Gold Winger

" But lots of time spent scannin' my phonecalls for key words." They've been doing that for 30 or more years, they just haven't told the public about it. "Victory?" Yes, victory. We soundly defeated Sadaam's army. We're now caught up in the administrative aftermath of that victory, mostly because we're "nice guys."

Have you done your project?

Who remembers the good old days when the Scoutmaster was admonished to speak with the Scout's parents, teachers, and pastor to see if he was living up to the Scout Oath and Law?

I might be related to HWUTBANR, I come from a family of nobodies as well.

In 1775, on November 10th, the first United States Marine was recruited. The recruited told the new Marine to hie himself down to to the docks and report to the OOD on the gallant ship Neverbeenone. The Marine, being a Marine did as he was ordered. The OOD glared at this Marine and having no idea what to do with him, ordered him to the fo'c'stle with the admonition to stay out of the way of the working sailors. A little while later, the second Marine is recruited and sent to the same ship. The OOD glares at the second Marine with an an eye even more evil than he gave the first, muttered something about being overrun with Marines and banished him to the fo'c'stle to wait with the first. The second Marine joins the first and says, "Wow! That OOD was really rough!" The first Marine says, "You think that guy was rough, you should have been in the OLD corps!"

My kids live in what is considered to be one of the best school systems in the country and I think that it is horrible because the kids are taught to pass THE TEST and not to think. They throw over a billion dollars a year at eduction and still the product is no better than it was 30 years ago, maybe it's even worse. Who is going to pay for the water and air? Who should? American industry spent 200 years polluting it. Now companies are moving their manufacturing to China so they can continue to pollute. Stockholders and CEOs don't care about clean air, they are like the Ferengi and only care about profit. Everybody wants to see taxes cut and the budget balanced but the only way to do that is to cut spending. Unfortunately, no one wants to cut spending. Cut education dollars? Oh no, my kids won't have new computers to help them learn to read. Cut defense? No, we need the highest technology to fight people not long out of the bronze age. Transportation? VA? Health?

So Manuel isn't speaking? Big deal, maybe he has nothing to say.

When I did SMF it was six evening sessions along with two weekend out door sessions. We were formed into patrols on day one and functioned that way for the entire course, including at least three patrol meeting outside of the course. It may be a good thing that you enjoyed your class. Maybe my view is tainted by the council wood badge staff who waggled his beads at me and said, "This is why you go to Wood Badge, to get these so the boys will know that you care."

Aha! It seems that I assumed that he wanted to go by himself whereas everyone else is assuming that he wants to take a den without the pack.

The Postal System works pretty well. I think it might be one of the few in the world that operates without government funding. Amtrak? What's the problem with Amtrak? They don't make a profit? Few, if any, passenger only lines do make a profit and in most countries they are heavily subsidized by the government. Airlines survive largely by cargo and mail contracts.

"Lead by example" and "this is how it should be done" are pretty much the same thing. Unfortunately, the boys ignore both. Boys of all ages will come over and see what we're cooking up for dinner. Stew, grilled chicken, whatever and say, "Wow! You guys are lucky, you're having real food." I'll point out that they could have selected any menu that they wanted but none want to put out the effort. Mac n cheese from a box or foil dinners is about as complicated as the want to get. One mother actually told me that the older boys just wanted to have beans for dinner because they had already done "the cooking thing." No, they are just too lazy to cook.

I have to wonder why you'd want to go to District Camping event as a participant without your pack. There wouldn't be much for you to do. You might want to consider volunteering to be on staff for the event. That way you'd have grown-ups to hang out with, have something do do, and get fed as well. At least at my district's events, the staff gets fed. Also by being on staff, you'd cease to be that faceless guy from Pack 954 and you'd make contacts that could help you in the future.

"Just Say No" wasn't a program to help addicts, it was supposed to keep kids from trying drugs in the first place. Basing the unemployement numbers on who is collecting checks isn't a Republican invention. I was in college during the Carter era and in Econ 1 it was explained that once you ran out of benefits, you were no longer considered unemployed. It would also be nice if the people that count such things would come up with a way to count the underemployed such as a factory worker who goes from making $60,000 a year to making $12,000 a year at Wal-Mart. The government is always the solution. There are many private "Teach a man to fish" programs out there but they go wanting for participants. There is a local program to train plumbers for free in the evenings. The guy that runs it is always on talk shows complaining about how few people will enroll. Heck, if I wasn't so beat up, I'd go for it.

