2023

The most active thread over the weekend was the thread that I have already discussed about Maury Elementary School. Following that was a thread titled, "Gaza War, Part 3" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. When the first Gaza war thread reached 1,000 pages, I locked it and started a second thread. Over the weekend, that one reached 1,000 pages so I locked it and started this thread. While this thread was the second most active over the weekend, the topic is not producing near the same number of posts that it did in the past. Ironically, despite the fact that the topic of the Gaza war has been the most active or nearly most active topic for over 2 months now, this thread started out with a discussion about whether people have stopped paying attention to the situation. It is always strange to me when posters not only read a thread, but post in it, only to declare that they don't really care about the topic. But, that's exactly what happened in this thread. Posters who claim that they don't care and don't have an opinion, cared enough to read and post an opinion. The other thing about which a number of posters were proud of not caring was the massive death toll from which Palestinians are suffering. The first refuge of those defending Israel has been to claim that the numbers of deaths being reported by Gaza's Ministry of Health are not to be trusted due to Hamas' influence on the Ministry. But, that claim is not holding water the way that it used to. So, posters have turned to claiming the deaths are "collateral damage" and while they are sad about innocent civilians being killed, it is a normal function of war. Therefore, it is simply not fair to single out the civilian deaths caused by Israel and may actually be antisemitic. Moreover, these posters claim that Hamas should be held responsible for the deaths of Palestinians rather than Israel. Much of this thread, if not most of it, is devoted to placing blame. The big divide is between those who believe that the atrocities of October 7 justify Israel's actions and those who don't. The first group argues that Israel has the right defend itself and to retaliate against those who attacked it. They claim that the Israeli military is showing concern for civilian safety and not intentionally targeting non-combatants. Any and all blame for Palestinian suffering lies with Hamas. The second group argues that Israel's actions have gone far beyond what could be justified by the October 7 attack. Israel is accused of intentionally trying to ethnically cleanse Gaza and commitiing genocide. Moreover, these posters point to the large number of journalists, academics, and cultural figures who have been killed by Israeli bombs — frequently along with their entire families — and argue that these cannot all be accidental. Rather, they contend, this suggests intentional targeting by Israel.

Once again the Gaza war thread led as most active yesterday. That was followed by two threads that are directly related to the war. The first was titled, "Stefanik Ivy Presidentd" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The title, which suffered from both a typo and a lack of clarity, referred to a Congressional hearing during which Republican Representative Elise Stefanik asked a panel of university presidents whether calls for genocide were prohibited on their campuses. To be clear, Stefanik was referring to calls for the genocide of Jews which is a somewhat ironic concern given that something very close to, if not actual, genocide is currently being perpetrated by Israel against the residents of Gaza. Moreover, unpacking what Stefanik means by "calls for genocide" is itself a challenge. The Congresswoman explicitly referred to calls for "intifada" which in Arabic means "to shake off" but generally refers to Palestinian uprisings in the West Bank during which Palestinian teenagers used stones to fight the Israeli military. In no way does "intifada" mean "genocide". Similarly, many in the pro-Israel crowd claim the slogan, "Free Palestine from the River to the Sea" as being a call for genocide. While I have criticized that slogan, it does not refer to genocide. The college presidents, knowing that Stefanik clearly considers calls for genocide to include expressions that are not normally thought to be calls for genocide, were put in a bit of a conundrum and, unfortunately, fumbled their responses. Had they been asked whether a call to "kill all the Jews" violated their speech codes, certainly they all would have answered in the affirmative. But, instead, they were asked whether Stefanik's unorthodox and inaccurate definition of calls for genocide is allowed. That is a more difficult question. Unfortunately, in today's politicalized world, few are interested in doing the intellectual work to understand why what sounded like a simple question was actually much more complex. As a result, the presidents have come under considerable pressure and targeted with severe criticism. At the basis of this controversy is an effort among many in the pro-Israel camp to not only control speech, but to control the very definition of words. They have understandably and commendably made antisemitism unacceptable. But, now there are efforts to go further. Being opposed to Israel is considered antisemitism. Opposing Zionism is defined as antisemitism. Supporting Palestinians is considered anti-Israel and, hence, antisemitic. Slogans such as calling for an "intifada" or "Free Palestine From the River to the Sea" are allowed to be defined, not by those who use them, but by those who oppose their use and labeled as antisemitic. In this manner, pressure is applied to prohibit anything that is against the interests of Israel from being said. It is an effort to suppress pro-Palestinian speech entirely and has little to do with actual antisemitism.

