Fat Old Guy

Fat too many parents are fixated on the prize rather than what the prize represents. The merit badges, the black belt, the letterman's jacket all are supposed to represent hard work, determination, and reaching a specific set of goals.

How often do we hear, "he WANTED to finish that merit badge, can't you just give it to him." At do jos I hear, "why can't he have his black belt, all of his friend's have theirs?"

You even see it in school when mom or dad does 90% of the work on a project so Junior will get an A. The teachers actually encourage this behavior by gushing over the beautiful parent made projects. I applaud the Scouts that recognize that they aren't earning things and want to change troops.

I applaud the Scouts that recognize that they are getting something for nothing want to do the work.

What? You didn't have them flogged on the spot? They diluted the entire program by "sash-aying" when they weren't sashable. Horrible. Just plain horrible.

Just kidding.

I don't see what the problem is. Most monuments have rules against protests on the grounds. Try to stage a protest at Old Faithful and they'll tell you to there as well.

I don't think that Cub Scouts will have a problem.

This may not belong in "Uniforms" but the last couple flag threads were here nad there's no "Scout Shop" section.

Has anyone ever noticed that most flags sold in this country are illegal. If not illegal, they are out of spec and this includes the flags sold at the Scout Shop.

By Executive Order, the standard fly to hoist ratio for the American Flag is 1.9:1. That means that a flag with a 3' hoist should have a 5.7' fly. Other proportions are authorized for special circumstances but 3'x5' isn't one of them. For those who don't know, "hoist" is the dimension of the flag parallel to the flagpole and fly is the dimension of the flag that is perpendicular to the flagpole.

There aren't any penalities for having an incorrectly sized flag but it would be nice if the Scout Shop sold proper flags.

It is amusing, to say the least, that the flags "flown over the capitol" that you can buy aren't proper sizes either. However, Executive Orders don't apply to the Congress.

"FOG signed up her as FOG and signed his posts as Al Lundy."

Puh-leeze get it straight. I signed up as the name that I may not type and changed to Fat Old Guy. Ironcally, I'm not really that fat or that old, it's what my Cub Scouts called me years ago when I put on a few extra pounds. The name stuck and that's how I'm known.

"I've never heard of anyone beating a charge with the defense of "sorry... I guess I just acted stupidly... I won't do THAT again..." "

Most of the time stupidity with no criminal intent and no serious harm never goes to trial. Retribution is made and a lesson is learned.

By the way, if I drive my car into a lake to see if it floats, who am I endangering?

BTW Bobby, you're getting shriller with every posting.

"Did you in fact steal another posters name?'

Interesting but invalid idea since there was no other user with my name when I registered.

Bobby, you are starting to get shrill. Maybe you need to go outside and take a few deep breaths.

I haven't contributed to the United Way for many, many years. I give directly to the organizations that I want to support so that organization gets all of the money and the United Way doesn't get their cut. The designated United Way cheerleaders come and glower at me on a regular basis and talk about the need to support the company's United Way effort but I ignore them.

"Why that's like equating a baseball players uniform and a book on how to play baseball, with the game of baseball. Preposterous! "

Thank you for proving my point, Bobby. There are nice baseball uniforms, uncomfortable baseball uniforms and cheap baseball uniforms. As for books, there are good books on baseball and bad books on baseball. However, neither the uniform nor the book is baseball.

Danny said, "Fog asked where he said scouting sucks, well right here,

I think that the quality of the uniform sucks. I think that the current handbook sucks. I even think that many BSA policies suck."

Danny, if you equate the uniform and the handbook with Scouting, I feel sorry for you.

KWC, I don't know what you're talking about but there are tens of thousands of umpires, if not more, running around the country. If you include those who no longer umpire, the number might be in the millions. I'm sure that there are more than a few that visit this forum.

