packsaddle

I had forgotten about this thread but I guess I need to update. Oldsm, I have to tell you fella, that unusual job you had playing the organ in prison is one of the most intriguing jobs I've heard of. Did you play there long enought to write a book about it? Local 1400, all my life I have envied you guys who work with railroads. Great job! As for me, I changed careers recently. I took a long camping trip with my daughter (long story) in 2005 and when I requested 6 weeks of annual leave from my supervisor, red flags went up all over the place. I had been a research biologist with the Engineer Research and Developemnt Center (US Army) but I needed to take this time with my daughter. I told my supervisor that if they granted my request I would take the trip and if they didn't grant my request I would still take the trip. About half-way through the trip, I got a call from a university with an offer for a faculty position. I didn't hesitate. Leaving federal service was WONDERFUL! And, after two years on the faculty, I can confirm most of the things we have all wondered about university faculty...we have it pretty good. Once I have my web page ready, I will reveal my identity to the forums and send everyone the link. Good jobs to everyone!

Eamonn, I agree too. I do the same thing with all members of my family. However, I do it so that should something happen to me, THEY will be left with pleasant last words in their memories. For personal reasons it is important for me to know that they know that I love them. And...that for them to know that I know they loved me too. If I failed to return from one of my solo trips, these things would make the event easier for them. That....and the obscene amount of life insurance money they'd get to share.

Lisabob, that part about 'scamming his way' to some MBs...do you know this for a fact? How was this problem addressed both to the boy and to the counselor? Was it resolved, or was it 'winked at'?

And they would be wrong. Violence is not the way to address someone like this. As has been suggested already, the best way to make him go away is to merely turn our collective backs on him and make sure that our loved ones understand the deceptions that he promotes. In time perhaps he will change but if not, at least he will merely be isolated by his own words and actions. And eventually he'll die and his hate with him.

I guess I tend to side with the boy when it comes to gray areas. In this case the gray area is what we don't know. Lisabob says that he "appears" to have the undesirable qualities that reflect, in our minds, poorly on his scout spirit. Friends, his answers at the BOR are not the basis for judgment of his scout spirit. The answer to THAT question should be well-known before the BOR. If he has met the minimum requirements, all other factors being equal, he must be advanced. As John-in-KC indicates, the appeal will be successful if all the BOR has for evidence is his appearance.

I received everything from plates of cookies to engraved plaques. The best one of all was when a bunch of the little guys crowded up to give me big hugs. To me, all the patches and certificates and things are just stuff. The warm memory of all those bright smiling faces outweighs anything else.

Some of us have answered this in other threads in the past. If he has met the requirements, he should get the award or rank. This is a problem that you have noticed but it is HIS problem. If he can't or refuses to see it, and if you have explained your view, then you have done as much as you can do. Like I tell my students, I lead them to water. Sometimes they drink. If he attains eagle by 'working the angles' and doing the absolute minimum in the minimum time, then that will constitute the level of personal satisfaction and sense of value that he will have toward himself for the rest of his life. Another boy who has worked hard to attain the rank or who has gone the extra mile to excel in his work will have a different personal knowledge of what his award represents...for the rest of HIS life. The path that I think you describe for this boy is one that will lead him to a life of the 'glass half empty'. He will get exactly what he has chosen and worked for. You can only communicate to him the alternatives.

Hi, I tried to take it seriously...and failed. However, it does, I think, accurately reflect the image of the scouts that the writer, producer, and director probably has in their minds - or wants to portray to others. Oh well....

Hey Beav, and I thought I could be blunt! There's no need to sugar-coat it, just tell us what you really think.

Welcome back. Bob White, Rooster7 are both gone, as are littlebillie and, it seems, NJCubscouter. I haven't seen hide nor hair of TrailPounder for a long time. But we've picked up quite a few new contributors. This seems to be the way of things. Dave Steele is inactive on the forums but his spirit lingers - here as well as in our memories.

Since Rooster7 is no longer here to defend the guy, I was considering playing the role of devil's advocate and trying to defend Phelps myself. For once the terminology would be appropriately applied. A few seconds of thought and....naah! Sometimes when I think I am beginning to understand hate and all its manifestations, something like Phelps comes along to demonstrate how much I have missed.

