Re: "Scouts council to offer AIDS education"
Jim McCullars (JIM@UAHIS1.UAH.EDU)
Fri, 28 Jan 1994 17:13:00 CST
Hello Kevin:
--> Have the GSUSA sold their soul?
Pretty strong accusation, if you ask me. Sounds like a corporate
sponsor (and don't get me wrong here, I have no love lost for Levi Strauss)
approached them with the means to help solve a problem facing young girls,
and the council took them up on it.
--> Is this the purpose of the GSUSA?
Not having read their charter or by-laws, I couldn't say. But it sounds
pretty legit to me.
--> Do you want your 5 year old girl learning about condom use?
Nothing I read in your quoted piece leads me to believe this would be
the case. But to answer your question, no.
--> Is this "needs of the girls"?
Absolutely! Remember the drug abuse campaign the BSA did (and I guess
is still doing), and the "Child Abuse...Let's Talk About It" brochures?
Looks to me like this Girl Scout council has recognized a problem and is
trying to do something about it.
-->What ever hapend to camping, cooking, and hiking?
Can't answer that one. If that was previously a part of the Girl Scout
program, I'm sure it still is.
--> How about $50,000 for a new Girl Scout reservation?
I suspect that $50,000 wouldn't even be a down payment on a new Girl
Scout reservation.
--> Oh, well.
Let me give you something else to think about. Remember the message Mike
Walton posted a few days back, about how the BSA was getting away from some
of the things we used to do? Especially from the perspective of emergency
preparedness? I submit that if this AIDS thing had occurred 50 years ago,
the BSA would have met it head-on, rather than burying our collective heads
in the sand and pretending it doesn't exist.
We have gotten so paranoid about sex that we cannot even mention it to
our kids. Remember the old "From Boy to Man" chapter that used to be in
the Scout Handbook? And in Baden-Powell's original "Scouting for Boys"
book, it was even more explicit than in the Handbook when I was young. So
why is it now, that the Handbook doesn't even mention the single biggest
change that will happen to a boy's life while he is of Scout age?
No, I have to give it to the Girl Scouts on this one.
Jim McCullars
SM, T-237
Huntsville, AL
Terry Howerton Sakima Group, Inc. SCOUTER Magazine Kansas City | 
