DCUM Weblog

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "How is it a close race?" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster points out a number of flaws in former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump such as his frequent failure to pay contractors, his cheating with a porn star, his modifying a weather map with a Sharpie, the way he kowtows to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his lies about election fraud, and asks how Trump supporters cannot see all of this. The original poster compares the situation to the "Emperor's New Clothes" fairytale in which everyone realizes the truth but is afraid to say it. The original poster is perplexed that this is even a close election given the numerous problems with Trump. Many Trump supporters respond by saying that they recognize Trump's personal flaws and don't really like his personality. However, they claim that they are supporting him because of policy issues. Frequently these posters cite immigration and the economy as areas where they belive Trump has better policies than Vice President Kamala Harris. A number of Trump supporters look back at Trump's previous presidency and suggest that he did a laudable job. Trump opponents point out that Trump accomplished very little as President. His legislative accomplishments were mostly limited to passing tax cuts which caused the national debt to skyrocket. He mishandled the COVID pandemic and never reached even 50% popularity. Given that all the posters in this thread participate in DCUM's political forum, they must have some interest in politics. Yet, many of the Trump supporters demonstrate that they are very poorly informed. Almost universally these posters are acting on the basis of "vibes". They perceive that things were better under Trump than they were under President Joe Biden and Harris but they struggle to support that perception with actual data. Their primary basis for this perception is higher prices and increased immigration. The fact that prices are higher as a result of the pandemic and that Republicans have repeatedly prevented immigration reforms is lost to them. During the Trump administration, Americans suffered shortages of toilet paper and other everyday goods. Automakers could not obtain chips to manufacture cars. The economy was on the brink of disaster. Biden and Harris turned this around and did it without massive unemployment. But Republicans still "feel" that things are worse now. In the face of the January 6th insurrection, Trump's admission that he will be a dictator on the first day, the anti-democratic Project 2025, and Trump's obvious infatuation with dictators, MAGA supporters have convinced themselves that Harris is a bigger threat to democracy. This is absolutely delusional. As the original poster stated, and I repeat almost daily, MAGA really is a cult.

The biggest day of the year for participants in DCUM's college forum may be the day that U.S. News and World Report releases its college rankings list. That day was yesterday. Technically, it was the day before but so late in the day that most of the discussion didn't take place until yesterday. The result is that two threads on the topic are among the most active threads that I will discuss today. The most active thread overall yesterday was again the thread about Israel and Lebanon, which I've already discussed. Skipping that one, the next most active thread was titled, "US News best colleges 2025" and, of course, posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster wrote nothing more than, "The rankings are out now." which was enough to provoke what is currently a 21 page thread. The normal rule of threads such as this is that posters claim to hate rankings in general and this one in particular. However, if the ranking happens to place a poster's favorite university highly, or at least above a rival university, then the list is, of course, praised for its accuracy. The U.S. News rankings were subject to considerable criticism last year when the methodology was changed in ways that many posters considered to be "woke". This year U.S. News dropped the graduation rate of 1st generation students from its formula and continued its focus on outcomes such as student retention and post-graduate earnings. Many of the posts in this thread were complaints about the ranking or methodology. But those issues were the focus of a second thread that I will discuss today so I will save those points for later. A number of posters suggested that this ranking were reasonably accurate, though almost everyone had at least one nit to pick. For instance, the positioning of UCLA at 15th was the subject of considerable discussion. The University of Virginia was another college whose ranking — tied at 24 — inspired considerable criticism along with a significant amount of smugness. Much of the discussion in this thread is about the value of such rankings. Some posters want to be able to rank colleges based on their own criteria rather than a magazine's methodology. Others suggest that these lists are good screening tools and are reasonable starting points for further research. This thread, like so many threads before it, got bogged down in an unnecessary discussion about yield protection. The forum has one or more posters who are completely obsessed with yield protection to the exclusion of almost any other topic. The single-mindedness is remarkable and I have to think that it must be motivated by a very painful rejection that was rationalized as being due to yield protection. Then the thread turned to a big debate about Notre Dame with participants accusing each other of being insufferable. That actually is a good summary of this thread. Everyone claims the U.S. News rankings are meaningless and nobody cares about them, but they will also fight to the death about whether a school deserves to be in the top 20.