Brava! Brava!

Our BORs were on Sunday nights, twice a month. We had a subcommittee to conduct's BOR's, with the requirement that everyone get some degree of training so had an idea of what Boy Scouting is about. Some nights, we'd have three BORs running simultaneously. I only had to cancel a BOR once because no one could make it, except me. My son's troop also holds BORs at summer camp where we've done advancements from Tenderfoot all the way up to Life. There seemed to be something special for a boy, even an older boy, to come home from camp with a new rank. We also did BORs on campouts if I had enough trained adults around. It is actually a great place to do them. After dinner when Scouts are building their giant fire, a small group of adults sits down for a chat with a Scout. I did one once after a campout while the troop was packing up to leave because the boy in question was moving 200 miles away the next day. Committee members do what they can and sign on for different jobs because of what they can do and their time constraints. A person might volunteer to be treasurere because he understands money matters and can free up the fourth Wednesday of each month to come to a committee meeting. I wouldn't think less of him because he doesn't show up for troop meetings. However, I might have an issue if he didn't bother showing up for any committee meetings.

My mind is never at rest, it is always moving forward, ever forward toward Znerflot.

Couldn't find another place to put this so it is being stuck here. Other forums have an internal PM system, I had assumed that this one did as well. I use many email addresses and rarely use the one that is associated with this forum. Imagine my surprise when I discoved that I had dozens of PMs waiting for me. I'm sorry if I offended anyone by not answering them but then there were many that I would have ignored even if I had seen them in a timely fashion.

A couple of funny things happened this week. Considering that Beaver, et al keep telling me to ask the professionals for clarification, the first is hilarious. At a district meeting, the DE, with no prompting from me, announces that we should make it clear to our units that need to follow G2SS and make sure that all of their paperwork is complete or that we (meaning BSA) may elect to withold insurance coverage if something goest awry. The other was that a friend who has been practicing law in DC for over 30 years answered my questions about these issues. He said, like Beaver did, that in a case where I ran you down with my car, it would have to be shown that I intended to run you over to be considered willfull. He agreed with my thoughts on the Scouting issues where a trained leader deliberately ignores published safety rules and something goes bad, in that case he says that the act of deliberately violating the safety rules would allow BSA to cut him adrift. Whether BSA ever would do this is irrelevant. Rules need to be examined for validity at the extremes (0 and infinity) and if we lived our lives based on likelyhoods that something bad would happen, none of us would wear seatbelts or lock our front doors. I lock my doors because someone may try to enter without my permission. I wear my seatbelt because I may be involved in an accident. I follow BSA safety rules because they may decide to make an example out of me.

That handbook doesn't cover much about the orgnaization, it doesn't even include the admonition.

"Y,know, GW, it's one thing to talk trash about something you've been thru and found to be a disappointment." I also haven't had sex with another man. All I hear from Wood Badgers is that it is such a wonderful course and if you don't take it, you're unworthy to be a Scouter. As I said before, all I get today is handwaving when I ask what it will give me. In the time before, I used to get concrete examples. Now, in the interest of fairness, I expect you to take HWUTBANR to task for his un-Scoutlike comments. Nah, that probably won't happen anymore than a Sigma Chi would say anything bad about another Sigma Chi.

Good luck.

"At the Last Supper, Jesus did say, " Do this in remembrance of me" which is what the Catholic mass is, a re-enactment of the Last Supper" That refers to communion, not the rest of the felgecarb. " . . . I don't think you'd be an asset . . ." Oh No! I've been dissed and soundly by one of the elite wood badgers. Can I ever recover? Will I ever be able to hear "I used to be a hamster . . " without running in fear? Yep. Evidently he who used to be a nocturnal raptor thinks that only those who agree with him are worthy of being inovlved in Scouting. Maybe HWUTBANR needs to re-examine his own usefulness to district and council.

No secret societies is one thing but in the few years since my ordeal it has gone from "A parent may attend if they really insist" to "parents are invited to the ordeal ceremony."

Trained Professionals? Who on Earth told them that? With no Bears or Wolves, you have a very hard row to hoe. Not to be a pessimist but if there is another, well established pack in your area, you might want to consider just taking your den there and letting the existing pack just fold it tents and slip away into blissful oblivion.

"And, I guess you are your judge." Yep. I don't recall Christ ever advocating that we sit a in a crowded room and listen to someone preach. I think that he was an advocate of getting out and doing.