eisely

I have been posting on this forum far longer than most participants, although not as consistently or as often. My sense is that the forum is getting tamer, or perhaps people are just getting exhausted.

I just came across this and could not believe Oprah actually said this with regards to President Obama:

"I feel that everybody has a learning curve, and I feel that the reason why I was willing to step out for him was because I believed in his integrity and I believed in his heart," the influential TV host said on MSNBCs Morning Joe in Chicago. [pasted from Politico]

I personally don't believe that presidents are entitled to much of a learning curve. The world is too dangerous a place and there is too much at stake to overlook the lack of real experience and some kind of track record in voting for president. Clearly the majority of the electorate disagreed with me in 2008.

The only way I can explain the Obama administration response to the situation is Egypt is to infer that from the top down our current leadership is stunningly incompetent.

Having said that, it is an error to believe that somehow the US controls events in other countries. We often have a great deal of influence but the locals will do whatever they wish, often in spite of our preferences, even when we are bankrolling the whole thing. Both the hard left and hard right often exhibit this erroneous belief.

The main thing that the Obama administration has contributed to the Eqyptian situation is total confusion as to where the US stood with respect to the continued longevity of the Mubarak regime. The Obama administration has managed to anger both our friends and our enemies, a rare accomplishment.

We will have to continue to live with this situation for at least two more years. It is going to be a bumpy ride.

None of the above should be taken to mean that you cannot go on outings, provide MB counseling, participate in BORs and other things.

There may well be more to this than meets the eye. It is unusual for parents to go around all the troop leadership to the unit commissioner and the DE. At a minimum there is likely some lack of communication with those parents.

Perhaps there were one or more recent incidents where something went awry at an event or activity that you appeared to blow off. It is also possible that there are some parents who simply disagree with the entire idea of a boy run troop. Such parents need to spend some time talking to their sons about what the boy wants out of scouting and what the boy thinks of the troop's programs.

It would be interesting to know what the UC and DE actually said or did in response to the complaints.

I guess that we have been pretty fortunate.

Probably the worst thing that happened on an outing in which I participated was a mass attack by bees. We were hiking out of Big Basin State Park in the Santa Cruz mountains when a boy in the middle of the group disturbed a hive in the ground. They may have been the notorious "killer bees" which have been migrating Northward, but it doesn't matter.

They were very aggressive and we were stuck on a very narrow trail on the side of a steep hill. The most serious concern was the possiblity of someone in the group experiencing a major allergic reaction. That did not happen and after we got past the bees and gathered back together we finished our trek without further difficulty. Several scouts and some of the adults received multiple stings. I counted seven in my own scalp.

I agree that cycling ribbons off of the troop flag is an acceptable and a good idea. I would not discard them. Stringing them across the ceiling of a dedicated meeting space sounds intriguing but probably violates fire codes.

I would suggest investing in a larg album of some kind where they can be displayed. Historical or explanatory notes could be added to such an album.

There is more to this request than meets the eye. I am skeptical of organizations asking for money without being willing to provide some kind of justification.

We use a public shool facility and pay a fee for doing so. One of the legacies of Jesse Helms is an obscure federal law prohibiting public schools that receive federal money from discriminating against the boy scouts regarding use of facilities. If a school district wants to charge a fee it may do so, but then it must charge everybody.

My wife was never involved in scouts, either as a child or as mother of our three sons, but several years ago she did something like this that clearly reflected scout spirit.

She was working at a local JC Penny store at the time. A young female co worker and her family were burned out of their house in an arson attack. My wife took up a cash collection among the other employees. My wife's action also shamed the store management into giving the employee a $2,000 shopping spree in the store to replace lost clothing.

Perhaps some of the other adults in the pack have connections with retailers who might be inclined to do something similar if asked.

The more I hear about the content of the Wikileaks stuff, the more it sounds like a good thing.

There is little to add to what Beavah has written. I have acted as "instructor" for Troop Committee Challenge for several years. I put instructor in quotes because I try to get the participants to instruct themselves. I am there mainly as a facilitator.

But I digress.

On by laws, I advise that there is no requirement for them, but many units find them helpful to clarify who is a member of the committee, what is a quorum and things for which a formal vote might be required. It is certainly correct that most committee business is done by consensus, but one needs to be prepared to be more formal when touchy subjects come up such as disciplinary matters.

