2024

Yesterday's first and second most active threads were both on the same topic, but in different forums. I didn't know there were two different threads until just now and, having discovered it, I locked one. Rather than discuss the same topic twice, I will combine the two and talk about them both at once. The most active of the two was titled, "Louisiana orders every classroom to display Ten Commandments" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The second was titled, "Ten Commandments at LSU" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The topic both of these threads are discussing is a bill recently signed into law by Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry that requires every public school classroom in the state to display a poster of the Ten Commandments. Civil liberties groups are challenging the law which they say is unconstitutional due to violating the Establishment Clause. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a similar law in Kentucky, ruling in the 1980 case Stone v. Graham that posters of the commandments violated the First Amendment. This suggests that the civil liberties groups are correct and will prevail in their litigation. Though, with today's Supreme Court, who knows? One justice, Samuel Alito, was recently recorded saying that the U.S. should return to a "place of godliness" and will likely support Louisiana. Justice Clarence Thomas has held that the Establishment Clause does not apply to states, meaning that he is also likely to support Louisiana. The Louisiana law attempts to frame the display of the Ten Commandments as being a document of historical value that is important to American history. One issue that I noticed with this law is that there is not a universally agreed upon version of the Ten Commandments. Catholics, for instance, have a different version than most Protestant denominations. Indeed, by my count, the version included in Louisiana's law actually contains 12 commandments. This may be an effort to appease both Catholics and Protestants. Probably the most disappointing aspect of both of these threads is that very few posters showed an inclination to adhere to values. In a perfect world, everyone would have a set of values. They might not be the same values — differences would still exist — but everyone would have some sort of code by which they lived their lives. An issue such as this would be measured against those values. Those who valued separation of church and state would naturally oppose it. Those who valued the spread of Christianity would support it. The two groups could debate in good faith. But that's not what happens in these threads. Instead, partisanship has divided folks into separate tribes and they they react on the basis of tribe rather than values. This is particularly evident among conservatives who normally claim tremendous appreciation of the U.S. Constitution, but in this case are willing to ignore or at least brush off the plain statement that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", the so-called "Establishment Clause". They argue that the U.S. is a Christian nation and, therefore, the Ten Commandments should be an acceptable document. Personally, I look forward to seeing how teachers who conservatives believe should never talk about sexual relations explain the commandment forbidding adultery to young children.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Justin Timberlake arrested on DWI in Hamptons" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. Early yesterday morning, singer and actor Justin Timberlake was arrested in Sag Harbor, New York on charges of driving while intoxicated. The original poster started this thread to discuss the arrest, calling Timberlake a "loser" and saying that he clearly has a drinking problem. Most of those replying agreed with the original poster, having very harsh words for those who endanger others by drinking and driving. There was one Timberlake defender whose primary argument was that Timberlake is rich, though it is not clear how that was supposed to exonerate him. Some posters in the thread also took the opportunity to criticize Timberlake for his alleged treatment of Britney Spears during a past relationship. In Spears' recent book, she described having an abortion after Timberlake said that he was not ready to be a father. Posters were divided about whether Timberlake had coerced Spears into having an abortion or whether he had simply stated his feelings on the matter. Some posters argued that regardless of Timberlake's position, Spears was not ready to be a mother at that time either and terminating the pregnancy was for the better. A few posters were still angry with Timberlake because of the famous "wardrobe malfunction" that occurred between Timberlake and Janet Jackson at the 2004 Super Bowl. In that incident, Timberlake performed a choreographed move to remove part of Jackson's top and inadvertently exposed one of her breasts to the television audience. According to the posters who are upset with Timberlake due to the incident, Jackson suffered all the consequences while Timberlake had no repercussions. As is to be expected from any DCUM celebrity thread, there are posters who act like they know Timberlake's personal life better than he does and share what they claim is inside gossip. Most of that is likely false. In addition to the robust abortion debate in the thread, there is also a conversation about alcoholism. This includes a dispute about whether alcoholism — referred to as alcohol use disorder in academic literature and scientific studies — is or is not a disease. This thread demonstrates that at least on DCUM, Timberlake has few remaining fans and has been involved in enough controversies to provide a variety of reasons to dislike him. As such, DCUMers tend to dislike him though not always for the same reason.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Who Is Most Out Of Bounds Here?