DCUM Weblog

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "VA Democratic House candidate performed sex acts online for tips". This thread, which was posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics" forum, is about the revelation that Susanna Gibson — a 40-year-old mother of two who is running for Virginia's House of Delegates in a suburban Richmond district — has been posting sexually explicit videos of herself and her husband online. This is really going to test the maxim of whether there is such a thing as bad publicity. But, on the positive side, Gibson will probably soon rival all Virginia politicians in terms of name recognition. For those who want their politicians to be transparent, Gibson has left very little to the imagination. There was a time when it didn't take much of a scandal for a candidate to withdraw from an election. But, that time appears to be gone. Numerous politicians have attempted to ride out — many successfully — scandals of varing degrees. Who can forget that former President Trump, while still a candidate, was caught on tape admitting to sexually assaulting women? Gibson shows no indication of backing down and has, instead, gone on the offensive against the Republicans who are behind the disclosure of the videos. Whether it is due to increased partisanship or changing mores, it is not clear whether this controversy will hurt Gibson. The first indications are that she has successfully increased her campaign fundraising in the aftermath of the disclosure. Those responding in the thread are divided between posters who think the videos are disqualifying and those who believe that consensual sex with a spouse is completely acceptable even if there is a bit of a twist. Conservative posters accused liberals of only being concerned about abortion and gun control and, therefore, ignoring anything negative about Democratic candidates. Democratic posters agreed that they only care about abortion and gun control and don't care what Gibson is live streaming herself doing. A significant number of posters contended that they would have to watch the videos in order to have an educated opinion. Gibson and her husband apparently solicited monetary tips in exchange for requested activities. This, Republicans argued, made this more than a matter of consensual sex and instead made it a form of prostitution. I am fairly certain that prostitutes are viewed more favorably than politicians among significant numbers of voters, so this line of attack may backfire on conservatives.

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

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

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Boomers can’t downsize" and posted in the "Real Estate" forum. As I have written many times, I hate generational labels which I consider to have little validity and generally to be unhelpful. In this case, the original poster is a self-described boomer who is upset that he cannot find an affordable house in which to retire in one of his preferred locations. I really don't understand why, in a forum that is full of boomer-haters, one of them would put a big huge target on their butt with a giant "kick me" sign above it. But that's essentially what this poster did. His post leaves him open to many obvious criticisms and few posters miss such inviting opportunties. Younger posters have long complained that "boomers" refuse to retire and, therefore, prevent younger employees from taking their jobs. In addition, some have complained that boomers refusing to move out of their houses have constrained the housing supply and driven up prices. Generally, younger posters have complained that boomers should get off the lawns that the younger posters would like to acquire (and then build auxiliary housing units on). The original poster's point is that suitable retirement houses in Rehoboth Beach, the Hamptons, the beaches of the Carolinas, or the "good" parts of Florida are too expensive. As such, he can't afford to sell his current house and move to one of those places. One might think that this is due to other boomers who have also wanted to move to those places and, therefore, driven up demand while supply remains limited. But, no, the original poster doesn't blame other boomers. Instead, he blames younger people who are working remotely while living in those coveted locations. The original poster's solution, therefore, is to require employees to return to the office so that these younger work-from-home types will be forced to move out and he can buy one of their places cheaply. Most of this thread consists of posters of various ages calling each other "entitled" and selfish. Even though practically every member of every generation wants access to affordable housing in desirable locations, each sees their own aspirations as reasonable while the other generations' as entitled. Eventually this discussion expanded from its focus on housing and, instead just became an argument about boomers. There are debates about the college tuition boomers paid, whether or not they have pensions, and other generalizations often made about boomers. This supports my dislike of these labels. They are broad generalizations that have so many exceptions as to have little utility. In this thread there is even an argument about in which years boomers were born.

