packsaddle

Welcome to the forums. I've seen this before. My advice is free and worth every penny: 'Be there' for the boy and make sure he knows it. Make sure the parents know too. Then let them make their own decisions. Some people learn things the 'hard way' if they learn them at all. And regardless of the outcome, don't take things personally. Whether failure or success, it won't be 'on' you. The parents and the boy are the ones who have made the decisions so far and they will mostly determine future decisions. Like I wrote, just be there regardless.

Bottom line...YOU are not liable. Don't sweat it.

I was IT for a few years for this unit. I mainly just looked over the boy's shoulder to make sure he didn't misinterpret one of the requirements or perhaps missed it altogether. I took a quick look at project plans to see if they'd take the next 10 years to complete...or the next 10 minutes. That sort of thing. I also made sure they knew about deadlines...REALLY knew about deadlines.

"Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers." Did Socrates really write this? Doubtful, since he didn't write much of anything as far as I can tell...the writer was usually Plato. Anyway, I suspect that it WAS the lament that Socrates might have had regarding youth of the day. At least it seems plausible. People haven't really changed much. But we, individually, have gotten older and where we once complained about our elders, we now complain about the youth.

And there's this, "The couple filed a complaint with the Boy Scouts, but were told it didn't go against their policy." End of story. If all those people had been wearing thongs instead, THAT would have made it just hunky dory, right? Good grief. Has this society always been so repressed? A group of visiting research scientists (from Russia) were here during the hot Southern summer about 15 years ago. We walked down to the lake and before anyone could say anything they had shucked off all their clothes and went splashing into the water, having a nice swim. It was just what was done as far as they were concerned. So we just set a lookout in case the cops appeared. I had a similar personal experience while I was working on a project in Russia...everyone just shucked off their clothes...me too. My only complaint: that water was really cold. But the women were beautiful. All in all, a nice balance was achieved.

Thank God for The Onion!

Well, depending on the age of the sun-bathers, the cubs in my old pack would have either cracked jokes or else gone, "eew, eew!" Thanks for the morning laugh. Yes, by all means, we must protect our children from biological realities. Seriously, I think the leaders were just fine in what they did. Evidently the Council thought so too.

Scoutldr, that wasn't exactly the uplifting message I like to hear but I tend to agree with you. I've heard similar things from my teacher friends. I don't know how they manage to keep doing what they do.

That the Drs. Wolfson claim to be 'doctors' is grotesque. But look at the Wolfson facebook page...a LOT of people take him seriously.

Did I miss something along this tortured thread? Scouter915, have you asked that question yet? If so what did they say? If not, why not?

OINA, I understand and you're right, some of them do become less effective (tetanus for example) but boosters are usually available. I'm not concerned about myself (at my age, I'm mostly irrelevant anyway) but rather for my grandchildren. They live in a neighborhood that has a bunch of these 'denier' crazies. Which means they're risk of exposure is greater, that and the fact that they visit theme parks fairly often. Their shots are up to date though and that gives me more confidence.

CNN had an interview with someone who has a similar story: her children are threatened by this risk of infection. CNN also interviewed an Arizona doctor, Jack Wolfson, who refuses to vaccinate his children and who basically...well you read it for yourself: "I'm not going to sacrifice the well-being of my child. My child is pure," he added. "It's not my responsibility to be protecting their child." CNN asked Wolfson if he could live with himself if his unvaccinated child got another child gravely ill. "I could live with myself easily," he said. "It's an unfortunate thing that people die, but people die. I'm not going to put my child at risk (by vaccinating them) to save another child." He blamed the Jacks family for taking their daughter to a clinic for care. "If a child is so vulnerable like that, they shouldn't be going out into society," he said. Here's the whole story: http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/30/health/arizona-measles-vaccination-debate/

Qwazse, that's probably a good 'painless' first action, lol. I suspect some of us may collect those forms and then just bury them in a file somewhere. Horanmm, I wonder how many boys and families are exempted from that. We have had a couple of inquiries from people concerned about confidentiality and used the exemption form in order not to provide information (at least I think that's what they did). But the exemption form pretty much allows anyone to exempt as long as they release BSA from liability, which of course does absolutely nothing to protect the rest of us. But this doesn't address my original question. Hypothetically, if a highly communicable disease is detected in the community, what kinds of measures should troops take in response? What if the first detection results from a troop meeting?

I have been trying to keep up with the news about the measles outbreak that's happening right now and the thought occurred to me that I had not read any kind of specific guidance on what measures we should take to try to keep troop meetings from contributing to the spread of the disease. The reason I wonder about this is that if even a single contagious boy showed up at a troop event for even just a little while, it could spread to dozens of families or more, this thing is so contagious. So have any of you thought about any kind of pro-active message to families, or a way to respond if this kind of thing does happen in your unit? [Fair Warning: anyone who wants to mix religion or politics into this thread will be redirected to the I&P forum so confine your responses to real, practical ideas on how to deal with this issue] So here is the situation so far: There have been a growing number of families who are have children who are not fully immunized. An outbreak began in California and the epidemiological characteristics of this disease are such that it can spread quickly and easily. It has spread to many other states now (not here yet though) and is likely to arrive almost anywhere or everywhere eventually. It is a serious health issue and for some it can be deadly. I see extremes for our response to range from cancellation of events and meetings if the disease is detected in the community...to a 'wait and see' response in the hope that it doesn't arrive and we can go on with life as if there's no problem. Is there a 'best practices' approach that will actually work? I wonder.

