2023

The three most active threads yesterday were all ones that I've previously discussed and will, therefore, skip. Two of those were the thread about Trump being kicked off the Colorado ballot and the Gaza war. Neither a surprise. But, the third, about the bike lobby in DC, was a thread about which I originally wrote way back in September 2022. That thread never really slowed down and has continued to be active for well over a year. After those was a thread titled "where do highly academic $ donut hole students go?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. By "donut hole students", the original posters means students whose families have enough money that they are not eligible for need-based financial aid but are not wealthy enough to easily afford elite colleges. As the original poster notes, several options exist for such students. They can attend cheaper in-state public universities, they can seek merit scholarships from less selective colleges, or they can endure the financial hardship required to cover the cost. The original poster asks which choice students tend to make. Several posters suggest that either in-state universities or "SLACs" with good merit aid. "SLACs" are either Small Liberal Arts Colleges or Selective Liberal Arts Colleges depending upon to whom you ask. Regardless of what you call them, many of these schools offer generous grant assistance that can bring their costs down to that of in-state public options. In-state schools that have honors programs are especially popular for academically gifted but financially-challenged students. Some posters reported experiences that contradicted conventional wisdom. For instance, it is generally assumed, and posted in this thread, that out-of-state universities are less generous with assistance. But, one poster reported that for her high-stats child, out-of-state flagship universities offered competitive aid packages. Another hurdle faced by "donut hole" students was also explained. The best shot for many students to be accepted by a highly-selective private school is through the Early Decision application process. However, because such schools require a commitment to attend, many less financially well-off students shy away in order to avoid a commitment when the money might not be there. This essentially eliminates an entire class of schools as options for such students. Much of this thread is also devoted to discussion of what level of wealth really represents the "donut hole" with considerable second-guessing of other posters' financial decisions. Several posters questioned why others didn't do a better job of saving for college.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Colorado case. To keep Trump off ballot" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. This thread was started at the beginning of last month when a judge in Colorado allowed an effort to keep former President Donald Trump off the presidential ballot to proceed. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution bars any individual who has previously taken an oath of office and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion or "given aid or comfort" to those who did from holding office. The original poster asked whether this is a state or federal issue and to where Trump could appeal. This thread languished until a couple of weeks later when the same judge ruled that Trump could remain on the ballot because, she claimed, the Section 3 did not apply to the office of President. This thread was the most active yesterday because that decision was reversed on appeal by the Colorado Supreme Court. That court ruled that Section 3 disqualifies Trump from holding office and, therefore, it would be a "wrongful act" to include him as a candiate for the presidential primary election. There are a number of issues involved in this decision, all of which are disputed in the thread. At the highest level is the question of whether January 6 was an insurrection. Republicans have described that day as involving little more than "tourists"", an inside job provoked by the "deep state" or ANTIFA, or a simple act of protest protected by the 1st Amendment. Nevertheless, courts have ruled countless times against those involved and several participants in the January 6 events have been convicted of sedition. The next question is about Trump's culpability for the events. While Trump is currently on trial due to his involvement, he is yet to be convicted. However, Courts have ruled in other cases that Trump was responsible. Next is whether the 14th Amendment is relevant to primary elections. A court in Minnesota that considered a similar case ruled that political parties have the final say in who appears on primary ballots and, therefore, allowed Trump to remain as a candidate. Most assuredly the Colorado decision will be appealed to the US Supreme Court. The Colorado court withheld its decision from going into effect until January 4th to allow for an appeal and it would likely be stayed during such an appeal. As a result, Trump will likely stay on the primary ballot regardless of this decision. Those posting in this thread are generally pessimistic that the US Supreme Court, dominated by conservatives and including three Trump nominees, will rule against Trump in any event.

Once again the two most active threads yesterday were threads that I've already discussed. So, I'll start with the third most active thread which was titled, "How does your redshirted kid feel now that she/he is older?" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. This is the type of thread that I find very frustrating and makes me want to reconsider what we are doing with DCUM altogether. The original poster has a perfectly reasonable request. Her family is moving to the DC area and she is giving thought to school for her daughter who just completed kindergarten. The child's birthday is in late August and she has recently been diagnosed with ADHD. Therefore, the original poster is considering redshirting her daughter and having her repeat kindergarten. She would like to hear about the experiences of those who redshirted their children in the past. This sounds pretty straight-forward, right? If you redshirted your child, the original poster would like to hear how that turned out. No additional input was requested. But, this is DCUM where I have often said that if you post a question asking for input from cat owners, you will most assuredly be flooded by responses from dog owners, many of whom hate cats. No surprise then that the thread was filled by posts from those with no experience with redshirting. To be sure, many of those were helpful and informative and contributed positively to the thread. But, others were not. For instance, one poster weighed in to say that her older child was glad that he was not redshirted. Good to know, but hardly relevant to this discussion. That wasn't the end of this poster's participation, however. She would eventually post nearly 30 times in the thread, opposing redshirting and challenging the experiences of others. So, not only was this poster not providing responsive posts, she was debating those who were. As is turns out, probably not surprisingly, this particular poster is one that I encounter frequently due to her prolific posting. Yesterday, in fact, she posted at least 127 messages. The strange thing is that she does not appear to have actually started a thread herself during this calendar year. Her habit is to simply comment relentlessly, and mostly negatively, on other's posts. I appreciate this person's commitment to DCUM, but I wish she would be more positive and helpful. In this case, she is almost single-handedly responsible for this thread being among yesterday's most active and, more importantly, much less useful than it could have been. I wish I had the ability to contact the user privately and encourage her to do better, but I don't. So, maybe this post will suffice. Either way, I've blocked her IP address for 24 hours so we will see what that does, if anything. For the original poster's part, it doesn't look like she posted again in the thread. So, who knows what she thinks of the discussion?

