2023

In the blog post that I wrote yesterday, I mentioned that it had been a big day for threads that I had already discussed. Yesterday was just as big. Like yesterday, the thread about the Wizards and Capitals moving to Virginia was the most active, followed by the Gaza war thread. The Maury Elementary thread that was third yesterday finally dropped off the most active list, though I would not be surprised to see it return. The threads about suing Callie Oettinger and raising kids in competitive communities were the other already-covered topics at the top of the most active list. Therefore, like yesterday, the first thread that I will discuss was actually the fifth most active of the day. That thread was titled, "Emory ED is out!" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. For the benefit of those not fluent in college application terms, "ED" refers to "Early Decision" which is a type of college application that is submitted prior to normal applications and requires the applicant to commit to attending the college if accepted. Students are only allowed to make one such application and, as such, it should only be used for the student's top choice. We are currently at the time of the year when ED results are announced and this thread was created to discuss ED decisions by Emory University. The responses include those from excited and happy posters whose children were accepted and some from disappointed posters whose children must deal with rejection. In both cases, posters tended to provide the grade point average, test scores, and other relevant data along with the decision. This led to quite a bit of Monday morning quarterbacking as others tried to draw conclusions from the information. Traditionally on DCUM, one of the first questions asked of those who are accepted is whether or not the student is an underrepresented minority or URM. The more polite might simply inquire about any "hooks". Such questions are often viewed as a way to explain an acceptance which posters might otherwise find surprising. When one of those responding in this thread proactively mentioned that her child was a URM, that caused a number of posters to attack her as a troll. So, I guess, this is another situation in which posters can't win. Before too long, discussion diverged to posts about other universities and how they compared with Emory. In addition, any thread about schools in conservative states tends to attract a poster who makes a fuss about abortion. I am not sure why this poster thinks that those who obsessively research every last detail about universities the way the posters in this thread do would have overlooked a state's abortion policies. But, even if they had, this poster has reminded them several times already. The topic doesn't really need to be discussed in this thread.

Yesterday was a big day for threads that I've already discussed. The leading thread was, not surprisingly, the one about Ted Leonsis moving his teams to Virginia. Next was the Maury Elementary School thread that seems immortal and third was the Gaza war thread. Even yesterday's fourth most active thread, the one about suing Callie Oettinger, is one I covered yesterday. As a result, today I am starting with what was actually yesterday's fifth most active thread. That was titled, "Raising kids in a competitive UMC community? Would you do it all over again?" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. The original poster says that she lives in an upper middle class community that has some racial diversity, but almost no socioeconomic diversity. The high school ranks in the top 1% in the nation and houses start at $1.5 million or more. Kids are very involved in extracurricular activities. This experience is much different than what the orignial poster experienced growing up. She was raised in a small middle class town where life was much more leisurely and she didn't experience people with real wealth until she went to college. Her social circle has included people from all economic statuses and a lot of diversity and she feels that she benefited from this. She is considering moving to a second home that her family owns in a rural community and raising her kids in a much simpler lifestyle and wants to hear from others about their experiences. There are several long, detailed, and substantive replies in which posters describe their experiences moving to less competitive areas. Generally, the posters were happy they moved. There are also posts from those who chose not to make such a move due to downsides that they described. As you might expect — and even hope for — on a forum that has its roots in urban Washington, DC, several posters pitch neighborhoods in the District in which less competitive lifestyles can be found. A few posters who describe themselves as being affluent argue that wealth doesn't automatically translate into competitiveness and that less competitive lifestyles can be found among those with money. Another handful of posters actually embraces competitiveness, were glad to have that for themselves, and hope to have it for their children. While a few posters got a little bent out of shape when criticism of communities was a little too close to home for them, this is mostly a polite and substantive thread. Many of the responses are very lengthly and those writing them put in considerable effort. As the result, the thread is pretty useful, but not a quick read.

