eisely

NJCubScouter You forgot to mention PETA. I suspect that PETA operatives are already researching abuses at your alma mater. Speaking of PETA...They recently offered high schools in this area $20,000 worth of veggie burgers if the high schools would take hamburgers made of beef off of the lunch menu. I doubt that most high schools could eat $20,000 worth of veggie burgers in a year, even if they were served every day. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has taken PETA up on their offer.

I believe the first Earth Day was early in 1970. I was in graduate school at the time. In addition to calling attention to environmental issues, it provided a diversion for everybody from the ongoing war in Viet Nam...until the incursion into Cambodia later that spring.

If you put male and female patches away in the same tupperware container, will they try to breed?

Speaking of the Irish and Notre Dame... Stanford now is playing a series of games with the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. One of those home here a few years ago, I think 1997, resulted in a controversy. I did not go to that game, but some of those who did were quite offended by the Stanford half time show that featured a drunken mockery of the Notre Dame mascot Leprechaun. I don't think anybody from Notre Dame objected, but the Stanford took a lot of heat locally.

I too had ignored this thread previously. One or two family events in a troop's calendar are highly desirable for a lot of reasons. Having the SPL meet with the committee to hear the adult take on the idea is sound advice. As others have noted, siblings are a bigger concern, particularly if they are very young. Families with younger siblings have to understand that the adult leadership of the troop cannot be responsible for those younger children. It has been many years, make that decades, since I read Dante's Inferno. Now I will have to go look. Maybe Cliff Notes will give me a quick answer.

Proud Eagle is correct that OA has striven to address those parts of its program that might be deemed offensive. One major change I have not heard mentioned is the change in the OA logo. For many years the logo was the face of a chief with a bonnet, apparently based on a plains indian concept of what a chief would look like. The logo is now simply an arrowhead. Folks figured out that different groups of native americans costumed themselves differently and that the chief logo was a stereotype. Not necessarily a bad stereotype, but a stereotype. Referring to Vikings: Several years ago some group of Scandinavian descent did object to Hagar the Horrible, although to no effect.

BW's answer is certainly simple enough, and I am willing to presume its correctness. I suppose if a chartered organization, without relocating itself, insisted on rechartering with an adjacent council, BSA would ultimately go along rather than lose a unit. I am not at all familiar with how chartering agreements work and BSA national would not want to encourage councils to poach in each others' territories, even if that were feasible. I will tell you of one curious situation. Our district has responsibility for two LDS units in Oakland, California, and Oakland is part of a different council. Apparently this was done to accommodate the local Mormon church structure in some way. I don't think this was a case of somebody wanting to leave a particular council, but was done, only in the last few years, for reasons internal to the LDS church.

LauraT7, I think it should be fairly obvious that boys will advance in rank at different speeds. I think any boy achieving First Class in his first 12 months in scouting has accomplished something worthy of note. FOG's comment about making rank advancement easier is way off base. Others who have been around awhile may have a different take on this, but the notions of new scout patrols and pushing advancement to First Class in the first year were promoted nationally about the time that I became active as an adult volunteer. We were told that BSA National had commissioned a comprehensive study of youth retention, including tracking down dropouts and interviewing them. One of the findings was that, if a boy made First Class during his first year, he was more likely to stick around. I don't know what is cause and what is effect here regarding retention, but the idea of really creating a program for new scouts, whatever it may look like had then, and still has, serious merit. To try to answer your question more directly, if I were to monitor new boys, I would start the clock running on a new boy on the date that he joined.

