November

Once again the Gaza war thread was the most active of the day yesterday. The most active thread after that was titled, "Maury Capitol Hill" and posted in the "DC Public and Public Charter Schools" forum. This thread was actually started back on September 21 by a poster who had heard about a Parent-Teacher Association meeting at Maury Elementary School, a District of Columbia Public Schools school located on Capitol Hill. The poster had heard of two issues that came up in the meeting. One was the current effort to reevaluate DCPS school boundaries and the other was a loss of Title 1 funding that is aimed at low-income students. The poster was concerned about how these developments might impact property values. This was an active thread that grew to 23 pages prior to yesterday. But, yesterday the thread added 10 new pages. I didn't read the first 23 pages but apparently the interest yesterday was generated by a subsequent meeting about school boundary changes. A poster summarized that meeting, saying that DCPS wants to cluster Maury with another nearby elementary school, Miner Elementary School. The purpose of the proposal is to address socioeconomic disparities between neighborhood schools. If I understand the "clustering" idea correctly (and there is a good chance that I do not), kids from both schools will attend younger grades together at one location and older grades will be combined at the other building. Students at Maury apparently perform better than those at Miner and it seems that the hope is that by spreading the higher-performing kids around, it will improve the weaker school. Overlying this is the issue of race. Maury is nearly 60% White while Miner is 80% Black. As a result, some of the posters see this as an attempt to "spread the White kids around". To make matters worse, the DCPS plan is not yet fully baked and DCPS staff members were unable to answer a number of basic questions. Needless to say, this has created all kinds of consternation among Maury, and likely Miner, parents. Parents who have seen Maury improve over the years are worried that that progress will be set back. But, not all posters see this idea as entirely negative. As mentioned by the original poster, increasing affluence at Maury resulted in the school losing Title 1 status and, with it, significant extra funding. One result was apparently that free preschool is no longer offered by the school. Clustering with Miner would restore Title 1 funding and free preschool. As one poster pointed out, currently Maury has plenty of students who could benefit from extra funding, but without Title 1 status that money is not there. The ultimate problem for DCPS is that administrators can try to orchestrate diversity goals, but in a school system that emphasizes school choice, parents have options and will not always cooperate.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "I think I win the Thanksgiving 2023 petty vents already" and posted in the "Family Relationships" forum. Complaints about family members around Thanksgiving are, of course, fairly common and threads about such issues are an annual DCUM tradition. Just as in the case of yesterday's bagel controversy thread, many of the complaints tend toward the petty end of the spectrum. The original poster of this thread owned the nature of her gripe which involved her in-laws arriving at her home 9 hours before the were expected. As the original poster acknowledges, it's not the worst thing that could have happened, but it was a nuisance. She and her husband were working at home during the day and, therefore, not available to entertain guests that early and had not finished their preparations. There was laundry still to be done and beds to be made. However, if the original poster thinks that this is going to be the most petty complaint over the holiday, she vastly underestimates DCUM. As this 16 page thread demonstrates, DCUMers can vent about a lot more petty things than this. The annual petty vent thread has a lot of fans. I guess it is sort of a guilty pleasure. Posters can enjoy other's misery but, since it's only petty, they don't really have to feel bad about it. Those who don't understand the concept and urge the venters to "get over it" are met with disdain. "Here for the petty, rolling my eyes at every poster who's told a venter to suck it up/she's the problem", wrote one poster. Because yesterday was a bit early for many posters to already have vents, petty or otherwise, some posters brought up things from previous years. One poster complained about her mother-in-law moving furniture around in order to search for dust bunnies. The poster recounted how she gave her mother-in-law the phone number for her cleaning service and asked her to lodge a complaint with them. Another poster's petty vent got quite a bit of attention. In this case the poster was the guest, visiting her brother and his wife. The poster says that she doesn't have high expectations for how she is treated, but it appears that her sister-in-law has taken the advice commonly offered on DCUM and made the poster her brother's responsibility. He, in turn, hasn't seemed capable of offering the poster a cup of tea, some cheese to eat, or even clean sheets or the bed. The initial post from this poster appeared to blame the lack of hospitality on her sister-in-law, causing a number of replies questioning why her brother was such a poor host and why the poster expected better treatment from her sister-in-law. This poster's story, buttressed by constant subsequent posts that did little to calm the storm, practically took over the thread and she was dubbed variously the "tea poster" or "cheese lady". She may well go down in the annals of DCUM folklore.

