Rick_in_CA

You think BSA is not 0-2 on these issues, but the strike counts as soon as the swing is made. We have seen continued membership declines since 2013. We have seen the loss in revenue since the same time. How long do we need to wait until we call something a success?

One thing to keep in mind, is that it took years for the BSA's reputation to change from "patriotic youth organization" to "bigoted conservative religious organization" after the Dale decision. It will take years for the BSA's reputation to change back.

Just a couple of months ago, I ran into an old friend. We talked about the BSA and he had no idea of the recent policy changes. He still dismissed it as a bigoted organization.

I hope they have a fantastic trip!

... He's not the best speaker, but he doesn't hold back either. That's refreshing after over 25+ years of hot air coming and other excrement coming from Washington.

You have a very odd definition of "hot air" and "excrement" if you don't think those words apply to what spews out of Trump's mouth and fingers (i.e. Twitter posts).

One issue on this topic is that the BSA guidance used to be "keep hats on indoors most of the time". Go look at all those illustrations and photographs from the BSA publications showing scouts with hats on indoors. I know most of the troops around here appear to be "keep the hats on" types. The BSA is not the military, and has deliberately cultivated different traditions in many ways (while adopting others of course - don't expect consistency from the BSA).

I don't like the current guidance, as it fly's in the face of what I understand is the historical tradition in scouting. You are not in full uniform without the hat (hence the modern need to put it back on if you are participating in a ceremony). I (and most of the scouters in my units) are keep the hat on types. I will take it off if I enter a religious building where that is expected, and usually when I sit down to eat indoors. But otherwise it tends to stay on my head. If you want to do it differently, no problem - just don't snap at my scouts about their hats, you will get an ear-full from me.

The problem with hard rules is that what is appropriate is often really dependent on context. For example, no hats at meal times. I know of a few religious traditions where not wearing a hat a mealtimes is considered disrespectful. I would never ask or expect a scout from one of these traditions to take his hat off at the diner table, nor would I assume he is being disrespectful.

As for standard civilian hat etiquette, when was the last time you saw a hat rack or a hat check at a restaurant, movie theater or other venue? Some high end theaters have a coat check that can check hats, but most don't. Practicalities have to inform etiquette: if there isn't any place to put that expensive hat, what are people supposed to do with it? Wearing it at the restaurant table is often the only real option (if you don't want to let it get stepped on, kicked, dirty or lost). When everyone wore hats, society made accommodations. Now that the vast majority don't, society doesn't. Therefor the rules need to change (unless you answer is "don't wear a hat").

... and some volunteers might be lost - even if there is a "local option."

This is my biggest worry with going coed. I know several scouters that said they would quit if the BSA went coed - not because they are so against having girls in scouts, but because of fear. As one said: "There is no way I'm taking girls camping in the woods, no matter the YPT rules. I won't take the risk. I've seen the damage unfounded accusations can make! If the BSA goes coed, I'm out!" (or words to that effect). Mix adult men and young girls and the paranoia flows. After all, all men are predators right? Look at how the GS/USA treat male volunteers (if they allow them at all). There is a lot of fear, whether that fear is reasonable or not.

And before you bring up that venturing is coed, I am still amazed at the number of scouters that have no idea there are girls in venturing, or even what venturing is.

It’s now 25 years since I was a 13 year old boy (more’s the pity!) in that time I’ve noticed a couple of things change in the UK. When I was 13 it was almost unheard of to have a purely plutonic friend of the opposite sex. Yes at 13 the first hints of dating were on the cards, there was the odd friendship between boys and girls here and there. But it was a pretty unusual thing to see. I had one female school friend when I was a teenager, and the hard time I got about that was extraordinary! 25 years later and watching teenagers, not just at scouts, but in the street, in public, everything seems to have changed. Gangs of friends are naturally mixed. There’s the odd gang of boys and the odd one of girls but mixed is the norm. I can’t confess to knowing where that has come from, but come about it has.

 

Genuine question, has there been any similar change in the USA?

When I was a youth, I had a few platonic female friends, but most of my friends were male. And that appears to me to be still true of most the kids I see today. At least for those not yet in high school.

Another thing has been the ‘esprit de corps at scouts. In the UK this has always been at troop level rather than patrol level. At least as far as my experience can see.  When I was a kid any given scout would identify themselves as a member of a troop. The patrols were simply how the troop would organise itself. While it was that way when I was a teenager I think it has become more so in recent years. The PLs would rather work together to run something as a troop than individually as a patrol.

I think that is true of most troops here in the states. I know it was in my troop when I was a kid.

