Prairie_Scouter

Interestingly, Tang existed before the manned space program began, but because it was used on many of the flights, folks started to believe that it was created by NASA.

Weirdly, some home tips sites say that Tang makes a good dishwasher detergent because of its high citric acid content.

NASA used to publish an annual journal called Spinoff that detailed all of the technologies that came out of, or were enhanced by, the U.S. space program. Manned exploration has always been a debated topic. Some things in exploration can only be done by humans. One of the Mars rovers is stuck in sand and can't escape by use of remote instructions, to the point that NASA now calls it a "stationary test platform". Why go to places like the Moon and Mars? Why did humans go to North America not knowing what was there? The North Pole? The South Pole? Australia? Why do we explore the bottom of the ocean? Probably because we are explorers, but also because you never know what you're going to discover by visiting an unknown environment, or what you might learn simply in the attempt.

As Trev says, it depends on what question you ask, but the surveys I've seen, including the one quoted above, show small majorities do not favor gay rights, but hardly in overwhelming numbers.

As far as explaining why gay rights have mostly lost in votes taken, there's actually some pretty solid reasoning on why that's so. Gay rights is an issue that only resonates with a small number of voters in a way that's strong enough to get them off their butts to vote. Those against gay rights typically have done a much better job in these local elections to get their voters out. In a country that can't even get a good number of people to vote in their presidential elections, I don't know that ANY election these days can be taken as much of a mirror of how the general population actually feels.

Our country is decidedly middle of the road. The University of Michigan has generated some really interesting maps of voter preference, much like the red/blue maps shown on TV during the election, but in this case using 3 colors. Red and Blue were used for counties that were 70% or more for either party, and then shades of a 3rd color for everything else. They then used this to create a cartogram which really shows how the country is split, or not, actually. A little bit of red, a little bit of blue, with a whole lot of "in between".

So, glad to see some things don't change. Before I had to go away for awhile, we were debating these same things; Guess I haven't missed much :-).

tominrichmond,

Welcome (and I guess, welcome back to me). This is certainly an interesting topic, but I don't know that you'd get everyone to agree that it's just plain "common sense" that BSA wouldn't allow gays. The fault in your argument is accepting as fact the idea that gays are natually attracted to young boys. There's no evidence of this, any more than there is evidence that just because I happen to like women, I'd be attracted to 12 year old girls.

The real problem, as I see it, is that BSA has taken a political stance on an issue on which there is no clear consensus. The country is split almost evenly on the gay rights issue. Many religions and even factions within religions don't agree on this. I continue to believe that BSA has unfortunately allowed itself to become a pawn in a political game being played between right and left wing extremists. When the game has been played out, BSA will be left to deal with the aftermath. The rumor has been for some time that if the BSA allowed gays to enter, the LDS units would walk, along with their money. That's a powerful political weight for the BSA to overcome on its own, and would require more courage than I suspect they have at this time. Just my opinion, of course.

What was the question, again? :-)

Hey wait. My post said I sent my response on Saturday night. Holy smoke, I just lost half my weekend

Did my homework. Are we being graded?

LisaBob,

I think it's pretty safe to say that you've insulted a lot of self-respecting weasels out there.

Re: Ollie North. Broke the law, lied about it, got off on a technicality. Now, makes big bucks making speeches about integrity to his believers. No wonder young people today are dissillusioned about the hypocrisy of their leaders (the same as many of us were when we were that age).

I have to agree with acco40 on this one. Seems like a pretty cut and dry issue. The city says you can have a free berth if you comply with their non-discrimination rules. Otherwise, you just pay the going rate like everyone else. They didn't say the Scouts couldn't berth there. The city is not impinging on the BSA's rights in any way, shape, or form.

I'll bet the Iroquois Nation was really happy that they helped us jump start our country, seeing that we repaid that kindness by killing off most of them later.

I suspect that from a political perspective, it'll never really matter what the true history is behind the founding of the country. In these days, when elections are won by those with the most money in order to spin their story for the media, truth or fact doesn't really matter that much.

Unless we get a more moderate administration in place at both the federal and state levels, I fear that it's only a matter of time until our laws become more and more based on conservative Christian beliefs. One book I read recently about Biblical history commented that if you want to see what kind of things can happen when you have countries controlled by religious values, you only have to look to some Middle East countries. I have no problem at all with various sects setting their own rules, let's say, to prohibit gay marriage. But I don't see where they have the right to try and force their religious beliefs on the rest of country by enacting their religious beliefs into law. I would think that laws like that would be directly in conflict with the Constitution. The fight on abortion right now is strictly a religious battle; there's no pretense that this has anything to do with medicine. And yet, that seems to be ok. I don't understand, I guess.

