DCUM Weblog

As I predicted in my last blog post, the Gaza war thread is back as the most active thread over the weekend after having dropped from that spot for a day. The second most active is another one that I've already covered, the thread about "The Golden Bachelor". That means that the first thread that I will discuss today was titled, "Discipline for excessive crying" and posted in the "Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers" forum. The original poster has a two-year-old daughter who is constantly crying. Almost anything that the original poster does can cause the girl to cry for long periods of time. Moreover, the girl is only like this around the original poster and not her husband or nanny. The original poster knows that experts advise not punishing a child for crying, but she is at the end of her patience and desparate to find a solution. She wonders what others who have had a child like this have done. In response, the original poster gets a range of advice. Nobody is in favor of literal punishment, but some counsel ignoring the child. That advice is generally accompanied by other strategies aimed at encouraging an end to the crying. For instance, telling the girl that her mother can't help her while she is crying, teaching breathing or counting exercises to help her calm down, or creating a "time out" room to where she can be sent to cry alone and calm down. One poster recounts using "kiddie yoga" videos to help her child learn emotional regulation skills. Posters also suggest that the the child may be feeling the stress the original poster experiences from the crying and that actually causes her to cry more. To reduce this vicious circle, posters suggest that the original poster address her own emotional state. Another angle that many posters took was to propose that the original poster contact a developmental pediatrician and have her daughter evaluated for potential special needs. About halfway through the thread, the original poster responded to thank everyone for the helpful responses. But, she pointed out that the wide variety of responses shows why this is a difficult situation for her to know how to address. She still isn't sure what to do because there are so many contradictory schools of thought. Shortly after that response, the original poster responded again to say that she was planning to contact her local pediatric developmental behavioral center today. Previously, she was unaware that diagnoses or evaluations could be done at such a young age. She seemed to have dropped out of the thread at that point, but it continued for another 7 pages without her. Many of those posts simply repeated or reinforced advice that was previously offered.

For one of the few times since October 7, the Gaza war thread was not the most active, falling to 4th. But, since the ceasefire has apparently ended and fighting has resumed, it may be back on top tomorrow. The most active thread yesterday was another one that I've previously discussed. That was the thread about "The Golden Bachelor" which, if I understand correctly, had its finale. After that was a thread titled, "What did you do as a child that would be called dangerous today?" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster says she played with lawn darts and rode her bicycle without a helmet. In addition to riding bikes without helmets, another common activity many posters listed was riding in a car without using seatbelts, often not even in a seat but in the back of a station wagon. Several posters also described wondering around outside without supervision, frequently being gone for long periods without adults knowing their whereabouts. A number of posters expressed skepticism of the safety measures and concerns that we observe today. Some questioned whether children were actually hurt frequently enough to justify requirements such as wearing bike helmets. Others contended that the measures are justified and that while others might not remember children being harmed, statistics show that they were. The dispute extended beyond safety concerns and eventually encompassed various parenting styles. As one poster wrote, the type of childhoods posters are describing are "viscerally HATED by all the helicopter, lawnmower, anxious, nervous mommies on this board". One poster essentially challenged our entire way of life, accusing everyone of being "drones" and comparing helmets to masks used to prevent the spread of covid. He complained that, "It’s sad how clamped down life is today and the psychosis of the population." By the end of the thread it had mostly morphed into the thread I discussed yesterday about raising children free from structured activities and allowing them freedom. I think it is worth trying to make some distinctions. Seatbelts and carseats are undoubtedly a good thing. The recent accident in Fairfax in which five teenagers who were not using seatbelts were jettisoned from an SUV when it hit a tree should be evidence of that. Bike helmets are probably also good. But, maybe kids do need a bit more freedom to explore the world on their own without constantly being under someone's watchful eye. A lot of posters in this thread express nostalgia for their own unsupervised adventures, but I wonder if they are allowing their own kids the same?

