2023

The most active thread since my last blog post on Friday continues to be the Hamas-Israel war thread which added over 2,000 new posts. But, if there is one topic that can rival the Middle East in divisiveness, it is the British Royal Family. So, much to my chagrin, the second most active thread over the weekend was titled, "Do you think Kate Middleton is genuine" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. The complete text of the original post was simply "Or performative?", but those two words were sufficient to inspire what is already a 22 page thread. Obviously I am not going to read 22 pages about Kate Middleton or any other member of the British Royal Family. Moreover, whereas with Meghan Markle I might be able to conjure up an opinion or two, with the Princess of Wales I am drawing a complete blank. About the only thing I can say about this thread is that I don't belive a single post in it has been reported. That either means that posters are being exceptionally well-behaved or posters have given up reporting posts. Well, the previous sentence was true when I wrote it, but before I finished the other entries in today's post there was a report which included a request that I lock the thread. I don't know if I will do that at this point, but maybe things weren't as pleasant as I thought.

The most active thread yesterday continued to be the Israel-Palestine thread that I discussed on Sunday. That thread added over 1,200 new posts yesterday and shows no sign of slowing down. When a topic is generating so much activity, posters are often motivated to create spin-off threads. They may want to address a specific aspect of the topic in depth or simply don't want their post to get lost in the deluge. Posters will also often find fairly creative ways to shoehorn the topic into other forums. I would not be surprised to see a thread in the Pets forum titled, "Has the Hamas-Israel war caused you to forget to walk your dog?" The second most active thread yesterday was a spin-off, though not nearly as egregious as that and was also kept in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "Getting Palestinian civilians to safety", the original poster says that she believes getting Palestinian civilians who are trapped in Gaza moved to someplace safe is an imperative. This topic highlights what is a moral issue to many of us, but also an important political and strategic concern. I don't think anyone denies that Israel has the right to seek the harshest retribution imaginable against Hamas. But, Hamas is currently embedded in the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated places on earth. Over 2 million people, half of them children, live cheek by jowl with no place to hide. Israel has announced a full seige and cut off electricity and water to the territory. This raises the specter Gaza's inhabitants slowing starving to death, if they are not killed by Israeli bombs first. Is a country whose identity is so tightly bound to genocide really willing to starve 2 million people? Is the world willing to stand by and watch it happen? The current Israeli government may well be perfectly happy with such an outcome and several world powers may find themselves constrained from doing anything about it. But, such an outcome is simply not going to be acceptable to much of the world. Israel will eventually find itself under considerable pressure regarding the fate of Gazan civilians. One solution that seems obvious at first glance would be for Egypt to open its border with Gaza and allow civilians to seek refuge there. Historically, once Palestinians flee from areas of Israeli control, they are not allowed to return. As a result, Palestinians have spent decades living in refugee camps in the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Indeed there are even refugee camps in Gaza. Egypt is likely uninterested in assuming what would likely be permanent responsibility for 2 million refugees. Moreover, Hamas has no interest in seeing the civilians flee. If Gaza is empty of all but Hamas fighters, Israel would be free to flatten every square inch. The civilians are effectively human shields for Hamas. The result, as things stand now, is that civilians remained trapped. Egypt doesn't want them, Hamas has an imperative to keep them, and Israel appears prepared to kill them all. This is intractable problem that will only get worse. As for the thread, it fairly quickly went off topic to a number of unrelated issues such as whether or not Jews and Palestinians are White. As a result, I locked it.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Disappointed with Georgetown" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster, in a fairly lengthy post, describes his visit to Georgetown University with his son who is conducting a number of college visits. The original poster applied to and was accepted by Georgetown 30 years ago. However, presented with a better financial aid package by an unidentified liberal arts college, the original poster chose the other school instead. The original poster says that he felt "a sense of longing" as they approached the Georgetown campus, but was almost immediately let down. He was not impressed with the campus, bothered by the noise of airplanes, and intimidated by the competitiveness of admissions. Similarly, his son ended the tour with little enthusiasm for the university, saying that if he could be accepted by Georgetown, he could probably be accepted by somewhere better as well. The original poster then provided his own opinions about Georgetown which boil down to what the school has to offer not justifying its cost and the competitiveness of its admissions. Among those who responded are posters who had similar reactions to the university. On the other hand are posters who attended the school and who suggest that the original poster doesn't understand the strengths that Georgetown offers. Nearly every aspect of the original poster's opinion of Georgetown is disputed. That includes the airplane noise which several posters denied is a problem. This thread reached 18 pages in less than 24 hours so clearly posters have strong feelings about the school. But, I don't have time to read that many posts so this is as much of a summary as I can provide.

