CalicoPenn

"Obama is sending our troops once again into war with no Congressional authorization." You mean the Lords Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009 passed by Congress and signed into law which "states that it is U.S. policy to support efforts to protect civilians from the Lords Resistance Army, to apprehend or remove Joseph Kony and his top commanders from the battlefield in the continued absence of a negotiated solution, and to disarm and demobilize the remaining LRA fighters and requires President Obama to develop a comprehensive, multilateral strategy to protect civilians in central Africa from LRA attacks and take steps to permanently stop the rebel groups violence" isn't enough Congressional Authorization for you? You are aware, of course, that PRESIDENT Obama is sending advisors in specifically to support efforts to apprehend or remove Joseph Kony and his commanders from the battlefield, right? Just like the LRA/Uganda act requires him to do, right? You're aware that the LRA has been raping, mutilating and killing children, right? "Clearly, this is foolish for budgetary reasons as well as over stretching our military" And of course, you're aware that the number of advisors being sent in is about 100, right? That many of them are being redeployed from other duties with the Africa Command, right? Yeah - that'll break the budget. You realize that this is a mission to protect civilians and bring peace to the region, right? Nah - I would guess you don't know any of that - you're obvious hatred of President Obama makes you blind to any facts that will get in the way of your rant. I do want to thank you for piquing my interest enough to read up on this issue though. I'm glad he's taking this action now (though I wonder what took him so long) - if we can't stand up and support our President who is on the side of protecting children from brutal thugs, then what's the point of even being an American?

Ya know, on a Friday night, camping with Cubs, when it gets dark now before 6:30 after wrangling folks together, driving, getting everyone set up and settled, I can see doing this as an alternative to trying to put together a campfire program on the first night. I actually kind of like the whole "drive in" (ok, camp in) feel of it, especially if it's a nice night and it can be done outside. I'd consider inviting the immediate neighborhood over to bring over a chair though, just as a way to acknowledge that there might be a little bit of noise.

BTW - about that report of an OWS protester defecating on a NYC police car. The report is based on a photo printed by the Daily Mail, a newspaper from the UK, and story alleging the photo is of a protestor. Only one problem - the NYC police car is clearly marked that it's from the 81st Precinct - and the 81st Precinct is in Brooklyn, not Manhattan. Now before someone decides that the officer must have been there helping with crowd control, standard operating procedure for big city police departments like NYC, Chicago, LA, etc. is for police to be called in to that duty off-shift, and to provide their own transportation to the area - they do not take patrol cars from other parts of the city, or other boroughs, to do crowd control somewhere else - and they wouldn't be parking them on the street if they were there for a long term assignment like that. Also, notice the green post office storage box. Unless they put them back, the Post Office removed them from Wall Street and environs after 9/11 so that they coudn't be used to hide a bomb. The shoes are quite a bit out of date as well - frankly, the guy looks to be a homeless guy and not a protester. Allegedly, the police ignored people who told them some guy was defecating on their car - does that sound like any police officer you know or have heard of? It appears someone is playing fast and loose with the facts here.

"If you've watched my postings, I also haven't agreed with da arguments of Democrats, as Calico and NJ have yelled at me on many an occasion." Beavah, I can see how you might get the impression that I'm a Democrat, though I've said often enough I'm not. That socially liberal thinking and all, as well as a willingness to see a social safety net funded, as well as continued funding for such things as NPR, PBS, National Parks, Forests and Wildlife Refuges, alternative energy, education, health, etc. etc. The only thing is that I'm one of them pesky independents - note the small I. If there were an Independent Party, I would not be a member. I've voted for Republicans and Democrats and Greens. I agree with the fiscal positions you've been posting - those have been good, old-fashioned Republican fiscal values for decades. I think we only disagree on scope a lot of times. "Whatever happened to "You have to spend money to make money"? That applies only to the private sector." Hmmm - I guess all those studies showing that governments that spend wisely on tourism promotion receive more money back than is spent is just utter hogwash then. Good to know.