We shouldn't for the tiniest fraction of a second look for some sort of blame to be assigned to any of these victims. Doesn't matter whether they reported it 10 seconds after it happened, or 10 years. If you want to see reasons for not reporting it right away, all you have to do is look at the story. While at camp, they were virtually held prisoner by adult leaders how looked the other way while the abuse went on. When word finally got out, the boys were harassed at their school to the point that they had to leave school. What adult authority figure were they supposed to go to?

How important this was to the courts out there can be summed up by the sentence doled out. 24 cases of abuse get you 150 days of jail and probation, or about 7 days per case. Now, there's justice for you.

Re: the Atlanta case. Ed, sounds to me like Brent is just ranting from the other side of the fence.

Perhaps our overseas brothers are concerned because they see the BSA straying from what they see as the correct intent and philosophy of Scouting today?

"The BSA feels strongly that their values are paramount to their success."

I'm afraid that I took a little more pragmatic view of things, in this case that BSA feels strongly that whatever grows their membership and keeps funds rolling in is paramount to their success.

Just think, for example, if the urban legend is actually true that the LDS members threatened to take their 400,000 members and leave if BSA didn't take a more conservative stand on religiously-based issues, and pretend for a moment that the BSA national leadership at the time had had the gall or courage or whatever to call their bluff. Had they left, BSA would have either folded or looked to open their tent to membership. Given the amount of money involved, does anyone really think the organization would have been allowed to fold? I expect not.

And, boy, won't we all be surprised when we find out that the one truth faith was actually formed on a planet circling Alpha Centauri and unfortunately it hasn't found its way to the little backwater solar systems that include places like Earth.

You know, I just have this feeling that in the end, whoever or whatever the higher being or beings end up being, they're going to pay us a visit and say "nice try, but man, did you guys ever get it wrong. Where did you guys come up with all this "my religion is better stuff", and whoever said it was ok to kill in my/our name, huh?".

Hi Newbie,

I agree with much of what you say. However, I think that the heart of the matter isn't just having a belief in God as a prerequisite for membership. The text that goes along with that implies that you can't be as good a person, or citizen, if you don't have a belief in God. That, now, is just an opinion that can't be substantiated. I think it'd be better if we judged a person based on their actions (in a Scouting environment) and not just what they believed in from a religious standpoint. If the conservative Christian views continue to hold sway in Scouting, how far away are we from saying that not only are Athiests not good role models, but neither are, say, Buddhists or any other religion that is not Christ-based?

I think that whole issue of gays in Scouting is really overblown in relation to the possible impact of allowing gays in leadership or scout positions. The arguments about safety and such are really just vapor. I've seen absolutely no studies linking gays to child abuse at any higher levels than in the general community, and I think that there are none. Personally, I think that these arguments are just a smoke screen. The issue of gays in Scouting is largely a religious issue that is not shared, I think, among all religious sects represented in Scouting. It's a religious issue, not a Scouting issue, and shouldn't even be a part of the discussion. If the Mormons, or Catholics, or Protestants, or whoever (just examples), want to keep gays out of their congregations, then that's their choice, but to inflict their views on the Scouting community is something else.

I agree that BSA will have to address it at some point, if for no other reason than to appear not too far out of the mainstream of American values. But, it probably won't happen as long as we have national BSA leadership hiding behind the "we're a private organization and we can do what we want, nyah, nyah" mantra.

Part of the problem is just keeping track of who's who in the Middle East. You've got the Taliban, dreaded enemy, except that we helped to get them set up in Afghanistan. And then, of course, you've got Iraq, who is/was an enemy. Or was that Iran? No, wait, that was before. Somebody's a friend, we happily sell them our weapons, and lo and behold, they use them on us a couple of years later.

One of the neo-conservatives that was at one time a part of Bush's "think tank" is publishing a book about how their policies were basically a good idea that got out of hand. Should be an interesting read.

