packsaddle

Again!!! Rhode Island Lawmakers Approve Civil Unions It isn't as strong as the NY law but it's another step forward.

I'm always saddened by these things. E61, you know the boy better than anyone here and as has been offered, every person reacts in their own way. Just be there for him. If he 'takes it out on you' for any reason, try to roll with the punches. Just being there to take those punches might help too. He'll better know that no matter what he throws at you, you'll still be there for him.

With regard to archery, I have had a couple of bad experiences at camp in which two left-handed boys became totally demoralized by their lack of ability. So I stopped by to see if there was something I could help with. The solution was easy. Let them use a left-handed bow. The slouch running the range had no idea 1> that such a thing existed and 2> that it would make a difference. I was not pleased with the level of 'proficiency' displayed by that counselor. OGE, notice I did not use the 'B' word.

JoeBob, I'm saddened to have to bring you into the 21st century on this. Well...I guess for that matter it was only a year or so ago that my students taught ME that the correct term for 'blubber butt' is now 'badonkadonk'. Although the urban dictionary explains its usage for application to females: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=badonkadonk the definition is so humorous that you just HAVE to read it. The photos are worth a look too. Edited: Sorry Vicki, resistance is futile(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

OK, so how many Jewry does it take to anchor a ship?

Scoutfish, The evidence that I see seems to support Twocub. It's difficult to review some of the antics I've seen and experienced and conclude that they contribute to greater security. I've been on flights in which passengers depart the plane, go through the immigration lines (still a secure area) and then are forced to exit and go through the security screening process again for their next flight. Heelllloooooo! We just got off a plane. If we were going to blow something up we already had our chance. I've been groped as many as 5 times for a single trip (this most recent one), one crotch-grabber was even within direct sight (about 20 feet away) of the previous one. The claim that they don't want to do this just falls flat. My student - the one who got put through the mill for drinking the water - wasn't alone. I and the rest of the group sat waiting patiently while we watched this ridiculous process. There wasn't a single impolite word spoken by my group (actually no words at all - just stunned silence). But I questioned them when we arrived at the gate. What they had witnessed had made a very strong negative impression on them. Thing is, none of that nonsense added anything to security...by needlessly consuming the time and attention of the TSA, it could very well have detracted from security. The good samaritan who handed my student his water bottle...he just left shaking his head. Stuff like this - from x-raying paper napkins to putting a compliant young person through the mill - can only breed contempt...it seems patently obvious that TSA has contempt for us. If no one likes groping great-grandma, then don't do it. Or at least don't do it every single time. (except, of course for my MIL, I get too much pleasure from her embarrassment) What the heck does TSA expect to get if they treat people like this?

The topic of this thread wandered a bit, ending with discussion of miracles. But New York just solidly passed a 'gay marriage' law and that seems to support Trevorum's original thesis. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/nyregion/gay-marriage-approved-by-new-york-senate.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

Sorry, Old Ox. I'm being treated generously with lots of middle-aged, overweight, out-of-shape white people confirming the stereotypes of Ugly Americans in a foreign country. Make the limit 300#. It would still work.

A REAL favor would be to prohibit anyone weighing over 250 pounds from flying. I estimate the lines would be substantially shortened.

Just thought of the solution. Butyric acid - smells just like doggie poo-poo. You can get the idea if you have a female Ginko tree somewhere close by. The fruits have butyric acid in them and they smell just like you-know-what. (Interestingly, you can eat the nuts - have to wonder about whoever discovered that) So...we just apply a little eau-de-dog-poo before each trip. People will clear a path.... Edit: Nolesrule, CLT, MIA, and SJU. Believe it or not, the people in ATL have been overall good. But I consider MIA and SJU to be among the worst airports on earth.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

My 90ish MIL gets the full Monte every time. So did my 90ish mother before she died. This summer I have watched them cop a feel on aged persons, pregnant persons, and, of course, me. "I hope it was as good for you as it was for me..." In one airport there was no electricity so EVERYONE got felt up..."higher, higher, yeah, that's it, now harder..." I accidentally left a quarter in my pocket when I went through one search so....I got the full Monte, OK so far - but then they x-rayed the quarter, all by itself, in its own tray. I'd really like someone to explain how necessary that was to x-ray an individual coin. Previously I had an identical experience with a table napkin. My students have 'stumped their toes' in many various ways - one of the best was the one who had about a tablespoon of water still in the bottom of his otherwise-empty water bottle. They made him get rid of the water and when he merely drank it they got 'huffy' and made him leave his stuff while they searched it AGAIN and made him take the water bottle back out of security, get in the very back end of the line and wait to go through the entire process again so that the water bottle could be x-rayed empty. So he did. As I waited, I asked a nearby TSA person how many times terrorists merely drank the explosives? I got a cold stare. Then after the bottle went through the x-ray, some anonymous guy in the line who was just being nice picked up the water bottle and handed it to my student. This was evidently a really bad thing to do. The TSA person stopped everything and not only put the water bottle through the x-ray again but ordered that BOTH my student AND the guy get the full Monte. Because I had already had my crotch grabbed at this particular airport, I took great enjoyment in knowing what both of them were about to experience. But I have to tell you - NONE of this has much increased my feeling of security. If this is the level of cognitive application I am confident that a truly cunning person will have no problem penetrating our system. I know this for a fact because of all the stuff I often forget to remove from carryon bags and it goes through undetected. Ham-handed and thoughtless are terms that just don't do justice. On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoy the look on the face of my MIL as they feel her up. She's a very private person and it gives me the chance to needle her later - about it being such a long time between intimate encounters. Her neck gets red with embarassment and she fumes. I just laugh. My students came up with the idea of a new style of clothing...a print that makes it look like you just wet your pants...or perhaps had an even worse accident. I like it! I'm not sure how they'll finesse the smell though.

