NJCubScouter

I have been reading along in this thread but stopped posting, because frankly the discussion has gotten a little too wacky and convoluted, and like I said before, the discussion is purely academic for me, because in my council (or at least my district) if you don't use blue cards (lately they actually seem to be white but we still call them blue) your Scouts don't make Eagle, so every troop and every Scout uses blue cards. I suspect that even if the district relaxed a little on the use of blue cards and allowed for some other method of verification at the EBOR, it would be a slow and gradual process for troops to start adopting it. And I will just make this one comment about blue cards: Beavah, if you can take and send a cell-phone picture of a Scout with the MBC and a silly sign that says merit badge completed, you can also take and send a cell-phone picture of the signed blue card. Maybe you could even take it in such a way that the electronic recipient could print it onto... a blue card! Instant backup. (You know, I am saying this as a joke, but now I might actually talk to the guy in our troop who would know about these things, and see if it makes sense to try it.) But what I really want to comment on is this: Or takin' the duty roster example, which is da more effective patrol... the one where the PL is given an adult-compiled duty roster form with times set up and blanks to fill in for names, or the patrol that dispenses with the duty roster and has everyone just pitch in effectively, one lad swapping out with another at da cooking station so the other can pack his stuff, two guys who were done early with packin' jumpin' in to help da cleanup go faster? All without a form? Assuming that Patrol 2 actually existed -- in other words, assuming there was a patrol where "everyone just pitch[ed] in effectively", without a duty roster, that might be the more effective patrol. However, if you change the facts of Patrol 2 so that everybody does NOT "just pitch in effectively", resulting in chaos, meals that take 2 hours to prepare when they should take 30 minutes and/or food that is not cooked properly or portions of meals that are never served at all, cleanups completed way late or not at all or incompletely, not to mention yelling and/or screaming by the poor 13-year-old PL who is chasing after kids all over camp to get stuff done, programs that do not get completed because breakfast and cleanup weren't completed until 11 a.m. and now there's no time for the 2-hour nature walk before lunch.... and I think I've made my point. I am exaggerating slightly in some places but I have seen various examples of all of these things in my Scouting lifetime when there was no duty roster (or there was a duty roster but it wasn't followed.) I have heard the clarion call of the Scoutmaster, "Why am I seeing dirty pots and pans when its almost lights out"? Or "Thank you for inviting me to lunch with your patrol today, Patrol Leader X, but I notice that it's 1:30 and I don't seem to have any food." Not to mention the endless arguments over why I have to do something at every meal but Charlie never seems to do anything... which I have heard WITH a duty roster, but much more often without one. I would guesstimate that at least some elements of what I have described here probably would be the case in 70 to 90 percent of patrols in the country if they tried to have people "just pitch in effectively" without a duty roster. (And yeah, Beavah, I am sure all the troops you have dealt with operate just fine without duty rosters, but that just means you are lucky enough to have the uncommon 10 to 30 percent all concentrated in your area. Sarcasm off.) So, yeah, if Patrol 2 effectively manages without a duty roster, it might be "more effective" than Patrol 1. But most of the time, Patrol 1 is better because Patrol 2 (being made up of those pesky, fallible human beings) is not getting things done, and Patrol 1 (also made up of human beings, but ones who at least know what they, individually, are supposed to do and where and when they are supposed to do it) got dinner prepared and cooked and served and cleaned-up-from in reasonable time, and now we can go on the nature walk or build the monkey-bridge or have the campfire -- or go to sleep -- without having to worry so much about dirty utensils or unfed and/or arguing Scouts or irritated Scoutmasters or resigning Patrol Leaders because nobody listens to them without a duty roster.

So, what some of you are saying is, the ad-server didn't give me that ad because it figured out that a person reading this site might be a male aged 45-65, but because it looked at the web sites I go to and figured out that I am a male aged 45-65. Is that it? Including this site, I suppose? But the part about looking for love (or the closest immediately available facsimile thereof) in all the wrong places, it made up on its own, I swear. And what sites did Merlyn go to that convinced the ad-server that he might want to donate to the National Cathedral project? Hmmm?

