DCUM Weblog

The two most active threads yesterday were the Speaker of the House thread and the thread about Prince Harry's book. But, since I've already discussed those threads, I'll move on to a thread titled, "Anyone else here struggle with your feelings about ppl who don’t work?" and posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum. This thread, which managed to rack up 13 pages in a single day, discusses the original poster's feelings towards what I believe are stay at home moms, though she doesn't identify them that way. The original poster says that she works very hard at a well-paying job and disliked the period in which she stayed home to care for her children. She is upset by social media posts from friends who don't have jobs and whose kids are in school. She wants to know what is triggering her. Regardless of the original poster's intentions, the thread is really little more than a dressed up stay-at-home-moms vs work-out-of-the-home moms debate of which DCUM has had countless. I wouldn't say that the arguments are any different from any previous discussions, though the discourse does seem to be a bit more highbrow than usual. However, that impression might just reflect selective reading on my part. The thread also has its low points such as when one poster unwisely describes those who don't have jobs as "parasites".

I knew that it was going to happen, I could see it coming, but that makes it no less disappointing that yesterday's most active thread was about Prince Harry's book. Titled, "Spare" (just like the book) and posted in "The DCUM Book Club" forum, the thread is nearly 40 pages long already. Obviously I am not going to read 40 pages. For that matter, I'm not going to read even 4 pages of this thread. What I can say is that very few posts have been reported so either fans of the Sussex dual have grown surprisingly tolerant of the haters or the couple's detractors have failed to find their way over from the Entertainment forum. Mind you, the book is not even available to read yet so all of these posts are either based on excerpts or just posters' general feelings about Harry and Meghan. Once people are actually able to get their hands on a copy, there will likely be a lot more posts so this thread or others like it will probably continue for some time.

Just a reminder that I skip threads that have already been included in earlier blog posts. Yesterday, for example, the top two most active threads were the thread about the Speaker of the House vote that I described yesterday and the weight loss drugs thread from earlier this week. I won't discuss them again. The thread that followed those two sort of fell into a loophole. It was on a topic about which I recently wrote, but is a new thread. So, technically, It can be included today. Titled, "Governor Glenn Youngkin Calls for Attorney General Jason Miyares to Investigate the Leadership of Th" and posted in the "Advanced Academic Programs (AAP)" forum. The title has a typo — the school concerned is the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology or TJ — and, as I wrote last week, there is a controversy surrounding the school's notification of awards given to some TJ students. Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has now asked Virginia's Attorney General Jason Miyares to investigate the allegations. This seems like a blatant misuse of power to me and part of a worrisome trend that Youngkin and Miyares have shown toward investigating schools. Not everyone shares my opinion, of course, and a range of views are presented in the thread. But, like almost all TJ threads, this one eventually became little more than a rehashing of the oft-repeated arguments about the school's admission policy. Since that debate has been well-covered in other threads, I locked this one.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Speaker of the House Vote Thread" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. For those who avoid news about politics in the way that I avoid news of the British Royal Family, yesterday Republicans were supposed to elect a new Speaker of the House. California Republican Representative Kevin McCarthy had not only measured the drapes, he had already moved into the Speaker's office. But, to paraphrase ESPN host Chris Berman, that's why they have a vote. Not only did McCarthy fail to get elected speaker, on three consecutive votes Democratic Representative Hakeem Jeffries actually came out ahead in the vote count. But, since no candidate received a majority of those voting, no one was elected. The failure to elect a speaker stalled all other work by the House — Members could not even be sworn in — so the US does not currently have a functional House of Representatives. The DCUM thread documented the play-by-play on the Hill as it happened, intermixed with commentary and opinion. While the intrigue surrounding the voting may have had something in common with "The Game of Thrones", it lacked the drama of a George R. R. Martin novel. A dragon or two would have gone a long way to spice things up.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Husband refuses to help with night feedings" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster and her husband have a newborn baby that wakes several times a night for feeding. The couple initially split feeding duties so that both were allowed decent stretches of sleep at night. But, the husband has now returned to work and decided that he should no longer wake up for night feedings, leaving it all to the original poster. The original poster is struggling with the lack of sleep, thinks her husband is being unreasonable, and believes he should still be responsible for one night feeding. Their disagrement on this issue led to a big fight and the original poster seeks advice and support. Those responding largely fall into two camps: 1) those who agree that the original poster's husband is being unreasonable and that he should either split duties or hire someone to provide assistance, either as a night nurse or for household help to allow the original poster more time to nap; and 2) those who support the husband who they think deserves to sleep through the night because he has to work and doesn't have time to take naps during the day. Of course, the standard advice for all relationships in this forum is to get a divorce and such advice is also offered. However, the original poster, sleep-deprived though she may be, is still lucid enough to soundly reject that suggestion.

