Tuesday's Most Active Threads

The two most active threads yesterday were ones that I discussed in yesterday's blog post, the college protests thread and the thread about unpopular pop culture opinions. I'll skip those today and start with a thread titled, "7/24/23 Trial of Usman Shahid -- driver who killed two Oakton teens" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. First some background. Back in June 22, Usman Shahid was driving a BMW at 81 miles per hour down a residential street near Oakton High School when he struck a car attempting a left turn and then careened into three high school students who had just left the school. Two of the students were killed and one was severely injured. Subsequently, Shahid was indicted for involuntary manslaughter. His trial was initially set for July of last year and this thread was created in order to discuss that legal procedure. However, the trial was delayed until recently. Since this thread's creation last July, it has been kept active by occasional queries about the status and updates as events developed. In addition, there has been significant discussion of the tragic event and with whom, exactly, responsibility lies. Given the speed at which Usman was travelling, this would appear to be rather cut and dry. However, Usman defenders have repeatedly taken to this thread to blame the driver of the car that Usman struck. Their contention is that the collision was not caused by Usman's high rate of speed, but rather the other driver's failure to yield to him and, instead, turning into his path. This thread was active yesterday because Usman's trial was finally held. Just like Usman's supporters in this thread, his defense attorney attempted to put blame on the driver of the car that Usman hit. During the trial it was revealed that Usman did not yet have a driver's license, but only a learner's permit. The BMW had just been purchased a few days prior to the collision. The car's data recorder showed that Usman had accelerated from 60 to 81 miles per hour in the 35 mph speed zone prior to the collision. Usman's defense appears to be that he was trying to beat the traffic light that had just turned yellow and the other car unexpectedly turned in front of him. Usman's lawyer apparently argued that he had no choice but to accelerate. While that may be a reasonable (or not) explanation of what happened, it doesn't seem like much of a defense to me. While BMWs accelerate quickly, they also have excellent brakes. Not to mention that Usman was driving nearly twice the legal speed limit near a school while students were around even before accelerating. Yesterday, the case was sent to the jury which convened for less than two hours before quitting for the day. The jury will reconvene today. Most of the posters in the thread seem convinced that Usman is guilty, but are  very worried that he will somehow be let off. We will probably have an decision from the jury sometime today.

Yesterday's next most active thread was posted in the "Advanced Academic Programs (AAP)" forum and titled, "TJ Falls to 14th in the Nation Per US News". The original poster says that Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology has been the number one high school in the nation for several years but, in the latest ranking by US News & World Report is ranked #14. TJ, as the school is commonly called, remains the top ranked school in Virginia and the DC region. It is also the 5th ranked STEM school nationally. The original poster is not sure what is the cause of the drop. As most readers are probably aware, a few years ago TJ changed its entry procedures in order to provide more equitable access to the school. Critics contended that this was both anti-Asian and would decrease the caliber of the students accepted. The fight over the admissions changes was hard-fought, going all the way to the US Supreme Court, but ultimately decided in favor the new policies. All along, critics of the new policy have highlighted any performance drop and blamed the admissions changes, even when those changes could not have had any conceivable impact. Therefore, it is no surprise that those critics immediately jumped on this drop in ranking to blame the new admissions policy. But other posters saw other possible explanations. One poster noted an increased turnover of teachers. However, that too was blamed on the new admissions policy with the explanation that teachers were frustrated due to teaching unprepared students. No evidence to support this allegation was provided, however. Other posters blamed the school's principal for whom they had a litany of criticisms. The principal was also blamed for the staff turnover, though again with no evidence. Nevertheless, the thread quickly became a repetition of of the same old complaints about the new admissions policy being racist and discriminating against Asians. Others fixated less on race, but rather merit which they are convinced is best demonstrated by performance on standardized tests. They contend that TJ admissions no longer prioritizes tests or merit and that explains the drop. Still, many misrepresentations of the new policy continued to be spewed throughout the thread. Multiple posters argued that racial quotas were employed in admissions. That is completely untrue. When posters pointed out that the number of Asian students had remained the same following the change, other posters argued that they were "weaker" Asians. Moreover, this new ranking relies on data from the 2021-22 school year, which means only the freshman class had been admitted under the new procedures. They were unlikely to have much impact on the rankings. Generally, if you have read any TJ thread over the past few years, the posts in this one will be all too familiar to you. Same arguments, different thread.