The most active thread yesterday was the one about Israel and Lebanon which I have already discussed and will skip today even though that conflict has heated up with Israel killing over 500 Lebanese, mostly civilians, yesterday. After that was a thread titled, "When do you have time to eat?" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. The original poster apparently has multiple children, a husband who works extremely long hours, and an eight hour a day job herself. She outlines her daily schedule which involves shuttling the kids to and from school and evening sports practices. In between the driving, she puts in her work hours, prepares dinner, and helps the kids with homework. She finishes the day with a bedtime routine for the kids. This schedule doesn't leave the original poster time to eat. As the original poster responds to questions from other posters, her situation turns out to be even worse than it first appears. Several posters ask why she doesn't eat when the rest of her family eats. The answer is that the kids eat dinner in the car while she drives them to their practices. She doesn't eat because she doesn't like sandwiches or cereal and she finds it hard to eat while driving. Several posters point out the obvious. The original poster is trying to do too much in too little time with no help from her spouse. The posters suggest eliminating some activities or getting additional help such as someone to cook meals or assist with childcare. Some suggest that she cut back on her work hours. But the vast majority of those responding seem to accept the necessity of this schedule and offer advice about how to make it work better. There are several suggestions that the original poster wake up 15 minutes earlier and eat a quick breakfast before the kids wake up. They suggest preparing meals on the weekend that can be reheated during the week. Some posters have specific meal plans or meal suggestions. Other posters suggest eating dinner later, after the practices, which would allow the original poster to join her kids for the meal. Several posters conclude that the original poster is a "martyr mom" who really doesn't want to improve her situation but rather simply wants to be recognized for her sacrifice. This leads to more criticism of the original poster with some of those responding suggesting that she might have an eating disorder. Others criticize her parenting, arguing that putting the kids through this schedule is not healthy for them and that she is modelling a bad lifestyle. This trend became more pronounced after an apparently frustrated original poster responded to suggestions that she was over-scheduling her family by saying that she would pull her kids out of all activities, including one child's therapy. Nobody had made such a suggestion and this reaction reinforced the belief among many posters that the original poster was not really looking for advice.

The most active thread over the weekend was titled, "Kamala Harris Says Anyone Who Breaks Into Her House Is ‘Getting Shot’" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster quoted from a Huffington Post article describing Vice President Kamala Harris' interview with Oprah Winfrey that took place during an event in Michigan. While the discussion was wide-ranging and touched on a number of topics, the original poster focused on a portion dealing with guns. Harris repeated a statement made during her debate with former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump that both she and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for Vice President, own guns. Winfrey expressed surprise about that statement and Harris, while laughing, went on to say that "If somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot." The original poster seems to approve of this sentiment and calls it a "very strong statement". Once again, this thread highlights that the phenomenon of Republicans believing their own lies and then ending up perplexed when they don't align with reality. To hear Republicans tell it, Harris — like all liberals — hates guns and plans to take them away if she wins the presidency. Therefore, Harris claiming to not only be a gun owner, but prepared to use one for self-protection is viewed by conservatives as either an outright lie or hypocrisy. Liberal posters point out that Democrats generally favor common sense gun control but almost nobody proposes banning all guns. Conservatives tend to view guns as a culture war issue and struggle with nuance on the topic. They often interpret support for an assault weapons ban as being roughly the same as the government knocking down doors to seize hunting rifles. Other posters view Harris' statement more in terms of messaging. They say that she is signaling to moderate Republicans and independents that she is not a radical liberal hellbent on taking their guns from them. Some posters agree that this is the intent of the statement, but they consider it pandering and have doubts about the authenticity of the sentiment. Many posters view Harris' statement in traditional gun control terms. To them, this is not a legal or cultural issue, but rather a question of gun safety. They cite statistics showing that a gun in the home is more likely to be a danger to the inhabitants of the house rather than a means of self-defense. These posters are disappointed by Harris, though not enough to drop their support for her. In addition, several posters questioned Harris need for self-defense. She currently lives at the United States Naval Observatory surrounded by U.S. Secret Service protection. There is almost no chance of someone breaking into her house in current circumstances (though at least one poster suggested that recent USSS failures mean that a break-in is possible). Others argued that as a prosecutor, Harris probably faced a number of threats which justified owning a gun for self-protection.