NJCubScouter

Even if there is a guarantee with no time limit, I would feel a little too self-conscious about trying to get a refund for, say, a belt buckle or anything I had worn for several years, which was just worn out. However, if the new handbooks are routinely falling apart after six months, National needs to be held to their guarantee, whether there's writing in the book or not. If the book is not being abused (as my son's was, and it was in really bad shape and was being held together by a lot of tape by the time he finished) but is just a low-quality product, it shouldn't be tolerated.

Apparently there are some UC's sprinkled through our district, but none assigned to our troop. There is a guy who is (or was) the UC for the troops/packs on either side of us geographically, but his son is in our troop so he isn't assigned to us. One of our ASM's (also with a son in our troop) has signed up to be a UC but of course he will not be assigned to our troop either. He may be replacing the first guy, I'm not sure. Either way, no UC for us. No real communication with (or from) district unless you reach out for them. Our district does have roundtables, and we have one ASM who goes, but neither our SM or CC choose to go, and in my opinion that kind of hamstrings the communication process. So it's a little bit of everybody's fault, I guess. The last time someone with a silver shoulder tab crossed our doorstep was about 2 years ago when the relatively new DE attended one of our committee meetings, just to observe.

Five cents says that before he becomes President there will be an announcement that he decided his other obligations preclude him from taking that position.

It's not often that I can say this, but I agree with Seattle Pioneer 100 percent, if not more. National really needs to realize that in some units there are people ready to tell the council, if you want this paperwork done, you do it. The person in our troop who has done the bulk of the paperwork for rechartering says he has done it for the last time, because he doesn't feel he signed up for a job that includes chasing around all the other leaders/committee members to make sure they renew their YP training. We almost had to find a new COR this year because the one we have couldn't understand why she had to take YP training when she is just doing the COR job as a favor because she is the only parent in the troop who is a member of the CO's governing body (and, I believe, her husband (who is already an ASM) is the only other adult member of the CO at all, who is involved with the troop.) Eventually she did it, but the guy who does the rechartering had to put up with a good bit of, to put it nicely, "grief" about it. Who wants that job? Not me. Hopefully the CC can hoodwink, I mean rationally persuade, someone into doing it.

I have a really wild idea. How about if the geniuses at National, with some help from actual unit-level Scouts, sat down and came up with ONE WAY to record events and approvals and process paperwork, whether it requires paper or just electrons or whatever, and then implement it throughout the entire country? I don't even care what the actual method is. I suspect that in this information age where almost everybody has or has access to a computer, the best method wouldn't involve little pieces of heavyweight paper. I'm fully prepared to accept that the method that was the best in 1972 or 1952 is not the best method in 2012. But like I said, I don't even care. Figure out a way, and do it, one way. Is it that difficult? I know that's just crazy talk.

Eagle asks: Wouldn't attaching blue cards to the application be considered adding to the requirements? I ask because as I mentioned not every unit uses blue cards, and if a Scout transfer in from a unit that didn't use blue cards, wouldn't he be penalized? I would say yes and yes. Although I should say that the cards aren't literally attached to the application, but the cards must be brought to the EBOR, so it works out the same. Yes, I think it is adding to the requirements for a Scout to have to prove at his EBOR that he earned all of his merit badges. But since I am merely a troop advancement chairman/coordinator, I don't make the rules, I just advise the boys to follow them. If a boy ever said, I don't see in the rules where it says I have to do that, I would say, it's your decision, let me know how it turns out, or if I am on your EBOR I guess we'll find out together. As for a Scout from another unit, well, if the unit is within our district they will have their blue cards because their leaders know they will be necessary for the EBOR. As I said, I suspect this is true council-wide. Now, if someone is from another council and they don't use blue cards... it's a great question. I have never heard of it happening, so I don't know for sure, but my prediction would be that they would bend or waive the requirement in that case. If nothing else, presumably our District Advancement Committee members could guess what National would say on an appeal on that issue, and its the same guess that you or I would make. Now that I answered your question, I have one for you: Isn't it adding to the requirements to require a Scout to submit the Eagle application to council (and I mean, at the office, not just to someone with silver loops on his/her uniform) on or before his 18th birthday? Unless they have actually changed the requirements since the last time I looked, nowhere on the application or in any requirement does it say that it must be in council's hands on or before the birthday. And yet, that is what my council requires. (Interestingly, it is "on or before", as opposed to "before", which is when the requirements for Eagle (other than the EBOR) must be completed. But we have had Scouts submit applications ON their 18th birthday and they have been accepted.) And just so it's clear what I am talking about, what needs to be signed at that point are the sections entitled "Certification by Application" and "Unit Approval" and then it needs to be presented at the council office for signature in the section "BSA Local Council Certification", on or before the 18th birthday. The section below that is not completed until the EBOR has taken place, and everybody understands that this can occur after the 18th birthday. I didn't mean to steer the thread in new directions. I guess what I am really saying is, it doesn't really surprise me that my district council adds to the requirements by requiring blue cards, because they add to the requirements in an least one other way as well.