Scoutfish, if you believe what bin Laden wrote, the series of terrorist attacks culminating in the ones on 9/11 were in response to the placement of American troops on Saudi soil and more specifically, Bush's decision to renege on his agreement to remove them after Desert Storm. The perception, rightly or wrongly, was that the United States intended to have a permanent infidel military presence in Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Holyland and that, plus the Saudi decision to engage the US instead of bin Laden's forces for protection of the Saudis from Saddam, galvanized our former ally into a deadly enemy. And all of this was a logical progression from decisions made in 1945 between Roosevelt and the king of Saudi Arabia. It wasn't inevitable but it did follow a tragically logical path of events.

This is a logical and predictable extension of the policy that Reagan embraced when he created CENTCOM in the first place, the seeds for which were planted when Roosevelt made the Faustian bargain with the Saudis in 1945. We were merely too stupid to see what would come or else we didn't care.

We are monkeys.

Yeah, I had a terminal as well, actually made by Teletype no less. But it gave up the ghost about 10 years ago. Back in the 80's I used it to play Startrek.

I still have an acoustic coupler and a 300 baud modem, and an old computer with a serial port...you never know when you'll need something...Be Prepared. That said, it's sad to watch these junkies fumbling, bewildered, completely lost...when I take them to places where for weeks at a time there is no cell phone, television, internet. Did I say 'sad'? Oops, I meant 'GLORIOUS'!!! Edited to add: By 'glorious' I mean that it is good to see them refocus on other things like the different life forms surrounding them deep in a tropical gorge, or on how to build an experimental apparatus given minimal materials. It is glorious to watch them using their minds in truly creative ways - and enjoying it. By the end they know they can kick the technology if they have to. But as soon as we land in San Juan, the phones turn on again. Oh well....(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

OK, those were some negatives. Now the positives: this unit has about 50% of its boys from single-parent families. Some of the parents have admitted that they like scouting for the positive male role models (why can't my wife see this in me? Oops, they must be thinking about the OTHER leaders) Anyway, without exception, those boys with single parents are doing just as well and from my view are indistinguishable from those from two-parent homes except that their 'dads' are not as omni-present as the others. The father of one died. Another dad abandoned the family early on. One had a mid-life crisis and the parents just split recently. Pretty much all manner of divorce or separation and the boys seem to be doing ok in spite of it all. I mention these things not to 'disprove' anything but to merely note that sometimes youth are far more resilient than we give them credit for.

I didn't see mockery in the post by CCbytrickery, sorry. I AM reminded of the families next door when I was a very young boy. The first family had an abusive father. I could hear him beating his wife and slapping his boys around. The sound of the impact of fist on head is one that I will never forget. Nor the sight of those bruises. One of those boys learned well and took to beating on me. They eventually moved. The next family had a father with an alcohol problem and several beautiful little girls. He would come home drunk and then the fights would begin. It got so that people from all around the neighborhood would gather at our back steps to listen and snicker at the private hell unfolding for that family. One evening, when all of us children were playing in the yard, the mother started up again with a shriek. The girls were mortified and I will always remember the terrible look of shame on their faces as they attempted to laugh it off. I do know the outcome of those families. I hardly think that those children were better off living in those private hells than they would have been living with a divorced parent. The boys of whom I first wrote at least would have stopped being beaten and they wouldn't have had to endure that physical abuse to their mother. The girls were terribly scarred from all of it. Those scars have lasted a lifetime. I doubt that divorce could have done worse.

Thanks, I was thinking 'North Pacific Division', or something along those lines. So...is your ex really going to pop up? Here in the South, I mostly find persons with borderline personality disorder. It's fascinating how they can nevertheless organize into a society...based on wretchedness....make money on books and movies too. I think it all emerges from the penal colony that prides itself on peaches. I could be wrong.

AnnLaurelB, when I googled NPD I got some marketing firm. Does 'NPD' stand for something else? As usual, I feel like I've missed an important detail somewhere.

Yep, that was a fun movie. I always like Donald Pleasance...don't know why. But he was cast in the right part for him.

I, for one, would really like to thank Scoutfish for sharing that last intimate detail.

Dog!!!??? Moi? As tempting as it is to apply the canine model, I suggest that for the men at least, pigs are closer. Just kidding. Well,...maybe not...anyway...as I often note, if you want to explain human behavior, you merely need to think of three words: We Are Monkeys. Want evidence? Watch some cub scouts. Want to understand why we do what we do? Go to the primate hall at the zoo.

Trev, it's on the way. Scoutfish, "I cannot tell you how many times I have heard people get upset about seeing a statue lor painting of a black angel or black Jesus." I'm guessing those upset persons were not black persons. I've long maintained that Jesus might have looked a lot like Yassir Arafat or maybe Anwar Sadat. Mary may have looked a lot like Golda Meir...at least in later years. Who knows???? maybe Haile Selassie really WAS Jesus incarnate after all. I sure can't disprove it. None of them look like those art works which so many of us imprint on.

BP, I hope you're right. The fact that no one has an actual living memory of the things they cling to from the late 1800's (not to mention whole new categories of hate groups since then) suggests that time alone will not rid us of these prejudices. I apologize for the hijack. This unit placed memorial flags on all the graves in a local public cemetary, veterans and non-veterans alike, and held a flag ceremony for whoever wished to attend. There are usually about 30-40 people attending, maybe as many as 50 at times. People are often really nice and thank the boys for their service. Sometimes, there is a killdeer nest that must be guarded against pedestrians. The boys especially like that.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)