DCUM Weblog

The most active thread since my post on Friday was, as expected, the thread about the attack by Hamas on Israel. That thread has already reached 142 pages. But, since I covered that in a post yesterday, I'll move to the next thread today. That thread was titled, "Mean girls mean moms" and posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum. The original poster says that the "not so nice" girls in her daughter's class have "not so nice" moms. She says this is probably an obvious observation, but she wonders how to break the cycle. Most posters suggest that it is futile to worry about breaking the cycle and that the best approach is to avoid the mean girls and moms and teach your own daughters to be better. Other posters know of mean girls who have nice moms. This provokes responses saying that nice moms are too nice to properly discipline their kids, resulting in them being mean. Some posters report that their daughters have not encountered mean girls. This is a 17 page thread and I don't have time to read all of it, but it looks like much of the thread is devoted to posters describing their own problems with mean girls, mean moms, or simply unfriendly school environments. Some posters tell tales of mean girls that they encountered when they were in grade school. There is disagreement about what constitutes a "mean girl". To some, mean girls are those who take affirmative actions to hurt someone on an emotional or physical level. To others, simply not making friends with another girl is a form of "bullying" and being a mean girl. Several posts really have nothing to do with mean girls or mean moms, but rather simply describe normal social behavior. For instance, parents and kids who have lived in the same neighborhood and attended the same schools for years and made close friendships may not be very welcoming to a newcomer. For some, this is mean behavior. For others, it is something to be expected and simply takes time to overcome.

Normally I would not post to this blog over the weekend. But, it is clear that the most active thread this weekend is going to be the thread titled, "Looks like a new Gaza war has started" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. So, I may as well address that thread now. As some readers of this blog are aware, I originally came to Washington, DC in order to study at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. I devoted a number of years of my life to studying the Middle East and have lived and traveled in the region. That part of the world remains one in which I have a particular interest.

As I often do, I am not really going to discuss the thread itself, but rather use it as a jumping off point for my own thoughts. Writing about Israel and the Palestinians is like walking through a minefield. One wrong step and you blow yourself up, or at least upset a lot of people who are unlikely to be shy about expressing their displeasure. So, if I in anyway offend anyone, I apologize in advance.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Son blind sided by GF" and posted in the "Adult Children" forum. Someone reported this thread yesterday asking if the original poster is a troll. I don't think she is, but I knew the minute I saw the thread that I would be writing about it today. The original poster's adult son has had a girlfriend for three years who has suddenly decided that she wants to move back to her hometown about 6 hours away. She wants the original poster's son to move with her. The son is not interested in moving because his friends and business network are located here. The original poster doesn't seem to like the girlfriend much and says that if her son and the woman would have a family, she knows she would never see her grandchildren. Knowing DCUM posters, I assumed that there would be a massive wave of responses telling the original poster to stay out of it. Indeed, one of the first responses was exactly that. But, there were a number of responses supportive of the original poster because her son had contacted her about the situation. In a follow-up post, the original poster described her son's girlfriend as having "misrepresented herself". That didn't go over well with many posters and provoked a considerable amount of criticism of the original poster. She basically bowed out of the discussion at that point, telling everyone to "Keep on hating". By that time, many of the responders were too invested in the thread to let it go and heated exchanges continued so that the thread reached 12 pages before the end of the day. Some posters sided with the girlfriend, saying that she had the right to change her mind about where to live while still dating and several suggested the original poster was herself a good reason to move away from Washington. Others argued that her son should take this opportunity to break up with the woman due to several negative characteristics they attributed to her. Critics of the original poster accused her of painting the girlfriend in a negative light and not being objective. Defenders of the original poster said that of course a mom wouldn't be objective, that is not her role. There is a huge debate about to whom a man can turn to for advice. For reasons not entirely clear to me, posters rule out moms. Others rule out friends. Dads get a vote of confidence, but that's about it. In addition, an incredible number of posters read only a couple of posts and immediately replied only to repeat the same thing that had already been posted numerous times on previous pages. When you boil the thread down, there are probably less than a half-dozen unique replies and one of those is some guy suggesting the original poster's son date "latinas and Asian babes".

