Thursday's Most Active Threads

The Hamas-Israel thread continued to be the most active yesterday, but with only 600 some new posts. This is almost half of what we saw for the first few days, but still several times more than the next most active thread. I also wrote a Special Edition blog post based on my observations from moderating that thread. The next most active thread was titled, "MIL buying items on my baby registry for herself" and posted in the "Family Relationships" forum. The original poster says, as the title states, that her mother-in-law has been buying items that are on the original poster's baby registry but keeping them for herself. The original poster says that she has no plans to leave her baby with her mother-in-law for any length of time so she doesn't know the reason for these purchases. Posters assume that the mother-in-law is simply preparing for visits after the baby is born. The original poster clarified in a subsequent post that the mother-in-law is not marking the items as "complete" on the registry, so most of those responding don't think there is a problem. I didn't read very many of the posts in this thread because, frankly, the topic bored me. But, as best I can tell, this is a battle between those who think the original poster is being overly-sensitive and those convinced that this is a sign of a domineering mother-in-law. In the first group's view, the original poster is being ridiculous. According to them, it is not the original poster's business what her mother-in-law buys and, in any case, she can't predict what will happen after the baby is born and she might end up being happy that her in-laws' home is well-equipped for the baby. The second group thinks the mother-in-law is being controlling and will use the baby items as an excuse to demand more visits than the original poster prefers. The original poster was fairly diligent about identifying herself as the original poster in her replies through much of the thread. But, eventually she began to sock puppet a bit. It appears that the real issue here is that the original poster already has issues with her mother-in-law not respecting boundaries and, therefore, her buying baby items feeds that preexisting frustration. Personally, I can think of a hundred more important issues that commonly face new parents so I can't imagine giving this one a second's thought.

The next most active thread was the one about the new Speaker of the US House of Representatives. I've already discussed that thread, but since the issue still has not been resolved, the thread continues to be active. The most active thread after that one was posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. Titled, "MOCO BOE update: Beidleman Report summary", this thread was started back on September 14th but at 72 pages in length, it has continued to receive significant interest. Some time back I discussed another thread about Dr. Joel Beidleman who was appointed as Principal of Paint Branch High School in the Montgomery County Public Schools system. Beidleman was placed on leave after reports were published accusing him of a history of harassment and bullying. At that time, MCPS authorized an investigation by the Jackson Lewis law firm. This thread was started to discuss a summary of the subsequent report on that investigation. Yesterday, this thread added nine pages due to the announcement of changes in the MCPS administration that were likely linked to the report. Because Beidleman was promoted while accusations against him were outstanding, there had been a constant demand that administrators who had failed to properly follow-up the allegations or to sufficiently vet Beidleman be held accountable. This appeared to be the first step in that direction with a deputy superintendent apparently being fired and two officials from the Office of School Support and Well-Being being placed on leave. It subsequently emerged that a third official from that office had also been placed on leave. Later in the day, the full report that caused the start of this thread was released with some redactions. As I understand it, MCPS Superintendent Dr. Monifa McKnight essentially cleared out the entire chain of command between Beidleman and herself. Some posters thought this was appropriate while others argued that McKnight herself should go. The release of the full report put demands for McKnight's ouster into overdrive because it seemed to show that she had general knowledge of issues with Beidleman at the time of his promotion. There is considerable discussion of excerpts from the report as posters point out revealing information or try to argue one case or another. There are apparently additional investigations underway so this is not likely to be the last time we hear about this topic.

The next most active thread was titled, "Will Jews now start voting more republican?" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Former President Donald Trump has often expressed resentment that not many Jewish voters supported him. Similarly, many other Republicans have appeared to be constantly baffled by the overwhelming support Jews provide to the Democratic Party. Republicans tend to be ardently pro-Israel and expect, therefore, to be rewarded with greater support. But, despite conventional wisdom, many Jews don't prioritize support for Israel. A number of other issues on which they align with Democrats are more important to them. Still, Republicans never lose hope that support for Israel will translate into Jewish support. This thread is just one example of this phenomenon. The original poster asks if the "gentile left responses" to the Hamas attack on Israel will cause Jewish voters to move to the Republican Party. There are a number of flaws in this poster's theory, but the most important is that the Democratic Party leadership has universally taken a pro-Israel line. In particular, President Joe Biden has even impressed the Republican Jewish Coalition which praised him yesterday. Meanwhile, the leader of the Republican Party, former President Donald Trump, was busy criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and praising Hezbollah as "very smart". The reality is that Biden carries quite a bit more weight with voters than college students in Chicago. The responses in this thread make this clear before the thread deteriorated into simply another argument about the fighting in Gaza. Since we have a nearly 400 page thread on that topic, I locked this one.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. Titled, "Drastic change in rigor/prestige/whatever from high school to college", the original poster asks whether anyone's child ended up at a university that is significantly lower in prestige or academic rankings than their high school and, if so, did anyone comment. Essentially, the poster is asking if people are judgemental about college choices. The answer is, yes, many people are judgemental. Whether that will translate into comments to your face or even behind your back is a separate issue. As posters in the thread explain, comments are much more likely when a student is accepted at a school that might have appeared to have been a reach. In other cases, parents might react snobbishly toward the choice, but they will likely try to hide it. Even the comments that do come are more in the form of, "why did you choose this school?" rather than "that college sucks." Many posters assure the original poster that a great many kids choose colleges that might not carry the same stature as their high schools and do so for a great many reasons. This should not be considered an indication of failure. One poster who says that she suffered through years of belittling comments about her choice to send her kids to public schools says that she does intentionally comment on colleges in cases when her child's college was more prestigious than the choices of kids whose parents had made such comments. This was her way of indicating that she had not appreciated those comments. This thread is an important reminder that college choices are for the student, not the parents. If a school is a great fit for your kid, even if it won't score you any bragging rights, it is still a great choice.