Thursday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was the same thread about the election being close that was the most active thread on Wednesday as well. Since I discussed that thread in yesterday's blog post, I'll skip it and go on to the next. That thread was also related to the election. Titled, "Harris interview with MSNBC Sept 25 - 24minute video" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, the original poster embedded an interview that Vice President Kamala Harris gave to Stephanie Ruhle of MSNBC. There are really two ways to evaluate Harris in circumstances like this. She can be judged in a vacuum, solely on her performance and the quality of her responses. Alternatively, she can be compared to her opponent in the election, former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. Those responding in the thread do both. Posters are divided about her performance, some believing that she did a good job, was relatable, and seemed competent. Others found her answers lacking substance and had stylistic objections. Generally, these responses fell along partisan political lines. Compared to Trump, however, there is really no contest. While Harris may not have been 100% accurate in her responses, she was generally truthful. Trump, on the other hand, routinely spews a fountain of lies that overwhelms both those questioning him and fact-checkers who simply don't have enough hours in the day to correct them all. This creates a structural disadvantage for Harris because coverage of her speaking will often concentrate on the one or two missteps and ignore the rest. Trump, on the other hand, will start talking about sharks and electric boats or Hannibal Lector and will be covered as if he delivered the Gettysburg Address. It is pretty clear to me that Harris and her campaign have chosen to stick to broad strokes and avoid delving into details. They are running a campaign based on themes and ideas. In other words, similar to Obama's campaigns. Harris is not pretending to be Hillary Clinton and enumerating the 15 steps of the four phases of her 40 page plan. This is a good thing. Even with the minimal details Harris provided in this interview, posters found fodder for criticism. More details would simply generate more criticism. This is a big picture election. Voters care about abortion rights, the economy, foreign policy, the environment, crime, and yes, immigration. Harris and Trump have vastly different ideas on all of these topics. Harris' job is to convince voters that her stances are in their interest and that she can be trusted as a leader. She will do that by making them believe in her, not by boring them to death with a mountain of data. Trump is certainly not going to provide details of his plans. Of course, those details are provided in Project 2025 from which Trump is doing his best to run away.

The next most active thread was posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum. Titled, "2nd Grade Teacher wears a mask", the original poster says that since the beginning of the school year — which was a month ago — her child's second grade teacher has been wearing a mask. The original poster says that she struggles to understand people when they wear masks and can't imagine listening all day to a teacher who is wearing a mask. She doesn't think there would be any benefit in saying anything about it but wonders if others would be bothered by it as well. Essentially, those who respond can be divided into two groups: 1) those who sympathize with the teacher and support the teacher wearing a mask, and; 2) those who are completely insane. I will deal with the second group first. The general opinion of the anti-maskers in this thread is that those who wear masks are neurotic, suffer from OCD, or have anxiety. But any objective reading of the responses will show that it is the anti-maskers who have lost touch with reality. For instance, multiple posters argued that a teacher who wears a mask does not belong in a classroom. They suggest that such teachers should be fired, quit, or transfer into a different role. Another poster criticizes "mask religion", ignoring any legitimate reason there might be for masking, and predicts that any teacher who masks probably has political and moral ideas to which the poster wouldn't want their child exposed. One poster described yelling at a bus driver for wearing a mask. The driver told the poster that he had COVID. The poster said that he wanted to cuss the driver out, not for driving a bus while sick with COVID, but for wearing a mask. There were some non-insane opponents to masking but most of them were unwilling to confront the teacher or raise much of a stink. They don't like the idea of a teacher masking, but understand that the teacher may have legitimate reasons and are within their rights to mask. The vast majority of those responding, however, fully supported the teacher. Several argued that the original poster has no idea why the teacher is masking. The teacher may be immunocompromised or live with someone who is. The teacher might be pregnant or the teacher may simply be trying to avoid getting sick due to the large number of illnesses currently circulating among children. Posters reminded the original poster and the like-minded responders that having the teacher out sick would not be that great either. One poster put things very succinctly, suggesting that the original poster could put up with a teacher who wears a mask, a teacher who is out frequently due to illness, or a long-term substitute teacher because the original teacher quit. Tolerating the mask is probably the best option.

