Monday's Most Active Threads

I think for the first time in this series, yesterday the top five threads in number of replies were perfectly aligned with the top five threads in number of views. The leader in both metrics was a thread titled, "Yay! Another religious holiday!" in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. The original poster complains that Fairfax County schools were closed yesterday for Diwali. Moreover, according to the original poster, this is the fault of "liberals" who removed the entanglement of Christianity and school holidays while adding holidays for other religions. Taking the original poster at face value, one must conclude that Fairfax County liberals are incompetent because the county's schools are closed on the Christian holiday of Christmas and the week leading up to the the Christian holiday of Easter. Schools are even closed for Orthodox Christian Good Friday. Liberals have apparently utterly failed to disentangle Christianity and holidays. A more likely explanation is that the original poster is simply full of it.

There have been many long threads in FCPS and other school forums about school calendars which have become a part of political culture wars. The politics of this thread are sort of interesting considering it involves FCPS and Diwali. The debate over the admission policy of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology which many view as disadvantaging Asians, especially south Asians, is supposed to have pushed those with roots in the subcontinent into the clutches of Republicans. But, now those Republicans — or at least one of them — is angry about Diwali being recognized with a day off from school. However, this issue may actually be less political and rooted in more basic concerns. There are an unfortunate number of posters on DCUM who simply don't like Indians and take any opportunity to bash them. Even more common are posters who struggle with childcare when schools are closed and oppose almost any reason for closing them.

Yesterday's second thread in number of replies and views was also in a schools forum, but this time "DC Public and Public Charter Schools". The thread, titled, "'Appalling' standardized test scores in wake of covid school closures" is about the results of the "National Assessment of Educational Progress" exam which showed very poor results for DCPS students. Most are attributing this drop to school closures during the pandemic. This immediately reopened the debate about DCPS closures. From the first day of closures, the DCPS forum has had posters who strongly opposed keeping students home. Many of those posters were now taking a victory lap of sorts saying they told us so and that all of their predictions have come true. The link between closures and poor performance may not be as solid as those posters would have it. For instance, Los Angeles schools were closed almost longer than anywhere else but saw an increase in scores. Nevertheless, this is a very emotionally-fueled debate with one poster promising teachers that they would never be forgiven for closing schools — something for which the poster apparently holds teachers solely responsible.

The thread with the third most replies and views was titled, "Informal poll: sleeping with bedroom doors open or closed?" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. As the title suggests, the original poster asked posters about the state of their bedroom doors during the night. Cat owners seemed to be firmly on Team Open Doors because that is what their cats had commanded. Team Closed Doors was the choice of those with safety concerns as they pointed out that closed doors are much more protective in the case of fire. A video was posted that supported this argument showing stark differences between rooms with open and closed doors that had been exposed to fire. Previous threads on the topic of bedroom doors seemed to concentrate on their use while the bedroom's occupants were engaged in adult activities. I didn't read every post in this thread, but that aspect of the discussion seems to have been overshadowed by cats and fires. I suppose there is a joke in there about love no longer burning, but I can't quite come up with it now.

Both the fourth and fifth threads in numbers of replies and views were posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The first was titled, "Most common reasons of divorce nowadays" and simply listed a bunch of potential reasons for divorce. I would have thought that the most common reason would have been "listened to advice in the DCUM relationship forum" because nearly every thread about an issue with a spouse is flooded with suggestions to divorce. Husband cheats? Divorce. Wife has lost sex drive? Divorce. Husband doesn't take out trash? Divorce? You get the idea. I haven't read this thread so I can't say anything about it but I do note that threads dealing with divorce have been popular lately.

The second thread from the relationship forum was titled, "Mercurial DH, little kids, what to do?". The poster describes her husband as an alcoholic who is in recovery and who occasionally blows up during discussions. Their relationship is otherwise good and the original poster is generally happy with her husband. But, the blow-ups are stressful and she would like to know what to do about them. Skimming the first couple of pages shows substantive and detailed replies, many from posters who had been in either the original poster's or her husband's shoes and are able to talk from experience. Of course, on the second page there was an obligatory recommendation of divorce. By the last page of the thread it has turned to blaming the original poster — including a demand that posters stop providing advice — and questions about why she chose to have children. But, overall the thread appears to be helpful.