DCUM Weblog

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Git into a huge fight with brother's date at a wedding and ruined dinner" and posted in the "Family Relationships" forum. The original poster describes attending a family member's wedding when, during dinner, her brother's date began discussing politics and making increasingly racist statements. At some point, the original poster began challenging some of the woman's statements, leading to a sort of low-key argument which made others uncomfortable and possibly prompting some of them to leave. Now many people are angry with the original poster, but she refuses to apologize and asks what should be done in these situations. Sadly, but I guess not surprisingly, very few posters sympathize with the original poster. Most of the initial responders suggest that she should have excused herself from the table. But, when the original poster explained that circumstances did not allow that, posters begin to put blame on her. I think the responses in this thread, as well as its length, are illustrative of where our society currently stands with regard to dialogue on race. On the one hand, there is a constant drumbeat that society is "woke" and even completely innocent statements are being characterized as racist and leading to individuals being wrongly "cancelled". However, at the same time, appeals to racism and increasingly overtly racist statements have become distressingly acceptable and anyone standing against racism is criticized as being "woke" (which for some reason is considered to be bad). More often than not, it is not the borderline or full on racists who are castigated, but those who refuse to tolerate their racism. As such, the original poster is the target of most of the criticism in this thread. Posters argue that the woman's statements probably were not that bad with more than one poster suggesting that she probably said the sort of thing that you might hear on Fox News. Well, exactly. That is part of the problem. Sadly, where much of our society stands right now, anything less than the most blatant racism is supposed to be accepted while those who challenge it are blamed for intolerance. That is clearly demonstrated in this thread. Some posters even appear to take a sort of joy in ridiculing the OP for being offended, implying that she demonstrates a deranged liberal mindset. To be fair, there were a few lonely voices supporting the original poster. Even more posters agreed her brother's date was out of line, though those posters generally felt the original poster handled things poorly.

The most active thread yesterday was the "Brutal week" thread that I discussed yesterday. So, I'll go to the next most active which was titled, "Did your FCPS go on a really pitiful field trip this year to the Smithsonian art museum?" and posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. The original poster describes her daughter's field trip during which they visited one of the Smithsonian art museums, but spent less than an hour at the museum and only saw three paintings. This was a huge disappointment. Several other posters responded to say that their children had the same experience. Some explained this by saying the the short trips were necessitated by the need for the buses to return to pick up students from middle schools. Regardless, nobody seemed happy about the experience. Several posters said that their children had been looking forward to the field trip because, due to COVID, they hadn't been on one in years. Later in the thread a couple of posters who said they have chaperoned such trips in the past explained that seeing only three or four paintings is normal, though some described spending longer periods of time in the museum. The discussion eventually grew to include other field trips, especially one to Jamestown and one poster described a field trip to Philadelphia. Much of the discussion focused on the costs of trips and the distances to various locations. I'm a little surprised that the topic of field trips could generate so much discussion, but there seems to be a number of posters for whom field trips are very important.

Today I'll look at the most active threads over the past three days. The most active thread during that period was the thread asking whether private colleges and universities are only for poor people about which I wrote on Friday. So, I'll skip that one today and go to the next most active thread which was also about colleges. Titled, "Colleges removing useless majors" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum, the original poster happily reports that a number of colleges and universities have dropped majors that the original poster considers "useless". Most of these are humanities majors, though one of the universities mentioned is also dropping mathematics. This phenomenon, as well as the original poster's joy over the development, highlights a long-running division in the DCUM college forum and in the discussion of education generally. An increasingly vocal and influential group increasingly views college and university, in the words of one of those responding, as little more than glorified vocational school. There is little appreciation of knowledge for the sake of knowlege or any major that might not immediately lead to lucrative employment. STEM skills are emphasized instead of the humanities which once provided the foundation of advanced education. DCUM has always had a significant number of attorneys participating and a number of them provide responses in this thread in defense of some of the majors being dropped, especially English, arguing that communications is an important skill for many fields. Personally, I am very concerned about this trend, if it is indeed a trend. I am a firm believer in a well-rounded education and I have a great appreciation for the humanities. During a time in which basic facts of history cannot be agreed upon, it is disconcerting that the US may be educating fewer historians. An art major may not develop the next life-changing invention, but life would certainly be changed by the absence of art. I really have a hard time understanding those like the original poster who express actual happiness about these majors being dropped. Obviously, if she doesn't want to study those fields, nobody is forcing her to do so. But why does she take pleasure in fewer opportunities for others ? This is a strange type of thinking that suggests the original poster might benefit from increased exposure to the humanities and a broadened mind.

