littlebillie

pack, my point was - however poorly stated - was that regardless of whether or not ANY of these lapses have been necessary (or in some cases even understandable), we eventually come to our collective senses, and regain that which was taken away - sometimes with greater appreciation than we ever had before!

"When considered for employment, you owe your potential employer an upfront assessment on how your religious beliefs may effect your work effectiveness. Your potential employer owes you the potential impact your employment may have on your religious observances."

well, I'd suggest that if the employer only describes an 8-to-5 or whatever job, and never mentions a need for overtime OR that VT is not carved in stone, then there's no need... if the job on paper raises no possible conflict, then who needs to know?

as I said, THAT was taken as a given.

but perhaps maybe it shouldn't..? your comment "However if the Reformed does want to observe the Holiday that should be the end of it" begs another issue. Let's add this to the mix - if Christian execs are called upon to work, say, Christmas or Easter, year after year, and/or are regularly called upon to work Sundays, regardless of their religious plans - for whatever reason, needs of the service or what-have-you - and if fact the company displays uniform disregard for any and all religious holidays, regardless of faith - what impact does this have on the current deliberations? Would allowing the Jewish employee the chance to observe the holiday be a kind of reverse discrimination? (Does it matter if it's Rosh Hashanah or Purim?)

Now - let's say Joe is a Moslem, and it's Ramadan. Joe's Americanized, he's going to work, he prays quietly - but he still wants to get to the mosque by sundown! Now it's not just one night, it's a month of not being available for working late.

The answer to the one question must be able to be fairly applied to all, I'd think, and the treatment of any one religion must be the treatment of all..?

your point is taken as a given. MY point was there can be work-arounds for Reformed that would not be considered by Orthodox. I'm tired of Jews being seen and treated and described as all exactly the same. It's like saying a Lutheran is the same as a Catholic is the same as an Episcopalian.

kwc57,

I think we've given up liberties in the past - McCarthyism, wage freezes, Japanese-American internment camps - and yet somehow, we've brought them back - civil liberties, I mean, not HUAC!

Reduce it to a REALLY basic tribal level, everyone sitting around the mouth of the cave, mammoth roasting on an open fire, and so on. When the hunting and gathering is done, you have time for a little civil liberty - making floral garlands, say, or inventing music, or domesticating a dog. Maybe even sharing the mammoth with the tribe from the next valley.

BUT as soon as the tribe from the next valley decides it wants YOUR cave, and attacks you, well - your right to share that mammoth with them becomes questionable at best, if it feeds and nourishes the very folks who will not be deterred from your destruction no matter how nice you are.

Once you've thwarted their evil intentions, maybe you can share some mammoth with them again, but until then, you're better off keeping your mammoth to yourself!

Now, I don't know if there are terrorists cells in my neighborhood or not. But frankly, if some empowered agency wants to tap my phone, and all my neighbors' phones, to find out, well - I don't have a problem. It's a violation of my civil liberties, but one which I am willing to suffer if will help keep my family safe.

Now, that said, and as as far as I can tell - i am in no group profiled as 'of interest'. PERHAPS I might feel differently if I were. (No - wait! I'm a foreign-born American - Toronto, naturalized when I was 16. So if the FBI or the Men in Black seek me out because of that, how will I feel? I'll feel like answering their questions.)

Thesis, antithesis, synthesis - we'll give up something, in time we'll fight to get it back, and eventually we'll have something new that may very well be better.

btw, good to see you back, pack.

Its Trail Day,

Well, I gotta disagree. An Orthodox Jew most likely will NOT want to use a standard cell phone connecting to a teleconference once the 3 stars are visible and he's on foot, not wanting to talk business on the Sabbath, etc, but a Reformed may very well not mind, if he's on his way to the services AND on the TC at the same time, plugged into his car's cigarette lighter socket (which could spark, even if the Orthodox was still being driven by the Shabbes goy chauffeur)

and et cetera

First 2, I gotta make some changes...

1. I would "A) Discreetly pull her/him aside and tell them that was offensive, and you might want to think about apologizing"

2. I would "A) Discreetly pull her/him aside and tell them that was offensive, and you REALLY want to think about apologizing"

(Yeah, well - the exec. has a bigger liability, lawsuit-wise...)