Ignore them - and stop going to their meetings. There are probably units out there in your district that no one ever sees at district events now. Become one of them. Then do whatever you want. Deal just with the Council office. If someone from the district comes to you with a pre-set FOS goal, tear it up, laugh in their face, and tell them to scram. Tell the District Executive you will do your own FOS presentation in your own time and if you can get each family to donate just $2 each, then the Council better be happy to get even that much. If someone from district comes by to give you grief, laugh in their face and tell them to scram. If a commissioner comes by without an express invitation, tell them to scram. Have the COR hand deliver the re-chartering package to the council office - if anyone gives him/her grief, ask them if they really want to lose an active unit of 100+ scouts. If the CO's and COR's in a district or council ever organized and acted together, the Scout Executive and Council President would be shaking in their boots. What do you think would happen if a significant majority of CO's told the Scout Executive the District Committee/District Executive had to go or they were dropping their charters.

I didn't realize that the BSA started assigning territories to units. I wonder how these folks peeing on the corners to mark their territories would react to a family with Scouts who lived just a couple houses away. When I was a Cub Scout, my den mates came from a 2 block radius - heck, one lived right across the stree from me - how do you determine "territory" then. And if you take an order form to work and there are 3 other parents with Scouts from 3 different units who also have order forms, how do you determine territory then? Part of the lessons of salesmanship is the first one out with the product is going to be more successful than the last guys out there. You sold to 9 out of 11 houses in that guys alleged "territory" - I'd say that's pretty good. I'd probably be feeling a bit angry too but I think my anger would be because I was disappointed in the actions of a fellow scouting parent and so-called adult. You've done the right thing by your son and his friend. If you decide to talk to that Cubmaster, I'd suggest coming at it from a point of being disappointed in the example that was set for your son and his friends, rather than from a point of anger.

It's time to break the 70 year old secrets: All that ditching that Scouts did around their tents? It was to hide the extension cords running to the nearest power pole. Helicopter moms had better camoflage - even their hair dryers were camoflaged - that whirring noise Scouts heard in the woods that were attributed to owls? Mom's hair dryer at full speed. Trees were actually pre-cut down then superglued back together - made it easy for a tree to be felled, limbed, sectioned and quartered by a 12 year old boy. The only troop with heavy gear was yours - every one else had space age, lightweight equipment - it was just made out to look as heavy as yours. National Park and Forest trails of the time were moving walkways - they were removed in the 70's and never replaced because it was getting too hard to find repair parts. Irradiating food is not a new idea - food was heavily irradiated way back when which kept bacteria at bay no matter how long the mayonnaise stayed out in the sun. All that gear Scouts hauled up a trail was just misdirection - waiting for them at the end of a trail was a 5-star resort with indoor/outdoor swimming pool, 5-star chef, pool table lounge, and all the cookies on could eat.e Or was that just the 1950's B-movie Science Fiction film I saw last week that I'm remembering.

Gee - all we need are another two M's and it can compete with the Three G's as the hot button issues for the BSA We've got Muslims - what should the other two M's be? Milk? Money? (never happen). I know, how about Mastication! Muslims, Mastication and Mandelbrot! Now the people opposed to allowing Islam, chewing and intelligence in Boy Scouts have a place to go!

Even the Florida Institute of Technology offers programs in psychology, humanities and communications. I seem to recall someone else eliminating the humanities and soft sciences from uiversities - who was that again...Oh yeah, Mao Zedong (better known here as Mao Tse-tung). Do Flordians know they elected a Communist as Governor??

I'm quite aware that John Lewis refused to take part in that little lie detector stunt - I don't accept that as proof the incident never happened, I take it as proof that John Lewis is a smarter and better man than every single one of the teabaggers that came up with the lie detector stunt combined. The lie detector stunt and the offer to pay for video proof (again, they won't accept a notarized, sworn, affidavit as proof for the reward) is just a stunt created by folks who are trying to muddy the waters (which has succeeded with a small subset of people) because they know it happened and are trying to squirm out of it like the little worms they are. It comes down to credibility. John Lewis has it - the witnesses who saw it happen have it. The protestors don't have it, and the twits who came up with the reward scheme weren't there, and will never have any credibility with rational people. But I suppose we can just go ahead and use the tea bagger standard of proof and tell every Vietnam Veteran who has claimed they were spit on when they returned that it never happened and they can't prove it did unless they can provide video evidence, or pass a lie detector test. Speaking of which, about the accuracy of polygraph tests, if you truly believe something has happened, then you'll pass the polygraph test with flying colors.

