Tuesday's Most Active Threads
Yesterday's topics with the most engagement included another school snow day, President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump's press conference, fully functioning adults being diagnosed with autism, and a husband who lost at credit card roulette.
Threads about school snow days have been among the most active for the past two days. As they say, three is a charm. So, lucky us, today another snow day thread is the first to be discussed. The most active thread yesterday was actually the same thread that was the most active on Monday and the first one that I discussed yesterday. The second most active was another thread that I previously discussed, the one about Blake Lively. Skipping those means that the first thread for today was titled "MCPS delayed Wednesday?" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. This thread was started by a teacher who lives in Frederick County, Maryland, but who teaches in the Montgomery County Public Schools system. She says that the roads where she lives have all been cleared, but she wants to know how things are in Montgomery County and whether there is likely to be a delayed opening today. This post immediately highlighted an anomaly with this storm. The storm band was fairly narrow and didn't reach very far north. Whereas it is normally the northern sections of Montgomery County that get hit the hardest by snowstorms and are the long pole in the tent, so to speak, for getting the system back up and running, this time it is the central and southern parts of the county. While posters in northern Montgomery County and, like the original poster, further north have cleared streets, many posters in Bethesda and downtown Silver Spring have yet to see a plow. Generally speaking, once a parent's own street is clear, they are ready for their kids to go back to school and they have little concern for those who are still snowed in. As a result, there is an immediate division between those whose streets have been plowed and those whose streets haven't. Moreover, there are disagreements about how much hardship should be endured in order to get kids to school. Some posters expect fully cleared sidewalks and streets free of any hint of snow or ice. Others complain about the current generation of "soft" kids who are unable to handle a little snow. These posters typically hail from upstate New York and proverbially walked 8 miles to school in 12 feet of snow. Up hill both ways, of course, and at a time before snow plows had even been invented. To those posters’ chagrin, fairly early in the afternoon, MCPS announced that schools would be closed today. Then the blame game began. Teachers were blamed for being lazy and preferring to sit home drinking hot chocolate instead of teaching, despite the fact that they had no say in the decision. MCPS was blamed for not clearing parking lots and school sidewalks, although posters reported that they were, in fact, clear. Montgomery County was blamed for not clearing roads quickly enough. Some posters, likely more accurately, simply blamed the storm which had dumped enough snow that it was taking a while to clear. Then the discussion turned to what this would mean for the school calendar. The closures meant that the planned snow day allotment had been used up and that something would need to change to make up for another day. Basically, posters preferred any solution that didn't impact their own interests. Often, those posters were in favor of taking away a professional day or a holiday that they personally don't celebrate. Teachers, on the other hand, want their professional day, which they use for grading. They generally prefer extending the school year by a day.
The next most active thread yesterday was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "Trump’s press conference", the original poster is astonished that President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump used his press conference to discuss a number of controversial, and in cases, outlandish ideas. The original poster specifically mentioned that Trump said that he would change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, he complained about the need to run washing machines 4 times to get things clean, and Trump talked about whales being killed by wind turbines. Not mentioned by the original poster was that Trump did not rule out the use of force against Denmark in order to get possession of Greenland. At least one poster was impressed with Trump, writing that "Trump’s knowledge of every issue is phenomenal." Most posters, however, were not impressed with either Trump or his knowledge of issues. There was considerable dispute about the issue of offshore wind turbines with at least one poster agreeing with Trump that they might be killing whales. Other posters disagreed that this was happening and, regardless, argued that there were much larger threats to whales that did not seem to concern Trump. Trump has previously complained that wind turbines kill a lot of birds and that they cause cancer. Most posters probably have forgotten or didn't know in the first place that Trump's hatred of wind turbines goes back to 2014 when he purchased a golf course, now named Trump International Golf Links, Scotland, in Menie, Scotland. He immediately took legal action against a project to construct offshore wind turbines that he believed would hurt the view. Trump ultimately not only lost multiple legal actions, but was forced to pay the Scottish government's legal fees. He has hated wind turbines ever since and his contrived concern about whales, birds, and cancer should not be taken seriously. Posters in the thread also spent a considerable amount of effort debating changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico. For many, this demonstrated that Trump has no plan to confront real problems facing our nation. Trump campaigned on saying that he would lower the price of groceries, a commitment from which he has already backed down. Posters ask how renaming the Gulf will help with the price of eggs. Others debate historical developments and legal or other justifications for changing the name. One thing that this press conference highlights is that Trump is not a political leader in the traditional sense. Rather, he is a performer. He does not judge success by whether he improves people’s lives or makes the world a better place. Rather, what matters to him is whether or not he gets positive television coverage. He uses press conferences to appeal to his fans, knowing that the captive right-wing media will glorify his every word. This works for him as the positive comments in the thread demonstrate. What it is not going to do, however, is lower the price of eggs.
