Monday's Most Active Threads

Yesterday was Labor Day and it appears that many DCUM users were offline celebrating rather than posting on DCUM because the active threads were not all that active yesterday. The most active thread was titled, "High schoolers can’t write", and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. The original poster says that her kids go to Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, are native English speakers, and get all As in school. Nevertheless, their writing is "awful". They have poor grammer and punctuation and can't correctly form an argument. The original poster says that she is in shock and wants to know if others have noticed this issue with their kids. Almost all of those responding have noticed this. They blame it on Montgomery County Public Schools not teaching grammer, spelling, or writing skills anymore. Some posters allege that the problem begins in early grades so that by high school the teachers have given up. Others say that kids don't read enough these days and that reading is important to gaining writing skills. Another poster, however, says that reading doesn't build writing skills but rather practice does. A teacher says that in public school she had too many students and not enough time for reviewing their writing, implying that she didn't provide writing assignments as a result. However, after switching to private school, she had greater support and fewer students and the school placed more emphasis on writing. Therefore, she was much more involved in teaching writing. Because of the shortcomings posters see in MCPS with regard to reading and writing, many posters say that they have either supplemented with tutors or writing classes, or moved their children to private or parochial schools. In their search for whom to blame for the current state of writing education, some posters focus on kids with special needs who, in these posters' view, require too much support and take away resources – especially the teachers' attention — from the other students. According to these posters, teachers are spending their time assisting students with special needs and, therefore, don't have time to teach writing. The second target is the "social justice, social emotional learning, anti-racism" initiatives that some posters believe have replaced traditional teaching in MCPS. Several posters would like to see MCPS return to focusing on the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Other posters blame the parents who are complaining, asking why they didn't read to their kids and teach them writing themselves. These might be valid questions for the average DCUM poster, but it ignores that some MCPS parents may lack proper English reading and writing skills themselves and, therefore, are not in a position to assist their children. Much of this thread is devoted to debating the pros and cons of private or parochial education compared to public. Catholic schools are especially debated with several posters praising their traditional teaching while others decry them as "archaic" or unappealing to non-Catholics.

I will skip the next two most active threads because I've already discussed them. The fourth most active thread was posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum and titled, "How do guys feel about a woman who had plastic surgery?". The original poster says that while she grew up in America, plastic surgery is very common in her home country. She knows a child who "is below average" and, the original poster implies, could benefit from plastic surgery. She wants to know how men feel about dating women who have had plastic surgery, whether it is no big deal or is something with which they are comfortable. There are many problems with this thread but probably the foremost is that very few men responded. The vast majority of the replies appear to be from women, even ones that purport to speak for men. So, while the opinion of men may still be a mystery after this thread, what women think about plastic surgery is fairly clear. In general, they appreciate plastic surgery that is "tasteful" and simply enhances natural beauty. They don't like when plastic surgery is overdone or radically changes a person's appearance. Of course, all of these judgements are subjective so one person's "tasteful" could quite easily be another person's "overdone". The sparsity of male input may not be much of a loss for this thread, however. One of the few to respond expressed appreciation for "boob jobs" but nothing else. Moreover, as one of the female posters argued, probably accurately, "Most men are entirely clueless and don’t notice well done subtle plastic surgery." A couple of men did say that they found out either after dating for a while or even after getting married that their partners had had nose jobs many years earlier. Neither of them cared and neither noticed without being told (or, in one case, stumbling across an old photo). Posters also started arguing about makeup. While a couple of male posters said that they prefer women without makeup, several women posters suggested that men don't actually know what they like. Rather, these posters insisted, men like makeup that is done in such a way that it is not noticeable. The same is true for plastic surgery, they argue. Some posters go even further. For instance, one poster wrote, "I feel like men always say they like all natural; no plastic surgery, injectables, even makeup but look at who men find attractive. These guys aren’t calling swimsuit models ugly because they have fake boobs, got some good plastic surgery and injectables, wear makeup and fake hair." Another poster then added, "Men can just miss me with their BS, you are all idiots and can’t even tell who is wearing makeup or not." Regardless of the opinions of men or their mental capacities, many women in this thread are very pro-plastic surgery. Several posters say how pleased they are with their breast enhancements and other cosmetic work. The main takeways for me from this thread is that, in general, women undergo cosmetic plastic surgery primarily for themselves and secondarily for other women who they believe are judging them. Men, whose opinions are meaningless in any case, fall to a lowly third place.