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster says that she recently posted a graduation photo of her daughter and mentioned the college she plans to attend. An old college roommate of her husband commented on the photo saying that it looked like the girl would enjoy the food at the college, apparently referring to her weight. The original poster says that her daughter "is not fat but she is still carrying a little baby weight around her hips and she is naturally large chested" and that the comment was wildly out of bounds. Her husband flew into a rage and posted a public comment asking the guy if his wife knew about his affair with an old girlfriend. The old roommate's wife saw the comment and has been calling the original poster non-stop leaving angry voicemails accusing the original poster of sabotaging her marriage. The original poster simply told the roommate's wife to take it up with the her own husband and blocked her. The original poster says that she knows that her husband was wrong, but asks whether he justified due to the insult to their daughter. For some reason this thread just took off. As far as I can tell, the original poster hardly provided any additional input. Nevertheless, the thread has already reached 22 pages. Much of that is owed to a small number of posters who apparently got very invested in the thread. Two of them posted over 40 times each, another nearly 60 times, and a fourth over 30 times. It is possible that one of these was the original poster, but I don't have evidence of that. These posters were split with two on each side of the debate. There are several different perspectives in this thread. One is that the old roommate was wrong to alude to the original poster's daughter's weight and is solely responsible for any damage to his marriage because that was caused by his own cheating. In this perspective, the original poster's husband has nothing about which to feel bad. In contrast to that is the view that the roommate's comment was rude, but the original poster's husband's reaction was far too strong. Moreover, his action did not take into account the innocent bystanders who would also be hurt, primarily the roommate's wife. In addition to possibly blowing up the roommate's marriage, hurting his wife and, potentially, any children they have, the original poster's husband sent a dangerous signal to their daughter about her weight. Some posters feared that she would understand that being fat is very bad, possibly triggering an eating disorder. Other posters faulted the original poster's husband for sitting on the knowledge that his roommate had had an affair. They believe that he had a responsibility to inform his roommate's wife earlier. Some of these posters are upset by the original poster's husband's treatment of women, citing his failure to disclose the affair, his lack of concern about the impact of his subsequent revelation on his roommate's wife, and the messages he is sending his daughter about weight. Generally there was plenty of blame to go around in this situation with no agreement on who was the most wrong.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Do women expect a ring at 1 year?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster says that his one-year anniversary of dating his girlfriend is coming up and he is being pressured by friends and family to propose to her. He is not ready to take that step and feels thats one year is not enough time to decide to make such a commitment and doesn't understand the rush. Apparently the only question that the original poster has is the one in the title of his thread. I don't think any of those responding believed that there is any sort of one-year cut-off at which the original poster would be expected to make a decision. Rather posters emphasized that what is important is what his girlfriend wants. Many posters said that the urgency to get married was strongly correlated to age. Several pointed out that women who plan to have children don't want to waste their fertile years with someone with whom they had no future. Therefore, a younger couple would not necessarily need to make a decision about marriage right away. But that would change with age. The original poster explained that his girlfriend had said she is not in a rush to get married but that she wanted to have children at 30. She is currently 28 and he is 35. One poster quickly did the math and pointed out that if they got engaged now and had a wedding in a year, his girlfriend would be nearly 30 by the time she went through pregnancy. Therefore, it is probably time to think about making the commitment. The point that posters kept emphasizing was that the original poster should think about his girlfriend's needs. It would be really unfair to string her along if he doesn't plan to marry her. In addition, several posters warned that at his age, the original poster might not be able to find anyone better than his current girlfriend. The original poster didn't find that argument convincing and seemed to be certain that he could easily find another girlfriend equal or better than his current one. For no apparent good reason, he argued that it is older women, not older men, who have trouble finding new relationships. The original poster repeatedly pointed out that he is Catholic and neither he nor his family believe in divorce. Therefore, marriage is a very important decision because it will be for life. Frankly, there is something that seems a little off to me about this poster. To hear him tell it, he and his girlfriend are on the same page and the only issue is pressure from others. He describes his life as being completely on track according to his personal goals. So, after being assured that there is not a one-year deadline as he claimed to fear, I am not sure what was left to discuss. The original poster, however, found plenty to discuss, posting over 60 posts in the thread. A significant number of his posts were anti-woman, starting with his views on older women and continuing to his claim that many women expect a man to be their provider and the failure of posters to understand this explained the "many unhappy bitter women on this thread". I very much suspect that this poster is a troll, though I don't have any evidence beyond my intuition to support this suspicion.

