packsaddle

19 minutes ago, shortridge said:

Hello, sir. Have you met scrapple?

LOL, deeeelish! Similar to our regional 'livermush' which I can sheepishly admit to scarfing down in large quantities, fried....when much younger....before I knew what was in it. Goetta is better but my fav is, naturally, crawfish or gator boudin, neither of which I can find locally. The cuisine of Louisiana is just wonderful. And now, that I'm really hungry, I will retire to the kitchen.

LOL, That's just wonderful. How have I missed this? I'll check it out.

Edit: nevermind, I know how I've missed this. The South. Kosher doesn't count for much here. That would be wasted on folks used to eating ears, noses, and tails (and that higher authority only knows what else!)

1 hour ago, WisconsinMomma said:

Here's the thing, it's not funny.  My husband had a Chemistry professor who told him something like, "the taller they are, the more fun they are to ride."  Is that a joke?  Is it funny?  Is it Chemistry?  This is the kind of garbage that goes around and it's inappropriate. 

And today, that guy would be in clear violation of Title IX, and if some administrator had been looking for a reason to replace him he'd be out on his ear. I promise my students a safe learning environment. I also inform them that I do NOT promise them a 'comfortable' one. 

SSScout, I'm curious about that Hebrew National hot dog commercial. Is it online anywhere?

2 hours ago, Tired_Eagle_Feathers said:

Just talked to my wife.  Yes, I am a Girl Scout, but our son is not.  But, he can (and does) go if the Troop Leader fills out the paperwork.

Nevermind, I just figured it out.

Eagle94-A1, 

I wouldn't know the answer to your question as it is not my field. I looked at that paper through the eyes of a journal editor, not as a neurophysiologist. Sorry, wish I could help more. 

The one thing I feel safe in saying is that in another 5 years, things will likely have changed greatly. What we have done in the recent past may look primitive in comparison.

WITW, So I took a look at those two references out of curiosity. So The Telegraph article basically is an opinion piece based on scientific articles that are not obviously referenced. The actual scientific article that you gave a link to is dated 2015 while The Telegraph article is dated 2013 which makes me think the scientific article is not the same one referenced by the newspaper. But as the conclusions are probably similar and perhaps better supported by the article in Cerebral Cortex, this difference is probably ok. 

In the Cerebral Cortex article I was struck by the similarity of the analysis to ecological studies that rely heavily on statistical inference. Their data consist of measurements made using tomography and tractography which produces images of the structure of 'slices' through living tissues, in this case brains. Physical measurements of size and position are possible and inferences of connections of different types are also possible. All of this data is then analyzed using, in this case, some basic statistical methods. They relied on a public database of these images and data for their analyses. 

We are all potentially susceptible to what we seem to term 'confirmation bias'. If there is anyone in these forums who hasn't thought, or heard, the generality that female humans seem to mature more quickly than males, with respect to cognitive development as well as other characteristics, then that person has just not been very aware of their surroundings. In education circles, this is a central assumption, mostly based on empirical observations of the actual behaviors of children at different ages. I am wearing my 'skeptic hat' right now so here is what I think about that article:

The authors may be influenced by the 'background' notion that there is a difference. They went looking for it and, wonder of wonders, found it. What did we learn that K-12 teachers don't already know? 

Look at the results. Figure 4, for example, is a map of the resulting differences in their version of the connections. These 'maps' show what? That there is a difference. If anyone thinks these maps are going to become something that we use to make predictions about behavior in the future or how to 'control' it, that is indeed a 'stretch'. 

Figure 5 is totally reminiscent of ecological data because while those regression lines are significant, a casual glance at the scatter of the data indicates that those lines have virtually no predictive power whatsoever. And then these results are employed in creating sweeping 'models' (Figure 7) that look like we have actually mastered the questions of what it all means. LOL, and we certainly haven't, I assure you. 

I was unable to find in the article the words 'hypothesis' or 'experiment'. I was unable to find conditional statements such as, 'if this is true then we should find the following' or 'if this is not true then we should observe the following'. These kinds inquiring statements may be implied but they are not stated and as such, it seems that the authors make the assumption that differences may exist and then they look for them...and find them. All that is just fine except....what do we know as a result of all that, that we didn't already 'know' and use in educational practice? 

My answer to that last question is: not much, if anything. It basically confirms what we already think is there, provides virtually no predictive capacity that we don't already have, and is likely (the absence of pagination suggests an online journal format) to be quickly forgotten as (hopefully) we progress, some day in the future, to a level of real understanding of 'what makes us tick'. This paper makes me think that perhaps we actually haven't progressed all that farther along from employing concepts like 'humors' to explain things. 

But thanks for the link. At least it's nice to see what passes as 'state of the art'. 

8 hours ago, Ranman328 said:

Don't be so sure.  Some of these Scouts come up with some interesting ideas.

Riding a hatchet? Ouch! 😂

MattR, your comment regarding cheating resonates with me because these patterns of deception seem to become established when quite young (and perhaps they're innate, I don't know) but I see many examples of even older young people (not a typo) in my classes. And they seem to have a different understanding of what 'honesty' is from what I think and was taught. 

You can see some of this in the way that so-called votes are given during these so-called talent shows after which text messages are used to tally the vote. Evidently it is common to allow multiple 'votes' from each 'voter' if they want to take the time and expense to do it. While I couldn't care less about what happens on one of those vapid wastes of time, the 'anything goes' idea seems to fix itself into their other activities as well. So I spend considerable time and effort in defeating these things when it comes time for assessment. And, once again, I suspect that if the monkeys were intelligent enough to engage in the same behavior, they would. My point, then, is that whatever we can do to give them the tools for making fewer risky or harmful decisions will make things much better in the long run. The Eagle father-to-be, I hope, will take his responsibilities as a father seriously and I also hope that his adult peers can offer help and support to make sure his mistake doesn't harm a person who had no choice whatsoever on how to enter this world.

sst3rd, I'm evidence that 'old' doesn't preclude acceptance (or even embracing) change. Things change. Live long enough and you learn that if you don't adapt you risk getting left behind.

