May

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Trump found Guilty on all charges!". Posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, the thread was started just after 5 pm yesterday but has already grown to over 60 pages. Obviously, the thread is about the verdict in the trial of former President, current cult leader, and now convicted felon Donald Trump. The jury found Trump guilty of all 34 charges. Sentencing is scheduled for July 11. I have written a number of times recently about the different realities in which many DCUM posters currently dwell. That phenomenon was on full display in this thread. Trump opponents were overjoyed, seeing the verdict as long overdue justice for someone who has a long history of behaving cavalierly toward the law. They viewed this as the legal system demonstrating that nobody is above the law. In contrast, Trump supporters see the trial and verdict as a politically-motivated witch hunt that is completely illegitimate. These posters repeatedly pointed out that the judge was allegedly a Democrat, that the jurors were allegedly liberal, and that New York is a Democratic state. Never mind that just days ago Republicans were claiming that Trump had attracted a crowd of tens of thousands to a rally in the Bronx and this was supposed to be evidence that the Democratic hold on New York is in danger. That story, which was not true in the first place, is as they say, no longer applicable. Today's story is that it is impossible to find a New Yorker who is not a card-carrying liberal. But, more to the point, the posters arguing this are making clear that they can't envision themselves acting in an objective manner and, therefore, don't believe anyone else is capable of doing so either. The possibility that the jurors considered the evidence and decided that it showed Trump's guilt is simply not comprehendible to these posters. Trump supporters also engaged in a number of arguments are simply not factually based. For instance, many argued that Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan prosecutor, had campaigned on a promise to prosecute Trump and that this demonstrated that the charges were politically-motivated. In fact, there is no evidence that Bragg campaigned on such a promise. Moreover, Bragg — who had inherited the case against Trump from his predecessor — initially dropped it. Another argument is that former President Bill Clinton made the same type of payment to Paula Jones. Clinton personally made a payment to Jones to settle a lawsuit. Had Trump made a similar personal payment to Daniels, that would also have been legal. Trump's transgression was falsely reporting the payments as businesses expenses. Some posters also doubted the testimony of Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer who was previously convicted and served jail time for his role in the payment scheme. However, Cohen's testimony was far from the only evidence of Trump's role in misclassifying the payments. Prosecutors also had 11 invoices, 12 vouchers, and 11 checks that created a paper trail linking Trump to the payments. But Trump supporters were not interested in evidence. Support for Trump has often been driven by resentment and his supporters thrive on seeing themselves as victims of powerful forces outside their control. Trump has fed this narrative as well as portraying himself as a victim of the same forces. As a result, many Trump supporters are even more determined to support him as a result of the verdict.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Just for laughs - a sex talk with my tween". The thread was posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum and described a converstation between the original poster and her 11 year old daughter. The original poster's daughter had just completed a class about puberty and seemed comfortable talking about such topics with the original poster. The original poster took advantage of this opportunity to have a broader discussion about sex with her daughter based on the idea that it is better for her daughter to be informed before sex actually becomes an issue. The original poster explained the converstation which legitimately had me laughing out loud. I don't want to give the story away, but suffice it to say that it involved dressing up like cows. Personally I applaud the original poster's ability to have open dialogue on such topics with her daughter and I give her extra points for creativity. Many posters had reactions similar to mine. But not all. One poster in particular was quite angry because she believed that the original poster's daughter would immediately tell her own daughter about what she had learned. This poster much prefers for her daughter to remain ignorant until such time as, well, it was not clear until what time exactly. Strangely, despite this poster's displeasure with the possibility of the original poster's daughter spreading the word to her own child, the exact same poster later insisted that "kids are supposed to ‘learn’ this from other kids." The issue is not that the original poster's daughter might tell this poster's daughter about sex apparently, it's that the original poster talked to her daughter about sex. If the original poster's daughter learned about sex from an older sibling and then told the other poster's daughter about it, I guess that would be okay. Needless to say, quite a few posters disagreed with this thinking. Their main argument was that it is better for kids to learn about sex from their parents than from other kids, especially other kids who might be in the process of pressuring them for sex. Moreover, with so many kids having access to smart phones, kids are being exposed to sex and porn at a much younger age. But then the original poster received criticism from an entirely different angle. Whereas the earlier scold poster had accused the original poster of "pushing oral on your child", the new criticism seemed to be that the original poster — by including warnings about being pressured and mentioning that oral sex still has dangers of spreading disease — might have been too dismissive of the practice. Posters with this perspective were eager to minimize any threat of disease and, instead, emphasize the pleasure that could be derived. Because that discussion would not be appropriate in the original poster's circumstances, these posters ended up making strange bedfellows with the initial scold poster. The same poster who accused the original poster of "pushing" oral sex ended up on the same side of the debate as posters who absolutely want to promote oral sex as a pleasurable and safer alternative to intercourse. The dispute about just exactly how safe from disease this actually is basically took over the thread, leading me to lock it. What a disappointing end to something that had started out seeming to be such fun. That of course, some might say, could be a suitable metaphor for many sexual experiences, especially among those who don't know better.