Brewmeister says: I also predict that, sooner or later, the BSA is going to say it's ok to be untrustworthy, disloyal, unhelpful, unfriendly, discourteous, unkind, disobedient, surly, unthrifty, cowardly, unclean, and irreverent as well. Well, its certain that there are already some people in the BSA who are, at least sometimes when they are posting in forums, unfriendly, discourteous, unkind and surly.

Not to detract from the seriousness of the situation -- thankfully it appears that this guy was caught before he was able to use any of his id's or uniforms to harm anyone, but people do need to be vigilant -- but I want to talk about the photo of the Scouting uniforms. Someone above said there were four BSA shirts, one of the articles says there were six, but I count seven, though one of them seems a little odd to me. At the top of the photo, there is a dark green Venturing uniform shirt which you can barely see. The patches on it almost seem to be floating in midair, but when I turned up the brightness on my monitor, I could see the color in the shirt. It has a commissioner or professional patch on the sleeve. (Is that right, on a Venturing shirt?) Then there are the four tan shirts in a row, with silver loops and various commissioner/assistant commissioner patches. (I notice none of them seem to have pockets on the sleeve, so I guess that would make them the "old" ODL-type shirts.) So that's five so far. Then there is a shirt that looks a little strange to me. It is not a color that is in use today, for any program. It is green, like the shirts I wore as a Scout in the late 60's and 70's, but it seems considerably darker than those shirts were. (Of course I could be remembering incorrectly, and I don't have my old shirt handy to check.) It is difficult to see it very well, but it doesn't really look much like an official BSA uniform shirt. It looks more like a collared golf shirt, but it has BSA patches on it (including troop numerals, the only one of these shirts that does.) Then there is another "regular" shirt, which is probably an ODL-type shirt but it could be a centennial shirt. So that's seven and that's it, though I don't know what the next shirt is (the white one; and I don't know what a Sea Scout shirt looks like), and then the bottom shirt is presumably a Coast Guard shirt. Sorry the diversion into "Can you spot the BSA shirts in this picture." By the way, I did not see a specific statement in the article that this guy was NOT a commissioner in the BSA, nor that he was not an Eagle Scout. The circumstances would seem to suggest that EVERYTHING he had was "fake", but we don't really know that for certain.

Our troop uses them. In our district, you don't make Eagle without them. They are reviewed at the EBOR and they need to match up with the printout from National. I don't know whether that's true for the whole council. I suspect it is. Right or wrong, that's the reality. Why these things should vary so much from one council to another I don't know, but evidently they do.

I haven't written before about this Chik-fil-A thing, except to say that I have never seen one, so I have never had to decide whether to eat at one. If I were to pass one by and I were really hungry and had suddenly forgotten about my diet (which does happen now and then), I might stop in and try to find something that didn't have three days' allowance worth of fat in it. Unless there were people outside or inside lobbying for or against gay marriage, then I would keep driving and stop at Dunkin' Donuts (there seems to be a law around here that every town has to have at least two of those) and once again delude myself into thinking that their "healthy menu items" really are. But anyway, as I understand it (at least from this forum), what happened with Chik-fil-A is that the Mayor of Boston is trying to keep them out of his city because the owner of the company is outspokenly against gay marriage. I can hardly believe that that is the whole story, because it sounds ridiculous. If those really are the facts, then what the Mayor is doing is clearly a violation of the First Amendment. It's not even close. And not just a technical violation of the Constitution, but a really, really bad idea from a public policy standpoint. People cannot be prevented from doing business because of their advocacy on political issues. If there are some other facts that I am not aware of, then maybe the answer is different. And yet I think gay people should be allowed to get married. It seems to me that most of the criticism of the Mayor has really been a proxy for "I don't like gay marriage." But I think he's right on gay marriage, he's just wrong on the First Amendment.

