DCUM Weblog

Memorial Day is a traditionally slow day on DCUM but, perhaps due to yesterday's bad weather in the DC area, traffic was a bit higher than might have been expected. How did DCUMers spend the holiday? Mostly talking about the Max (nee HBO Max, nee HBO) series "Succession". That thread received over three times the number of posts as the next most active thread. But, since I've already discussed that thread, I'll start with the runner up. That thread was titled, "Most beautiful place on earth you've seen, if you're a regular person?" and posted in the "Travel Discussion" forum. The original poster asks what is the most beautiful thing others have seen while traveling as a "normal person", by which she means those not being sent as part of a job and not "professional" adventurers. I always struggle to summarize threads of this sort that consist mostly of one or more suggestions per post. Without going through and making a tally of the locations, I'm not sure that I can draw many conclusions. But, nominations ranged from Burke Lake to Phuket, Thailand and the Fjords of Norway. I did notice that one of my personal favorites, Lake Louise, was repeatedly mentioned. Bodies of water in general were popular. Some posters appear to have had trouble narrowing it down and provided fairly long lists. One wonders if there wasn't a bit of bragging going on. One poster proposed Nelson Mandala’s prison cell on Robben Island. I can imagine that being interesting, historic, and perhaps even moving, but I have a hard time thinking of it as "beautiful". This would be a good thread for those seeking inspiration for a future trip and is also good for provoking memories of places you've been fortunate enough to visit.

I take the weekend off from this blog and wavered over whether to take today off as well since it is a holiday. I've decided to go ahead but looking at the the threads I will have to cover, I'm already regretting the decision. As such, I'll keep things short today. Many of the most active threads over the past three days have already been covered and, therefore, I'll skip them. That is sort of leaving me with the junior varsity threads. The first of those was titled, "People you know that died in a freak accident. What happened?" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster doesn't offer much information about what she wants from this thread other than fuel for her "existential anxiety". The thread is 19 pages long so I am not going to read the whole thing. From what I can tell, however, posters have listed several usual deaths. In many cases, those deaths involved people the posters knew, others they had simply heard about second or third-hand. I see a number of clearly made-up posts with some describing scenes from movies or TV shows. This is really not my type of thread so that's all I'll say about it.

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "Glad MCPS is getting sued". Posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum, the original poster supports the right of parent's to opt their children out of school activities that deal with sexual orientation and gender identity. The poster linked to an article describing a lawsuit filed by three families demanding this opt-out right. Essentially, the battle over books in school dealing with sexual orientation and gender identity has come to MCPS, though in a pretty mild form. While there are posters on both sides of this issue, the majority seem opposed to the opt-out demand. They reject the religious concerns expressed by some posters on the basis of separation of church and state. A few posters are not concerned about the subject matter, but simply don't think that some MCPS's choices aimed at inclusivity are challenging enough. They are fine with LGBTQ-friendly books, they just want them to be better written. While much of the discussion focuses on the controversy aspects of sexual orientation and gender identity, others posters argue that this is actually a fairly technical dispute. As one posters outlines very clearly, the families behind the lawsuit are requesting to be allowed to opt-out based on regulations governing instruction about family life and human sexuality. Since the books in question have nothing to do with instruction of human sexuality, that leaves only family life. The poster asks whether the regulations should extend to any book that portrays family life even if that is simply parents, a baby brother, and a grandmother, or only LGBTQ family life? The lawsuit is clear that the families' objections are to gay families and trans gender people and are a result of the families' religious beliefs. While one family is Muslim, the others are various Christian denominations. Frankly, the books involved are fairly mild and both the original poster and the plaintiffs have to stretch a bit to make them appear controversial. At the same time, they are not asking for a ban on the books so MCPS has not entered in to Florida or Virginia territory yet. Nevertheless, despite protestations in the lawsuit that the plaintiffs believe people of all sexual orientations and gender identities must be respected, they appear quite unwilling to have their children simply learn about the existence of such people. As such, I question how much respect can be given to those about whom you don't even want your children to know.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "What parts of your life/lifestyle are unapproved by DCUM standards?" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster provided no further explanation about the topic of this thread beyond what was in the title. This is somewhat baffling to me because I am not aware of DCUM having approved standards. Rather, from its inception, DCUM has been known for the lack of agreement among its posters. If any conceivable difference of opinion can be found, DCUM posters will argue about it. As a result, I suspect that "standards" in this case are simply something that one or more random posters like while a similar or greater number of random posters don't like. DCUM almost never speaks with one voice and, frankly, if it did it would be rather boring. At any rate, I am fairly certain that "standards" is not the proper term to use in this context. The original poster's examples are vacationing in Wildwood, NJ and Ocean City, MD every summer. This basically makes my point. I don't know anything about Wildwood but a quick search on our travel forum shows that it has a number of fans due to its boardwalk. To the extent posters didn't like it, it's because they prefer Ocean City, NJ. As for Ocean City, MD, just about everyone in the DC area seems to have a love/hate relationship with it. Everyone hates it but everyone still goes there. Frankly, if DCUM had standards, this thread wouldn't meet them. Almost immediately it turns into posters simply posting snide remarks or non-sequiturs. One poster, for instance, claims that DCUM hates mothers. Very keen insight about a website dominated by mothers. And, of course, racists seize the opportunity to come out of their holes. True to form, multiple arguments appear to have broken out though I can't say much about them because I can't bring myself to read more than a few posts. I feel no end of disappointment about threads like this that I consider complete wastes of time.