This has nothing to do directly with scouting, but since scouting has staked out a position that some kind of belief in a god or gods is necessary, this guy's story is kind of interesting. ______________________________ How I found God at Columbia Dennis Prager (archive) December 2, 2003 Very few people can say that they found God or religion at college or graduate school. The university, after all, is a radically secular institution that either ignores or disparages religious belief in God. Yet, one day, when I was a graduate student in international affairs at Columbia University, I had what can honestly be called an epiphany. I remember it very clearly. Since entering graduate school, I was preoccupied with this question: Why did so many learned and intelligent professors believe so many foolish things? Why did so many people at my university believe nonsense such as Marxism? I was a fellow at the Russian Institute where I specialized in Soviet affairs and Marxism, and so I encountered professor after professor and student after student who truly believed in some variation on Marxism. Why did so many professors believe and teach the even more foolish notion that men and women are basically the same? At college, it was a given that the differing conduct of boys and girls and of men and women is a result of different, i.e., sexist, upbringings. The feminist absurdity that girls do girl things because they are given dolls and tea sets, and boys do boy things because they are given trucks and toy guns, was actually believed in the mind-numbing world of academic intellectuals. And why were so many professors morally confused? How could people so learned in contemporary history morally equate the Soviet Union and the United States, regard America as responsible for the Cold War, or regard Israel as the Middle East's villain? One day, I received an answer to these questions. Seemingly out of nowhere, a biblical verse -- one that I had recited every day in kindergarten at the Jewish religious school I attended as a child -- entered my mind. It was a verse from Psalm 111: "Wisdom begins with fear of God." The verse meant almost nothing to me as a child -- both because I recited it in the original Hebrew, which at the time I barely understood, and because the concept was way beyond a child's mind to comprehend. But 15 years later, a verse I had rarely thought about answered my puzzle about my university and put me on a philosophical course from which I have never wavered. It could not be a coincidence that the most morally confused of society's mainstream institutions and the one possessing the least wisdom -- the university -- was also society's most secular institution. The Psalmist was right -- no God, no wisdom. Most people come to believe in God through what I call the front door of faith. Something leads them to believe in God. Since that day at Columbia, however, I regularly renew my faith through the back door -- I see the confusion and nihilism that godless ideas produce and my faith is restored. The consequences of secularism have been at least as powerful a force for faith in my life as religion. If our universities produced wise men and women, curricula of moral clarity, and professors who loved liberty and truth, not to mention loved America -- there is no question that my religious faith would be challenged. I would look at the temple of secularism, the university, and see so much goodness and wisdom that I would have to wonder just how important God and religion were. But I look at the university and see truth deconstructed, beauty reviled, America loathed, good and evil inverted, elementary truths about life denied, and I realize that one very powerful argument for God is that society cannot function successfully without reference to Him. So as much as I shudder almost every time I read of another academic taking an absurd position, I also feel my faith renewed. Ironically, the worse the universities get, the greater their tribute to God.

As long as we are going down this path, I don't have a problem with a unit having standards for wearing the uniform either. There is very little grey here since the complete uniform is spelled out, and the insignia guide is quite clear. This has been visited in other threads. Some units, out of consideration for family budgets do allow wearing of blue jeans with the shirt for ordinary meetings. I don't care for it personally, but I can understand it.

Good luck for the rest of the year. Now all I have to do is bill out about $15,000 more in fees before the end of the month.

My money is still on Bush. Let's see now... It's the Economy Stupid! Oh...things are picking up real fast. Let's not support our troops and bring them home... Boy that ought to be a big help in the current difficulties. I find the Democratic field utterly lacking in credibility and seriousness.

OGE I agree that it would be inequitable to impose an attendance policy retroactively. That is why such policies should be established and enunciated early and consistently, if they are to be there at all. One thing that comes through in your last post is that you seem to expect a SM to be completely on top of the performance of youth leaders at all times and give them a progress check, particularly for the top three ranks. I think that is a great idea. If everybody did that consistently, there would be fewer problems all around. Even so, I think that having some sort of standard or policy at least in the background gives all concerned a better yardstick to work with. We cannot, and should not strive, to eliminate all elements of human judgment from these matters. I just can't see leaving it all up to the judgment of the SM. I see that as a path to controversy and likely disappointment, if not bitterness, on the part of some scouts and parents who may feel they were treated arbitrarily and without any rules to go by. It is also worth noting that the POR requirements do not require a scout to do an outstanding job, or even be successful, as a leader. They are only required to "actively serve", i.e. try. Regarding the wisdom of articulating unit policies on participation, we agree to disagree, politely and respectfully.

I would disagree that an attendance policy is adding a requirement. Rather suc a policy is merely articulating a requirement. The problem I have with BW's view expressed in his last post is applying "active" on an "individual basis" in the absence of some notion of a standard. One can have very lenient standards that accommodate a variety of situations, but at least one should have a consistent standard. In a prior thread at least two years ago, another forum member from whom we have not heard in a long long time, described a process that was used in his troop. It was particularly important in the situation described by jmcquillan to balance the leadership needs of the troop with the competing interests of the older scouts with regards to sports. In that unit, those scouts who needed both time in active leadership and wanted to participate in sports would in essence take a leave of absence from the troop during their sports seasons. This required closer management and cooperation all around, but at least they had a way of dealing with the conflicts. This is somewhat away from the limited notion of attendance. I prefer the broader terminology of "participation." Be all that as it may, when it comes to credit for leadership positions, I think a troop is absolutely entitled to establish expectations in advance.

