NJCubScouter

25 minutes ago, Cambridgeskip said:

Urban myth that one!

It is true that in the last census a number of people put variations of Jedi down as their religion. However for statistical purposes this was put down as "no religion". Presumably as those putting it down were taking the proverbial!  Data is available to download from here. Being shown on stats output doesn't make a religion "official", it's just an official recognition by the government that it exists and is taken into account for setting policy.

Really? Wow, I really thought that was true.  And it's not a new thing, it goes back probably 25 or 30 years.  I guess it's a particularly persistent urban legend.  Thanks for clearing that up.

25 minutes ago, Cambridgeskip said:

Actually I found a scan through that sheet quite instructive. While it doesn't have the numbers on it for each entry it does show the staggering number of religions and sub divisions of each that exist in what is one relatively small country.

Especially interesting given that yours is a country that has an official religion.  (Or is that an urban legend too?  I don't think it is.  I know that the Queen is considered the head of the Church of England, which sounds pretty official to me.)

22 minutes ago, ParkMan said:

But if the BSA is out of the morality definition business it's not. 

The BSA will never be out of the morality definition business.  The BSA has a moral code:  Trustworthy loyal helpful friendly courteous kind obedient cheerful thrifty brave clean and reverent. Duty to God, country, others and self.  Be clean in our outdoor manners, etc.  Those are all moral values.  One might even say, "Timeless Values."  Some of the definitions within those basic precepts have changed.  "Clean" does not necessarily mean what some people once thought it meant (and what the BSA told the U.S. Supreme Court it meant.)  But I don't think we should let the 2 percent (my estimate) of the "values" that have changed obscure the 98 percent that have not.

Sometimes being a moderator in this forum is like being Homer Simpson watching the nuclear reactor start to melt down, and he can't find the button to shut everything off.

But I can see when the temperature is starting to rise to dangerous levels.  One of the things that is sure to raise the temperature in here is questioning other posters' motivations, or appearing to do so - and that goes in both directions.  It isn't against the "rules" to do so (in my interpretation of them at least), but it often leads to things that do violate the "rules."

So could we please turn down the temperature?  For Homer's sake, at least?

I'm not sure what the Jedi "religion" would be.  There is the Force (which actually has been registered as an official religion in the UK, where they have official lists of religions, unlike here), but that can be used by both the good guys and the bad guys.  So maybe the Jedi religion is a belief in the "positive use of The Force."  But is that really a religion?  In the religions I am aware of, everybody can join.  You just have to profess the right belief, go through the right ritual (if applicable), and maybe other incidental things like paying some money.  But membership in the Jedi is not open to all, in fact it is open only to a select few:  Those who can use the Force.  Uncle Owen, Han Solo, Admiral Akbar and Chewbacca are (or were) all good people... er, good individuals, but they could not be Jedi, because they didn't "have it."  That doesn't sound like a religion to me.  And if it is, it does not really seem to be an "organized" religion. 

Plus, whatever questionable things he may have done through most of the movie, didn't Luke fully redeem himself in the end?  It sure looked that way to me.

4 hours ago, ParkMan said:

It would be interesting to explore how the BSA could have approached the gay and transgender membership decisions in a way that would have kept us above the political hot potato it became.

On the "gay issue," and considering both the decisions not to change the policy, and the decision to change the policy, I do not see any way that the BSA could have avoided the controversies that both caused and resulted from those decisions.  The issue implicated strongly-held religious and/or moral beliefs on both sides.  To a large degree the controversy mirrored the nationwide public debate that was going on at the same time regarding marriage equality.  (I am not equating the two issuees, but I think they are parts of the same larger issue.)  And then there were both the internal dynamics within the BSA, including large CO's being on one side of the issue, but at the same time the BSA wishing to remain a nationwide organization rather than risking the disappearance of Scouting in certain areas (like mine.)  When the final decision was made, the BSA did do one thing to try to make the opponents of the decision less unhappy, which was to allow a "local option" for religious organizations - which from all indications, seems to be working reasonably well.  (I know someone is going to say that the departure of the LDS Church indicates otherwise, but I think they were going to leave regardless of any particular decision.) (And no, I am not defending the process, either the process, that could have been handled better  from 2012 200

On the transgender decision, as I said at the time, I think the cause of that was simply fatigue. The BSA had just finished 15 years of intense controversy (and probably about 20 years of less intense controversy before that) on the "gay issue."  They didn't want to deal with another hot-button issue, so they didn't.  Plus, they probably already knew that they were about to go into a decision-making process regarding the "girls" issue and did not want the two issues to get tangled up  

3 hours ago, ParkMan said:

You'd think that for such an important document, 6 people must have reviewed it too.  

