Hunt

If he's turning 18 in two months, he can't be a youth member of the troop after that, and it's up to the CC to decide if he'll be accepted as an adult member. I would suggest that you just make sure the SM and CC know they don't have to have him after that, and just cool it until then.

Firecrafter, does the church already have its own separate youth program? Is your membership limited to church members, or is it open to anyone? How much of the troop is composed of church members? It seems to me that the answers to these questions would give some insight on how much input the CO should have into the actual program of your troop. If the troop is closely aligned with the church, and has all or mostly church members, then the CO might expect to have a lot of input into your program. On the other hand, if the church is mainly a friendly host, and the unit is made up mostly of non-church members, I wouldn't expect the church to get involved in setting your program very much at all. Perhaps rather than giving the CO the committee minutes, there could be a periodic report to the church's governing body (ie, church council, council of elders, or whatever that church calls it)?

These online lists are wacky. Sometimes people can vote multiple times. Another factor is that if you are asked to identify one person, the top couple can have many, many more votes than the rest, but you can't see that from the list. Thus, while many people would list George Washington as one of the most influential Americans, maybe not that many would list him as THE most influential American. Also, lists like this are often skewed toward more recent people. How else do you get Paul McCartney as the greatest composer of all time, over Mozart and Beethoven?

I think a lot depends on what kind of organization the CO is--many of them don't really have a "youth program," aside from hosting a Scout troop. Some, like the LDS Church, fully integrate Scouting into their youth program. Others, like PTAs, have a very transitory leadership which makes it hard to create a strong relationship. If your CO is a church, I think the relationship may also vary depending on how many church members are in the troop. In my son's troop, there are no youth members in the church, but the COR is very active and is a former Scoutmaster. That really helps the relationship with the CO.

I'd just add that I don't even think it's necessarily a big deal that she doesn't have a great deal of constitutional law experience. It might make a lot of sense to have a justice who really understood commercial law issues well. However, if that's what you wanted, why not somebody who is really a leader in that area? Someone who has written extensively about it, or who is one of the people revising the Uniform Commercial Code, or something like that? If you think it's the liberals who are after Miers, take a look at George Will's column for today.

Just a bit about Semper's list of other Supreme Court justices who didn't have judicial experience. First of all, even if some of the prior nominees were equally unqualified, I don't think that's much of an argument. However, when you look at that list, you see many giants of the legal profession, people who were leading scholars and national leaders, people who had major accomplishments. While some of them didn't have judicial experience, most of them had other experience that supported their placement on the court. For example, Fortas, while definitely a crony, was a former Yale law professor, a founder of a major law firm, and a well-known Supreme Court practitioner. Miers doesn't even seem to be a very experienced courtroom litigator. As a commercial lawyer, most likely very few of her cases ever made it into court at all.

This nomination causes problems for people on the right, on the left, and in the middle. On the right, the problem is that Miers is a far cry from the kind of Scalia-like nominee the right (and especially the Christian right) has been wanting. There is a list of strong candidates who have been mentioned for the position, and Miers isn't on it. It isn't clear that she'd vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, which is what many on the right would like. Rather, it appears that she is more of a business-friendly nominee--it makes those who are conservative primarily on social issues feel betrayed. But are they really going to break ranks and vote against her if Bush won't back down? On the left, liberals are hesitant to criticize her too much, because they REALLY don't want those same Scalia-like nominees. Obviously, any Bush nominee is going to be a Republican with views more or less like his--this one seems unlikely to be a strong conservative leader, which might be as much as liberals could hope for. So, they are keeping somewhat cool, because they fear somebody worse. Also, they are enjoying the Republican infighting, which is refreshing for a change. In the middle, somebody trying to honestly evaluate this nominee would have to recognize that she is grossly underqualified for the job. I heard one pundit say that she wouldn't have been on any lawyer's list of the top 1000 candidates for the post, and I basically agree. No judicial experience. Very little courtroom experience. Almost no exposure to constitutional issues. No publications of note. Fairly minimal government service before coming to DC. Too closely aligned personally with the President. It would be a big stretch to nominate such a person even for a Court of Appeals position. If this job were being filled by applications and review by an impartial reviewer, this resume wouldn't even get you an interview. Would I personally vote for confirmation if I were in the Senate? Maybe, but it would be for purely political reasons. I now think there is maybe a 35% likelihood that Miers will withdraw her name from consideration for some vaguely stated reasons.

