Rick_in_CA

As it was explained to me by someone at the council, cub packs really can't do anything involving entering water unless it's at a professionally run pool with lifeguards. Technically, to comply with safe swim defense, to allow your non-swimmers to wade across this piece of water you will have to do the following: You will have to first stretch a pair of float-rope lines across too the island (so this non-swimmer area will be enclosed by the shore at each end and the rope lines going across). Any underwater hazards (such as drop offs or uneven ground) will also need to be marked with floats. Next you will have to have trained life guards posted (unless professional life guards are provided by someone else), a minimum of two, plus an additional one for every 10 participants above 20 (maintaining a 10 - 1 ratio). These lifeguards must remain in easy reach of all participants. You will also need to designate a specific person as a Lookout. Everyone (adults included) are classed as non-swimmers unless they have passed the BSA test within the last year (it doesn't mater what other classifications they have - Michael Phelps is a non-swimmer until he passes a BSA test). As the council rep said: "Cub pack going to the beach? Don't even THINK about going in the water!". It's why our pack stopped doing it's annual summer swim party. It was held at a pack members home. Talking to the above mentioned council person about how to do it within the rules, we would have to either purchase or make float ropes to mark off the non-swimmer and beginner's areas, give everyone who wanted to go in the water swim tests (including the owners of the pool) or restrict them to the non-swimmers area, and provide trained lifeguards. We decided to do something else.

Both Reform Judaism (one of the largest Jewish denomination in the US) and Reconstructionist Judaism would disagree with you on this (though Orthodox Judaism would agree and Conservative Judaism is mixed on it). So are you one of the ones that say Reform Jews are not "real" Jews so they don't count? Many welcoming Christian churches don't condemn homosexuality (or course there is a whole spectrum on that), unless those don't count either because they are not "real" Christians (like the FRC thinks: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/tony-perkins-arbiter-christianity-says-pro-gay-christians-dont-have-same-religious-rights-co)? I don't know enough about Muslim attitudes on the subject to comment. But yes, I do think it's a "real stretch"!

I agree, those subpenas where serious overreach. Even the ACLU thought so (what? Liberals defending religious freedom? Gosh! That isn't supposed to happen! After all, everyone knows liberals hate both God and America!): http://www.aclutx.org/2014/10/17/city-of-houston-subpoenas-of-sermons-statement-from-the-aclu-of-texas/ and https://www.aclu.org/aclu-defense-religious-practice-and-expression

Favorite spam recipes? How about spam, spam, spam, spam, bacon and spam?

- emphases mine So if I am reading you right, you are saying if we are guests of a foreign scouting group, we should impose our rules on them? How is that Courteous? If they were visiting us, would it be reasonable for them to impose their rules on us? I agree that being aware of differences is important and discussing them with a host beforehand is good way to avoid surprises. But the solution isn't to ask them to do things differently, but to be aware that we will be doing things differently and to figure out how we can integrate ourselves with their way of doing things. After all, one of the whole points of visiting a foreign unit is to expose everyone to ways that foreign scouts are different and alike. Just be aware of their rules and have a plan before you get there. If their leaders have a tradition of a late night toast around the campfire with an alcoholic beverage, don't ask them not to do it, instead tell them our leaders will be joining them but will be toasting with juice or water instead. If they have fires in their tents, don't ask them not to do it, either have your scouts in their own fireless tents or let them experience it for one night with the foreign scouts (after all, aren't experiences like this are part of the point?). If you are staying at a foreign scout camp (such as Kandersteg International Scout Centre) the camp will be run using the rules of the sponsoring organization, you need to know what those are and how to adapt.

What? This doesn't make sense. The only rule is that gay adults are not allowed to be registered leaders. There isn't any rule about "legal guardians" that I am aware of. Tigers are required to have an adult partner, and it explicitly allows non-parent relatives and "friends of the family" - no legal guardianship or blood relationship required. YPT just prevents non-parents from tenting with children, it doesn't keep them from attending an event. And I am not aware of any rule that requires all participating adults to be registered leaders. At the cub scout level, most adults are not. Cub camp (around here at least) requires a four to one ratio of adult volunteers to cubs for a pack to attend. There is no requirement for them to be registered leaders. So yes, a gay parent could volunteer to help out at cub camp.

But the point of using "racy" slogans is to break the taboo so they aren't racy anymore. To get to the point where talking about breasts isn't any different than talking about feet or noses or eyes. To get to the point where mentioning breasts isn't any more objectifying as mentioning elbows. Clearly we aren't there yet.