3. I need more info.

a. Does he USUALLY leave at 4 on Fri?

b. Also, when is corporate quitting time

on Friday?

c. IF strictly due to the holiday, and not

normally done for the Sabbath, had he

lodged his intent to leave early prior

to the announcement for the meeting?

d. Does the 'review process' include an

employee's response procedure?

e. Can the exec be dinged in the same

review process for HIS insensitivity?

f. Does Joe ever come in on Sundays, work

Christmas, or anything else that shows

HE's a religious team player even if

the exec is not? Ok, now that I type

this one, I'm not sure it should matter,

but I'll leave it in anyway.

g. Does the exec - just out of curiosity -

observe his own Sabbaths without fail?

h. Can the exec involved make arrangemnts

to get Joe whereever he needs to be

AFTER the meeting and BEFORE sundown,

and would he do so?

The High Holy days are a lot more meaningful - from certain perspectives at least, if not from others - than the regular Sabbath, which starts at sundown on Friday, and since this involves a Friday, I'd need to know the real intent here. Also, is Joe Reformed, Conservative or Orthodox?

war IS avoidable. sometimes the big dog can just bark a bit, mark some territory and walk away.

the issue is NOT whether it's avoidable, but whether some are so set as to consider no other course (this can get into a whole philosophical issue that starts off "well then, it ain't avoidable", but that's a different argument altogether, and not one that addresses the "painted ourselves into a corner" motif previously discussed).

I, for one, have sufficient humility to understand that just maybe the President has access to info and intelligence that I do not.

I have sufficient humanity to recognize that despite the posturing, GWB is not a blood-lusting beast blinded to reason and unaccepting of true alternative.

And I have sufficient hope that somewhere there's a win-win answer for the world.

whew. whotta lotta spittin 'n' hissin...

Two-deep is a minimum. MINIMUM. And if there is the slightest possibility that the group will need to split, then it increments evenly, not by odd numbers. 2 adults, 4 adults, 6 adults and so on. You can have odd numbers, of course, provided the odd man is not stand-alone.

(gulp!) Bob White is absolutely spang-on about this - WILL it ever happen that a single adult is alone with one or more boys? Yes, in the real world, AND as a result of BAD PLANNING. Bad planning that should never happen again.

Are the boys splitting up into teams and moving off separating into the woods or up mountains? Folks, it's 2 per split off group in the woods, not 2 for the whole group that arrived at the site.

And any adult group that fails to plan for emergency response (yes, another TWO to drive to a hospital, say) has not honored the trust placed in them or the responsibility they have accepted.

THIS IS NOT JUST A 'LIABILITY' ISSUE, after all. This is for everyone's well-being. The best example so far has been driving the injured kid out and to the hospital - taking this, you need one to drive and one to tend the wounded, and then AT LEAST TWO MORE LEFT behind with the rest of the kids, if you don't want to pack things in altogether. (And if fact, if the injury is time-urgent, and you DON'T have adultS to leave behind, you may very well need to drive off with all the kids to take the injured one to help, LEAVING TENTS AND GEAR BEHIND. Folks need to think it through)

Yeah, it can be tough, and it suggests as well that not only do you need two deep, you need as many vehicles at the site as necessary for an immediate evacuation of all the kids and adults, but I haven't read that requirement anywhere - yet.

Rigid adherence to this policy might lead to canceled activities. Big deal. Considering the worst-case on this, that's a very small price indeed.

You can play what-if til the cows come home to try to come up with reasons why it won't always work, DD, but the bottom line is that with proper planning, the real exceptions will be few and far between.

eisely's snow case is especially frustrating - being the only responsible adult, erring on the side of child welfare, yet ending up in a questionable situation - but even here, there WERE workarounds. (Still, I doubt if I personally would have figured them out in a cold, hungry, exhausted, angry state of mind, either, if my own kid wasn't there to swap out and sleep with me.)

TWO DEEP IS THE MINIMUM. Keep that word 'minimum' in mind. More can be better, and given event, terrain and everything else, it probably is. You have to be ready to cancel if you can't meet the foreseeable demands of the minimum - and so be it. Let the parents know what's up, and what's at stake. They have an investment in this too - it's up to them to help protect it.

I got my Eagle in Arizona, a member of a small troop in a small town. Frequently, there was only one adult with us on campouts, middle of the desert, all that. Looking back, I have no concerns that any of us kids might have been molested, but I am FULLY aware of what could have happened so easily in that kind of situation in a simple emergency...

