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packsaddle

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Everything posted by packsaddle

  1. packsaddle
    Rick, yes we'll see. What you described for well-meaning scouters making scouts feel uncomfortable or as you put it, unwelcome, is a couple of steps back from what I described in my example AND what I have observed far more often than the extreme case I mentioned. Moosetracker, eagledad was the person who attempted to equate knot-tying with religious faith during BOR questioning. I merely responded. You're right. Retest is wrong in both cases but while a 'retest' of how to tie a knot is possible and probably happens frequently, what test is it that you think would be a 'retest' for religiou
  2. packsaddle
    Moosetracker, I'm so very glad for you and the perfect EBOR in your district. Which ones of those questions that you list are mandated in the new requirements? List those and I will gladly respond. Eagledad, How is it that you think you know my thoughts and then feel competent to inform everyone of what they are? I do not think ALL scouters are prejudiced. I know for sure that some of them are, however. I do not have a "grudge against god in scouting". I object to persons who USE God in scouting as a means to push their own prejudices regarding religious faith. Since I have also obs
  3. packsaddle
    "For some reason you think reverence is the hard part and that all scout leaders are looking to "ambush?" Innocent young scouts." Eagledad, What I think is that a person's faith is impossible for anyone else to judge, unlike how to tie some knot. Faith might seem simple to someone who does not grasp the personal nature of a person's faith but failure to grasp that doesn't thereby make it simple or easy outside that one person's mind. An 'ambush' by asking a scout about a knot is something that has commonality among all scouts. We all know, or have the ability to know what a 'square knot' is
  4. packsaddle
    Moosetracker, I didn't TAKE IT anywhere except to provide an actual real example of an event that really happened...which illustrated his point. Look closely at what you just wrote. You just admitted that you don't like the change and you think there will be problems. Moreover you have suggested words that boys can use to get around this issue. None of that constitutes support for the change. I think the point is that these scouts shouldn't have to be 'prepped' for this issue in the first place. YOU should not have to offer pat answers that they can memorize in order to 'get around' the is
  5. packsaddle
    We considered it but there was so little interest by the boys that we never got around to it. Perhaps some other time.
  6. packsaddle
    OK, from the real world: EBOR, even before this expected change. District guy, "Can you tell us a little about your faith?" Scout, "Yes" District guy, "What is it?" Scout, "I'm a Unitarian Universalist." District guy, "Tell me more about that, does that mean you're Christian?" Scout, "No, we are not Christian?" District guy, "NOT Christian, what does that mean, do you believe in God?" Scout, "I'm not sure I can explain it to you. It depends on what you think God is? We mostly leave those kinds of things up to each person in our faith. Unitarian Universalism is a little complicated that
  7. packsaddle
    I'm quite aware of objects that are and have been considered by some as Holy. The Toomer's Oaks, for example, at Auburn were the site of all manner of rituals during football worship. And when someone killed them and was caught (they were poisoned by Harvey Updike), he was sentenced among other things, to pay restitution in the amount of $800,000.00. That was some pretty expensive firewood. Some thoughtless person damaged a rock that was/is an object of worship at Clemson University (Howard's Rock) which was nothing more than a chunk of quartzite that you can pick up lots of places around th
  8. packsaddle
    Wonder how many others like him are out there undiscovered. My favorite line was by Gruber when he was trying to sell some trinket. I'll try to get it right, "...and this isn't that cheap domestic stuff either...look! Made in Japan!" Of course that was before Japan basically kicked our butts in electronics and cameras and cars and.......
  9. packsaddle
    I can say with great confidence that discovering for the first time the term 'plop camping' was just wonderful. Thanks. My MB picks for Eagle required: camping first aid cooking wilderness survival (beefed up quite a bit) personal fitness pioneering swimming/cycling/hiking. I would break the others into functional groups and require two from each with the remainder as 'electives'. If they combined all three citizenship badges into a single citizenship badge it wouldn't hurt my feelings.
  10. packsaddle
    JC's mom, apologies for all the side tracks. I hope you got what you needed already. So..for those who follow the Baden Powell school, what does Baden Powell say about the Eagle project? Stosh, are you saying there is no leadership component to project management?
  11. packsaddle
    If the Power Rangers qualify then all is well. I can feel the noodly touch of the one true higher power as I write, and BSA can count itself safe from those who would minimize the importance of this requirement. Whew!
  12. packsaddle
    Stosh, The gift of gab will get him those invitations, lol. My EBOR took all of about 15 minutes. Maybe 20. As I remember it was held on the 5th floor of a bank building and the board consisted of a group of civic and business leaders and executives who were completely unknown to me. My appointment was one of many at a set time on a set date and everyone entered on time and exited on time. I believe it was a council-level EBOR but it might have been a district-level one...I'm not sure about that part. I marched in in full uniform, saluted and stood at attention. They put me at ease and asked
  13. packsaddle
    I've seen it happen. This policy change will tend to empower or facilitate those 'yo-yos'.