Since I took the weekend off from blogging, today I'll cover the most active threads since Friday. The most active thread during that period was titled, "US Census Bureau: White Women More Likely Than Black Women to Move Up Income Ladder Due to Differences in Partnering" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster linked to a new analysis of census data that shows that white women tend to be partnered more often than non-white woman and that white women are more likely to attain upward mobility through partnerships. The bottom line of the data presented by the original poster is that white women tend to partner more often and when they do, they partner with a higher-earners. This perhaps explains the countless threads that we see in the relationship forum about finding a wealthy husband and so on. Those responding generally don't disagree that this is the reality. As one poster writes, "I'm a black woman. At my first job out of college three white women took me under their wings and made sure I understood how to marry up. It worked." Other posters attempted to offer explanations for this situation or to suggest ways to address it. Unfortunately, as with most threads dealing with race, racists came out of the woodwork to make their tired cliched tropes. As a result, I have had to remove a number of posts. This thread went all over the place as it seemed to give license to posters to demonstrate their personal biases. Somehow immigration, anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, and Kanye West all were either demonstrated or discussed. I will probably have to lock this thread soon. Because the value of partnering seems to be generally accepted by most posters, much of the thread is focused on relationship issues. But, personally, I think this misses the main point which is that women tend not to attain upper mobility through their own efforts, but through partnering with a higher-earner. This may well be the reality, but it is an unfortunate one. Rather than focusing on why Black women have difficulty marrying high earners, why not address the need to partner in order to get ahead? Shouldn't any woman, regardless of race, be able to achieve upper mobility through her own hard work and intelligence rather than relying on a partner? To be sure, there are posts that take this view and, as a result, address the structural obstacles to female advancement. Hence, about birth control and abortion.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "WaPo: Students can’t get off their phones. Schools have had enough.". The thread was originally posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum, but since the thread is not specific to MCPS, I moved it to the "Schools and Education General Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to an article in The Washington Post discussing efforts by schools to combat the usage of mobile phones in school by students. Mobile phone usage has apparently increased dramatically following the pandemic. The article describes a $16 pouch in which some schools are requiring students to store their phones during school hours, provoking the original poster to criticize the article as an "advertisement" for spending money instead of setting and enforcing rules. However, the article also discusses schools that have forgone the pouches and set and enforced the rules that the orignal poster advocates. The first poster to respond suggests that an effective intervention that only costs $16 per kid would be the cheapest solution yet. My main takeaway from this thread is that, perhaps as a result of their own mobile phone addictions, participants in the thread had a difficult time staying on topic. Within the first four posts, the discussion was switched to talking about textbooks. Then posters turned to talking about the use of Chromebooks and on-line learning. Just to be clear, the Post article is about students using phones while they are supposed to be either studying or listening to their teachers. The phones are not being used as part of the learning process. They certainly are not replacing textbooks or school-issued Chromebooks for that matter. Those topics are interesting and worthy of their own threads, but not relevant to this one. Posters who oppose mobile phone use during class suggest that not only are students distracted themselves by their phones, but they distract others in the class as well. Moreover, the phone are frequently used to cheat. A surprising number of posters were in favor of kids having their phones in class. One poster argued that it was the teachers' fault for not making lessons interesting if kids were distracted by their phones. Quite a few posters joined the original poster in advocating for strictly-enforced policies about mobile phone usage, but others argued that it should not be part teachers' jobs to enforce this and that it could place them in legal or physical danger given that teachers have been either sued or beaten for taking mobile phone away. Another surprising theme of some replies was to claim that mobile phones are analogous to comic books or rock music as things that "the olds" thought were ruining the youth but weren't. I think those type of replies missed the point. To my knowledge, reading comic books or listening to rock music during class, much like using mobile phones, is not considered a problem because it is going to corrupt our youth, but because it is interfering with children's education.