Two-deep is not optional, and frankly, it should probably be deeper! The minimum should not be the goal in advancement OR adult involvement.

"...and the sign said 'Long-haired

freaky people, don't even try',

so I stuffed my hair up under my hat,

and i went in to ask him 'why?'

he said 'you look like a fine upstandin'

young scout - your Eagle's due!'

then I took off my hat, I said 'imagine that' -

I just got my Eagle from you

whoa-oh-oh signs, signs, everyWHERE there's signs,

tramp-a-lin' our freedom and breakin' our minds...

(submitted with total apologies! :-))

ummm, Bob, not sure what your response really has to do with my post unless you're saying that as long as gays and atheists don't do that stuff around the boys, they're welcome?

the secret drinkers and smokers I'm referring to go out behind the dumpster...

BW,

the response was to Mark - tring to point out that discrimation against an atheist is indeed religous discrimination. he was asking the old question of how can discrimination against an atheist be religious.

yes. we all know the BSA discriminates. that wasn't the immediate issue, but thanks.

Bob, your example is 5% apples to 10% oranges.

"When someone asks if your family has grown do you really answer based on the world population trends?" Well, perhaps if I'm part of ZPG. That aside, I'm not holding my family's growth OR lack thereof up as an example that all is just swell with my family. See, that's usually what couting growth percentages are held up to mean - that things are good in the land of Scouts, and that the program is strong. Well, maybe, and maybe not! The growth stat by itself shows us nothing about that, especially when many times the numbers are being touted as proving that everyone still strongly supports Scouting!

If you insist that ANY stand-alone sub-population growth is good, regardless of what's happening to the general population numbers, well - I can only say that seems self-delusional or desperate, at best.

Would you say a 5% raise is good when there's a 25% cost of living increase? Well, it's better than no raise, certainly, but it's not as good as a 25% raise - which is your breakeven - or a 30% raise - at which point you are in fact ahead. No change, or too little change - in this example - is falling behind.

In this case, since part of the cost of living is inflation and part of that inflation is

If you're only interested in measuring an absolute number, and that number increases - fine, be happy, and I'm happy for you. BUT - in the long run, when you're happy with the 5% increase while the population is far outstripping that, you're talking about watching a group slip closer and closer to the social fringes.

And maybe some will declare that they see nothing wrong with the BSA as a fringe group - I just won't be in that number.

If we can't look at the numbers, fair, cold and hard, and analyze what they really mean in a larger social context, then frankly, you can't fix what they might be telling us - OR you can't really celebrate what the good news REALLY is. Either way, you only have half the story.

And if someone has the other half, please share!

secret smoking and drinking seems to be getting defended by some of the same folks that would condemn be secretly gay or atheist.

no real point - just an observation

Bob,

gotta disagree. if the population of eligible boys has doubled (i.e., increased by 100%), and the number of scouts has only increased by 5% - this should NOT be seen as good statistical news for scouting. and on the other hand, if the number of boys in the program doubles, but there's been no change in the total boy population - THIS means something good has been perceived about the program that wasn't there before.

at another level, if the number of volunters increases, but the number of chartering organizations drops, you're seeing something else as well.

measuring these things outside of context is how we get to lies, damned lies - and statistics! (Mark Twain, right?)

even though UCLA withdrew support, sponsorship and permissions from the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts on the one hand, the University's admissions web site still advises the applicant who has achieved Eagle to list it as part of their package - it is still viewed as the mark of an individual who can run a course.

The savvy parent knows this, and I'll bet you at least part of the increase in percentage is due to that.

AND - while I don't know if the evolution of the 'post-graduate' Venturing program into something a little more involved and relevant has anything to do with it, I can guess that it may have had its own affect as well.

BTW - saying that any sub-population (Say, the BSA) has had any percentage of growth without also citing similar figures for the total population within which the original figures were obtained (state, sya, or national), has not painted the full picture. If a council's youth population has increased 5%, and the population of ALL target boys in the area has only increased 1%, why then, that is meaningful and important growth. But conversely, if the general boy population has increased by 5% as well, then the growth isn't really "growth" in those terms. Finally, if that general population has increased by 10%, and the sub-population has only increased by 5% - we see a step backwards.

It really helps to place such figures in context to see if you are really celebrating a success or a failure or if you're holding your own.