Before I get started on the most active posts today, I want to draw attention to the new tab our navigation bar titled, "Contribute". This is in response to posters who offered to make donations to DCUM if we would discontinue the video advertisements that we had introduced. If you are interested in such a contribution, the "Contribute" page provides linkes to Patreon and PayPal allowing you to to that. All contributions will be greatly appreciated.

The most active thread yesterday by some measure — more than doubling the number of responses of the next most active thread and racking up an amazing 19 pages in less than a day — was a thread titled, "Travelled to interview, not sure what to think of prospective boss" and posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum. The original poster describes an in-person interview for her "dream job" for which she had waited a long time for the previous job-holder to retire. The night before she was flying, her prospective boss texted her to say that he would pick her up at the airport and take her to lunch. This did not go over well with the original poster and, after some back and forth, she was able to get those plans changed. The prospective boss had arranged a full itinerary that included quite a bit of one-on-one time which made the original poster uncomfortable. The trip ended with the original poster being told that she would be offered the job. A few days later, the prospective boss texted her again which bothered the original poster and she told him that she would be available on another day (she later clarified that she was busy organizing a conference). This caused him to angrily reply back saying that maybe he should not offer her the job. The original poster ends by saying she believes that he is interested in more than a professional relationship and that she cannot take the job. She asks for advice about what to do. There are several issues included in this post and even more become evident as posters respond. There is the obvious issue of possible sexual discrimination or harassment. In the original post, the poster does not detail anything like that but seems uncomfortable simply being alone with a man. Some posters accept this as a reasonable concern but others think the original poster is overreacting. A second facet is the question of the boss's management style. Even taking the potential gender issues out of the discussion, many posters suggest that the prospective boss and the original poster may not have compatible working styles. Multiple posters stated that what the original poster described sounds very much like the typical interview in academia and the original poster confirmed that the interview was at a state university. This leads posters to advise the original poster that she likely does not understand what working in academia involves and that her expectations are massively unrealistic. Eventually the original poster did describe a comment by the prospective boss that was likely inappropriate, but posters are divided about whether it amounted to sexual harassment. Whether posters sympathized with the original poster or not, almost everyone agreed that if the original poster is not willing to put up with the boss, her only option was to turn down the job. Nobody seemed to see any effective recourse such as complaining to the human resources departement. I mostly stopped reading after the 4th page but as best I can tell, the same arguments simply repeated page after page with posters getting increasingly frustrated with the original poster.

The most active thread since my last blog post on Friday was titled, "When the Dems Lose 2024..." and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. This thread was started back on September 14 but apparently gained a lot of traction over the weekend. But, since it's 18 pages long, I don't have time to read the entire thing and I am not sure why it was so active over the past three days. I've come to think of the DCUM political forum as sort of junior varsity political discussion, but even that may be overrating it much of the time. It is often just a level or so above drunk guys in the bar blurting out their political opinions. The main point the original poster makes in this thread is that President Joe Biden will lose the upcoming presidential election, leaving Democrats bewildered and confused. The poster starts out saying that Democrats mistakenly believe that the country loves Democrats, something that the poster does not believe to be true. The poster's second point is that the Biden/Harris ticket is untenable and that "you" — apparently meaning DCUM posters but maybe meaning Democrats at large — didn't develop a better option. Next, weirdly enough, the poster blames ActBlue for upsetting grassroots Democrats by emailing them too often. But, the poster really hits it out of the park by concluding that the Democrats should nominate a bipartisan ticket that includes a Republican. In a better world, this thread would have ended after the first post because everyone would have read it and decided it wasn't worth their effort to reply to such nonsense. Sadly, that did not happen. Contrary to the original poster's belief, there is not a Democrat in the world who is not chewing their nails to the quick in fear of Biden being defeated. I guarantee that absolutely nobody will be surprised if he loses. Disappointed, yes, but not surprised. Similarly, Democrats are well aware of the animosity they face in much of the country. Groups of Republicans who routinely stage armed protests in response to anything from Covid restrictions (real or imagined) to drag queen performances leave little doubt about their feelings. In a perfect world, Biden probably would have announced early on that he would not run for a second term. But, that likely would have left him as a powerless lame duck. So, I understand why he didn't. At any rate, this is not something the average person has much influence over. Similarly, we could ask why Republicans haven't found a better candidate than former President Donald Trump. As for the original poster's last point, selecting a ticket that includes a Republican, the original poster shows his true delusion. What motivation do Democrats have to put a member of the opposition party a heartbeat from the presidency? All available evidence suggests that the 2024 election will be close. Between now and then any number of things can happen to change the calculus. Anyone who believes they know the outcome now is fooling themselves.

