Thursday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "B-CC lockdown" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, which was the scene of a person allegedly carrying a weapon on Monday, went into lockdown yesterday around 11:30. To say that communication was inadequate is to massively understate things. There was literally no communication other than the fact that the school was locked down. Montgomery County police responded as if they were storming the beaches of Iwo Jima, arriving in an armored vehicle, dressed in fatigues, body armor, kevlar helmets, and carrying assault-style rifles. Needless to say, this sent panic through the B-CC community. Communication was so bad that B-CC teachers, one hiding in a closet, were using DCUM to try to find out what was going on. In the absence of real information, rumors swirled. At some point it was announced that there had been a "threat", but what what type of thread was not specified. Multiple posters said that it had been a bomb threat. Others said that the threat had been issued by the same individual seen with a weapon on Monday and that he was in the principal's office negotiating. Later it was reported to have been a "swatting" incident in which a fake call had been made by someone claiming to be in the school with a rifle and pipe bombs. For hours there was mass confusion. Many kids had been outside the building for lunch when it was locked down. Others were stuck in school. Worried parents had no idea what they should do and many rushed to the school. Other posters tried to calm everyone down, but with little success. Posters could not understand why the school would be locked down rather than evacuated in response to a bomb threat. This was explained subsequently when it was learned that the threat also involved a gun. The two recent incidents have parents at their absolute wits' end. They are frustrated with the school's principal, they are frustrated with MCPS administration, they are frustrated with the Board of Education, they are frustrated with the County Board, they are frustrated with the County Executive, and they are frustrated that, as far as they can tell, nothing is being done to fix things. This all culminates in feelings of helplessness and most off all, the parents are frustrated about that. From what I can deduce from posts in this thread, the discussion on the school's mailing list was out of control and even caused the school's PTSA president to announce that she will not serve next year. With regard to both Monday's incident and yesterday's, the school and school system seem to be hurting themselves and increasing parent disenchantment by not being more forthcoming with information. Based on some posts in this thread, it is possible that Monday's event was much less than it has been described and that there may not have been a weapon at all. But anger over the lack of response in that incident may have contributed to the large scale response in this case, which according to the last reports was triggered by a call from hundreds of miles away and probably should have been treated more skeptically. School officials clearly need to do a better job of explaining what they are doing and why they are doing it, and do this in a timely manner.

The next most active thread was posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. Titled, "14-year-old son wants a circumcision", the original poster says that her son has told her that "girls think it's gross" when boys are not circumcised and, therefore, he wants to have the procedure done. The original poster says that she doesn't know what to do. Circumcision is one of the most controversial topics ever posted on DCUM and the threads never turn out well. In direct response to the original poster, a number of posters argue that it is her son's body and he should be able to chose what is done to it and, therefore, she should go along with his desire. Others suggest taking him to a urologist and having the pros and cons explained to him before coming to a decision. Still others urge the original poster to tell her son that he must wait until he is 18 years old to make such a decision. Finally, there are posters who are opposed to circumcision in all cases and argue that it is a brutal and unnecessary procedure that should be avoided. As far as I can tell, the original poster did not post any follow-ups and I am not sure if she returned to the thread at all. Meanwhile discussion devolved to debates about issues that were, at best, only vaguely on topic. Many posters disagreed with the alleged opinion of 14 year old girls, either preferring or having nothing against, uncircumcised penises. There was a debate about a suspected relationship between attitudes towards circumcision and social class or a possible urban-rural divide. But, the worst diversion was caused by posters comparing male circumcision to so-called female circumcision. As a rule, the more likely someone is to make such a comparison, the less likely they are to know what they are talking about. At least one of those who insisted that the two procedures are the same didn't even appear to have a solid grasp of the female anatomy (especially surprising given she appeared to be female herself). Discussion then veered into opinions and suggestions regarding the aesthetics of other female private parts. I would say that it is surprising that a thread about a 14 year old boy's desire to be circumcised would end up focused on female genitalia, but this is not the first time I have been to DCUM and, as such, I was not surprised at all. Eventually, the thread also turned into an all-out debate about circumcision in general. It is always amazing how posters can simultaneously be informed and uninformed about the topic. For instance, one anti-circumcision poster who was adamant that other posters knew nothing of circumcision practices in Europe appeared to be herself uninformed about the practices of Muslims or Jews and seemed to think that routine circumcision is limited to the US. It was pretty clear that this thread was no longer serving its intended purpose so I ended up locking it.