Merlyn says: Well, the ad I've got on top right now is about restoring the national cathedral...What's up with that? And I thought this thread couldn't get any funnier. So how much of a check are you sending them, Merlyn? The ad I have now is for kayaks from L.L. Bean... oh it just switched to Google business web-hosting services -- for New Jersey business owners. Another amazing coincidence. But those aren't very funny.

As we have discussed several times, the owner of this site appears to subscribe to an advertising service (or two) that that automatically puts ads on the site, presumably without any active participation by the site owner (or moderators.) Often the ads seem to be "targeted" either to the anticipated "audience" of this site in general, or sometimes to particular words that appear in a thread. For example, I have seen threads about camping with ads for camping stores, outfitters, etc. Or in "Issues and Politics" threads that frequently mention, er, particular demographic groups, there will be ads that seem to target that group, or sometimes political ads that might appeal to opponents of that group. And so on. Sometimes there will be ads that seem to go "right up to the line" of what would be considered appropriate on a "family-friendly" web site. I am sure many of you have noticed the t-shirt ads featuring the 20-ish-year-old women. Well, I just saw one that I couldn't believe. It seemed to go OVER the proverbial "line", but at the same time, made me laugh so much that I almost fell off my chair (hence the title of the thread.) And it certainly appeared to be "targeted" to a demographic that the advertising service must believe is heavily represented in this forum, that being men in their 40's and 50's, and perhaps 60's. And I'd guess they'd be right. And I'm close to being right in the middle there. The ad (which was across the top of the page) had photos of four, shall we say, provocatively dressed women, all of whom appeared to be in the age range mentioned above (the oldest one looked like she might be about 60, but a young 60), and all gazing alluringly at the camera. That was pretty much the part that went "over the line." When I say "provocatively", I do not mean pornographic, but definitely trending in that direction. But the part that almost made me fell off my chair was the tag line on the right: "We DON'T like young men! We want you!" If you don't immediately get the humor, it assumes that the person reading the ad is not a "young man." And the women in the ad don't want young men, they want, well, old men. Like the one probably reading the ad. Like me. I am not quite sure how effective this is as an advertising technique. Nobody really wants to be constantly reminded that they are "not young", even those of us who have long ago accepted that we are, well, not. So as a sales booster, I don't know. As a momentary piece of entertainment, well I guess it did catch my attention. After all that, I can only speculate on what it was an ad for, since I felt it would probably not be a good idea to click on it, and it does not appear on the page right now. In its place is an ad for Campmor ("For all your camping needs!"), specifically the Paramus, NJ location, which is probably a non-coincidence on several levels. So anyway, I just thought I'd share that.

Shortridge is correct. Not every thread in "Issue and Politics" is about the "membership issues." This is an issue of West Virginia nonprofit corporation and/or tax law, something I know nothing about and I suspect very few if any people in this forum know about either. I don't think the reporter who wrote the article knew very much about it either, because I really haven't gotten any sense of why the BSA's nonprofit status would be jeopardized by renting to for-profit groups, assuming that all of the revenue is used either for administration of the BSA or to pursue the programs for which it is chartered. As (I think) someone else said, "nonprofit" really just means there are no shareholders to receive distributions of "profits", and high salaries to executives don't count as profits. (There is a point at which the IRS will start asking questions about salaries; but for a nationwide organization with the revenues that the BSA has, that point is higher than what the CSE makes.)

OGE says: Surely this can not be the only one which is a head scratcher This is still me being relatively quiet, but I had to respond to that. When I read the initial post, since I am unfamiliar with the passage in question, I Googled it to see if I could find any interpretations. Before I even got to that, I found a site that had the same passage from 18 different versions of the Bible. http://bible.cc/matthew/19-12.htm I found 18 different translations, or whatever you would call them, of the same short passage, and some of them are very different. So before we even get to other "head scratchers", or any interpretations of this particular head scratcher, the question is, what does this passage even say? I was focusing mostly on the last sentence, an interesting little statement that seems to endorse some sort of individual (or could we say "local"?) option. Some of the 18 different versions of this sentence are very, very different. And that does not even get into what they mean, it's just about what they say. If there is no agreement on the words in the passage, how can anyone possibly know what it means? And I assume there are many more than 18 versions of the Book of Matthew, those are just the ones on this web site. And I also assume that if I looked up other verses in the Bible, I would find the same thing. It's probably even worse for the Old Testament (known by some as the Jewish Bible), since there has been more time for people to translate it differently.

