NJCubScouter

Qwasze (and others), do you think this kid is just making up the idea that he is "really" a boy? Do you think he is lying? I guess I just don't understand why anyone would make something like that up, or even mention it to anyone unless they were absolutely sure it was true. This child certainly has not made his life any easier. In at least some respects, it would have been easier to continue to live his life as a girl. It would have been easier for his parents as well. I'm not ready to conclude that this kid is lying or making things up. And that being the case, I would not throw him out of a Cub Scout pack. To paraphrase the GSUSA policy, if he is living as a boy, and is accepted and recognized in the family, school and community as a boy, I think we can accept him as a boy as well.

Stosh, what "rule" is being broken when someone concludes that they are the "wrong" gender? Aside from that, the fact is that there have been many "rules" that have been changed over the years. This discussion sounds like a repeat of the hundreds of discussions of the "gay issue" over the years. How many times did I read statements in this forum saying that if we change this one rule, there will be no rules left. Well, the change was made and there are still rules for other things. The world did not end and the BSA is still here. We are capable of evaluating one rule at a time, and if necessary, changing it. And that assumes that the BSA even has a policy on this. The article quoted in this thread does not convince me that there really is a policy, just a hastily thrown-together idea that if the issue comes up in a particular unit, they're going to go by the birth certificate.

I think this is a complicated issue which I will admit I do not fully understand, but there are medical and psychological factors and apparently a growing amount of literature that needs to be considered. I don't think the issue is anywhere near as simple as some here are suggesting. We have discussed this issue a few times in the past and my observation was the the BSA did not have a policy on this subject. The article that is linked in the first post says this: So is there a policy? I don't know. There is a somewhat ambiguous statement from the BSA communications director. How was it formulated and approved? Were medical and psychological experts consulted? Has any information on this been distributed to the "field"? Or has the BSA just stumbled on a "policy" without adequate consideration? I looked on the GSUSA's web site and they do have a policy, which is this: I think that seems like a reasonable policy.

Same to you Stosh, and Merry/Happy/Joyous/Blessed (fill in your own blank) to all!

I am not a huge fan of the green-arrow/red-arrow/reputation-points system because it implies that the members of the forum are in some sort of competition with each other, when we are really just trying to have a conversation with each other. It would be nice to just talk without keeping score. But I do understand that upvoting/downvoting etc. is an almost universal feature of online communications these days.

I don't think it is necessary for the Scout to receive the packet back from the museum in order to pass that requirement. The first sentence says, write to the museum. Ok, the Scout writes to the museum. In Irving, TX. When the move takes place, the mail will be forwarded. Forwarding lasts a year. So if they change the requirements in the official requirements book to say "Irving TX or, when it moves, Philmont" and they do that for the 2018 edition (if they haven't already done it for the 2017 edition which has probably already been printed), none of the mail should go astray. Remember that the requirements book supersedes the requirements in the merit badge pamphlet. So no problem there. Second and third sentences, obtain information about the museum and write a report. It does not say that the information that you obtain necessarily has to be from the packet you eventually get back from the museum. The museum has a web site. Everything in the printed pamphlet is probably on that site, and more. The Scout can write the report based on the information obtained from the web site. No waiting. At least until Stosh's concern about all the electricity going out and our civilization reverting to the Stone Age comes to pass, so that the museum's web site disappears along with the rest of the online world. But at that point I don't think the niceties of requirement 4b for Scouting Heritage MB will be at top of everyone's priority list. To say nothing of the fact that several of the newer MB's will be completely impossible to earn when we are back in the pre-electric era.

Oh, I don't know, sometimes I am uniformed on nights when we are doing BOR's. However, I am rarely accused (at least in a BOR) of being uninformed. Sorry about that; I almost never point out typos, and I've made my fair share myself, but I couldn't resist on that one.

I have never seen anyone give the Scout Sign while reciting the Outdoor Code, but I cannot think of any reason why it would be inappropriate.