Basementdweller, I think you are expressing what I believe is a common fallacy these days: That if someone (say me) is opposed to something, or outraged by something, or an activist about something, that they have to be opposed, or outraged, or an activist, about everything. Life doesn't work that way. We are all allowed to choose our own battles and to decide what is worth worrying about, or talking about, or fighting about, and how much, or not at all. As for the American Heritage Girls, I have never seen one. I have never heard of an AGH unit in my area. Nobody in my troop has ever proposed getting involved with the AGH. If it ever came up in a committee meeting, I would speak against it, because AHG's declaration of faith is limited to one particular religion. (The daughters of the parents on our committee are generally in the Girl Scouts (and/or Venturing) anyway, and I believe one of our committee members is a GS troop leader. I have never heard any complaints about the GS from any of them. My daughters were Girl Scouts too.) So I really have nothing to do with the AHG. I think this is the first thread about them where I have even said anything. On the other hand, I have been a member of the BSA for going on 25 years, members of my family have been in the BSA for 74 years, and I am an adult leader in the BSA. So yes, I care about the BSA, and I don't really care about the AHG, because even though someone somewhere might be trying to "marry" the two (so to speak), it's not happening where I can see it or do anything about it. So I don't think it's necessary for me to tell others in this forum whether I think their units should be getting involved with the AHG. In all cases where people have spoken about their efforts to get the BSA and AHG to coordinate activities, they are doing so on their own local level, and as far as I know, all of those people disagree with me on the BSA's exclusion of gay people and most likely on other issues anyway, so what's the point, really? You and Bando can fight the good fight in this forum, and if the issue ever comes up in my "real life", I will act accordingly.

Well, Basementdweller, the AHG (as quoted above) says that marriage is a "lifelong commitment", which of course it is, but a lot of people don't seem to treat it that way, and sometimes it just doesn't work out to be that way. And different religions have different viewpoints on the consequences of ending that "lifelong commitment." I suspect that the AGH, like the BSA, practices "local option" on the issue of divorce, as the BSA does 98 percent of the time anyway. It's that other 2 percent...

USAFgunner, the fact is that BSA24 started this thread not to make a point about overweight/obese people (of which I am in the second category, moving toward the first with about 15 pounds to go), but to make a point about the policy towards gay leaders. Look at his second post in this thread. It is understandable that his point got lost on many people. This often happens when people try to be sarcastic or satirical in Internet forums. As I like to say, on the Internet, nobody can see you smile. I agree with BSA24 on the subject of gay leaders (I support local option), but this thread (and the other one where he said the BSA should ban smokers) was probably not the best way to make the point. Each to his own methods, I guess. I also want to say, thank you for your service to our country, and it is regrettable that you have had to pay the price that you paid for doing so. Most of the rest of us who are, ahem, "fat", don't have as good an excuse. I still haven't figured out, though, why the BSA says that (at least weight-wise) I am ok to go on any high adventure trip, but the BMI chart says I am "obese".

nldscout, are you saying that I (for example) am trying to destroy the BSA?

I don't know, but would you be interested in a wild guess?

I haven't seen it. It's been awhile since my kids have been young enough to watch the morning cartoons. It is nice to see they are doing something with some historical content. Charles Lee (assuming we are talking about the Revolutionary War figure) was an American (though born in England and a former British army officer) general and de facto second-in-command to George Washington during much of the war. In fact, he was Washington's main competition for the position of commander-in-chief and he resented Washington's appointment, since Lee had much more military experience. He was a controversial figure and his battle record was, to put it gently, mixed. There was a famous incident here in New Jersey when Lee, while marching part of the army south from New York to join Washington (for what became the Battle of Trenton), stopped for the night at a house (called a "tavern" in some accounts I have read) and in the morning was captured by the British while wearing his dressing gown. Was that part in the cartoon? Anyway, its good to see the BSA doing some advertising, I wonder whether it will do any good. Oh, Charles Lee is also the "Lee" in Fort Lee, New Jersey, which anyone who has ever been on the George Washington Bridge has passed through, whether they knew it or not.(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

