packsaddle

We had a wonderful log cabin and I do mean really truly log cabin. It was historic. Big fireplace, cabinets for storage, log rafters, drafty and open when the windows weren't covered with plastic. When I first became acquainted the roof had numerous leaks but a local builder donated shingles and we bought sheating and put on a new roof one weekend. And then the owners arbitrarily decided to destroy it as well as another one nearby. That was so discouraging that leaders left the unit, boys too. The CO let us have some space near them though and we built a storage shed that at least serves to secure the equipment but our meetings are all outdoors. I know of a few other similar cabins for other units in the area. They are dwindling though.

Personally, I've always liked it. I've liked the fit and feel of it. Not the polyester stuff though.

I was in 4-H at the same time as scouts. I had a lot more fun and adventure with scouts. 4-H was great because I learned a lot about farming, etc. I'm not sure what everyone means, anymore, by the term 'progressive'.

OK, thanks.

See, isn't this so much better as a discussion? No one is being threatened. No one's ox is being gored. It's not pitting one opinion against another but instead, just expanding different ways to look at things.

Calico, Yeah, I get that but your argument amounts to a constraint on the system in that it is restricted to a narrow set of boundary conditions. We apply constraints like that all the time. Within the system it still works the same way. By the way, that was a nice twist on uniformitarianism that you mentioned at the end. I'll try to remember that.

Mark Twain is who has been reputed to have said that.

Thing is, Moose, you and a few others (probably me included here) are so accustomed to the rough play in this forum that 'the line' is a bit farther out for us than for people who just arrived. The concern is that the rough way we treat each other here, (while those of us with thick skins might even enjoy the game of tag), might reflect badly in the view of others who can't 'read' the personalities involved. The last thing any of us wants to do is to cause other scouters who might benefit from joining the campfire, to be turned away by what they see in this forum. (Moderators, if you're reading this please correct me if I misinterpreted the gist of our discussion). Fact is, this particular thread should have had a natural death at about page 2. But we enjoy the jousting so much we seem to search for ways to keep it going anyway. So my advice is either play really nicely or expect to see a quick death for this thread. Again, I'm just extending the courtesy of a warning of what could happen.

You're not listening.........

So...did anyone ever put kerosene in their hair to try to repel no-see-ums?

And with that I will fire a shot across the bow of this thread. One of the moderators (and a fair one at that) has already walked away from this one in disgust. I'm merely extending the courtesy of a warning. This thread is only hanging by a single fiber. If the moderators took a vote on this one, I'm not sure what the result would be but please be aware, this thread in particular is under discussion.

Somewhere around 1963 or 64. We were on our annual weeklong troop campout at the Chimneys campground in the GSMNP (it is only a picnic area now). It was notorious for bears to raid campsites and we must have been very attractive to them. The ranger, when asked, said that if we saw one headed our way we had the greatest deterrent possible, a couple of dozen boys pelting the bear with pebbles. And we tried it out too and it worked great. But one evening we didn't notice when a bear slipped right into the mess tent. The SM in a single motion swung around snagging a shovel on the way and completed the turn by whacking that bear right on the head. The bear just shook its head and turned around and left. We ate well that night. I'm trying to sort which memories were the best: the night that we watched as the baby bears tore down my tent, playing with the ropes while mom watched...or swimming in what felt like an ice cold river rushing alongside the campsites...or climbing the chimneys...or riding the the back of the pickup truck through the tunnels on the Blue Ridge Parkway, screaming to hear the echos as we went through. It was all good...a long, long time ago.

Just took another look at this grotesque thread and noticed Calico's post. You do know, don't you, that the moon IS actually getting farther and farther away from the earth each year? We can actually measure that difference. That's a fact. And...I suspect that the Pythagorean Theorem is still just as valid today as it was in the time of Pythagoras. Likewise I suspect that the radius of the circumference of a perfect circle to its diameter is still pi and as far as I know, that number is still an irrational number. Please explain which part of geometry has been abandoned. In response to the rest I would have to say that moral relativism (the way it's explained in this philosophy department) is not good. The problem is with the term, 'relativism' and the different ways we personally interpret that term. At the same time there also may not be moral absolutes.

I've been thinking about this question and it seems that the range of discussion is an indication of how much 'local option' is being applied to this subject. At some point we have to let each unit and each CO and supporting community decide for itself what works best. Most of the time, from my experience, there is no way to force the situation to be any way other than that.

Ow! That hurts. It's more than I get paid.

