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Lisabob,

You are certainly correct that citizens of the state of New York most likely know that Spitzer is a Democrat. Move beyond New Jersey and it is less likely that people know his party affiliation.

My point is that the main stream media will always immediately and loudly identify the party affiliation of Republicans caught in scandals, but downplay or not even report at all the party affiliation of Democrats caught in these kinds of situations.

A quick question:

To which major political party does Spitzer belong?

If you rely on the mainstream network and print media, the chances are that they won't tell you. Disclosure of party affiliation depends on which party the offender is affiliated with.

Another consideration is what types of units will be assigned to you. You should accept assignments with units where you are comfortable with your understanding of that particular program, be it cubs, boy scouts, venture, or whatever.

Cruel commissioner joke:

How many unit commissioners does it take to change a light bulb?

It doesn't take any unit commissioners to change a light bulb at all! They gather round and stare at the lightbulb and hope that it will change itself.

If you write enough in the way of final thoughts, they might even make a movie about you.

I think one reason that Spitzer is getting this treatment is that for several years he self righteously pursued a crusade on trumped up charges against prominent New Yorkers. Now if he were pusuing his trysts in the oval office in the White House, that would be cause for high praise from the media.

I see no harm in this. This vanity plate idea is no worse, and probably better, than some of the other vanity plates I have seen. It is not partisan politics. There is no endorsement of either a candidate or a party.

I am stunned and amazed that anybody in your council would think that BALOO has anything to do with overnighting in an aircraft carrier. Nevertheless, if that is your local council policy you have little choice. The suggestion to seek someone with the training is probably your best bet.

I have no idea, but I would check out what my local and state laws have to say on this subject. The National Rifle Association probably has advice available too.

Bob White makes a very good point. There is one thing that is not completely in your control and that is fulfilling a position of responsibility for six months as a life scout. This can be done with multiple positions. For example, three months in one job and three months in another. It does not have to be six months in the same position. Nevertheless, this is something you have to demonstrate to the other scouts that you deserve.

Easy explanation for incidence of allergies: It's George Bush's fault.

Pixiewife,

You do not mention if this is car camping or if they are trekking in some distance. I assume that we are talking about car camping.

On the whole your list looks pretty good. Beavah's points are well taken. I would add two suggestions.

Make sure both of your campers are equipped with sunglasses.

You mention the availability of a plastic "tote" and a back pack. I would probably use an inexpensive duffel bag for this type of outing, lined with a large trash bag to help keep things dry. If your son wants to use the back pack then you need to make sure that it fits. Hopefully you have some instructions from the manufacturer of the back pack to help you figure out how to do that.

In my earlier brief post, I did not describe how we came to be nut free. This boy was about to bridge over and the family had settled on joining our troop. The mom then approached the adult leadership to discuss the boy's allergy. She was willing to walk away with no hard feelings and not have her son go into boy scouts, although she and her son would have been disappointed. Nevertheless, we decided that this was something that we could do and we did not want to turn away a boy eager to join. We did put a burden on her, which she willingly bore, to help us understand and teach the other boys, what we could and could not use in our menus.

Having trained leaders is a necessary but insufficient condition for having a good scouting program. I am inclined to agree that leadership training should be mandatory, and I think the existing syllabi are sufficiently broad to be helpful to anybody who aspires to adult leadership. I think it is also necessary for BSA national to prescribe a minimum level of understanding of the program through its training syllabi.

Having said that there is no testing and no enforcement of program standards unless somebody steps seriously out of line on something in a way that attracts public attention.

When I compare my experience as a scout leader to my experience in organized youth sports (mostly soccer) the youth sports leagues in general seem to be ahead of scouting in encouraging adult volunteers to be trained. Further the performance of the adult volunteer is in public view every game day, and I don't mean just winning or losing games. If the adult volunteer makes a fool of himself he can find himself ejected from the game by neutral referees. Scouting has nothing like that.

We can provide training, but even if it is made mandatory, there is no way we can guarantee that leaders will implement the program.

Our troop went nut free a few years back when a peanut allergic scout joined up. We asked the mom to help us know what foods were nut free and what were not. I too miss my PB&J from time to time, but this is a small sacrifice. Going nut free has not impaired our program in any way. I viewed it as an opportuntiy to educate our scouts about food generally.

I agree that the stimulus is a largely meaningless gesture. Fortunately, unlike many government gestures, I don't think this will do much harm.

However, I do want to take a contrarian view on the issue of filing tax returns. The law exempts many people from a requirement to file tax returns. There a millions of "non filers" in the US and nobody knows how many of them are legitimately classified as not required to file. From my experience there are a lot of non filers out there getting a free ride.

If greed for the rebate induces some non filers to submit a tax return and get into the system, then that would be beneficial side effect.

CNS stand for "Cybercast News Service" which is the source of the story below.

