scoutingagain

Ed, You may have a point. I agree, I believe there is an element of selective prosecution or enforcement in some of these cases. Unfortunately that does not change the Constitutional and legal basis on which these cases are decided. I think the BSA needs to do a better job of choosing when these cases should be defended rather than wasting money on legal fees when the issues seem pretty clear. Remember this is the same Contitution and Court system that decided the BSA, as a private organization, has a right to set it's own membership standards. What we don't have a right to, i

For yuks I did a quick search to see if I could find any cases where the ACLU supported the BSA. I confess I didn't find any. I did find the following summary of supreme court cases brought by the ACLU. 1938 Lovell v. Griffin The Court held, in this case involving Jehovah's Witnesses, that a local ordinance in Georgia prohibiting the distribution of "literature of any kind" without a City Manager's permit, violated the First Amendment. 1939 Hague v. CIO An important First Amendment case in which the Court recognized a broad freedom to assemble in public forums, such as "s

CK, Check the Camping & High Adventure threads. Gettysburg has been discussed extensively in that section. We did a Troop trip in August, 2 years ago. It was a four day trip and our itinerary that allowed us to complete the Historic Trails award was something like: Day 1 - Travel 8 hrs, arrive 2-3pm. Set up camp & go to last show of Electric Map and Visitor Center. Dinner, Evening walk/hike through downtown Gettysburg. Day 2 - 9 Mile Hike, Swim & Shower at YWCA in Evening IPhysically this was the toughest day, it was 90+ degrees and we all felt it at the e

I've followed this thread for a while and agree with Acco, Hunt and NJ. The issue seems quite straight foward to me. A private group, which practices lawful discrimnation against certain segments of society should not expect to recieve preferential treatment from the government which is expected to represent and protect the rights of all in society. I'm not against the BSA, and fully support the concept that it is a private organization with the right to determine it's own membership criteria, although I may not entirely agree with it. But as a private organization we should be prepared to

As a scout and family camping I spent many nights in the Jersey Pine Baron and Wharton State Forest. It is an unsual ecology. The closest thing we have in New England is parts of the Cape. I still make it back to the Garden State once in a while, either travelling for business or to visit relatives. My family knows, I always que up "Born to Run", the unofficial state song, as we cross the border in NY and head south on the Garden State Parkway... Turn up the volume... "In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway American dream At night we ride through mansions of glor

I'm hesitant to resurect this thread but here goes. I read through it and on the way home thought of what does tolerance mean. From Dictionary.com 8 entries found for tolerance. tolerance ( P ) Pronunciation Key (tlr-ns) n. The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others. Leeway for variation from a standard. The permissible deviation from a specified value of a structural dimension, often expressed as a percent. The capacity to endure hardship or pain. Medicine. Physiological resistance to a poison.

With all due respect to Mr. White, can someone point to documentation that says that youth must join a unit within the geographic boundries of the district that they live or go to school in? As far as I'm concerned, if you can deliver a quality program and want to introduce it to boys that can benefit from it, regardless of where they wish to travel from, I agree with those that say go for it. However, you might want to do some research on units that do serve the area they live in and let the boys know that in addition to your unit, they can look into joining those units that may be clos

Hmm, "Portable" water. I never would have thought of that. Does that mean I don't need a water bottle? Sorry, couldn't resist again. SA

Guess that leaves the Easy Bake Ovens out too. Couldn't resist either. SA

Well I've been out of town for a few days and havn't had time to review this thread for a while. Spent a few days in W. Virginia & Western PA. Jeepers we live in a beautiful country. Back to politics as this thread seems have evolved to. My take on George W. is that he's not as conservative as he's been made out to be. He's as much a pandering politician as any other candidate. He needed the conservative religious vote to win and that's the way the Republicans played the election. I give them credit, it worked. However, now that he is in his second term and doesn't have

Well if that doesn't qualify for an attaboy from one scouter to another, I don't know what does. Way to go Foto. SA

"So, in 06 we start with a bunch of hopefuls from both sides of the aisle and we start to winnow it down to two opponets who will most likely be shaped by the choices of new hampshire and Iowa. I wonder if we can scheule all the primaries on the same day, any thoughts? " I guess I agree that I would like to see more folks involved in the primary process than just those that vote early. I could see a series of regional primaries. As far as '08 goes. Good question. Some of my immediate thoughts after the election were: The Democratic Party leadership really are out of touch w

OGE, Your absolutely right. Lo and behold it was obvious the scouts had picked the organizational skills to pull off an outing. And yes, we need to channel those skills to a more scoutlike activity. SA Sorry to interupt the tweaking/nontweaking discussion. I havn't had time to express my thoughts on the discussion at length, but in following this thread and the others, there seems to be much more common ground among the participants than I think they realize. It has been interesting to follow though. SA