The most notable aspect of yesterday's most active threads is that the Gaza war thread fell all the way to 9th, the lowest it has been since October 7. So, interest in that topic may finally be waning. The most active thread was titled, "Can I sue Callie Oettinger?" and posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. In early November, one of the threads I covered in this blog was about a breach of Fairfax County Public Schools data security. This was not a hack. Rather, Callie Oettinger, a FCPS parent, had gone to her children's school to examine their records. She was inadvertently provided with a thumb drive that had confidential records of over 170,000 students and employees. Oettinger's reaction was to publish this data which contained private details related to special education services that have been provided to children in partially redacted form. Her redactions were apparently not sufficient as the original poster of this thread is asking whether she can sue Oettinger for wrongfully publishing her child's personal health information. As in the original thread about this topic, most of the discussion focused on the ethics of Oettinger's publishing the data. While posters recognize that the original mistake lies with FCPS, and several hope that there will be accountability for that error, most of those responding are more angry with Oettinger. In their view, an FCPS employee made an error, but Oettinger's decision to publish the data was clearly intentional. Moreover, they are concerned about what else Oettinger may have done with the data and with whom she may have shared it. The overwhelming opinion is that once Oettinger realized that she had been wrongly provided sensitive data, she should have returned it to the school and deleted all copies in her possession. A number of posters express interest in joining legal action against Oettinger. The thread appears to have been started coincidental with letters being sent to the parents of children whose data was wrongly provided to Oettinger. Many of the posts, therefore, are from parents just learning about the disclosure and using the thread as an opportunity to absolutely fume at Oettinger. There are also a number of posts, especially later in the thread, that advocate that instead of directing their anger at Oettinger, those parents focus on ensuring that FCPS implements more effective data and privacy controls. Several posters want to do both. Despite the eagerness among many posters to initiate legal action against Oettinger, a number of posters contend that she has not violated any laws and that there are no valid grounds for a lawsuit.

The most active thread over the weekend was titled, "I'm a DC resident, applied for my CCW, and I'm now carrying concealed". Posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics", the original poster says that he is a Democrat who believes in sensible gun control but because of increased crime in Washington, DC he has now obtained a firearm with which to defend himself. Crime and guns are two topics that can always be guaranteed to generate a lot of traffic and this thread combines both So, there is no surprise that it was the most active thread. While rates of violent crime in DC are up and far too high, they are considerably lower than at other times during my nearly 40 years of living in DC. I've been wondering why feelings such as the original poster expresses seem much more common now than in the past. The original poster says that he has "never before experienced so much random, reckless, and violent crime". I wonder if this is a literal statement in that the original poster himself has been a victim of such crimes or that by "experience" the original poster means that he knows about such crimes. As far as I can tell, that point was never clarified in the thread. I think that the most obvious instigator of fear of crime is being a victim of crime or having acquaintances, relatives, or neighbors who are victims. But, almost as important, I suspect, is simply knowing about crime in relatively close vicinity to you, even if you don't have any personal connections to it. I've written before how violent crime in DC today seems a lot more geographically distributed than in the past. So, while murder rates were higher when I first arrived in DC, they were concentrated in a few areas and most DC residents simply ignored the violence. Now, murders occur throughout the city which naturally spreads concern and fear much wider. But, another element I think adds to heightened fear of crime is social media and the rise of social media crime reporters. The DC area has a number of individuals who follow police scanners and other information sources and immediately post about violent crime on social media. Those posts get reposted elsewhere and spread by others, often being the basis of DCUM threads. This spreads knowledge of crime beyond what it was in the past. There is the old expression that "ignorance is bliss" and this is one case in which I think that increased knowledge — in addition to having positive effects — can also have negative outcomes. In this case, it might have the impact of creating fear that is not necessarily supported by reality. Others can obviously argue that increased knowledge of local crime actually leads to a more rational risk analysis. I can see both arguments. The bottom line is whether people "feel" unsafe is more important for their individual actions than whether they actually "are" unsafe. I frequently feel that social media crime reports contribute to making us feel less safe while, in actuality, whether we really do face more of a threat may not have changed. It would be interesting to know whether this poster was drive to purchase a gun by an actual or perceived threat of violent crime.