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "apparently something big is about to drop about mark robinson..." and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster embedded two tweets, the first saying that Republicans in North Carolina were pressuring Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for Governor, to drop out of the race. The second suggested that information harmful to Robinson was about to be made public. For those not familiar with Robinson, which at this point is probably nobody, he has a history of controversial statements including anti-Semitic remarks and Holocaust denial. Beyond his crazy statements, the staunchly anti-abortion Robinson also admitted that he paid for his girlfriend — now his wife — to have an abortion. Recently he was accused of having regularly visited pornographic video stores. Given the sort of information that had already been made public about Robinson without causing Republicans to distance themselves from him, posters immediately began speculating on what it would take to reach this point. Former Governor of Louisiana Edwin Edwards once famously said, "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy." Thinking the same about Robinson, some posters guessed that whatever was coming might involve a live boy. Others joked that it could involve eating a cat. It soon emerged that what was motivating the North Carolinian Republicans to pressure Robinson to drop out was a story about to be issued by CNN. When that story finally dropped, it reported that Robinson had been linked to posts on a pornography website’s message board. As CNN explained, many of Robinson's posts were too graphic to be published and described them as "gratuitously sexual and lewd in nature". In addition, Robinson referred to himself as a "black NAZI!" and supported the reinstatement of slavery. While Robinson campaigns as being strongly anti-transgender, he posted that he enjoys viewing transgender pornography. The CNN story was pretty damning for Robinson, but even worse were excerpts of his posts that started appearing on social media, including one detailing a sexual encounter with his sister-in-law. It was clear why CNN has been unable to publish them. At any rate, the midnight deadline for a withdrawal passed with Robinson still in the race. The North Carolina Republican Party issued a statement accepting Robinson's denial that he had made the posts in question and attacking Vice President Kamala Harris. Robinson had already been trailing in the polls and, presumably, the latest revelations will not help him. The real battle in North Carolina is not the governorship, which Republicans appear to be willing to write off, but rather its electoral college votes. The state is essential to former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump's re-election hopes. The Republicans' fear, and the Democrats' hope, is that Robinson will drag Trump down. This is a real concern given that there is video of Trump praising Robinson and saying that he is "Martin Luther King on steroids."

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "SFFA doesn't like the Asian American %" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster quoted from an article in the New York Times discussing the group, "Students for Fair Admissions". This organization successfully sued Harvard University over race-based admissions preferences resulting in a Supreme Court ruling that ended affirmative action in college admissions. This academic year is the first in which incoming students were admitted under the new rules and the diversity mixes of the freshman classes of top universities have been watched closely. Students for Fair Admissions represented Asian students in its case against Harvard and expected that the Supreme Court ruling would lead to an increase of Asian students among the leading schools. However, three prominent universities — Princeton, Yale and Duke — actually saw declines in Asian American enrollment. As a result, the organization is threatening to investigate whether those institutions are correctly following the law and to sue them if they are not. I have discussed multiple threads on the topic of race and college admissions in this blog as many such threads have been among the most active. The topic has been discussed so frequently that I'd expect the forum's posters to be sick and tired of the topic by now. Indeed, several posters demonstrated considerable fatigue with the topic. But as this thread's position as the most active thread shows, there is stil considerable capacity among posters to debate the topic. Most of the attention in this thread is focused on two groups, Asian-Americans and Black Americans. The primary argument is whether there are too many, the correct amount, or too few of each group. That argument is complicated by the fact that there is little agreement about the correct numbers, let alone whether colleges acting legally to reach that number. Fundamentally this is a dispute between whether universities should seek to admit the "most qualified" students or a "diverse" group of students. Those who favor admitting the most qualified students are not always able to agree on which metrics should determine who is most qualified, but often settle on tests scores. As such, they generally oppose any situation in which a student is accepted with a lower test score than a student who is turned down. Those who value diversity normally take a broader view and argue that diversity strengthens the student body. In their view, a diverse group of students which might include a few with lower test scores is, overall, stronger than a homogenous class consisting only of those with top stats. Colleges themselves have generally taken the second view and, the Supreme Court ruling notwithstanding, have tried to recruit diverse student bodies. The issue up for debate, therefore, is whether those efforts are legal. Posters in this thread obviously have various views. One thing I noticed in this thread that I hadn't noticed in previous threads on similar topics is self-described Asian and White posters arguing strongly in favor of diversity. But that may be the only welcome development in this otherwise tiresome thread.