I accept as true that a congressperson was spit on by someone in an angry crowd of tea party protestors because I accept a judicial standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. I accept the statements of the victim and witnesses to the act over the video taken at one angle and statements by members of the angry mob because A) video can't capture every moment at every angle so it's as likely as not that the particular video was never in a position to actually capture that particular part of the moment, and B) the credibility of the victim and witnesses in his support far outweigh the credibility of anyone in the angry mob. The so-called reward is just a stunt unless they're willing to accept a notarized, sworn affidavit from a witness that would be accepted in a court of law as proof, and they won't do it. I'm sticking with ignorant or lying.

You wouldn't want Ferris Buehler as your father - as he got older, he got more and more like Principal Rooney. In fact, he took over the Principal's job when Rooney retired and in his first week he instituted a school uniform policy; installed metal detectors at all schools; "improved" the Student ID policy by installing time clocks at all the entrances to the school and to the classrooms and requiring you to swipe in and out every time you entered or exited school, a class, or even the bathrooms; hired ex-cons as truant officers; instituted a closed campus for all grade levels; and marked any absence as unexcused unless you had photographic proof of being hooked up to an IV in a hospital room.

"An odd comment when there has not been charges of violence with the Tea Party which can hardly be said of the OWS crowd." You keep claiming this when it just isn't true. In October, 2010, at a Rand Paul Senate Debate, a Tea Party yahoo dragged a woman holding a sign opposing Rand Paul to the ground and kicked her in the head. In March, 2010, a Democratic Congressman was spit on by a Tea Party protestor - at the same protest, the Tea Party protestors screamed the N word and the F word at the Democratic Congresspeople making their way into the Capitol. In November 2009, a Tea Party rally descended into violence as a couple of Tea Party yahoos started fighting with some counter-protestors. At one Tea Party rally, Tea Party morons screamed at and hurled dollar bills at a man suffering from Parkinson's who was quietly holding a sign stating an opposing view - and the worst part was other Tea Party twits stood around and did nothing. Between people showing up at Tea Party protests wearing guns, people holding up signs at Tea Party protests promoting violence against other people, and actual violent acts taking place at Tea Party rallies, to say that there have been no charges of violence is either incredibly ignorant and naive, or an outright lie.

I gave one of the Sinclair machines to my father for Christmas one year - though it was the Timex brand. I remember them being very small, and very cheap. My Atari 2600 game console was more powerful (and I had the Basic Programming cartridge with keyboard controller). The first computer we had at home was a PET 2001 my dad had somehow finagled from work. The writing was on the wall even then - it had become out-dated within a year of being released. My first personal computer was a Commodore VIC-20. I remember playing the Star Trek game from a terminal as well - except we used calculators, not slide rules. I remember the first desk-top IBM I used - as I recall there was a lever that you had to engage to lock down the hard drive before moving the machine, so you didn't damage the disks.