For only the second time since October 7, the Gaza war thread was not the most active. In fact, it slipped all the way down to fourth most active. This is really not a surprise as the thread has become unreadable and consisting of little more than an exchange of insults. The thread that was the most active was titled, "Hoping these kids are OK" and was posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. The thread is about a tragic event that occurred yesterday morning at around 5 am. A SUV in which 7 teenagers were riding crashed into a tree, apparently at a high rate of speed, and spun several times before coming to rest across the street. Five of the occupants were ejected from the vehicle and one was trapped and needed to be extricated. Only the driver, who seems to have been the only one using a seatbelt, was able to walk away from the crash. The 17-year-old driver was initially charged with Driving Under the Influence, but was then released without charges. Charges remain pending and the investigation is continuing. The thread started out with posters simply trying to gather more details. Several posters, including the original poster, live near the scene of the crash and were very concerned about the condition of the kids. One topic posters wondered about was which school or schools the vehicle's occupants attend. That information began to trickle out as first one school, then another, and then a third, released statements. My understanding is that one of occupants attends McLean High School, one goes to Longfellow Middle School, and the rest are students at Marshal High School. Posters also focused on what might have lead to the accident. They found it odd — as do I — that teens would be out early on a school day morning and under the influence of drugs or alcohol. There was speculation that they might have stayed the night after a party or been up the entire night. Posters wondered why parents would allow their kids out over night. This launched a huge debate about the ability of parents to control headstrong teenagers who have been known to sneak out of their homes without their parent's knowledge. Some posters have apparently turned their houses into virtual prisons to ensure their kids are home at night. There is considerable discusion about whether poor parenting contributed to this tragedy with some posters more than willing to put full blame on the parents and others arguing that even the best parenting is sometimes not enough. In reaction to events such as this, there is often a rush to identify a factor that parents don't believe applies to them or their children in order to provide some assurance that this couldn't happen to them. This thread is full of such efforts. For instance the insistance of several posters that their kids would never be out at such hours without a legitimate need. But other posters are quick to remind them that you can't be smug when it comes to parenting.

As has been the case every day except one since October 7, the Gaza war thread was the most active with over 900 new posts since Friday. The most active thread after that was titled, "Stop asking student tour guides where they're applying to college". The thread, which was posted in the "Private & Independent Schools" forum, was started by a poster whose son conducts tours for prospective students at his high school. The original poster says that on almost every tour, he is asked to which colleges he is applying. The original poster considers this to be personal information and asks others to stop asking this question. I've noted before that DCUM can be very supportive to those that responders believe to be in legitimate need, but can be brutal to those whom users don't find sympathetic. The original poster appears to have fallen squarely into the second category. While there are posters that agree with the original poster, most of the responses reflect various levels of hostility. The first poster to respond called the original poster a "snowflake" and suggested that her son was not cut out for the job of tour guide. Other posters considered the question to be perfectly acceptable and suggested that her son should know how to politely deflect it. This thread managed to make it to 21 pages over the weekend which I think is surprising for such a mundane topic. The original poster sock puppeted a number of responses, but not really in a manner that would provoke conflict. Without having read all 21 pages, it appears that the main issue of debate is whether a question such as "where are you applying to college" is personal or not. A number of posters argued that private school students are more likely to consider this to be a personal question than public school students. Their reasoning is that the prestige of educational institutions is more important to private school students and parents. If this is true, and I don't know that it is, it may well be rooted in the commonly-held belief that one motivation for choosing private schools is to open doors for prestigious colleges. If a parent on a tour with a perspective student is mentally doing a cost-benefit analysis of the school and one benefit is thought to be enhanced college application prospects, it is understandable how this question might come naturally. At the same time, it is similarly understandable that a tour guide who knows the parent is hoping to hear "Harvard, Yale, and Princeton" may be reluctant to answer, "The University of Maryland, Rutgers, and Tufts". Some posters recognize that college opportunities are an important question to perspective students, but argue that the question should be asked generally. Instead of "where are you applying?", it should be asked as "Where do students normally apply?". Still others argue that where they apply is less interesting than where they actually end up attending and that information can be found elsewhere.