The Taylor Swift thread that I discussed on Monday continued as the most active thread yesterday. After that were mostly political threads. The first of those was titled, "A message from PA relatives: Stop sending your political canvassers from Maryland", and, of course, posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster says that he has relatives in York County, Pennsylvania who are registered as independents but have been leaning toward voting for Trump. Recently they have been visited by three different groups of vote canvassers who they believe came from Maryland and who knew nothing of local politics. They were offended by Marylanders telling them how to vote. The original poster then advises those who want "left progressive policies and crime and immigration" to stay in the "Baltimore/PG/Silver Spring echo chamber". Most of those replying are not particularly sympathetic to either the original poster or his relatives. Several posters suggest that if the original poster's relatives are going to vote for Trump anyway, nothing is to be gained by stopping the canvassing. They ask if stopping canvassing will cause the relatives to change their vote. Personally, I am sympathetic to people not wanting to be disturbed by strangers coming to their door. But the original poster's relatives have the option of not answering the door or quickly telling the canvassers that they are not interested and ending the conversation. Moreover, if the original poster is representing his relatives' views that anyone from Maryland is a "left progressive" who is in favor of crime, they probably could benefit by being further informed about Democratic policies. The number one motivating issue among Democrats is abortion rights, followed by preserving democracy and affordable healthcare. These are mainstream issues on which Democrats have broad support. You don't have to live in Silver Spring or Baltimore to agree with the Democrats' positions on these issues which are probably even popular in York County. A poster who said that he lives in Maryland said that he took his kids to canvas in Pennsylvania this weekend. Based on his experience, the encounters with local residents were very brief and didn't involve much more than asking if the residents were registered to vote and wanted any information about the election. Nobody asked about local issues and those who they visited would have had no way of knowing the poster and his kids were from Maryland. It doesn't appear that the original poster made any additional contributions to this thread. The thread itself mostly devolved to a simple debate about various unrelated topics such as whether former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump is a threat to democracy or a popular figure who deserves to win the presidency. Most of the posts could easily have been posted in other threads and many of them probably were duplicates.

The two most active threads yesterday were the thread about the apparent assassination attempt of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump and the thread about Taylor Swift. Because I discussed both of these threads yesterday, I'll skip them today. The next most active thread was titled, "Overweight boys- constructive help only, please" and posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum. The original poster says that she has 8 and 10 year old sons who are both overweight. She says the boys are active and that the family eats healthy foods and has no junk food in the house. But the boys just eat a lot. The original poster is seeking advice about how to help her sons control their weight while not causing "some disordered eating craziness". Most of those responding feel that the original poster is already doing most of the right things. Therefore, several posters suggest that this might be a phase in which the boys are "growing out" instead of "growing up", meaning that they have gained weight quicker than they have gained height and that this will likely change when the boys hit spurts of growth in height. Posters also question whether any family members, even extended ones, have larger body types which could mean that the boys' weight is simply genetic. The original poster does have a brother who went through a chubby phase and has a larger build then she does. Anything involving weight is of course controversial on DCUM. One reason for this is that many posters have very strong opinions which conflict with the equally strong opinions of other posters. One common division involves limiting eating as a means to control weight. For some posters, the sole answer to every question about how to lose weight is "eat less". No surprise then that several posters immediately began advising the original poster to limit her sons' eating. The original poster has cut back snacks based on advice from the kids' pediatrician. However, other posters argue almost the exact opposite. They suggest providing more, but different, types of snacks and food. They contend that if the boys are hungry, they will eat more when the opportunity presents itself. They suggest that a better strategy is to provide healthy snacks, especially those high in protein, more frequently so that the boys don't feel starved when they sit down for a meal. Some posters believe that since the original poster seems to have diet and exercise covered, the problem might be hormonal. They suggest that the original poster have blood panels done to see if anything is affecting the boys' metabolism. Some posters argue the boys weight should not be much of a concern if they are active and eating good diets. Being healthy is more important than their weight, these posters suggest.