I think people aren't really sure what to make of this whole Occupy Wall Street thing because the media hasn't done a very good job paying attention to it - they've come in late to the party and are struggling to catch up. Occupy Wall Street started as a response to a suggestion in Adbusters Magazine, a magazine opposed to the corporatization of society - call it anti-corporate if that's your worldview, or call it pro-people, if that's your worldwiew. Adbusters, by the way, is published in Canada (hmm, maybe it's the first salvo in Canada's plan to invade the US - or is that just giving the knuckleheads at Fox News ideas?). The whole intention was for a group of people to camp out in Wall Street's "front lawn" to call attention to the damage that corporations are inflicting on people and government (and yes, corporations do a lot of good - that's not the point - the point is that they also do a lot that's bad and we need corporations to do less of the bad and more of the good). What a lot of people either forget, or don't know (and I suspect the latter - again, the media was late to this whole thing) is that Occupy Wall Street didn't really start gaining any traction until violence reared it's ugly head - violence caused by one particular NYPD police officer who took it upon himself to pepper spray some peaceful female protestors. This act was captured on video and put on to You Tube - where it quickly became viral and inflamed the passions of an awful lot of people. Before those who are quick to defend the police jump in, you should know that this one particular police officer has a history of acting like this, and that the other police officers with boots on the ground at the time were disgusted by this officer's actions and filed complaints against him for his behavior BEFORE the video was viral on You Tube. Once the video went viral, that's when the mass occupation of Wall Street really began - until that happened, there were never more than about 20 people involved. The police didn't start putting up the barricades around the Wall Street bull and other parts of Wall Street until this video started getting noticed - I have to hand it to the NYPD - someone there was smart enough to think "Uh oh - this is not going to be good" and got pro-active. Today, the press is still struggling to figure it out - and as a result, most of us are struggling to figure it out. Apparently, the message "End Corporate Greed" isn't as coherent a message as "Lower Taxes". I figure the message makes sense to those of us who have been paying attention to the effects corporations have had on our society over the past few decades. It's also the answer as to why they are occupying Wall Street and not the Capitol. The message is end corporate greed - you take that message to the center of corporatism - and that's symbolically Wall Street. It will be interesting to see if it follows the same pattern as the Tea Party. The Tea Party started off as a grass-roots movement, but it was, despite some folks not wanting to believe it, co-opted by money and influence from the right - the various national factions people know of (as seemingly separate organizations) like the Tea Party Express and Tea Party Patriots, etc., etc., are funded by big pocket donors who are not just funding them, but telling them what to say and do. The state Tea Party groups are still more grass roots aligned but are being drowned out more and more by the astro-turf groups that popped up to take the spotlight and haven't been able to do a good job of distancing themselves from the national folks, either because they have little power, or just haven't been able to admit that they've been taken over. Started as a grass roots movement, Occupy Wall Street is starting to garnish funding from deep pockets on the left - if a single message starts to emerge that is not coming from disparate sources, then I would suggest that Occupy Wall Street has been co-opted in the same way that the Tea Party was co-opted. I don't think we're seeing that, yet. The 99% campaign that's coming out is something that appears to have emerged organically and is spreading like wildfire through social media rather than being orchestrated. However, I also think this is the most likely avenue to be turned into a single, national message with huge funding behind it, and to be potentially co-opted and morphed into something else. I think that remains to be seen. (This message has been edited by calicopenn)

Papa - great story - I can so picture that. Basement - sorry you had that experience - I would have either told the other leader to knock it off, or I would have split my group completely away from hers and not look back. I never used "signs up" - I think it does a disservice to the real meaning of the Cub and Scout signs - in all the descriptions of the meaning of the signs, I've not found one yet that says it means "shut your yaps and pay attention". I'm used to public speaking - I've done it enough - can't use "signs up" at a meeting of non-scouts (most of the time), and hollering "Hey, Ya'll, can we settle down" just doesn't seem to start things off on the right foot. I've never had a problem getting a group - any group - from rowdy Cub Scouts at Day Camp, to talkative adults at a presentation - to quiet down and pay attention simply by standing in front of them looking prepared to start talking. Start looking at the audience instead of your paperwork, and within moments, things quiet down. People seem to be more attentive when you let them quiet down without requesting it - in a sense, they've made the decision to stop talking and start listening - and I do think that means something. If you go to one of your Scouts, hold up the Cub Scout sign or the Boy Scout sign and ask them what it means, and they say that it means to be quiet, something important has been lost.