Several of the most active threads yesterday were ones that I've already discussed. However, that was not the case with the most active thread of the day which easily led engagement for the day. That thread was titled, "Share something that should be general knowledge, but isn't" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. As the title says, the original poster asks for suggestions of things that most people should know but they often don't. Her own example is the fact that "antibiotics only work on bacteria, not on viruses." This type of thread is difficult to summarize because they tend to simply be suggestion after suggestion, often with no real unifying theme. Moroever, this thread managed to grow to 20 pages in just a day. So, I don't have time to read it all. But, among the first suggestions were some good ones such as how tax brackets work and what the First Amendment actually protects. I assumed that in order to reach 20 pages, this thread would have to include some facts that could not realistically be expected to be common knowledge. Skimming the thread, I did come across such examples. For instance, one poster laments that more people are not aware that "acetaminophen" is called "paracetamol" in Europe. I had to Google to discover that "acetaminophen" is what I would normally call "Tylenol". I clearly fall woefully short of that poster's expectations. There were some suggestions in which I sort of feel like the common person is not being given a fair shake. For instance, posters suggested that it is not common knowledge that Europe and Africa consist of more than one country. I would argue that almost everyone is aware of this, but the issue is one of generalizing and lazy speech rather than ignorance. Saying, "I visited Europe last summer" is simply easier than saying "Last summer I visited France, Germany, Poland, and Lithuania." Some of the suggestions were not only not common knowledge, they might not have even have been true. For instance, posters could not agree whether "rounding up" a bill or adding a donation to support charity when checking out at a retail business actually results in more profit for the business. One poster argued that it does and wishes that more people were aware of this while another poster provided a link saying that if these businesses are following the law, this is not true.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Dating a conservative" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster states that she is a woman who "is pretty progressive and liberal and works in gender equity" but has been dating a conservative man and wonders if there would be any long term issues with this relationship. The phrase "gender equity" in this post was a big red flag to me. Therefore I made a quick search for additional posts by the original poster in the thread and didn't find any. That was a second red flag. So I looked at the original poster's other threads. I am reasonably certain that the original poster is actually a man. Moreover, I think the poster has a habit of posting from the point of view of women with whom he is in a relationship. He seems to be struggling with dating and this may be an effort to better understand a woman's point of view. I haven't read much of this 14 page thread, but what I have read probably was disappointing to him if he was hoping for reassurance that a liberal woman might be happy dating a conservative man. I won't bother deleting or locking this thread at this point because, while it was probably started as a bit of a troll thread, the original poster has checked out. Whatever discussion is going on now is entirely between other posters.

Today's post will be a bit briefer than normal because I have another commitment to which I must attend. The two most active threads yesterday were both covered in yesterday's blog post. So, I will skip them today and move on to the next most active thread which was titled, "Youngkin is a book banner" and posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics" forum. The original poster of the thread embedded a tweet describing Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin's appearance on a CNN town hall. According to the tweet, Youngkin said that he would have signed HB 1448 had the VA Senate not blocked the bill. Also according to the tweet, that bill would have allowed Youngkin to ban books that he deemed offensive. Hence, the original poster's description of Youngkin as a book banner. I Googled "HB 1448" myself to see what the bill is all about. It is only one short paragraph in length and calls for the creation model policies dealing with the selection and removal of books from public school libraries. That is a few steps removed from giving Youngkin the power to ban books, so the tweet clearly overstates things. This highlights an ongoing trend in the local politics forum in which a left-leaning poster constantly posts anti-Youngkin posts, often engaging in extreme exaggeration if not outright misinformation. The poster's style mimics much of that to which we have become accustomed to seeing from right-wingers. Personally, I think Youngkin's actions lend themselves to significant justifiable criticism, leaving no need for hyperbole or misstatements and I wish this poster would rein himself in a bit.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "What’s a parenting choice you just cannot understand" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. I am really baffled by the constant threads about things people don't like, don't understand, are tired of, etc. These threads are just excuses to criticize others who then get offended and start arguments. To her credit, the original poster acknowledges that some of her own choices might end up on other's lists. But, in my opinon, she still fails when it comes to empathy. Her example of a parenting choice she doesn't understand is not prioritizing getting a baby or young child enough sleep. Where are the parents who don't want their child to sleep and actually prefer to have a tired baby screaming all the time? They don't exist. For new parents, a child's time asleep is a refuge, it is a welcomed break. Nobody wants less of it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like this is all an effort by the original poster to pat herself on the back for what was apparently a successful effort at sleep training her own child. If this is the case, the original poster's gripe is not that parents don't prioritize sleep, but that they don't address it exactly as she did. In other words, her real complaint is that some parents don't sleep train. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I am pretty sure that if the original poster took time to ask others to explain their choices, they wouldn't be so difficult to understand. In a follow-up post, the original poster stresses that she does understand that some parents don't have choices. For instance, some parents might need to wake a baby at 5 am because of day care or their job and the original poster emphasizes that she is not criticizing this. I'm willing to bet that similar explanations would also satisfy the original poster in 99.9% of the cases. I'm a fan of the adage of not criticizing others if you have not spent time walking in their shoes. As such, I find threads such as this very non-productive. But, I am apparently in a distinct minority since the thread has already reached 36 pages. Since I stopped reading after the third post, I have no idea what the other 35 pages say.