My thought is that both of those reasons is why mixed scouting has worked in the UK. Would it work in the USA or any other country where it is still single sex? I don’t know.

I think there are cultural issues that make coed scouting more difficult in the USA than in many other countries. Simply put, here in the USA we are much more uptight about many issues, and are much more fear driven. So what is easily dealt with in Europe, isn’t here.

I too have a land line.

So do I (and not VOIP). I live in earthquake country.

Wow. I cannot imagine what the families and troop are going through! Such a horrible act.

My prayers are with them.

Two honor roll students fatally shot in Maryland on eve of high school graduation from The Washington Post

The world didn't change, the people did.

Actually the world did change. Two big changes: both parents having to work full time, and fear.

When I was a kid (and in scouts), almost the whole neighborhood had stay at home moms. Those that did work, worked part-time so they would be there when their kids got home from school. The moms talked and did things together. Those block parties? The moms planned those. Send all those moms to work full time, and a lot of the community building goes away.

Then there is the fear. As a kid, I played with the other kids in the neighborhood. We ran around outside and played at each other homes. My friends were my school mates and neighbors. We all got ourselves to scout meetings, little league, school, etc. on our bicycles. Now fear prevents a lot of this.

In my scout troop, I could easily bicycle to the home of every member. How many troops can say that now?

People's communities are now based around work, activities, church, etc, not their neighborhood.

So the world did change. Some is for the better, but some is not. But it is change.

In Baloo locally, over 80% of the trainees are male - 16 of 19 at the Baloo course earlier this month.

Interesting, I took Baloo several years ago, and then helped teach a Baloo course a few years later, and my OWLs course were all about half women. When I took IOLS a couple of years ago, it was about a third women.

Thank you for sharing a great story!

This is always  a tough one.  for millennia humans have waged war on each other for a number of reasons, land, wealth, power, etc. yet even the savagery of the past doesn't compare to the scope and ferocity of today's religious holocaust.  There was agreements and understandings that don't apply today.  but it has only been in recent years that history has shown what such destruction based on intangible ideology can wreck.  This is uncharted territory in many respects and it's going to take a global effort to put a halt to it.  I don't see it happening very quickly..

I agree with a lot that you wrote here, but not with the bit quoted above. The idea that we currently seeing savagery that is new or unique is wrong. If we look at history, we can see many examples of unbelievable cruelty and violence in the name of religion. Here are a just two examples out of European history: The Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars in which some 200,000 to 1,000,000 men, women and children were killed. The 30 years war that lead to some 7.5 million dead (has been classes as the deadliest religious war in European history). Unfortunately there are a lot of others.

And like those past conflicts, the current one isn't just about ideology, but it is also about wealth and power also.

I can't image how hard that must be. My thoughts and prayers are with troop and family.

The story of the Tuskegee Airmen is truly an amazing one. I had the honor of meeting two of these gentlemen at different times (one gave me a personal tour of the Smithsonian's Silver Hill restoration facility in my youth. It was an amazing tour, I got to touch the Enola Gay and see a lot that the normal tours don't. And best of all I got to hear lots of stories by this man. He flew P-39s, P-40s and P-51s in Europe. It really saddens me that after over twenty years I cannot remember this man's name).

We are loosing the WW2 veterans at an alarming rate. It saddens me that most of the scouts I see today will never get the chance to hear actual ww2 veterans speak. It brings a reality to the events that books and films don't.
 

One correction:

Little was honored with a Congressional Medal of Honor in 2007, presented by President George W. Bush.

My understanding is that it was the Congressional Gold Medal. It was awarded to all of the Tuskegee Airmen as a whole.

http://thetandd.com/news/tuskegee-airmen-awarded-congressional-gold-medal/article_44fb187a-7858-5e15-8698-ffe78617203e.html

Boys earning BSA Eagle would not be the same as the boys and girls earning the SA Eagle.

I'm not sure what you are saying here? That if girls could earn Eagle, it would somehow diminish it for the boys?

We should make sure all visiting Canadians pay a border crossing fee in maple syrup and smoke salmon.

One or two parents complained when the church allowed an Alcoholics Anonymous group to meet in a different side room the same night as our Troop meetings.  The SM was floored.  

We would even see a couple former Scout parents from time to time attending the AA meetings.  It was nice to chat with them, catch up, and see how their sons were doing.

Another Canadian school board cancels future trips to the US.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/03/23/tdsb-wont-approve-new-student-trips-to-us.html
 

Canada’s largest school board will not approve any new student trips to the United States in the wake of controversial travel restrictions proposed by President Donald Trump.

