Lem

I'll take that as my queue to skedaddle. Thanks for the converation fellas. Jeff

It sounds like you got things pretty squared away in Warren Michigan. I think that your experience, the way you describe, is pretty impressive. And I wouldn't argue against what you do and how you do it. The Eagle Scout kid sounds pretty terrific. Kudos to you both! But I don't think that you are arguing that the exception refutes the rule? Do you think that BSA is a corrective for the Lunk-heads? Maybe you do. And maybe you're right. But I don't see how. And I really don't want to give up too much information about me and what I do or don't do for kids. I don't feel it is as germa

I guess it is my own personal thing then. I just like standards. I think that kids these days are not taught enough how to respond appropriately to adults because our culture is pretty confused about what is appropriate. The idea of authority has been changed since the sixties. The natural authority I believe that should be reflected in cultural norms of speech and behavior and station are going away- and this is troubling because I believe it is un-natural and upsetting to a positive and pedagogically fertile culture. There is and was a correspondence between language and customs and natural

My tangential points being?? I thought I was being very congruent! It seems you just tried to suggest that it is everybodies fault but BSA- when I was actually discussing that BSA scouters on this site can't even agree what the scout laws should really mean or how they should be manifested concretely. You didn't address the quesions I asked or the points I made- you just said that I am disqualified from making cogent assumptions about scouting. If that is true- why comment at all to my posts? Jeff

It is funny, but the only thing that stuck in my crawl about Lem in the movie was that he was called Lem by the kids. It just didn't sit right for me and the Mrs... Again. How do the 12 laws get uniformly applied? Are their guidelines as to what are the common courtesies? Should a scout's fingernails be untrimmed and filthy? What about hair length, or body art and piercings? What about body odor? What about foul language? What about the standardized method of speaking to adults? You would think that that would be the first thing- wouldnt you? This is what we mean by courteous- and give

Yeh, I guess BSA is going the way of a lot of "movements". But letting a kid call you by your first name? Buddy, you can count me out. It is democracy run afoul of reason and experience. A kid should not be your "friend", or your "brother", or your "uncle". He should be a "kid" and you should be an "adult". The problem becomes that you as the adult have to pretend that you are less then you are in respect to the child, and the kid gets to pretend that he is more than he deserves. It is totally whacked. Jeff

I gotta disagree with you Old Grey Eagle. No 11 year old boy is an equal with any adult. He is their inferior in nearly every sense. There are natural stations whether you are living in a republic, and oligarchy, or a tribe. Respect manifested by courtesy in speech and action is the hallmark of civility. Children who do not know their place are obnoxious. Tolerance and a blind eye to bad or no manners is a disservice perpetuated against children every day in schools, BSA and at home. Special respect shown towards the elderly, the veterans, doctors and other professionals like judges an

So what are the numbers like know? Are there any trends? Have there been real comparative studies of the habits of boys joining organizations across the board- and why? Should BSA hire a Zogby to poll Americans to get some intelligence? Personally, I'm kind of an upbeat guy. I didn't vote for Obama- and I still think he has and had leftist leanings- but I am wishing him and us the best. Maybe MY name is mud. From all my limited experiences with the scouts and scouters from childhood and today, I have to say I see a pretty weak program. But then again, I think I just might not "get it". M

TwoXforr wrote::"But I have not heard how (scouts are failing). Are we not teaching the Oath and Law. Are we not creating individuals who are self reliant and can stand on thier own. What exactly in your opinion are we doing wrong." I think since the oath and law are usually only words to memorize and not necessarily applied in the actual methods of scouting- as is clearly evidenced in the Lisabob affair (bullying breaks about half of the scout laws and the oath), then really what the oath and law serve to do is sell scouting to mom and dad and the CO which is now usually a church.

Hey Narraticong, I don't have to tell you that the program is broken, flawed, or in need of a heck of a lot new blood. It is patently obvious to most honest folks who have seen the scouts in their communities in action (most of whom don't care enogh to comment on it). And just becasue you think you have check-mated me somehow by discovering that I am disqualified from commenting on an organization I refuse to belong to doen'st mean that the organization is any less screwy. You can believe what you want about my shoe size buddy. And you can cry in your dutch oven about all the millions of

I don't want to be a scoutmaster for the reason that I have indeed found this organization to be way too flawed and strange for me or my boys. And I probably wouldn't make a very good scoutmaster anyways. I am one of those guys that just doesn't get scouting as it is today. Jeff

I don't remember CUb or Weblos being very fun actually. But I was more of the Huck Finn type, and me and my buddies would go off on our own adventures. Scouts as far as I can remember it was house-wives giving boys crafts to do. Maybe the scouting I imagine, that ideal, is impossible. Jeff

Yes Bob, Your answering machine is working fine. Jeff

I have stated that I won't put my boys into scouting, but I do try and provide them with the opportunities and support of their own initiatives. My daughter's experiences with scouting will soon be coming to an end as we are considering other local options. But I have been attracted to an idea of scouting that from my real life experiences with scouters and scout groups seems mostly fictional. I have as a hobby developed a reading habit that involves devouring the old scout manuals and literature written by men like Powell and Beard and Seton. I have an interest in the issue of child rais