Yesterday there were two threads tied as the most active of the day. I'll give the nod to a thread titled, "am I a ‘Karen’ for not wanting my driveway blocked?" which was posted in the "Real Estate" forum. This thread was originally quite a bit longer but I removed several off-topic posts. The original poster says that she lives in a cul-de-sac with limited parking. Three to four days a week, contractors working on her neighbor's home block her driveway with their trucks. In order to pick up her children from school, she has to go over and ask for the trucks to be moved so that she can get out. After this occurred a number of times, her neighbor posted in their Facebook group that she was being a "Karen" and didn't have the right to interrupt the contractors' work. I've often said that DCUM could be be a good topic for someone's PhD thesis because it demonstrates so much about human behavior that could be analyzed and dissected. One characteristic is for posters to respond to posts with little regard for the actual topic, but instead to focus on their own personal crusade of the day. In this case, four posts into the thread a poster chastised the original poster for using the term "Karen". I've written before about how I don't like the name "Karen" being used as a pejorative (and I proposed that it be replaced by "Elon"), but it is clear that the original poster is only using the term because that is what her neighbor called her. If this was somehow too subtle for some readers, the original poster explicitly explained this in a response to the previous poster. Nevertheless, the thread was significantly diverted by posters protesting the use of "Karen". I removed those posts, otherwise this thread would have overwhelmingly been the most active yesterday. The second characteristic of human behavior that might be worth studying is the tendency to — for lack of a better term — nitpick or find fault with the original poster no matter what. While the original poster said that her driveway was being blocked, she also said that sometimes she was able to maneuver her car around the trucks and get out, albeit with some difficulty and only after moving another of her family's cars. One poster latched on to this as evidence that the original poster was, at best, not being truthful and, at worst, was trolling. This really misses the point. The third characteristic demonstrated is the lengths to which some folks will go to excuse bad behavior. One poster agreed with the original poster's neighbor because the contractors don't have anywhere else to park and, therefore, blocking her driveway is understandable and asking them to move is wrong. On the brighter side, several of those responding offered a good solution of purchasing some traffic cones and placing them at the end of her driveway.

Over the years DCUM has expanded from its parenting roots to include several topics that are not directly related to parenting. Even so, most days parenting threads are still among the most active. Today is not one of those days. The most active topic yesterday is related to parenting only by the fact that the main personality involved is a father. The thread is titled, "Youngkin pardons Loudoun county father" and was posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics" forum. The "Loudoun Country father" is the father of a high school student who was the victim of a rape that took place in a high school bathroom. The boy convicted in the case occasionally dressed in women's clothes, but is not transgender and was involved in an ongoing relationship with the girl. They had previously met for consensual sex in the school bathroom and had arranged to meet each other in the bathroom when the rape occurred. In normal circumstances, this would be considered a case of date rape. However, the assault took place during a time when the Loudoun County Public School Board was debating the school system's policies regarding transgender students and right-wing activists had been fanning fears that the policies would allow boys into girls bath and locker rooms and, thereby, put girls in danger. School board meetings had become extremely contentious with frequent interruptions. During one such meeting, the board was told that there had not been cases of boys assaulting girls in school bathrooms, causing this father to become irate and begin shouting. He resisted as police tried to remove him from the room and pictures and video of him struggling with police officers were widely circulated and used to demonstrate the hostility of anti-trans activists. Liberals and the Commonwealth’s Attorney saw this case as part of a nationwide wave of protests against school boards that had involved frequent threats of violence. As such, the Commonwealth’s Attorney was unusually personally involved in prosecuting the case. The father was convicted of two misdemeanor charges. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail which were suspended pending good behavior. Meanwhile, right-wing anti-trans activists exploited the fact that the boy involved was wearing a skirt at the time of the attack to further anti-trans sentiments. The father became a hero to these activists and a symbol of the overreach of school boards at the expense of parents. This aligned almost perfectly with Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin's campaign of supporting parental rights and rolling back pro-trans measures within schools. It is no surprise, therefore, that Youngkin has now pardoned the father. I don't have much to say about the posts in this thread because they do little more than rehash the same arguments that have been made in a number of previous threads dealing with this assault, as well as a second one later committed by the same boy, and school trans policies.

