The Most Active Posts Since Friday

The most active thread since my last blog post continues to be the Gaza war thread which added over 1,600 new posts. The most active thread after that was one titled, "Fairfax County Double Murder" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. Several months ago a thread on the same topic was among the most active threads about which I wrote. I eventually locked that thread after it degnerated into little more than lurid gossip. At the time, a poster asked whether a new thread could be created if or when there were additional news on the topic. I agreed that would be okay. But, when this thread was created on October 1st, it was not because of news updates, but rather by a poster asking whether there was anything new. There wasn't, so this thread lingered until this past Thursday when there was a surprise development. First, to review the facts. Nearly seven months ago, police were called to the home of Christine and Brendan Banfield in Reston, VA. Christine had been stabbed and Brendan told police that he had shot an unknown man who was later identified as Joseph Ryan. Also in the home were the family's nanny, Juliana Peres Magalhaes, and the Banfield's young daughter. Ryan was dead when police arrived and Christine later died at the hospital. Exactly what occurred has been a mystery with heated disputes about why Ryan was in the home. On Thursday, police revealed that Christine and Ryan knew each other prior to the event and they announced that they had arrested Peres Magalhaes and charged her with second degree murder in the death of Ryan. Nobody has been charged in Christine's death. The bombshell about Peres Magalhaes unleashed a flury of posts in the thread. Posters speculated about why Brendan had told the police that he had shot Ryan when it now appears that it was Peres Magalhaes. There is considerable speculation about the relationship between Brendan and Peres Magalhaes. According to news reports, Peres Magalhaes has been seen caring for the Banfield's child but it is "unclear whether she was still working in her capacity as an au pair". One poster produced a photo that he claimed came from Peres Magalhaes' Instagram account that showed Peres Magalhaes and Brendan looking quite cozy together in a restaurant. The caption on the photo suggested that the two were in a relationship. There is still no official word on why Ryan was in the home, leading to considerable comment and several theories. The murder mystery aspects of this combined with it being a local story — friends and neighbors of the Banfield's and Ryan have posted — has led to the thread having considerable interest.

The next most active thread was actually the discussion about the new Speaker of the US House of Representatives. While that saga continues, I've already discussed the thread and will, therefore, skip it. The next most active was posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. Titled, "DH Destroyed My Le Creuset Dutch Oven", the original poster says that her husband accidentally turned on the wrong burner on the stove and heated her empty Le Creuset dutch oven, causing it to crack. It has been three months and he has not done anything to fix the situation. She asks if others would be annoyed. In a subsequent post, the original poster admitted to having irrational thoughts due to her anger such as destroying a photo of her husband and his siblings or a letter from his father that he had saved. Responses tended to fall into one or more of three categories. There were those that agreed with the original poster that her husband should have taken steps to rectify the situation and that being angry was understandable. Second were responses that suggested the original poster's dwelling on this for three months and her thoughts that even she agreed were irrational were a bit too much. As such, these posts criticized the original poster and suggested that she address her mental health. The third category of responses were those which mostly ignored the drama and focused on practical fixes for the dutch oven. The original poster was not receptive, to put it mildly, to posts that suggested that she was overreacting. In more than one case, she responded to such posters very aggressively, though failing to reveal that she was the original poster. In another case, she discussed herself in the third person saying that the original poster's husband is a selfish jerk and that she can't believe anyone would defend him. This wasn't the worst case of sock puppeting I've seen, but given that the thread reached 10 pages and most of the ground had been covered, I decided it was sufficient reason to lock the thread.

Next was a thread titled, "Should I vote republican or a democrat? I despise both parties." and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster outlines a number of her political beliefs, some of which align with conventional Republican positions and some of which are traditionally associated with Democrats. She concludes that she should vote Republican but she hates most Republican politicians. I can't be bothered to read all 11 pages of this thread or even the first page for that matter. But, I think the dilemma that the original poster finds herself in is representative of a number of posters I've encountered. These might be what political commentators refer to as "suburban women". Like the original poster, they value abortion rights, oppose what they term "illegal immigration", want lower taxes, and while they may be gay friendly, they are not at all down with transgender people. Also like the original poster, this group detests MAGA Republicans. The suburbs have traditionally voted Republican and, as such,  like the original poster their natural inclination would be to vote Republican if it were not for MAGAs and abortion. Ultimately, voters like the original poster have to weigh their distaste for MAGAs and support for abortion against their dislike of trans people and desire for low taxes. The ironic thing is that Democrats have been prioritizing voters such as the original poster, seeing suburban women as the ticket to their success (and proving correct in many cases). Anyone unfortunate enough to have been exposed to campaign commercials aimed at suburban women would know that the Democrats' commercials address little more than abortion. That is not to minimize the importance of the issue in any way. To the contrary, based on what we have seen in states that have enacted abortion restrictions, abortion rights are essential to basic healthcare for women. Which, of course, makes me wonder why this is such a dilemma for the original poster. I am assuming that the the original poster is a woman, but even if that is wrong, the original poster likely has a mother, sister, wife, or daughter. None of them may ever need an abortion, but they may well need one of the numerous procedures that is now restricted or illegal because of abortion restrictions. Just how much do you have to dislike trans people or hate big government to put yourself or a close family member at this sort of risk?

The final thread at which I will look today was posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The thread was titled, "Not sexually fulfilled in otherwise great marriage". Before I say anything more about this thread I should warn that this is the type of thread that routinely gets flagged by Google for violating their advertising terms of service. As such, there is a good chance that I will need to remove the thread. The original poster, who I am assuming is a woman, says that she loves her husband and that they have a generally great relationship. They also have an active sex life, but her husband refuses to engage in certain unspecified activities that the original poster very much wants to do. The original poster's dilemma is that she does not want to live her life without having her desires met but she doesn't want to force or manipulate her husband into activities he doesn't want to do. I don't want to put too much effort into this thread since I will likely be removing it anyway, but responses appear to be across the board. There are those saying that giving up on personal desires is part of any marriage and the original poster will just have to live without. Some suggest asking for an open marriage though that idea gets considerable pushback. The original poster disclosed that she has a therapist with whom she has discussed this and, as such, some posters advise relying on the therapist's advice. But, it seems that the therapist's advice has not worked for the original poster either. All the posters seemed to be of the same mind when it came to guessing the activities her husband refuses, but in a subsequent post, the original poster disabused everyone of that idea. Things turned out to be much worse. This led to some posters pointing to statistics showing many women were in even less satisfying relationships and that the original poster should be happy with what she is getting (not to put too fine of a point on it). This advice was pretty soundly rejected, though the idea that compromises or even doing without continued. Before too long, the thread broke down and lost all decorum, reinforcing my feeling that this thread will not be long for this world.