A minor correction: When I was transcribing the requirements for Star in my previous post, Requirement 1 clearly refers to the rank of First Class. Responding further to OGE: I understand that you think that attendance requirements are not a good idea, and you are entitled to that opinion. What do you think of the authority of the troop to have these things? Is it permissable?

BW will likely disagree, but I don't recall seeing, hearing, or reading anything in the adult leader training one way or another about units setting attendance requirements. If I am wrong, I would honestly appreciate a citation of a specific source. In my mind units have the authority to set participation requirements, and these should be established by the PLC, subject to concurrence by the committee, just as the committee has to approve other program elements planned by the PLC. I also believe that it is best that these be written down somewhere and distributed to scouts and parents so everyone knows what the expectations are. It may be pamaha, that your particular guidelines or rules, whatever you want to call them, need review and updating, but I think you have the authority to do this. BSA does not have any national guidelines of which I am aware. In my mind the foundation for setting participation standards rests in the rank requirements for Star, Life, and Eagle. The requirements for lower ranks do not have this kind of language, but do have other specific participation requirements. The key language, taken from the Star requirements are: Requirement 1: "Be active in your troop and patrol for at least four months as a Star Scout." Requirement 5: "While a First Class Scout, serve actively for four months in one or more of the following positions of responsibility...." Similar language is used for both Life and Eagle, although the minimum term is six months. I think we can all agree that being "active" entails more than just being registered as a member. If this is so, the unit has to supply a workable definition of "active" that is both fair and that meets its program needs. In particular, "active" execution of a tour of duty in a key leadership position is often critical to the success of the troop/patrol. For example, boys who expect to get credit for just being elected to a patrol leader position and never showing up or doing anything are doing themselves and all the other scouts a disservice. Yet, how can "active" service be fairly judged without some clearly established expectations? Poor attendance at meetings and outings may indeed be a sign of a program that the boys do not find interesting or fun. This does not negate the authority of the troop to establish expectations for participation.

G2SS is very clear that PFD's are required for all scout float trips. I have been in a situation where a PFD saved my life, and that of a scout, so I am a believer. I agree with LV about the cheapo PFD's. As LV says, they also deteriorate with age. I have had one of the rental orange babies come apart in my hands. My wife and I have our own PFDs.

BSA publishes a small book of campfire songs. It should be available at your nearest scout service center and store. In addition to standard fare, all the official scout songs, including the two mentioned by The Man of Steele are in this book. Most BSA songs are easy to learn since the melodies are not original but are borrowed from other sources. Regrettably singing at campfires appears to be a dying art, at least in this neck of the woods.

DSteele, That is very helpful. It also is quite a different take on "removal" than has come up before in this forum. I was left with the impression that if the chartered organization kicked you out, that was it. If I understand you correctly, a youth/adult is removed from the unit, and has the option of seeking a new affiliation with a different unit. Is that correct? If no new unit takes such a person, their membership with BSA would expire completely at the end of the charter year for the unit that did the removing. Unless of course, such a person gets onto somebody else's roster in the meantime. Am I getting that correctly?

I can think of only one instance where a boy was permanently removed from membership. This boy had seriously injured another scout at summer camp and was viewed as a danger to himself and others. I have seen a couple of scouts suspended for six months for some gross misbehaviour who chose not to come back. Question for BW: You said that only the instutional head of the chartered organization had the authority at the unit level to remove someone. I can see that such a person has that authority. I thought the COR, if there is one, also had that authority. Further, suspension is not permanent removal. Who has the authority to suspend a member from active participation?