Writing to my congressman on any subject would be a waste of time. I don't think he makes his own decisions on what to vote for, on anything. I do have to give him credit for once attending an ECOH in my troop, but I got a chance to speak with him for a few minutes and was no more impressed than I had been from afar. He's an empty suit who got organizational support for his rise through the political ranks because his father was a prominent state legislator in the 1940's-60's. Not me, almost everybody I voted for this year lost. Actually only one candidate I voted for won, and that was for school board.

I didn't want to get into this, but I cannot help myself. A lot of people supported the "winning" candidate, but more supported the "losing" candidate. There's been a lot of talk about this being the "fault" of the outdated presidential selection system we have inherited from the 18th century, but actually the electoral college system would be mostly ok if it were not for the "winner take all" system. The electors should be allocated proportionally by state, which each state could do if they wanted. (And if anyone is wondering, I just looked for calculations of how this change would have affected the election, and yes, it would have made a difference, by a few votes.)

Sounds to me like a good result all around. The Scout is now looking at things in a calm, rational, productive manner. That result was achieved not by anyone yelling or screaming or digging in their heels, but by quasze presenting the options in a calm, rational and productive manner. You treated him like an adult, and he reacted like an adult, and maybe a BOR member or two acted more like an adult as well. Amazing how that works.

I think the answer is, if you don't like the petition, so don't sign the petition. I won't sign it, not because I disagree with it, but because I don't think I have ever signed an online petition (and very few in real life) and I'm not about to start now. I don't really see petitions as an effective way to get things done or get things changed.

Without wanting to get into a whole political discussion (which, if we were going to have it in this forum, probably would have been better to have BEFORE the election), I will just say this: Obviously there are a lot of people in this country who are very concerned about what is going to happen in this country and in the world as a result of this election, and that includes some people in this forum. It certainly includes me. That being the case, the impact of the incoming administration on the BSA is maybe 80th on my list of things to be concerned about. I am more concerned that our next president is a person who I believe to be mentally unstable, and who is so starved for attention and affection that many bad things are possible if someone offers him the "right" deal. And that's before I even get to any actual issues. So if you can think about the incoming administration and opportunities for the BSA in the same sentence, I envy you.

I would just point out that the "pledge" itself (I guess that's the same as the "petition") does not actually mention any particular religion. It says: Who could disagree with that? The explanatory material below the "pledge" does mention ""increased hate speech, hate crimes and discrimination against Muslims and persons perceived to be Muslim", but the pledge itself applies to all religions and all individuals.

I am sure the fact that they already own Philmont had a lot to do with it.

I just noticed a different issue. Shouldn't that say "the Boy Scouts of America or any of its councils?" Or something like that? As far as I know, the property owned and operated by the BSA (National) consists of four high adventure bases (including the Summit) and the National HQ in Texas. Right? And yet I can't imagine that National intends that drinking be happening on council properties either.

Good luck with that.

Tahawk, I agree with your post, both the specifics and the philosophy, but one little nitpick: I believe the Troop Guide is also appointed by the SPL in consultation with (or whatever the exact words are) the SM. Same as with the ASPL, Scribe, QM, Instructors, etc. There have also been discussions in the forum of the JASM position that revealed that in some BSA publications/web pages the JASM is also appointed by the SPL, and in others the JASM is appointed solely by the SM. In our troop it has always been solely up to the SM whether to appoint a JASM and who to appoint. It really doesn't make sense for the SPL to be involved in that one. The JASM is part of the SM's staff, not the SPL's staff.

I suspect the BSA figures that if they are renting the facility to an organization for an event, the organization can do or allow anything it wants, as long as the property is left in at least as good a condition as the group found it in, and does not do or allow anything illegal. (It may take 20 or more separately numbered paragraphs to express those two concepts in sufficient legal detail.)