Oh, we started with punch cards alright - but we were fortunate to upgrade to paper tape in my sophmore year. As for AM radio signals - it's just a vast government conspiracy to let local radio station owners reach their audience in their own towns - its not that the radios can't receive stations from out of state, it's that during daylight hours, most of the "superstations" (those that have a license to transmit at greater than 50K watts) have to drop down their transmission strength because the frequency they're using in, say, Denver, is being used by a different radio station in Chicago during the day. I use that as an example because we have a "daytimer" local AM station that has to sign off when darkness falls because the Denver station sharing that frequency is allowed to crank up to 50K at nightfall - yes - I can get the Denver station (a right-leaning talk radio station) just fine with my modern automobile radio at night (the irony here is the daytimer station is a progressive talk radio station). You might not be able to get WGN Radio (out of Chicago) at noon if you live in Boise, Idaho, but you may be able to get it at 11 PM. Some may remember the Art Bell show - he was on in the early morning hours (midnight to 6 am or something like that) - he was well known to night denizens around the country - but he wasn't syndicated to all that many radio stations - he was heard all over the place because the radio station he worked for was a night-time superstation that got to crank up the wattage when he was on the air.

Last week, one of the women at work wore a pair of boots that reached up beyond the knees - great (and fierce) looking boots - and I said "wow - those boots were made for walking" only to be met with puzzled looks from my co-workers. I said "Nancy Sinatra??" - and still more puzzled looks. So we had to find an online recording of the song so they would get it. Yeah - I'm old, but really, if I can keep up with todays cultural touchstones (yeah, I know who Justin Bieber and Snooki are), is it really too much to ask that these whippersnappers understand mine? PS - Those electronic typewriters were called Teletype Terminals. They were both an early fax machine (type your message on one terminal and it could be sent to print on other people's terminals) and keyboard for computer programming. You didn't have a computer on your desk - you logged into a mainframe that could be located in a different room, a different building, heck, a different town - and typed away to create a program. I learned to type on one of these back in high school and could type 70 wpm on it (but could only do 20 wpm on the IBM Selectric (yeah, I remember them too), probably because I didn't have to follow the rules of 8-finger typing on the teletype terminal - in fact, as I'm typing this, I'm realizing that I mostly use 2 fingers on my left hand and 3 fingers on my right hand to type). Tell someone you started learning computer programming in high school in the late 1970's and most don't believe it, either because their schools in the 70's didn't offer programming, or their schools in the late 80's stopped offering programming to concentrate of how to use word processing and spreadsheet programs.

Ummm - aren't we missing something else here? Have you checked the regulations along the river? In a lot of river systems nowadays, you can't just dig a cathole back in the woods - you have to take it with you - Leave No Trace - and there are products out there that will allow you to do that without stinking up the boat 2 days into the trip. The arguments pro and con really don't matter - if folks want the thread to devolve into that, hey, I can't stop you - but the fact is if the regulations along the river require you to pack it out, all the philosophical wrangling over whether that's a ridiculous rule or not is trumped by another philosophy - A Scout is Obedient. Even if you aren't on a river system with those kinds of rules, you can still follow it - you're in canoes, for goodness sakes - how much room does a 5-gallon bucket, liners (aka trash bags), a toilet seat (the big outdoors stores has them that are made specifically for them), some toilet paper and a tarp (or old tent) to set up around it for privacy take in a canoe? I use a camping toilet even when I'm in a state park these days, if I'm camping in my larger tent - I like the convenience at 2 AM, and not having to wonder if the parks toilets will be trashed or usable. I bring along a bag of cedar shavings and a small bag of lime which gets sprinkled in after every use, and I just change out the bag once a day - no muss, no fuss, and privacy assured. It's probably not a bad idea to teach this as a practice anyway - as time moves on, the Scouts who will keep going on outdoor trips after they age out will find more and more restrictions on the practice of digging catholes anyway. There are even systems that are marketed specifically for backpackers as there are backcountry restrictions on the practice in many places too.