Been there, done that. Welcome to the forums, cc3018. They even called parents claiming that our unit was 'shutting down' and that we were sending our boys over to their unit. Be very wary of the DE because in my case, the DE was quietly supportive of the subversion.

I wish I could be right on the spot with these edits. They would be more effective. But I see this as the only way to defuse what appears to be two persons 'squaring off'. Just play nice...please.

Torchwood is right about this. I should add that I also pay big bucks (usually more than $500 per copy) for the added license to show to classes. And I spent a couple of $thousand purchasing dozens of copies of one textbook that I keep in the library reserve area for students to borrow at no cost. My friends who run bars pay fees per screen and per performance, etc. and the industry STILL sends scouts out to check out the facilities, lol. Things haven't changed as much as you might think. Murkiness is what happens when your family has rented the DVD for the evening and a neighbor just happens to visit for some other reason and you politely invite them to stay. They call their friends and some of them come over. The line has been crossed. No one will likely ever know about it but ethically, by failing to 'un-invite' those guests, the host family and the guests are all ethically challenged.

@Isabel Field, I am fairly certain (from my cinema projection days, watching for the little cues to switch projectors and reels at the proper moment) that while the law inches a little closer toward Fair Use if the profit element is removed, that alone does not 'excuse' showing a film to a group. The motive is also important and if it is purely or mostly entertainment, then you stand on thin ice. The reasoning is that even if shown for 'free' to an audience, some of them who might have paid admission some other occasion, having already viewed it, may not pay that admission, thus causing harm to the artists and businesses. I can stay within Fair Use guidelines because I employ these 'showings' as educational exercises and because not only do I not charge admission, also as part of the exercise these documentaries are then subjected to critical examination for their 'facts', fairness, etc. They are, essentially. evidence in a process attempting to learn the 'truth' of some matter. And as such what I do remains within all of the guidelines for Fair Use (and the institution carefully looks over my shoulder to make sure). But the concept does have a murky border and as someone else indicated, showing a video at a family gathering is tippytoeing toward that murky area. Not that any studio is actually going to bother to take legal action because someone showed 'The Right Stuff' to the extended family after Thanksgiving dinner. Inviting the neighborhood, on the other hand, is also inviting greater 'murkiness'. As for your uncle, I am glad you're doing what you can to make this correction. However, I enjoy asking my students (who pride themselves on knowing all about important social and entertainment news) who that famous female singer was a couple of years ago who died unexpectedly and there was a huge outpouring of (Whitney Houston) public sorrow and sympathy? Most of them respond with a blank stare (as if I'd just asked them for the equation for the wavelength of peak emission) and the word: 'Huh?' Most of us, nearly all of us are going to be completely anonymous in 100 years. As it probably should be.

SSScout, I had it happen to me many years ago. But I was a federal employee then and it didn't count for much of anything compared to bringing in more funding for projects. The spouse, she's just glad to have the house to herself. No letter needed, really.

That was a delicious comparison! As for Fair Use, I employ this legal doctrine very frequently and I have studied the doctrine with respect to my use of it to some depth. Based on what I know of Fair Use and the BSA program as delivered by troops, etc, I seriously doubt that many events could qualify for Fair Use...but I also doubt that a MB mill would likely receive a 'cease and desist' letter either. However if anyone thinks they might like to know a little more about Fair Use, the Duke University Law School has a very entertaining online comic book that explores the incredible intricacies of Fair Use: http://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/zoomcomic.html It is sometimes informative AND hilarious.

I can take any of you to two no-go zones that I know of within a 10 to 15-mile radius of this computer. At least they are 'no-go' at night. Back in the early 70s they were fairly open about it too...had a billboard at the edge of town that read, "N****r, don't let the sun set on you in ______". To this day I have black friends who 'know' to avoid those places after dark. Our troop went through another place on an outing once and when we stopped to ask directions, our black SM wouldn't even get out of the car. So the idea of 'no-go' places has a long well-established tradition in this country.

I agree with NJ. How do you KNOW this was a pirated copy? How do you KNOW they are in violation of copyright? That's the reason for the way I structured my questions before, so you could ask them in a way that would tend to disarm them and perhaps arrive at the truth in their own words. Until you've done that (and perhaps I've missed that you have, and if so I apologize) you are working from a conclusion based on supposition and guesswork. I follow your suspicion and I would be just as suspicious but as an ethical matter, you owe it to them and to yourself to actually KNOW before you accuse.

Liverpool...Yeah, what's up with that one? I mean just think about the name! Eeeww, eeww!

I think the way to proceed is to say to them something along the lines of, "Wow, I'm really impressed! How the heck did you manage to get a copy of that? Where do I get one?" The response will likely lay to rest some of your questions. A response in which they indicate something deceptive will raise more questions though.