I think you'd have to take a lot more facts into consideration before deciding what to do. For example, how old is this Scout? If he still has a year or two before he turns 18, you don't have to deny him Eagle--you can simply ask him to take steps to overcome the issues he has. If he's about to turn 18, it seems to me that you have to look at his Scouting career as a whole. Is this an aberration in an otherwise sterling career? Is he remorseful? Why did he forge the signature--because he didn't do the work, or for for some other reason? (For example, if he forged the signature because he lost the blue card from summer camp and manufactured a replacement, I wouldn't consider that as bad as faking one because the requirements weren't done--both would be bad, but they would weigh differently in the balance.) Weak attendance, while troubling, is probably not enough. If he met the requirements of 6 months active and 6 months POR after achieving Life, he's met the requirement. Nobody lives the Scout Oath and Law perfectly. If the standard was really living up to them with no deviations, there would be no rank advancement at all. The issue has to be whether, looking at the big picture and this Scout's overall character and accomplishments, he's met the requirements.

"The second, with the 18 year old, was the result of adults knowing a relationship existed. Just because it was outside scout activities it still existed. Im waiting for spring when a few couples will enter this limbo and the girls will either have to go to their proms with other people or one of the members of each couple will have to drop out of Scouts. This is the area I think National needs to look at." Hold on a minute. This makes no sense. First, if they are both in a Crew, they are both youth if one is 17 and one is 18. There's no reason they can't go to the prom together. If the boy is an 18-year-old adult leader in a troop, there's no rule I know of that he can't have a relationship outside of Scouting with a 17-year-old girl, whether she's in a crew or not.

There's another thread about this in the Progam board: http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=114077 But TheScout gave you the basic answer. The pack's assets actually belong to the Charter Organization, and the CO gets to decide where they will go. The CO can send them to another unit or can hold them with the idea that it may try to restart the unit at a later time.

To try to make my point in a less hostile-sounding way, I think that if one is going to argue tht the country should be run according to Christian principles, you can't pick and choose which of those principles you're going to follow. Jesus' teachings make it clear that caring for the poor was a high priority for him--by contrast, he doesn't talk much about enforcing morality. Certainly, from a Christian point of view there is no difference between the poor here in America and the poor elsewhere. "Let's take care of our own first" is a natural human reaction, but it's not exactly what Jesus says to do--he says to take care of "the least of these." Now, how to translate those ideas into national policy isn't easy--but the same is true of other ideas that some have no trouble saying should simply be enacted into national law. To put it another way, I'm willing to be convinced that keeping floods of immigrants out of America is the best way to improve the average well-being of the world's poor, because it keeps the U.S. economy strong. However, Christian doctrine would not allow me to agree that the poor of America are more important than poor people elsewhere.

I think the explanation of more homework could be a true reason, especially if your meetings are on school nights. This is happening about a month into the new school year, and this boy may have experienced a substantial step up in homework. If his grades have suddenly tanked, his parents may well react by pulling him out of outside activities. I agree that you should tell them that he's more than welcome to return when he's more comfortable with his work load from school.(This message has been edited by Hunt)

"There is a penalty for hiring illegal aliens?" Yes, it can keep you from becoming Attorney General of the United States. "Immigration is a political issue, not a religious issue. Please don't confuse the two." Says who? How is it different from any other issue in that respect? I submit that the only difference is that the so-called "Christian Right" takes such a blatantly non-Christian approach to this issue that they'd prefer that the religious and moral dimensions be ignored.

SueM, sorry if I offended you. Tone is hard to convey in a message like this, and mine came off as too critical. When I read your message, I pictured a situation that may not be what you are experiencing (although it is one I have seen).

"I just spent the whole weekend at our local combined District Fall Camporee and all I did all weekend was yell "tuck those shirts in!!" "Pull those pants up!" until I was blue in the face!!" SueM is an unusual handle for a Senior Patrol Leader.... Seriously, I would suggest that this is not the way to address uniforming issues. An adult leader in scouting is really not like a sports coach (who may well spend a lot of time yelling for the players to tuck their shirts in). Let the youth leaders turn blue in the face.