I agree. I generally don’t point out typos on the Internet (unless they are really funny) but this not a forum message, email or text.  It is a real document.  Not to mention, if you’re going to change the name of something, it looks especially bad to get the new name wrong on the first day.

7 hours ago, Gwaihir said:

"the lore is part of the integral the way water..."

 

I think I have mild dyslexia... what the heck kind of a sentence is that! 

It reminds me of the time George W. Bush tried to say “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”  It did not go well.

My friendly advice was ignored, so this thread is being locked.

@RememberSchiff @John-in-KC @Sentinel947

2 minutes ago, walk in the woods said:

There's a fair amount of that discussion in https://www.scouting.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Scouts-BSA-FAQ-050218-2.pdf.  

Thank you.  I don't know whether I had seen that.  It doesn't fill me with great confidence that although the program will be "Scouts BSA," they couldn't even get through the introduction before calling it "Scout BSA," without an s.   

2 hours ago, ParkMan said:

The BSA is basically providing us a program that we implement locally.  Perhaps it would just be better if the BSA let's us all sort it out locally.  Does it really matter if some particularly progressive people in one part of the country want to have closely linked troops whereas some very conservative people in another part do not want boys and girls to mix at all?  Doesn't that really give us all the freedom to run troops according to our own values?

That is fine with me, but if they do that, they should TELL us they are letting us sort it out troop by troop.  As opposed to having rules that they don't intend to enforce.  Actually, they are already doing part of it.  It is clear that a CO that does "not want boys and girls to mix at all" does not have to take a charter for a girl's troop at all, so there will be no girls.  If it is an area where everybody thinks girls should not in Scouts BSA, then there probably will not be any other organization that wants to be CO of a girls troop, either - and for the same reason, there may be little to no demand for one.

Where the BSA is NOT being clear (as far as I know) is the degree of "closeness" (or joint activities) between the two units that is expected and/or permitted.  That is what we need to know.  If we are supposed to figure it out for ourselves, I want to see a memo or something from National that says "figure it out for yourselves."  I think most people want to follow the rules, but we need to know what the rules are.

19 minutes ago, walk in the woods said:

The video on the front page of the Family Scouting website, about the 8:15 mark, "We're not mandating that scouting becomes co-ed."

2 minutes ago, Gwaihir said:

NJC was being a lawyer, and his point stands.  "BSA" means "Boy Scouts of America", which is the corporation, and under than corporation Venturing, Explorers, Sea Scouts and the ridiculous Learning for Life programs all exist and are co-ed.  You were referring to "Boy Scouts" the program, which the CSE has stated wouldn't be co-ed.   

Gwaihir (who doesn't usually agree with me) correctly states what I meant.  But it does bring up a point that I should clarify, which is that when I said we all need to get our terminology straight, I was including National.  I have posted a number of times (maybe including in this thread) about various ways in which National was using vague and sometimes misleading terms, and sometimes using them in self-contradictory ways.  The prime example in my opinion is the phrase "Family Scouting," which I have posted about several times.  A close second is "linked troops."  They need to come out with a detailed set of guidelines as to how "linked troops" will relate to each other and how they won't, including the terminology to be used, so hopefully we who labor out here in the field can accurately relate the facts to others, and comply with the rules.  (Maybe they have, but I haven't seen it, and my troop may need it soon, as it seems that we (including our CO) probably will be "open" to the idea if someone asks us.)

2 minutes ago, HashTagScouts said:

Unfortunately, the terminology not being straight is a direct reflection that National hasn't had their terminology straight from the get go.  Remember, it was going to be a "separate program" for girls.  Do I believe that what they were referring to was simply "separate troops"? Yes, in hindsight, fully I do believe that was their intent.  Did everyone read it that way? No, I feel the posting on these forums reflect that. 