Of course the UK is also the country where the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks that the UK should introduce Sharia. These people are really confused.

UK Boy Scouts Under Fire for Oath Mentioning God

By Kevin McCandless

CNSNews.com Correspondent

February 15, 2008

London (CNSNews.com) - Echoing a battle already fought in America, secular humanists in Britain are attacking the Boy Scouts for requiring children to swear an oath to God.

In a joint campaign, the British Humanist Association and National Secular Society accused the Scout Association, which has around half a million members, of excluding atheists from its ranks.

Spokesmen for the two groups criticized the organization for refusing to allow non-believing adults in leadership positions, and for having scouts swear to "do their best to do their duty to God and to the Queen."

With Britain moving towards a mostly secular society, they said, the policy was harming boys who did not want to swear an oath falsely, particular those from deprived areas where there are no alternative youth groups available.

In a formal submission to the Scout Association, the two organizations said the stance was contrary to the spirit of Robert Baden-Powell, who founded the organization in the early years of the 20th century.

"He did not say 'A Scout is a Friend to All, except those with non-religious beliefs,'" they wrote, in reference to a clause in the Scout Law that says, "A Scout is a friend to all and a brother to every other Scout."

Leaders from the two groups met with Derek Twine, chief executive of the Scouts, last month to discuss the issue, although no progress was reported.

British Humanist Association head Hanne Stinson said in a statement that the leaders of the Scout Association "did not seem in the least concerned about the impact of their discriminatory policy."

Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, said the groups would now go directly to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, a government body responsible for handling complaints of discrimination.

"We acknowledge the Scouts do a tremendous job, and are convinced that, if asked, most Scouts would not want to continue to exclude their non-religious comrades," he said.

Scout Association spokesman Chris Foster said Thursday the organization was committed to being inclusive.

The association's guidelines allow for the word "God" in the oath to be replaced by "Allah" or whatever would be suitable in the case of a particular member's religion. The guidelines do not, however, allow for leaving out reference to a deity altogether.

"It doesn't matter who you are or what you are," Foster said. "Any young people are welcome to join."

However, the Scouts would not be modifying or scrapping their oath, he said. "To be a Scout, you have to take the promise."

Foster said the association welcomed the debate, which he described as healthy.

A spokeswoman for the Equality and Human Rights Commission said Thursday it would not comment on the matter.

After attempts to limit government support for the Boy Scouts of America because of its their policies on religion and homosexuality, two major laws were passed by Congress in recent years.

In 2002, the Boy Scouts of America Equal Access Act said that no school receiving government funds deny could access to the organization or any affiliated group. It also made it more difficult for state and federal agencies to reduce their support.

The Support Our Scouts Act of 2005, signed into law in early 2006, broadened the protection in the earlier law.

I don't have a clear answer to this conundrum, but I do want to respond on the privacy issue.

Parents need to disclose all medications to the adult leaders in charge of a trek of summer camp. It is absolutely vital that the adult leader know what medications are being taken.

I would come down on the side of having the adults keep and dispense the medications. There are some issues with local state law, but hopefully these can be resolved on a case by case basis.

The major exception to adult custody of medications is the "epi pen" for emergency treatment of allergic reactions to insect stings. Allergic scouts and adults need to have these on their person at all times. Also, the adult leader in charge needs to know about this condition.

The bacteria, mold and horse flies are doing very well without my assistance - thank you.

Honor in the sense of public recognition is nice, but is not what the oath is referring to.

Honor is the sense of self that allows you to look in the mirror with blushing or averting your eyes.

That tells you how long it has been since I looked at my membership card.

BW,

So the number on the 2007 card is supposedly the correct and only number. Correct?

The experience cited here is consistent with my experience. Very few chartered organizations do very much for their units beyond providing a place to meet, if that.

Beardad,

Your pack should get cards back for all registered members, youth and adult when they recharter.

An extended canoe expedition down the Yukon River in Alaska.

Is BSA now assigning ID numbers to members, both adult and youth? I can see why BSA would do so, and perhaps BSA always did. The reason this came up is that my OA lodge dues statement now asks for "BSA ID". I looked at my membership card and there is a number there that I don't recall seeing before. Maybe I am just getting old.

It has been awhile since I looked at the Advancement Guidelines. When I wrote my initial post I did not have the information available to me and I just wanted to clear that up. A false impression that is all.

While we are talking about Eagle BORs ---

BW,

As I understand it the minimum number of people for an Eagle BOR is three. Most places these are run at the district level and the district supplies the people. As I understand the rules, no person registered with the candidate's unit should be on an Eagle BOR. Is that correct?

I agree that Artigas should be fine. The SM should have introduced the candidate and stepped out of the room unless requested to provide some information by the BOR. In our district the SM, or a designated substitute, shows up to introduce the candidate, but does not participate in the BOR. Your thoughts?