"Why wouldn't a District event be concidered to be an area or regional event Fat Old Guy? "

Becuase it is a District Event. Regions and Areas are made up of Councils. So a 17 year old cannot drive to a District Event. So until Bobby can explain how a troop campout or District Camporee qualifies as an Area/Regional event, I'll stand by my reading.

Silver Shark said, "In addition, it states that they can drive to "area, regional, or national" events. I don't see anywhere where it states that these 16 year olds cannot drive to a district event."

Let's look at this in steps

4. The driver must be currently licensed and at least 18 years of age.

This means the driver must be 18 under any circumstances EXCEPT

Youth member exception: When traveling to and from an area, regional, or national Boy Scout activity

Area, regional and national events are specified exceptions to the rule. Since district events are not specified they are not exceptions to the rule so a youth member may not drive to such events.

What it does accomplish is that it requires that if the SM and one ASM are the only adults who can go to an event, that a 17 year old Scout cannot drive the third car which means that some Scouts may not go. The same 17 year old could drive to a Venturing event with six other Venturers in his car.

Why? Because the rules say so. The same reason is used for "why can't a Pack wear a pack neckerchief?"

Pack Hats? Oh, oh, you may invoke the wrath of the by-the-book types as I believe that Cub Scouts may not create their own headgear. :-)

What sense does it make that a 16 year old can drive to a Regional event but not to a District event? Does a Regional event imbue the youth with special powers.

What sense does it make that a 16 year old Venturer can drive to a Venturing event but that same Scout cannot drive to the District Camporee?

As I said elsewhere, many BSA policies suck.

I jumped Dan? Dan made a snide comment because I couldn't understand what he wrote so I pointed out the problem with what he wrote. I guess expecting people to write in some semblence of intelligible English is expecting too much.

As for antagonizing people, I only intentionally do that to close minded, pompous book thumpers or those who can't communicate in standard English and blame me for not understanding them.

To borrow from Stan Lee, " 'nuff said."

Mr. White, I've asked you not to call me "FOG." Evidently, your rules of conduct apply only to others.

As for who I am, I was told by the moderator that I cannot use my name here so I will not state it again.

Interesting thread. I really find the comments about "punishing" Scout for having other activities especially remarkable. I don't get the sense that anyone is being punished for joining the football team. They aren't being thrown out of the troop, are they?

If a kid was playing football and told the coach, "Coach, I can't come to practice three days this week because I have Scouts, drama, and Chemistry club," would he be starting or even playing?

"And FOG is acting just like yaworksi did, . . .

And he countines to sort of say that scouting sucks."

Sorry Dan but your broken English is hard to follow. It appeared as if FOG was the subject of your fractured sentences. The second sentence starts with a conjunction and has no antecedent for the pronoun so I had to guess what you meant.

"most policies suck,"

Come on, get it straight. I said "many policies suck" that's very different than most.

"what doesnt in your opinion?"

The basic premise as laid out by Baden-Powell.

With few exceptions, the major religions all preach "be nice and kind and good things will come to you." It is when the leaders start spinning things that things go awry.

Christ said, "be nice" so we had the Crusades and the Inquistion. Did you know that the Koran says to be nice to Christians and Jews? Sometimes you have to wonder if religious leaders have read their own books.

I've been watching this thread for entertainment purposes but when you start lying about what I've said, I have to jump in.

"And he countines to sort of say that scouting sucks"

Where have I even suggested that Scouting (it should be capitalized) sucks? I think that the quality of the uniform sucks. I think that the current handbook sucks. I even think that many BSA policies suck. BUT Scouting is a good program and does far more for boys than any basketball, soccer or baseball program.

"5) Obtain and wear the adult knot patch representing my religious award. "

If you earned the award as a youth (which it seems that you did) you represent it on your uniform with the youth knot (silver knot on purple background). If you earn a relegious award as an adult (much harder to do), you wear a purple knot on a silver background.

Don't forget your service stars for your time as a Cub Scout and Boy Scout. Also if you earned the Arrow Of Light (Back in my day they called it the "Webelos patch") there's a knot for that.