DCUM Weblog

Yesterday's most active thread was again the one about the shooting of the UnitedHealthCare CEO that I've already discussed. After that was a thread titled, "Not enough office space: safe from RTO?" and posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum. This is the second day in a row that one of the most active threads has been about federal employees being forced to return to the office. In that thread, as well as several previous threads on this topic that I've discussed, the fact that many federal agencies have reduced office space has come up as an obstacle to returning to the office. The original poster directly addressed that aspect of the issue, saying that her agency was among those that reduced office space and now doesn't have enough for all employees. Moreover, there is no funding to acquire more office space. She wonders if this will make her safe from return-to-office policies. Most of those responding do not think the original poster will be protected. As always in threads of this sort, there are a number of posters who are positively drooling at the thought of federal employees being forced back to their offices. The more painful this is and the more disruption it causes in the employees' lives, the better such posters like it. The idea that federal employees might also be forced like sardines into cramped places without desks is enough for such posters to almost need a cold shower and a cigarette. Many of the responses in this thread were very eye-opening for me. It seems that many federal employees have already gone through returns to the office in which there is no longer a sufficient amount of space. I learned a new term, "hot desk", in which employees scramble for available desks and lose them even if they get up for a meeting. Several posters report that they now work in open environments with desks side by side and face to face. With no privacy, many of the posters say that they have to take telephone calls in their cars. One poster says that her husband, unable to find a desk, works nearly the entire day in his car. Posters who work in the private sector say that this arrangement is increasingly common for them as well. As many posters point out, this situation is not really a bug, but rather a feature. The incoming administration is hoping that federal employees will be incentivized to quit. Some posters report that they did exactly that rather than put up with the insufficient work spaces. Some posters assure the original poster and those like her that she will adapt to such an environment and that she shouldn't be discouraged. Indeed, other posters say that they have adapted. That might require sound-cancelling headphones, constant movements to quieter places for taking calls, or the aforementioned working from their car, but they make it work. The more cynical among us, which most definitely includes me where this topic is concerned, would argue that one of the main motivators of return-to-office policies is the need to fill commercial real estate which otherwise is in danger of collapsing. If agencies are not expanding space, that problem is not going to be addressed. Office building landlords will probably need to trek to Mar-a-Lago in order to convince President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump that the federal government needs more office space.

Yesterday's most active threads returned to a more familiar situation in which several were threads that I've already discussed and will skip today. That included the most active thread of the day, which was about the school shooting in Wisconsin. The next most active thread was titled, "GA & MLS NEXT Form Strategic Alliance" and posted in the "Soccer" forum. This thread was a bit of a challenge for me to decode due to the alphabet soup employed throughout the thread to identify various soccer-related entities. For those, like me, who do not speak "soccerese", I can translate the thread's title thusly: "Girls Academy and Major League Soccer NEXT Form Strategic Alliance". "Girls Academy" is a girls’ soccer league consisting of a nationwide network of girls’ travel soccer teams. "MLS NEXT" is a boys’ league that is associated with Major League Soccer that, if I understand correctly, is aimed at developing talent for the professional league. Based on my very rudimentary research into these two leagues, this does not appear to be the first time the two groups have announced an alliance. As such, many of the first responses were that this is not a big deal and is nothing new. You really have to have pretty arcane youth soccer knowledge — something that I lack —  to understand this thread. But what I think is behind the interest in the thread is the potential impact of this alliance on another soccer league. That league, Elite Clubs National League or ECNL, is currently the home of many Girls Academy clubs. Many of these same clubs apparently have MLS NEXT boys’ teams. As such, they may be caught between ECNL and MLS NEXT. There may also be clubs in the opposite situation who have Girls Academy teams and ECNL boys’ teams. The concern seems to be that ECNL may suffer as clubs switch to MLS NEXT. While many posters believe that this is a realistic concern, other posters scoff at the idea. One argument that I thought made sense — though, again, I really know nothing about this topic — is that Girls Academy and ECNL are focused on a development path that leads to college soccer teams, while MLS NEXT aims to develop professional talent. Right now, women's professional soccer is not all that attractive — at least according to some posters in this thread — and the emphasis on college is more appealing to girls. A thread about ECNL's plans to change the age cut-off for which teams players should join has been among the most active threads for months. That issue also comes up in this thread with some posters arguing that Girls Academy will not adopt the same changes and, therefore, will be more compatible with MLS Next. Or, maybe the opposite is true. I was repeatedly confused by the discussion in this thread, so I could very easily have things backwards. The bottom line appears to be that, in many cases, this announcement will change nothing. But, in other cases, clubs may have to make a tough decision, and there are strong arguments in favor of multiple choices for that decision.

