Jump to content

Prairie_Scouter

Members
  • Content Count

    788
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Prairie_Scouter

  1. Sorry to have started a thread and not participated to now. Been out car shopping for a couple of days. Lots of good thoughts. I agree that it's a great way to get outdoors and do things with friends and family. I just wonder why animals have to die as a result. Now I would question the assertion by Torveaux that hunters are doing wildlife some sort of service while, say, "squeamish photographers" are doing nothing. As I hypothesized in my original post, I wonder if hunters are really interested in hunting animals that are starving and freezing to death, as Torveaux seems to be
  2. We've had some good discussions recently about gun owners rights. Once you get beyond the 2nd Amendment and the idea of personal protection, you can get to the subject of hunting. I admit, as a city kid, I've never seen the attraction. As a nature photographer, I've developed a lot of the same skills that hunters use, learning tracking, animal behavior, etc. And yet, when I'm done with a day's "shooting", I know that those animals will still be there for someone else to enjoy. The same can't be said for hunters. When a hunter takes home their prize, nobody will ever see that animal a
  3. Hi Michael, and welcome to the campfire. I'm in Hoffman Estates, IL, just west of Woodfield Mall. Good to see another Midwesterner on the forum (even if you are a relative neophyte ) Welcome to Winter, Chicago style! I'm not real familiar with the new Tiger program. My boys finished with Cub Scouts before it went into effect. But, we've done overnight trips to the museums in the city. Most of them have an overnight program, but it can be kind of costly, so you have to consider what you're folks can afford. In particular, we did an overnight at the Adler Planetarium, and it wa
  4. Hi Eamonn, It'd be nice if things were still that way. But, as I'm sure you've seen, land is at a premium near any large city. If Scouting didn't lock up some of that land as a sort of preserve, it'd be gone, and our ability to have things like summer camp would be a lot more limited. Even with that, some Council camps are closing as less and less Scouts and adults are willing to put in the time needed to attend and/or support those camps. And yes, sometimes, there's a certain amount of greed involved; it can get easy to think of reasons to close a camp when someone puts a big bag of mo
  5. For the most part, the CO "owns" the unit and all of its assets while the charter is in effect. One contributor on this forum, Kahuna, has commented that they figured out a way to keep the assets of the unit separate. He might interject a thought or two on that. I don't think that National really gets involved with these kinds of things. The charter "contract" is between the CO and the Council. I think that the ownership of assets is only in effect as long as the charter is. Others may know better, but here's my thought. As far as moving a unit, if it was done when the charter expi
  6. Oak, You may be right; I'm a couple of years removed from Cubs now. The idea of one parent/Scout usually came up in the area of overnights, and I remember where we did make exceptions in a case or two where another parent stepped up to act as guardian for a Scout who's parents couldn't come, in addition to their own. I think for day outings, the requirement may be different. But, happy to go with your interpretation since I'm not 100% sure.
  7. 21 years last June. We've been involved for about 8 years now. In cubs, my wife was Cubmaster, I was CC. Now, I'm SM with both of my boys in Boy Scouts. My daughter is in Girl Scouts but thinks that they're wimps because around here, the Girl Scouts never do any camping or much outdoors stuff at all. She can wait to be old enough to join a Venture crew. Yeah, BSA, and Girl Scouts, and PTA, are constant sources of conversation.
  8. In Cub Scouts, a parent has to be in attendance with their Scout for all overnight outings. I wasn't clear if this was an overnighter or just a day outing. And, yes, one adult per car with multiple Scouts is fine. Each has to have their own seat belt.
  9. Torveaux, Absolutely correct. I thought when I sent that, "well, I opened that door. I wonder if anyone will walk through.? I'm sure there's enough "sneaky dealings" to go around for everyone...the Dems and their wars, Nixon with Watergate, Reagan with Iran/Contra. Not trying to open a lot of debate on this; point is, I think, that, every administration has it's share of closed door dealings that someone might not agree with.
  10. It'd be really interesting to do a truly unbiased, objective survey of the BSA membership, Scouts and adults, to see where we all sit on these issues. I honestly don't know what the results would be, but I expect you'd have extreme views on either end with a vast majority in the middle who don't really care much and are more interested in the day to day Scouting "stuff". How the actual results would turn out is anyone's guess.
  11. Hi ljnrsu, Good point on Johnson. I think, tho, that he didn't come up with the idea of steering event to allow entry into a war. I think that much of same happened in WWII, and probably other wars where the U.S. wasn't directly threatened. It's always difficult, I suppose, to recognize the "real threat" from the "perceived threat" from the "concocted threat", and how to respond to them in an appropriate manner. The history on the Iraq invasion remains to be written, but I suppose it will end up like many others, where, 10 years later, we'll be scratching our heads and wondering "how t
  12. I'd agree with Rooster that if girls were let in, "gayness" became a non-issue, and a belief in a god was no longer required, BSA would certainly be a different organization. Whether it's good or bad is largely in the eye of the beholder. I suspect that if you polled the average member of BSA, of those 3 changes, adding girls would probably cause the most heartburn. I suspect that if the "gay" and "god" policies were to change, a small number of people would actually leave, the rest would just move on and hardly notice the difference or ignore it. Adding girls to BSA would require quit