The link won't work, it cuts off at the first comma, I tried cutting and pasting it myself and it still didn't work. I think it is something about the software that this forum runs on. (Or maybe I just don't know how to make it work.) So try this, it works: http://tinyurl.com/8hgaj29

I don't think we should get hung up on the word "political." It is not necessarily a dirty word, as many these days seem to think it is. There are times when "political" behavior is appropriate and times when it is inappropriate. Bando, I think that your comments at your ECOH were at least mildly "political". I also think were appropriate, or at least not inappropriate, in that setting. It was an acceptable thing to do, regardless of the label one may put on it. The varying status of word "political", depending on the situation, was brought home to me several months ago when I found myself in the office of my county Board of Elections, requesting some information (a voter registration list) in order to help some candidates I am campaigning for in a local election. When I told the clerk what I wanted, she asked me, "Is this for political purposes?" Now, most times one hears that question, the "correct" answer would be "no". But in this situation, the ONLY "correct" answer (which also was the truth in this case), was "yes". This was confirmed after I answered "yes" and was given a form to fill out, with instructions informing me that it was illegal to request the voter registration list for commercial purposes. In other words, they don't want telemarketers to have the list, but its fine for political campaigns to have the list -- even though part of the reason I want the list is so that people can make phone calls (sometimes called telemarketing) asking for people to support the candidates I am supporting. I just found that amusing.

But BSA rules say no gays, no athiest. I've only seen this in press releases, public statements, and the like. Where does it say this in the rules? As far as gay people, it isn't anywhere where you would expect to find "rules" or "policies" of the BSA. As I have pointed out many times, it is in the places you mention as well as legal briefs, and that's it. No handbooks, guidebooks, rulebooks or anything like that, that I am aware of. Kind of odd that they have rules about little red wagons (to quote the favorite example of the day) but not about something that is supposedly a core moral principle of the organization. Speaking of which (and still on the subject), there is a passage in the Supreme Court's majority decision in the Dale case that I have always found fascinating, and disturbing. It says: The Boy Scouts asserts that it teach[es] that homosexual conduct is not morally straight, Brief for Petitioners 39, and that it does not want to promote homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior, Reply Brief for Petitioners 5. We accept the Boy Scouts assertion. Since the first time I read that, I have wondered, where does the Boy Scouts teach that? I joined the BSA as a Cub Scout more than 45 years ago, and although I have not been a member straight through that period, I have been a Scout up to the age of 18, an active ASM for a short period after that, then as a parent I have been a den leader, assistant cubmaster, and troop committee member for about 12 years. I have read all the books and taken all the required training for all the positions that I have been in, and I pretty much know what has been in the last few editions of the Scout Handbook even though I have not studied every page. This "teaching" about homosexuality is nowhere to be found. In the occasional discussions I have had "in person" with other Scouters about this subject (never in earshot of the boys) I have sometimes asked them if they know of this "teaching" either, and nobody does. Just recently I was speaking with an old friend of my father's, and this guy probably has his 50-year pin at this point, if not more, because he never left Scouting when he aged out, like I did. I quoted that phrase to him, and he was surprised to hear it, and confirmed what I thought about it. (He is not a supporter of the current policy anyway.) As for atheism, however... I think the language of the Declaration of Religious Principle and the explanation for "A Scout is Reverent" in the Scout Handbook pretty much represent "rules" saying that a Scout or Scouter must have a belief in God. I'm not saying that's right, or that it should remain that way, or that there aren't a lot of "closet atheists" in the BSA (because there are), but it is there.

nldscout says: I said what half of the people on here think and say in private. Really? Which other members of the forum do you think call gay people those nasty names in private? When I think about the people in this forum who support the BSA policy, I cannot think of a single one (currently) who I would suspect of doing that. There are a few people who have posted in the forum in the past who might. They include a couple who have been banned, and then there's one who seems to have vanished fairly recently who, at some point in almost every discussion of the "gay issue", could be counted on to say "No flames in tents." But you are the first one who has let loose with a string of names like that, that I can recall. So I wonder who else you think speaks and talks that way in private but maintains what you call "PC" standards in this forum. And I think there is a difference between what you keep to yourself and what you display in public. (As I would think anyone who supports the BSA membership policy would agree with, at least part of the time.) Just out of curiosity, do you actually use those words publicly, or just when you are behind the anonymity of an account name? Do you use them when you are sitting on whatever bench it is that you sit on?