There are very few topics that can produce 28 pages of posts in just a few hours. But, one of those topics is the British Royal Family. Yesterday when news broke that King Charles had been diagnosed with cancer, a poster apparently was so eager to post about it that she seemed to have lost use of her mental facilities in the process. The poster referred to "Prince" Charles in the thread's title and posted nothing more than a link — a violation of DCUM's policy that requires threads to be started with discussion and not just a link. So, I deleted that thread. Shortly after that, another thread titled, "King Charles diagnosed with cancer" was posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. I wouldn't say that there was an immediate outpouring of sympathy from DCUM posters. Far from it. The first responses mostly dealt with Prince William's appearance and then a discussion of the "Alanis Morrisett" song "Ironic". Next, the thread turned to whether this would bring about a reconciliation with Harry. Amidst all of this was a smattering of conspiracy theories involving the Duchess of Wales. The same instant cancer experts that came out of the woodwork in the thread about Kate Middleton being hospitalized made reappearances to speculate about the type of cancer afflicting Charles. It should be noted that despite the discussion about Kate, there is no indication that her hospitalization had anything to do with cancer. Meanwhile, posters began tracking Harry's movements like little kids following Santa's path on Christmas Eve. DCUM's Royal Family obsessives were attracted to this thread like moths to flame. And, quite a diverse group they are. There are Kate fans and Kate-haters. Those obsessed with Meghan who are mostly haters, but also some fanatical supporters. There are those who are most interested in Harry, either seeing him as sympathetic and misunderstood or as a cynical money grubber who has sold out his own family. Posters who detest the Royal Family due to their sins of the past took over the more recent pages of the thread. Beyond that, a number of posters already have Charles dead and buried and are debating who will do what in terms of Royal duties when William is King. Depending upon who you believe, Harry will have no choice but to return and shoulder some of the responsibilities or he will find that he has lost any opportunity of rejoining the family due to animosity between him and William.

The most active thread over the weekend is really the continuation of a previous most active thread. The earlier thread was the one about the Montgomery County Public Schools Board of Education asking for the resignation of Superintendent Dr. Monifa McKnight. Friday afternoon, the board and Dr. McKnight mutually agreed to separate. As a result, a new thread titled, "Board Fires Dr. McKnight" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum became the most active over the weekend. The thread was originally titled, "Board Fires Monifa" but I changed it because, as I said when I discussed the earlier thread, the use of first names for women, especially Black women, is a means of diminishing them and is often tinged with racism and sexism. A number of other area school superintendents have recently left their positions in controversial circumstances and not a single one was routinely referred to by first name. I don't see why Dr. McKnight should be treated differently. Even the revised title was criticized as inaccurate because, strictly speaking, Dr. McKnight resigned rather than being fired. As for the thread itself, it mostly rehashed the substance of previous threads. Dr. McKnight has been a lightening rod of criticism on DCUM with posters blaming her for the many ills they see affecting MCPS. Most recently, Dr. McKnight has been criticized for the handling of complaints of harassment and bullying by Principal Joel Beidleman. Beidleman was was promoted despite being under investigation and subsequent investigations found that MCPS had not properly followed procedures. It is unclear how much knowledge Dr. McKnight had of the Beidleman situation, but the Board — which listed "ensuring compliance with internal policies" as its first priority going forward — seems to suggest that she was being held responsible. Many posters argued that replacing McKnight is not going far enough and that school board members should resign as well. There is also considerable discussion in the thread about Alexandra Robbins whose article in the Washington Post first shed light on the allegations against Beidleman and his promotion. Many posters were thankful for her reporting and credited her with precipitating Dr. McKnight's departure. On the other hand, Dr. McKnight had a strong contingent of supporters, many of whom believed that Dr. McKnight was being treated more harshly than male or White superintendents. Some posters were focused on looking forward rather than back and were more interested in discussing possible candidates to replace Dr. McKnight. The proposals for new superintendents were closely linked to opinions about the future direction of the school system. In particular, there seemed to be widespread hope that a new leader would clean house of a number of other administrators. One issue that may affect the choice of a new superintendent is that all large school systems, and even some smaller ones, seem to be facing the same sort of serious challenges. Many superintendents have left or been forced out. As such, the job may not be as desirable as some might think and, as a result, may not attract the best candidates.