  13. Hi JM, Good thoughts. I have always thought that the real "content" of the U.S. uniform is in the shirt. That's where everything of substance really is. The pants are, well, just pants. Problem is, the rules are the rules, and it's true that if you aren't wearing the whole uniform according to BSA definition, you're not in uniform at all. As it stands right now, this would require a policy change by BSA and I'm not aware of any indication that they would consider a change.
  14. Ah, Rooster, you have such a way with words So, are you telling me that I should question the validity of things that my district professionals are telling me? What am I supposed to do? Tell them I think they're lying unless they can show me chapter and verse? The Scouting professionals are our source of information for so many things regarding Scouting. You don't think that they're a valid source of information? I find that a little hard to swallow. (Kind of like that last bit of turkey leftover.....) I don't think that liberals are looking for a "loophole" to allow gays into Scou
  15. Boy, Jerry, I have to agree with that 100%. A great movie, showing a man with true leadership abilities, as well as the stress that can come along with making the hard choices. And, more so, that leadership is not a popularity contest, as many unit elections can be. The only problem with finding "leader" movies is that they tend to be about flawed leaders. That's what the story is really about. So, using them as an example of leadership carries along some baggage. Personally, when I look for a movie to unwind with, I want a lot of stuff blowing up
  16. Hi Rooster, Regards "don't ask, don't tell", my district professional told me that it is the official BSA policy. For what it's worth. And, do you think it's only "liberals" who are looking for loopholes? I remember a certain President who's supporters spend a good deal of time trying to figure out what counts as torture and how to get around the Geneva Conventions. Hi Torveaux, I agree on Biblical translations. According to at least some biblical scholars, it goes far beyond whether the commandment says "kill" or "murder". I think that that's why Biblical literalists have a proble
  17. Ed, Merlyn.....easy does it, ok? It's the holidays. I agree with Pack that situational ethics come into play in these areas. I don't agree that most matters of right and wrong are clearly black and white. This is certainly true in some areas, but not all. There's plenty of gray areas, and people sometimes use the gray for their own purposes. As the old joke goes, to quote "God", "I said "Thou shalt not kill". What part of that is so hard to understand?" And yet, people have killed "in the name of God" throughout history. For example. In my own mind, the BSA stance on gays is,
  18. Thanks for that info, Pack. For a second there, I thought we were going to have to cancel our cruise missile activity. And, right after I got ahold of those laser guidance systems, too. We haven't had this much fun since we worked on the "mini-reactor" that's a part of the new "Chernoble" program feature. However, as I'm writing this, there's an ad at the top of the response page for the "Potato Guns Online Store". Hmmmm. Really, I would tend to think that you'd have to be really careful about this. An exploding barrel would not be a fun time. I think if I was going to do this (I, w
  19. I believe that by BSA definition, "winter camping" is anything under 50 Degrees F. So, many of our Scouts have probably been winter camping without really even knowing it So, maybe we should call it "cold weather" camping, for sake of discussion. As most of us know, the game changes when it gets below freezing, or gets wet at slightly higher temps. I'd be really wary about allowing any Scouts, let alone Web Scouts, camp overnight in really cold weather without training. It can be a wonderful experience if you're adequately prepared. If not, tho, you could be toying with an inherently danger
  20. I think that the main safety concern is that the Web2's haven't been through winter camping training. We're in northern Illinois, the same as hotdesk, and so our winters can get pretty, well, interesting. I think at our District Klondikes the policy is that the Web's can visit for the day, but not stay overnight.
  21. A Happy and Bountiful Thanksgiving to all of you. While we may disagree on many things here, there are even more things that we can agree on.... For all its warts, the Scouting program is still a wonderful way for our youth to learn character, teamwork, outdoor living, and all that other stuff we do. Regardless of what side of the aisle you happen to be on, and despite it's problems, the U.S. is still WAY ahead of whoever is in 2nd place. And a few more things I think we can agree on.... There's nothing like dutch oven lasagna. Mess kit bowls aren't big enough t
  22. Wow! Horrible indeed. More than a few adults who need to learn how things are supposed to be done. I spend a good deal of time mentoring our adults on what's ok, and what's not ok, for questions in a BOR. Used to be we had Scouts tying knots in their BOR. Sounds like the groups you mention need some serious guidance on how a BOR is run. Regards the MBC who is requiring extra assignments, in ALL seriousness, this person should be reported to your district advancement chair. It is VERY clear that a merit badge counselor cannot add any requirements to a badge. Coercing a young ma
  23. I'm not sure exactly where it says that BSA is a "religious club", if that's what you were inferring. B-P certainly recognized a higher power in his writings, but I don't think he saw that as the driving force behind what he was trying to accomplish. Seems to me that his view was more that he was simply trying to teach character, using the outdoors as the tool. Now, there are certainly some segments of BSA that have moved their units in the direction of being more of a "religious club". LDS units, for example, vary, it seems, quite a bit from the BSA norm in how they do things. Other
  24. Sounds to me like the problem is that BSA has painted the term "agnostic" with too broad of a brush. Some agnostics do believe in a higher power, but don't believe in a particular god. Some don't believe in either, which I suppose would actually make them athiests. I would think that if someone has an understanding of the broadness of the terminology, they'd avoid using it in conversations with a Scout, should the issue come up. Better to ask whether a Scout believes in a higher power than ask if they're agnostic, since they might not really understand the term.
×
×
  • Create New...