Once again the Gaza war thread was the most active of the day yesterday. The most active thread after that was titled, "Maury Capitol Hill" and posted in the "DC Public and Public Charter Schools" forum. This thread was actually started back on September 21 by a poster who had heard about a Parent-Teacher Association meeting at Maury Elementary School, a District of Columbia Public Schools school located on Capitol Hill. The poster had heard of two issues that came up in the meeting. One was the current effort to reevaluate DCPS school boundaries and the other was a loss of Title 1 funding that is aimed at low-income students. The poster was concerned about how these developments might impact property values. This was an active thread that grew to 23 pages prior to yesterday. But, yesterday the thread added 10 new pages. I didn't read the first 23 pages but apparently the interest yesterday was generated by a subsequent meeting about school boundary changes. A poster summarized that meeting, saying that DCPS wants to cluster Maury with another nearby elementary school, Miner Elementary School. The purpose of the proposal is to address socioeconomic disparities between neighborhood schools. If I understand the "clustering" idea correctly (and there is a good chance that I do not), kids from both schools will attend younger grades together at one location and older grades will be combined at the other building. Students at Maury apparently perform better than those at Miner and it seems that the hope is that by spreading the higher-performing kids around, it will improve the weaker school. Overlying this is the issue of race. Maury is nearly 60% White while Miner is 80% Black. As a result, some of the posters see this as an attempt to "spread the White kids around". To make matters worse, the DCPS plan is not yet fully baked and DCPS staff members were unable to answer a number of basic questions. Needless to say, this has created all kinds of consternation among Maury, and likely Miner, parents. Parents who have seen Maury improve over the years are worried that that progress will be set back. But, not all posters see this idea as entirely negative. As mentioned by the original poster, increasing affluence at Maury resulted in the school losing Title 1 status and, with it, significant extra funding. One result was apparently that free preschool is no longer offered by the school. Clustering with Miner would restore Title 1 funding and free preschool. As one poster pointed out, currently Maury has plenty of students who could benefit from extra funding, but without Title 1 status that money is not there. The ultimate problem for DCPS is that administrators can try to orchestrate diversity goals, but in a school system that emphasizes school choice, parents have options and will not always cooperate.

The Gaza war thread continued to be the most active thread yesterday, but just barely. Second was a topic that is perhaps even more controversial than the Israel-Palestine conflict. Titled, "Are antivaxxers all just contrarians and conspiracy theorists?" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum, the original poster asks if there are critical thinkers among those who oppose vaccinations. It is not apparent from the original post whether the original poster is referring to those who oppose all vaccinations or those who are only against the covid vaccination. Regardless, most of the thread focuses on the covid vaccine. This, of course, is not a new topic and there is very little, if anything, new in this thread. I think there are a few obvious facts related to this topic. First, the vaccine was originally oversold, with many believing that the shots would prevent contracting and transmitting covid. That's obviously not the case, though the vaccine does appear to significantly limit both catching and spreading the disease and results in less severe illness among those who are infected. Second, there were relatively widespread side effects to the vaccine that caused suspicion, hesitation, and reluctance to get vaccination. Finally, there has been widespread campaigns, often politically-motivated and frequently based on misinformation, in opposition to the vaccines. The result is that anyone who wants to convince themselves not to get the shot can easily do so. Threads like this one demonstrate different types of vaccine opponents, Of course there are the right-wingers convinced that the vaccine is an attempt to turn them into transgender Marxists who are controlled by 5G radio signals, and the traditional granola leftists convinced that vaccines cause autism, but the covid vaccines have led to another category of vaccine-hesitant individuals. This is the "I support vaccines except for covid" group. Members of this group have a host of reasons for justifying their covid vaccine reluctance. Frequently, they claim to have "done their own research" which often consists of simply reading a few Facebook posts. The new boogyman, as several posters point out, is fear of "spike proteins" that they contend have horrendous side effects. But, I was surprised by the number of posters in this thread who are avoiding covid boosters because they claim the shot knocks them out for a day or two. If they are having that type of reaction to the vaccine, I wonder what will happen to them if they catch actual covid? Conversely, a number of posters in this thread report not having had an interest in the booster until a friend or family member fell ill with the disease. Having witnessed what they went through, these posters have either gotten or or planning to get the shot.

Yesterday the Gaza war thread continued as the most active thread. Skipping, that one, the most active thread was titled, "Alexandria on the Cusp of Eliminating All SFH Zoning" and posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics" forum. The original poster claims that Alexandria is plagued by a number of negative factors such as failing schools and an increasing number of murders and now the Council is going to completely destroy the city by eliminating zoning for single family housing. There is apparently a vote on this topic today. First, just to clarify what this proposal is all about. Currently, some parts of Alexandria are zoned exclusively for single family houses. In an effort to expand housing options, the Council proposes to remove this zoning and allow the development of multifamily housing units in those areas. Posters variously see this as either enhancing the value of their property or destroying it. Those in the first group suggest that what is now a single family home could be sold for a higher profit if it were purchased in order to develop multifamily housing. Others, on the other hand, believe that higher-density will destroy their current community and cause their current homes to lose value. This illustrates the dilemma of housing costs. Those in search of housing are eager to see more affordable housing which, proponents of development argue, can best be achieved by increasing the supply of housing. As such, encouraging the replacement of single family homes with multifamily units should increase affordability. But those who currently own property are not interested in seeing it lose value and that is exactly what they fear will happen if their current property is suddenly surrounded by lower-cost housing. Regardless, there is no agreement about the best course of action. Some posters think it makes sense to sell to a developer and take the money and run. Others think staying put until single family homes are scarce and sell for a significant premium makes more sense. Several posters are also worried about an increased number of residents overburdening city services, especially schools. Anger with the proposal is such that many posters who apparently currently own single-family homes make all sorts of threats about how they will react, such as turning their homes into brothels or raising pigs in their back yards. Sadly for these posters, the new zoning proposals will not allow for brothels or pig farms.

