Gold Winger

To go along with the "guest in a house" metaphor. If you were invited to a friend's house for dinner and smelled gas, would you not say anything because you are a guest or would you warn your friend that his home was in danger? It sounds like you might keep quiet and leave at the first opportunity.

Since that's not in the Flag Code that is just the opinion of the writer. The flag code says that whenever the flag is displayed against a surface that the canton (blue field) should be in the upper left as seen by the viewer (who else could be seeing it?) DoD says that the flag patch is not a flag and that they can wear it anyway that they want and that other organizations can do what they want. Displayed on a vehicle? The flag code prohibits draping a flag on a vehicle. I'd say that pasting a big decal on a car is "draping it" so that's illegal. I'll continue to wear my flag the correct way and the soldiers can wear theirs however they want.

"The Roy Williams myth memo about camo" Why do you call it a myth? Mike Walton has a copy which he used as his source for his web site. Maybe if you ask him, he'll send you a copy.

I may be a guest but without me they can't get the "Centenial Quality Unit Award." :-) Repair damage? I'm not the one who said, "we need help" and then when I called said "I can't be bothered" doesn't really sound like they want help. Its like when your neighbor asks if you can help move a piano so you ask when he wants to move it so you can arrange your schedule but he won't tell you and then complains to the other neighbors that you won't help him. So the sage advice here is that I let a unit that is in trouble do things that continue to put the unit and the CO at risk without saying anything? Interesting.

My mother taught me todo survival sewing when I was about nine or ten. Stich a split seat. Sew on a button. I cn hem pant but it isn't pretty. Patches? Now that's where I shine. Sewing machine? Not for me. Once I have the patch positioned which takes about a week because I'm particular (maybe peculiar), it takes about five minutes per patch. No patch glue or iron ons for me. Every patch on my daughter's girl scout "uniform" has been sewn on. I also repair tattered stuffed animals. :-)

My other unit is great. Energetic and trained leaders. Willing to talk. Well funded. Good recruiting. Etc Yada-yada. The first group with the comment, "I have a life so I can't be bothered" is a worrisome comment. I did explain that laser tag is not approved and I supplied the appropriate citation from G2SS. I have a feeling that they might be a pack like that run by a Cubmaster of my acquaintance. Rules were for other packs. The cubmaster was one of those that felt that fun took precedence over all else. Cart the boys in the back of a pick-up, sure it's fun. Canoeing. It's fun. It turned out that the boys in his pack were given the AOL but hadn't done the work. Why bother? it was boring. I'll keep trying but if they keep ignoring me . . . well, I have a life too and another pack to worry about.

I'm a new unit commissioner assigned to commish a pack that has been whining that they need a commissioner. The problem is that they really don't want a commissioner and don't really seem to want to follow any sort of program. I spent weeks trying to get in touch with the CC. Finally the Dist. Commish corraled her and told her that I had been trying to get in touch. "Oh, I know but I have a life so I can't be bothered" was the reply. When I finally spoke to her it was revealed that a den leader is doing double duty as CM. I explained that this really wasn't a good thing to do. Oh, that's the way we always do it because we can't get volunteers. It is a large pack with more than 50 boys. I offered to sit down with her and the CM and talk about ways to recruit more adult help. Hasn't happened. Phone calls and emails about visiting the pack meetings and committee meetings go unanswered. Most recently, I noticed that their calendar included "Laser Tag." I dashed off an email explaining that Laser Tag isn't an approved activity. No response. Any suggestions from the expericenced Commissioners?

With young'uns you can talk till you're blue in the face and they just won't hear it because they know everything. Go camping and let them get cold. And wet. And miserable. Then when you leave, stop someplace warm and discuss it while it is still fresh in their little brains. Don't wait for the next meeting. Do it that day. A few years back, I told the boys in my son's patrol to change into dry clothing before they went to bed. Okay, okay, they said. The next morning they crawled out of their tents still in their jeans and sweatshirts from the day before. "Boy that was cold!" was the common comment. Do you know why you were cold? For most it sank in. At some point in our lives we learn to listen to those with experience at least most of the time. It takes experience to learn to listen.

Also, what the heck is the SM doing with advancement? Final say on advancement is a committee function. Record keeping is also a committee function.

" I am a big believer in your statement that we should not make the boys suffer for the mistakes of an adult." It's not a mistake, it is malfesence. That SM was doing no one a favor by not following the rules. Someone needs to put their foot down and straighten things out and it needs to happen sooner than later.

I wear a standard leather work type belt. It holds everting without problem. If I'm on a day hike, I wear the Verboten ALICE belt with butt pack and suspender.

I'll go with Roy Williams proclamation as being a clearer. "No military or hunting." Cammies are military and they are hunting related. Either way, cammies are a no no.

My kids celebrate Halloween in school and it is a religious holiday, All Hallows Eve the night before a big day, just as Christmas Eve is a religious holiday. According to Jack Horkheimer, the Star guy on PBS, that night crosses the oceans for a celebration relating to the dead. Chinese, Aztecs, Greek. Our current celebration isn't very religious but then our celebration of Christmas and Easter aren't very religious anymore either. Back to school and halloween. They still celebrate in some schools but you can't have swords or guns or scarey costumes. Not too many years ago, the school had the idiotic idea that you should dress in something related to a subject you are studying ("I'm Just a Bill"?).