Yesterday's most active thread was the Gaza war thread which I will skip because I've already discussed it. The next most active was a thread titled, "Happy wife, happy life" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster asks, "Why men's happiness isn't considered as valuable?" This thread really could have ended after the first reply which was nearly perfect, saying:

"Because it's an old-fashioned saying that dates to a time when women's financial and physical wellbeing depended almost entirely on their husband's behavior, and men's emotional wellbeing depended almost entirely on their wife. The more current version is ‘happy spouse, happy house‘"

The "Travis and Taylor" thread was again the most active thread yesterday. But, since I 've already discussed it, I'll start with the next most active thread which was titled, "One by one, the lockdown myths are crumbling" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. I had not noticed this thread until this morning and, when I did, I was disappointed to see that not only are thread on topics such as this still being created, but that they are among the most active. It has been clear for some time that some individuals have been so traumatized by the response to the pandemic that they may never get over it. There seems to be a deep set desire among these folks to receive some sort of official acknowledgement of wrongdoing and a full apology. The problem is that very few of those who supported the measures in question have changed their opinion to any significant agree. They don't think anything done was wrong and feel no compulsion to apologize. So, threads such as these result in little more than endless debate that neither advances the discussion nor satisfies anyone. In this specific case, the original poster linked to an opinion article in "The Telegraph", a British newspaper. The author claims that British officials who once promoted "zero covid" now claim to have only supported the "maximum suppression" of covid and considers this to be a significant backtracking that reveals the bankruptcy of the entire lockdown endeavor. Of course, it does nothing of the sort. Whether the officials are truly backtracking or simply making a distinction without a difference — "zero covid" is not that much different than "maximum suppression" — that is a discussion of goals, not methods. It is a stretch beyond reason to suggest the change in terminology amounts to a renunciation of anti-covid measures such as lockdowns. Nevertheless, this is how covid discussions tend to go on DCUM. A poorly reasoned article that most users can't read because it is behind a paywall is accepted as fact and off to the races we go. Many of those responding are, like me, well past the limits of their patience for these topics. They point out the advantages of hindsight (which in this case doesn't appear to have been an advantage at all) and argue that it is, in fact, those like the article's author that are attempting to rewrite history. Moreover, lockdown conditions in the United Kingdom were considerably different than in the United States so the article is not even relevant to our experience. But, those angry about covid measures are not to be denied their opportunity to air their grievances. As usual, there are complaints about school closures. What I have realized about schools is that some families suffered terrible experiences while for others, while the time probably wasn't great, it was not all that bad. Those in the first group tend to fixate on school closures and emphasize any negative impacts. The second group, which in my experience is much larger, has a more nuanced view and is less interested in rehashing the topic. Therefore, what is at issue here is really two different realities. Bridging the gap between the two is probably impossible and this dispute is unlikely to ever be resolved.