Really cool trivia!

There is nothing I can think of as tragic as the death of a child. My heart goes out to the family and community. A little over a year ago I witnessed something similar, a very little girl fell under the wheels of a very heavy trailer in a parade. I was too far away to stop it or do anything...all I could do was cover my daughter's eyes while the driver unknowingly slowly crawled the trailer further up her body until people screaming at him caused him to stop on top of her chest and neck. Then he had to back over her again to keep from crushing her head. I knew I had witnessed the death of a child and while I've watched plenty of people die, this was nearly unbearable. The parade was stopped in its tracks and cancelled immediately. It was reinstated the next year with strict rules of conduct to prevent this from happenening again. Amazingly, she survived and fully recovered.

Probably the only reason Apple still exists is their tendency to build products that are easy to use and seamlessly work with each other. I have an iPod and I use iTunes (either PC or Mac). It is incredibly intuitive and worry-free. I either purchase online or download my existing CDs to iTunes so I can put them on the iPod. Yes, it is more expensive than some of the options but then I was actually using all of it minutes after I opened the box. They always work great. iTunes can do it all and it's free. AND when an upgrade comes along, it installs itself and I don't lose a single song or file. I find myself loading all of my CDs onto it merely to backup and organize, it is so easy and intuitive. Couple the iPod with a set of Bose noise-cancelling headphones and peace is at hand.

Fuzzy, I agree. That for sure is a problem for many young people. The ones who grow up in this community are in pretty good shape when it comes to the facts - I think because of the local community and the good classes in local public schools. But many college students I have had in the past coming from the rural (sometimes the urban) South have had rude awakenings in my classes when the topic is human reproduction. Heh, heh, some of my fondest memories are each semester showing some very stark and clinical videos of the different types of childbirth - the real deal (borrowed from a med school), you know...vaginal with forceps, vaginal without, breech birth, etc., every permutation you can think of. Full color and full sound. Where they had been cracking jokes regarding condoms and such, the class now sits in stunned silence. I and the other instructors take bets on how many will make it to the hallway before they faint. Delivering the placenta and examining it for condition, that really gets them...what are they thinking, that we just disconnect the hose? Gotta love it! Sometimes it just is more fun than anyone should have! I wonder sometimes if I may have contributed more to prevention of unwanted pregnancies than any of the local ministers preaching fire and brimstone. At least after those classes the students knew what really WAS going to happen to them, the young women at least.

Fuzzy, what you wrote about the young females hits very close to home for me. Something with which I have wrestled for several years now. As for the boys, I find that it is safer if I follow their conversations and when I hear a statement that gives me the opening, I either challenge a misconception or else I offer that they may have missed a few important things. Most of the time this stimulates questions and as long as they ask the questions, it is fair enough to answer them, always telling them that their parents have the final word. However, those answers must be accurate and there are plenty of adult leaders who could use a little instruction as well, I have observed. This means using anatomically-correct terminology and clinically-correct descriptions of processes. Often, the boys decide they didn't really want to discuss this after all.

Hey! I thought it was beautiful!

Gern, I think your intentions are fine. I just see this as, how do I put it, as Terry's sandbox. I'd like to hear from him what he would like to do, if anything. This is his creation and he has a lot of personal investment in the site and the forums. I would feel better if I knew his thoughts on potential changes. I am always thankful for the gift he made to us and to scouting in the form of this forum. The last thing I want to do is to risk offence in some way by suggesting that his brain-child is flawed and needs some eugenic correction.

Acco40, there are behaviors that violate, I think, the code for all belief systems. Lying or stealing are examples of this. Dishonesty in general is the kind of behavior that I think would be viewed as negative by everyone. Religious dietary restrictions, on the other hand, are merely quaint traditions that may be based on nothing more than having done it that way for a long time. The practice, for example by certain orthodox Jews, of leaving a light on in order not to have to throw the switch (thus doing work on the Sabbath) is similar. To me it is mind-bogglingly idiotic as a religious expression but I don't get bent out of shape as long as I, myself, don't have to conform to their 'laws'. They are free to waste electricity if they want, in the name of their god. Of course, nevermind the very real 'work' being done by all those electrical appliances during that same time. Leviticus wasn't terribly clear about electrical appliances, I guess. The dietary stuff may have arisen out of the need for best practices for public health. If so that is fine but things are different now. To have them codified into some mindless religious tradition? Why not, I guess, considering all the other weird stuff that comes to mind. I shudder to think what must course through the minds of my Jewish friends when they eat our traditional Italian Christmas Eve feast with 15 kinds of seafood (at least 3/4 shellfish) and a myriad of pastas. I'll stick with the Italians and the tradition of fine dining. Speaking of which, the Pope is trying to 'mend fences' these days. He'd do well to focus some of his attention locally, though. Italy, with the greatest percentage of Catholics of any European country, has the lowest birth rate. Think about it - rhythm isn't one of their greatest talents. As for me, I think I'll have shrimp for supper.