The Gaza war thread continued as the most active thread yesterday with over 500 new posts. The most active thread after that one was titled, "Rob Reiner: a vote for No Labels, Bobby Kennedy, Cornel West or Jill Stein is a vote for Trump". The thread was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to a tweet by actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner in which he made the claim in the thread's title, essentially that a vote for anyone other than President Joe Biden is a vote for former President Donald Trump. This, of course, is only true if you would have otherwise voted for Biden. As one poster pointed out, if you choose to vote for a third party rather than voting for Trump, your vote helps Biden. This is the dilemma of a two-party system. Third parties act as little more than spoilers. It is no surprise that right-wing billionaire Harlan Crow, who has famously lavished extravagant gifts on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has given a maximum donation to the presidential campaign of Cornel West. Crow obviously has no interest in West becoming president and probably doesn't agree with him on a single policy issue. However, Crow does have an interest in seeing West draw votes away from Biden. Many of those who agree with Reiner portrayed those who might vote for a third party as naive or childish. One pro-Biden poster referred such voters as "idiots" and "morons". I am not sure that such language is going to be helpful in attracting others to your viewpoint. It is true that some of the posters who rejected Reiner's stance appear to be motivated primarily by emotion, but that is probably true of voters across the political spectrum. One, non-emotional argument that I see in response to Reiner is that third-party voters are disaffected and that they wouldn't vote for Biden in any circumstances. As one poster put it, "If Cornel West dropped out, his voters would either vote for another hopeless 3rd party candidate, sit out the election, or vote for Trump—in that order." While I didn't notice it in this thread, one of the biggest groups of disaffected voters that I've noticed are those who sympathize with the Palestinians in Gaza. They tend to strongly oppose Biden due to his complete support for Israel in the Gaza conflict. Their criticism of Biden has often been countered with a reminder that Trump will likely impose a Muslim ban and also be pro-Israel. Nevertheless, many of those concerned about Gaza have signalled that it is the line in the sand for them. They are essentially single-issue voters and should be viewed no differently than single-issue voters on any other topic. Moreover, with increasing frequency, I've heard the argument that Trump may ban Muslims, but Biden is participating in killing them. They don't necessarily see Trump as the lesser evil. Ultimately, attempting to guilt, shame, or bully voters to your viewpoint is probably self-defeating. If such voters are important to you, then they should be treated as such.

The Gaza war thread continued as the most active yesterday. The most active thread after that one was titled, "Picky eaters and Thanksgiving (and holidays generally)" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. The original poster's six-year-old daughter is a very picky eater who doesn't like most of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner food items. Last year, the only thing the child would eat was dinner rolls. The original poster has come up with three possible strategies. The first is to serve her daughter a big breakfast and then not worry about what she eats or doesn't eat at dinner. The second is to prepare side dishes that her daughter will like and others might enjoy as well and the third was to prepare a special plate for her daughter with food that she will eat. This thread managed to reach 24 pages as of this morning. As such, I can't read all of it. But, the first few pages showed that there were posters supporting each of the three options, though the first idea of providing a big breakfast and then not worrying about what the girl ate seemed to have the most supporters. To reach this length, there would most likely have to be a fairly big argument in the thread and I expected that such a debate would be provoked by a poster arguing that the girl should be told that she is expected to sit at the table and can either eat what is served or starve. However, no such post arrived until the 4th page. But then that post didn't cause much of a dispute, though a much more milder post caused a momentary contretemps. It looks like things really started to fall apart later over the issue of boxed macaroni and cheese, which ironically was not one of the original poster's suggestions but was offered by someone else. Apparently, DCUM posters have very strong feelings about boxed mac and cheese. Especially at Thanksgiving. The fight that I was expecting to be provoked earlier eventually did get started when a poster stipulated that, "When you are a guest you eat what is served." This caused a backlash, but one poster in particular stood out for her strident opposition to this idea. This poster, who appears to have posted at least 22 times in the thread, generally provided responses along the lines of "Oh, stuff it, MeeMaw", "What a nasty, rigid old bat you are", and "No one is interested in you dull old people." DCUM is so fortunate to have users of this sort to contribute such substantive and helpful content.

Once again the Gaza war thread was the most active. But, with just over 300 new posts, the thread barely held on to the position. The second most active thread was related. Titled, "Please share your ideas for SOLUTIONS to the middle east crisis", the thread was similarly posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster asks others about their ideas for a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Rather than slog through this 17 page thread, I'll address questions that I saw on the first page. The most commonly stated solution to the conflict is the "Two-State Solution" in which a Palestinian state consisting of Gaza and parts of the West Bank coexists with Israel. This solution is the basis of the original United Nations resolution that led to the creation of Israel, was reinforced in UN Resolutions 338 and 242, and was the foundation of the Oslo Accords. The United States officially supports this arrangement and President Joe Biden has restated that position several times in recent days. However, despite the wide-spread support internationally, the idea faces significant hurdles and, under current circumstances, can't reasonably be considered a serious proposition. The first hurdle to a two-state solution is the fact that Israel is a politically divided country. The political spectrum runs from those who would happily accomodate a Palestinian state in the majority of Gaza and the West Bank to those who don't want to give up an inch of the West Bank and would even like to take Gaza back. The Israeli settler movement which has been steadily seizing more and more territory in the West Bank is enacting a fait accompli and leaving less land for a Palestinian state every day. Israeli proposals for a Palestinian state have only allowed for a disjointed, non-contiguous territory that would not be viable. Moreover, Israel expects to maintain significant restrictions and important influence and control over such a country. This is obviously unacceptable to Palestinians. Under the status quo, Israel — which likes to advertise itself as the only democracy in the Middle East — faces a dilemma. It can be a Jewish state, which requires it to rule undemocratically over the Palestinians, or it can be a democracy and provide full rights to those in the occupied territories. But, given the number of Palestinians, in that scenario the country would no longer remain as a Jewish state. As a result, Israelis have a host of solutions that involve annexing territory while either outright expelling Palestinians or leaving them powerless. None are acceptable to the Palestinians. A few Israelis and an increasing number of Palestinians favor a "one-state" solution in which Israelis and Palestinians share a democratic country in which both communities have equal rights. This maintains Israel's democracy while sacrificing its Jewish identity. This is the solution supported by the "Free Palestine from the River to the Sea" slogan that has been popular at pro-Palestinian demonstrations. This idea, of course, also has little chance of being implemented in the foreseeable future. In the absence of progress toward a resolution, Palestinians live under harsh Israeli oppression and watch more and more of their land disappear under settler feet every day. This results in a unstable and periodically violent situation. This leaves, at best, incomplete half-measures that might relieve the worst of the Palestinian suffering and reduce violence. Such steps would include crackdowns on settlers including the removal of some settlements, political reform of the Palestinian National Authority, and increased freedoms for Palestinian residents.