Once again the two most active threads yesterday were threads that I've already discussed. So, I'll start with the third most active thread which was titled, "How does your redshirted kid feel now that she/he is older?" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. This is the type of thread that I find very frustrating and makes me want to reconsider what we are doing with DCUM altogether. The original poster has a perfectly reasonable request. Her family is moving to the DC area and she is giving thought to school for her daughter who just completed kindergarten. The child's birthday is in late August and she has recently been diagnosed with ADHD. Therefore, the original poster is considering redshirting her daughter and having her repeat kindergarten. She would like to hear about the experiences of those who redshirted their children in the past. This sounds pretty straight-forward, right? If you redshirted your child, the original poster would like to hear how that turned out. No additional input was requested. But, this is DCUM where I have often said that if you post a question asking for input from cat owners, you will most assuredly be flooded by responses from dog owners, many of whom hate cats. No surprise then that the thread was filled by posts from those with no experience with redshirting. To be sure, many of those were helpful and informative and contributed positively to the thread. But, others were not. For instance, one poster weighed in to say that her older child was glad that he was not redshirted. Good to know, but hardly relevant to this discussion. That wasn't the end of this poster's participation, however. She would eventually post nearly 30 times in the thread, opposing redshirting and challenging the experiences of others. So, not only was this poster not providing responsive posts, she was debating those who were. As is turns out, probably not surprisingly, this particular poster is one that I encounter frequently due to her prolific posting. Yesterday, in fact, she posted at least 127 messages. The strange thing is that she does not appear to have actually started a thread herself during this calendar year. Her habit is to simply comment relentlessly, and mostly negatively, on other's posts. I appreciate this person's commitment to DCUM, but I wish she would be more positive and helpful. In this case, she is almost single-handedly responsible for this thread being among yesterday's most active and, more importantly, much less useful than it could have been. I wish I had the ability to contact the user privately and encourage her to do better, but I don't. So, maybe this post will suffice. Either way, I've blocked her IP address for 24 hours so we will see what that does, if anything. For the original poster's part, it doesn't look like she posted again in the thread. So, who knows what she thinks of the discussion?

The two most active threads yesterday were ones that I've already discussed. The next most active thread was titled, "Republicans and the debt ceiling" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. This thread was started back on January 11th, but has been revived and reinvigorated recently as we approach the end of the government's ability to borrow money and, therefore, have sufficient funds to pay its bills. The original poster refers to "20" who are eager to screw around with the debt ceiling. I don't remember the context in which this thread was started, but I assume that the original poster was asking about a group of House Republicans since they have been outspoken about using the debt ceiling as leverage to achieve political goals. The thread has now reached 61 pages, adding 8 pages yesterday alone. I have only read a few posts, but one thing I noticed is how many posters appear to have little understanding of the debt limit and the ramifications of reaching it. For example, one poster claimed, "These have happened before many times with no stock market crash or trillions lost in equity, or significant job losses." This is completely false. The US has never breached the debt limit. We came within two days of doing so in 2011 and that resulted in a downgrade of the US's credit rating which increased borrowing costs. In addition, there was a steep drop in the stock market. Given such confusion, it might be helpful to clarify some of the basics of the debt limit. There are two terms that are often confused, the national debt and the budget deficit. The debt limit applies to the first, the total amount of money that the US owes to lenders. Because of the second, the budget deficit, the government spends more than it takes in as revenue. Therefore, to pay its financial obligations, the government must borrow money. If we reach the debt limit, which we are now just days away from doing, the government will be unable to borrow additional funds and, therefore, will have insufficient funds to meet its financial obligations. The government would likely default on its loans, likely having global financial repercussions. As we saw in 2011, simply getting near the debt ceiling resulted in a credit downgrade and stock market upheaval. A default would have much more serious ramifications. Any number of government services would be impacted and many might cease operation. Another aspect of the debt ceiling that is frequently misunderstood is that the debt is necessary to finance prior spending, not future spending. We can reduce future spending all that we want, but we would still need to increase the debt ceiling simply to pay for past expenditures. Much of the debt is a result of tax cuts approved by Republicans during the Trump administration. This reduced revenue to the government and increased the amount of money that needed to borrowed. By arguing for future spending cuts (but exempting the military and entitlements), while refusing any tax increases, the Republicans are attempting to force major cuts to a relatively small number of programs that are favored by Democrats.