Next was a thread titled, "BIL did not check in on nephews as planned" and posted in the "Family Relationships" forum. This thread was started by the same poster who authored the previous thread about plastic surgery. So Labor Day was a twofer for her. In this thread she says that she and her husband went out of town (apparently for one night) and left their 13 and 15 year old children in the care of her brother-in-law. He had agreed to take them to dinner and spend the night at their house. Instead, the brother-in-law simply called the kids to make sure that they were okay. The original poster and her husband are both angry with her brother-in-law and she wants to know how angry others would be in this situation. Some posters seem to think that the kids were left alone by the original poster and her husband and criticize them for making a parenting error. But this was not the case. The original poster's husband had arranged for his brother to take the kids to dinner and spend the night at their house. It was never planned that the teens would be left alone. Moreover, the original poster and her husband checked in on their kids many times and also had frequent contact with the brother-in-law. I am not sure how they can be legitimately accused of neglect. But a number of posters blame the original poster for leaving before her brother-in-law was physically with the children. Several posters acknowledge that the brother-in-law was wrong, but they suggest that there is no benefit in continuing to be upset about it and allowing it to affect their relationship. Rather, they say that the original poster now knows that her brother-in-law can't be trusted and they should not rely on him again. The original poster later confides that she is angry with her husband because he doesn't appear to be very upset. She is bothered that her husband seems to consider the episode to be over because the kids are fine. A few posters agree with the original poster that her brother-in-law's behavior was worthy of considerable anger. They say that they would be furious with him. While they were few and far between, some posters didn't think this was a very big deal. They suggest that the original poster and those who agree with her are being overly protective and engaging in "helicopter parenting". I tend to agree with them. The kids were being checked on by phone by both their parents and their uncle. In an emergency, they had someone to call. And, things turned out okay in the end anyway. Some posters suggested that the original poster's kids might have wanted to be left alone and that her brother-in-law simply went along with it. As I got to this point in my post, the original poster requested that the thread be deleted because it contained too many private details. I am normally reluctant to remove threads that I discuss in these posts because then nobody can read the thread that I am describing. I've made an exception in this case so hopefully this discussion will not create any interest in reading the thread because that will not be possible.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. Titled, "Brad Pitt and Ines de Ramon", the original poster says she saw a "red carpet pic" and that she was not impressed with Ines de Ramon at all. According to the original poster, de Ramon's breasts didn't look good in the dress, one of her eyes was "droopy", and her hair was a mess. I didn't really expect to spend this morning writing about breasts, but between this thread and the plastic surgery thread, that appears to have been my fate. My first thought after reading the original post was that de Ramon has managed to attract Brad Pitt, regardless of her breasts, eyes, or hair. I doubt she has any concern at all about what the original poster, or anyone else for that matter, thinks. That's probably good because posters in this thread have very little that is positivie to say about her. That is especially true of her chest which gets all kinds of attention. Posters comment on the shape, size, and need for support of her breasts. This thread is doing nothing to persuade me that women are not worse critics of other women than are men. In addition to de Ramon's breasts, posters also had opinions about her relationship with Pitt. A few photos were all the evidence posters needed to determine that Pitt is not really interested in her and to predict that the relationship will not last long. Of course Pitt also has his critics. Posters suggest that he has had a bit of plastic surgery and they are not impressed with the results. One poster suggested that he had had a full facelift. George and Amal Clooney also received a considerable amount of attention in this thread, both good and bad. Often complements tossed their way were more of the backhanded variety, for instance suggestions that Amal's dress was nicer than de Ramon's but still not all that great. My effort to write about the previous thread was wasted because the thread was removed and I feel like my effort was wasted with regard to this thread as well because it is simply not a thread worth reading. Unless you have strong feelings about breasts, that is. In that case, the thread will be very much worth your while.