The next most active thread was titled, "Why am I so annoyed by all these fully functional adults getting diagnosed with Autism?" and posted in the "Kids With Special Needs and Disabilities" forum. The original poster appears to be the parent of a child with special needs. She says that in her family's journey, she has seen many children who are unable to undertake basic tasks due to autism. Yet, she now witnesses fully functioning adults receiving autism diagnoses. The original poster contends that anyone can essentially go to a doctor, describe a few symptoms, and be diagnosed with autism. She says that adults are doing this because they want to portray themselves as different on social media. Many of those responding say that they are not aware of a social media trend involving adults being diagnosed as autistic. However, a number of posters agree with the original poster that some prominent social media personalities have been diagnosed as such and have focused their entire persona on their autism. One issue is that autism is viewed as existing on a spectrum and regardless of where one might exist on the spectrum, the diagnosis is the same. Some posters are upset that children who are non-verbal and cannot be potty-trained are diagnosed the same as a fully functioning adult. They suggest that a different name be given for those on the more functional end of the spectrum. Some posters say that they have family members who are highly functional but have autism. These individuals can hold jobs, have normal conversations, and may not appear autistic to most who interact with them. However, at home their autism is the source of many problems. These posters object to the suggestion that autism diagnoses in these cases are not legitimate. The original poster, along with a few other posters, still insist that there are fully functional adults who are perfectly normal, or nearly so, who are being diagnosed because it is trendy. Some posters argue that this is really just a social media phenomenon and, outside social media, fully functioning adults are not getting unnecessary autism diagnoses. They suggest simply getting off social media if this sort of thing bothers you. Where real differences appear is between posters who claim that adult diagnoses are likely justified and those who argue that simple quirks are now being considered enough to be considered autism. One of the strongest, and most frequent, objections to the original poster was from those who say that you really can't tell what is going on in a person's personal life. There are repeated examples of adults who most would consider totally normal but who have a number of struggles in their private lives due to autism. Throughout this thread's existence, I received reports about it. Some posters objected to the thread being allowed at all. Others complained about specific posts. Eventually, I locked the thread mostly to stop the reports, and I didn't really have a good reason beyond that for locking it.
The final thread that I will discuss today was originally posted in the "Off-Topic" forum, but I moved it to the "Money and Finances" forum. I hadn't read the thread when I moved it (I acted upon multiple reports suggesting that I move the thread), and I am now wondering if it might be better in the relationship forum. At any rate, the thread is titled, "DH lost Credit card roulette...". The original poster says that she and her husband were out with neighborhood moms and dads, and her husband lost at "credit card roulette". I have never heard this phrase, but apparently, it is some sort of game to determine who must pick up the tab. The original poster's husband lost, but his credit card was declined. This was understandably very humiliating for the original poster. Moreso because she didn't know that her husband had a large outstanding debt — it turns out to be $4,500 over his credit limit — on the card. The original poster wants advice about what to do, saying that the fact that her husband was keeping financial information from her is a huge red flag. I'm not sure that the original poster received much help from this thread. A large number of the responses were asking to have "credit card roulette" explained. Once they were told that it is a game in which everyone puts their credit card on the table, and the waiter picks one, posters then expressed their opinions about the game. In general, those opinions were not positive. The fact that many posters thought playing credit card roulette was stupid did not really address the original poster's issue. The next largest group of responses questioned how it was possible to get that far over a credit card's limit. This led to a significant number of accusations that the original poster is a troll. Looking at the original poster's posts in this thread, I see that a few are fairly sketchy. There was one case of clear-cut sock puppeting that was so blatant that it does suggest this scenario might be invented. The poster also has an odd posting history, though there is nothing that really directly contradicts this thread. The original poster later said that she had discovered additional debt that her husband had hidden from her and that she was going to take a number of steps to establish greater financial independence. In addition to everything else making this thread a farce, a poster showed up claiming to be the original poster who probably was not. At least the original poster said the post was not from her, and I can confirm that the post was from a different IP address, but who knows what to believe about this thread?