According to the Pack Committee Guidebook, the Pack Committee is responsible for supervising the finances of the Pack. According to the Pack Committee Guidebook, the Treasurer is responsible for providing monthly reports on the finances of the Pack at monthly Pack Leader's meetings. According to the Pack Committee Guidebook, the Treasurer is responsible to provide updates, as often as required, to the CO on the Pack's finances. According to the Pack Committee Guidebook, the Pack Committee Chair is responsible for managing finances through adequate financial records. According to the Pack Committee Guidebook, the Pack Committee Chair is responsible for approving all bills before the Treasurer pays them. I'd like to know who is making up the budget for the year if it's not the Pack Committee? How can the Pack Committee supervise the finances if they aren't being given written reports. Why isn't the Committee Chair requiring written reports? How can the Committee Chair approve payments if he hasn't seen a written report which includes the bank balance? The CM is right, he can't make a volunteer do anything. But the CC can - s/he simply tells the Treasurer to prepare a written report on the finances - bank balance, budget, etc. and present it at the next Pack Leader Meeting, and do so for every monthly meeting thereafter. If the Treasurer refuses, the CC demands the return of the check book and all financial records immediately, and accepts her immediate resignation. End of story. If I were the COR and you came to me with this, and the CC had not made these requests of the Treasurer, the unit would be looking for a new CC. If I were the COR and you came to me with this, and the CC asked for this information but was rebuffed, and decided to let it go, the unit would be looking for a new CC and Treasurer. If I were on this committee, and the CC and Treasurer refused to provide written records of the finances of the Pack, I would be leaving this committee and potentially the Pack.

Truth be told, the uniform isn't important. It just isn't. There is nothing in Scouting we can't do equally well without a uniform as we can with a uniform. Wearing a uniform doesn't help us set up a camp better, or perform first aid better, or to tie better knots, or to sing silly songs at Pack meetings or campfires, or to provide service to our communities, or to do a good turn daily, or to be prepared, etc. I think we are going down the wrong path when we try to attach importance to the uniform. Rather, I think the right question, and the question that the answers 83Eagle provided answers much better than why the uniform is important is "Why is the uniform advantageous". We'll get much farther convincing Scouts and parents that the uniform has advantages (aka benefits) than convincing them it has importance.

It sounds to me that the issue really isn't a lad without a uniform, the issue is how to respond to a parent who is wondering why Bobby is treated no differently for not wearing a uniform from Johnny who does wear a uniform (or "why did I spend $100 on a uniform if not spending the money wouldn't have made a difference"). We can trot out the old "uniforms make us into a cohesive whole" and all the other positive blather that is in the literature* but I believe it really comes down to this as an answer to the parent: "Every parent is responsible for their own child's Scouting Experience. This is not a competition between Cub Scouts and between families. Cub Scouts is about what you and your son will get out of the program. When your son wears his uniform, which you have provided to him and are lovingly caring for, do you notice a difference in him? Do you notice he steps out with a bit more pride and enthusiasm? Do you notice he gets excited when he puts the uniform on? Is he bugging you to sew (or help him sew) his latest award on his uniform before the next meeting? Have you noticed he acts just a little bit differently when he puts that uniform on? Do you think it enhances your son's Cub Scouting experience when he wears his uniform? Are you glad for your son, and take a little more pride in him, because he's wearing his uniform? Does it really matter what another Cub Scout wears as long as your son is the getting the best experience he can get?" I think the key here is to take the parent's focus off the lad who isn't wearing the uniform, and put it back on to her son. *ps - I just want to point out that I had not yet read the spin-off thread when I wrote this post and therefore was not influenced by Beavah when I used the term "blather" and then used it as a descriptive of information in BSA literature which is the same word and same context that Beavah had used before me in the spin-off post. Either GMTA or we're both stubbornly midwestern.(This message has been edited by calicopenn)

Couple of other possibilities * Each unit gets one port-o-potty in their campsite - it's their's to take care of for the weekend * Pay extra for every two hour cleaning from the service - and pass that cost along as part of the cost of the camporee

The restrictions in the National Camp Standards apply to Council and District camps, not to individual units. Even the restriction in the G2SS for monkey bridges apply strictly to Council and District camps and events but are a strong suggestion (not ban) to individual units. At least that's how I interpret the wording and language used because I still believe there is a difference between should and must.

Felt inclined to resurrect this post to add something for anyone thinking ahead to next years Klondike (or for that matter, for an idea for an upcoming campout) Banana Bread French Toast I think that say's it all.