2023

The Gaza war thread continued to be the most active thread yesterday, but just barely. Second was a topic that is perhaps even more controversial than the Israel-Palestine conflict. Titled, "Are antivaxxers all just contrarians and conspiracy theorists?" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum, the original poster asks if there are critical thinkers among those who oppose vaccinations. It is not apparent from the original post whether the original poster is referring to those who oppose all vaccinations or those who are only against the covid vaccination. Regardless, most of the thread focuses on the covid vaccine. This, of course, is not a new topic and there is very little, if anything, new in this thread. I think there are a few obvious facts related to this topic. First, the vaccine was originally oversold, with many believing that the shots would prevent contracting and transmitting covid. That's obviously not the case, though the vaccine does appear to significantly limit both catching and spreading the disease and results in less severe illness among those who are infected. Second, there were relatively widespread side effects to the vaccine that caused suspicion, hesitation, and reluctance to get vaccination. Finally, there has been widespread campaigns, often politically-motivated and frequently based on misinformation, in opposition to the vaccines. The result is that anyone who wants to convince themselves not to get the shot can easily do so. Threads like this one demonstrate different types of vaccine opponents, Of course there are the right-wingers convinced that the vaccine is an attempt to turn them into transgender Marxists who are controlled by 5G radio signals, and the traditional granola leftists convinced that vaccines cause autism, but the covid vaccines have led to another category of vaccine-hesitant individuals. This is the "I support vaccines except for covid" group. Members of this group have a host of reasons for justifying their covid vaccine reluctance. Frequently, they claim to have "done their own research" which often consists of simply reading a few Facebook posts. The new boogyman, as several posters point out, is fear of "spike proteins" that they contend have horrendous side effects. But, I was surprised by the number of posters in this thread who are avoiding covid boosters because they claim the shot knocks them out for a day or two. If they are having that type of reaction to the vaccine, I wonder what will happen to them if they catch actual covid? Conversely, a number of posters in this thread report not having had an interest in the booster until a friend or family member fell ill with the disease. Having witnessed what they went through, these posters have either gotten or or planning to get the shot.

Yesterday the Gaza war thread continued as the most active thread. Skipping, that one, the most active thread was titled, "Alexandria on the Cusp of Eliminating All SFH Zoning" and posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics" forum. The original poster claims that Alexandria is plagued by a number of negative factors such as failing schools and an increasing number of murders and now the Council is going to completely destroy the city by eliminating zoning for single family housing. There is apparently a vote on this topic today. First, just to clarify what this proposal is all about. Currently, some parts of Alexandria are zoned exclusively for single family houses. In an effort to expand housing options, the Council proposes to remove this zoning and allow the development of multifamily housing units in those areas. Posters variously see this as either enhancing the value of their property or destroying it. Those in the first group suggest that what is now a single family home could be sold for a higher profit if it were purchased in order to develop multifamily housing. Others, on the other hand, believe that higher-density will destroy their current community and cause their current homes to lose value. This illustrates the dilemma of housing costs. Those in search of housing are eager to see more affordable housing which, proponents of development argue, can best be achieved by increasing the supply of housing. As such, encouraging the replacement of single family homes with multifamily units should increase affordability. But those who currently own property are not interested in seeing it lose value and that is exactly what they fear will happen if their current property is suddenly surrounded by lower-cost housing. Regardless, there is no agreement about the best course of action. Some posters think it makes sense to sell to a developer and take the money and run. Others think staying put until single family homes are scarce and sell for a significant premium makes more sense. Several posters are also worried about an increased number of residents overburdening city services, especially schools. Anger with the proposal is such that many posters who apparently currently own single-family homes make all sorts of threats about how they will react, such as turning their homes into brothels or raising pigs in their back yards. Sadly for these posters, the new zoning proposals will not allow for brothels or pig farms.