Now, maybe we should move on to another topic. I'd hate to have Rooster burst his aorta or something Just lookin' out for ya, bro! Maybe we can talk about something less painful, like gays in Scouting, or uniforms

International weapons inspectors roamed Iraq for years, and our own inspectors have had the run of the country for 3 years now. Along with intelligence gathering and everything else at our disposal, don't you think we'd have come up with SOMETHING by now if there was something to find? Missiles, warheads, and the payloads are not the easiest things to hide, after all. They have volatile fuels, and some of the biologic and chemical payloads are volatile as well. Maybe Iraq has their own version of Area 51 that is shielded from our view using alien technology? Or, maybe there's just nothing to be found. 15 years ago, sure, Saddam had the weapons and used them. There wasn't any evidence that he still had that capability anytime in the near past.

Since there were opposing intelligence views before the war began, don't you think the prudent thing to do would have been to verify absolute proof of a threat before invading and destroying another sovereign nation?

Something was mentioned about "taking on all of our enemies at the same time". When the only reason an administration can come up with to invade a country is that their leader is a bad guy, that opens you up to wondering why we're not assisting all these other countries who have bad guys as leaders, in just as aggressive a manner.

The U.N. loses credibility when it's strongest member, the U.S., refuses to participates in the global process. That's what hurts the U.N. Participants in various committees within the U.N. are usually arranged by membership rotation. Given our recent record, we wouldn't belong on such a human rights commission, either.

"Yeah right you take the word of a man who murders thousands (Hussein) over a man who seeks to rid the planet of murders (Bush)."

Excuse me, I'm laughing so hard over this one I can hardly type. Bush, the man who had his lawyers find loopholes in the Geneva Conventions so we could "legally" torture prisoners. Bush, the man who's team created a "1st strike" policy for the first time in our history so that we can invade other nations basically when we feel like it. Sorry, I have a real hard time seeing our President as some sort of Ultimate Patriot, trying to save the world from evil. He's basically just turned the U.S. into the world's single biggest bully. We can do better.

Evenin' all,

Just wondering if anyone had ever come across a patch recognizing a past Scoutmaster who remains active in his Troop? I know it'd be nothing official, but we thought it'd be nice to recognize his exhalted position, rather than just reverting him to an Asst SM. Something that looks like a SM patch but says "retired" or some such thing?

Thanks for any info.

Rooster,

I don't hold the guy in contempt. I just think he's doing a really bad job. And, I think we're getting dangerously close to confirming that his administration knowingly misled the American people into a war. We're not quite there yet, but getting closer as time goes by. If it wasn't for Cheney spreading fear during the last election cycle, I don't think there's any way he would have been re-elected.

I think the American electorate made a bad choice in 2004 (the Supreme Court made a bad choice in 2000, in my view). Only history will tell whether that's a correct assessment or not. I do know that the next administration will take years to correct the damage done in relations with our former allies. And we're hundreds of billions of dollars away from fixing the damage we've wrought in Iraq. And our kids will be paying for the tax cuts the President insists on pushing for, since we don't have any money to pay for them now.

So, you're right, I'm not going to be changing my mind about this president.

However, in regards to this thread, his big mistake was not keeping the Congress informed on a transaction that his handlers had to know was going to be a hot potato once it went public. It was a bone-headed mistake that could have been easily avoided.

I can agree with the need for 2 dots and understand why some have such a need, but 3 dots is just going to far. BSA has a right to limit their membership as well as the number of dots, and 2 is it. I'm sure Baden-Powell wrote about that sometime.

;;;

Oops, sorry for going off topic there for a moment.

I have friends who are gay and they would say that their lives are just fine, thank you, for the most part. The only time they run into trouble is when they are discriminated against or are made the victims of bigotry. They're no different than any other victimized group in that respect.

Actually, I think that B-P said that "Scouting is nothing less than applied Christianity". However, I don't really know what to make of that because I don't know what other text surrounded it. For all I know, the relevent passage might have been, "There are those who take the view that Scouting is nothing less than applied Christianity. They would be wrong". (Now, I suspect that it doesn't say that, but anytime people take single lines out of the breadth of the writer's work, you run that danger).

So, now, if we're going to create a Scout philosophy out of all of the references to Christianity, regardless of what context they were made in, then I guess we have a BSA based on Christ-based beliefs. Time to boot out those pesky Jews and Buddhists.

In reality, not even close, my friend. The request for some positive information about the Atlanta case seems reasonable to me, if such information is available from the group here. However, I wouldn't assume that the lack of such information automatically means a "guilty" verdict for anyone involved. The population here is by its nature pretty limited and so is the information that might be available from this source.