Next was a thread titled, "Canceling plans and disappointing other families’ kids" and which was posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. The original poster says that she has plans to attend a Spring vendor market on Saturday with another mom while the original poster's two children and husband go golfing with the other mom's husband and son. However, the other mom is now suggesting that her son may be grounded this weekend. The orignal poster is upset because the other mom's son is one of her own son's few good friends and he was looking forward to the outing. The original poster suggests that she will be angry if their plans are cancelled and won't want to go to the market. She asks what others would do. For the most part, posters support the other mom. Their argument is that if the other child is being punished, he shouldn't be allowed to do something fun. Moreover, they see this as a good opportunity for the original poster's son to learn that there are sometimes disappointments in life and to build resiliency. Many posters have sympathy for the original poster and her kids, but ultimately they side with the other mom. Several posters suggest that the original poster's husband and kids could still go golfing and that the original poster could even go with them. In that regard, quite a few posters feel that the original poster would be justified in cancelling her plans with the other mom. A few posters do take issue with the fact that the punishment being considered by the other mom would adversely affect another family. They say that is something that they would ordinarily try to avoid and only do in the case of a really big infraction. While the original poster occasionally identified herself as the original poster when she responded, much more frequently she made no such identification and, implicitly, appeared as a third party. In those posts, she invariably supported herself and took a fairly hardline with regard to the other mom. On at least one occasion, she outright sock puppeted a response by responding to one of her own posts (in which she also didn't indicate that she was the original poster) as if she were another poster. I don't know if the original poster was trolling, which seems unlikely, or simply trying to influence the discussion which had generally not been in her favor. But I really don't see what the point of doing that would be. In a later follow-up, the original poster indicated that she has deeper issues with the other mom and that her grievances go beyond this single incident.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum and titled, "Is My Husband Too Controlling with Spending?". The original poster says that she spends 12k-15k on anti-aging treatments such as Botox, fillers, and laser treatments. Recently, her husband has criticized this spending and argued that it is too much. The original poster believes that based on their income which is $250k to $300k, it is a reasonable amount and that she does not spend money on other things. She thinks that her husband is too controlling. Nobody seems to think this is a reasonable amount to spend and, of course the first question on everyone's mind has to be whether or not this poster is a troll. The answer to that is probably. Simultaneously with this thread, the original poster has another thread in which she is discussing spending an obscene amount of money on a very questionable medical procedure (and is unrelated to beauty). Ignoring that from this discussion is odd. Moreover, in another recent thread the original poster claimed that she was part of a gay couple, but now talks about her husband. Possibly the original poster is male, but that is not consistent with the other threads either. In this thread the original poster says that she has no children while in at least two other threads she implies that she is in the middle of IVF. While technically that might be consistent without currently having kids, it again seems like a strange thing to leave out. DCUM in general and the relationship forum in particular have a lot of trolls. Generally, however, it is possible to at least conceive of the trolls' motivation. In this case, I am at a total loss. All three recent threads by this poster that I reviewed are on very esoteric and unusual topics. Not the sort of thing to generate controversy necessarily, but not completely innocent either. In each of them, the original poster very diligently participates, never breaking character or sock puppeting or doing anything to suggest that she is trolling. The threads just don't add up when looked at together. The one thing that all three threads have in common is that the original poster has a viewpoint with which most of those responding disagree. The original poster then procedes to stubbornly defend her position regardless of any arguments made against it. I sort of feel like the original poster has an ulterior motive that, if revealed, would make a lot of sense. I just have no idea what that would be, however, and it could just as likely be that the original poster is simply crazy. We have plenty of that type around here.