As I predicted in my last blog post, the Gaza war thread is back as the most active thread over the weekend after having dropped from that spot for a day. The second most active is another one that I've already covered, the thread about "The Golden Bachelor". That means that the first thread that I will discuss today was titled, "Discipline for excessive crying" and posted in the "Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers" forum. The original poster has a two-year-old daughter who is constantly crying. Almost anything that the original poster does can cause the girl to cry for long periods of time. Moreover, the girl is only like this around the original poster and not her husband or nanny. The original poster knows that experts advise not punishing a child for crying, but she is at the end of her patience and desparate to find a solution. She wonders what others who have had a child like this have done. In response, the original poster gets a range of advice. Nobody is in favor of literal punishment, but some counsel ignoring the child. That advice is generally accompanied by other strategies aimed at encouraging an end to the crying. For instance, telling the girl that her mother can't help her while she is crying, teaching breathing or counting exercises to help her calm down, or creating a "time out" room to where she can be sent to cry alone and calm down. One poster recounts using "kiddie yoga" videos to help her child learn emotional regulation skills. Posters also suggest that the the child may be feeling the stress the original poster experiences from the crying and that actually causes her to cry more. To reduce this vicious circle, posters suggest that the original poster address her own emotional state. Another angle that many posters took was to propose that the original poster contact a developmental pediatrician and have her daughter evaluated for potential special needs. About halfway through the thread, the original poster responded to thank everyone for the helpful responses. But, she pointed out that the wide variety of responses shows why this is a difficult situation for her to know how to address. She still isn't sure what to do because there are so many contradictory schools of thought. Shortly after that response, the original poster responded again to say that she was planning to contact her local pediatric developmental behavioral center today. Previously, she was unaware that diagnoses or evaluations could be done at such a young age. She seemed to have dropped out of the thread at that point, but it continued for another 7 pages without her. Many of those posts simply repeated or reinforced advice that was previously offered.

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, "Being denied my earned leave because I’m covering due to maternity leave" and posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum. When I read this title, I wondered what would cause a thread on this topic to become the most active of the day. Once I read it, I understood. The original poster is complaining that she has accrued vacation leave that she will lose if she doesn't use. She applied for vacation time off for later in the year, but was denied because she is scheduled to cover for someone who will be out on maternity leave. But, rather than simply stopping at this point, the original poster claimed that she was being punished due to not having children and asks why people without kids are being punished like this. Turning this issue into a fight between parents and non-parents is a sure way to stir controversy on a parenting website. Hence, ten pages of responses. The original poster's claim that she is being punished for not having children gets plenty of pushback as would be expected. Posters point out that the original poster would have been denied leave even if the other employee was childless and simply on vacation. Similarly, the original poster would be denied leave even if she had children. Someone has to be there to cover. The most common response was to tell the original poster that she had submitted her leave request too late and that she should request time off before the other employee begins maternity leave. As one poster writes, "She can take leave, she just can't take it when she wants." The original poster seems to go out of her way to alienate just about everyone. She accuses other posters for being in favor of compensation theft, ignores any helpful advice, and attacks her employer for being "cheap". One poster responded by saying "+1 you sound like a very nasty person." The original poster is likely trolling because some of her responses are just too obtuse to be real. For instance, at one point she writes, "Maybe the person who got pregnant did it too early to allow me my leave." By the end of the thread, the original poster has provoked such a negative response that the response itself leads to a backlash as new posters wonder why nobody has sympathy for the original poster. That is explained by one poster who says, "This is a solvable problem but OP doesn't want to solve it. She just wants to melt down." The problem may not actually be solvable to the original poster's satisfaction, but it definitely won't be solved by throwing a temper tantrum on DCUM.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Is it true that 90% of women aim for the top 5% of men?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster says that he has heard the claim made in the title from his adult daughter and her friends. However, in a subsequent post, the original poster claims to be a 31 year old who is wildly successful at dating women a decade younger than himself. Doing the math, he would have been a minor when his adult daughter was born and is claiming to date women her age or below. In other threads, the poster has discussed his wife. Call me cynical, but I'm not buying any of this. Moreover, I have questions about the type of guy who would be obsessing about this sort of thing. As for the topic itself, it combines many themes from other discussions such as women primarily being interested in tall, educated, financially successful men. The number of posters claiming to have statistics about such things provoked enough eye-rolling that I was concerned about potential damage to my eye muscles. This thread was particularly obnoxious in the frequency of posters using terms such as "high-value men" or "high-value women" and talking about the "market value" of individuals. I've never been the world's biggest romantic, but if this is how you are approaching dating, no wonder things are not working out. A significant number of posters in this thread claim to be very knowledgeable about the desires of members of the opposite sex. Women know what men want and men know what women want and both think the other gender is misguided. Multiple posters claim to be among the top 1% of this and top 10% of that and to be dating nothing but others like them. Call me a cynic for the second time but I really doubt that folks with all of that going for them are spending their free time posting in DCUM's relationship forum. I'm fairly convinced that most of this thread consists of trolls trying to troll each other and none of them realizing that they are being trolled themselves. Maybe I should start a new website for trolls to date each other? All the guys can claim to be 6'5", earn 900k annually, and to have been a star lacrosse player at Harvard. All the women can claim to be supermodels with PhDs in early childhood education. Since none of them likely ever leave their houses, they probably won't ever learn the truth.