The Gaza war thread continued as the most active thread over the weekend, with just over 1,000 posts. The thread is not as active as it once was, but continued to produce over twice as many posts as the next most active thread. That thread, titled, "Saturday - Thousands expected to attend pro-Palestine march in DC for ceasefire in Israel-Hamas war" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, was obviously related to the war. The thread was started by a poster who had just heard about what was then an upcoming protest and was concerned that it might be violent. Other posters also had pessimistic expectations for the protest with a number of those responding concerned that there would be displays of antisemitism or hatred of Jews. Proponents of the protest argued that the protest was aimed at promoting a ceasefire and bringing an end to Israeli's massive bombing that has killed thousands of Palestinians. A major issue in this discusion was distinguishing Hamas from the Palestinian people. This is a distinction that even President Joe Biden has made. Nevertheless, some posters argued that a ceasefire would benefit Hamas and, therefore, supporting a ceasefire was effectively pro-Hamas. Similarly, some posters sought to distinguish between Jews and Israelis. One poster wrote that it is understandable that pro-Palestinian posters separate Hamas from Palestinians, but that the same people are often "totally ok with Israel being equated with all Jews rather than saying ‘Israeli government actions.’" The poster said this was upsetting. I happened to agree with that poster. But, when a pro-Israel poster stated that Israel's Iron Dome anti-rocket system was "protecting Jews" and I interjected that it was actually protecting Israelis, reminding that Jews and Israel are not synonymous, the poster called me an antisemite. This is an example of the overly-cavalier labeling in which some posters have engaged. I was advocating a position that many Jews hold and is actually a distinction that helps combat antisemitism resulting from blame being wrongly placed on all Jews for Israel's actions. Once the protest began and in its aftermath, critics of the event quickly began looking for any aspects that could be used to portray the protest in a negative light. None of their expectations for waving of Nazi symbols or chants to kill Jews seem to have been fulfilled. But, one poster did fixate on a single protester who, along with the flag of Trinidad and Tobago, had a small Hezbollah flag. This was said to show that the protesters supported terrorism. More attention was paid to red paint — used to demonstrate blood on the US administration's hands — that defaced a wall near the White House entrance. Some posters insisted that this would be the defining image of the protest and would impact upcoming elections.

The most active thread yesterday continued to be the Gaza war thread but the next most active thread was titled, "White flight from MCPS" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. Posters in almost all of the public school forums seemed completely convinced that their school systems are collapsing. There is thread after thread complaining about one aspect or another of schools. This thread is another of that genre. The original poster, after three tries, managed to embed a graphic that was taken from a Board of Education presentation that showed trendlines of enrollment by race and ethnicity. The graphic clearly showed a decline in White, Non-Hispanic enrollment and an increase in Hispanic enrollment. Universally, this seems to be considered a bad thing, though exactly why is never quite explained. Several posters offer various explanations for the enrollment trends. One poster blames segregation of schools and suggests boundary changes might fix it. Others say that educated or affluent families are choosing private schools. Some posters don't think White families are fleeing, but rather fewer White families are having children and the ones that do are having fewer children. In their view, the number of White students is decreasing because the number of White children is decreasing, not because White families are leaving MCPS. A number of posters blame the changes on immigration. Along with this were a number of posts blaming Hispanics for a number of ills that plague the schools. Before too long, the thread completely lost its focus on enrollment trends and, instead, simply became a litany of complaints about MCPS. A huge number of posters appear concerned with vaping which has apparently taken over every bathroom in middle and high schools. The most recent posts in the thread are debating which ethnicity has committed the most gruesome crime.