Once again the Gaza war thread was the most active thread of the day yesterday. The continued interest in the war was further demonstrated by the fact that the next most active thread was directly related to the war. Titled, "Pro Israel demonstration in DC?" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, the thread was originally started back on November 5th by a poster asking if a pro-Israel demonstration was being planned. Discussion meandered along as the demonstration was planned, discussing logistics and specific focuses of the event. Yesterday was the day that the demonstration was finally held and, as such, the thread added 24 pages of discussion, resulting in a thread that is currently 42 pages long. I won't have time to read the entire thread, or even all of the new pages, but since several posts in the thread were reported to me yesterday, I did get some exposure to the discusion. As the day started, most of those posting were concerned about possible violence provoked by pro-Palestinian counter-demonstrators. This emphasis reflects the mindset of the pro-Israel posters. They tend to see Palestinians and their supporters as inherently violent. Similarly, any support for Palestinians is portrayed as support for Hamas. As a result, much of the early discusion involved debate over whether there is significant support for Hamas, with many posters contending that there is not, and that those demonstrating against Israel's attacks on Gaza don't present a violent threat. Many of the pro-Israel posters argued that the demonstration would be aimed at opposing antisemitism, supporting Israel's right to exist and to self-defence, and to call for releasing the hostages. But, as the event proceeded, these messages were somewhat undermined. As noted in the thread, the Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, suggested that Gaza could not survive as an independent entity and that it would be a welcome development if the Palestinians were displaced to another country. One of the more prominent speakers at the event was Pastor John Hagee, a notorious antisemite. But, as the Forward magazine says, "support for Israel has long overridden or excused antisemitism within many Jewish circles" and, hence, Hagee was welcomed at the event. Those attending the demonstration routinely broke out into chants of "No Ceasefire" which distinguished them from pro-Palestinian protesters who generally call for a "Ceasefire Now", but did little to alleviate the claims by critics in the thread that the demonstration was in support of genocide. The anti-ceasefire chants may prove awkward as rumors circulated all day yesterday that a ceasefire will soon be announced as part of a hostage exchange. Less controversially, the event was attended by many leading politicians including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. However, the attendance of the top Congressional Democrats did little to quell claims in the thread that Democrats are anti-Israel.

The Gaza war thread was back leading the most active thread list over the weekend. It has less traffic than in the past, but is obviously still quite active. The most active thread after that one over the weekend was titled, "Woman charged with felony for having a stillbirth" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster linked to a story about a woman in Ohio who had a stillbirth at 22 weeks of pregnancy. She attempted to flush the remains down the toilet but the toilet clogged. She was arrested and charged with felony abuse of a corpse. According to court testimony, the woman had gone to the doctor twice about her pregnancy. But, beyond that, there are very few details that are known about this case. As a result, many posters made assumptions or educated guesses about what occurred. This, in turn, spurred a lot of complaints about the thread and even a separate thread in the "Website Feedback" forum. Some posters were upset about the thread's title because, strictly speaking, the woman's charges concern the treatment of the remains rather than the stillbirth itself. Very few posters in this thread believe the case is really about how the woman treated the remains of her stillbirth. One of the most common theories is that this is part of an effort to grant fetuses personhood and, therefore, make abortion tantamount to murder. As such, much of this discussion is wrapped up in posters' views about abortion. Abortion opponents tend to see this as the woman having delivered a baby — albeit not one that was alive — and mishandling its corpse in a callous manner. They object to this treatment of a baby's corpse and think the woman should be held accountable. However, such posters are very much in the minority. There is considerable suspicion that Ohio's restrictive abortion laws contributed to this situation, with posters speculating that the woman had been denied dilation and curettage surgery and was forced to undergo a miscarriage. The thread is dominated by posters who are outraged by the charges against the woman. Several posters provided first-hand accounts of their own miscarriages and argued that the woman's behavior was perfectly normal and understandable. For many posters, this case represents a further erosion of women's rights. They argue that women are being held accountable for natural processes and that the opinions of mostly male, mostly fundamentalist Christian lawmakers are being imposed on them. One thing that comes across in this thread is the visceral reaction of many posters, especially those who have dealt personally with miscarriages. For many, this is not a theoretical dispassionate discussion, but a deeply personal topic that causes real anger.

The Gaza war thread returned as the most active thread yesterday. But, with fewer than 350 posts, the thread is a shadow of what it once was. The most active thread after that was titled, "FBI HQ in PG!" and posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics" forum. The original poster appears to be very happy that the General Services Administration, the government's landlord, announced that a site in Greenbelt, Maryland had been selected to be the location of a new Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters. A new headquarters is necessary because the Hoover Building in downtown Washington, DC is literally crumbling and falling apart. The search for a new location has been long and arduous. The quest had already lasted a decade when the search was cancelled in 2017. At that time Congress showed little interest in funding a new headquarters and then president Donald Trump was opposed to moving the headquarters due to fear that its current site might be taken over by a luxury hotel that could compete with his own near by hotel. The search was revived after Trump left office. The selection of Greenbelt met with immediate controversy, as reflected in posts in the thread. Greenbelt is located in Maryland's Prince George's County, an area with a large Black population that has a reputation for high crime rates. Some of the opposition to Greenbelt was explicitly racist. One poster wrote, "Feel bad for the largely white FBI that won't be living in PG County". But fans of Prince George's fought back, arguing that the county didn't deserve it poor reputation and that it is actually a nice place to live. Many Maryland residents immediately began speculating about the impact on property values. Further controversy erupted when news arrived that FBI Director Christopher Wray had notified FBI staff about his own concerns with the location choice. According to Wray, a three-person panel charged with selecting a location had picked a site in Sterling, Virginia. This decision had been over-ruled by a single GSA official who had been given that authority. The Greenbelt property is currently owned by WMATA and that official had previously worked for WMATA. Therefore, Wray suggested, there was an inappropriate conflict of interest. This caused posters to immediately begin trumpeting the specter of Congressional investigations and maybe even the official's arrest. In response, Greenbelt proponents noted that the Sterling location, which is currently full of GSA warehouses that would have to be relocated and then demolished, would increase the price of the project by a billion dollars. With controversy aplenty, it looks like this saga if far from over.