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "I am sad for DD--this past weekend" and was posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. The original poster says that almost every kid she knows went to Viva Vienna with someone this weekend but neither her 13-year-old daughter nor her 15-year-old son, despite reaching out to friends, were able to find someone with whom to go. Moreover, they saw on social media that those same friends attended without them. The original poster feels sad for her kids and wants to remind parents to teach their kids to be inclusive. For those like me who had previously not heard of Viva Vienna, it is a three day festival in Vienna, Virginia that includes food, entertainment, amusement rides, and venders selling all sorts of things. I was prepared to be sympathetic to the original poster, especially when most of the responses were not very supportive and, in some cases, downright hostile. But then I noticed that the original poster had extensively sock puppeted responses, including her first reply in which she criticized the way girls at the event were dressed, calling them "low brow". The original poster's sock puppeting was quite bizarre actually. She posted with many different personas. At various times she was the parent of other kids who had been excluded, the parent of a kid who had attended, but without her good friend, and the mother of teen girls (as opposed to a girl and a boy as in the original post). I am not sure what the goal of the original poster might have been other than to guilt trip other parents. If so, she was not very effective. Most posters could not have been less receptive to her pleas to be inclusive. Moreover, if the original poster's sock puppeted posts can be believed, her kids have a history of being left out of this event. The original poster even claimed that previously they purposely planned to be out of town for the weekend so that they would not have to deal with the stress. Many of the other posters in the thread come across as uncaring or even mean. As a whole, this thread does very little to promote Vienna and I suspect that after reading this thread, more than one person may consider it a place to avoid. The carnival itself also got mixed reviews. In contrast to the importance the original poster placed on it, others didn't consider it to be much of an attraction. The basic tenor of the thread is, yes, it is sad to be left out but learning to deal with that is part of growing up. Moreover, posters cited multiple actions the original poster's kids could have taken to find others with whom to attend. As I read through the thread I kept hoping to learn why, if both of the original poster's kids had been left out, she only felt sorry for her daughter. But, sadly, this question was never answered. I suspect that, like many of the identities used by the original poster when sock puppeting, the son is a figment of the original poster's imagination. That would also explain why the two kids simply didn't go to the event together.

I took Memorial Day off from writing which means that today I will discuss the most active threads over the past four days. Many of the most active threads were ones that I've already discussed and will skip today. Frankly, the threads that were left over were not that interesting and it is kind of disappointing that they were popular. First among those was a thread titled, "Kate spending time with ‘birth family’". This thread was disappointing because it is about the British Royal Family, and more specifically, the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton. That is guaranteed to attract crazies of all sorts. Moreover, the original poster did a spectacularly poor job with the original post. The original poster did not provide a link supporting the claim in the thread's title or provide any further information about the allegation made there. Instead, the original poster implied that the Princess had moved in with her parents, something that appears not to be true. Rather, the original poster seems to have misread, misunderstood, or misrepresented an article in "The Daily Beast". According to the Daily Beast article, the Princess will be spending time at Sandringham, the country house used by the Prince and Princess of Wales. The article explicitly says that Prince William and their children will be there as well because it is a school holiday. Her "birth family" will simply be visiting. But, why bother with the truth when fiction is so much more fun? Posters immediately engaged in all sorts of speculation that the Princess is dying, that she and William are divorcing, that William wants her out of the way so he can engage in affairs, and on and on. These Royal Family threads present a problem for me. I don't like them and would be happy to delete every one of them. But posters enjoy them and continually create them. If the threads involve either Kate Middleton or Megan Markle, they will provoke a slew of reports. There was a poster who was particularly determined in this case to report any post that she thought was even the slightest disparaging of Middleton. As such, this thread immediately became a headache. Anytime I got up from my computer I would return to find a mailbox full of reports. I quickly determined that I was not going to spend the Memorial Day weekend removing posts about the Princess of Wales, someone who will never read this website, has to deal with much more visible criticism daily, and is not going to be harmed in any way by a bunch of raving lunatics on DCUM. The result is nearly 40 pages of some of the most outlandish conspiracy theories that you can imagine. I finally locked the thread last night, mostly to save my email inbox from the hundreds of reports the thread was generating (mostly by a single poster). But at that time discussion was focused on a theory that the Palace had hired a "body double" to appear as Kate in a recent video. Intermixed between the various conspiracy theories were complaints by posters who are certain that Kate is near death but are upset that she is not publicly working until she takes her last breath.