I have to think that religious discrimination has to include any discrimination against atheists if the sole or basic cause of that discrimination is based on nothing more than the fact of their atheism, and the discrimination is by religious individuals or groups.

here, the discrimination is being done by the religious; i.e., religious discrimination - by, just not against. racial discrimination can be seen as having both sides - discrimination by as well as discrimination against.

indeed, part of my dictionary's definitions of religion include a code of behavior or ethics, and lists humanism as a religion. so I suppose there can be a religion without a god - I'm no expert, but isn't Confucianism based on the mortal human teacher, and no god, at least in the western sense? So would this be an atheistic religion?

but really, it's such a ridiculous cavil anyway. if you discriminate, as and because of being a believer, against any person simply because you perceive them as godless, you're still discriminating - whether YOU want to call it RELIGIOUS or not - on the basis of YOUR religion.

just a perspective...

ec. 30902. - Purposes

The purposes of the corporation are to promote, through organization, and cooperation with other agencies, the ability of boys to do things for themselves and others, to train them in scoutcraft, and to teach them patriotism, courage, self-reliance, and kindred virtues, using the methods that were in common use by boy scouts on June 15, 1916.

Hmmm - apparently girls aren't mentioned in the charter. that's probably a digression, esp. since the international bodies are encouraging the US orgs to look at uniting and becoming co-ed. (Also, I don't read any prequalifications for the boys' memberships, and I will repeat that some kids that might be seen as at risk are banned from the program before they even apply. shameful, really.)

be THAT as it may, all I can see that Merlyn has ever really said is that NO exclusionary private organization should get preferential access to public moneys or other support, especially if no other private organization gets any at all.

I can't believe that, in fairness, anyone really has a problem with that? Should Scouts be given preferential treatment over other groups, or should it be share and fair alike?

On the other hand, I don't think that if the GSUSA or a Bible Study group gets access to school facilities, that the BSA should be ousted, either - parity, after all.

Mark,

Satanists worship Satan and many believe in God. How does that synch your thought? Not promoting the one, just curious about the other.

BW,

sorry, I still don't find where M_L says that he's a spokesman or spokesperson or spokes anything. I'm really trying to be fair to everyone, so if it the comment in question was in fact originally attributed to a "spokesperson", it sets a certain stage, and that's one thing, but if the spokesmanship was added after the fact, that's quite another.

regardless, it is the unguarded comment that frequently is our only true measure of many of those in the public eye. 'Heimie town' comes to mind, for example, and much of the recently released Nixon tapes as well - examples abound.

BW,

I just did a search for the string "spokes" and only found the most recent entries in this string, for ML, where he's using it in response to your recent entries - can you direct me to the specific original entry where he mis-attributes spokespersonhood? Thanks.

um - I think it's Squidward...

ed raises an interesting question with "speeders". let's not consider those going with the normal flow of traffic, and the occasional emergency.

we all know folks who consistently, habitually abuse the speed limit - labeled another way - chronic lawbreakers.

what do you say to/do about parents who speed to Scout functions? how about if they're driving kids? breaking the law AND endangering kids!

NJCS'er,

I've given it a lot of thought. On the one hand, a rainbow flag could just be pretty. BUT (and I'm not saying right or wrong, here, b'lee me!) if the flag-hanger is a gay activist of any kind, that puts the flag in one context. on the other hand, if the flag-hanger quietly and unobtrusively lives with someone in a manner that you or I or the boys couldn't tell as different from having a room-mate, I can't take the symbol as an avowal - the rest of the context isn't there, and besides, sometimes a rainbow is just that - a rainbow! so this would fail the test for avowal but not too blatant, I think.

in fact, a straight who believes in gay rights could wear the rainbow.

I'm not sure there's any real form of subtle avowal - something that says someone's definitely gay, but says so in such a quiet way as to satisfy the BSA.

I mean, outside of telling one's doctor or lawyer or priest or other such bound confidant, but that wouldn't count either.

That's a toughie, all right...

when I was a kid, we played in the rain every chance we got. it was wet, it was fun and it was free. nobody every told us "you'll catch cold". and we didn't. when it was too cold or too stinging, we came in. never caught a cold that way, and as far as I know, never have!

today, too many years later, I know folks who invariably catch cold after being caught in the rain. when I've asked, they were always told they would...

anecdotal? sure. but interesting nonetheless!