For the first time since the Hamas attack on Israel, the thread about the Gaza war was not the most active. The thread was not even the second most active, but fell to third. I am not really surprised as the thread has become unreadable, bogged down in unending petty arguments about esoteric topics. The most active thread was titled, "School board results?" and posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. This thread was started late Tuesday evening by a poster in search of the Fairfax County Public School Board of Education election results. As I mentioned in yesterday's blog post, candidates endorsed by the Democratic Party won every seat. The FCPS school forum has been filled with threads describing alleged failures of the school system and criticizing current Board members. There was clearly a hope by some that this election would reduce the Democratic dominance of the school board. The outcome left posters with such hopes in despair. "So depressing. I don't understand how FCPS will continue their reputation with thus (sic) trajectory", wrote one. In response, a number of posters lamented that centrist and independent candidates simply were not popular. As one poster said, "I tried voting for non progressives but they are getting crushed." Another wrote, "I voted for the independents. No one else did though." A common theme of the thread is that while the candidates endorsed by Democrats might not be perfect, the Republican-endorsed candidates had failed to focus on the issues that really mattered to voters. As a poster wrote, Republicans "should have stayed away from book banning and crucifying trans kids. As well as slamming equity like it is a slur." Similarly, another poster wrote, "Run on reasonable changes and I’ll listen. Run on MAGA talking points and I am not voting for you." As the results sunk in, posters turned to discussing what they believed would be the future of the school system. The primary criticism was what some posters believe to be an inordinate focus on "equity". By this they mean too much attention to making sure that all students achieve a minimum standard. Such posters want to see more opportunties provided for high-achieving students whose needs they believe are not being addressed as teaching is concentrated on the lowest common denominator. I am not an expert on FCPS, but from what I read in the forum there is a plethora of Advanced Academic Programs (AAP) and other programs for high-achievers. We even created a separate forum for such programs. So, I am a bit confused about the complaints concerning equity. One poster strongly dislikes "Skills Based Grading" and dominated the last several pages with her criticism. If this thread is any indication, the future of the FCPS forum will be much like its past. Full of threads complaining about the school system and blaming the board for the system's demise.

Yesterday the Gaza war thread continued as the most active. But, with a comparatively paltry 464 new posts — almost half of the previous day's — interest may be flagging. The next most active thread was, like the Gaza thread, posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "Huge mass shooting incident in Lewiston, ME", the thread was created just after news broke about the mass shooting that took 18 lives in Lewiston, Maine. At first, the thread concentrated on reporting details of what had happened and who might have committed the atrocity. It is a sad reality that in the aftermath of these shootings a significant number of people are poised to spring into action if they can take political advantage from the identity of the shooter. In this case, multiple posters immediately blamed Hamas or Arabs. I removed those posts and I suspect many Arabs and Muslims gave a sigh of relief when the shooter turned out to be a White American with no connection to the Middle East. Once the shooter was identified and details of his background were provided, left-leaning posters began painting him as a MAGA right-winger though the evidence of this was rather thin and based on his meager social media history. Others focused on his clear mental health issues. Gun proponents have latched onto mental health as their primary means of deflection from demands for gun control, but in this case mental health is obviously an issue. Despite the professed interests in mental health always evidenced by gun proponents in the aftermath of mass shootings, they never really seem to do much about it. To the contrary, in 2017 Congressional Republicans passed a resolution, which was subsequently signed into law by former President Donald Trump, to make it easier for those with mental illnesses to purchase guns. As such, it is difficult to assume much sincerity on the gun proponents' part. Predictably, there was considerable discussion of gun control in the thread, but with what has become an equally predictable refrain that after Sandy Hook, posters know gun control is not possible. One poster noted another phenomenon that I've also seen, including in this thread. Whenever gun control is discussed, gun enthusiasts seize the opportunity to flaunt their knowledge of guns and to speak contemptuously of anyone not capable of field striping an AR-15 while blindfolded and correctly naming every component. For instance, if a gun control proponent argues that extended clips should be prohibited, they will likely be met with a response along the lines of "it's a magazine not a clip so your opinion is invalid". One notable development arising from this shooting is that moderate Democrat Jared Golden, who represents Lewiston and who had previously opposed banning assault rifles, changed his position and now supports a ban. Of course, gun proponents will argue that there is really no difference between an AR-15 and a Red Ryder BB gun so it is impossible to draft legislation for an effective ban.