Well, if you take things hyper-literally, "Free Beer to the Finishers" means you GET the beer. It says nothing about being able to actually "use" it on the premises, i.e. BSA property. I am kidding. Being able to drink it where you get it is certainly implied. Although... if I go into a liquor store in my town and buy a six-pack, then take it out in the parking lot, sit down on the curb and pop one open, I am violating my town's "no open container" ordinance. (Which is sporadically enforced, if ever, but it is on the books.) My guess, and it's only a guess, is that when the BSA rents out a piece of its property to an outside organization for an event such as this, it enters into a contract with the event promoter that specifies what can and cannot happen on the BSA's property during the event, and I also suspect that the BSA would take the position that this contract is what the promoter has to abide by, not the Guide to Safe Scouting. It's just a guess.

David: Idealized nude neoclassical statuary is one thing. But when you put a clothed figure in there, it seems kind of incongruous. At last in that particular statue, in my opinion, it's no longer the idealized human form representing virtuous and heroic ideals. Now it's a statue of some people wearing clothes and other people not wearing clothes. The fact that one of them is a child (or adolescent) makes it... well, kind of creepy. In my opinion.

Nothing wrong with that, I have a daughter who was "only" a Brownie for a couple years; actually she was a Daisy before that. My other daughter made it to whatever it is you are in the 7th grade before losing interest.

That was me. I was looking only for Cabinet members and other very-high-level presidential appointees, though I suppose I could have included Ford on the basis that he was appointed VICE president. It was not a very scientific process. The same site also had a list of famous non-Eagle Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts. First in alphabetical order on that list was Hank Aaron. (Our still-current President is also on that list.) That page is here if anyone wants to see the whole thing: http://usscouts.org/eagle/bsfamous.asp

From the requirements I looked at earlier, it looks like one's chance to be nominated would probably increase if one were active in the nearest available (Insert name of your religion or denomination here) Committee on Scouting. Just what you were looking for, another hour a week (or month, or less) to spend on Scouting!

I decided to look for lists of Eagle or Gold Award recipients who were Cabinet members in past administrations. What I found were the usual lists of Eagle Scouts who held a wide variety of government positions (Congress, Governor, top military leaders, big city mayors as well as Cabinet members), took one of them, and then cut it down to include just the Cabinet members or Undersecretary positions or other very high positions in the executive branch (including the White House.) I also found a similar list of GSUSA alumna (but not specific about whether they were Gold Award recipients and cut it down according to the same criteria. I did a very small amount of editing of these lists to remove some extraneous information; the comments in [brackets] are mine alone. Eagle Scouts in U.S. Executive Branch positions Lamar Alexander - Governor of Tennessee, Secretary of Education, presidential candidate William Bennett - Secretary of Education Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr. - Treasury Secretary & U.S. Representative from Texas James Brady - Press Secretary to President Reagan Rear Admiral Jay M. Cohen, USN - Undersecretary of Homeland Security Robert M. Gates - Director of Central Intelligence (CIA) and Secretary of Defense [and of course, BSA President 2014-16] Donald Rumsfeld - Secretary of Defense William Sessions - FBI director Sam Skinner - Secretary of Energy during the Bush administration Togo West - Secretary of the Army and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Girl Scouts in U.S. Executive Branch positions Albright, Madeleine - Former US Secretary of State Barshefsky, Charlene - US Trade Representative Browner, Carol - Former Administrator-Environmental Protection Agency Herman, Alexis M. - former US Secretary of Labor Hills, Carla - US Trade Representative Kirkpatrick, Jeanne - Former US Ambassador to the United Nations Ray, Dixie Lee - Former Governor of Washington, Chair of the Atomic Energy Commission Reno, Janet - Former US Attorney General Rice, Condoleezza - US Secretary of State Richardson, Margaret M. - Commissioner IRS Clinton, Hillary - 67th US Secretary of State and Presidential Candidate [Never heard of her] Shalala, Donna - Former US Secretary of Health and Human Services