49 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

If this was such a popular, in demand decision, why hasn't national released the MEMBERSHIP ( emphasis) survey results on the topic?

Could be they don't think it's needed, or any other of numerous other possible reasons. 

44 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

The advantage of patrol method for boys growth is gone after age 14.

Actually, I think patrol method would continue to work right up through college if we gave it a try. The young males I see of that age group, for the most part, could sure use some of those skills. But being coed or not seems irrelevant to the potential benefits of patrol method. What do you think IS the relevance?

I agree with your sentiment about adult led units. I simply think that not much would change one way or the other with coed status. 

The explorer posts were, as far as I could tell, almost completely run by the explorers, not the adults. The young women seemed to be more organized and exhibited greater leadership than the young men. I reject the notion that adults have to run these units for them to be successful.

On 10/3/2018 at 7:33 PM, Ranman328 said:

I just recently had to tell several of my scouts that they couldn't deliver mulch using a wheel barrel.  They are 12 and according to the new Guide to Safe Scouting, scouts under 14 are not allowed to use Wheel Barrels or wagons.  They can use an axe, hatchet, knife, fire and propane stoves but not a wheel barrel.  Strange.

LOL, I suspect that there will be little chance that a bunch of scouts will see how fast they can hurtle down a steep hill riding on a propane stove or hatchet.

2 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

The theory of staring a separate girls' troop is great. The reality is that it won't happen. The troop will become coed.  As more and more adults use to a coed Cub Scout program move into the troop, they will see no problem with being a "linked troop," which is national's codeword for coed. They will start promoting the concept, and their numbers grow and/or they get into key positions to implement the change, they will.

 

The camel's nose is already under the tent flap.

If our social interactions somehow determine that coed is what most of people want, then I agree. Under that situation coed is almost inevitable in time, and maybe sooner than some of us would like. Personally, I like the idea. Before these changes I heard a lot of 'wishing' from scout parents that daughters could join in with the boys as scouts, and complaints about them being excluded. My daughter felt the pain of the exclusion so I sympathized with those other parents. I've seen no problems in the explorer units I've interacted with in the past. I see no reason it won't work just as well for younger folks.

Camels, OTOH, I don't much care for.

Another test post.

Test post

As I gaze on the small pack of grandsons that I have, what I view is their access to media and interactions with others in more ways and much greater freedom than my generation even dreamed of. This is, to some extent, affected by rapidly-changing technology and I seriously doubt that even the best-intended 'rules' or 'guidelines' or whatever you want to call them, can keep with with those rapid changes. That doesn't mean that we should 'throw in the towel' (I can dig even deeper into the collection of cliches if needed) but rather that we perhaps should spend more time and attention on just what all these new abilities mean in the context of 'old' concepts like family and community. This is a rapidly-evolving system and I'm not sure that any rule, by the time it's established by an authority, is going to be even applicable, much less effective, at addressing a problem. 

That said, the small pack of grandsons continue their entry into society and the world...acting pretty much like children always do...in our hearts, we're all just a bunch of monkeys, my grandsons provide ample evidence.

Welcome to the forums, danielhenry12.

Thanks, like I needed something ELSE to make me feel really old.

RichardB, Wow I almost forgot. This is off topic I know but is Dave Steele still around someplace? I kinda miss him.

Thanks gblotter, that's a lot to digest at once. Back when I was an ASM our unit also became frustrated with various aspects of council and district. That was almost 20 years ago now. Our solution was basically to shrug off the nonsense and just do what we thought was best for our unit and then apologize if someone thought we had broken some rules. We basically were in a 'local option' mode. 

No offense taken. We made our decisions with the unit as the top priority. I suspect that we are not alone in that approach. I've never been that much in awe of the decisions that are made 'top down' anyway. I've always wondered why it is that nearly everyone claims to want to live their own lives and make their own decisions....and then practically fall on their knees in reverent thanks when rules are imposed on them from the outside. It's just me. I wonder about a lot of things.

12 hours ago, Kryten said:

In this situation, I don't understand how it is the responsibility of the troop to provide the female leadership. If your pack is working outside of the rules it is on the pack to make it work. The same if  it was an all girl den.

The real problem is with the blaytonly sexist rule of the BSA.

I hope you can get it worked out.

Could you please expand on your 'blatantly sexist' characterization of the BSA and how this is the real problem in this case? (yes, I know this risks going off-topic but it might be related depending on Kryten's reasoning)

8 hours ago, NealOnWheels said:

I wonder how long it will be before the owners and hosts of this website are sued for defamation of character.

Hi NoW, Are you commenting about THIS website or the one linked in the original post?

Interesting. My wife has asked the same thing. All I could think of as a response was: "I am really, really tired." 

For some reason that was good enough. But the truth is that...I really am really, really tired. No one in their right mind would want this old bag of bones.

Children have active imaginations and they develop the ability to lie very quickly. I'm not sure if it's innate or if they're taught but false accusations are serious and I'm fairly certain that young people don't take this seriously enough. A false accusation creates multiple victims, including the accuser. I don't have a solution after the accusation has been made other than to make sure that the truth comes out and that the accuser knows how wrong it is. 

OK, it got personal. So I locked this thread. If another moderator wants to unlock it, I will not object.