Watch C-Span and your opinion drop just like mine. Oh, they are smart but in lawyer-politician way. The questions that they ask after listening to testimony can be soooo stupid ("What do you mean by an "atom"?) and they spend much of their time chatting with their aides and waiting to pounce with their own questins. Maybe we need a system like they had on Krypton but they didn't listen either.

I don't think the world is sicker than the one that we grew up in. It is just that people have gotten more paranoid.

Back in '94, Row Williams, before he was the Chief Scout Executive and just the Program Group Director, issued a memo that stated in part "hunting and military-style clothing, combined with or worn instead of the official Boy Scout or Explorer uniform, are not acceptable wear during any Boy Scouting or Exploring activity. Scout Executives are to instruct unit leaders and volunteers that those articles of clothing along with equipment like pistol belts, suspenders and military field gear are not allowed to be worn with official Boy Scouts of America clothing or in the place of BSA uniforms and outdoor clothing."

Does it really matter what her prepared statement was? I'm reminded of a far side cartoon in which a person was scolding a dog but all the dog heard was "Blah blah blah blah Trixie blah blah blah." Those who sit in either house of the congress do not have science or engineering backgrounds. They don't understand 90% of what is said to them during the hearings. They depend on aides who don't have science backgrounds to condense everything into half page notes with comments like "this is good" or "bad. will cost votes". We also need to wonder if that is really the text of the CDC Director's orignal report.

Amazingly, Cub Scouts went 40 years or so with everyone wearing the same cap and neckerchief. No one felt slighted or out of sorts. Then they came up with the idea that Webelos needed a different cap and neckerchief. I'm enough of a skeptic to belive that BSA did this to generate extra revenue. A couple of million here, a couple of million there and pretty soon we're talking about some real money. As for the pants, I've always told parents to go to Sears, Penneys, Target, etc and buy a pair of dark blue school uniform pants. The color is reasonably close and looks much better with the shirt than a pair of LA Laker shorts. For the record my son always had BSA cub scout pants, I managed to find them at rummage sales. :-)

" I am about to require green camoflauge zip pants found at Target that sell for $15 for Webelos" Camouflage is verboten for anyone in BSA. If you want to avoid the "expensive" pants, look for some olive colored ones, they exist and are more in line with Scouting than para-military camouflage.

Parents really have no say in the running of the troop. As others have said, this is an issue for the CC and COR and maybe the SM if the person in question is an ASM. However, we really need to wonder what sort of incredible bad judgement did these two show and is this normal for them. I'd expect it from a couple of teenagers or even lovestruck 21 year olds but i'm guessing these two are beyond that point in their lives. Couldn't they go a night without snuggling?

I don't get your point. Who is Mr. Murray? That website confirms that it was the Webelos Award originally and the name changed around 1967 although my 1967 Webelos book still calls it the "Webelos Award" Different requirements, same emblem, diferent name. " All Cubs are a part of the Webelos tribe, whose leader is named Arrow of Light (and Akela is a brave in the tribe)." Some of that is new to me. From my 1954 Wolf book which is the same as my vanished 1966 Wolf book, "Akela was the Big Chief of the Webelos. . . . His father was the son of the sun. His totem was the Arrow of Light."

" And people still don't know the difference between homosexuality and pedophilia? There is NO relation. None, nada, zip, zilch." For the most part were not talking about pedophilia, we're more concerned about ephebophelia. I'm amazed that this is the 21st century and people still don't know the difference. " To imply that the mere presence of the opposite sex will cause me to lose my moral compass is an insult, just as I'm sure it is to most homosexuals." True but the rules are there to avoid that eventuality. As I've pointed out before, men alone cannot take a co-ed crew on an outing. Why? Because we're evil and might lust after the teenaged women. Following that rationale, homosexuals alone shouldn't be allowed to take Boy Scouts camping. I found this interesting stuff about ephebophilia on the web. "Sexual desire that includes adolescents, as well as older individuals, is common among adults of all sexual orientations;[8] this is not labeled "ephebophilia" because the attraction to adolescents is not exclusive." It wasn't that long ago that 16 year old women would marry men in their 30s, a situation that is now considered strange and unnatural. So if you like watching the cheerleaders at your son's high school football game, you aren't strange. The same goes for for the homosexual who finds the strapping linebacker attractive.

"41% of homosexuals in a recent study reported being the victim of a hate crime at some point in their life after age 16. "That's more than "a few people" expressing their hatred. Even if we cut that statistic in half, it's still quite a bit of hatred out there." You only know half the story. How many heterosexuals committed these hate crimes? Definately not 41%. The last claim that I heard was that homosexuals make up 10% of the population. So that survey is true, that makes 4.1% of the general population that has been the vicitm of a homosexuality related "hate crime. I think that we can safely that the perpetrators of these "hate crimes" each comitteed multiple crimes, let's go with five as a round number. So that leaves us with 0.802% of the general population that has committed a "hate crime" against a homosexual. Not quite an epidemic. Also we need to wonder what are these "hate crimes"? Are they being kicked and punched? Did somone knock their school books out of their hands? Was is simply, "Don't stand next to me in the shower, you stinking homosexual"?

Ah-ha! It was a language problem. Don't know the answer.

"Earning a merit badge is not supposed to be just about rank advancement it's supposed to be about personal growth." Okay, it won't count for anything other than personal enrichment. Hows that? BTW, even as a Venturer you can work on merit badges after Eagle because you can still earn palms until your 18th birthday.