The most active thread over the weekend was one that was just created yesterday. Titled, "Shooting at Trump’s FL golf course while he was there" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, the thread was created just after reports that there had been a shooting in the vicinity of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. The first news of this shooting came from a report by Trump's communications director who simply said that there had been shooting near Trump but that Trump was safe and unhurt. A New York Post tweet soon circulated saying that the shooting occurred outside Trump's Florida golf course and involved two individuals shooting at each other and was unrelated to Trump. This caused a number of the early posters to suggest that Trump was attempting to milk an unrelated situation to generate sympathy and redirect attention from his anti-immigrant remarks involving Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. However, officials soon held a press conference in which they described what had happened as a planned assassination of Trump. A U.S. secret service agent had discovered an individual hiding in bushes with a rifle aimed toward the golf course at which Trump was golfing and opened fire. An individual had later been arrested and a semi-automatic rifle had been found at the scene. Once the name of the individual arrested was publicized, posters engaged in a desparate contest to determine his political leanings and blame the opposite political party. In the case of the earlier shooting of Trump, the shooter had unclear political leanings and had researched the whereabouts of political figures across the political spectrum. Trump appears to have been nothing more than a target of opportunity with no particular partisan political significance to the shooter. The individual involved in this incident has a similarly confusing political identity, though one that was much more public. The attempted assassin previously tweeted that he had voted for Trump but then become disenchanted with him. He also tweeted support for former Republican presidential candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley. But, reports showed that he is a registered Democrat. The earlier shooter was a registered Republican but posters devoted pages of posts insisting that party registration was meaningless and that, in fact, people register for a party they don't support all the time. However, in this case, posters insisted that party registration was definitive. The individual in the lastest incident clearly is obsessed with Ukraine, having traveled there and attempted to recruit foreign volunteers to fight against Russia. If he has any political motivation to shoot Trump, it is probably related to Ukraine and its conflict with Russia. However, it is most likely that the man who was arrested suffers from mental health issues. As such, it may be difficult to find logic in his actions. Regardless, posters of all political persuasions in this thread seem entirely uninterested in facts other than using them to support their personal political arguments, even if that meant twisting them or ignoring unwanted information. Very few posters are willing to wait to see what the facts reveal but, instead, simply want to score political points. The result is the thread getting bogged down in disputes over meaningless minutiae such as whether liberals or conservatives are more likely to build sheds for the homeless.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Svelte teen girls -- being the ugly duckling in a school of swans" and posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. The original poster says that her daughter just started as a freshman at a new private high school. The family is towards the lower end of the economic spectrum of the school's students, something that is apparent due to the family's older cars and the fact that both parents work. But what really appears to be bothering the original poster's daughter is her weight. Most of the girls in the school, according to the original poster, are uniformly thin and athletic. The original poster's daughter, on the other hand, has a body mass index of 25 and is not interested in sports. The original poster asks for advice about how to encourage her daughter to be more active and eat healthier. I am not sure what to make of this thread because almost immediately the original poster, without mentioning that she was the original poster, posted a message saying that the daughter shouldn't try to complete with the other girls. In another follow-up post, again without identifying herself, the original poster blamed weight gain on "endocrine disruptors" rather than over-eating. Even in posts in which she indicated that she was the original poster, the original poster didn't seen particularly receptive to advice. So this thread may have been a waste of everyone's time. The advice that was offered was mainly to convince her daughter to participate in at least one sport. Some posters suggested that if the girl didn't want to participate in school sports, she might pick up an activity after school such as dance. Other posters questioned whether this school is the right environment for the original poster's daughter. They suggested that the issue is not her daughter's weight, but how she fits in. The original poster had cited a number of issues that might cause fitting in to be difficult beyond weight. As a result, posters had advice concerning how to help her daughter fit in better. Others suggested changing schools. Some posters were suspicious of how the other girls were all remaining so thin, suggesting that it might be attributed to eating disorders, ADHD medicine, or controlling mothers. The topic of weight is always controversial on DCUM, especially when involving children and even more when involving girls. As such, posters had strong disagreements about what to do about the girl's weight. Some argued that she was not overweight and, therefore, this didn't need to be addressed. Others, as is common, attributed weight gain purely to eating and suggested that the original poster's daughter should simply eat less. Other posters had complex theories about diet and what should or shouldn't be eaten. Some posters strongly urged the original poster to do all that she can to avoid having her daughter becoming obsessed with her image, her size, or her eating. Instead they suggested keeping her busy with various activities and off the Internet.