For the first time in a long time, none of the top 10 most active threads were ones that I previously discussed. That almost made me feel that something is wrong. The most active thread was titled, "SMU? Really?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. As I have been saying in recent blog posts, we are now in the college admissions season and will have many threads such as this one dealing with admissions decisions. The original poster says that her son applied to Dartmouth University during the early decision round and was turned down. He is now considering Southern Methodist University, and the original poster and her husband are worried about job prospects from a non-elite college and find the choice very disappointing. Unfortunately, the original poster is a troll. Almost immediately after starting the thread, the original poster began posting replies using different personas. Mostly, the original poster posed as a third party responding to the original poster and fluffing SMU as a great college and Dallas as a liberal bastion in conservative Texas. The original poster defended herself from criticism from other posters and, in turn, posted criticism of others. The personas used by the original poster changed, sometimes having a son, sometimes having a daughter, sometimes claiming to live in Dallas, and sometimes claiming to live somewhere else. Looking at other threads started by the original poster — which I subsequently removed — it appears that the original poster has been following this pattern from as far back as August. Since then, the original poster has undergone racial transformation, gender changes, had children who experienced gender changes, and considered a baffling range of colleges. Just yesterday, the original poster started a second thread titled, "Reed v Swarthmore". Strange that a student planning to commit to SMU is also planning an early decision strategy (presumably for next year) for those two schools. Based on the IP addresses used by this poster, my guess is that the poster is a college student who is currently home for winter break. If so, it is sad that trolling DCUM is the best way the individual has found to spend their free time. As an anonymous website, DCUM is very easy to troll. It really takes no talent. However, as this poster shows, if you do it long enough, you will eventually be caught. Perhaps that doesn't matter, but hopefully, the karmic effect of a significant number of people simultaneously thinking you are a loser will have some impact.

I'm starting with the third most active thread over the weekend because the first two were ones that I've already discussed. This thread was titled, "UVA ED on Friday at 5 pm" and posted in the "College and University Discussion". As I have written in the past few blog posts, we are now in the college admissions season and there will be several threads of this nature. This thread was about the University of Virginia's early decision admissions decisions. As frequent readers of this blog will have read many times, early decision is a type of admissions that limits students to one application and requires a commitment to attend the school if they are accepted. Because colleges know that applicants are serious and almost certain to attend if accepted, early decision is often a student's best chance of being admitted to their preferred college or university. The original poster of this thread posted early in the week saying that the University of Virginia would be releasing its results on Friday at 5 p.m. Even before the results were released, a collection of statistics about early decision applications was provided. If there is one thing the DCUM college admissions fantasy league participants love, it's stats. As such, posters quickly obsessed over this data. Moreover, it was notable that at this point in the thread, most of the posters didn't appear to have kids who were current applicants. Rather, the thread was full of posters who, for whatever reason, are simply interested in college applications statistics. Just after 5:00 p.m., posters who did have children applying began posting their results. Almost immediately, the thread devolved into a debate about football because one of the applicants who was accepted was a football player. One poster was particularly upset that a "football player" had taken a coveted UVA spot from another student who might have gotten in on academic merit. Another unwelcome aspect of threads of this sort is the influx, or at least the suspected influx, of trolls. There always seem to be posts claiming that a student was accepted with very low stats and other posts claiming a student with extremely high qualifications was rejected. Such results do seem to have some regularity due to the coin-toss nature of admissions, so these could be legitimate posts. However, many posters are certain such posters are trolls. Frankly, I don't care enough at this point to check. Moreover, maybe I am just in a bad mood or something this morning, but far too many of the posters in this thread seemed overly invested in their kids' colleges. Posters referred to colleges as "our" school and talked about how "we" will be doing such and such in college. When a parent of a student who was rejected wrote, "We are moving on to the next school with our head held high!" a poster responded saying, "Unless you and your child share a head, you should probably dial it back...". After this, the thread deteriorated even more and I gave up reading it. While there were posts about students being accepted and others rejected, that was not always a clear focus of the discussion. What is clear is that almost everyone believes that they were discriminated against for one reason or another.

