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LATEST POSTS
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It has been a while back now, but I, along with most of the leaders in camp years ago, when the North Korean leader was much younger and just becoming a fixture in TV news, my scouts did a skit for campfire that spoofed him and brought down the house. At the time, we had a relatively new member, I think he was 12 or 13 at best, an immigrant from South Korea. The youth made him up with pillows and such to be Kim, and then proceeded to do one of the best satirical skits I have ever seen. Won is now in the Navy, having gone to Annapolis after graduating number one in his HS class, and also becoming an Eagle. He stayed with us through HS and until recently I heard from him regularly and we visited if he came home. His life has gotten complicated and too full I fear, but still hope to have him call and we can catch up. Point is that the youth completely caught me off guard, as well as most other adults. I suspect their skit may have been a victim of our modern society today, if the adults actually paid attention to its theme when submitted for approval. -
By AwakeEnergyScouter · Posted
Mine is cub-age as well, and I didn't think anyone would bring up current events/politics during this adventure until I realized with some shock that my child's probably entire class discusses US politics and their opinions of parties and individual politicians on the regular, including speculating or sharing who their parents voted for in the 2024 election. (Before the election, it was "was going to vote for".) Evidently we had done a good job of not voicing our political opinions in front of them (thinking as you did, that the time was later and that we ought to start somewhere nuanced and thoughtful), because they came from from a sleepover last year and asked us to vote for a particular candidate because they didn't know who we were going to vote for. The kids at the sleepover had made a pact to get their parents to vote for that candidate! The young age at which they did this really took me aback. But then again, at the Webelos-AOL overnight camp our pack attended last summer a Webelos yelled out "To elect Trump!" as an answer to the question "what do we have an election for this fall?" during that same adventure. The answer the staffer was looking for, was, of course, "president". I don't know if this is typical or unusual, but wanted to pass on the experience in case it's more in the common side. I know we definitely weren't discussing politics when I was their age. But since they seem to be, I wanted to prevent political shout-outs like the one we saw at camp. When it comes to reliable media, everyone has offered good observations already, but I wanted to add a general strategy for cross-checking and/or finding higher-quality reporting: public service media. It's never behind a paywall, and since the funding doesn't depend on advertising and the mission is explicitly to educate and inform their citizenry the quality is much higher than many private media these days. In Swedish public media, I regularly see reporting that forces politicians and civil servants to take action to fix problems, such as that 2/3 of the train delays in a certain region was due to the same five malfunctioning switches that had been due for exchange for years. Poof, those switches got exchanged real quick once that reporting was published because who wants to seem incompetent? If you only speak English, your options are more limited, but the BBC is excellent. France 24 also publishes news in English, as does Deutsche Welle. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand also publish public service news in English. https://www.bbc.com/news https://www.france24.com/en/ https://www.dw.com/en/top-stories/s-9097 https://www.cbc.ca/news https://www.abc.net.au/news https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world -
By BetterWithCheddar · Posted
I was a Boy Scout in the late 90s and early 2000s and can only recall a single instance of politics coming up at a Scouting event. An older Scout referred to George W. as "King George" because he had not won the popular vote. It was in the Trading Post at summer camp and we all just went back to eating our ice cream. @skeptic, I think you're approaching the situation correctly by offering a thoughtful reply when prompted but not interjecting your personal views at every turn. I view my obligation as a leader to promote good dialogue, but not necessarily my opinion. My son is still Cub-age, but when the conversations become more nuanced, I plan to start with patience and humility. -
Finding dependable news sources is itself hard. Newspapers are almost gone, and any real journalism in most is lacking. Once in a while something good is in a column or editorial or political cartoon. The time when it took me half the day on Sunday to make it through the paper is long gone. Online often has pay walls, so getting access to some good discussion is harder, as I refuse to pay them, though on occasion I might if it seems important enough. Few of those come along though. I used to get the Sunday L.A. Times, but it got so bad that I stopped it. Our local paper on a good Sunday takes maybe a half hour, including the comics, and only a few good local pieces show up. There are a few descent online mags, and once in a while I find something in them, though often have the paywall thing again. And we all know how great the various TV "news" outlets are. And now it is harder to verify things, as the fact-checking is suspect as well much of the time. Thanks for views shared; they helped a bit.
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By AwakeEnergyScouter · Posted
I just scheduled the "talk with an elected official about whether they were elected using majority or plurality voting and why" requirement of My Community, and decided to add this to the invite. "Note about scouting and politics: The scouting movement is nonpolitical in that in our roles as scouts and scouters in uniform, we do not express support for any particular political candidate in any particular place. We are a civic movement that recognizes the inviolable human dignity of each human being, freedom of thought, religion, assembly, and expression; democracy, equal rights under the law for everyone, rule of law, and human rights. We encourage our members to take an active role in creating a harmonious society that is consistent with our value foundation, but also encourage each member to reach their own conclusion regarding which political candidates have the best suggestions for how to do that in the country in which they live, consistent with freedom of thought. Given that we have over 50 million members worldwide, our fellow scouts and scouters are almost guaranteed to be mixed political company, but actively voicing support for the importance of human dignity, civic freedoms, democracy, equal rights, rule of law, and human rights is not considered political as far as the scouting movement goes, even if they are contested in a country with a scouting organization." I also agree that advising youth on not getting their news from social media is a good idea. "I read it on the Internet so it must be true" is the new "I saw it on TV so it must be true". Being able to evaluate the source of information and knowing how to cross-check it is a key skill in an information society.
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