Kim Kardashian and other Hollywood nutjobs already did whatever damage was going to be done to the concept of marriage as serious business. No more damage can possibly be done. I agree, and I've made similar points a few times in this forum. Look at what some heterosexuals have done to good old regular marriage, and you wonder how much more damage could possibly be done to this "institution." And not just celebrities, although they're bad enough, but there are also all those regular-old people who treat their marriages as a joke, cheat all over the place, etc. etc. And this is the perfect, sanctified institution into which we cannot allow the 2-5 percent of the population who are gay? It doesn't make any sense. And keep in mind, the gay folks will get (and are getting) the whole package, not just the wonderful wedding-day part, but for those who are lucky enough, the arguing part, the divorce part, the child-custody part, etc. etc. Some gay married couples have gotten divorced already. Welcome to marriage, gay people. By the way, I don't think I have ever seen a Chik-Fil-a. There must not be very many in New Jersey, if any. We do have KFC's all over the place. I wonder what the Colonel would think of all this... (This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

I suspect that in "real life", nldscout is pretty good about keeping his hatred "in the closet", so to speak.

I have always thought the loops (I've never heard them called ribbons, though I guess they are both) are unnecessary. In my time as an adult leader I have worn patches with blue backgrounds that say Den Leader and Assistant Cubmaster and one with a tan background that says Troop Committee. To me, that is more descriptive than a loop. For the youths, you can tell what they are by their neckerchiefs (Tiger, Wolf, Bear, Webelos or anything else meaning Boy Scouts.) I will say that we have come full circle with the colors. I remember that sometime during my time as a Scout, red was adopted as the color for Exploring, green for Boy Scouting and of course blue has always been the main color for Cub Scouting. Sometime between when I aged out and when my son joined Cub Scouting, the Boy Scouting and Exploring (Venturing) colors were reversed, and now both have different shades of green. (Although I still proudly wear my red loops on my uniform and plan to for the rest of my Scouting life.) As for the orange loops on the New Jersey Scouts, OGE, all I can say is that this is something I have come across in (as I recall) two troops in my council: The Venture Patrol wears the orange (though I've seen them called "blaze") loops, which are really supposed to be for Varsity Scouts (of which I have never seen one in person.) As for "High Adventure Patrol", I guess that is just what that troop calls their "Venture Patrol." I don't think there is necessarily a rule against adopting different names, though they really shouldn't be wearing the orange/blaze loops. It's similar to the occasional mention I have seen in this forum of a troop here or there still having a "Leadership Corps." It isn't part of the current program, but it can't hurt anything. Our troop actually has a "Senior Patrol" consisting of the SPL, ASPLs, former SPL's who have not been made JASM's, and maybe another older Scout or two. (And in fact it is very similar to what the Leadership Corps was.) It's just a harmless tradition, I suppose. But they wear the same loops as everybody else (meaning a random and (to my mind) pointless assortment of red and green loops, depending on when they last bought a uniform shirt.)

You know, Pack, you can be pretty funny yourself.

BSA-24, I partly agree with you: We cannot make a definite judgment on someone's character and fitness to lead youth based solely on some anonymous postings on the Internet. However, when someone lets loose with a string of offensive terms for a group of people in a Scouting forum, and then after the post is removed, does the same thing a few days later, I'd say that's a pretty good clue that there may be an issue. In any event, it is not up to us to say who should be involved in some other unit. It is kind of within our "jurisdiction" to comment on whether someone who behaves in such a manner should continue to be permitted to post in the forum, and then those who are entrusted to make those decisions can make them. From that perspective, I think the kind of behavior we are talking about here crosses the line and warrants some serious action. But I'm just one of the great unwashed masses here, not one of the deciders.