The most active thread since my last blog post continues to be the Gaza war thread which added over 1,600 new posts. The most active thread after that was one titled, "Fairfax County Double Murder" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. Several months ago a thread on the same topic was among the most active threads about which I wrote. I eventually locked that thread after it degnerated into little more than lurid gossip. At the time, a poster asked whether a new thread could be created if or when there were additional news on the topic. I agreed that would be okay. But, when this thread was created on October 1st, it was not because of news updates, but rather by a poster asking whether there was anything new. There wasn't, so this thread lingered until this past Thursday when there was a surprise development. First, to review the facts. Nearly seven months ago, police were called to the home of Christine and Brendan Banfield in Reston, VA. Christine had been stabbed and Brendan told police that he had shot an unknown man who was later identified as Joseph Ryan. Also in the home were the family's nanny, Juliana Peres Magalhaes, and the Banfield's young daughter. Ryan was dead when police arrived and Christine later died at the hospital. Exactly what occurred has been a mystery with heated disputes about why Ryan was in the home. On Thursday, police revealed that Christine and Ryan knew each other prior to the event and they announced that they had arrested Peres Magalhaes and charged her with second degree murder in the death of Ryan. Nobody has been charged in Christine's death. The bombshell about Peres Magalhaes unleashed a flury of posts in the thread. Posters speculated about why Brendan had told the police that he had shot Ryan when it now appears that it was Peres Magalhaes. There is considerable speculation about the relationship between Brendan and Peres Magalhaes. According to news reports, Peres Magalhaes has been seen caring for the Banfield's child but it is "unclear whether she was still working in her capacity as an au pair". One poster produced a photo that he claimed came from Peres Magalhaes' Instagram account that showed Peres Magalhaes and Brendan looking quite cozy together in a restaurant. The caption on the photo suggested that the two were in a relationship. There is still no official word on why Ryan was in the home, leading to considerable comment and several theories. The murder mystery aspects of this combined with it being a local story — friends and neighbors of the Banfield's and Ryan have posted — has led to the thread having considerable interest.

Today we have released a slight redesign for the DCUM Forums. For years, posters have been asking for a design that was optimized for mobile users. An attempt to deploy such a design a few years ago ended amidst a host of user complaints and performance issues. I hope that this design has resolved both of those problems. There will not be a lot of differences for those using desktop devices. Mobile users, however, will find a completely redesigned interface. The top navigation bar and the left side menu (where "Recent Topic" is located), can now be found in two "hamburger" buttons in the top corners. The default font size for all devices has been increased. So, if you suddenly find the fonts to be too large, adjust the zoom level of your browser. I found that I have been running my browser with the pages zoom 120 percent so in this design I made that size the default and now have my browser at 100 percent zoom level. For those of you who simply cannot abide change, there is a link at the very bottom of the page to the legacy design.

The most active thread yesterday was somewhat of a surprise to me. Titled, "Succession - Season 4" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum, the thread is obviously about the HBO Max television series chronicling the Roy family and their business empire. This thread was originally started back on March 26 but added slightly over 10 pages yesterday. I only just watched this episode yesterday, saving me from reading through pages of spoilers in order to write this post. But, in consideration for anyone who hasn't caught up yet, I'll try to avoid spoilers now. A moment in the episode that basically went over my head was caught by our mostly female user base and became the subject of much discussion. I'm still not sure of its significance and based on the pages of discussion it provoked, there is no consensus about its importance among our users. Several posters, however, have strong opinions about the matter, often drawing on personal experience to argue their points. Beyond that, the posts mostly recount fairly memorable scenes. There is a bit of a debate about whether the show should be watched as light entertainment or whether it has deeper meaning worthy of causing introspection among viewers.