Today I'll look at the most active threads over the weekend. Coming in at number 1 was a thread titled, "Feel terrible about my finances after reading this site" and posted in the "Money and Finances" forum. The original poster explains that he and his wife immigrated to the US, landing in northern Virginia, after he completed a PhD program. He now works as an engineer while his wife is a stay at home mom. After reading posts in the DCUM finance forum, he feels that his finances, especially retirement savings, are in terrible shape. As things stand, he plans to rely on his daughter, whose education he took out loans to finance, to support him and his wife in their retirement. But, wait, there's a plot twist. On page 12 of the thread the original poster reveals that she is actually the daughter in this scenario. She works in investment banking and hates the job, but feels tied down due to her parent's expectation that she support them. In a later post she explains that her purpose in starting the thread was to get feedback on whether to remain in investment banking or not. This could have been done in a simple straight-forward manner without the subterfuge. Moreover, I found a few posts in which the original poster sock puppeted. Several of her posts criticized "white" families and in one case she had the audacity to accuse another poster of trolling. Basically, there are a ton of things wrong with this thread and the original poster's conduct. As a result, I've just locked the thread.

Happy New Year to the half dozen or so readers of this blog. I didn't think anyone would bother to read it so I'm thrilled to have even a small number of readers. I'm going to change things up a bit today. I would ordinarily write about the four most active threads of the past week. However, I've already written about all but three of the top ten. With today marking the first day of a new year, I thought I would look at the most active threads of 2022. I'll look at the top 10, but write less about them than I normally do in order to keep this post to a reasonable length.

As is fitting for this sort of countdown list, I'll start in reverse order. In position number 10 of last years most active threads was, drumroll please, a thread titled, "2022 HS Boys Game Results" and posted in the "Lacrosse" forum. This thread was started on March 3 of last year and hasn't been updated since June 17th. But, if you are interested in reading 158 pages about lacrosse game results, we've got you covered.

I've repeatedly written in these posts that I hate generational labels which I consider to be useless designations that obscure more than they reveal. Therefore, I was not at all happy this morning to discover that yesterday's most active thread, posted in the "Off-Topic" forum, was titled "GenX". The title may as well have been "Let's troll Jeff". The original poster asks why writers skip GenX when writing about generations. The first response is partially correct, saying "People are dumb", but a fuller answer would be "generational labels are dumb and anyone who writes about them is intellectually lazy and should be expected to miss things." Obviously I am not going to put much energy into reading this thread, but the posts that I did read suggest that people who consider themselves to be Gen X are used to being ignored and, frankly, they don't care. Actually, they like it that way. Like almost all threads involving generational labels, this one appears to mostly consist of fights between boomers and millennials, which sort of proves the original poster's point. The few other posts I forced myself to read generally focus on the experiences of a small number of individuals and assume that reflects the upbringing of the entire generation. It doesn't, which is why these labels are meaningless.

Yesterday's most active thread dealt with another topic in which I simply don't understand the interest. The thread was titled, "Chastised for not tipping on a to go order" and posted in the "Money and Finances" forum. It seems like there are new threads about tipping every few days on DCUM and I am baffled about why. The original poster of this thread describes going to what was apparently a sit-down restaurant and ordering an order to go at the hostest stand. She was presented with a check, which she paid, and was told that the tip was not included. The original poster ignored that remark and left, returning a few minutes later to pick up her food. As she was leaving the restaurant, the waiter who had taken the order called out to her saying that she hadn't left a tip. The original poster is so angry that she is thinking about calling the manager and complaining. Maybe I didn't get a good night's sleep, but I just can't be bothered with this thread at the moment. Why the hell would anyone give this incident a second thought, let alone start a DCUM thread and consider calling the manager? In many places, restaurant wait staff are not paid the minimum wage and, therefore, tips are an important part of their income. The waiter's behavior was inappropriate, but it wouldn't hurt the original poster to have a bit of empathy and perhaps leave a small tip. At any rate, I know that DCUM posters have strong antipathy toward tipping under most circumstances so I expect this poster to have found plenty support.

Yesterday's most active thread was titled "BIL brought dog that growls at children to Christmas dinner" and originally posted in the "Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers" forum. However, after reading a few posts, I moved the thread to the "Family Relationships" forum because the topic wasn't really about children. The original poster writes that her brother-in-law brought a dog to their Christmas dinner even though he had been told not to. The dog has a tendency to grow at children and when it had previously been brought to the family's Thanksgiving dinner, the original poster spent most of her time trying to protect her children from the dog. This time the dog was kept outside due to the original poster's insistance, though she ended up leaving the dinner early with her baby because of the dog. The original poster is considering reporting the dog to the city and wants to know if this is an overreaction. Initially posters were mostly sympathetic to the original poster though some were confused about what the dog could be reported for and/or whether reporting it would do anything. But, as the original poster revealed more details, posters started to side more with her brother-in-law based on the fact that the dog had been kept outside at Christmas and not growled and any children at that time. Some posters even began questioning the original poster's actions, saying that the root of the issue is that she doesn't like her in-laws and the dog was just a pretext for getting angry. For her part, the original poster is adamant that the dog presented a threat and that she was acting solely in the interest of safety and any suggestion otherwise is "gaslighting", a term with which anyone reading this thread will become quite familiar.