...

Again, knowing more now and looking back at these comments from the CSE, I'm finding myself looking to read between the lines.  "We're not mandating" now feels to me more like "we are not telling you you must, but we are not going to get in the way of".

I want to NOT have to read between the lines, but who am I?  Just a random troop committee member.  You are correct that it was announced as a separate program, which at least implied that the new program would have a separate name.  It didn't happen that way, which I think is a big mistake.  But the numbers will tell, eventually.

On 5/27/2018 at 7:14 AM, walk in the woods said:

Actually the CSE very specifically said, on multiple occasions, the BSA is not going co-ed.  Are you saying the CSE lied to us? 😱

I’ll bet you a dollar he never said “the BSA” is not going coed.  The BSA has been coed for 45 years.  In this time where program names are being changed, it’s especially important to get our terminology straight.

I carry around a tote bag, it was my “free gift” for joining the AARP.

3 minutes ago, The Latin Scot said:

Yes sir!

At ease.

Ok, that’s it.  No more negative remarks about other posters.  No more ascribing motivations to other posters, who you don’t know.  If people want to talk about Star Wars and the BSA, in a Scoutlike manner, go right ahead. Otherwise, this thread is going to be locked.

1 hour ago, Eagle1993 said:

 

@The Latin Scot

Apparently you are a liberal.  Welcome to the club.  @CalicoPenn will send you your introductory gift basket.

I am fairly certain that LatinScot is NOT a “liberal.”  Not only have I read his posts, I never see him at any of the meetings.

A service activity?  Is that anything like a service project? 

Assuming that the Han Solo movie indeed flops, I'm going to throw out an alternative theory here on why that may be the case.  It is based on not much more than the reaction I had when I first heard they were making a Han Solo movie, and my supposition that there are other people somewhere out there who had the same reaction.  I'm going to go see it, just because it's a Star Wars movie (in fact, I thought of taking my wife to see it later today, but I think we'll wait until next weekend.)  But as much as I like Star Wars, I want to see something new.  I know that a movie that is part of a series is necessarily going to have some relationship to previous movies, but things need to move ahead.  There is a point at which the references to the past just become too much.  One of the worst examples of crossing this line was a scene in the second "new Star Trek" movie (the one with Khan) which had the same dialogue as a scene in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, they just reversed the characters. ("Ship... out of danger?"  My son, sitting next to me, had to restrain me from yelling at the screen. Hopefully somebody here knows what I am talking about.)  Anyway, here's the thing.  I know Han Solo.  I have known Han Solo for more than 40 years.  Do I really need to see another movie about Han Solo?  Especially when it doesn't advance the story?  (The last movie was partly about Luke, but it wasn't ALL about Luke, and it did advance the story, and allowed Luke to go out a hero even though it didn't seem that way for most of the movie.)  The other "non-episodic" ST film, Rogue One, was different because it had different main characters and answered a couple of questions that had been kind of hanging around for more than 40 years.  But Han Solo's childhood?  It just doesn't excite me.  I suspect there are others who are less excited too.  It is somewhat analogous to the very-short-lived "Young Indiana Jones" movies, which I never watched, and it appears that not very many people watched it either.  (I tried to find an example that did not have some connection to Harrison Ford, but couldn't, off the top of head.)  Like I said, I'll see it, if only to maintain the fact that I have seen every Star Wars movie in a theater since the beginning.  But if it is not gaining great enthusiasm, I think my theory may be better than the one about outraged anti-feminists boycotting Star Wars.

If anyone can come up with a connection between MY theory and the BSA, as Spock might say, I'm all ears.

4 minutes ago, BigDale said:

I discovered that it is best not to pass out the tools until just before you turn them loose on the stamping tools. 

That sounds like a useful thing to discover! 

On 5/26/2018 at 4:37 PM, SSF said:

Is it likely that changes will be made to Disney's take on the Star Wars universe given this financial hit?