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

On Monday one of the most active threads that I wrote about dealt with a fight between Montgomery County Public Schools high school students from Bethesda-Chevy Chase and Walter Johnson high schools. As I noted in that post, I had locked that thread because several users had fixated on the race of those involved with some posts including racist statements. Posters asked me to unlock the thread so that more details about what had occurred could be learned, but I asked that a new thread be started instead. That thread, titled, "WJ/BCC Fight - No racism please!" and, of course, posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum, was the most active thread yesterday. Despite the interest in the thread, there was not much news to be shared. Posters reported that the police were investigating the incident and relayed rumors learned from students at the school. There was considerable discussion about the reaction by MCPS officials, something with which several posters expressed dissatisfaction. Filling the vacuum of actual news were esoteric discussions such as whether the incident Friday night constituted a "fight" which some posters argued might be legal or an "assault" which would clearly be against the law. Similarly, a number of posters debated why students would have been congregating near the Metro station. One poster seemed completely incapable of understanding that kids might actually be there for the purpose of accessing transportation. In addition to the Metro train, several Metro buses have pickup locations at the station. Moreover, nearby restaurants are popular with the students. As in the earlier thread, some posters argued that what had occurred was less a fight between students from opposing schools and more of an attack on WJ students by students from B-CC. In contrast, at least one poster questioned whether students from either high school were actually involved. There was continued discussion about the appropriate punishment for the attackers. The lack of news about what, if anything, would be done frustrated some posters, while others reminded that information about juveniles was normally not released. There was a lot of concern expressed about the condition of the students who were seen on video being beaten and hope that they would recover quickly. But, as with most other aspects of this topic, there were very few actual facts in this regard to be shared.

Frequently when I look at the list of the most active threads there are a few that I don't recognize and know nothing about. That's normally an indication that no posts from that thread were reported but also means that the topic didn't catch my eye for whatever reason. However, it is rare when every thread in the list is unfamiliar to me. That is essentially the case today. The most active thread was titled, "Where are people’s manners?" and posted in the "Travel Discussion" forum. When I saw the thread's title, I was quite sure that this was the first time I was encountering it. But, then I remembered that there had been a single report complaining that posters were piling on the original poster. I had glanced at the last page of the thread and decided things didn't look too bad and left it alone. So, while, strictly speaking, this morning was not the first time I've been exposed to the thread, I really didn't know anything about it. The original poster says that her family and another family rented a beach house together. They invited a third family to visit for one day. When that family arrived, the kids were hungry and immediately ate all the snacks in the house. Even the dog was hungry and the orignal poster had to feed it. The family went through the refrigerator, kitchen cabinets, bedroom closets, and made use of the bedroom and swimming equipment. All without asking. The original poster wonders whether people have no sense of personal space or personal property anymore. Based on the responses, people do not. Surprising to me, posters seem to have no problem with the guests rummaging through the cabinets and closets and eating everything in sight. Most of those responding found ways to place blame on the original poster. The original poster might be faulted for not having adequate snacks on hand and maybe could have been a bit more assertive in offering things before the visitors were compelled to take things into their own hands, but generally those responding seemed eager to find fault with the original poster. Some posters straight out claimed that the original poster was either inventing or embellishing the story. This leads me to an observation about the DCUM forum. The perceived tone of a post has a hugely significant impact on how others respond to it. If a poster is perceived to be whiny, they are not likely to find much sympathy. Similarly with posters who appear to be exaggerating or over-reacting. The forum can be very supportive of those whose situations appear to be objectively difficult, but it can be quite mean to those believed to be complaining unnecessarily. Several posters were almost explicit about this, complaining that the original poster was being overly dramatic and justifying their unsupportive responses on that basis. Multiple posters said that the original poster sounded "really uptight". A few posters did pay more attention to the facts than the tone and those posters tended to side more with the original poster. It makes me wonder whether the same post, written slightly differently in order to evoke a different tone, would have generated a more supportive response.

