Kahuna

Good post, Eamonn. That's a thought we can all keep in mind.

Kaji, If you take a look at my insignia posting under "Ancient Insignia Bonanza," you'll see every piece of insignia that could have been worn in 1960 by a Scouter. Unfortunately, it doesn't include the placement of the badges, but that hasn't changed much over time. Sctldr is correct: no flags and no AOL knot at that time.

Glad you enjoyed them. I've always felt like those old adult badges of office were much more impressive than the ones we have today.

Eamonn, So, are you saying they buried 'em all in their uniforms?

Sounds like the ribbon was replaced at some point and just placed on there backwards.

Absolutely, if you dragged into a bidding war, you can end up going bankrupt. It still amazes me how cheap some items are, though. I looked at a couple of old uniforms the other day. One of them was the WWI army type and it sold for $25 or something like that. Some of them are in great condition, too. There can't be all that many pre-1930 Scout uniforms around anymore.

I like Milton Friedman best: "The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem." The countries you mention are all going down the tubes trying to raise enough taxes to pay for all their social programs. Some of those programs are better than others, but they all cost. We can see today the result of our government's entitlement programs as populations age and birthrates drop. A nation like ours must have a safety net, but beyond that we need to look out for ourselves and each other.

There's an even bigger issue here than uniforming and that is how the commissioner conducts him/herself in dealing with the unit. I have met many very officious commissioners and other volunteers who rise up in the hierarchy of Scouting. These people are the bane of the BSA, IMHO. In most cases, they are people who have no authority or position in business or society and attempt to make up for it by throwing their imagined weight around in Scouting. As vmpost points out, there are other ways to deal with people in the program and normally you get much better results with less, rather than more, instructing. There are obviously some situations where the commissioner would need to intervene no matter what. Troop mumblety-peg games, perhaps. In other cases, I would hope the commish would chose to buddy up to the SM, buy him a cup of coffee and drop some hints, get the leader into training and help that way.

These pictures are now up on the web. I can't get them any larger than this on geocities, so I may try later putting them on a business server. They are fairly good quality, so if you download them, you can probably enlarge them. Sorry that part of the key is torn off of the general insignia page, but you can pretty much figure out what the missing badges are. I can't date these exactly, but they are after the 1957 jamboree and prior to the 1960 jamboree and there is no 50 year troop insignia, which would have been 1960. http://www.geocities.com/kahuna4646/boyscoutinsignia.html?1139771866156 http://www.geocities.com/kahuna4646/generalinsignia.html?1139771611640 http://www.geocities.com/kahuna4646/Explorercubinsignia.html?1139772395843

I can't speak for the other Venture programs, but it is absolutely vital to Sea Scouting that boys who have earned First Class be allowed to continue advancement to Eagle. Dual registration would be too much to expect from many of them and they do want to earn their Eagle before they leave Scouting. Of course, they have an extra three years to complete Quartermaster, if they choose to do that. I have never been an advancement oriented leader, but I certainly encourage any boys who have reached Life Scout to continue to work on their Eagle, because I know they will regret it later in life if they don't.

Lisabob, congratulations on a very well reasoned and logical argument for your point of view. Also, congratulations on surviving whatever evil bug had you under the covers. My counter argument to your feeling about government is simply this: In my experience, both in and out of government, over more years than I care to recall, government just doesn't work very well. In fact, it is almost the model for how not to get things done efficiently. As to why the Republicans and this administration are busily expanding the government: I am totally baffled.

Okay, guys, I will post these over the weekend and post the url for those who want to see 'em.

I am in the process of scanning three pages that came from Boys' Life magazine in the late 1950's. Between the three pages are pictures of every piece of insignia authorized by the BSA at that time, from Chief Scout Executive to Bobcat. There are also guides that tell what they all are. This was in the days when you had to know what office a badge stood for, because they didn't say on the badge. These scans are very large files. If anyone is interested, I will either post them on my website and give the url or email them to you. Please email me privately in either case. These are really unique and scan really well. Some of the stuff on there is things I had completely forgotten about (Ground Observer Corps wings, for instance).

There are a lot of good reasons to incorporate, but liability is not one of them. You can't realistically provide yourself with more coverage than BSA offers. Also, you cannot incorporate a unit. What you can do is create a corporation, get a 501©(3) status and then sponsor or co-sponsor yourself. There is an issue, of course, in that your current CO owns the unit and the equipment. Therefore, you must get its consent to transfer sponsorship and/or equipment. They can hang onto both if they wish. You can also create a corporation just to own equipment or vehicles, which it then leases to the troop for $1.00 a year. There are some issues in that you have to dot all the i's and cross all the t's or your corporation won't do what you want it too. (Read: get a lawyer.) If your only concern is liability of leaders, just make sure everybody is properly registered and then follow all the G2SS guidlines, get tour permits and you have (almost) nothing to worry about.

Amazing. Great answer. UCs who think they are any kind of cops would be welcome as chiggers in any unit I've been with.