Next was a thread titled, "Why club sports?" which was originally posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. However, since the thread dealt with sports, I moved it to the "Sports General Discussion" forum. I often wonder about the motivation of posters who post threads like this in the General Parenting forum. There is a note at the top of the thread listing reminding posters to post in the most appropriate forum. In this case, even if the poster didn't want to post in a sports forum for some reason, the elementary school-aged kids forum would be better than General Parenting. I don't know if these posters are simply not thinking about something that probably matters much more to me than to them, they believe they will get more responses in General Parenting, or have some other reason. Regardless, I spend a huge amount of time moving or deleting threads in that forum. The original poster says that her daughter is in 2nd grade and some of her friends play club soccer. The original poster thinks this is too intense for that age and wonders if their goal is to get a scholarship. Those responding who have kids that play club sports say that their kids want to play with other kids of the same skill level and same commitment to the sport. They don't want to play with kids who are "just there for the snacks" or won't show up regularly. These posters also explain that while it might not matter for 2nd graders, eventually the talented and committed players leave recreational leagues to join club or travel teams. Because their kids wanted to play with players at that level rather with the more mixed skill levels in rec leagues, they had to move to club teams as well. Posters who don't have kids who participate in club sports offer a number of other motivations for the parents whose kids play club sports. They suggest that clubs sports are a social or status symbol, frequently more so for the parents than the child. Others believe it is to enhance college applications. Some suggest that parents are afraid that their kids will be left out or fall behind and pursue club sports simply because others are doing it. Some posters, both with kids in club sports and without, have thoughtful posts that show that joining club sports can often be a complicated decision. One poster says that her family knew nothing about club sports and didn't pursue it. The poster's daughter played in a recreational league and enjoyed it. But as the seasons went by and the players who played club sports in addition to the rec league got better and better, her daughter — who didn't progress as much — got discouraged and lost interest in the sport. Another poster said that her family was not interested in club sports for their older children, but the youngest one who had grown up playing with older siblings was much more skilled and more dedicated to the sport than most of the child's school cohort. Therefore, that child joined a club sport and has been so successful that the family is thinking about continuing the sport in college, something that they have previously not considered.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. Titled, "So exhausted by the impact of our house on our relationship", the original poster goes into great detail about how she, her husband, and a daughter live in a very small house with almost no storage space. The original poster is going crazy trying to find room to store things. She details all the dramatic struggles she has with everything from toilet paper to laundry. Her husband is oblivious to her difficulties and rather than helping out, makes things worse by buying items in large quantities and not putting things away. The original poster would like to move to a larger house, but her husband is very attached to their current neighborhood and has created requirements for a new house that result in a new house being unaffordable to them. The original poster says that she is so upset that she is considering divorce. I admit that I actually felt sorry for this poster. But then I noticed that less than two hours after creating this thread, she started another one that contradicted this thread in several details. Whereas in this thread the poster says that they have been living in this small house at least through the pandemic, in the second thread she describes having recently moved to a new house. Similarly, in this thread the original poster stresses her husband's attachment to the neighborhood and unwillingness to leave it. In the second thread, they moved unexpectedly to save her husband's job. The original poster also sock puppeted a couple of posts in this thread, writing as if she were not the original poster. Even the original poster's posts in this thread lack consistency with her at times strongly giving the impression that she was living in New York City while later denying that. The problem with threads like this is that they feel so authentic that you don't want to believe they are fake. Even the second thread that contradicts this one seems authentic and I would hate for that one to be fake as well. Possibly one of the two is true, but I've seen enough of the creative writers that DCUM attracts to know that is unlikely to be the case. I can identify 20 threads by this poster and I see that the age of her daughter is also significantly different between threads. The number of children she has also fluctuates. While she clearly is frustrated with her husband and considering divorce in this thread, back in August she started a thread in which she appeared to be separated and heading for divorce. The community that she described living in at the time of that thread was significantly different than the one described in this thread. I don't have much more to say about this thread or this poster other than I am constantly amazed at the lengths folks go to create fake posts.