The two most active threads yesterday were topics that I discussed yesterday. So, skipping those, the next most active topic was titled, "Test optional is total BS" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The subject of college admissions examinations is a well-trod topic in the college forum. Such tests have been frequently criticized as not being reliable indicators of a student's intelligence. Rather, critics say, they are gamed by students who take test preparation classes or have the financial means to repeatedly take the tests. When schools began to make tests scores an optional component of applications, criticism arose that this was simply a means to admit less qualified underrepresented minorities. Two stereotypes — one of robot-like Asian kids who underwent years of text prep and the other of minority students unable to perform well on tests — became part and parcel of the forum's conventional wisdom. In the case of this thread, the original poster argues that test scores should be used as a means of weeding out weak students. According to the original poster, grade point averages are inflated and, therefore, not trustworthy indicators of performance. The poster accepts completely and without reservation the belief that test scores are effective indicators of college success. Moreover, the poster argues that, because of test optional policies, only applicants with high scores submit them and, therefore, the average scores for the schools goes up. The original poster is bothered by students with high GPAs but mediocre test scores discussing to which colleges to apply. This is a 15 page thread and, as I said, the arguments are well-worn and I simply don't have the patience to read 15 pages of the same thing being repeated. Or, even one page for that matter. Frankly, I don't understand why the original poster is so worked up about other kids' test scores. If her child has a high score, that will help him. If not, it's good for him that tests are optional. I think that using test scores as simply an optional data point for fleshing out an application is a good thing. Colleges are frequently interested in athletic achievement. A student who places first in a state-wide athletic competition will probably include that on her application. On the other hand, nobody will, for instance, list that they placed near the bottom or last in that sport at their school. Test scores should be treated similarly. College applications are an opportunity to present your strengths. If a test score is one of those, take advantage of it. If not, hopefully you have other strengths to demonstrate.

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "Congressman carjacked at gunpoint in Washington DC" and posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics" forum. The Congressman in question, Democrat Henry Cuellar of Texas, was approached by at least three men, of whom two were obviously armed with guns, as he existed his car near the building in which he and several other Members of Congress live. Cuellar handed over his keys and his car was stolen with his phone, iPad, and the sushi he planned to eat for dinner still inside. The car, phone, iPad, and sushi were recovered a couple of hours later. Cuellar was not harmed during the altercation. The District has been undergoing a torrent of armed carjackings in recent months, which along with other crime has left residents frustrated and angry. Historically, concerns about security have been one of the best ways to encourage people to embrace undemocratic methods of governance. Many posters immediately jumped into this thread to advocate for exactly such measures. The fourth poster to respond called for deploying the National Guard and before the first page was complete, another poster demanded a new control board similar to the Financial Control Board created in 1995 to oversee the District's finances. I have a number of issues with these calls for federal control of the District. First, one of the most important functions of public safety — prosecution of adult crime — is already in federal hands in the form of the US Attorney's office. Last year, that office declined to prosecute 67% of the cases of those arrested. This track record does not present a good argument for the performance of unelected federal officials. Second, a control board similar to the previous one would require a act of Congress. I am really not interested in having the likes of James Comer — Chairman of the House committee that oversees DC affairs — increasing their involvement in our local affairs. For those who are unaware, Comer is currently leading the impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden and investigating Biden's son Hunter. He is a MAGA Republican with a proclivity toward conspiracy theories. Moreover, House Republicans, who some posters apparently want to make responsible for governing DC, just removed their own Speaker — a historical first. These folks can't even govern themselves responsibly. This thread contains repeated claims about Council actions that have "handcuffed" the police. Council reforms have included things like prohibiting chokeholds, requiring body-worn cameras, prohibiting vehicular pursuits, and changes to the collective bargaining process. It is hard to believe that any of these changes are resulting in increased carjacking. The additional argument that the officers' feelings have been hurt and, therefore, they aren't doing their job suggests an issue with the officers rather than the Council. The Council may have its faults, but the Mayor, police force, and USAO are also at fault, if not more so, for crime in DC. Statistics clearly show that crime is increasing in DC, something about which none of us can be happy. But, the solution is not to reject our limited Democratic freedoms in favor of unelected authorities with no accountability to the District's residents. Rather, our own elected leaders need to stop passing blame and work together to do their jobs.

