Bando

A good friend of mine growing up did his Eagle Project at a local school. Built a bunch of picnic tables, planted some trees, put up some barbecue grills, a whole bunch of pretty awesome stuff. It was beautiful. The next year the school district bulldozed all of it to put an addition on the school. You're telling me they didn't know when the kid was doing the project that's where the addition was going to go? lol It was pretty amazing. I hope this kid doesn't have any trouble with his paperwork, this is just about the most bizarre thing I've ever heard.

What would happen? The BSA would look a whole heck of a lot more like the rest of America than the current, evangelical/conservative/Mormon-dominated organization it is today. The BSA digging in its heels on issues of sexuality only moves it farther and farther away from a lot of boys it should be reaching. Gay rights is our generation's civil rights movement. It's a generational issue. I'm thinking a lot of you who were coming of age in the 50's and 60's felt a little differently about racial inclusion and civil rights than your parents did. In 40 or 50 years, we're going to be look

I don't know about religious affiliation, but a cursory perusal through the Eagle Letter where they show the pictures of NESA scholarship winners seems to indicate a certain demographic dominance. Not a whole lot of non-white faces in the lot.

I would be personally quite disappointed if the BSA were to associate themselves with the American Heritage Girls. I was also dismayed that the AHG had a display at National Jamboree. A Scouting group that opens the statement describing itself with "A Christ-centered..." is not the appropriate organization for the BSA to align itself if it intends to provide a coed program. Sorry.

Don't forget the How Book of Cubbing and the How Book of Scouting, both fun resources for activities with the kids that stretch their imagination and creativity. Frankly, I've found a lot of great ideas I wanted to do on my own as an adult in the original 1910/11 handbook and other period publications. Those Dan Beard boat plans are really quite cool!

Anybody else seen the first episode of LOST? Jack sews himself up after disinfecting the wound with an airplane mini-bottle of vodka. Yes, it's TV, but not outside the realm of possibility in a disaster situation that a bottle of booze could come in handy. Although one would have to choose for which "good" you'd want to use it.

"Bando, you are the one talking about criminal acts." You were just the one who posted about a SM being dropped off by his partner, then equating it to a SM being dropped off by an underage girlfriend, and a SM murderer getting out of prison. So, in fact, it's you talking about criminal acts in equality to homosexuality. And I don't think anyone said there's a single person making the call at National, despite you repeatedly bringing that up. Whatever, I don't want to turn this into a personal debate. Agree to disagree.

"[Homosexuality] is a different immoral act." By whose standards? Why should the BSA be defining moral standards on sexuality, which is not a part of our program in any way, and something that is not universally defined as immoral by membership? And equating it with a criminal activity is not an acceptable rebuttal, as homosexuality is not a crime.

"Now, you all can flail away at that notion, but have you looked in the book section of your local Scout Shop lately? You'll find dozens of books on faith and Scouting...yep all Christian. Not one single item on any other faith." Not to mention the long-running comic strip adaptation of Bible stories in Boys' Life every month. Go figure.

And who was pumping money from all over the country into California to support Prop 8, moreso than any religious group, and instructed its wards to both volunteer and donate specific amounts of money to ensure it passed? LDS. Hrm...

"Most Scout parents are on the same side as the LDS." Is that right? I'd love to see where there is any statistical proof of this. Honestly, in my neck of the woods, I don't think that's a linchpin for anything with our parents. As long as their boys are having a great experience in our troop, I don't think anything would change, gay leaders or no. I think there's more a resentment that this issue is starving our organization through both public perception and traditional sources of funding. Personally, it makes me pretty angry this is even an issue at all, and that National is w

If this ever becomes an issue, I just know it's jac-shirt season!

A nice alternative might be what some call "Turkish," "Greek," "Armenian," etc. etc. coffee. It's common pretty much everywhere in the general middle east/Balkan/Caucasus regions, and was designed to be made over things like campfires. Basically, if you have a middle eastern store around you, you'll be able to find a Turkish coffee pot, to make it. Or you can order one online. Here's a video on how it's done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm-WhTRE-74 The video isn't that great, but it'll give you a visual. Basically, the most important thing is to go to your grocery store and e

Just got back from my local council shop, it looks like they've sent out all the surplus Jamboree merchandise from the Trading Posts to all of the council shops operated by National. They had the bottom of the barrel stuff, the arena show wands, the goofy felt hats, tumbler glasses, but they also had t-shirts, one very small belt, participant hats, and participant patches. Not to mention those incredibly overpriced bags of gummies! And other stuff I'm forgetting. Just thought people might want a heads-up. Additionally, it looks like the surplus stuff has shown up on ScoutStuff, too.