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "study shows how 42M recipients spend their food stamps" and posted in the "Political Discussion". The original poster quotes from a recent study conducted by The Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) regarding the use of food stamps. The report shows that junk food, especially soft drinks, are the leading purchases with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funds. The original poster asks whether the program should be modified so that soft drinks and junk food are no longer covered. EPIC is a fairly new "think tank" formed less than a year ago by Paul Winfree. Winfree served in the administration of former President and current cult leader Donald Trump. As such, EPIC clearly has an agenda. Even so, their findings are consistent with other studies of the use of SNAP benefits. As posters point out in the thread, this reflects deeper societal issues. One poster puts things very succinctly, writing, "Junk food is cheap. Healthy food is expensive." Moreover, poor people who rely on food stamps often live in food deserts where healthy food is not readily available. Many posters argue that junk food is promoted by extensive marketing and the use of SNAP benefits for junk food is encouraged by corporate lobbying. Some posters go even further and claim that the government and private equity investors actually want to encourage unhealthy lifestyles in order to kill people off. One poster is especially fixated on Blackrock and "Globalists" who he insists have a "depopulation" agenda. Several posters argue, however, that junk food is actually expensive and provide examples of healthy food being cheaper. In response, another poster points out that even in cases where healthy food costs less, it takes longer and requires more effort to prepare. This can create unwanted stress in families that are already struggling. There are two distinct points of view in this thread. One, which is basically represented by the original poster, suggests that poor people are intentionally choosing to spend tax payer money on junk food, creating more problems for both themselves and society, and the solution should be to simply prohibit this. The other point of view is that poor people face significant constraints that discourage them from eating healthy, some built right into the SNAP program, and that the solution is to provide more accessible healthy alternatives. The second group doesn't necessarily oppose prohibiting junk food, but simply doesn't view prohibition as addressing the actual problem. Some posters made an effort to create grocery lists that showed how a healthy diet could be achieved on a budget. Other posters responded by pointing out what had been missed in those lists and where the lists were not practical. However, one poster who actually bothered to read the report suggested that much of this discussion missed the point completely. I'll quote that poster at length:

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "B-CC lockdown" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, which was the scene of a person allegedly carrying a weapon on Monday, went into lockdown yesterday around 11:30. To say that communication was inadequate is to massively understate things. There was literally no communication other than the fact that the school was locked down. Montgomery County police responded as if they were storming the beaches of Iwo Jima, arriving in an armored vehicle, dressed in fatigues, body armor, kevlar helmets, and carrying assault-style rifles. Needless to say, this sent panic through the B-CC community. Communication was so bad that B-CC teachers, one hiding in a closet, were using DCUM to try to find out what was going on. In the absence of real information, rumors swirled. At some point it was announced that there had been a "threat", but what what type of thread was not specified. Multiple posters said that it had been a bomb threat. Others said that the threat had been issued by the same individual seen with a weapon on Monday and that he was in the principal's office negotiating. Later it was reported to have been a "swatting" incident in which a fake call had been made by someone claiming to be in the school with a rifle and pipe bombs. For hours there was mass confusion. Many kids had been outside the building for lunch when it was locked down. Others were stuck in school. Worried parents had no idea what they should do and many rushed to the school. Other posters tried to calm everyone down, but with little success. Posters could not understand why the school would be locked down rather than evacuated in response to a bomb threat. This was explained subsequently when it was learned that the threat also involved a gun. The two recent incidents have parents at their absolute wits' end. They are frustrated with the school's principal, they are frustrated with MCPS administration, they are frustrated with the Board of Education, they are frustrated with the County Board, they are frustrated with the County Executive, and they are frustrated that, as far as they can tell, nothing is being done to fix things. This all culminates in feelings of helplessness and most off all, the parents are frustrated about that. From what I can deduce from posts in this thread, the discussion on the school's mailing list was out of control and even caused the school's PTSA president to announce that she will not serve next year. With regard to both Monday's incident and yesterday's, the school and school system seem to be hurting themselves and increasing parent disenchantment by not being more forthcoming with information. Based on some posts in this thread, it is possible that Monday's event was much less than it has been described and that there may not have been a weapon at all. But anger over the lack of response in that incident may have contributed to the large scale response in this case, which according to the last reports was triggered by a call from hundreds of miles away and probably should have been treated more skeptically. School officials clearly need to do a better job of explaining what they are doing and why they are doing it, and do this in a timely manner.