  14. packsaddle
    The elements of the oath are not being questioned here. The TEST of the oath for ONE of those, singled out in this policy change, the most personal element of all, is being questioned. It is the part of the oath that someone other than the person holding a belief can least comprehend. It is the element that offers the greatest opportunity for that SM, as skeptic notes, to intrude as much as he feels his own beliefs might differ from those of the boy and, thus, perhaps even more severely for 'this' boy than for 'that' boy, depending on the 'acceptability' to the SM. At the age of 11-18, du
  15. packsaddle
    If this is true, BSA can count on becoming an even smaller niche organization than it is now. I consider this to be a needless intrusion on what should be a boy's or family's privacy regarding a topic that is none of the SM's (or BSA's) business.
  16. packsaddle
    I hate to admit it but I still have one lab machine running (get ready for this) DOS 4.2. Another running Windows 3.1. Both have Norton Commander shells to make things a bit easier but...no mice. I have to confess I partially keep these around to creep out the students, lol. But the 3.1 machine still runs my spec. AND unlike probably everyone on these forums, these machines are still just as fast as the day they started their professional life. Edit: It's also kind of cool to show the students that for something like word processing, these old machines are in some ways quicker than the
  17. packsaddle
    Mozart, you committed a good deed. Nice. One of my rules posted on my office door is: There are few things more professionally gratifying to an administrator than to create a new form for people to complete.
  18. packsaddle
    OK, some of you superannuated Boy Scouts might benefit from a little deja vu. I was just reading the thread titles when I had a flashback. Do any of you have fond memories of the days when file names could not be longer than 8 characters? Anyone wistfully wishing for the days when we had to convert hexadecimal codes? Look up ASCII commands? I can remember programming my old Z80 processor using machine code, then my 6502, and then later cruising around inside Fortran7, printing with a daisywheel printer because the dot matrix wasn't letter quality, not to mention having to write my own driv
  19. packsaddle
    In cool weather I wear an inexpensive (about $20) leather hat by Minnetonka. It's been all over the world and looks it. An airline pilot once offered to trade (I suspect it was a joke). I declined. I also have several inexpensive (less than $10) straw hats, same style as the leather one, broad brim, that I use in the tropics. They ventilate nicely, keep the sun off, and best of all, they're cheap. One I leave in the Caribbean for my next return. And I travel with a potential replacement, just in case rats have made a nest out of the one I left. They last about 3 years before sun, rain, and tr
  20. packsaddle
    TwoCub, you handled that dean correctly. Changing the curriculum on a student before he's finished IS breach of contract. The student AND the institution are both supposed to be bound by the requirements of the curriculum year of entry as stated in the catalog of that year. That can be changed, of course, but only by agreement by both parties. You got most of the essence of the rant with the example I described. I advise a few more than 30 students and it's impossible to 'know' each of them with the level of detail that they can for themselves. As for 'tenure', I'm hoping that was tongu
  21. packsaddle
    Heh, heh, send them on to me. Here's how the conversation went. I only have one chair in my broom closet...oops, I mean my office. When they walked through the door my first question was, "Which one of you is the student?". When the student identified himself, I asked him, "Why is SHE here?" By that time she had already seated herself and he was leaning against the door frame (no room elsewhere in the office). At that question she had a shocked look on her face and she apologetically explained that she was just making sure that her son understood everything. I looked at him again and respo
  22. packsaddle
    Mgood777, I don't know of a single brick-and-mortar institution that does not have significant, sometimes rigid, structure to their degree programs. There is usually some level of 'elective' involvement but as someone else mentioned, there is often a 'core' of instruction that nearly all students must complete successfully. [Advising rant deleted] Edit: Just realized that you're over 40 years old (based on your other post) so you're way beyond these students, certainly beyond (for example) my recent meeting with a student and his mom...they both left with a whole different outlook on thin
  23. packsaddle
    Merit Badge...what was that term now?....'college'?
  24. packsaddle
    It's the same in college. I often hear faculty and administrators alike expressing the wish that a degree was merely earned as a certain number of credit hours and that students could fill those credits with any courses they wanted to. Nearly everyone agrees that without that structure the degree would be far more useful and meaningful than it is...and that there is no one in a better position to judge what courses ought to be taken than the students who haven't taken them. NOT
  25. packsaddle
    I know of several very successful troops whose SM is unmarried and without children. This is not common but these individuals seem to be well-known and well-liked enough that the community entrusts their boys those troops. You'll probably get your first negative comments when you move toward a boy-led, outdoor-oriented program, lol.
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