The most active thread yesterday, unfortunately, appears to be the creation of a troll. Titled, "Was I wrong in telling my girlfriend she has no say when my kids come over?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum, the original poster describes a conflict he is having with his girlfriend about his adult children's habit of coming and going from his house at will. Reading the post triggered my troll-dar and I immediately checked to see what other threads this poster had started. This thread is at least the second by this poster to be included among the most active. In this thread, the poster, who appears to be male, is divorced but has had a girlfriend for about three years. Based on other threads, since the beginning of this year the poster has also been married for six months, has been unmarried with a boyfriend, and had a girlfriend for about six months. While this poster may not be consistent in his relationship situation, he does appear to have established a pattern when posting. His posts are lengthy, generally laden with an abundance of background information, and focused on a problem which is actually fairly minor but has caused him to consider somewhat drastic action (in this case breaking up with his girlfriend of three years because she wants his kids to stop unannounced visits). In a previous thread, he broke up with his girlfriend of six months because she asked him to help with home repairs. Personally, I find these posts to be too long, too boring, and not the sort of thing that I would want to read. But, the formula does seem to work with many of our readers given the length of the threads. This is not a case of the poster sock puppetting or otherwise trying to keep the thread alive through artificial means. The poster only responded once in this thread and only once as well in the home repair thread. He just seems to have a knack for getting posters to engage.

The most active thread yesterday "Wedding Gifts for future daughter in law" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster requested suggestions for a wedding gift for her future daughter-in-law who does not wear jewelry. She immediately received a number of suggestions for art, gardening-related items, and a watch. A watch was ruled out because the original poster has just helped her son pick out for for his future bride. Many posters weigh in against art or paintings because they are too personal and there is a good chance the daughter-in-law might not like what is chosen. Nobody really specifically objects to the gardening implement suggestions, but there is no indication that the young couple will have a yard that will allow gardening. Other suggestions include a vase, a quilt, or a classic Chanel purse. Several posters ridicule all of the suggestions as reflecting the interests of "boomers" that will likely not be appreciated by a young woman. When asked for their own suggestions, however, the younger posters don't really offer any ideas. Despite a watch being ruled out, discussion repeatedly returns to suggestions of watches. Some posters say that they no longer wear watches and give reasons why watches are no longer necessary. For instance, one poster says that ovens have clocks so women don't need watches. This provokes a poster to respond saying that, in this case, the original poster should buy her future daughter-in-law an oven. Throughout the thread posters emphasize that the gift should reflect the future daughter-in-law's interests and not the original poster's. The best way to ensure this, posters advise, is to ask the woman what she would like. However, several posters note that it can be uncomfortable asking for gifts. Almost as controversial as watches were the suggestions for a quilt. This was considered by some to be an old fashioned idea that might be more appropriate for rural backwoods regions. But, other posters were big fan of quilts. A few posters suggested forgoing material items and, instead, offering an experience such as a spa day. Many posters said that they were very appreciative of high-quality cookware that they had received as wedding gifts. I don't think any gift suggestion escaped criticism and all of the ideas had their detractors. The thread is actually pretty funny at times and is worth reading merely for the entertainment value. For instance, when a poster's suggestions of a gardening bench or a quilt were ridiculed as coming from a boomer, she responded by confessing to being a boomer, having two cats, and promising to log off DCUM and return to her crochet project. She said that she would leave this thread to the "young whipper snappers".