Removing either an adult or a youth from participation in the unit is a serious decision and some degree of formality is best put in place before the need arises to ensure fair treatment all around.

The tale written above about a troop imposing additional requirements for Eagle is apalling. I too would not stick around such a troop. I don't know how change could be effected in such an environment.

It is correct that the SM and ASMs are not members of the committee and do not vote. However, I advise that such volunteers should certainly participate in the committee discussions. I point out that (1) these are the people doing most of the work and (2) you don't want these people getting the feeling that their views are completely ignored.

Our troop currently registers at least one parent from each household that registers a boy in the troop. This creates the possibility of a disgruntled faction arising and seizing control of the committee. That is the obverse of the situation where the committee consists of only a few unidentified people who essentially operate as a mysterious cabal.

Ultimately all successful and effective troop committees run on trust and good faith. If those are absent, there are larger issues with the unit that mere organizational changes cannot heal.

Our council has no policy of which I am aware. When I have taught the "woods tools" segment dealing with knives in the OLS training I have advised new adult leaders as follows:

1. Large sheath knives are generally pointless. A folding blade knife is safer for most youth and meets all your ordinary camping needs.

2. There are some situations where a fixed blade sheath knife should be a mandatory part of personal equipment. Two that come to mind are scuba diving and white water kayaking. Several years ago one of the participants in this forum mentioned that in hiking on Guam they had to use machetes to clear their trails as they went. So clearly fixed blade knives, including in cook kits for large groups, have their proper places in scouting.

3. One needs to know local law regarding defining weapons, and regulating the carrying and use of weapons. Scouts and parents need to be advised to shake down day packs that may be used to carry school books after all outings where day packs may have been used to avoid drastic school penalties.

4. After saying all that I return to the recommendation that some kind of multi tool folding knife, either a Swiss Army knife or a Leatherman, is safest and best because you get other things you will also find useful.

Here's a different take on wilderness survival:

Try Mendocino County in California where the biggest component of the local economy is the illegal growing of marijuana on public lands. Survival here entails avoiding the armed guards of the various plots.

Actually one does not even need to go that far for a little excitement and practice in surviving. One could go camping in Golden Gate Park here in San Francisco among the homeless encampments. Numerous homicides and other crimes have occurred there over the years. Anybody with food, cash or other valuable resources would require good survival skills.(This message has been edited by eisely)

Congratulations to the lady, her family, her pack, and the church which has sponsored this pack all these years.

The word "terrorist" is used way too loosely and such usage devalues the word. Unless someone has evidence that the people involved in the leaks have plotted or carried out specific acts of terror, I submit they are not terrorists. One can argue that they may be ennabling terrorism, but they are not terrorists.

This issue is not unique to scouting or american politics. Over the long course of history there have been many instances of charisma winning over ability for the leadership slot, and then failing. One partial solution for this is to look at a person's real track record. The main stream media and the electorate chose to ignore Obama's lack of a track record of bona fide achievement and executive experience and went with the charisma. We got we voted for.

So too with elective PORs in a unit. Perhaps candidates should be required to prepare some kind of written summary of their qualifications and achievements ahead of time. Some, if not a majority, of the scouts in the electorate would at least look at and consider such a record.

I did not vote for Obama, but it is too early to judge his presidency. Further, what is the standard for judging? Should he be judged on what he set as goals or on his overall impact on the country? Every president comes into office with a long list of goals, but in reality achieving anything requires a great deal of cooperation from a great many players.

Ultimately every president will have some successes along with some failures. Although I consider Jimmy Carter to have been both the worst president of the 20th century and the worst ex president ever, he too had a couple of accomplishments for which he deserves credit; namely facilitating peace between Israel and Egypt, and seeing the Panama Canal treaty through to ratification.

One of Reagan's great strengths and a key to his success was his ability to set priorities and truly focus on what he decided was most important. Obama seems to lack that ability.

I have not looked at any of the leaked documents and do not plan to do so. Based on the commentary I have read, we have seen once again the tendency to over classify banal information. I agree that the leakers are not themselves terrorists, though they may be enabling some terrorism in the future.

