Fat Old Guy

I decided to have a look at some BSA literature so I pulled out my copy of the current edition of "The Scoutmaster Handbook." Imagine my surprise when it states "your troop." Since BSA says "your troop" in a publication "recommended for all Scout leaders," it follows that those leaders may say "my troop" without crossing any line. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to find all of the instances of "your troop" in "The Scoutmaster Handbook."

So Bob White, you owned that patrol and troop? Very interesting.

"By the way this isn't something I made up. this was a lesson taught to me in 1977 by William "Green Bar" Hillcourt the author of the Boy Scout Handbook for many years." Sorry but that doesn't fly. If Green Bar Bill's books aren't useful tools anymore then any wisdom that he imparted to you must also be suspect. Next, you'll be recommending that we put butter on burns. Give up the past, don't be afraid to use the program as it is written today. Find the author of the current handbook and ask him for his wisdom. BTW, is it really "your" Wood Badge patrol? Do you own it? I think not. You should say, "the Wood Badge patrol of which I am a member."

"By the way, my is a posessive pronoun which implys ownership" Since you launched into pedantry, I'll respond in kind and point out that "my" is not a pronoun, it is an adjective.

Ah Bob White, you preach living by the Scout Law but yet you cannot comply with a simple request. So much for "courteous." I am reminded of an incident that happened at a place where I worked many years ago. One of my co-workers started his computer and discovered that it wouldn't boot. He said to our boss, "Something is wrong with my computer, it won't boot." The boss started screaming at him, "it's not your computer, it belongs to the government!" She stormed off and never addressed the problem. For months afterwards we refered to our desks, computers and such as "that which the government, in a spirit of cooperation, allows us to use so that we may accomplish our daily tasks." Oddly, the boss never got the joke. As for my post, I am pointing out how inane your comments are.

Now that saying "my" is a bad thing, we need to make a list of phrases that are acceptable to Bob White and OGE. "the school that I attended" "the doctor that tends to me" "the church that I attend" "the family of which I am a member" "the neighborhood/city/state in which I live" "the person who is a friend to me" "the woman who married me" "the fruit of my loins" The list could be endless.

"Arrgh Arrgh, Classic Star Trek reference to Harry Mudd, also seen in the Trouble with Tribbles episode" Sorry OGE, Harcourt Fenton Mudd aka Harry Mudd was only in two episodes, "Mudd's Women" and "I, Mudd." The shady trader in "The Trouble With Tribbles" was Cyrano Jones. Now, if I could just put that mental activity used to store and retrieve arcane but useless information to good use, I could win a Nobel Prize.

People who are always on time.

Annie liked what she had to say so much that she repeated it twice. Although I'm suspicious of CRANEACE, I'll say that the problem with academics is that they think that you can only do things their way.

Hops, it may be illegal but there is no penalty for flying the flag improperly. To put it in baseball terms for an All-star catcher, it is very similar to a pitcher taking his signs while off the rubber.

Ed, What Merlyn can't accept is that physics and by extension chemistry are part of a grand design.

OGE, the story that I hear about "call out" v. "tap out" was that some people were getting too exuberant in their "tapping" and causing injury. Instead of promulgating instructions that care should be taken and that adults need to monitor the activities, the action was banned.

"The world is too vast to deny the possibility of other beliefs. " People believe that the world is flat and that if you catch a Leprechaun, he'll give you his Lucky Charms.

Here's an idea . . . go around town and where you see flag flown improperly or flag beyond their service life, leave a flyer about the proper treatment and display of the flag.

I've seen some pretty wimpy Eagle Projects so I'd say yes with reservation.

More people that don't get the day off: Telephone operators 7-11 Clerks Best Buy staff Gateway 2000 Technical Support University Dining Hall Staff Just about everyone who works at the local mall

"This includes snipe hunts, encouraging younger Scouts to hang one another's underwear on the camp flag pole, forcing a Scout to sing at flag ceremony to recover his lost item, waving mail in front of other scouts at the dining hall and making them sing for it, etc." They may not build leaderships skills but they build team spirit and do a good job of weeding people out. Most "male bonding" activities are designed to determine who is worthy of your trust and friendship. If someone can't take the pressure of singing to get his skivvies back, he probably won't be able to take the pressure of a mammoth hunt or a raiding party to get new wives. I think that it was Fraser Crane who said, "It's what guys do. They screw each other to the wall." As a real psychologist that I know said, "We're doing our best to castrate boys."

I have a sea bat in this box. Ya wanna peek?

" In a practical way--would it be okay to help at the polling place if a Cub or Scout were distributing literature from all parties? " I wouldn't do that. How could you guarantee equity? What if the Cubs gave out 100 for person A but only 75 for person B?

" We had four plus our new den chief from the troop, and I knew the boys knew little of flag ceremonies, but was disappointed to realize that the Cubs actually had NO knowledge at all of them." Blame the school system, parents and society in general. It used to be that patriotic holidays were days of celebration with parades, picnics and speeches. Now holidays are just long weekends and a reason for a sale. When I was a youngster, we'd watch the VFW or American Legion conduct flag ceremonies on holidays. Someone would talk about the meaning of the day it would sink into the mind of an eight year old. Of course, our brains hadn't been sucked dry by video games and we were able to listen to stories being told.

The dog destroyed my copy of the Scout Catalog. Fortunately, I get about six a year in the mail, I guess that makes up for the adults in my troop that never get one. :-)

I have a feeling that OGE was taken on a snipe hunt and left in the woods for a night.

I guess that I'm old fashioned. I read the printed cataglog :-) I looked at the web site and I couldn't find the red and green cap anywhere. How bizarre.

NJCubScouter, since BSA requires an adult woman along on any excursion involving girls, do you think that all trips with boys should require a heterosexual man?

You can't tell the cap has been redesigned? The crown is lower and the bill is preformed.