I confess that we are not always prompt with recognition, and sometimes a boy doesn't get an earned badge until the next Court of Honor. However, that still has nothing to do with the date of rank advancement, which, as others have pointed out, is the date of the Board of Review.

Actually, the 1,2,3 approach can work. The volunteer you'll get is the person who is already busy with other activities for her kids, and justifiably felt that somebody else should take this on--the person you didn't want to approach because you knew she was already coaching the soccer team, teaching Sunday School, etc. This person will do a good job, too, at least until she burns out and runs away from home.

I think if a scout is "in uniform," including the activity uniform, he can salute. One caveat: I personally don't think a scout should keep a non-scouting hat on his head when saluting or reciting the pledge. Even if he's otherwise in uniform, a non-scouting hat is not part of the uniform, and as such, should be removed as any other hat.

My wife grew up in Brooklyn and Long Island, and while she was at medical school she went and worked for a time in a small town in North Carolina. There were people there who she could not understand at all. She essentially had to get their speech translated. (Whether they could understand her, I don't know.) I had the same experience in Scotland--the people were very friendly, but sometimes hard to understand. (Maybe they only SEEMED friendly--who knows what they were actually saying?)

It has been suggested by others that if you intend to use a copyrighted BSA symbol on the shirt, that you should get approval of the design from your council. I don't know if anybody actually does this. It has also been suggested that if you want the shirt to qualify as part of the activity uniform, that it must include certain elements, such as "BSA" or the fleur-de-lis. I haven't seen any documentation of this, and believe that it's probably enough for the shirt to be scout-related. Most shirts I've seem make it pretty clear that it's a troop t-shirt. On the "Class A" and "Class B" thing, to make a very long story short, these are not actual BSA designations, but are (by and large) shorthand descriptions of the BSA "field" and "activity" uniforms. However, many troops have their own widely differing interpretations of what these terms mean (as well as Classes C through Z). You can scroll down and read many hundreds of posts about this elsewhere in this forum.

Since the requirements guide says that tot'n rights can be "taken from" the Scout, it seems to me that the corner-cutting approach is just a mechanism for doing this. It is neither prescribed nor proscribed. It doesn't add any requirements. As for the patch, I find it extremely odd that BSA would produce flap-shaped patches for years and years, if they can't be sewn onto a flap. Perhaps they USED to be OK for flaps, and their shape is a vestigial remnant of that earlier time?

I will support the deportation of the "far lefties," but only if the "far righties" are also shipped out. They can even go to the same place, which will give them all something to do. (I have decided to become a moderate curmudgeon.)

Hmmm. I go pretty far to the left sometimes, but I'm not sure how I'd react to a Scout who (even on non-Scouting time) burned an American flag in protest. This same Scout is going to wear a uniform with a flag on it, and recite the pledge with the troop? Certainly, he has the legal right to burn the flag in protest, but if he does so, is he expressing values that are consistent with those of Scouting? He also has a legal right to go to a rally and say that Scouting's values are worthless and stupid, but how do we deal with that at his next Board of Review? Not with praise, it seems to me. Can burning a flag have a limited meaning (i.e., "the war in Iraq is wrong") or does it necessarily have a broader meaning ("America is evil"). I'm really not sure.

"Still others prefer to slur the past contributions of Christians by highlighting the misdeeds of a few. Its difficult not to be angered by these narrow-minded and hateful people. Irony of all ironies, they defame and/or deny the influence of Christians in the name of diversity. The worst of the bunch are self-proclaimed Christians who malign the faith of other Christians as if its their God given right. They seemed to believe because they claim the faith, they are enlightened and empowered to carelessly profane those who do the same." Who are these people? I think the original article and some of the responses are wrestling with a phantom. Granted, there may be some people around who hold whatever view one wants to describe, but I can't see that they have much influence in this America. Of course, the article also attacks immigrants, the ACLU, and non-Christians, but it's hardly fair to say that all those people don't like Uncle Sam, the flag, or the pledge, or the national motto. Finally, to me, the original article reads like the immature, petulant cry of a person who knows that his views are wrong-headed, but lays them out there anyway, and substitutes insults for (non-existent) arguments. And HE has the nerve to talk about whiners!

Hey, if you don't like living in a country with a multicultural, religiously diverse population that honors individual rights, move to a theocracy. I think there are still a few around.