The most active thread since my last blog post on Friday was titled, "My kid is in a class with a chair thrower" and posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum. Last week I wrote about another thread about a disruptive child in class and I initially thought this was that thread before realizing that I had confused the two. This thread is about a student in the original poster's child's first grade class who threw a chair. The original poster is concerned about her child's safety and wants to know what recourse is available to her. A surprising number of posters in this thread have children who have been in classes with kids who throw chairs. Their attitudes towards violent children and their advice for the original poster run the gamut from calling the police to moving to private school. The biggest division in the thread is between those on one hand who view such children as being in need of compassion and advocate for what is best for such children and, on the other hand, those who are more concerned about the potential victims and who oppose the non-violent students' rights being treated as secondary. While many posters are in the middle of these extremes, it is the posters at the extremes who get the most attention. Those who advocate on behalf of the violent child are seen as dismissive of the needs of the other children. In contrast, those more interested in the safety of the other students are viewed as lacking compassion for children suffering from things outside their control. Several posters explain the hurdles and challenges that are often required in order to provide appropriate care for a violent child. There are legal, financial, and other resource constraints that lead to a time-consuming and often frustrating process. This is often perceived by victims or potential victims as a lack of concern by school administrators and teachers. This, in turn, causes some to advocate for rather extreme measures. For instance, some advocated for calling the police and reporting violent incidents, though others strongly disputed the appropriateness of involving the police with a six-year-old. Others suggested that such students should be moved to special classes or required to attend virtual school online. Other posters opposed such ideas as not being effective treatments. Several posters were frustrated that solutions that might serve the needs of both the violent student and his classmates are easily identifiable, but not easily implemented due to a lack of resources. The discussion in the thread was so heated and so divided that the thread reached nearly 60 pages before I decided enough was enough and locked it. I also had to lock a 2 page thread in the Website Feedback forum that was about this thread.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Sept. 6 WSJ Rankings" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The Wall Street Journal issued college rankings based on "how much a college improves its students’ chances of graduating on time, and how much it boosts the salaries they earn after graduation." The original poster is interested in seeing the list but had been unable to find it when visiting the library. The original poster also mentioned that the College of William and Mary had dropped significantly on the list which caused an immediate diversion of the thread to discuss William and Mary. Posters suggested ongoing construction at the university and the quality of the food in the cafeteria might be responsible. However, it doesn't appear that either of those would be factors that the WSJ considered. When posters finally got back to discussing the rankings, several posters had the same reaction that I did which was to the question the emphasis on those particular metrics. Other posters, however, argued that return on investment is among the most important factors when considering colleges. This is another example of a phenomenon in the forum about which I have complained in the past in which a significant number of posters seem to view universities as little more than glorified vocational schools. Of course, this WSJ rankings are the ultimate expression of that view. Schools are ranked, not by their effectiveness at teaching or spreading knowledge, not by the contributions of their graduates to the public good or society, but solely on their ability to pump out graduates as quickly as possible and put them into high-paying jobs. Universities are seen less as fountains of knowledge and more as widget factories, the widgets being employees for the worlds of tech and finance. The focus of the WSJ methodology caused some colleges to drop considerably from where they normally appear in rankings, provoking surprise among some posters. Others noted that top schools were penalized for having strong programs in low-paying majors.

The most active thread since I last posted on Friday was titled, "Fight btw BCC & WJ students after game @ 8:30 Friday night" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. The original poster embedded an X (formerly tweet) showing video of a brawl near the Bethesda Metro station between students from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School and Walter Johnson High School. The incident apparently occurred following a football game between the two schools. The thread grew to 30 pages before I locked it yesterday. If you appreciate careful analysis and thoughtful dialogue, this is not the thread for you. Instead, posters seemed to simply use the thread as an opportunity to spout off about their own personal agenda. Several posters immediately acted to distance MCPS and the two schools from the violence by pointing out that it occurred off school property and that there had been good security at the game itself. Proponents of MCPS high schools in other parts of the county congratulated themselves on the outcomes of their schools' games that did not include fighting. Critics of MCPS claimed that this was another sign of the school system's decline. One poster even blamed "teaching controversial topics rather than focusing on academics" and school closures during the Covid pandemic for the fighting. Those opposed to the restorative justice process practiced by MCPS made their usual snide remarks. There were demands to kick aggressors out of school and send them to prison. Other posters demanded that parents be held responsible. The video included in the original poster showed an attacker kicking a White student who was on the grown. Many thought the student doing the kicking was Black and, as a result, fixated on race. For instance, one poster wrote that this was bad because, "People already fear and mistrust black teenagers". Racism is never far from the surface in these discussions. But, others thought the attacker was White. Subsequent video showed that both White and Black kids were attacking other students. But, the issue of race remained throughout the thread with a number of posters insistent that this was a racially-based hate crime, Most posters simply saw it as a fight between students from different high schools in which race was not a factor. At least one poster, and probably more, was adamant that B-CC students had initiated the fighting by seeking out WJ students and attacking them. Administrators of both high schools issued a joint letter in which they condemned the violence and promised that those involved would be disciplined. Other posters quoted similar letters going back several years to demonstrate that fights such as this are nothing new.