Despite the college admissions season mostly coming to a close, college admissions topics are not going to disappear. Two separate college admissions topics were among the most active threads yesterday. I've been thinking about this because so many college topics come up in these blog posts and it occurred to me that, since DCUM is now over 20 years old, most of our original members have children of college-age or older. I don't think younger parents are as interested in forum discussions and, instead, spend their time on TikTok and Instagram. So, I think we have fewer posters interested in discussing newborn issues and more who want to talk about colleges. As a side note, I suspect that we are getting close to having, if we have not already had, second-generation DCUMers with posters who are the children of DCUM posters now becoming parents.

As usual I skipped blogging over the weekend other than the short post about the design update in the forums (something I'll get to later). So, today I am looking at the most active threads since Friday. The leading thread was actually the thread about transgender athletes that I discussed on Thursday. So, I'll skip that one and go to the next most active thread which was titled, "‘I’d rather have a happy kid at UMD than a miserable one at Harvard’" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The quote in the thread's title is paraphrased from a post in another thread to which the original poster linked. The original poster disagrees with the sentiment expressed in the quote and thinks that kids who get burnt out and are miserable at Harvard would probably feel the same at any middling or better college. The poster cites her own experience as someone who was pushed by her parents and went to a high-pressur high school and believes that the intensity paid off. The original poster also references a thread that was posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forom that was allegedly by a Columbia University student who precisely fits the profile of a miserable Ivy League student. That post was from a well-known troll who alternates between posting in the guise of a student and her disappointed parent. I received a number of reports by posters suspecting the original poster of this thread was also that troll. I am unable to confirm or disprove the suggestion. At any rate, the discussion in this thread goe in a lot of different directions. Some posters agree with the original poster that pushing children to succeed can benefit them. Others agree that kids who are over-stressed or depressed in due to the pressure of their high schools will probably continue to suffer from those conditions whether they attend Harvard or a lower-ranked school. But many posters argue that pressure on kids that results in depression and other ill effects is not helpful. If the same kid who is miserable at Harvard will also be miserable at a state university, it does not excuse putting pressure on kids. In fact the opposite is true. It is an indictment of that practice. Another poster contends that developing a strong sense of self, having fun, and making friends is more important to a child's future well-being than attending any particular college. The point being that, yes, a damaged child will be damaged regardless of the university they attend, so don't damage them in the first place. Rather allow them to attend to their current and future mental health rather than placing all effort and hope on getting into Harvard. Nothing can dissuade the original poster, however, who continues to reiterate her position throughout the thread.

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "Are top private colleges mainly for poor people now?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. I have repeatedly pointed out that thread after thread in the college forum is based on the premise that the college application process is unfair — it's always biased against whomever is authoring the post. A corollary to this argument is that financial aid is also unfair. The conventional wisdom routinely stated in the forum is that the very wealthy can afford to pay full price for colleges and the very poor receive generous financial aid, but those in the middle neither get aid nor can afford the costs. The original poster takes this a step further and asserts that only the poor are able to attend top private schools. She presents some data without providing a source and the data is later disputed by another poster, who also failed to provide a source. But, I believe the flaws in the original poster's argument are clear even without disputing her numbers. Based on her data, the cutoff for need-based financial aid is $200,000 annual income. Families in this income range are generally not seen as poor, especially outside expensive urban areas. She also ignores the fact that many middle class families amass significant college savings and, therefore, don't require as much financial aid. Also, merit aid may, in many cases, also help close financial gaps. Basically, the original poster proves something that I have noticed to be true for a long time. The best way to create a lengthy thread is not by posting a brilliant post which cannot be disputed in the slightest, but rather to compose a post full of obvious holes and shortcomings. Posters will eagerly respond to the second type in order to address its flaws. In this case, the original poster has provoked 17 pages of posts mostly disagreeing with one or more of her contentions.

The most active thread yesterday, by some measure, was titled, "Why do donut hole families" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. This thread, which garnered and amazing 21 pages of responses in just one day, discusses the families whose finances fall in the "donut hole" between those wealthy enough to easily afford college and those poor enough to qualify for need-based financial assistance. The original poster claims that there are plenty of in-state options, lower-tier private colleges, and even some out of state public universities that are affordable if families are not fixated on out-of-reach Ivy League schools. I don't have time to read much of this thread but from what I can tell, many posters are resentful to have found themselves in the donut hole. Some posters explain that having grown up in less financially well off families, they were forced to take out loans for college. They then got good jobs and worked hard to climb the corporate ladder which puts them outside the bracket that is eligible for need-based aid. However, the burden of paying off their own loans meant they could not save for their own children's college. Now they are too wealthy for aid and too poor to afford top colleges. Other posters argue that the term "donut hole" is misleading because it understates the realities of being poor. Being poor does not mean that college affordability issues suddenly disappear and that poor families struggle just as much, and in most cases even more, than so-called donut hole families. A few posters have little sympathy for families in this situation, describing this as a failure to save and misplaced priorities. Quite a few posters do circle back to the original poster's point that many affordable options do exist if people would choose to pursue them. As one posters writes, "Why isn’t in-state good enough for people? Stop going after prestige and prestigious institutions."