I'm trying to understand why they built an 80,000-seat stadium in the first place. 80,000 seats is huge. And for what? A jamboree every four years? And I have read that the 2013 Jamboree is expected to draw 40,000 Scouts and Scouters. Two seats for each? Even if there is room for growth in there, that's a lot of growth. Did they build it with the idea of renting it out for the other 3 years and 50 weeks? And if so, shouldn't they have made sure they could do that without jeopardizing their tax-exempt status, before they did it?

I'll be interested to see what the 20 pages are about. I should probably remain relatively quiet about it, since my religion's Bible does not include the Book of Matthew.

What WalnutDC is leaving out is that he is accessing the Internet from his home on Neptune (also known as the Planet of the Plentiful Unit Commissioners) by bouncing radio signals off the passing New Horizon spacecraft. Just kidding. At least mostly kidding.

Abel, do those stats include Exploring or just the classroom-based programs? (And/or whatever else may be included in LFL, as I've said before I have read of at least one "Lion Cub" (kindergarten) den that was under the LFL umbrella somewhere.) And if Exploring is included in the overall number, are the Exploring figures at least broken out anywhere? It would be difficult to believe that Exploring itself had declined by 65 percent in the past five years. It would mean posts disappearing all over the place.

AZMike, as seems to be the case a lot, I don't know what you're talking about. I did watch the video, and all it tells me is what I already knew: No belief system, nor any group of people, nor for that matter any race, creed, color, religion, orientation or anyone else, has a monopoly on obnoxiousness.

One would have to live a life as cloistered and removed from the modern world as Rebbeca of Sunnybrook Farm NOT to recognize the term used by Lesniak as one that is common in gay porn, as you acknowledged. Well, knit me a bonnet and call me Becky, I guess. But I know it now, I suppose. Isn't it interesting, that the place to go to learn gay terminology is this very forum, and the teachers never seem to be the anti-discrimination folks. As someone who should have at least a moderate acquaintance with youth protection, you might need to educate yourself on such things. If you would want to combat evil, you need to know something about how it works. Actually I should have a lot more than a moderate acquaintance with youth protection, and I think I do. I am a Certified Youth Protection Training Facilitator, though nobody gets asked to do much facilitating anymore now that national changed the rules so the course has to be taken online before a leader submits their application (in our council, you had to take the course in person the first time before national made that change.) I pretty much knew the old video by heart, and they DID mention pornography as a form of "grooming", but for some reason the BSA didn't feel the need to give any details about the contents. I don't see any reason to know about it myself, and I'm pretty sure I know enough about youth protection -- as I said, I hope so, otherwise there are 60 or 70 people walking around with ineffective YP training. Hey Pack, don't use up all the soap.(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

As to your council, I'm not sure why anybody would really want to add to the requirements and put a whole bunch of extra hurdles in a boy's way that really don't have much to do with scoutin' when yeh get right down to it. Not "a whole bunch". "Several" would be more accurate. Blue cards, though I am not sure the blue cards themselves are really a hurdle. Having to bring the cards to the EBOR even if there is no discrepancy in the records is an unnecessary hurdle, although the fact is that since all of the troops are aware of it, they help the boys through it, lost cards are replaced, binders are purchased to organize the cards, etc. etc. Since everybody knows what is "required", everybody does what is "required." I am not aware of any boys having missed out on making Eagle because of it. About the thing I discussed in the other thread, of having to have the application in on or before the 18th birthday even though the GTA says that doesn't need to happen, I can make a guess. My guess is that "A Scout is Trustworthy" is not good enough for them, and they are concerned that someone might continue work on the Eagle requirements for a day or two or three past the 18th birthday and then backdate the signatures and the Scout (or parent) claims they couldn't get to the council service center before the birthday but here's the application, all signed as of B-minus-1. Maybe they didn't always have the current rule, and that happened. I don't know. I'm just guessing. I would say that one more hurdle, in the past, was that (in my opinion) the district advancement committees required considerably more "planning" before approving projects than was contemplated in the old workbook. It was also common knowledge that less than X amount of hours wouldn't cut it. All of this has been banned in the new workbook, which doesn't even require a plan in order to get approval. I have heard that the council IS following the rules on that one. But as to the basic question of "why", I really don't think it's just for the sake of creating hurdles. For each "hurdle" I am sure someone thought there was a good reason at the time, or still does, even if the reason isn't actually so good.