Yes, copyright violation...in both spirit and letter of law. Not that anyone would likely prosecute unless you converted them to pdf and started selling them online for a $1 each, lol. I've seen some online sites that are doing that for reference books. I recently spotted an expensive book by a friend on one of the sites to download for free. I alerted him to it and he nearly fell out of his chair. Worse, when he contacted the publisher the publisher reported that because of the country where this site is based, there is almost nothing they can do about it. THIS is the real 'Brave New World' that AZMike was talking about in another thread. Technology is moving ahead far more quickly than law or moral codes can adapt.

We do. And we don't. Eventually rats or roaches (usually both) allow room for replacement pamphlets and we fill in the feeding stations, oops I mean empty spaces on the shelf, with more (most likely outdated) pamphlets. Sometimes BSA leaves things alone long enough so that the ones near the end are still current.

@@AZMike "Packsaddle wrote " I know of an informal boycott in which a very successful businessman has been driven to ruin merely because he publicly disagreed with a government decision regarding a construction project. He knew the score and felt it was worth the risk to be able to express his opinion. He paid the consequences. It's not a Brave New Word at all. Welcome to real life and a very old world of business. If you pretend to serve the public, it would probably be good business to actually DO it." I drew the reasonable inference from those statements that you both feel it would be appropriate that local COs be pressured to conform to your set of beliefs. If that was incorrect, I apologize." No apology needed for me! But I meant it as an example of how this sort of thing happens pretty much anywhere anytime. It's just exercising the freedom of speech in a different form, along with all the associated costs. I don't draw any conclusions about local COs but rather for the larger organization. I guess a local CO might experience pressures of different kinds for a variety of reasons. I know of one church that was shot at after it embraced gay marriage and another that...OK, I think they might have just been after the copper for that one. Local COs are closer to the local community in terms of both membership and communication. I suspect that if there was local pressure, it would most likely be proportionally small pressure, compared to something at the national level. Even more likely, the CO membership would merely decline.

I actually still use white gas, literally. I mean you can't find Amoco anymore (bought by BP) but any premium unleaded will do, especially if it's 'no ethanol'. Just have to clean things more often.

Well, I can speak authoritatively on behalf at least some of the crazies, lol. As I remember this forum was created to take all the nonsense OUT of the other forums. It was a place where those of us who enjoy ranting about stuff can 'stand over in the corner', so-to-speak. The problem is, it turns out, there are a lot of us who ENJOY standing in the corner, LOL...born and bred in the briar patch....and just as rough as a dried out, reused cob.

Poor Lewis, I miss him. He sure capitalized on it nicely too. Delta used to be my favorite airline - contract carrier for my agency...flew it often. But I won't be leaving. I revel in wretchedness and the South is great for that! I can step off the plane in third world countries and feel right at home! Visit the squalid enclaves in a 5 or 10 mile radius from my home and I could just as well be on another continent. Minimum cultural adjustment needed. I love it here! Edit: yes but Detroit is a town. I'm talking about whole counties, major portions of states.

Daughter did the Junior Ranger program years ago. The whole family had a great time traveling around and watching her do all the things she had to do to earn the badge. She was so proud at the end. It was a great program, if not terribly 'high adventure', and it helped her learn a lot more about the park and all the things in it. Best of all, it wasn't restricted to scouts or girls, It was open to anyone in that age group. Son was already too old to do it but then, he was also already working on his own advancement goals in Scouts. Edit: it took us a week in the park to do it.

...waking up...what? Huh? Was someone singing? I'm hungry.

True, but no one capitalizes on wretchedness as well as the South does.

An old, now deceased, mentor of mine used to like to say, in his lofty manner and tone, "A fact is something that is not currently under investigation." I really liked that guy. To me, there are very few facts if we discount the trivial ones like the fact that I'm sitting in front of this screen typing this message. Even in science facts are mostly tentative and used as such until we discover a better way to view something. Whether or not something is fact or opinion is really not all that important, compared to whether or not the evidence supports the idea. More evidence, stronger opinion. The closest things to facts that I can think of actually, to me, are closer to fundamental 'truths' because of their importance such as the laws of thermodynamics. So in that spirit, I would venture an opinion that most of us would agree that given the choice, it is usually better to attain greater efficiency as opposed to lesser efficiency. And combined with the thermodynamic laws it is easy to derive a 'moral' code in which all sorts of behavior which result in less-efficient social interactions would be labeled as 'immoral'. Again, because of the vastly different environments and resulting social contexts around the world, it is easy to understand that while the concept of 'morality' itself might be the same for everyone, the codes aren't necessarily the same.