Over the weekend, the Gaza war thread was again the most active thread, adding over 600 new posts. The second most active thread was also one that I've already covered, the thread about weird things that in-laws do. So, I'll start with what was actually the third most active thread over the weekend. That thread was titled, "A difficult truth to accept: Liberal democracy is not favored around the world" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster contributes a rather lengthy essay summarizing various musings he has had about opinions in other countries regarding politics. The main thrust of the post is that the ideas espoused by liberal democracy are not universally popular and that in many parts of the world, authoritarian ideas are supported. The responses in the thread go in many different directions, but one surprise for me is how many supporters of dictatorships there were. I guess one outgrowth of Trumpism is that authoritarianism is now popular among some Americans. This is a 14 page thread and instead of trying to summarize the responses, I'll just provide my own reaction to the original poster's thoughts. First, and most importantly, I think that it is important to separate the ideas and values espoused by liberal democracies, especially the United States, from the practices actually implemented abroad. More often than not, the US quickly discards its stated values when its perceived interests are at risk. There are any number of examples of the US assisting in or actively leading the overthrow of democracies because the winner of the election was not sufficiently pro-American. This hypocrisy does not go unnoticed and, as a result, our professed values ring very hollow in much of the world. In many countries, citizens are not presented with a choice between liberal democracy supported by the US or authoritarianism supported by Russia or China. Rather, their choices are pro-American authoritarians or pro-Russian or pro-Chinese authoritarianism. Free elections and democracy are supported by the US only to the extent that they produce pro-US politicians and policies. Moreover, "pro-US" is frequently, "pro multinational corporations". When faced with an economic landscape dominated by international corporations, the residents of many countries lose any enthusiasm they may have for capitalism. Just as in the case of American political values which are often seen as empty to foreign audiences based on the lack of application of those values internationally, claims about free enterprise and the benefits of capitalism are frequently betrayed by how capitalism is actually implemented abroad. That is often in the form of monopolistic foreign entities that dominate local businesses. To summarize, it is not that liberal democracy as we understand it is becoming less popular internationally, but that foreign populations are rejecting the hypocritical version of "liberal democracy" practiced abroad that generally lacks most of the values of true liberal democracy.

Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the slowest days on DCUM as users are travelling, spending time with family, or, like me, spending a great deal of time cooking. Since I took yesterday off from this blog, I'll review the most active threads of the last two days. Both days, as expected, had much less traffic than normal days. The Gaza war thread was back at the top of the most active list, but with barely more than 100 posts a day, the thread is a shadow of what it once was, previously receiving more than 900 posts a day. The second most active thread, the one about Covid lockdowns, was also one I've previously covered. The third most active thread, and the first one I will discuss today, is mostly a repeated topic even though the thread itself is new. Titled, "Come here if your in laws do weird crap at thanksgiving." and posted in the "Family Relationships" forum, the original poster claims that her father-in-law flosses his teeth at the table. Based on the original poster's example, I assume that this thread was meant to highlight strange idiosyncrasies, but it almost immediately turned into a general complaint thread, mostly about mothers-in-law. One of the first examples — a mother-in-law who attempted to divide a rotisserie chicken with her bare hands, was not considered by everyone to be strange behavior and caused a long-running argument between posters. Disagreement about whether the mother-in-law was wrong was still continuing 13 pages later. Another example, serving ham slices rolled around a dill pickle and cream cheese, was also not seen as weird by all posters and actually inspired several posters to try it. Frankly, most of these posts could have gone into the "petty vents" thread that I discussed earlier this week because none of them really amounted to much. Another example that was not universally received as being weird, but rather funny by most who responded, involved a long-delayed wedding gift. Apparently, the poster's sister-in-law went down in her basement and retrieved a wedding gift that had been meant for the poster's husband's first marriage 30 years ago. The poster, in her own words, "pitched a fit" and made her sister-in-law take it back. Several posters wanted to know what the gift was, a question that could not be answered since the gift was not opened. Moreover, it later turned out that this happened last Thanksgiving, not even this year. I didn't realize that serving Thanksgiving buffet style is the current trend (at least according to this thread), but a number of the "weird" behaviors involved how food was served for the holiday meal with mother-in-laws often being found out of sync.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "I think I win the Thanksgiving 2023 petty vents already" and posted in the "Family Relationships" forum. Complaints about family members around Thanksgiving are, of course, fairly common and threads about such issues are an annual DCUM tradition. Just as in the case of yesterday's bagel controversy thread, many of the complaints tend toward the petty end of the spectrum. The original poster of this thread owned the nature of her gripe which involved her in-laws arriving at her home 9 hours before the were expected. As the original poster acknowledges, it's not the worst thing that could have happened, but it was a nuisance. She and her husband were working at home during the day and, therefore, not available to entertain guests that early and had not finished their preparations. There was laundry still to be done and beds to be made. However, if the original poster thinks that this is going to be the most petty complaint over the holiday, she vastly underestimates DCUM. As this 16 page thread demonstrates, DCUMers can vent about a lot more petty things than this. The annual petty vent thread has a lot of fans. I guess it is sort of a guilty pleasure. Posters can enjoy other's misery but, since it's only petty, they don't really have to feel bad about it. Those who don't understand the concept and urge the venters to "get over it" are met with disdain. "Here for the petty, rolling my eyes at every poster who's told a venter to suck it up/she's the problem", wrote one poster. Because yesterday was a bit early for many posters to already have vents, petty or otherwise, some posters brought up things from previous years. One poster complained about her mother-in-law moving furniture around in order to search for dust bunnies. The poster recounted how she gave her mother-in-law the phone number for her cleaning service and asked her to lodge a complaint with them. Another poster's petty vent got quite a bit of attention. In this case the poster was the guest, visiting her brother and his wife. The poster says that she doesn't have high expectations for how she is treated, but it appears that her sister-in-law has taken the advice commonly offered on DCUM and made the poster her brother's responsibility. He, in turn, hasn't seemed capable of offering the poster a cup of tea, some cheese to eat, or even clean sheets or the bed. The initial post from this poster appeared to blame the lack of hospitality on her sister-in-law, causing a number of replies questioning why her brother was such a poor host and why the poster expected better treatment from her sister-in-law. This poster's story, buttressed by constant subsequent posts that did little to calm the storm, practically took over the thread and she was dubbed variously the "tea poster" or "cheese lady". She may well go down in the annals of DCUM folklore.

For only the second time since October 7, the Gaza war thread was not the most active. In fact, it slipped all the way down to fourth most active. This is really not a surprise as the thread has become unreadable and consisting of little more than an exchange of insults. The thread that was the most active was titled, "Hoping these kids are OK" and was posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. The thread is about a tragic event that occurred yesterday morning at around 5 am. A SUV in which 7 teenagers were riding crashed into a tree, apparently at a high rate of speed, and spun several times before coming to rest across the street. Five of the occupants were ejected from the vehicle and one was trapped and needed to be extricated. Only the driver, who seems to have been the only one using a seatbelt, was able to walk away from the crash. The 17-year-old driver was initially charged with Driving Under the Influence, but was then released without charges. Charges remain pending and the investigation is continuing. The thread started out with posters simply trying to gather more details. Several posters, including the original poster, live near the scene of the crash and were very concerned about the condition of the kids. One topic posters wondered about was which school or schools the vehicle's occupants attend. That information began to trickle out as first one school, then another, and then a third, released statements. My understanding is that one of occupants attends McLean High School, one goes to Longfellow Middle School, and the rest are students at Marshal High School. Posters also focused on what might have lead to the accident. They found it odd — as do I — that teens would be out early on a school day morning and under the influence of drugs or alcohol. There was speculation that they might have stayed the night after a party or been up the entire night. Posters wondered why parents would allow their kids out over night. This launched a huge debate about the ability of parents to control headstrong teenagers who have been known to sneak out of their homes without their parent's knowledge. Some posters have apparently turned their houses into virtual prisons to ensure their kids are home at night. There is considerable discusion about whether poor parenting contributed to this tragedy with some posters more than willing to put full blame on the parents and others arguing that even the best parenting is sometimes not enough. In reaction to events such as this, there is often a rush to identify a factor that parents don't believe applies to them or their children in order to provide some assurance that this couldn't happen to them. This thread is full of such efforts. For instance the insistance of several posters that their kids would never be out at such hours without a legitimate need. But other posters are quick to remind them that you can't be smug when it comes to parenting.