Wednesday's Most Active Threads

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "Pitt Jolie FINALLY reach divorce settlement" and was posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. The thread is about actress Angelina Jolie and actor Brad Pitt finally reaching a divorce settlement after an 8-year legal battle. The couple were only married for two years, separating in 2016 after an alleged physical altercation during a flight on a private aircraft. My immediate reaction upon seeing that this thread was the most popular of the previous day was to hope that it is not a sign of things to come. Threads about celebrities are my least favorite, and I really hope that this does not foreshadow a year dominated by celebrity threads. This thread is pretty true to form for celebrity threads. Such threads attract posters who are extremely obsessed with the celebrities in question, who generally believe that they have a full grasp of the facts, and who have little tolerance for anyone who disagrees with them. In this case, the divide between Jolie fans and Pitt supporters is such that both groups were able to read the same account of what was said to have occurred on the airplane and come to completely opposite conclusions. Pro-Jolie posters argued that Pitt attacked Jolie and their children. Pitt-backers contend that, actually, Jolie first jumped on Pitt's back. Whether Pitt "hit" or "punched" Jolie is hotly disputed, with some posters pointing out that Pitt was not described as doing either. Rather, he was accused of pushing Jolie into a wall, perhaps in an attempt to get her off his back. The role of gender in the dispute was repeatedly brought up. When some posters criticized Jolie, one poster reacted by saying, "Look at you women, tearing a woman down. Shameful." Another poster argued that "Hollywood is a misogynist rapist town." Both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services investigated Pitt due to allegations of child abuse, but both agencies cleared him. Nevertheless, for some posters, this was just more evidence of how biased the system is against women. This is not the end of the legal disputes between Jolie and Pitt. The couple is still engaged in legal action over a vineyard that they jointly owned. Much of what is known about the divorce proceedings actually came out during the vineyard dispute. Some posters argued that it was the prospect of more information damaging to Pitt being released as part of those proceedings that motivated him to finalize the divorce now. Several posters predicted a quick resolution to the vineyard legal action in order to prevent more details that would reflect poorly on Pitt from being released.

Yesterday's next most active thread was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum and titled, "Gunman kills 10 and wounds dozens in New Orleans truck attack". This thread was created soon after reports emerged of a horrific truck and gun attack on revelers celebrating New Year's in New Orleans. I really hate the tendency of political partisans of all political stripes to immediately grasp upon any event and attempt to spin it for their own ideological purposes. There were examples in this thread of this being done by those from all parts of the political spectrum. However, the first transgression was in the original post by a poster who is anti-gun and liberal, or at least acting as such. The poster ignored the fact that this was primarily a truck attack and referred only to "Gun nutter terrorists" and blamed the Second Amendment. In a subsequent post, the poster claimed that the Republican Party, which he considers beholden to the gun lobby, is responsible for the attack. From the opposite end of the political spectrum, posters attempted to portray the American-born and raised perpetrator as foreign. Others fixated on the ISIS flag that was said to have been found in the truck. This provided an opportunity for some to bash Islam. Individuals who knew the attacker reported that his radicalization is fairly recent. This poses a chicken and egg question concerning whether an interest in committing violence or an attachment to ISIS comes first. It could very well be that a mentally unstable individual who is prone to violence might proclaim an adherence to ISIS or another extremist group despite having no real connection. Now would be a strange time for ISIS to instigate attacks in the U.S., considering that an ISIS-affiliated leader has just taken control of Syria with U.S. support. At any rate, threads such as this really are not aimed at analyzing the facts but rather at scoring political points. Whether that is the original poster who would like to ignore the truck altogether and blame MAGA gun lovers or the Islamophobic nutjobs that are eager to portray the attacker as nothing more than a Muslim extremist who just snuck over the border from Mexico (an untrue allegation that was made in the thread). There is a separate thread about the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas. That incident may well be related.

Next was a thread titled, "Husband is furious at me for telling his mother to stop talking down to me at dinner" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster goes into great detail about an altercation that occurred on New Year's Eve between herself and her mother-in-law. The quarrel was provoked by the original poster looking at her phone during dinner and her mother-in-law rebuking her for the behavior. Due to the resulting conflict, the original poster's husband insisted that they immediately go home, but then left their home to spend the night with friends because he was angry with the original poster. The original poster wants to know who was wrong in this situation. Taking the story at face value, I would think that all three parties involved are wrong. Many people, especially older folks, consider phone usage at the table to be rude. I'd expect the original poster to know whether her mother-in-law feels that way or not. But even not knowing, the original poster should not have been surprised to be scolded. She should have simply accepted the reprimand and gone on with the evening. Instead, both the original poster and her mother-in-law escalated unnecessarily. Finally, the original poster's husband was also completely out of line. But, I'm not sure that the original post can be taken at face value. Wondering if the original poster were a troll, I looked at what other threads she has started. As recently as September, she portrayed herself as a single woman who had wasted several years in an unhealthy relationship and was asking where to meet men interested in marriage. In October, she was in an unhappy marriage and considering divorce. In November, she was married, or had been married (it's not clear), to a "depraved" husband and wanted encouragement that she might find a second marriage. I guess only the first of these is completely contradictory, but that is a lot of background to leave out of the current thread. Regardless of the veracity of the thread, more posters tended to blame the original poster than defended her. Most thought that she was rude to bring the phone to the table and also wrong in how she responded to her mother-in-law. Many pointed out that this did not appear to be the first time that the original poster's husband was angry with her due to her behavior. Possibly sensing the tide was against her, the original poster also posted supportive posts without identifying herself as the original poster.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers" forum. Titled, "Is it cruel to lock my toddler in a dark closet for a couple of minutes?", the original poster describes her two-and-a-half-year-old child as frequently testing boundaries and fighting with her and her husband. The original poster's husband threatened to give the child a time-out, but the child seemed to welcome, if not actually look forward to, the punishment. The original poster's husband then wondered whether shutting the boy in a dark closet for a few minutes might be a more effective punishment. Many posters suggested that this poster might be a troll because they found the idea of shutting a child in a dark closet extremely abusive. These posters must have never dealt with a young child who was misbehaving and completely failing to respond to discipline. I can't say that I would ever attempt such a punishment as this - reason would get the better of me — but I can’t say that such punishments wouldn't have occurred to me. Kids can make you crazy. In fact, one poster said that her child's therapist had recommended shutting their child in a bathroom, albeit not a dark one. However, for the most part, those responding not only rejected a dark closet, but often were opposed to timeouts in a bedroom as well. Posters vehemently argued against these punishments and proposed alternative strategies. As one poster put it, "Time out is sitting in a chair in the same room as you for 2 minutes (appropriate time for a 2-year-old) to calm down and be quiet not crazy." This highlights two distinct understandings of time-outs. For the original poster's husband, the purpose of a time-out is punishment. For the quoted poster, it is to allow the child to calm down. This point was made more clearly by a poster who described herself as a psychologist. She wrote, "Goal of time out is not fear but time out from reinforcement so he doesn't get more attention for negative behavior." In addition, many posters questioned whether the child was receiving enough exercise and sleep. They suggested that the original poster provide more opportunities for her son to be active and to develop good sleep habits. The original poster was pretty adamant that she was already doing both of these things.