Responding to Ed's original post: The answer to me is that it is not relevant whether or not eagle has become a numbers game. The perspective of anyone who views it as a numbers game is a perspective that judges the accomplishments of an individual and their personal growth during those accomplishments...by comparison to the group. This, to me, is unfair, unscoutlike, and invalid. The boy who earns his eagle rank knows better than anyone what he has accomplished and how he has grown during the process. For those who worked hard and attained it through honest effort, their personal knowledge will accompany a sense of great satisfaction. For those who 'worked the angles' or for whom eagle was merely a notch on a resume, there will be no such deep sense of meaning. NO ONE on the outside can know any of this because it is as deeply personal as one's religious faith. And it is similarly not up for judgement by others. So let the professionals and those persons who do not personally value this achievement go ahead and play their games. It is their loss.

I will play the role of devil's advocate here (and Rooster7 would probably agree that I'm well-qualified). I don't remember the context in which the subject statement was made, but I imagine it had to do with the national policy against membership by 'avowed' homosexuals. This kind of discussion often morphs into the argument of nature vs. nurture and sometimes those who agree with the BSA policy and who often reject the 'nature' argument, note that it is the 'behavior' that is wrong...their assumption is that it is a behavior of choice and they don't want to seem to be mean to someone who doesn't engage in the behavior, merely the feelings. If this is the context of the subject statement, then what might have been meant was that persons who choose to engage in the homosexual lifestyle and whose thus chosen behavior is discovered will be ejected as leaders as soon as they are discovered. This is the most plausible explanation I can think of. I myself, in these threads, once was so accused and I believe the accuser has now reconsidered his thoughts. I will now retract my horns and tail and return to my pretensions of being a mere mortal.

I have cable modem broadband at home and ultra-highspeed, extremely broadband at work (you know, so the students can pirate all that music and those movies). So I have no personal problem with this the way it is. However, if an upgrade will speed things up for others, that would be good. I like the way it works now. I believe that if it is a little slow, that characteristic may in fact encourage us to think a little more before we write (or maybe during it). If we had a very quick site in which we could get instant gratification with glib put-downs, etc. and other thoughtless comments (don't say it!), that increased speed might degrade the quality of discourse that we have now. Of course, I am always up for a good experiment. Let's try it and see....

As usual, Ed is responsible for all this arguing. Ed mentioned something about 5% eagle production and Oak Tree disputed it...and we were off to the races. If, as FScouter says, we don't have definitive numbers regarding exit numbers and status, then we are only left with what I think Brent was trying to do - and that was to assume an even age distribution of the numbers determined by dividing the total enrollment by 8. Then on the assumption that a relatively stable total population would logically lose 1/8th of the total and gain an equal amount, and then, with knowledge of the number of eagles each year, he drew his conclusions. The problem, as FScouter implied (perhaps unintentionally), is that we don't seem to have good estimates for some of these. And on that basis, FScouter's conclusion is sound - we can't say, one way or the other. Wouldn't it be nice to HAVE those good solid reliable estimates? Edited part: oops, typo(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

Oak Tree, I must note (and I'm going to try to do this in a way that doesn't seem to take sides) that the answer to this misunderstanding is not left to a vote or a popularity contest. Although a large number of persons can agree on a math problem, the correct answer is immune from their desire to be correct. That said, I remain persuaded by your logic regarding the total number of exiting boys and the proportion of them that are eagles when they exit.

Wow, I agree on the MB 'college' thing. Oooooooo, I sense a spun thread...