Seattle Pioneer: Just follow the arguments used by homosexuals over the years. There's really no place to stop that is defensible if you accept the basic "rights" argument of the sexual liberation movement. Personally I've never heard of the "sexual liberation movement." What is it? What I have heard of is gay people saying "please stop discriminating against us." (Well actually before that, they used to have to say "please stop beating us up and killing us", but hopefully our society is past that.) And I see no reason to say no. The laws of my state, and a number of others, say yes, discrimination against gay people is wrong. And we are talking about gay adults here. So, sure, there's a place to stop that's defensible. Ending discrimination against people based on what other adults they are oriented towards, does not mean that you accept behavior that is harmful to other people, including children who are legally incapable of consenting. I suppose you could argue that once you accept that some people have sex outside of marriage (regardless of gender), there's no place to stop that's defensible before allowing all kinds of other behavior. Why isn't THAT the line? And yet the BSA has no blanket prohibition on leadership positions for those who are known to have had sex outside marriage. I am sure that somewhere there is a single mother who is a den leader and it is known around town that she has never been married, and yet the BSA leaves it up to the local unit to decide whether she should be a den leader. And yet if another woman is openly living with her partner, she can't be a den leader, even if the CO wants her as a den leader and every parent in the den agrees. It's wrong, as in immoral. It's senseless. And it will end, eventually.

Actually Bando, I don't even try about half the time anymore. But the rest of the forum seems to think its "cute" or something.

I guess my main response to this whole subject should be this: Up until a few days ago when this thread (or was it the other thread) started and someone commented that many councils and units do not use blue cards, I never even considered that a Scout could get a merit badge without a blue card. Seriously. I have never seen it happen in my life, and that includes about seven years as a Boy Scout, seven years as father of a Scout, and going on three more years after that as a committee member. As I have said, they are mandatory in my council, not just in my troop. They are an ingrained part of the program to me. Even if my troop wanted to use some other method of recordkeeping and "information flow", we would still have to use the blue cards as well. It's kind of like the air. There it is, it's the only readily available breathing medium in town. If we want to breathe, if we want Scouts to get merit badges, there they are, the air and blue cards. Ok, so now I find out that there are places in the BSA where you don't actually need blue cards. Well, if my council suddenly became such a place, I would still need to see something better before I would abandon the blue cards. Like TwoCubDad, I have no reason to immediately abandon the blue cards. If there is something better, fine. But what Beavah describes does not sound like "it". Everybody comes up with their own system, fine, but what? A call or email to the Advancement Chair? (Of which I am one.) Too error prone. Maybe as a backup, but not as the only method of passing along the information. Actually I don't keep the records myself anyway, but I think the same goes for the person who does. So, sure, something better would be fine, but it has to actually be better, and not just because blue cards seem too bureaucratic or because we don't want the kids to get paper cuts. (Actually a cut with a blue card would probably be pretty unpleasant.) But like I said, this is all just an academic exercise in a council that is still wedded to blue cards.

Beavah is resorting to sly name-calling as usual, I see.

Peregrinator, I'm not familiar with the terminology, but I can see how that might sound creepy. But as you say, that is presumably not how the senator said it. Seattle, that's only true if you can't distinguish between child-molesters and non-child-molesters. (Sorry for the unscientific terminology there, but everybody knows what I mean.) Personally I think the distinction is pretty clear, and will remain clear.