I am shocked --- shocked to learn that our diplomats were instructed to spy on other countries' diplomats!! Good lord Charlie Brown, that is what diplomats are supposed to do. It would cause me much more concern if our diplomats were instructed to refrain from such activities.

This information dump will harm the United States, and the perpetrators should be identified, apprehended, charged, convicted, and punished in accordance with the law. As Beavah has pointed out, treason is off the table, but there are plenty of other things the perps can be charged with.

I do not have a great regard for the competence of our intelligence agencies. So I am not greatly surprised that someone found it feasible to pull this off.

The Blancmange makes an extremely important point that is often overlooked by commentators and people on both sides of the argument. Treaties become the law of the land under our constitution only upon ratification by the senate. The controversy arises when politicians try to enforce treaties that have not been ratified, or even submitted for ratification, as somehow binding law in the US. Even then the reference is to a treaty or draft agreement rather than court precedent in other jurisdictions.

This is not a trivial concern.

A few years (two?) ago a judge adjudicating a case of spousal rape in New Jersey, threw out the charges against the husband because the husband's religion entitled him to sex on demand from his wife in accordance with Sharia. Fortunately an appeals court reinstated the case and corrected this error.

There is nothing to prevent individuals from applying Sharia to civil contracts or other relations between or among them. What the Oklahoma initiative does, as I understand it, is re assert the predominance of non Sharia law, as it exists in Oklahoma, over Sharia.

The issue of international law is a bit more subtle. Justice Scalia acknowledged that he occasionally relies on non US law when looking at very old British precedents that still influence our law. The main issue with international law as I understand it would be unlikely to come up in an Oklahoma court, but could be a real issue in federal court, where some judges have referred to foreign cases in their opinions. I am not aware of any decisions turning on the application of foreign law, but conceivably that could happen.

If memory serves me correctly, we are not at war; we are engaged in an "overseas contingency operation" or something like that.

I have very limited knowledge of "scoutreach" and if I am mistaken, please politely provide correct information. I understand that "scoutreach" is an initiative at the council level that may involved dedicated paid professional scouter time to support the initiative. Councils are existing legal entities that are already running payrolls, paying payroll taxes, providing workers compensation insurance, etc., and adding or redirecting an employee to execute the scoutreach initiative has no implications for units paying people.

I suspect that really large affluent COs may well put scout leaders on their payrolls too, particularly if the CO has multiple chartered units.

When I said that compensating volunteers for their time can create issues, I had the typical troop in mind. It would be a mistake to pay adult leaders for their time in typcial situations. One problem that would arise is that one would find people seeking these positions that one would otherwise reject.

Beavah's basic point is well taken. If subsidizing the expenses of the adult leaders facilitates a better program then what is wrong with that?

Adult volunteers should not be paid for their time as that would raise a lot of legal and tax issues for the unit, the CO, and the individual.

Units should reimburse for expenses, and there are a lot of ways to go about this. Our troop pays basic registration fees for SM and ASM. Since the troop gets a certain number of free passes for summer camp adult participants, the costs of extras above the free pass allocation are absorbed by the troop.

Most outings are self supporting and should be self supporting. Adult drivers should either get their actual gas costs reimbursed or a flat allowance coming out of the budget for the outing. For frequent weekend outings, a simple allowance is much easier to deal with.

Our troop reimburses fees paid for training offered at the council and district level, but does not reimburse for meals or transportation costs to get to those events.

Some units actually dole out a uniform allowance, although our troop does not do so. Note that individual costs for uniforms are fully deductible for income tax purposes. Any allowance paid by the unit for uniforms should be offset against those costs.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with subsidizing SM expenses to ease the SM's burden and spread the costs to other families in the troop. How far you go and how you go about it is up to the unit.

I am less interested in learning about Sarah Palin in this series than I am interested in learning more about Alaska. It is something of an odd undertaking, and appears to more of a vehicle for Palin than for Alaska. One could go film the same places and activities without her and put out the same information and spectacular cinemetography. Nevertheless it is what it is. An odd mix of travelogue and personal commentary.

For the record, I am an admirer of Sarah Palin.

The Cowboys' cheer leaders can adopt me any time they want to do so.