I'm not sure it this little story fits here or in Fling1's laser tag thread or threads on paintball but here goes. At one recent PLC meeting ideas were kicked around for outings. Usually the SM or ASM will make suggestions and the PLs will pick one and begin planning and I confess, while the boys do much of the planning we still have more adult involvement than I would like to see. Until...one idea presented by the boys was paintball. Well it was explained to them this was against the G2SS and they couldn't do it as a Troop outing. They asked, well why can't they do it as just a bunch

Well I voted last night at a public school, that does not sponsor one of those discrimanatory scouting units. I don't know how far away folks have to be from the polls here, I do know I had to drive through a guantlet of signs for local politicians as I entered the parking lot. No political signs outside the entrance door, but I did have to run another guantlet of organizations selling stuff for fundraising. The HS band had a raffle going, the Senior Class had a bake sale, another organization was selling coffee, another just begging for $$$. I didn't have to show an ID and I'm not married

I confess this is not a 50 miler comment. It is an adult award recognition comment though. When we went to Gettysburg and and did the historic trails activities we had more than the usual number of adults come along on the trip. A number of them were associated with a Cub Scout Pack because their sons had younger siblings still in Cub Scouts. All the adults that participated were presented with the historic trails award medal. I think some of the adults are prouder of that medal than the scouts. The Cub Scout Leaders proudly wear their medal on their uniform and it has been a great conve

Dan, Let me make sure I have this straight first. Your son fulfilled his service hours requirement for Life by working on Eagle projects and other service projects. He also held the position of Troop Instructor for twelve months, which meets the Position of Responsibility requirement for the Life rank. In addition to the above, the scoutmaster assigned an additional service project that required a write up, thank you letters, pictures, etc. to receive his Life Rank. Is that correct? If so, I think the question is not whether it worked or not. We know such projects produce

Nice work. I liked it. SA

1) Yes 2) Yes 3) No 4) Yes 5) Yes (I'd give 15 minutes worth) 6,7,8) Yes, Yes Yes I generally agree with Pack's interpretation regarding fundraising except in 2) the council specifically asked for volunteers and the work did not directly benefit the scout or or his unit. While it is preferable that a scout get prior approval, for the Star and Life ranks I don't feel it's required. Most of our scouts get service hours participating in Eagle projects. The Catholic Church in our town allows scouts to use scout service hours towards confirmation so we reciprocate

Yes TP, we all know the heartwarming story of young GW Bush growing up the poor son of an oil executive and former government official. Making his own way through the failed oil executive trade and becoming a baseball team owner and Governor. It's always heartwarming to see how someone can overcome such humble beginnings and set backs and convince folks he's a regular guy by pretending to mispronounce nuclear and split wood. Can't say I'm a big fan of Mr. Kerry either. He is a Liberal, meaning there's not an organized labor group he doesn't like, hence the support from all those comm

TP, To respond to your question regarding a full keel boat. It's substantially heavier and will be more stable in waves than a centerboard boat. It also has a bit more room in the cabin than a compable length centerboard boat. It is slower in light wind though and you certainly would have difficulty trailering it. My offer of a daysail on Mass Bay stands. To stay sort of on topic, I sailed probably over a hundred miles this summer on day sails and used maybe a little more than 6 gallons of gas. Some of the larger motor vessels in the harbor can't even get out of the Marina w

The issue of large family style tents for Webelos camping was brought up once before, (by me via a possible suggestion) and was rather abruptly dismissed by another poster as a violation of the Webelos tenting rules. i.e. No scout can sleep in a tent with an adult other than a parent or guardian. My question is this. How is a large family style tent with more than one adult and more than one scout different from cabin style camping where all parties sleep on bunks in the same small room, or the scenario on many ship board sleepovers where everyone sleeps in the same cabin, or museum sl

"The problem is do we as a country favor action to inaction? " No disrespect, OGE, but I don't think the issue is action or inaction. I accept in this day and age, and the potential for terrorists to aquire WMD make the concept of pre-emptive war necessary. I agree that we cannot sit back and simply respond to attacks. The question is though, what threshold must be met before we put those who volunteer to protect us in harms way? At what point are we willing to sacrafice our sons, daughters, husbands or wives, fathers & mothers, fellow citizens? I've written and r

Well hello sailors! 24' Bahamian Islander with a 7.5 HP Johnson here. Built in '68 and still plying the waters off Boston and Massachusetts Bay. My wife and I have been sailing her as long as we've been together, over 20 years. It's the one place she's second in command. In past years we've sailed from Salem to Martha's Vinyard to Cuttyhunk Isand for 7 - 10 days at a time. Now we mostly daysail with an occaisional overnighter. The boat is a full keel boat and stands up to a heady sea. Just sailed her down the coast a bit to be hauled for the season. Great day on the outside with 3-

Welcome Starwolf, About the only thing I can think of beyond some of the other suggestions would be to invite the Webelos scouts directly. Either have a Den Chief from your troop give the invitation directly to the boys, or ask the Webelos leader if someone from the troop could visit a Webelos meeting to talk about the Troop's activities and invite the boys to some of them. Good Luck, SA