qwazse

I loved (and still miss dearly) my Big Angus! Try sleeping on the floor one evening. If you only loose a couple of hours, you’ll be fine with a thermarest. Your scout is probably so light he won’t notice a thing.

As I’ve been saying, pretty soon the institution of the family will be sued because of the increase risk of abuse that it poses to kids.

Regarding safety: there’s a whole lot boys can do on their own that won’t burn down the forest. Then, there’s the time when you have to empty your entire canteen because you come upon them lighting a little fire in the middle of a hike in a field of tall dry grass. Regarding personalities. I started in the troop as pretty much type B. But soon learned that nobody else is up to start a fire at 5 am on a cold morning, and your patrol will like waking up to a warm fire, and might even start your breakfast for you when they see it. Well, getting a fire started on some cold wet mornings requires teamwork, so you learn right quick to tell your mates (sometimes the night before, sometimes while they’re standing there watching you sit on the cold ground working the tinder) to build a stash of kindling that you can use. Personality types lose relevance over time when you’re one of 8 scouts situated 100 yards away from any other group.

A falling tide grounds all boats.:(

It is sexist because empirical studies have never universally confirmed this. I have cited studies that point this out. (And here's a review article https://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/02/coed.) Yet you continue to use the same hackneyed assertions. For example, if I were in rural Africa and needed my sons to learn how to start and maintain a fire, I would not send them to the male elders of the village. Because, it is invariably the women who have that responsibility. (My Ugandan niece had formidable skills.) Here in the US, the woman deferring to the man for fire building is a 20th century, almost romantic, role. Prior to that, it was invariably something a boy learned from his mother. At WSJ I sat on Mt. Jack teaching an Indonesian scouts everything about sassafras. One girl took notes and had me draw the leaves in her notebook (with spelling in English and Arabic). I later showed her and her friends how to find blackberries and track bear. Would she have learned more about the plant faster from a woman? I doubt it, simply because there was no woman stopping, with root in hand, offering to brew them some tea while we rested. Meanwhile, the boys were more interested in video games, of which I apologetically said I knew little. We humans learn more faster when the teacher is competent. Competency does include respecting social norms -- which include sex roles.

My daughter does not play basketball to this day because of how her friends In fourth grade violated unwritten rules of smack-talk. (They didn’t keep it on the court, and she wasn’t willing to call their bluff in their accusations that she fouled unnecessarily.) Don’t be quick to blame the online environment. That’s not going to go away. Your SMs job is to point out to the boys that kind and courteous aren’t just things that are left hung on the scout house wall. Thy need to bring those to their games or consider themselves to no longer be scouts. It’s really that simple. Learn to love one another, or stop calling themselves something they aren’t.

IRL the cat didn't make much noise at all ... like the one on this video. We were in a circle and it walked to the end of its leash and looked at us from 3 feet away, moving on to the next kid in the circle. I'm not sure if the made-for-TV sound was just a matter waiting for the right moment with mics or if it was all sound-effects. (Things you don't think to ask when a cougar on a leash is walking by.) In college, we heard it behind Pitt's touchdown horn. (Frequently enough when Dan Marino was QB.) This one sounded a little more like someone waited at a zoo and spent lots of tape until they got a good sample. At least I like to think that the university athletic department would get source material instead of plagiarizing a sound sample!

At a church camp, they introduced us to the guy who trained the Mercury Cougar mascot. He brought the big cat out of his cage and walked him around. I never thought to ask the guy for a job. You don’t think of a lot of things when you see a guy with a mountain lion on a leash!

@yknot and @MattR I had seen a version that wasn’t bleeped out and opened with the cubs in frame for the first few (fleeting) seconds. So, yeah, this was a momma trying to clear a perimeter.

In other words scouters should work their way through the advancement program to 1st class ... getting signed off by an SPL or JASM as they obtain skill mastery.

@hiker67 gave us an excellent reference that is quite similar to what I've read at National Park trailheads. Loud noises convey two things: I'm not on the hunt. I'm strong and can fight but don't want to. I'm not entirely sure that a cellphone is your friend here. My dog, for example, largely ignores sounds from electronics. But if I so much as stretch a leg, he alerts. Cat brains are visual, so they are likely to rank sounds based on where they infer the source. Something coming from you person gets more attention than something coming from a box. (A box with gunpowder might be the exception.) @Cambridgeskip, the ride out to the trailhead is still far more perilous than the beasts we find therein. I'm under the impression that our scouts take longer trips than yours do for most weekend campouts. The bulk of our prayers go toward that time on the highway.

Well obviously the SM is gonna need to do some conferencing. He could start by saying there's a stranger on the internet who says the best scout ever aged out at 2nd class rank. What made him the best? He invited his neighbor to visit his troop. The corollary is, of course, that to be the worst scout ever all you have to do is drive someone to quit your troop. And I was on the brink of being that scout on a couple of occasions. The offending scout might not even have a clue about what he did. Did the SPL or the scouts' PL witness the altercation? Was it overt hostility or just one of those things a guy might say without thinking how hurtful it could be? These are the data the SM needs that he may not have. So, good luck getting it. The SM's best hope is that the offending scout recognizes that no matter how much he might have been part of the problem, he has a chance to be part of the solution and become the "2nd best scout ever." But that's about as much help as I think we can give on this side of the internet. The rest of it is lots of listening and setting up a safe, in-person opportunity to clear the air.