Yep, I used to be a dittohead too. For me, it was more that his ego got in the way of his entertainment. I do listen to him once in while, but not regularly. Ann Coulter has never appealed to me and I've never read her or watched her much when she guests on news shows. I just doubt that she hates liberals personally. Hannity sure seems genuine to me. He is a little too religion-based for my inclinations, but when I hear him, he makes sense. Of course, you can never tell with media people, whether they are "real" or not. My personal favorite today is Hugh Hewitt. He is a constitutional lawyer and law professor. He has an amazing array of conservative intellectuals on his program. I don't know if you ever listened to him, but he would be the most intellectual of the whole group by far. He does dislike liberalism and frequently says that Democrats are unfit to govern by reason of their unwillingness to step up to the defense issue. He also comes down on Bush from time to time. He, too, is a big fan of Al Franken.

Gern: Those "hateful" comments are satire or humor. Rush Limbaugh states up front that he is an entertainer. If you listened to him over any length of time, you would realize that is exactly what he is. As to "feminazis," Limbaugh makes fun of their rigid adherence to doctrine. Making fun is not the same as hate. I haven't read Coulters' book, but I have heard it discussed. She and some other conservatives see many leading liberals as "treasonous" in the sense that they are anti-American. Many of them are anti-American. Those are opinions with which you may disagree, but that is not hate. O'Reilly, of course, is a bully. That's part of his shtick. But he bullies those who choose to come on his program and subject themselves to it. And he always gives them credit for standing up their views in person, as opposed to the ones he attacks, such as Rev. Jackson, who won't. But I have never heard anything approaching hate from him. Hating liberal views is closer to the mark, one definition of hate is "extreme dislike; antipathy." I can't disagree with that. It is possible that some of them do hate Al Franken, but nobody could deny that Franken hates them.

Gern: >>The hateful drone from the likes of Coulter, Limbaugh, O'Reilly and Hannity do nothing but widen that divide.

Amen.

By chance, there was a column in today's fishwrapper about the Twin Tower theories. Didn't know there were legitimate theories about what brought down the buildings until I read it. A Google search revealed plenty of sites. I'm not talking about the 4,000 people of Jewish faith who some fringe people were saying didn't go to work that day. These are a lot saner sounding and some with actual scientific and academic credentials, who are saying the building collapses don't match what should have happened if they were hit by planes. Another JFK assasination business in the bud? Anyway, I may be different than most people, but it seems to me that most normal people can get used to the idea that any kind of disaster took place and deal with it. If they don't want to see the pictures, they can switch the channels. BTW, there was recently an Investigative Reports, or one of those shows, on the 9/11 attacks, showing all the pics. There are a couple of movies for TV about flight 93 and what they did to thwart the hijackers. To me, those things help us not to forget what we are dealing with in the war on terror. Of course, I go to Pearl Harbor quite a lot and get to meet an occasional survivor. I never see that memorial over the Arizona and the oil slick still coming out of her without being reminded of their sacrifice and what can happen to us without warning. I'm sure there are some people who object to showing footage of the disaster, but there always those people around. Some people are never able able to get over it for some reason. I feel badly for them, but they are such a minority that I don't think we can expect the media to adjust everything to the feelings of a very few.

That's funny. Such a typical letter from a Scout to home. You're lucky to have that preserved.

When we had a 90 boy troop, we had 12 ASMs, so there is more adult support, but for the SM it's a full time job. Our SM was his own boss and content with low income during those years, so he really did it almost as a full time job. A big troop is a lot of fun, though, if you have the ability to do it. We owned a bus and traveled all over the country. We also planned, set up and staffed a district camporee with Green Bar Bill as Camporee Chief. You can't do that with a 24 boy troop. Not everybody would want to either.

Yes, the costs are pretty staggering. Hull maintenance for a battleship isn't a big item, but the cost of chipping rust and painting superstructure and interior spaces is. You also have the same problems as you would in maintaining a large building. Ours (USS Missouri) has an air conditioning system that was put in to operate on shore power. The ship was air conditioned when it was modernized, but apparently it didn't do the job. One major factor is hazardous materials. If the EPA gets involved, you will spend a fortune getting out the asbestos and pcbs. We still have areas of the ship that can't be visited by the public because of the cleanup. Broadway and engine spaces are only accessible because Disney wanted to use it in the movie Pearl Harbor. That 15 second scene when Cuba Gooding, Jr. is carrying a tray of food to the Captain at the start of the attack. We also pay about $6000 a month to dock the ship at Pearl Harbor. It uses a dock designed for an Iowa class ship with shore power, water and other hook ups in place. Lot of expense. But, a lot of revenue.

True, lots of them are palatial nowadays. And full of staff doing who knows what.

SME. Thanks, Baden, that's the other name I was trying to think of. I'm not sure why some councils, most probably, had SME and others had AME, but they were the predecessors of FOS. Before that, professionals were paid peanuts and council offices were ratholes in usually donated space with sagging floors. Oddly enough, the program seemed to work better in those days. Reminds of C. Northcote Parkinson's (I studied sociology as an undergraduate) theory that organizations only flourish in temporary, low-rent buildings. He used the UN as an example. The UN accomplished most of the good it did before it moved into that ediface on the river in NY.