Gold Winger

Urban wilderness? It's already in the middle of nowhere. Maybe a suburban wilderness. I'd say, get rid of the portapots too. Either make it a true wilderness experience by digging catholes or go with the seat over a big hole in the ground, when it's full move the seat and fill in the old hole.

That's because the numbers are insignificant. 0.009% is barely on the threshold of existence. Scouting isn't "all about citizenship" it's about other stuff and "citizenship" in the US of A doesn't mean blind obedience to authority, that's for other countries. Citizenship means mainataining a healthy skepticism of the goverment.

Heck, I'm thinking of the shortcuts the boys will take. It says "observe." There's no verification of that. Observe how? Dead in the back of the garage? Back in the 8th grade, I had to do an insect collection for science class. I still have all of the dead and mounted bugs someplace, I know that I had over 50. I think that I learned a lot more by chasing down, stalking and hunting the danged things than I would have just finding their pictures in a book. In case you haven't noticed, every time a merit badge is changed, it gets easier. Every time a requirement gets changed, it is to make it easier.

Ah but Bulldog, you were still doing something . . . you were earning merit badges. For most of the Scouts that I've dealt with, they get merit badges at camp or when some adult decides to "lead" a merit badge.

By "reek" do you mean that the material smells or that you reek of BO. Neither is unusual with synthetics. Over the years, I've noticed that many synthetics pick up odors in processing and that they can take a long time for the smell to depart. For BO, back in the disco era, I found that some of my beautiful shirts would wind up stinking. You'd go dancing, sweat up a new shirt, wash it but the next time that you wore it as soon as it got warm, you'd smell like you'd been plowing the lower 40. According to my friendly Chem prof, it had to do with the synthetic fabric's affinity for nasty stuff and when it got warm again, little bits of odor molecules would get enough oomph to break loose and assail your date's nose. He aslo explained that this is related to the armpits in synthetic shirts turning yellow and that's why you should always wear a t-shirt under a polyesther shirt.

Hmmmmm . . . 90 a year out of . . . what . .. over 1 million adults? Let's see. . . Carry the one . . . that's 0.009%. Boy that's an epidemic alright. Oh yeah, I know the arguements . . . "if one boy . . ." That's the same sort of argument used for street corner cameras and every other fascist action which presumes bad behavior.

There are expectations in this world and the sooner that boys realize that, the better off they'll be. Ev, I did avancement for my son's troop for three years and I never bothered tracking individual requirements or partials on merit badges. With 50 Scouts, when was I supposed to do this? Follow each boy around and as he completes something, make a note? I guess that I wasn't worth my salt.

(This message has been edited by a staff member.)

I'm going to play devil's advocate here. There is a perception that if you don't pay for something, it has no value. People will sign up for something and since they have nothing invested, they feel free just not showing up. So the planners were ready for 100 people and only 50 showed up.

So all a boy needs to really do is go online to bugsrus.com and copy the pictures from 20 different insects and paste them into a scrapbook. Boy, that's hard.

Realistic? What on earth do you mean by realistic? It was attainable for other boys. Boys who were interested in it. I guess every merit badge needs to have the level of difficulty of "fingerprinting." Keep up the trend and communications mb will become "talk to someone" and the camping mb will become, "look at a tent in a store."

If they don't care about advancement, so what? Boy Scouts isn't about making Eagle. It isn't about merit badges. Parents worry more about advancement than the boys do. "No driving until you make Eagle!" "I want you to make Eagle by the time you're 15."

"Does anyone here know the official BSA position and where I can find documentation for that?" You'll probably never see any real documentation, it's all double-secret.

"Does anyone here know the official BSA position and where I can find documentation for that?" You'll probably never see any real documentation, it's all double-secret.

"And why would the police get upset over finding a legal prescription pain-killer anyway?" The police wouldn't be upset, they'd be overjoyed. Why? Because it isn't your and now they can drag you down to the station and use the rubber hoses on you. " There isn't a court of law in the US that isn't going to uphold a private company's right to ask their employees or volunteers to submit to a background check." That's because the courts are a crooked as the government and the corporations. Here are my questions for you. How many "predators" have been stopped by these background checks? How many Scouters would have have been properly denied membership by the background checks before they were instituted. Have any prosecutions resulted from all of this? It's all flummery. I especially like the credit check part of the deal.

"Regarding the comment about police making a random search, while sort of humorous, that's just not even a logical argument." Wasn't meant to be humorous. The police would love to be able to do it. Sure they might not find anything but then again, you never know. Maybe your brother-in-law dropped a percodan behind your refrigerator and now you're going to jail. However, we shouldn't worry about intrusions into our lives because, after all, they're necessary.

" When other people complain about these things, I wonder, what do you have to hide? " I suppose that you wouldn't object to the po-leese just stopping by to do a random search of your underwear drawer.

"There is no requirement that a Scout bring his handbook to a BOR. And what if he brings it & there is nothing signed yet he has completed all the requirements for rank?" Ev, as I told BeeDub, there's isn't much in the way of guidance for a BOR. Other than a few things that a BOR CANNOT do, there is little said about anything else. If a troop decides that candidates need to show up in bermuda shorts and AC/DC t-shirts, that's their call.

I don't know but your other issues but I think that having pocket in my underwear could be very handy to foil pickpockets. :-) You've done your time and it is always alright to say "no." It is time for someone else to pick up the ball and run with it. Move on and don't let them drag you back.

http://www.delawaretribeofindians.nsn.us/

"Since the BSA does not require a handbook to be present for a scout to pass a board of review then the unit has no authority to add it as a requirement. " Other than saying that a parent can't sit on a BOR, BSA is fairly mute on what a BOR is or does.

"But you have no reason to expect to be able to tell other people what to do with their property." "This is 'Merica, Guinea Man." I know that you took Civics in junior high so you should know that we have a Constitutionaly protected right to anyone whatever we think about anything. However, those we tell have a right to ignore us.

I served on the traing staff for our old SMF program and it never cost me a cent. I don't recall paying for my lunch, if I did it was such a nominal amount that it didn't matter. As a participant, if I was told that $1.50 of my fee was paying for the lunch of the staff, I would have said "good" and then kicked extra money into the kitty for their supplies.

There are peaks and valleys and there are ravines.

A punching contest is a typical guy thing. You punch your buddy in the deltoid and he puches you back in your deltoid. One punch at a time, carefully aimed. The first to flinch or cry "Hold, enough!" loses. It has nothing to do with Scouting, it is just something that boys used to do.(This message has been edited by Gold Winger)