This item was published in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, November 26. I particularly like the quote near the end from John Stuart Mill. _______________________ Our Soldiers, Our Thanks Here's to the men who risk their lives to keep us free. BY KARL ZINSMEISTER Wednesday, November 26, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST With Thanksgiving here, and the first American troops to deploy for the Iraq War nearing their one-year anniversary overseas, it's a good time to remember some families in this country to whom the rest of us owe a great deal. Take the family of Sean Shields, a young American I encountered while embedded with the 82nd Airborne Division. Lt. Shields, currently stationed near Baghdad, is the third generation of his clan to serve in the U.S. Army airborne. Sean's grandfather was one of the men who first created the stellar reputation of the 82nd Airborne--parachuting into the critical battles of Normandy and Nijmegen during World War II. Sean's father served in Gulf War I, eventually retiring as a colonel. Now Sean is an Army Ranger doing his share of the heavy lifting in Iraq. He has shaken off two roadside bombings of his Humvee within a month, and soldiers on without complaint. There are many such families in this country with a multigenerational tradition of military service. There are also many families who seem oblivious to this tradition. In his recent book, "Keeping Faith," Frank Schaefer describes how, after he'd sent other children to New York University and Georgetown, his affluent Boston neighbors expressed disappointment at his son's decision to become a Marine. "He's so bright and talented and could do anything!" blurted one man. "What a waste!" A similar view is betrayed by New York Times reporter Chris Hedges when he describes today's soldiers as "poor kids from Mississippi or Alabama or Texas who could not get a decent job or health insurance and joined the Army because it was all we offered them." Are such impressions accurate? From my experiences observing American soldiers--most recently as an embedded reporter in Iraq--my answer is an emphatic "no." A much wider range of talented people serve in our military than many realize. There are suburbanites, hillbillies, kids from concrete canyons and farm boys in our fighting forces. I met graduates of tony schools like Wesleyan and Cornell in Iraq, not only in the officer corps, but in the ranks. I met disciplined immigrants from Colombia, Russia, Panama and other places. Our battlefield computers, helicopters and radars are kept humming by flocks of mechanical whizzes and high-tech aces. I know of a man who was most of the way through a Ph.D. at Fordham University when, looking for a more active and patriotic career, he decided he'd like to start jumping out of airplanes with the 82nd Airborne. He came in not as an officer but as a private. Four years later, he is a highly competent sergeant. I learned about the son of an engineer and a nursing supervisor who had glided through his school's gifted-student program before landing a job as an open-heart-surgery technician. Then the Sept. 11 attacks convinced him that his country needed him for more important work. He is now a medic in the 82nd Airborne, hoping for an eventual career as an Army doctor. A few years ago, I interviewed Gen. John Abizaid, now America's top military officer in the Middle East. He had entered West Point in 1969, and noted that at that time the academy had to accept every minimally qualified applicant just to fill his class. Today, entry into our military academies is prized as much as admission to an Ivy League school. That's a clear indicator of how support for the military has rebounded in this country since our Vietnam-era lows--and it hints at the quality of the individuals who flow into our armed forces at all levels. Our soldiers aren't all saints and scholars, but the base of our military pyramid is full of impressive individuals. There are also many unusually talented men and women at the middle and top of the command structure. The commanders of our troops in Iraq today are instructive examples. Brig. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who leads the First Armored Division in Baghdad, has earned, in addition to his military achievements, three separate master's degrees. Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, whose leadership of the 101st Airborne has temporarily made him the prince of northern Iraq, is well equipped for that task thanks to, among other credentials, a Ph.D. in international relations from Princeton (which he earned two years faster than most doctoral candidates). The commander of our third full division in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno of the Fourth Infantry Division, has a master's in nuclear engineering. Independent thinking by line soldiers is not only tolerated in our armed forces, it is required by the new freelancing style of warfare. Outsiders who envision our fighting forces as authoritarian institutions would be surprised to observe the meritocratic nature of our military in action. Obstacles are generally surmounted after open, democratic-style contention among competing views. I witnessed many spirited debates--among officers in the command tents as well as between privates and sergeants--over the best ways to achieve important objectives. The general modus operandi is competition: "May the smartest idea, and biggest bicep, win." America's soldiers have the skills to fly missiles into designated windows and squeeze off one-mile sniper shots. They have the openness and democratic habits to serve as good representatives of our liberal society. And they are also admirable on a third front: for their moral idealism. Hollywood war stories like "Saving Private Ryan" and "Black Hawk Down" promulgate the notion that contemporary soldiers fight not for cause and country but simply for the survival of themselves and their buddies. But most American soldiers are quite conscious of the titanic clash of moral universes that lies behind today's U.S. venture into the Middle East. They are not only aware of the historical importance of this fight, but proud of their role in it, and broadly motivated by high principles extending far beyond self preservation. Gregory Kolodciejczky was a New York City fireman. When the Twin Towers went down, 14 men from his stationhouse were killed, and he decided to help make sure the events of that day would never be replayed in his country. At age 32 he chucked everything and started a new career as a paratrooper. He believes that by fighting in Iraq he is honoring the memory of his dead friends, and helping protect Americans from future acts of terror. I know numerous soldiers who put aside well-paying jobs, family life, graduate school and comfortable careers after concluding, in the wake of Sept. 11, that their country needed their military service. Families of some of the soldiers I've reported on have shared their letters home with me, and many of these reflect the rectitude of those men and women. Lt. John Gibson of the 82nd's 325th Regiment wrote his parents on his birthday this summer that "we are homesick and want to see our families and loved ones, but not at the expense of an incomplete mission. I know that a completely free and democratic Iraq may not be in place by the time that I leave, but it will be significantly under way before I am redeployed. I see things here, on a daily basis, that hurt the human heart. I see poverty, crime, terrorism, murder, and stupidity. However, I see hope in the eyes of many Iraqis, hope for a chance to govern themselves. I think they are on the cusp of a new adventure, a chance for an entire country to start over again." Pvt. Melville Johnson of the 82nd Airborne reflected on his time in combat this way: "I feel Iraq has real potential for the future--with the help of the U.S. military, humanitarian agencies, and the installation of a just, fair, and compassionate government. I feel tremendously for the American families that lost a loved one. I also feel for the families of the enemy. At night, before I rest, I think of the enemy we killed. I remember the way their bodies lay in unnatural states, positions God never intended them to take. I hope these images will soon fade. But would I willingly, happily, and completely fight this war again? Yes, I would do it all over again with just as much, or more, determination." The patriot Thomas Paine once said, "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, so that my children may have peace." This is a creed many soldiers adhere to quite literally. To a man, the deployed GIs I know tell me they don't want any waffling or hesitation about finishing the job in Iraq. They say it is much less important that the Iraqi war be over soon than that it be successful, and they know that will take time. Amid the sour soap opera of Jessica Lynch, Americans should remember that there are many U.S. soldiers who displayed real self-sacrificial heroism in the Iraq War. Just among the 82nd Airborne there are men like Medic Alan Babin, who left a covered position and exposed himself on the battlefield to come to the aid of another soldier. He was shot in the abdomen and is now fighting his way back from the loss of numerous organs, several full-body arrests and 20 operations. When you talk to our wounded soldiers they say, astonishingly, that they don't regret the fight. Almost universally, they say they are anxious to return to their units as soon as possible. Most American warriors subscribe to the words of John Stuart Mill: "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." It's easy for critics on both the left and right to convince themselves that the U.S. is a decadent society, that our young people have gone soft, that we will never have another generation like the men who climbed the cliffs at Normandy. That judgment, I'm here to report, is utterly wrong. We've got soldiers in uniform today whom Americans can trust with any responsibility, any difficulty, any mortal challenge. At the end of this strenuous year, we give thanks for them. Mr. Zinsmeister, editor in chief of The American Enterprise, is author of "Boots on the Ground: A Month With the 82nd Airborne in the Battle for Iraq," just published by Truman Talley.