Getting back to New Jersey State Senator Ray Lesniak -- who by the way I have met and who is a very-long-time member of the New Jersey legislature -- I don't think you (AzMike) should be throwing around terms like "NAMBLAesque". (NAMBLA, if anyone doesn't know, is the "North American Man-Boy Love Association.") The term "gay boys" is perhaps not one that lands gently on the ear, and I probably would not use it, but since a "boy" technically is someone under the age of 18, a person under 18 who is gay could, I guess, be called a "gay boy." I don't think the senator meant it in a "creepy" way as you claim. I will tell you what I do think is a little creepy though: When you read of someone making a most-likely innocent reference to "gay boys" in the context of opposing discrimination against them, and it makes you (AzMike) immediately think of NAMBLA and of the titles of gay-oriented child pornography videos or web sites. I don't know the names of any gay-oriented child-pornography videos or web sites, but evidently you do.

Expunging peoples' membership records because they sent in a piece of metal and cloth, maybe with a letter protesting the policy, is ridiculous. I am sure National does not do that, and they should not do that. If I sent in my old Life patch with a letter, should they expunge my membership records too? (I am not planning on doing so, partly because they might "expunge" my current registration, even though they shouldn't do that either. And besides, I have no need to quit (or risk termination), the policy will catch up with the true values of Scouting eventually.)

Eagle732 quotes the Raindrop Vow and Firefly Promise from the Spiral Scouts. I looked at their web site and it is probably relevant to add that the Raindrops are aged 3 to 5, which is why it makes sense that it is short, cutesy and rhymes. The Fireflies are aged 6 to 9, so they are the same age as Tigers, Wolves and Bears in the Cub Scouts. Their promise, while different, is not really that much different. There are two other age groups above that. Eagle732, maybe you should post the oaths (or whatever they call them) for those age groups so we can get a true comparison with the comparable aspects of Boy Scouting.

I'd say that for it to be "acting", other people need to KNOW you're acting, otherwise it's "impersonating". On another note, though he may have done a shoddy job on his ID's, he did know what combinations of patches/loopps/etc. to put on his BSA uniforms, so he must have done some studying of the uniform and insignia guide... unless he really was involved with the BSA at some point.

How is their policy any different from National's? The one portion that is directly quoted, about not asking people about their orientation, is very similar (maybe identical) to statements that have been made by National. But that statement does NOT say that an openly gay person can be a leader or Scout, or that the units get to choose. There MAY be something about this council's policy that is different from National's, but I don't see it in the article.

When I see the word "blog" I assume I am not getting "journalism" anyway, just someone's opinion, even if its on a "news" site. One thing I have noticed in recent years is an increasing trend for "online newspapers" (such as the "Patch" which covers communities in some parts of the country, one town at a time, but also web sites of some more traditional newspapers) is that when a document is being discussed, to include with the story a link to the actual document. That way the reader can decide for him/herself what the document really means rather than just relying on the reporter's summary, which may contain some "spin", whether intentionally or unintentionally. Apparently that was not done here... but like I said, it's just a blog anyway.(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

Eagle92 asks: I admit it's been a while since I dealt with Eagle apps, but how in the heck can you submit an application for Eagle prior to the BOR's approval and signature?!?!?!?! That is what the Guide to Advancement says, see sections 9.0.1.5 through .9. The application and other supporting papers (including workbook unless the council to send it somewhere else) must be brought (or mailed, if there's time) to the council service center for signature, THEN the board of review is scheduled, then it must go back to council for the SE's signature. The application itself confirms that, because that is the order the signatures are in. There are two council signatures, one before the BOR and on after. I do not know how long this has been the procedure, but I know that it is the process my son followed in 2009. The current application appears to be the same one he used, so it does not appear that this is something that National just came up with in the new Guide to Advancement. What I find interesting in section 9.0.1.5 is the fairly clear statement that the application CAN be turned into council after the Scout turns 18, but not very long after. That was not the case in my council as of 2009 (and it did matter in my son's case, he cut it that close, and his birthday was on a Sunday, so the real deadline was Friday.) I do not know whether my council has changed this, but I have heard nothing to suggest that they have. I advise Scouts in my troop to play it as safe as possible.