On the other hand, I don't want my scouts near anyone who has only had IOLS -- in-person or otherwise. Our new SM is and Eagle scout and his two older boys are troop alumni ... he hauled my crew to Philmont ... and has a big heart. Life in general and the pandemic have interrupted his getting in-person training. Online IOLS would be better for him.

The National Park Service has put really good information on what to do at trailheads. When we were with small kids (ages 4-14), I read every inch of that board. Then, ten yards in, where some tops were felled, I grabbed the gnarliest, knobbiest walking stick I could find. The littlest one was between two adults at all times. There were dozens (if not hundreds) of others on the trail, but in case a catamount was watching, I wanted to be sure she got the idea that we were treating ours like she would treat hers.

Setting patrols 100 yards from one another addresses the points of contact. But, kids will sit on the same log and swap MRE’s. So, we’re back to teaching them to wash their hands, wipe down the package and set it in the sun for a spell. Does your house have individually wrapped meals? Mine with three essential employees does not. Keeping up with the cleaning for all of these adults is maddening (my daughter is basically trying to run herd over me, Mrs Q, and Son #2) ... I can only imagine the challenges of a working parent with a couple of active kids. The question boils down to how to teach scouts practices that will help them take care of their families. So, how would you all handle washing up utensils?

My scouts are nuts over walking tacos. It’s definitely a winner, Cubs would love it. I’m sure something with a troop is also feasible. Or, teach each patrol (pod) to cook its own meals and use proper infection control. Inspect every surface thoroughly for cleanliness. Have them clean again. These boys are returning home to moms who are worn thin. They need help. If they do not learn to keep surfaces clean, it will increase the odds that their household will become a cluster outbreak. Prepared for Life.

@walk in the woods, of course you would have the same options as today. But in addition, You would have a service obligated to deliver to every station in America. There would be more stations. (Instead of P/O closures, they would be openings.) The penalties for hacking and mail fraud would be severe. There would be more ways to secure electronic absentee ballots, and the accuracy and speed of counting them would be greater. Simply put, what current ISPs do not do (secure digital comms from every household to every household), the USPS would do. The downside: because you would be buying stamps for digital communication, or renting the means to download from (or direct line to) your PO box, you might have to choose between Netflix or DPlus to make the budget work. There is also a downside in terms of development, of course. The USPS would probably deliver in a fast-enough fashion. Enough to get bills payed and send advertisements. But not enough to get up-to-the-minute stock quotes. Having paid "enough" for the basic, albeit ubiquitous, service, the public (users or sponsors) might have less incentive to purchase broadband. As a result, those kinds of things might not develop as quickly.

In other words, your instructor was inauthentic.

My SM was a Journeyman Lineman, and that sense of rigor certainly trickled down. There was no scenario where adults would cook for boys (that included pancake fundraisers), no scenario where we would “camp” in a cabin, no scenario where an adult would issue gear, no scenario where anyone besides boy (once trained) would be putting up drywall in their own scout house.

Was anyone impolite, were people trucking along and you felt that you weren’t into it, or were you pulled out of your comfort zone? I don’t know the new material, so an example might enlighten us. obviously, if typing here just brings back bad memories, take a pass. You’re not the first person I’ve met for whom the course rubbed the wrong way.

You might be too far inland to appreciate this, but ... Before the pandemic thwarted a visit to India, I wanted to check out mangrove restoration in Mumbai. The plants are essential to shoring up coast line and providing brackish lagoon habitats. I’ve seen similar projects on waterways in FL. (Some were Eagle projects.)

I’ve done KW and Bahamas sailing. KW: relatively inexpensive drive from Miami. Nice bunks on the base. Chance to meet scouts and scouters from elsewhere. The snorkeling in the marine sanctuary is the best in the U.S. The Atlantic can be choppy ... ergo sea sickness. Lots of famous landmarks. The sculpture garden in KW is inspiring ... especially the bust recognizing the person who brought scouting to the keys. But, there are also plenty of tourist traps. (And, discipline issues can arise ... depends on your adults.) Bahamas: the flight from, say, Lauderdale to Marsh Harbor is expensive. International travel requires more paperwork. You won’t arrive at a base so much as a resort with a boat slip. You’ll cross paths with a few scouts, but most captains get under way right quick. The Sea of Abaco is less choppy, but tides might dictate when and where your boat can visit a particular island. I was very impressed with the snorkeling. But, you spend a good bit of time visiting little islands ... many of which are rebuilding after Dorian ravaged them. I do hope Vernon is sill making pies on Elbow Cay ... it’s well worth the walk along the island to pick one up! I have never visited St. Tomas, but a friend relocated there and loved it. Not sure how the Seabase program there operates.

I WANT A SIX WHEELED WAGON!

The junk email would have to be worth the sending. Imagine that for each spam sent to every American account, 3 million dollars went to the post office. But that’s just the tip of iceberg. Electronic stamps could be the thrill of philatelists worldwide. But like @Eagle94-A1 said, existing telecom giants benefit greatly from the liberty to not be as ubiquitous as the post office.

It’s a pity the postal service couldn’t charge a penny per email. Internet would have been everywhere