Monday's Most Active Threads

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.

The next most active thread was posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. Titled, "It is Native American heritage month. What stolen land do you live on?", the original poster doesn't provide much in the way of discussion and added, "Let’s give it back" as the sole content for the post. I assume that this poster was simply trolling and, in fact, is not making plans to sign the deed of her property over to native Americans. Moreover, a topic of this sort actually involves a number of interesting items for discussion. It is disappointing that the original poster introduced it so frivolously. The displacement of the original inhabitants of North America who were generally pushed onto reservations where they frequently continue to struggle in life is worthy of substantive discussion. But rather than addressing the topic in such a manner, posters rely on platitudes and clichés. To make things worse, they are the same platitudes and clichés used in countless earlier discussions. Posters are not even creative enough to think of new ones. There is always a recent immigrant that claims innocence (this also happens in discussions about slavery), and someone who has a single native American ancestor 5 generations ago and, therefore, claims a right to the land. Someone will also show up to make sure that we are all aware that native American tribes fought between themselves and were occasionally violent. Yes, all of us have been completely ignorant of this fact until this poster arrived to enlighten us. Thank you good sir! The thread is basically an exercise by posters to declare their complete innocence. What nobody does, or at least does it rarely enough that I didn't notice, is take a serious approach to the topic. It is amazing to see poster after poster offer justifications for one group of people taking over the land inhabited by another group of people. Meanwhile, we can barely hear ourselves think over the screeching about migrants crossing our southern borders. For some reason, the (according to multiple posters) completely normal process of new arrivals displacing the existing population is not acceptable in this instance. If the Central Americans wore Pilgrim hats, would they be welcomed with open arms? The thread even got sidetracked somewhat about discussion of the war between Israel and Gaza. Ironically, posters could not quite decide whether Israels are analogous to Native Americans or Europeans.

Next was a thread titled, "Do you there can be a 2 state solution in the Middle East?" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster of this thread earlier started a thread to discuss solutions to the Israel-Palestine conflict. That thread, which was a "most active" thread that I discussed in an earlier blog post, went off-topic and turned into simply another discussion about the Gaza war and, therefore, I locked it. The poster then started this thread to discuss the possibility of the two-state solution. I assume most readers know, but just to clarify, that a "two-state solution" refers to a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict in which two separate states are created, one for Israelis and one for Palestinians. There have been many threads about the conflict lately and they have all been quite long. As a result, I am starting to see posters repeating the same points they have made in a number of other threads. Often these points do little to advance the discussion and it appears that in most cases, the posters haven't bothered to read the replies to their earlier posts. For example, there is a poster who is always eager to point out that the Arabs did not accept the United Nations resolution that partitioned the British mandate of Palestine into two states. Like much of this conflict, the history can be argued ad infinitum. Each side can find a justification in history, but that does nothing to advance a solution. Another poster or posters repeatedly argues that Palestinians are inherently troublemakers that no country will accept. It is interesting to compare such rhetoric to the type of things said about Jews historically with such tragic outcomes. In this thread, two historical precedents are used as models for possible resolutions to the conflict. One is the partition of India and Pakistan which initially led to two separate states (now three). Some posters see the sort of forced mass migration of people that resulted as a positive outcome that could be an appropriate solution in the Middle East. The fact that this led to the creation of what seem to be eternal enemies and communal conflict that still plagues India, makes this a less than persuasive example. The other model is South Africa in which the majority Black population was given full rights within a single state. Some posters argue that this is the path that should be followed by Israel and Palestine. The big difference is that the White South African rulers did not view the country as a haven for White people. The White population wanted to maintain rule for other reasons, but an identity as a "White" state was not that important. Israel, on the other hand, was founded on the principle that it would be a Jewish state that would welcome Jews from around the world. As it becomes increasingly clear that Israel's Jewish identity is not compatible with the country remaining a democracy, many Israelis openly say they prefer to give up democracy rather than Israel's Jewish identity. This, in turn, strengthens arguments — some repeated in this thread — that Palestinians simply be expelled to other Arab countries.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. Titled, "Husband is furious at me for these two incidents...am I crazy?", the original poster recounts two interactions with her husband that resulted in him becoming quite angry. The first involved an article in the New York Times about Andrew Wylie which, when the original poster brought it up to her husband, caused him to launch into an angry rant about elites and literature. The second instance resulted after the original poster mused about having a boy child and suggested that raising a boy would be more challenging in order to ensure that he was not maladjusted or become a mass shooter. This caused her husband to throw a fit because he thought she was being a misandrist and insulting his gender. He then went into another room to sulk and is not talking to the original poster. She wants to know if he is overblowing things. This being the DCUM relationship forum, there is no doubt whatsoever about the type of advice the original poster will receive. Posters are advised to divorce after even minor infractions by their spouses, let alone behavior of this sort. Indeed, the second reply is "Get out, OP, while you can." But, the original poster is not let off completely. Many posters take issue with her concern that a son is likely to be a mass shooter. This results in a "pox on both of your houses" response from many posters as they declare both the original poster and her husband to be nuts. Several posters address the original poster's views on male children and attempt to correct her thinking. But, others — noting that this is a relationship rather than a parenting topic — want to put that aside and concentrate on her husband's reaction. These posters find her husband's behavior concerning and basically a big red flag being waved in her face. They urge the original poster to, if not divorce, at least avoid having children until his issues are addressed. The original poster appears to have only posted one post subsequent to her original post. She defended herself from an allegation that she sounded "a little off" and insisted that she wanted to raise boys that did not become "youths who commit crimes". After this, she disappeared from the thread. That post was on the first page and the thread continued for another 7 pages without further input from her.