I never thought I would see OGE coming down so hard on an issue. This is a tough one. The boy probably needs scouting more than before and I would not kick him out. Nobody has suggested that. I would wait to see what the family asks the troop to do, if they ask at all. If the boy came up for a SM conference, I probably would introduce the subject into that dialogue. The troop does not want to appear to be condoning, nor is it appropriate to condemn. I would want to be suuportive.

From the New "shorter" Oxford English dictionary: kerfuffle: fuss, commotion, disorder, agitation RE: United Way It is certainly true that businesses get embezzled every day. However, non profits seem particularly susceptible to this. And the bigger the non profit, the greater the opportunity. Giving directly to Friends of Scouting at least puts the money into the hands of people who are openly dedicated to the organization, its programs and goals. Do you find the same levels of commitment in an amorphous thing like United Way? United Way is essentially a large collection agency and would not exist but for the desire of employers to avoid having multiple charities seeking payroll deductions.

A needed reminder.

There was a similar scandal here in the San Francisco Bay area, although no criminal charges have yet been filed. If I recall correctly there was a kerfuffle about the Ann Arbor United Way and BSA over a year ago. I don't recall if the Lansing United Way was involved in that. _________________ After embezzlement, Capital Area United Way beats expectations The Associated Press 11/21/03 12:13 PM LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- The Capital Area United Way expects to have raised more than $6.3 million during its annual campaign, a success especially considering the charity's recent embezzlement scandal. Jacquelyn Allen-MacGregor was sentenced to four years in prison earlier this year after being convicted of stealing more than $2 million while she was the finance chief of the East Lansing-based charity. This year's United Way fund-raising effort, which is in the final stages, is expected to generate about 9 percent less than the $6.9 million pledged last year, officials told the Lansing State Journal for a story Friday. Although that figure is down from last year, it is far better than the larger declines reported by charities faced with financial scandal in other communities. "We were tested this year, and this community rose to the challenge," John Zaworski, volunteer chairman of this year's United Way campaign said during a recent campaign breakfast, which drew a record 500 people. The relative success of this year's fundraising drive is good news for more than 1,000 agencies and 120,000 people who rely on United Way money each year in Clinton, Ingham and Eaton counties. The weak economy has left many of those service agencies short on cash.