I am starting with yesterday's fourth most active thread because the first three most active threads were ones that I've already discussed. This thread was titled, "I am talking to a lot of Democrats who want Trump to succeed." and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster says that he has friends and family who voted for Vice President Kamala Harris but who now want President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump to succeed in implementing his agenda. The original poster further says that they are hoping that those who voted for Trump will learn a lesson. He also indicates that many of these individuals are business people and professionals who will benefit from expected Trump tax cuts. The idea that Trump voters have "f'd around" and now will "find out" has been popular from the minute the presidential election results were known. The irony of the election is that Harris was popular among well-educated, generally affluent voters while Trump gained support from working-class voters. Many think that Trump's proposed policies will fall hardest on those less educated and less well-off individuals. The better-off Harris voters believe that they can survive Trump's policies while his voters will suffer. The reality is that Trump's support included many from the working class, but it also consisted of many among the most wealthy in the country. Indeed, Trump has picked a record number of billionaires for top spots in his incoming administration. The view among many Harris voters is that those wealthy individuals will now proceed to essentially loot the country and create policies that benefit themselves. While I understand the motivation to hope that Trump voters get what they asked for, I am not sure that it is actually a good position to take. On a moral level, some of Trump's policies will likely result in tremendous human suffering. While some of those who will probably feel the pain are likely Trump voters, many are not. We shouldn't support suffering for anyone, in any case. Not even for our political opponents. But even on a practical level, we must hope that Trump's worst ideas are not implemented. Trump critics are correct that Trump probably won't succeed in lowering the cost of eggs, and well-healed Harris voters probably won't mind. But in other respects, Harris voters won't be so isolated. There is an expression that a rising tide raises all ships. The corollary is that a lowering tide will ground a lot of ships that were otherwise thought to be safe. We might be able to absorb rising egg prices, but we can't escape a polluted environment, crumbling infrastructure, or a collapsing government. If Trump's proposed Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is successful in his war against vaccines, our children and grandchildren will suffer just as much as those of the working class. This is not a time for emotion, but rather when rationality is most needed. Let's support Trump in those few cases where his policies are likely to improve our country, but in other cases, we must oppose him regardless of the satisfaction of seeing his supporters suffer might bring.

The four most active threads yesterday were all ones that I've previously discussed. Therefore, I am starting with what was yesterday's fifth most active thread. Titled, "What is the Republicans' whole ‘return to office’ obsession?" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, the original poster has composed a lengthy screed on the topic of federal workers returning to the office. The post seems to be heavily influenced by a commentary published by the Federal News Network to which the original poster linked and which singles out Iowa Senator Joni Ernst for efforts to bring an end to work-from-home policies. Working from home and returning to the office have been the topics of several popular threads, and I have discussed a number of them in this blog. I've even written about efforts to force federal employees to return to the office in recent weeks. As such, I've already discussed much of what is in this thread. One thing that does distinguish the original poster's contribution from earlier threads is his presentation of data that shows that working from home has been studied repeatedly and shown to be more efficient than working in an office. The data contradicts many of the claims made by Ernst. For instance, Ernst has claimed that only 6% of federal employees work in person full-time. However, an August 2024 report by the Office of Management and Budget explains that fully 50% of federal employees are not even eligible for telework. Among those who are eligible, 61% of their work hours are conducted on-site. But what this thread demonstrates is that topics such as this are more often influenced by vibes and anecdotal experience rather than data. For instance, one opponent of working from home stated, "Republicans are pro-business, and WFH [work from home] is not efficient and reduces productivity. I don’t care what anyone says." Apparently, there are no amount of studies that would change this poster's opinion. The original poster is curious about Ernst's motivation for championing this issue. That's a good question. One would think that Ernst might have an interest in promoting Iowa as a low-cost-of-living area that could be attractive to federal employees working remotely. Instead, she appears to be more aligned with First Lady Elon Musk and failed businessman Vivek Ramaswamy in their efforts to use return-to-office policies to encourage federal workers to quit and, thereby, reduce the size of the federal workforce. This is probably the least efficient means of achieving efficiency imaginable. Part of the problem is that the question of where and when federal employees work does not exist in a vacuum. Republicans have devoted years to demonizing federal workers, and such attacks have been internalized into their ideology. Accusing them of abusing work-from-home policies is just one more example. In many cases, there is hope that the jobs can be privatized, perhaps to the benefit of Republican donors. Even someone like District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser, normally a strong proponent of the federal workforce, is supporting a return to office because she is worried about the impact of missing federal employees on DC's downtown businesses. This issue goes well beyond simple efficiency and accountability.