Because I didn't post over the weekend, today I'll review the most active threads since Friday. The most active thread during that period was titled, "Call to discuss the state of Hardy 05/15/23" and posted in the "DC Public and Public Charter Schools". Initially this thread started with a question by the original poster asking about an urgent call involving Hardy Middle School, a DC Public Schools middle school located in Georgetown. Posters were fairly tight-lipped about the call in question, but it was implied that it was a conference call involving school parents. Subsequent posts revealed that the primary topic of the call, perhaps the only topic, was parents' loss of faith in Errol Johnson, the school's principal, and their desire to have him replaced. Just four days after the thread was started, Johnson was indeed removed. For me, this brought back memories of a similar controversy involving Hardy from over a decade ago. At that time, parents of inbound students had rallied to demand the removal of Principal Patrick Pope who inbound families viewed as overly supportive of out-of-bounds students to the detriment of inbound students. This resulted in allegations that the inbound families — largely wealthy and White — were using their privilege to disadvantage out-of-bounds families who were predominately (but far from entirely) people of color. As soon as Johnson's removal became known, several posters made similar allegations, complaining that wealthy White families had unfairly pushed out a Black principal with little input from people of color. While the speed with which Johnson was removed was remarkable, I see some fundamental differences between the Johnson and Pope incidences. Pope was clearly removed because inbound families wanted to see the school remade with a focus on its role as a neighborhood school. Regardless of the legitimacy of that position, it had an obvious negative impact on people of color. There was a certain amount of truth in the allegation that White people were taking over a school that, in their opinion, catered far too much to Black students. In the case of Johnson, while those organizing against him appear to be primarily White, their efforts seem to be aimed at protecting the interests of all students. Their complaints involve the principal's communications, managerial, and decision-making abilities. While I may have missed it in this nearly 40-page thread, I don't see many complaints about Johnson's removal coming from the school's parents. Rather, those standing up for Johnson and complaining about his treatment appear to be a small number of teachers. DCPS can often have a "crabs in the barrel" tendency, something that is reflected in some posts. For instance, there are posts from parents with children at other DCPS schools complaining that Hardy parents were able to get almost immediate attention while their schools are largely ignored. I would argue that the problem is not Hardy's issues being addressed, but that other schools don't get similar treatment. Don't blame Hardy for that, blame DCPS.

The two most active threads yesterday were the Harry and Meghan thread and the thread about the woman and the CitiBike. Since I've already discussed those, I'll move to the third most active thread which was titled, "Is this how thin people eat?" and posted in the "Diet and Exercise" forum. The original poster explains that she recently suffered from a stomach bug and didn't eat for 24 hours. Since then, she hasn't had much of an appetite and has only been consuming about 1,000 calories a day. She had already been at a healthy weight, though not thin, and has lost 3 lbs since her illness. She says that she feels great and asks whether this is how skinny people eat. Weight loss topics are popular in the diet forum and many of the posters that frequent the forum have very strong opinions about eating. There are posters who seem convinced that anyone whose diet is even a single calorie short of what they believe is sufficient suffers from an eating disorder. Others believe that all weight gain is a result of eating and weight loss is as simple as controlling your eating. Both viewpoints are expressed very early in this thread. I picture a forlorn DCUM poster who is hoping to get advice about lossing weight sitting at their computer with a small DCUM poster perched on each shoulder. One is telling the poster to "just eat less" and the other is saying, "that's disordered eating". These two popular but irreconcilable positions are what causes threads such as this one to be among the most active. In this case, the discussion transformed a bit into a dispute about nature vs nurture. Some posters argue that weight is genetic and that reduced calories can't do much about that in the long term. Others argue the opposite, suggesting for instance that identical twins can have vastly different weights based on differing diets. Posters link to various studies that make often contradictory claims. Intermixed among all of this are a number of posts that offer differing advice. Some suggest high protein diets, others low protein. Some think that protein should be just right, though of course there is no agreement as to that amount. Probably by now the original poster is sorry that she posted in the first place