Next was a thread titled, "Netanyahu on CNBC opposes a two state solution for the Palestenians [sic]". Posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, the original poster suggests that if a two-state solution is not acceptable, that what should be considered is granting Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank "freedoms and citizenship in Israel where they have economic opportunties and political freedoms to vote". This is the so-called "one state solution" which is even more unacceptable to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I somehow missed this thread which should have been immediately closed with posters directed to the existing Gaza war thread. I did that just now. The original poster is drawing attention to what has always been an obvious contradiction in the Israel-Palestine conflict. While much obscuration and confusion often makes the conflict appear complex, fundamentally it is very simple. Two people want the same land. Right now, one of them has the advantage of both being the more powerful and being aligned with one of the world's superpowers. Therefore, that group is mostly calling the shots. What has been obvious for sometime is that even those Israelis who claim to support a two-state solution, providing separate states for Israelis and Palestinians, for the most part don't support a full-fledged Palestinian state. At best, they are willing to accept a neutered state that lacks full autonomy. But, many Israelis, including its Prime Minister, don't even accept that limited solution. The Likud Party, currently the ruling party in the Israeli government, says in its charter that "between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty". Ironically, while the slogan, "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free", has been declared to be anti-Semitic, the Israeli version of of the same slogan — recently repeated by Netanyahu — has mostly been ignored. To be clear, "Palestine will be free" only argues for freedom, not control or jurisdiction. The Israeli version, however, calls for "sovereignty". So, this is not a case where the two expressions are the same, the Israeli version is arguably more discriminatory. This all leads to another reality that is often ignored. In the current conflict the US constantly asks the Israelis to explain the end game and what they envision for Gaza once the fighting is over. Netanyahu and his government consistently ignore this request. It is very clear that Netanyahu's end game is the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza and its total destruction. Politically he can't say that and similarly, American leaders are forced to act like they are too stupid to understand that this is the plan. President Joe Biden sets "red lines" that the Israelis immediately cross and then leaks to the press claim that he is very angry. But then Biden explains why the Israelis didn't really cross his red line and that he now has another red line about which he is very serious. The Israelis then cross that red line and it is "rinse and repeat". Unless things change drastically, there will soon come a day on which the last Gazan will be killed or ethnically cleansed. We will then be told that Biden is really, really, really, serious about his new red line and media leaks will assure us that he is more angry with Netanyahu than ever. Take note of all of those who constantly claim to be "serious" or the "adults in the room" who constantly lecture campus demonstrators about why a one-state solution won't work. They will be the exactly the same ones who end up supporting Netanyahu's one-state solution. There are no fools involved in this debate, only liars.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum and titled, "I stalk my DS’s email". The original poster says that her son gave her his email password because he misses 90% of his emails. She checked his email and discovered that he had gotten off the waitlist at the University of Chicago. Both the original poster and her son are ecstatic that he will be able to attend the university. While the original poster hopes that her son has learned a lesson, she is skeptical. Anyone familiar with the college forum, or indeed DCUM at all, would expect the original poster to suffer significant push back. That is exactly what happened. "Are you going to college with him", snarked one poster. "This level of involvement with a kid going to college is embarrassing", wrote another. For the most part, posters didn't think that a kid who is not capable of checking his own email would be a very successful student at the University of Chicago. Many felt that the original poster was doing her son a disservice and that as long as she "babied" him he would never learn to be responsible for himself. Some argued that it would have been better for him to miss out on this opportunity so that he might learn a lesson from it. On the other hand, some posters took the position that "some kids take time to mature" and that the original poster was correct to do what is best for her son. Similarly, many posters argued that it is common advice to set up a separate email for college correspondence to which both the student and parents have access because kids are so often irresponsible about checking. I'm sure nobody cares about my opinion on this subject, but I have to write something and it may as well be this. I also have sons who, if left to their own devices, would probably miss important emails. But, the thought of checking their email myself never entered my mind. Instead, I harassed them incessantly about checking their email until they developed the habit. Just today I asked my younger son, who is home for the summer, if he checked for a possible important email that might have been sent to him. He reacted as if I'd asked him if he remembered to put his pants on before leaving the house. He says he checks his email whenever his phone shows that he has unread email. So at least one success for my strategy. As for the thread, posters got very heated about this topic even slinging insults and accusing each other of having kids who go to community college (not really the insult that some apparently think that it is). At the root of this division, I think, is that helicopter parenting is simultaneously in vogue and frowned upon. Parents who take far more responsibility for their children than was done for them by their own parents still complain about over-involved parents. For the original poster's part, she doesn't care what others think because she is happy about her son's acceptance. Her position seems to be that it is better to risk failing at the University of Chicago rather than not having the opportunity to fail at a school with that prestige in the first place.