The most active thread yesterday continued to be the thread about the murder of the UnitedHealthCare CEO. After that was a thread titled, "Enough is enough with the redshirting!" and posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum. The original poster is very frustrated because there are two 10-year-olds in her child's 3rd-grade class. She wants to know when schools will draw the line with redshirting. As I assume everyone knows, "redshirting" is the practice of either starting a child later in school or holding them back a year after they started. I assume that the original motive for redshirting was to ensure that kids were placed in a grade that was more developmentally appropriate for them. However, it is now widely believed that many children are redshirted in order to gain academic or athletic advantages despite there being no developmental justification for doing so. In a subsequent post, the original poster said that over half the children in her child's class are redshirted. Redshirting is one of the most controversial topics on DCUM, and threads on the topic are always hotly debated. This is at least the fifth thread that has been among the most active threads that I have discussed. As such, I am well-versed in the two sides. To her credit, the original poster has nuanced views on redshirting. Despite her evident frustration, she is not against the practice and never really suggests clear limitations that she believes should be implemented. In many ways, this thread is just an opportunity for her to vent about her concern that redshirting has become too widespread. If I have a criticism of the original poster's views on redshirting, it is that she is too fixated on age. She supports redshirting for kids who just passed the cutoff and would be the youngest in their classes but questions it for kids with summer birthdays. Wouldn't an approach that takes each child's individual developmental progress, including academic and athletic abilities, into account be more appropriate? Essentially, redshirting has become another aspect of competitive parenting. For some parents, the road to an Ivy League university begins at preschool, and one aspect of that is gaining an advantage through redshirting. Those supportive of redshirting argue that age is an arbitrary metric that does not necessarily reflect the developmental stage of a child. Many of these posters support redshirting when a child's specific needs support the measure. Other posters, however, contend that children are not ready for school at 4 or 5 years of age. As one poster says, "it’s irresponsible and totally unsupported by science to put a 4 y/o at a desk all day...The best schools in the world start kids at six." While the original poster and several others with similar views are suspicious of the motivations of parents who redshirt, this poster turns things around saying, "*not* redshirting your kid is bad parenting." Based on the posts in this thread, it appears that in some schools there has almost been an arms race involving redshirting. A few kids are held back due to their level of development, some are close to the cutoff and their parents prefer for them to start school later, some are redshirted due to the belief that it will provide academic and athletic advantages, and at some point the number of redshirted kids reaches critical mass. Students who weren't redshirted and might have normally been among the oldest in their class find themselves among the youngest. This leads to some of their parents redshirting, resulting in the circumstances that have upset the original poster.

The most active thread yesterday was the thread about the murder of the UnitedHealthCare CEO, which I've already discussed. After that was a thread titled, "The insanity of 1%er East Coast parents and college", and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster says that she has been observing several "1%ers" — meaning families in the top 1% of income levels — go through the college admissions process and "It is INSANE". She then went on to say that the families should calm down because their kids are "super privileged" and will be fine regardless of the college they end up attending. Simply in terms of technicalities, according to current data I just Googled, the top 1% in the U.S. consists of those with incomes above $819,324. While it is never possible to be completely sure, it is likely that some DCUM posters are in that group, and certainly there are plenty of 1%ers in the DC area. The top 5% includes those with incomes above $335,891 and probably describes significantly more DCUM posters. While many posters agreed with the original poster, others objected and suggested that she was simply jealous. One poster was apparently so upset by the original poster's very mild criticism of the top 1% that the poster suggested that the original poster deserved physical harm. That, of course, proved the original poster's point that some of these folks need to mellow out. Fundamentally, there is a difference of perspective about how the college admissions process is viewed. The original poster and those who agree with her believe that 1%ers look at elite college admissions as something that they deserve because of their wealth. They have always tried to provide the best for their children, and only an elite college will suffice as the best in this instance. According to the original poster, such families are stressed and panicking, even going "stark raving mad" in fear that their kids will not be accepted by a top school. The view held by the top 1% — or top 5% as it may actually be on DCUM — is that the panic is entirely justified. These families believe that, far from being privileged, they are actually disadvantaged when it comes to college admissions. As they see it, unless their kids are legacies, athletes, or have some other hook for admissions, their chances of admission are slim because the elite universities are looking for diversity and more likely to choose a poor farm kid from the plains or a racial or ethnic minority applicant. Added to this is the view — explicitly stated in the thread — that while state universities might be okay for others, such schools would be a humiliation for elite families. When the original poster says that these kids will be fine regardless of where they go to school, a poster replied back saying, "Fine is for normies". As always, generalizations have their limits. I doubt that every 1% family panics over college admissions and there are probably some who are perfectly happy to see their children attend state universities. Moreover, the panic over admissions is not limited to the top income families. We see it at all income levels on DCUM. But there is something particularly galling about those who have had every advantage complaining that they lack privilege all of a sudden.