This has been spun from the Follow ME Boys Thread. Do you think that BSA's current training films, and efforts to reach out into the general adult communities across America, are attracting the Lem-types of individuals? Can we say there is a LEM- TYPE?? I am not insinuating that I am a Lem-type. But I am a man who was repelled by my brief experiences with the scouters and programs I witnessed. And from my friends who have been in scouting, I have learned that scouting is a very unadventurous and "parlory" version compared to the example in the Disney film. Should Follow Me Boys be

It is pretty interesting how Lem used his prior military experiences fighting in WWI towards leading his boys - including the marching song which is a rally to win a fight. The movie also turns into a fantasy about scouts being more prepared for combat than the GI's on maneuvers (taking and holding a bunker and capturing a tank). The bugle calls throughout the film also gave it an aura of F-troop-style military-silly. It is a great film for getting a fella encouraged to be a scouting volunteer- until you sit through an actual training session, as I have, and learn what scouting really i

When Pappy wrote about switching over to that Young Marine group I went ahead and checked it out. It seems that the Young Marine's official magazine Esprit is mostly written by letters sent in by Young Marines. It is pretty inspirational. And I think they pretty much accept everybody's letters and photos. I could imagine scouts being psyched if they could have their photos and letters published in a National Magazine. Also, Esprit Magazine has very little of the obnoxious ads all over it like Boy's Life. They leave most of the pages to the kids. It is like a year book format with articles thro

The Dangerous Book for boys gives my sons and their buddies the inspiration to do things outside. But I am recruited often to insure that some of the projects get safely under way. I don't feel like a helicopter parent if I help my son and his friends get a tree house under way ( a pretty tricky operation- even for two adults I discovered). But I won't tell them how they should play in their tree house. Us parents supply some material and technical support for the projects of the young. Jeff

It seems to me that if you just imagine trying to get a group of boys from point A to point B on a map the skills and equipment efficacy become more straightforward. Without the high tech gadgets like GPS, cell phones, and emergency beacons, what is useful to have in the individual scout brain? Survival skills are taught by militaries all over the globe- why- because they would be the most likely to find themselves in a dangerous situation. If your scouts learned shooting forward and back azimuths, learned the grid north, the magnetic north, and the declination for the true north, and co

I can imagine that the social forces acting on a teenage boy must be enormous. Especially those forces like girls and partying and gaming and all the stuff that is either irrelevant or hostile to scouting and the scout ethos. Remember, the teenage high school world is pretty ruthless, and boy scouting is a bulls eye of epitaph spewing morons. The kids I have encountered who have either quit scouting or have not wanted to join have the same comment- scouting is seen to them as totally gay. It is that tender time right after the crossing over - 12-14, when boys get that shot of hormones an

GOLDWINGER WROTE::"Depends on why you want to shoot them. I'm a 50 year old competitive shooter and I think about shooting things to demonstrate my skill and win matches. However, just shooting things to put holes in them is really no different than taking a baseball bat and smashing them. If a boy said, "I'd like to smash all of these windows with a bat" or "I'll make my penguin look like someone smashed it with a bat" would you think it was okay?" Smashing glass is not without its fun- I must admit. Destruction, demolition, infernos, explosions, and catching and shooting and killing an

I'm a forty-three year old man, and I think about shooting things (not people....usually). So what? I think this could made into a win win situation for all the parties involved. "Since Billy is so interested in firearms and shooting and hunting, I was thinking- how many of you guys would be interested in visiting a rifle and pistol range where the police and SWAT teams practice?" "You all would?!" "Well calm down. Let's see. Let's say that we could go this Spring as a special prize for really good behavior. Scouts that can't follow the rules, and don't do what the adults ask of the

Suggestion Arrange a spring time visit to your local Rifle/Pistol range- maybe the one your husband trains at. Tell the den that this trip is a reward for good behavior and that every time kids act out and interrupt or whatever it is he is doing, then they will receive demerits. Tell then all about the outing- whether it is demonstrations of various firearms, or a safety class, or even if the kids get to fire bb guns. Sometimes the perfect carrot works pretty well. Jeff

We are all actors who are seeking our role to play. I never wanted to be a star athlete- but I enjoyed tackling and blocking and special teams. It was fun to hit and to help out and be a part of a team- especially a varsity team. I liked knowing kids who really were talented in sports and in art and academics. Some mediocrity is just fine. Our vocation is special. But the other things, like target shooting, playing sports, or collecting bugs, or whatever we do as our little indulgences, are more often than not done for other reasons than prestige and rewards. I understand both arguments p

Appropriate versus sucking. Lots of things that suck are so called age or Cub appropriate. Mediocrity is made of lots of appropriate things. Boys want danger, and challenge, and don't necessarily want what is in the Cub manual or considered age appropriate by the educrats and child pyscholoquacks. . Back in 1974 our Den Mother would take us outside and let us play in her creek and look for ideas for projects. We discovered large wolf spiders under a tressel, old tombstones, giant rusty railroad spikes, bones of raccoons and cats, an old suitcase, and lots of cool beer and liquor bottles.