I'm going to be a bit briefer today because I am running behind and, frankly, none of the most active threads are particularly interesting to me and I am not very enthusiastic about writing about them. The most active thread, by a significant measure, was titled, "Charlotte Sena - Missing NY 9YO" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. This thread is, as the title says, about nine-year-old Charlotte Sena who went missing while riding her bicycle in a state park in upstate New York. When I first noticed this thread, my immediate reaction — even before seeing a picture of the victim — was that this would be another case of "missing white girl syndrome", which is what it turned out to be. I don't begrudge posters from being interested in the fate of young white girls, but I wouldn't expect a case in upstate New York to be the leading topic on our DC-focused forum. From what I understand, the girl was kidnapped and was safely rescued after police were able to trace fingerprints on a ransom note. I think it is worth considering why and how cases such as this attract so much attention while so many other cases are virtually ignored.

The most active thread over the weekend was titled, "I'm a DC resident, applied for my CCW, and I'm now carrying concealed". Posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics", the original poster says that he is a Democrat who believes in sensible gun control but because of increased crime in Washington, DC he has now obtained a firearm with which to defend himself. Crime and guns are two topics that can always be guaranteed to generate a lot of traffic and this thread combines both So, there is no surprise that it was the most active thread. While rates of violent crime in DC are up and far too high, they are considerably lower than at other times during my nearly 40 years of living in DC. I've been wondering why feelings such as the original poster expresses seem much more common now than in the past. The original poster says that he has "never before experienced so much random, reckless, and violent crime". I wonder if this is a literal statement in that the original poster himself has been a victim of such crimes or that by "experience" the original poster means that he knows about such crimes. As far as I can tell, that point was never clarified in the thread. I think that the most obvious instigator of fear of crime is being a victim of crime or having acquaintances, relatives, or neighbors who are victims. But, almost as important, I suspect, is simply knowing about crime in relatively close vicinity to you, even if you don't have any personal connections to it. I've written before how violent crime in DC today seems a lot more geographically distributed than in the past. So, while murder rates were higher when I first arrived in DC, they were concentrated in a few areas and most DC residents simply ignored the violence. Now, murders occur throughout the city which naturally spreads concern and fear much wider. But, another element I think adds to heightened fear of crime is social media and the rise of social media crime reporters. The DC area has a number of individuals who follow police scanners and other information sources and immediately post about violent crime on social media. Those posts get reposted elsewhere and spread by others, often being the basis of DCUM threads. This spreads knowledge of crime beyond what it was in the past. There is the old expression that "ignorance is bliss" and this is one case in which I think that increased knowledge — in addition to having positive effects — can also have negative outcomes. In this case, it might have the impact of creating fear that is not necessarily supported by reality. Others can obviously argue that increased knowledge of local crime actually leads to a more rational risk analysis. I can see both arguments. The bottom line is whether people "feel" unsafe is more important for their individual actions than whether they actually "are" unsafe. I frequently feel that social media crime reports contribute to making us feel less safe while, in actuality, whether we really do face more of a threat may not have changed. It would be interesting to know whether this poster was drive to purchase a gun by an actual or perceived threat of violent crime.