Yesterday's most active thread was the one about moms who are "just" wives and mothers that I discussed in yesterday's blog. I'll skip that one today and start with the next most active thread which was titled, "I hate ‘guy trips’" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster says that her husband takes one or two trips a year with guy friends of his. While the trips normally only last a long weekend, her husband returns tired and behind on work. While he is gone, the original poster is stuck taking care of the kids and running the house 24/7 and even after he returns he is not able to contribute for a few days while he recovers. While the original poster is glad that her husband has maintained his friendships and understands that he needs time to decompress, she doesn't like these trips. Responses range from those that sympathize with the original poster to those who are entirely on the side of her husband. One poster says that the original poster's attitude demonstrates why men shouldn't get married. Probably the most common response was to identify the days the husband takes to recover as the main issue. Most posters don't have a problem with the trips themselves, but believe the husband should jump right back into parenting upon his return. Several emphasize that is what would be expected of a woman. As such, several posters suggested ideas for how to deal with the days after the husband's return. Some said the original poster simply needed to tell her husband to suck it up. Others suggested having him spend his first day back in a hotel so that he could recover and the original poster wouldn't have to put up with his moping. Others suggested outsourcing more during the time the husband and gone and during his recovery period. More DoorDash dinners and possibly a cleaning person, for instance. One poster who described being in a similar situation wrote that, "I feel these situations really emphasize to me how tightly stretched we are all the time and I wish my husband would agree and be open to making changes." The original poster responded to this post suggesting that it had captured the essence of what she was feeling. A couple of the male posters said that they have similar trips with their friends and, as they have aged, they have also found that recovery takes longer. But, they have built this into their planning so it is not an issue when the get home. Quite a bit of the thread is devoted to discussing what is "fair" in a relationship. For instance, the husband works more and makes more money. Therefore, should he be entitled to more time off? Some posters attempt very strict accounting for what each partner in the relationship deserves. Others reject this sort of bean counting with one poster insisting that it kills relationships.

The most active thread yesterday was an old thread that I have already discussed and, therefore, will skip today. That was the thread titled "Travis and Taylor" which is about Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift. The thread has received renewed interest because Kelce is going to the SuperBowl and Swifties, who doubted the authenticity of this relationship in the beginning, are starting to have second thoughts. The second most active thread is another one that I will skip, the Gaza war thread. The most active thread after those two was titled, "Favorite College that changes lives?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. This will require a bit of explanation for the uninitiated. "Colleges That Change Lives" was originally a 1996 college guide written by Loren Pope that profiled 40 liberal arts colleges that Pope believed were particularly focused on educating students and performed better than many of the traditional "top" colleges. In 1998, a non-profit with the same name was created to promote the colleges reviewed in Pope's book. DCUM has a small group of posters who are huge fans of CTCL colleges and either frequently start threads about the schools or bring up the colleges in other threads. Similarly, there is a group that is very cynical of this entire endeavor and consider CTCL to be little more than a marketing organization that promotes second-rate schools. Whenever these two groups interact, it results in many posts being reported and an increased workload for me. This thread was started by the original poster asking which schools users like, hate, or about which they know nothing. Several colleges from the list are mentioned as ones that posters like and several posters also asked for recommendations of colleges with specific characteristics. It is clear that several posters accept the premise that these schools punch well above their weight. Almost implicit in the CTCL discourse is the assertion that traditional college rankings should be ignored because these schools are flying under the radar. So much so that when a poster mentioned the two CTCL schools ranked highest on the US News & World Report rankings, the poster was criticized for pursuing the "wrong outcomes". One of the usual critics of CTCL argued that the schools are second tier and "attract mediocre students who wouldn’t have a chance at top schools." One thing about CTCL schools that I think is misunderstood is that the schools are chosen based on their perceived commitment to student achievement. Outside of that factor, the schools don't necessarily have much in common. This provides both fans and critics the ability to cherry pick and promote either one school's accomplishments or another school's failures as representative of the entire list. I suspect that for many of the CTCL colleges, inclusion on the list provides little more than marginal benefit as several of the schools have reputations that have been established independently of CTCL.