I've said before that I think that BSA really needs to have a squeeky clean image, and any appearances to the contrary do nothing but provide ammunition to its detractors. That doesn't mean hiding anything that's wrong so deeply that it's never found, and I'm not implying that BSA is doing that. But, if these problems truly exist, and the National office is responding by ignoring the situation or taking ineffective measures rather than stepping in strongly to "clean up", then they have only themselves to blame when the bits hit the fan. Unfortunately, if that proves to be the case, there seems to be little that we Scouters can do about it, nor anyone else, for that matter.

Rooster, "guilty until proven innocent" wasn't what I was getting at. I was saying that jkhny was, as far as I could tell, accurate in his assessment of what's going on in Chicago. All I was asking for was if somebody had an opposing view on the Atlanta situation, saying that those leaders were doing a creditable job. Just trying to hear another side.

And Herms, before we all start saying "nice catch", maybe we should visit that site and look around a bit. Is Cesar Chavez one of his heroes? Sure. But, so is an archibishop of San Salvador who was killed during the strife there while giving his homily on peace in church. His father is his 3rd hero. I dunno, doesn't sound like a bad list to me. The author also served in the U.S. military and is well-educated, according to his bio.

The story linked to by Brent is negative towards BSA, but that story in itself links to many other sources that one might find more reputable. Seems to me that his opinions, which one may or may not agree with, are at least pretty well researched.

As far as jk's information on Atlanta and others, I don't think he's pretending to be an expert in those areas. I see his coverage of that as just an extension of the problems he sees in his own council, saying, in effect, that he sees it as a bigger problem. The fact that he used other sources to gain that information, I don't see as a problem. We all do that all the time. You may not agree with what he has found, but that doesn't make the practice itself wrong.

Seems to me that Rooster pretty much represents the other side of what might be called the "screaming Bush hater" side of the coin. That would be the side that lovingly supports Bush regardless of his actions and can see no wrong in anything he does. At least, that's how Rooster seems to be coming off on this particular topic (by my read, anyway).

As I said early on in this thread, it remains to be seen whether the port deal is really a security problem or not. The real issue is that Bush allowed his own party in Congress to get blindsided by this. His desire for secrecy in all things is now even locking out those who would normally support him. With no re-election to worry about, he can basically be a loose cannon now.

And Rooster, there does come a time when you have to trust your leaders. But, that trust has to be earned, and I can't think of much that this president has done to earn that trust. Secret dealings with oil industry leaders to define energy policy. Secret imprisonments and torture, using some stilted views of international law that, as far as I can tell, most rational governments object to. Secret courts doling out secret pronouncements. Going to war for reasons that were tenuous at best, and misleading at worst. (Anyone actually believe the current line that Saddam was really a bad guy and that's why we invaded? If so, you should plan for a few more invasions using that logic). The War on Terror? What happened to that? What we've seemed to accomplish with that is just to create more enemies than we had before.

Sorry. I didn't vote for the guy, but honestly hoped he'd do something we could all be proud of. So far, I don't see it.

Oh boy, the "G(g)od" topic returns!

I have to agree that the National Office sends mixed signals on this. As one of the above posts says, all you have to do is look at the Adult application and the BSA position statement to see that they are somewhat in conflict. And that's not even getting to the issue of BSA says about atheists and citizenship. Do you really have to believe in a god or higher being in order to be a good citizen? I doubt it myself.

I think I've just given myself a homework assignment. I'm going to go back and find a copy of the original legislation creating the BSA and see what it says, exactly. Might be kind of interesting in terms of the current position on atheists and gays. Or not. And, just to see if it says anything in comparison to what B-P had in mind when he formed Scouting.

BTW, I think that the SM mentioned in an above post about getting rid of a kid who was Unitarian, was really way out of line. His opinion on what various religions are or aren't isn't relevent. It should have been brought up to the district and council.

There's a time and place for spoof patches. I think everyone would know when it's ok and when it's not. We have an "unTrainable" patch that makes an appearance once in awhile. People laugh and then it gets put away for another time.

If done in the right spirit of things, I think it's fine and actually can enhance the experience. As someone said, we're not the military. We're also not some secret religion where not wearing the insignia correctly each and every day is some sort of sacrilege.

It's supposed to be fun.