This just makes me think about a friend of mine and what happened to his Eagle Project. He built pilings for barbecues, planted a bunch of trees, and built some picnic tables for a park next to a local elementary school. All with the consent and cooperation of the school district and school administration. Great project. Then, I kid you not, less than one year later it was ALL bulldozed over to build an addition to the school. Benefited the community as a pretty nice parking spot for half a new school.

National must approve all patch designs, correct? How difficult would it be to compile all the electronic files (or scan those submitted in paper) and put together a quick and easy PDF or something to send out with this year's patch designs? Either that or have Jamboree security heavily enforce against those visitors who bring in fake patches, like the Avatar set or the Facebook game patches that showed up at the end of the week. I never saw a participant with credentials behind a patch blanket of fake council issues, they were always visitors. Like I said at the beginning of the t

I always think of the best adult leader parents as the ones for whom I could not figure out which one was their kid if I didn't know them very well. There's a lot of dads who bring their son to the meeting, and you don't see them together until they leave.

evmori, VigilEagle, the point is not that Camping is an Eagle-required merit badge today, but rather that for a period of time in the 1970's, it was removed from the list. An omission that was later corrected. So, yes, at a point in the BSA's history, you could theoretically have earned Eagle without going camping. Whether that ever actually happened is debatable.

I really wonder how many people who loudly espouse anti-homosexual views have ever known a gay person. And not a casual acquaintance, I mean had a close friend who was gay. For me, I truly believe this to be a generational thing, with the social acceptability of homosexuals to come out and live their lives more openly as opposed to living extremely under the radar in previous decades leading to more people having more exposure to openly gay people. I'm a younger Scouter. As for me, I had two gay roommates in college, and one of my closest friends is gay. Most of my heterosexual fr

jet, what's the difference between a sports team or a band and Scouting? Scouting is predominantly an individual at-your-own-pace activity. Yes, there's patrols and team work when camping or learning a skill at a troop meeting, but that's pretty much a non-factor at a Court of Honor, which honors individual achievement. A scout misses that, he's only missing out on receiving his own awards and essentially being a spectator for others. On a sports team, he's a member of a unit, where missing a practice means tangible detriment to the rest of the squad. Same goes for a band. There ar

And don't forget the BSA knew for -two months- he would not be coming, yet kept the charade up that he would be coming until the rumors started going around AP Hill during Staff Week that he wasn't coming and then sneaking it in the Leaders' Update that it would feature a speech by Robert Gates. Then they went from there by having the President's face on the Patch of the Day. And then quietly made it known, through some random spokesperson, that the President had indeed notified them 2 months before that he wouldn't be coming following the Wednesday Arena Show. That sounds like quite the wa

"Unfortunately Bando, all consumerism is local. The three American made cars I have owned, the AMC, the Buick and Ford all died before 75, 000 miles, the Honda, Toyota and Nissan went over 100,000 before they were sold and I never heard back from the owners." Well, we've recently put two Pontiacs into the ground at 200,000 miles each, and just purchased a new GM car made end-to-end in Lansing, Michigan. And also have a 25-year-old Mercury at 100,000 miles, and expect to get another 50,000 out of it. But anecdotal evidence only goes so far, and it seems you're already convinced American

I remember when the high cost of BSA uniform items was explained by the excuse that it was the cost of making them in America. Now the shirts are made in China and Bangladesh, the socks and shorts in China, every single patch is made in China... And they're the -exact same price-, if not more expensive. Explain that, National Supply... Also, those of us in the Midwest thank you for continuing to buy foreign cars. Really helping our bottom line. :\

Sorry, that's pretty far-fetched.

"Unless there was a very good reason to have missed (neither band nor football practice count as good reasons), they can wait until the next COH." Why aren't those good reasons? Sorry, I don't follow your logic at all.