The two most active threads over the weekend were the thread about the murder of the UnitedHealthCare CEO and the ECNL soccer league age cutoff changes. Since I've already discussed these two, I'll start today with the third most active thread which was titled, "UGA EA Stats and decisions dates" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. This thread is about the University of Georgia and its Early Action round of admissions. We are now into the college admissions season and we can expect threads of this sort to frequently be among the most active until late Spring. Most of the college admissions excitement at this time of the year involves Early Decision applications. Students are only allowed to submit one Early Decision application and must make a binding commitment to attend the university if they are accepted. Early Action admissions shares the earlier deadlines and release of results of Early Decision, but doesn’t have the one application limit or the required commitment. Still Early Action allows students to target their preferred schools and determine in advance whether they need to resort to alternative choices. The original poster started this thread back in early November. Unless the original poster was hoping to demonstrate how neurotic some parents get when it comes to college admissions — something she succeeded at doing whether it was intentional or not — she really made a mess of things. First of all, she started the thread by posting nothing but a link, something that is prohibited by DCUM's guidelines and something that would normally cause me to delete the thread. I am leaving the thread alone this time only because of all the posters who posted over the weekend and who would be disappointed to see the thread disappear. Even worse, for reasons that I cannot begin to comprehend, the original poster engaged in blatant sock puppeting. After starting the thread with just a link, she later posted her daughter's grade point average, test score, and other admissions data. She then went on to reply as if she were a different poster to her own post several times. Saying in one post that she didn't think the girl would be accepted and in another post saying she thought she would be accepted. Imagine being so obsessed with a college admissions decision that you start a conversation with yourself on DCUM? As for the posts that weren't written by the original poster, a lot of them simply addressed the University of Georgia’s admissions statistics and debated the quality of the school. Some posters insist that it is a top university and even a so-called "public Ivy". Others are not as impressed and don't consider it to be among the top universities. Building up to the 4 p.m. Friday release of results, posters were mostly posting about how difficult it was for them to control their anticipation. Approximately 5 minutes after the release, a poster said that her child had been accepted. After that, there was a steady flow of acceptances and deferrals.

The first thread that I will discuss today was actually the fifth most active yesterday. The four most active were all threads that I've previously discussed. This thread was titled, "New social media trend from Sweden: the 'Soft girl' ?" and was posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster linked to a story published by the BBC that describes what they call a "new trend" in Sweden that involves women quitting work and basically becoming housewives, though in most cases they actually appear to be house girlfriends. The original poster was initially horrified by this idea, but then thought that it might actually be good and is intrigued. This thread was the first that I've heard of this so-called trend, but as soon as I read the BBC article, I was ready to blast out a post loaded with my opinions of both the article and the trend. However, I disciplined myself enough to at least look at the replies and realized that everything that I was going to say had already been said. So, let's let the others tell it. First thing, this is not a trend. As one poster wrote, "People (women) have been doing this for a long time. Someone just discovered it for themselves and starting blogging/IGing/TikToking about it, thinking they invented it." Second, it didn't start in Sweden. As other posters pointed out, the original "soft girl" movement started in Nigeria. There is a bit of debate about whether the "soft girl" movement is simply a return to traditional gender roles of the past — or as one poster says, "how human life was for thousands of years". Another poster derides the movement as "a man is the plan". Some posters pointed out that the women highlighted in the article weren't really giving up all that great of careers. One poster wrote, "I would also be happy to quit my job if my jobs were: ‘grocery store, a care home and a factory’, per the article." Another poster agreed, saying, "A lot of these women just don't have great options to begin with." Yet another poster added, "Wouldn't anyone rather stay home, pursue creative outlets, and ‘relax in their feminine’ than empty bed pans or stock shelves?" Many posters simply brush the topic off as nothing but a made-up social media invention. A poster wrote, "Social media trends are painfully stupid." Several posters pointed out the class dimensions of the topic. Traditionally, a life of idle luxury, as one poster says, was only available to "rich women, and during its brief existence, the MC [middle class] women were SAHMs [stay-at-home moms]. LC [lower class] and poor women have always worked." The most common criticism of the "soft girl" idea is that it depends on a partner — normally a man — who is willing to pay for it. This creates a dependence that many posters abhor. As a poster writes, "Yes, let’s encourage women to be financially dependent on men. What could the harm be in that?"