Imagine that you were asked to draft the plot of a sensational story, one that would capture the world's attention. You would probably want your story to take place in a well-known location. New York City, for instance. You would obviously want an element of excitement. So, maybe throw in a car chase. But, to really get attention, you will need personalities guaranteed to attract publicity. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, perhaps? So, Harry and Meghan in a car chase through New York City? That would probably work. But, this isn't just a creative figment of someone's imagination, but something that actually happened. Or, did it? The most active thread on DCUM yesterday was titled, "Prince Harry and Meghan in Near Catastrophic Car Chase in NYC" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. The title of the thread initially referred to a "Catastrophic Car Crash" before I corrected it, putting what was always destined to be a dumpster fire of a thread off to a confusing start. The very first response was from a poster doubting the veracity of the story, setting the scene for near mortal combat over what had or had not occurred in the streets of New York. I really don't know what it is about this couple that provokes what I assume are perfectly normal people to go completely berserk and post compulsively as if their lives depended on it. But, in less than 24 hours, this thread reached 30 pages. If we could have harvested the energy generated by fingers frantically hitting keyboards yesterday, we could probably completely replace fossil fuels. Multiple posters were in double digits for numbers of posts. A few were over 30. One was 44 and another 48. I wish I could tell you what the thread said, but I have no interest in reading it. However, I am pretty sure that there is post after post by individuals complaining that the Sussexes seek too much attention, all the while giving them attention. Folks, the opposite of good publicity is not bad publicity. It's no publicity. If you don't like these people, ignore them. My only regret is that Harry and Meghan were not driving Mini Coopers. That would have allowed this whole thing to be turned into the next sequel of "The Italian Job".

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "NYTimes: College educated workers are leaving DC due to high housing costs" and posted in the "Real Estate" forum. The original poster linked to an article in the New York Times which reported that several major cities have become too expensive even for those with college degrees and, as a result, those cities are seeing a net outflow of college-educated residents. Washington, DC was one of the cities discussed in the article. The article addresses a concern that is discussed almost constantly in the Real Estate forum — the high cost of housing. For years, posters in the forum have posted their predictions that real estate prices would drop any minute now. But, prices continued to rise. It is perfectly understandable that some would eventually give up on the housing market and look elsewhere. For some reason, a number of posters in the thread were under the impression that those leaving DC were choosing rural areas instead. As a result, there are a number of posts comparing and contrasting rural areas to DC. But, as several posters pointed out, the outflow was mostly to other cities. One of the points in the article was that those making the move were still able to access that same amenities they enjoyed in DC, but more affordably. While some posters were quick to attribute the migration out of DC to crime and the increasingly visible unhoused population, others pointed out that the time period that the Times analyzed was during the pandemic, a time when urban amenities were much less available and working from home was prevalent. Both of those developments decreased the attractiveness of living in DC. Many of the posts in the thread are from posters describing their own personal experiences, several of them having moved from DC to other cities. Those posters seem generally happy with their choices. Other posters, many still living in DC or the environs, use the thread to describe a number of things that they dislike about DC. When it comes to complaints about DC, I understand dissatisfaction with crime or the high cost of living. Those are things outside an individual's control. But one of the most common criticisms I see is about DC residents who the posters describe as "pretentious", "materialistic", or "social climbers". This only describes a very limited subset of DC residents and people with those traits can be found nearly everywhere. If those are the only type of people to whom you are exposed in DC, you need to broaden your horizons. But, regardless of the posters' feelings about the friendliness of those living in DC, the discussion always returned to the cost of housing. There is a sort of "nobody goes there anymore, its too crowded" phenomenon going on. I suppose that as prices continue to grow out of reach of more and more people, they will either have to stabilize or even drop. The constant predictions of exactly this notwithstanding, it doesn't seem to be happening yet.