The most active thread since I last posted was the thread about the Supreme Court's affirmative action decision which I've already covered. But, only a few posts short of that one was a thread titled, "APS Closing Nottingham" and posted in the "VA Public Schools other than FCPS" forum. "APS" refers to Arlington Public Schools and "Nottingham" is an elementary school in north Arlington. Apparently, the APS school board recently announced a proposal to send current Nottingham students to other nearby schools and use Nottingham as a swing space for schools that are being renovated. Changes of school assignments are always controversial and the length of this thread at 37 pages shows that this case is not an exception. However, the initial reaction from Nottingham parents in the thread was surprisingly subdued. They were far from thrilled with the proposal, but indicated that they could live with it. There was far more outrage from parents associated with the schools to which Nottingham students would move with near apocalyptic predictions regarding the extra traffic it would cause. But, it appears that the conventional wisdom expected Nottingham families to react with outrage and entitlement. When a few posters responded in ways that fulfilled that stereotype, they become the face of Nottingham parents. Frankly, I think it is an unfair portrayal, but posters complaining that they were being victimized because they are white and wealthy and that some would even be killed because of this decision made easy targets. Many of the pro-Nottingham responses were justifiably lampoonable. One poster was inspired to create a sarcastic version of Martin Niemöller's famous quotation, "First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out...", paraphrasing it to say, "First they overcrowded Glebe And I did not speak out..." While Nottingham parents threatened everything from moving out of Arlington to legal action, they didn't quite reach the point of comparing the closing of their school to the Holocaust. Though in the case of some posters, that may only be a matter of time. Still, and I am adamant about this, many of the Nottingham posters were level-headed and entirely reasonable in their responses. They just didn't get much attention. Nobody is likely to be thrilled with the closing of their much-loved school and their children's future schooling that had appeared to be settled suddenly being thrown into question. On the other hand, some of the posters with ties to other schools seem to be taking an inordinate amount of joy from this proposal. For instance, one poster wrote, "Hahahaha. Yes. Karma for Nottingham who was oh so obnoxious in the 2018 go round." This was a less respectful version of a point made by several other posters. According to them, past efforts by Nottingham families to successfully oppose proposals that would have added additional students to the school left Nottingham under-enrolled and vulnerable to this sort of development. A final decision on the proposal to convert Nottingham into a swing space is apparently not due for almost a year. So, this is not likely the last we've seen of this thread.

After taking last week off from this blog, I'll review the most active threads of the 10 day period that I missed. None of these threads will likely be surprises to anyone who has paid even the least amount of attention to the news. The most active thread, by a considerable measure, was titled, "Tourist submersible missing on visit to Titanic" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. This thread followed the initial disappearance, subsequent search for, and eventual discovery of the fate of the OceanGate submersible that was lost during a visit to the wreck of the Titanic. Rather than detail the substance of this now 147 page thread, I am going to take the opportunity to be somewhat self-indulgent. I sometimes enjoy providing a behind-the-scenes look at how things work on this website. We are a two-person operation and are essentially responsible for the website 24/7, including when we are otherwise on vacation. As I announced earlier, this past week we were hosting out-of-town guests and celebrating our younger son's high school graduation. As such, I was hoping to minimize my interaction with DCUM. This thread massively interfered with that plan. Almost immediately, many posters decided that the loss of five lives was an excellent opportunity for jokes and humor. Other posters considered this disrespectful and objected to it. My inbox was soon filled with reports of inappropriate posts. When I apparently didn't respond quickly enough, a poster continued reporting posts, but then also started replying to the posts and simply adding the word "reported". Those posts provoked responses arguing about the reports and reports complaining about the messages saying "reported". So, what might have been a single report morphed into five or more posts or reports, multiplied several times. I was forced to take a break from touring the Udvar-Hazy Center annex to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in order to sit with my phone trying to stem the tidal wave that was flooding my inbox. I blocked the IP address of the poster who continually replied "reported". But, when the block expired, she spent several days posting complaints about the block and creating even more posts for me to remove. There was considerable disagreement in this thread about the applicability of DCUM's "48 hour rule" which prohibits negative posts about deceased individuals for the first 48 hours after their death. In the beginning, this rule was thought by some not to apply because no deaths had been confirmed. Once parts of the destroyed vessel were discovered, some posters argued that 48 hours had already passed since the deaths. My concern was less about splitting hairs but more focused on keeping the thread substantive and on-topic. I didn't see much need for absurd discussion of orcas, unfunny attempts at humor (which in many cases was simply copied without attribution from Twitter), or lame poetry. Ironically, with the thread reaching nearly 2,200 posts, as recently as yesterday a poster was still complaining about posts being removed. I think plenty has been posted and nothing of importance was likely missed.