Because I didn't write blog posts over the weekend, today I'll look at the most popular threads over the past three days. The most active thread during that time was titled, "SVB failure" and posted in the "Money and Finances" forum. As anyone with even marginal awareness of current events can guess, this thread is about the failure of the Silicon Valley Bank. The story, as I understand it, is that this bank is popular with venture capitalists who invest in tech startup businesses. These investors require the companies in which they invest to keep their funds in SVB. Apparently during the closed economy of the pandemic, SVB accumulated money that could not otherwise be invested. SVB used that money to purchase bonds and securities which, due to the low interest rates at the time, had low yields. With the rise in interest rates, SVB faced the predicament of either selling the bonds at a loss or sitting on them until maturity, creating a liquidity crisis. According to a Twitter thread by on of the venture capitalist involved, a chat group involving 250 some investors discussed this problem, leading to several of the investors advising their companies to withdrawal their funds from SVB. This provoked a bank run which resulted in the FDIC taking over the bank. Lead-ing venture capitalists took to Twitter to demand that the government protect their deposits. and many companies who lost access to their funds worried about how to pay their bills. I haven't read the entire 27-page thread, but from what I have read, the discussion mirrors much of the general discourse on this topic. Some posters see the sky as falling and stress the dangers of SVB's collapse. Others take a "let it fail" approach and express fatigue with government bailouts. Eventually, discussion turned toward possible solutions and then analysis of the government's statement that it will safeguard deposits through measures that will not require taxpayer funds. Not every poster is necessarily onboard with this solution, but there seems to be a general understanding that the government would be forced to do something.

The most active thread yesterday was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. titled, "Florida bans AP African-American Studies course from schools", the original poster links to a New York Times article reporting what is described in the thread's title. Briefly, the Florida Department of Education rejected an Advanced Placement (AP) high school curriculum because, the Departement claimed, the course is historically inaccurate and violates Florida law. The Departement did not explain which law the class violates or which parts were inaccurate. Last year Florida passed a law prohibiting teaching many race-related topics including those that might cause feelings of guilt or distress among students. While the law has been named the "Stop W.O.K.E Act", it might better be termed the "Snowflake Act" given its implication that Florida students have very tender feelings. Predictably, discussion in this thread basically consists of liberals condemning Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Departement of Education's action and conservatives lining up in defense. There is clearly a desire among some conservatives to return to a completely whitewashed version of American history that focuses solely on white Americans. Such views are reflected by posters asking why a class focused on African-American studies exists in the first place. I think the dilemma faced by posters who attempt to debate topics like this in good faith — regardless of political perspective — is that decisions like this are not made in good faith, but rather on the basis of raw politics. So, posters devote lots of effort to researching and explaining detailed substantive arguments while DeSantis, with his supporters' encouragement, is acting with all the nuance and sophistication of a caveman with a club. Both detractors and supporters of Florida's ban who attempt to intelectualize this debate are on a completely different wavelength than DeSantis who cares nothing about ideas, history, or law, but only about politics.