One of the reasons for "racy" breast cancer t-shirts and slogans, it wasn't that long ago that any mention of breasts was considered obscene, including breast cancer (I remember reading about organizations getting prosecuted for obscenity for putting up breast cancer posters). So getting people too discuss the issue, let alone getting women to touch themselves enough to do a self exam was a real challenge. So organization have tried to make talking about breasts in multiple ways acceptable as a way to break through the taboo. Hence we get slogans like: Save a Rack, March for Melons, I Love Boobies, etc. So given the history, I don't think wearing the t-shirts described was inappropriate.

My camping experiences growing up with the family were almost all sleeping in canvas tents. The exception was when we went back packing or snow camping. To this day, the smell of canvas in the sun means camping to me. Yes nylon tents are much lighter than canvas, but the canvas breaths in a way that nylon doesn't. We had lanterns and propane heaters in those tents. My boy scout troop growing up used nylon tents (so we could back pack with them), canvas was for summer camp. I did see a troop using Baker tents at a camporee once. They said that they took them back packing, but they also took a couple of mules back packing to carry them.

Yes, but in the BSA we are not allowed to use as much as a candle lantern, let alone a stove in tents. The German troop had small open fires inside their tents. That was what bothered the scouter telling me the story the most (along with coed tenting), not the beer. From the GTSS:

I think it's important to have a policy in place before you go, you need everyone to understand the rules so there are no surprises. You also need to research the countries you are going to. I had a conversation with a scouter a few years ago about his boy scout troop doing a trip to Germany. They went camping with the German troop that was hosting them, and then they spent a week at a German scout camp. When camping with the troop, the adults and older scouts drank beer. At the scout camp the trading post sold beer to older scouts. Other things that surprised him were boys and girls sleeping in the same tents (a whole patrol shared a single tent - the German troop was coed) and when it got cold, they lit fires inside the tents. The tents the troop used were traditional German scout tents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohte

I agree with KDD. Ask the DL what the money is going for. $40 seems cheap to me, but it depends on what activities and projects are being planned.

Who says he is? Stating that the phenomenon of "paper eagles" or "parlor scouts" exists is not the same as judging individual scouts or individual programs. I agree that we need to be careful about judging others, which I believe was one of Stosh's points:

I don't understand this question. This program is not the boy scout program, it's an alternative like Learning for Life. Is Learning for Life. a back door for girls to enter the program? I actually don't understand any of this. All the "concerns" brought up by this program are also brought up by Learning for Life, but where is the fuss about it? We can have legitimate discussions about how STEM should be presented in the boy scout program (and some good points have been made here), but STEM Scouts as presented by the news program and the STEM Scouts website has nothing to do with our program.

I think Stosh has hit it right on the head. I agree completely.

Actually I was referring to my own post.

I am a bit disturbed by the tone of some of this discussion. So by leaving early, those kids are showing that they are feckless and without honor? Really? Way to show a "Scout is Kind". Look, I agree that by leaving early they missed something valuable (one of my favorite parts of camping is sitting around the campfire with friends shooting the breeze). But maybe they had a good reason? Maybe if the answer to "can he leave after the ceremony?" had been no, they wouldn't have been there at all? Perhaps instead of showing lack of commitment, this is showing they really wanted to participate? Maybe leaving early was the only way to attend at all? How about giving the scouts the benefit of the doubt instead of automatically dumping on them? Yes, it is possible that they left early because they didn't want to bother camping out, but it isn't automatic. Kids are way over scheduled today, and one of the issues with that is that the parents are scheduled along with them playing chauffeur and "supervising" (when I was a kid you saw kids on bicycles everywhere, going to the store, to little league, etc. I would bicycle to my troop's scout meetings - no parents needed. Now I rarely see kids on bicycles and only with their parents along). Today if the parents have a schedule conflict, that usually means the kid does too. So we can say "too bad they missed out", and complain about how kids are overbooked today. But lets not automatically jump to "they don't care about honor or fellowship" and "have no commitment". Yes that will be true for some scouts, but do we have too automatically assume it? We live in a different world. When I was little, by first babysitters were 12 or 13 year old kids from the neighborhood. Now in some states it's effectively illegal to leave a 13 year old alone without supervision (and it's getting worse). OK, how did a post on "let's give the kids the benefit of the doubt" turn into a rant on modern fear and parenting?

I remember a few years ago a scouter was complaining to me about how he has a bunch of scouts in his troop that won't drink plain water, just sugared stuff. Which was a problem on back packing trips.