However, 25 trips involving about 900 Toronto District School Board students that are already scheduled for this spring will go ahead as planned unless circumstances change, TDSB education director John Malloy wrote in a letter to principals Thursday.

Given the uncertainty over the proposed travel restrictions, “we strongly believe that our students should not be placed into these situations of potentially being turned away at the border,†Malloy said.

Really? The six countries in the ban have huge problems with terrorism. It has nothing to do with religion. If you cannot see that I cannot help you.

 

Go take a group of kids to any of those countries. Have fun.

If you can't see the obvious than I cannot help you.

At the present time, the US does not have No Go zones as there are in the European countries, but does that mean it won't happen here?

So we are back to the No Go Zone fantasy? When policy is based on alt-facts (i.e. delusions) instead of reality, we have a problem.

For all of our faults, we (the US) is still the most welcoming and generous nation on the face of the Earth. We should not lose sight of this fact when we discuss exercising our right to keep our country safe. 

 

Imagine the publicity if we DIDN'T scrutinize folks coming in and we had a Paris or Berlin-style attack at Jamboree. How indignant would people be then that we weren't more vigilant?

The problem is the new executive order has nothing to do with safety, it's about pandering to fear, ignorance and bigotry. And it's obvious to anyone that is paying attention.

For example, the text of the original order specifically mentions the 9/11 hijackers as a reason for the ban. But the 9/11 hijackers came from which nations? Fifteen of the Nineteen were from Saudi Arabia, and the others were from Egypt, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates. All of which are majority Muslim nations that are NOT included in the executive order. Why? Maybe because Trump has business ties to those nations and not the ones one the list?

As for perceptions, the USA currently has a big image problem. After all, when Trump appoints an alt-right figure head (Steve Bannon) to be his right hand man, when Trump’s statements and actions are consistently praised by the likes of David Duke, the KKK and other white nationalists, when Trump retweets a laundry list of half-baked conspiracy theories, and he and his administration repeat easy to check lies almost daily? We shouldn’t be surprised that the nation has an image problem and people might want to wait and see before coming over for a visit.

If I was in charge of a group of kids, I would have a good think before taking them to the border. I would probably take them anyway, but I wouldn’t condemn someone that made the other choice.

Look at their February numbers.

I'm sorry, but I've looked carefully through the posted report and I don't see any February numbers. What am I missing?

Look at the numbers, not the verbiage. The numbers are going up, not down. Yes, that's a picture in time but for now the numbers are up.

 

Time will tell if the verbiage of a reduction comes true.

The numbers in the report all are from before the Trump executive order. Which is why it says "too early to tell".

Then you believed this when the last administration did this?

The problem here is that the Obama administration did nothing of the sort (we all should have learned by now that just because Trump tweets or says something, doesn't mean it's even remotely true).

What the Obama administration did in 2011 was too slow down the processing of refugees from Iraq while the screening procedures were expanded.

http://www.businessinsider.com/big-differences-between-trumps-immigration-ban-obamas-2011-policy-2017-2/

But if you look at what @@backpack posted, it hasn't really.

Actually, the report that @@backpack posted says it is too early to tell, it is expected to do reduce travel. A pair quote from the article:

While there is a strong level of concern on the possible spillover effects related to inbound travel in general, it is too soon to tell how large an impact this action will have on the travel industry.

and

In light of recent events, it seems prudent revisit the economic effects of the executive order banning refugees and migrants from Muslim majority countries as measured by the Council on Foreign Relations. From Edward Alden, Senior Fellow at CFR:

 

"A Muslim ban, or any targeted or broad-based ban on foreign visitors from countries with significant Muslim populations, would also have consequences well beyond the direct effect on travelers. It would hurt the economies of communities dependent on tourism. A ban on these travelers also would spill over to federal, state, and local budgets via decreased tax revenues. And depending on how other nations react, it could have still broader consequences for travel, trade, and investment."

 

Alden estimates the effects of a travel ban to be an economic loser. Direct spending losses “could range from $14 billion to $30 billion [per year]. Adding in indirect (multiplier) effects... increases this range to $31 billion to $66 billion. The loss of jobs could range from 50,600 to 132,000.†Alden also notes the effect of educational travelers, noting the loss to be around “15 percent of the total foreign student spending, or $4.6 billion†and the indirect cost of losing foreign graduate students in the sciences, which could weaken foreign investment as foreign business travelers face new hurdles in reaching the United States.

So I think it is fair to say that the statement "the report says it hasn't" is incorrect.