TAHAWK

And if it were important to BSA, what could BSA do -- ans stop doing -- to better teach and encourage that view? Quote MultiQuote Thanks

BSA says there is "the uniform" and other clothing. Three different shirts. Two different trousers. Two different shorts (counting zip-offs). Four different socks. My old council has issued seventeen (17) different CSPs in the last five years. Red lops and green loops. One of the math-rich members can tell us how many possible combinations that makes Is it 3x2x2x4x17x2 ? Then add all the obsolete garments - some from just the last four years - that we are told are still "uniforms." It's a brand, not a uniform.

The first requirement for running the Patrol Method is to run the Patrol Method. It takes the time to elect the leaders. They learn on-the-job because the quality of their leadership is secondary to the fact that they are leading. They will probably perform to the standard of a new, inexperienced, generally clueless kid, and that's perfectly fine. What kid who never pitched throws a shut-out the first time? And Stosh, lots of adults think they know better and do it their way. That's the excuse used to explain the adult-run troop method troops. They have a different idea than BSA has had for eighty-five years.. I think I understand what BSA says because it has been saying it as long as I have been in Scouting. It's just that BSA when Bill was there put it all into a concise lists of features and told you to do it or move on. Now BSA seems so worried about offending anyone that they allow the adults to take away the "field" from the Scouts and play the game themselves. Or some of them at BSA are incompetent. BSA has suggested for decades - really after Bill said so -- that the SM's leadership training of the leaders should be a joint effort with the SPL. My Position Card for my first gig as SM says: "1. Train Junior Leaders." I understood that at the time to mean that I and the SPL would get together to plan the training and he would do as much of the teaching as possible while accomplishing training. That was my understanding because that is what I was taught formally in training I took and, more importantly, because that was the example set by of my two SMs, one of whom was a USMC Master Gunnery Sgt. BSA 2015 “Empowering boys to be leaders is the core of Scouting. Scouts learn by doing, and what they do is lead their patrols and their troop.†"What is important for us [as adults in Scouting] is: NOT a sharp-looking flag ceremony, but that the boys put it together. ... NOT that we cover everything on the meeting agenda, but that the Senior Patrol Leader is in charge.†“Except as to matters of safety, neither adults nor Junior Assistant Scoutmasters directly supervise Scout work. Instead, they work THROUGH the leaders by teaching, advising, counseling, educating, and example.†“We just have to remember that our business as adults is not the same as the business of the boys. It is up to them to get things done." Scouts are never the barrier to Boy Scouting. Adults most often are.

Competent, helpful, friendly, kind staff. Strong, honest MB programs focusing on outdoor MBs that are difficult to earn away from council camps. Program scheduled to reasonably accommodate troop cooking. Facilities essential to properly running the program. Lots of fun non-advancement program. Not "too" military. Close "enough" (relative to value) Reasonable price (relative to value)

A good first step would be, as suggested, to adopt a uniform selected by youth - the customers - rather than a committee of middle-agers.. And that would need to be an actual uniform - all the same appearance for all except as to size, rather than the current method of encouraging wearing of assorted and often obviously dissimilar BSA-branded clothing. A nice refinement would be to drastically reduce the need to sew things on. Position insignia, for example, could snap or zip onto epaulets.

BSA could start by teaching what it means by the "Patrol Method." Even the newest, late-2014 Scoutmaster-Specific syllabus utterly fails to do that - or even has the objective of doing that. But if you gather current BSA pronouncements into one list, I think you get. 1. A patrol is a small team of friends who elect their own leader democratically. The team collectively plans and experiences its distinct program. Everyone on the team has a position. The Patrol Leader represents the patrol in the troop program committee called the "Patrol Leaders' Council" ("PLC"). 2. While "sometimes" a patrol acts collectively with other patrols, a Scout primarily experiences Scouting in the patrol setting through the meetings, hikes, campouts, and service projects of his respective patrol. "It’s the place where boys learn skills together, take on leadership responsibilities, perhaps for the first time . . . . “ The Scout thinks of himself as a member of his patrol and only secondarily as a member of the troop in which his patrol scouts. The troop is the league in which the patrol team plays the game of Scouting. If we don't have patrols, we don't need troops. There is no "Troop method" in BSA Scouting. 3. The collection of patrol teams we call a troop is, in turn, run by a committee of all the Patrol Leaders, the PLC, chaired by the Senior Patrol Leader as a voting member. The SPL is elected democratically by all the Scouts registered in the Troop. The PLC plans all troop activities as an exercise in representative democracy and then presents their annual plan to the Troop Committee via the Senior Patrol Leader. The Troop Committee is to do its best to support the PLC's program, recognizing that Scouts are to do all the program planning. The minority of the time that the troop acts collectively, the SPL is the troop's leader. The SPL appoints all other troop-level leaders, including any Junior Assistant Scoutmasters, although he consults with the Scoutmaster on those appointments. 4. Adults act as examples of living Scouting's values, leadership trainers, resources, coaches, and mentors of the Scouts. They stay "back stage" and allow the Scouts to run their patrols and troop. They directly lead nothing involving Scouts unless a real safety issue arises. They train Scouts in Scoutcraft through the Scouts. They measure their success in the leadership success of the Scouts and the success of the patrols in the troop. Adults would find the following strange: ​The adult-run troop is equally bizarre in the context of the Boy scouts of America. BSA 2015. Yet the bizarre is tolerated.

So how did Uncle Adolph, Joe Stalin and Mao define "murder"?