Several of the most active threads yesterday were ones that I've already discussed. However, that was not the case with the most active thread of the day which easily led engagement for the day. That thread was titled, "Share something that should be general knowledge, but isn't" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. As the title says, the original poster asks for suggestions of things that most people should know but they often don't. Her own example is the fact that "antibiotics only work on bacteria, not on viruses." This type of thread is difficult to summarize because they tend to simply be suggestion after suggestion, often with no real unifying theme. Moroever, this thread managed to grow to 20 pages in just a day. So, I don't have time to read it all. But, among the first suggestions were some good ones such as how tax brackets work and what the First Amendment actually protects. I assumed that in order to reach 20 pages, this thread would have to include some facts that could not realistically be expected to be common knowledge. Skimming the thread, I did come across such examples. For instance, one poster laments that more people are not aware that "acetaminophen" is called "paracetamol" in Europe. I had to Google to discover that "acetaminophen" is what I would normally call "Tylenol". I clearly fall woefully short of that poster's expectations. There were some suggestions in which I sort of feel like the common person is not being given a fair shake. For instance, posters suggested that it is not common knowledge that Europe and Africa consist of more than one country. I would argue that almost everyone is aware of this, but the issue is one of generalizing and lazy speech rather than ignorance. Saying, "I visited Europe last summer" is simply easier than saying "Last summer I visited France, Germany, Poland, and Lithuania." Some of the suggestions were not only not common knowledge, they might not have even have been true. For instance, posters could not agree whether "rounding up" a bill or adding a donation to support charity when checking out at a retail business actually results in more profit for the business. One poster argued that it does and wishes that more people were aware of this while another poster provided a link saying that if these businesses are following the law, this is not true.

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "Second 2024 Republican Primary Debate Thread" and was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. That this thread was the most active yesterday is a little surprising given that it was only created at 8:30 pm. It managed 11 pages of posts in just a few hours. I didn't watch the debate and don't have it in me to read all of the posts in this thread. If what I see on the first page is any indication, the thread is probably not worth my time, or anybody else's for that matter. The first thing I noticed was a Nikki Haley shill. The poster authored one of the first responses saying that Haley had done a great job. Two posts later, the same poster wrote to say that he was 69 years old and had never seen a candidate as strong as Haley. In the very next post, the poster responded to his own post to say that he is 49 years old and agrees. From this we can conclude that Haley is winning the vote of sock puppets between the ages of 49 and 69. I'll leave the question of whether that is a key demographic to others. It also looks like the moderators got more attention from posters than most of the candidates. The very first post of the thread pointed out that collectively the candidates participating in the debate represent only 36 percent of the polling average. If they were a single person, former President Donald Trump would be beating them in polling by 20 percentage points. As a result, it is not clear what these candidates are hoping to achieve. They may be running for second place or hoping to be chosen as Trump's running mate. But, in some cases, both of those goals seem pretty unobtainable. For instance, I don't think Chris Christie has much chance of either. One issue that seems to get a lot of attention in the thread is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' position regarding Mexico. Apparently he wants to send US armed forces into Mexico, a position about which posters were divided. Some posters were actually supportive of the idea of going to war with our southern neighbor. This highlights a big difference between the dynamics of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Among Democrats, pressure is always placed on candidates to show that they are moderate and willing to compromise with their opponents. In the Republican Party, candidates are incentivized to out extreme each other.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Disappointed with Georgetown" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster, in a fairly lengthy post, describes his visit to Georgetown University with his son who is conducting a number of college visits. The original poster applied to and was accepted by Georgetown 30 years ago. However, presented with a better financial aid package by an unidentified liberal arts college, the original poster chose the other school instead. The original poster says that he felt "a sense of longing" as they approached the Georgetown campus, but was almost immediately let down. He was not impressed with the campus, bothered by the noise of airplanes, and intimidated by the competitiveness of admissions. Similarly, his son ended the tour with little enthusiasm for the university, saying that if he could be accepted by Georgetown, he could probably be accepted by somewhere better as well. The original poster then provided his own opinions about Georgetown which boil down to what the school has to offer not justifying its cost and the competitiveness of its admissions. Among those who responded are posters who had similar reactions to the university. On the other hand are posters who attended the school and who suggest that the original poster doesn't understand the strengths that Georgetown offers. Nearly every aspect of the original poster's opinion of Georgetown is disputed. That includes the airplane noise which several posters denied is a problem. This thread reached 18 pages in less than 24 hours so clearly posters have strong feelings about the school. But, I don't have time to read that many posts so this is as much of a summary as I can provide.