Friday's Most Active Threads

Yesterday's highest ranking thread in both number of replies and number of views was titled, "Pelosi’s husband assaulted during breakin" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. This thread nearly doubled both the reply and view count of the second leading thread, coming it at a whopping 23 pages in a single day. For the benefit of those of you living in unelectrified caves, Paul Pelosi, husband of the US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was attacked by an intruder with a hammer and seriously injured. The initial focus of the thread was on the identity of the attacker with some suggesting the individual was likely provoked by violent MAGA rhetoric and others claiming it was simply an example of the type of crime that Democrats are allegedly encouraging in cities.

When the attacker's name was publicly revealed, right-wingers fixated on decade-old details from the attacker's life involving the sale of hemp jewelry and living in Berkeley. They studiously ignored more recent developments such as an Internet trail promoting right-wing conspiracy theories, anti-Semitism, racism, and other topics that clearly showed that whatever hippy past the man might have had, that was left well behind some time ago. After that the thread became a simple loop of right-wingers attempting to deflect any blame that might be cast on their end of the political spectrum while those to the left piled on detail after detail showing the attacker's MAGA leanings. One irony was the insistance of some right-wingers that only someone crazy could hold the beliefs expoused by this individual. Yet, much of what he appeared to support is part and parcel of the MAGA agenda. I'm not saying you have to be crazy to be a MAGA supporter, but that conclusion could easily be drawn from these posts.

A thread posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum was second in both replies and views yesterday. Titled, "Text exchange with my dh- It’s a good thing I’m not at home right now", the original poster transcribes a text conversation she had with her husband. Her husband is upset about two cups left in the refrigerator which he believes were left by the original poster. The original poster accepts responsibility for one, but says the second cup is her husband's. Moreover, she is upset by the tone of his texts, which admittedly was pretty over the line. I was completely flabbergasted when I read this. I didn't even know this is the sort of thing people got mad about. Does this couple only own three or four cups so that being unable to use two of them is a problem? Do they have limited refrigerator space that is being consumed by cups? I'm not sure if these two should be happy that this is what amounts to a problem for them or alarmed that this amounts to a problem for them. Mundane as this issue may be, it racked up 13 pages of replies so maybe cup disputes — or interest in cup disputes — are more widespread than I am aware.

A thread titled, "Carpool drama update" and posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum was third in number of views and fifth in number of replies yesterday. This thread is apparently part of a series involving the original poster and — as best I can tell — the parent of the original poster's child's teammate. I found the original post a bit hard to follow but I think it is about the other parent sending a text to a group asking the original poster to drive or pickup her child to and from practice. The original poster feels put on the spot because the request is made before the whole group and she doesn't want to look bad by refusing, but she also doesn't want to agree. This apparently came to a head when the other parent sent repeated texts at a time the original poster could not access her phone. The original poster now wants to ignore the other parent completely. I guess if you are a fan of this series you might find the thread interesting. I was mostly confused and haven't read beyond the first post. So, I can't really say how others reacted.

Fourth in number of replies and fifth in number of views yesterday was a thread titled, "Buy Nothing/sale group admins who get off on nonsensical 'rules'" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. Before reading this, I was not aware of such groups, but I gather they are something similer to Freecycle where you list things you want to get rid of and someone else offers to take it. The original poster is bothered by her group's administrator who frequently interjects with requests that users follow certain guidelines. The original poster thinks the rules are ridiculous and would prefer the administrator just keep out of it. I'm not sure that I am the most objective source for commenting on forum administrators and their silly rules. My natural inclination is to side with the administrators but, based on the original poster's examples, I sort of agree with her. Not that I think the administrator is being overly anal about things, but it would be interesting to know how many cups the administrator has in her refrigerator. I suspect there is a complete accounting of the exact number as well as their precise chain of custody.