This forum being what it is, I feel compelled to say that the following is sarcasm:

Sure, the next movie is going to have no female characters, just men.  And no alien males either, because in the current political climate who wants to see them, so all human men.  Unfortunately I'm not quite sure which human men are still alive, except the ex-stormtrooper and what's-his-name, Rey's new boyfriend, and maybe Lando.  And whatever happened to Wedge Antilles.  (Sorry, my "peak" as a Star Wars fan was sometime around the release of Episode VI, and I'm talking about the version with the force-ghost of the old Anakin at the end, not the Haydn Christensen Anakin.)

The preceding comment has been sarcasm, well except that parenthetical part at the end, that was serious.  The sarcasm is now over.  Only serious comments will follow.

Quote

Should the BSA expect a similar financial hit, over its decision to allow girls to join the BSA?

They clearly don't expect one, they expect the opposite.  Whether they should or not has of course been a matter of debate, but I think the discussion of what will happen is mainly a waste of time at this point.  Predictions of the future aren't worth the pixels they're printed on.  We will know when it does or doesn't happen.

And back to Star Wars for a second, the fact is that movies have had social-change themes forever.  A few days ago my wife and I happened to run across the movie "Desk Set" (Tracy-Hepburn) on tv and watched most of it, for about the 20th time.  It was made "a long, long time ago," 1957 I believe.  I wonder how some here would have reacted to parts of that when it came out.

On the other hand, as I said the last time this subject came up, sometimes a movie is just a movie.

5 minutes ago, David CO said:

I wasn't expecting the Spanish inquisition!

But what you probably were expecting was for me or someone else to say, NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition.

What I will say instead, is:  Imagine, a Jewish person being an Inquisitor.  The shoe has certainly landed on the other foot.

On 5/23/2018 at 11:57 AM, Gwaihir said:

I really wouldn't be surprised if the Lenni Lanape Lore that is at the foundation of the Order is dropped entirely in 5 years.  

(Emphasis added.)

I realize I am about to commit heresy in the eyes of some, but I don't think the Lenni Lenape lore is "at the foundation" of the OA.  What I think it "at the foundation" of the OA is service, camping, brotherhood (with a small b, but maybe it's going to be siblinghood now anyway), and perhaps other related attributes.  The LL lore is the trappings - important ones, but still trappings.  I think it is there to lend an aura of intrigue to the whole thing.  And maybe a sense that these guys are in their own league.  But take away the lore, the dancing, etc. and you still have a foundation based on service, camping, brother/sisterhood, etc.  But I guess that in the eyes of many, the lore HAS become the foundation, and that's the problem. 

30 minutes ago, WisconsinMomma said:

The Troop just had a brat sale...

That's a good idea.  We have a couple of brats in the troop who I wouldn't mind selling off.  Oh, not that kind of brat...

I am not excited about it.  I am accepting of it, and if asked to be the advancement chair for a troop of girls as well as the current troop of boys (whether "linked" or otherwise), I will accept that too.  It is starting to look like, if we have a sufficient number of girls in our town who are interested, we will probably end up with "linked" troops.  Or a linked troop. A linked troops?  They really need to get that terminology straightened out if they want me to use it correctly. 

Grammar aside, I view the whole thing with a mixture of curiosity and concern.

Anyway, I was a Cub Scout and Boy Scout, 1966-76, am a Life for Life, was SPL and JASM, was briefly an 18-year-old ASM, got my Ordeal sash but never really participated in OA after that.  After my son joined Scouting, I have been a Den Leader, Assistant Cubmaster and most recently Troop Committee Member for the past 15 years or so (and currently Advancement Chair), and MBC for the "Cits", Communications and Law.

For whatever it's worth, my younger brother, who is an Eagle and stayed active as an ASM for a couple of years after turning 18, but has no children and has not been involved in the BSA since then, is dead-set against this.  Not that it matters that much, because he is not a Scouter.  What I find funny about this is that my brother is way, way more "liberal" than I am and was all for opening the BSA to gay people, so the average person would probably not expect my brother to have the opinion that he does on admitting girls.  I certainly did not expect it.  But there you go.

45 minutes ago, ScoutMama43 said:

Our first indication of an issue was a phone call several days later telling us that we would be receiving a Cease Participation letter via certified mail withing the next day or two. 

Did you actually receive the letter?  Who was it from?  (Sorry, when you post on a forum you never know when another member might be a lawyer and start cross-examining you.    )