Much of the discussion yesterday involved politics. The most active thread was titled, "David Trone for senate" and was posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics" forum. This thread was started just over a year ago when US Congressional Representative David Trone announced his run for Maryland's open US Senate seat. The reason the thread has so much interest now — adding 11 pages yesterday — is that on Tuesday, Trone lost his Senate bid, suffering defeat in the primary election to Prince Georges County Executive Angela Alsobrooks. Trone spent over $60 million of his own money on the campaign, making this an extraordinarily expensive defeat. Much of yesterday's discussion focused on Alsobrooks. Trone had a significant financial advantage and had been running commercials for a year. Polling, likely influenced by Trone's greater name recognition, generally showed him with a significant lead. The fact that Alsobrooks not only won, but won convincingly, came as a surprise to many, perhaps most, of those in this thread. Trone supporters had difficulty accepting it. One thing this thread does is to provide insight into how voters make choices. I am not sure that a single poster could name a single policy difference between Trone and Alsobrooks. Reactions are based almost entirely on personal characteristics. For instance, the fact that Trone is rich or that he came across to individuals in an unpleasant way. Alsobrooks is dinged for having been prosecutor previously and, in the view of some, as lacking charisma. Many posters express concerns that Alsobrooks, as a Black women, will not appeal to voters in many parts of Maryland. They are also worried that her opponent, former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, will be a strong candidate with whom she will have difficulty competing. There is no doubt that Hogan is a credible challenger who will not be easily defeated. But many posters in this thread stress the significance of having a Democrat rather than a Republican being sent to the Senate. The Senate balance will impact everything from Supreme Court appointments to abortion rights. Personally, I think the concern about Alsobrooks' race and gender are overblown. Maryland recently elected a Black governor, so race shouldn't be a concern. Maryland has also previously elected a female Senator. Moreover, being a woman may give Alsobrooks an advantage. I have no evidence to back it up, but I think that there is an unspoken belief among many that, all things being equal, a women will be more likely to protect abortion rights than a man. I suspect that may explain some of Alsobrooks' strength against Trone. But, this is especially true when the woman's opponent, as will be the case with Hogan, explicitly opposes abortion. Many posters in this thread provide data from the primary voting to demonstrate why Alsobrooks should probably be considered the front-runner at this point. She showed strength in all Democratic strongholds. Hogan, on the other hand, lost 30% of the vote to a gadfly best known for heckling at basketball games. Nevertheless, persistent Trone fans refuse to see anything positive about Alsobrooks and throughout yesterday's posts continued negative attacks on her.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "my husband's mother hit my kid", and originally posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. This morning I moved the thread to the "Family Relationships" forum. The original poster says that while she was getting dressed after getting out of the shower, her mother-in-law was attempting to put sneakers on the original poster's 4 year old son. The boy was resisting because he wanted to wear flip flops and repeatedly pulled his feet away from his grandmother. His grandmother got frustrated and "hit" him on the leg. The original poster says her mother-in-law did not hit the boy very hard, but she was quite angry that her mother-in-law hit the boy at all. The original poster's husband doesn't think this is a big deal, but the original poster doesn't want her mother-in-law to babysit anymore. Corporal punishment is a very controversial topic on DCUM with many posters having strongly held but diametrically opposed views. In this thread, the first responses all came from posters who generally oppose spanking, let alone "hitting" a child. In some cases, posters had zero tolerance positions and would not allow the grandmother to babysit in the future. One poster went so far as to say that the original poster's mother-in-law is "would be lucky if I didn't keep my kid from her forever." Others took a more moderate stance and argued in favor of the accepting the apology that the grandmother had offered and more or less putting her on probation. She would be allowed to babysit, but would be watched carefully for future transgressions. A number of posters viewed what occurred more as a "swat" than a "hit" and, like the original poster's husband, were not that concerned about it. At the far end of the spectrum were the "spare the rod, spoil the child" type posters. Many of these posters were more critical of the original poster than they were of the grandmother. One poster, blaming what she viewed as the original poster's lenient parenting style, wrote, "Your DC is a brat and no one, but you, can deal with him." Similarly, a number of posters pointed out that the original poster had apparently disciplined her mother-in-law, but not her son. They worried that this might send the message that he could disobey his grandmother with impunity. Heated arguments developed between advocates of differing approaches to parenting. Some posters suggested time outs instead of spanking but other posters declared that time outs are also abusive. Some of the posts were so extreme that it was impossible to tell whether they were trolling or serious. A poster who wrote, "Any child who was physically struck cannot ever grow up to be a normal, productive member of society" later declared that the grandmother deserved the death penalty and, as such, was pretty clearly trolling (at least I hope). But what about a poster who expressed hope that those who advocate spanking would be put "on some sort of watch list"? That poster seemed to be serious. Another poster suggested that the result of no longer spanking children is an increase in mental illness. That posters also appeared to be serious.