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

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Thomas Jefferson High School drops to 5th in latest US News ranking" and posted in the "Advanced Academic Programs (AAP)" forum. This thread was inspired by a new release of U.S. News & World Report’s “Best High School Rankings”. Thomas Jefferson High School, or TJ, as the school is normally called, has led these rankings for the past three years but is listed as 5th in the latest list. U.S. News says that this is not a big deal, the school's supporters say it is not a big deal, and those who think it is a big deal are largely ignoring the facts. So, in many ways, this thread is a whole lot of todo about nothing. First, regarding the position change itself. As a U.S. News managing editor is quoted as saying, the top schools are so close that very small changes in the data can result in what appear to be big changes. "But it doesn’t mean too much has really changed there." Next, the reason for the change. As anyone even vaguely familiar with the recent history of TJ will well know, the school recently underwent a change in its admission policies. Opponents of the changes have warned that the best applicants are no longer being selected and, as a result, the quality of the school will decline. Therefore, some saw this drop in rankings as an indication that their prediction is coming true. The flaw in that thinking, however, is that, as the article to which the original poster linked makes clear, the data on which the rankings were based was collected prior the admissions changes. This did not prevent some posters from still blaming the changes. One poster was so insistent that the admissions changes have harmed the school's quality that he literally wrote that it didn't matter how many times others posted the quote saying that the data was prior to the changes. He claimed that the significant impact of the changes was being ignored. Other posters pointed out that TJ must indeed be a leading STEM school if it was capable of developing a time machine that went back to the past to influence data based on changes that hadn't occurred. As is the case with almost all TJ threads these days, this one soon devolved into a debate about race and ethnicity. Posters argued that Asian students were denied admissions in favor of less-well prepared minority students. Others pointed out that Asians remain the largest group of students admitted to the school. The rhetoric suggesting that Asians have been victims of discrimination often has as unfortunate tendency to become racist itself. One poster suggested that minority students admitted under the new policies are "lazy kids who just want a quota for them to get in". To be clear, no quota exists and the new admissions system is race blind. The racist slant of these threads tends to snowball, causing me to lock the threads. So, it's not clear how long this thread will remain open.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Leaked training shows teachers being directed to allow gender & name changes without parent consent, transitioning?" and posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. Let me be clear and say that this thread was an extremely successful trolling exercise. How schools deal with transgender issues has been a hot topic in most of our schools forums (and even a few non-school forums), but the Fairfax County Public Schools forum has been absolutely obsessed with the topic. Much of that has to do with the school system's refusal to strictly comply with new model policies released by Governor Glenn Youngkin's administration. This thread starts out with the original poster linking to a Fox News report about "leaked" FCPS training documents regarding names that students wish to use at school. One document displayed shows three scenarios in which students might choose to use names other than their legal names. In each of the cases, the document indicates that parental permission is not required in order for teachers to use chosen names instead of legal names. The original poster described these documents as "recently leaked" and complains that they do not adhere to the state guidelines. While nobody seems to have noticed until the 10th page of the thread, the X (formerally tweet) that the original poster embedded is from August 2022, just over a year ago. I have no way of knowing whether the original poster intentionally misrepresented this news or was simply unaware of the date of her own sources. But, either way, the training material preceded the new state guidelines and is certainly not "recent". Regardless of the age of the material, heated debate ensued. Several posters agree with the training document and don't believe parental permission should be required for something as mundane as which name is used in school. Both parents and teachers alike argue that teachers are far too busy and have more important things about which to worry than what name a child wants to be called. Other posters fear that schools' adoption of chosen names of a different gender affirms a student's gender transition which they believe should not be done without parental involvement. I think from now on whenever I have to discuss a thread of this nature I am going to remind readers of the Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board decision. The US Supreme Court let stand a decision that sided with Gavin Grimm, a transgender Virginia high school student, and required that he be allowed to use bathrooms and locker rooms matching his gender. While several posters in this thread criticized FCPS for not adhering to the state model policies, they seem to ignore the fact that Youngkin's guidelines are not consistent with current legal precedence. The only mention of the Grimm case I saw in the thread was a single link that offered no explanation concerning to what it was linking. But, I think this case needs to be part of all of these discussions.