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "Are top private colleges mainly for poor people now?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. I have repeatedly pointed out that thread after thread in the college forum is based on the premise that the college application process is unfair — it's always biased against whomever is authoring the post. A corollary to this argument is that financial aid is also unfair. The conventional wisdom routinely stated in the forum is that the very wealthy can afford to pay full price for colleges and the very poor receive generous financial aid, but those in the middle neither get aid nor can afford the costs. The original poster takes this a step further and asserts that only the poor are able to attend top private schools. She presents some data without providing a source and the data is later disputed by another poster, who also failed to provide a source. But, I believe the flaws in the original poster's argument are clear even without disputing her numbers. Based on her data, the cutoff for need-based financial aid is $200,000 annual income. Families in this income range are generally not seen as poor, especially outside expensive urban areas. She also ignores the fact that many middle class families amass significant college savings and, therefore, don't require as much financial aid. Also, merit aid may, in many cases, also help close financial gaps. Basically, the original poster proves something that I have noticed to be true for a long time. The best way to create a lengthy thread is not by posting a brilliant post which cannot be disputed in the slightest, but rather to compose a post full of obvious holes and shortcomings. Posters will eagerly respond to the second type in order to address its flaws. In this case, the original poster has provoked 17 pages of posts mostly disagreeing with one or more of her contentions.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Dating a conservative" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster states that she is a woman who "is pretty progressive and liberal and works in gender equity" but has been dating a conservative man and wonders if there would be any long term issues with this relationship. The phrase "gender equity" in this post was a big red flag to me. Therefore I made a quick search for additional posts by the original poster in the thread and didn't find any. That was a second red flag. So I looked at the original poster's other threads. I am reasonably certain that the original poster is actually a man. Moreover, I think the poster has a habit of posting from the point of view of women with whom he is in a relationship. He seems to be struggling with dating and this may be an effort to better understand a woman's point of view. I haven't read much of this 14 page thread, but what I have read probably was disappointing to him if he was hoping for reassurance that a liberal woman might be happy dating a conservative man. I won't bother deleting or locking this thread at this point because, while it was probably started as a bit of a troll thread, the original poster has checked out. Whatever discussion is going on now is entirely between other posters.

Today's post will be a bit briefer than normal because I have another commitment to which I must attend. The two most active threads yesterday were both covered in yesterday's blog post. So, I will skip them today and move on to the next most active thread which was titled, "Youngkin is a book banner" and posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics" forum. The original poster of the thread embedded a tweet describing Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin's appearance on a CNN town hall. According to the tweet, Youngkin said that he would have signed HB 1448 had the VA Senate not blocked the bill. Also according to the tweet, that bill would have allowed Youngkin to ban books that he deemed offensive. Hence, the original poster's description of Youngkin as a book banner. I Googled "HB 1448" myself to see what the bill is all about. It is only one short paragraph in length and calls for the creation model policies dealing with the selection and removal of books from public school libraries. That is a few steps removed from giving Youngkin the power to ban books, so the tweet clearly overstates things. This highlights an ongoing trend in the local politics forum in which a left-leaning poster constantly posts anti-Youngkin posts, often engaging in extreme exaggeration if not outright misinformation. The poster's style mimics much of that to which we have become accustomed to seeing from right-wingers. Personally, I think Youngkin's actions lend themselves to significant justifiable criticism, leaving no need for hyperbole or misstatements and I wish this poster would rein himself in a bit.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "What’s a parenting choice you just cannot understand" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. I am really baffled by the constant threads about things people don't like, don't understand, are tired of, etc. These threads are just excuses to criticize others who then get offended and start arguments. To her credit, the original poster acknowledges that some of her own choices might end up on other's lists. But, in my opinon, she still fails when it comes to empathy. Her example of a parenting choice she doesn't understand is not prioritizing getting a baby or young child enough sleep. Where are the parents who don't want their child to sleep and actually prefer to have a tired baby screaming all the time? They don't exist. For new parents, a child's time asleep is a refuge, it is a welcomed break. Nobody wants less of it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like this is all an effort by the original poster to pat herself on the back for what was apparently a successful effort at sleep training her own child. If this is the case, the original poster's gripe is not that parents don't prioritize sleep, but that they don't address it exactly as she did. In other words, her real complaint is that some parents don't sleep train. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I am pretty sure that if the original poster took time to ask others to explain their choices, they wouldn't be so difficult to understand. In a follow-up post, the original poster stresses that she does understand that some parents don't have choices. For instance, some parents might need to wake a baby at 5 am because of day care or their job and the original poster emphasizes that she is not criticizing this. I'm willing to bet that similar explanations would also satisfy the original poster in 99.9% of the cases. I'm a fan of the adage of not criticizing others if you have not spent time walking in their shoes. As such, I find threads such as this very non-productive. But, I am apparently in a distinct minority since the thread has already reached 36 pages. Since I stopped reading after the third post, I have no idea what the other 35 pages say.

Because I didn't write blog posts over the weekend, today I'll look at the most popular threads over the past three days. The most active thread during that time was titled, "SVB failure" and posted in the "Money and Finances" forum. As anyone with even marginal awareness of current events can guess, this thread is about the failure of the Silicon Valley Bank. The story, as I understand it, is that this bank is popular with venture capitalists who invest in tech startup businesses. These investors require the companies in which they invest to keep their funds in SVB. Apparently during the closed economy of the pandemic, SVB accumulated money that could not otherwise be invested. SVB used that money to purchase bonds and securities which, due to the low interest rates at the time, had low yields. With the rise in interest rates, SVB faced the predicament of either selling the bonds at a loss or sitting on them until maturity, creating a liquidity crisis. According to a Twitter thread by on of the venture capitalist involved, a chat group involving 250 some investors discussed this problem, leading to several of the investors advising their companies to withdrawal their funds from SVB. This provoked a bank run which resulted in the FDIC taking over the bank. Lead-ing venture capitalists took to Twitter to demand that the government protect their deposits. and many companies who lost access to their funds worried about how to pay their bills. I haven't read the entire 27-page thread, but from what I have read, the discussion mirrors much of the general discourse on this topic. Some posters see the sky as falling and stress the dangers of SVB's collapse. Others take a "let it fail" approach and express fatigue with government bailouts. Eventually, discussion turned toward possible solutions and then analysis of the government's statement that it will safeguard deposits through measures that will not require taxpayer funds. Not every poster is necessarily onboard with this solution, but there seems to be a general understanding that the government would be forced to do something.