The troop in which I was a Scout did its own summer camp every other year. In 1958, we backpacked into a lake on the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains roughly opposite Yosemite National park on the west side. Dusty trail in and heavy packs for a week's stay. We got to our campsite for a late lunch on Day 2 and left for home after lunch on Day 8. No "facilities" beyond the trail. There was a lake with a cliff background around 2/3 of its circumference. On the open side of the lake we set up patrol sites plus one for the three adults who backpacked in and stayed . What a view! Birds and ground squirrels were so tame that they would hop on your plate to share meals (not the two pairs of Golden Eagles). The skunks were tame too. We just needed to stay calm. There was a shallow part of the lake that was just (barely) warm enough for swimming. Two fishermen showed up on Day 6 and told us "no one comes up here." (Pre-frame packs, much less waist-belts). Fishing. Day hikes. Nature. Great campfires every night. Spades tournaments. Super echoes off the cliffs. The air smelled magical. Wind in the Jeffery Pines. Scouting paradise.

Saying "credit" makes a debit card into a credit card? I never, to my knowledge, had a debit card, so I haven't a clue. Maybe we need a forum closed to youth.

A "town"? More a symbol for a state. Check out the wonderfulness of Flint or Lansing. 50% child poverty is only a memory - in the worst way.. But for poverty, you cannot beat the deep South - especially if you include the D of C.. The unofficial motto of the Kentucky schools thirty years ago was "Thank God for Arkansas" as they were 49 and 50. Now both states have escaped the "Bottom Five and DC." Mississippi's motto must be "Thank God for DC."

I would say some in Detroit, Cleveland, and other "urban centers" outside the South, capitalized, and capitalize, on wretchedness quite well.

Oh, crazies are not confined to Texas - or the south.

By and large, politicians pander to wherever the power/$$$ is located.

Having never had a debit card, I have no idea. If you use it to buy something to be delivered and it does not show or is not as represented, can you stop payment?

When you are not watching. Until at least 2008, and possibly until 2011, the national guidelines for advancement said: Somewhen, that language went away. National now argues that this now allows "camp staff members" to simply assure the MBC that the requirements have been met, and the MBC can then sign, never having even seen the candidate. But here's a thought. Consistent with BSA's [pattern of inconsistency, it also says today: The same qualifications and rules for merit badge counselors apply to council summer camp merit badge programs. All merit badge counselors must be at least 18 years of age. Camp staff members under age 18 may assist with instruction but cannot serve in the role of the merit badge counselor. I submit that when all personal contact with a candidate is by youth staff, then youth staff is impermissibly serving in the role of merit badge counselor as that role is described by BSA. For example according to BSA it is the counselor who is to “[e]ncourage self-evaluation and self-reflection, and establish an atmosphere that encourages the Scout to ask for help.†How can he or she do that if they never even see the candidate? What do you think? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ â€It is unacceptable to award badges on the basis of sitting in classrooms watching demonstrations, or remaining silent during discussions.†BSA 2015.

An assumption as to the motivation of others may be correct. Or not. And I can see that even the best of motivation may drive unfortunate behavior. We are not perfect. Generalizing from one's necessarily limited experience may be accurate. Or not. Your experience may not actually be universal however passionately you believe otherwise.. And I still believe that the Scout Law is up to the task and that no more zero tolerance rules are required. In fact, "not" rules are contrary to the entire scheme of the Law. "The boy is not governed by DON’T, but led on by DO. The Scout Law is devised as a guide to his actions rather than as repressive of his faults." BP "Regardless, I see we aren't going to agree on this topic, and I don't see our opinions changing." But more hurt feelings can be generated.

"And the successful Russian program to breed a domesticated fox shows that extreme selective pressure can produce "evolutionary" results in a species in just a few generations." The part that gets me is how the color of their coats changed.

E. coli aside, wasn't there a species of birds that evolved in a few generations? Checking. "[M]edium ground finch, Geospiza fortis, on the Galápagos island of Daphne (how appropriator) evolved smaller beaks in about twenty years.

Taxonomy is not based on organizing by DNA. I think I remember that.

"Do you even know what "species" means? It appears not." It's been a long time since I was zoology lab assistant, but I recall that scientists agreed fairly well on the definition of a species in general language but fought bitter wars of words over the application. My boss, Bayard Brattstrom, often observed that there were "lumpers" and "spliters." You'd go nuts trying to keep up with the taxonomic changes in Rhododendrons and Azalias - just in the last century. Dr. B used to tell funny stories about "bone wars."

Do not assume the worst. He read it as sing and tied it into the other thread about having Scouts sing for lost items. Rolling out the lawyer word is way over the top.

Yes ! But have you seen the blog discussion at Bryan's place where it is argued by several that "discuss," "describe," and "tell" may be satisfied by written reports? Their argument goes that the ordinary English meaning of those words allows for communication in writing and that had BSA meant for communication to be only orally it would have said so.

Pardon me, Fred, but I think the rules of Scouting allow one to disagree with a rule. That result clearly seems to be expressly provided for in A Scout is Obedient. In fact, it seems to me that purporting to deny others the opportunity to even disagree is fairly far off the track we are committed to following. Compliance is another thing entirely. I do my best to follow BSA's rules to the extent that one can determine what they are. What is confusing to some is that, while citing Dr. King as an icon, BSA says we are to comply with rules we find wrong. Dr. King, famously, refused to comply and won the Nobel Prize for Peace for leading a massive campaign of civil disobedience. One of those proud rogues, I guess.

And dance.

I am simply acknowledging that spending your life in different areas among different people has an impact of how you view things. Buddhists don't look so outside-the-limits when you tent with them for years and use their holy places just like those of Methodists, Baptists, Catholics and the LDS. That's all. How that offends escapes me.