posters of course have no sympathy for the dog or the original poster's daughter. But, even posters who are not reflexively anti-pit argue that the dog is too risky to adopt. Several posters suggest that this is the original poster's daughter's problem to resolve. If she doesn't want the dog euthanized, she should try to break her lease so that she can move somewhere that will allow her to adopt it. Initially posters, regardless of how they felt about the dog, tried to show some sympathy toward the original poster and her daughter. But, as the thread went on, posters became increasingly callous. Some posters suggested having the dog euthanized without telling the daughter. While the responses in the thread are overwhelmingly against adopting the dog, the original poster is unfazed and continually provides reasons that she thinks adopting the dog makes sense. By the end of the thread, it is pretty apparent that the original poster is convinced that she should take the dog. At that point, posters simply start wishing her good luck.