The most active thread over the weekend was titled, "The Dad Privilege Checklist" and was posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to a Substack article that was titled the same as thread. The author of the article posits that "Almost all fathers can slack off, confident in the knowledge that someone else will do the work for them" and then provides a list of ways that fathers are privileged relative to mothers. The original poster of the thread invites others to read the checklist and provide their reactions. One of the earliest reactions was to say, "It's an idiotic list." In contrast, just after that another poster stated that "My husband enjoys most of the privileges." My own reaction is that while the idea behind the Substack article has some validity, the actual article was not particularly well done. Frankly, some of the things listed were pure nonsense. It is true that ours is a traditionally patriarchal system that has provided significant privileges to men, especially fathers. But equally true is that for several generations, significant inroads have been made toward equality. Progress has been uneven and varies from family to family. As such, no such checklist is going to be universally applicable. Nevertheless, this was not a particularly good list. As one poster noted, "It's a crowd-sourced list of petty grievances and projections, most of which are unsupported by any real data or facts." On a list of this length — over 100 entries long — there are obviously going to be a few entries that fit specific relationships. In many cases, however, it is reasonable to ask if the items are true privileges, or rather the result of a division of labor. For instance, one poster — who is a father — wrote, "We divide and conquer. For example, I handle paperwork like school registration, health forms for camp, and paying tuition" but his wife "handles clothes, including laundry and buying clothes" and other duties. He says that they divide up tasks based on who has time and skills. The real failure of the article, I think, is that it almost guarantees that the forest will be missed for the trees. There are so many items of questionable validity that they tend to undermine the entire point of the post. I think a better approach would have simply been to point out that, more often than not, the mother is the default parent and responsible for all that entails. This results in natural privileges with regard to parenting for fathers that may or may not be offset by responsibilities in other areas. Just as the length of the list means that it includes several items for which many fathers take responsibility, it also includes "privileges" that ring true for many of the women responding. However, women who say that the list applies to their husbands come under fire not only from defensive men, but also from women who question why they made such a poor choice of a husband. This might be the ultimate privilege. A man can be lazy and incompetent, but his wife will be the one who is blamed.

The most active thread yesterday was the campus protest thread that I have already discussed. That thread had nearly six times as many posts as the next most active thread which was titled, "Disney DAS" and posted in the "Travel Discussion" forum. The original poster says that she is anxious about upcoming changes to the Disney's DAS program and asked if anyone knows what to expect. I had no idea to what the original poster was referring and had to do some quick research. "DAS" is Disney World's Disability Access Service which, according to its web page, accommodates guests who "due to a developmental disability like autism or similar, are unable to wait in a conventional queue for an extended period of time." Apparently, guests with DAS access are assigned an entry time to an "experience" — as Disney calls them — that corresponds to the length of the current queue. Such guests don't have to physically stand in line, but just return at their assigned time. The current Disney webpage only contains information about DAS up to May 19 and it seems that changes to the program will be introduced beginning May 20. But with folks attempting to plan trips that will occur after that date, the lack of information about the changes is causing some frustration as in the case of the original poster. Those responding in this thread don't really have any more information about the upcoming changes than the original poster does, so instead replies focus on rumors or describe past experiences. Some posters complained that the DAS system has been abused in the past which might be the reason for the changes. In addition, the DAS program is compared to other programs that Disney offers such as Genie+ and Lightening Lanes. Several parents of children with autism explained how the program had been helpful to them and worried that it might not be continued. But parents with kids without autism complained that the long lines are difficult for young children generally and that Disney should rethink how it handles lines to better accomodate all young children. One poster reported that her family was approved for DAS post May 20 and that the rule changes were not significant. At some point the thread broke out into an argument about using both Genie+ and DAS. For those who, like me, know nothing about this stuff, Genie+ allows guests to use short, fast-moving Lightening Lanes for a select number of rides. Some posters reported using both Genie+ and DAS to keep line waits to a minimum. This upset other posters who thought that using both programs was taking advantage of system. As one poster wrote, "You shouldn't be able to use Genie + if you have DAS. It's double dipping." In response, a poster wrote, "It looks like you can only get a certain #of ride passes per day with the DAS. If you can use Genie + to get on other rides quickly, why wouldn’t you?" Most of the rest of the thread simply consisted of variations of this debate.