Don't let the door hit you in the ass

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Saturday June 01, 2013 · 5:47 AM PDT

2013/06/01 · 05:47

I actually have mixed feelings about this.

Clearly, these boys need the benefits of the program, and I'd gladly welcome them in without their parents if I thought it could help.

Alas, as the saying goes in the business...."You can't reach every boy."

Poll

37 votes Show Results

Given the BSA's recent decision, would you:

37 votes Vote Now!

Given the BSA's recent decision, would you:

Quit

7 votes

Join

13 votes

Donate

5 votes

DRINK!

12 votes

BSA change comes from the inside

TriSec for Scouts and Scouters

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Friday May 24, 2013 · 7:45 AM PDT

2013/05/24 · 07:45

From my friend, Dr. Holmes at Crew 56, Cambridge (MA)

Change in Boy Scouts coming from the inside

GRAPEVINE, Texas — The Boy Scouts of America’s lifting the ban on openly gay youth Thursday came 12 years after I received this charge:
"Change will only come from the inside."

It came from a silver-haired man who wore his Boy Scout uniform. Despite a lifetime of service to the Boy Scouts of America, he had been kicked out a few months prior for being gay. He exhorted me not to leave the organization.

He told me this as we stood in protest in Copley Square outside the BSA’s 2001 national annual meeting, held in Boston. I had in one hand a rainbow sign that said “Den Mothers for Inclusion,” and in the other hand my blue-uniformed 10-year-old Cub Scout son. I was heavy-hearted at the Supreme Court decision the year before allowing the BSA to ban gays from membership. We were an outdoors and craft-oriented family and my son loved Scout activities, which I had introduced him to. But how could I allow him to participate in an organization that would discriminate against our gay and lesbian family members and friends?

The silver-haired gentleman provided a startling new way to look at the issue. He said, “If people like you who support people like me do not stay to press change from within, it will never happen. The Supreme Court has assured that. If a boy who begins as a 7-year-old Cub Scout realizes he is a 13-year-old gay teen, who will he turn to if there are no sympathetic adults?”

Liberal Confession - I handled guns!

TriSec

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Monday May 20, 2013 · 10:43 AM PDT

2013/05/20 · 10:43

This past weekend, I did something that might just horrify the more liberal among you.

We handled firearms, gave them to children, and shot a bunch of stuff. It was a blast.

You see….I'm a Scout Leader and this was our annual shooting weekend.

TriSec

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Monday May 13, 2013 · 11:58 AM PDT

2013/05/13 · 11:58

Well, one of my co-workers became dead to me today.

We were having a brief luncheon for another member of the team, whose birthday it is, when we started idly chatting about the Boston Fund fundraiser going on in the lobby today. I mentioned some of the local updates in the neighborhoods, and the growing connection to the unsolved triple-murder in Waltham.

Imagine my surprise when the person in question launched into a diatribe that the Tsarnaevs were set up, the FBI planted the bombs, and that this was used as a dress-rehearsal for Martial Law. Of course the next words out of her mouth were "Bengazi", and then most curious of all, she somehow worked her way over to climate change and that it wasn't real; the government was hiring commercial airliners to spray chemicals into the atmosphere and those weren't contrails. (I"ll admit that's a new one on me.)

I merely smiled and told her to stop watching Fox News. "Why not? None of this comes from Fox!!" was her angry reply. In the interest of diplomacy (because I still have to work with her), I remained silent after that.

I'm really at a loss for words this afternoon.

Ugly truths about the dead

TriSec

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Monday May 06, 2013 · 7:19 AM PDT

2013/05/06 · 07:19

I'm cross-posting this from my website at www.fourfreedomsblog.com

Please come visit us and read the whole thing; it's just a snippet below the Arabic-looking swirly.

What say you all? Is this a misunderstanding of death rituals, religious intolerance, revenge, or what?

TriSec for Scouts and Scouters

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Saturday April 27, 2013 · 4:59 AM PDT

2013/04/27 · 04:59

This may shock you. I have decided to oppose the BSA's proposed changes regarding our national membership policy. I have to applaud the BSA's shrewd move in utilizing the Friday News Dump to the fullest extent last week. Not only was it Friday, but it was this Friday and at the height of the lockdown when this all came out. The Nation had riveted it's attention on my backyard, so this was easy to overlook.

In case you missed it, the BSA is proposing thus:

Youth membership in the Boy Scouts of America is open to all youth who meet the specific membership requirements to join the Cub Scout, Boy Scout, Varsity Scout, Sea Scout, and Venturing programs. Membership in any program of the Boy Scouts of America requires the youth member to:
(a) subscribe to and abide by the values expressed in the Scout Oath and Scout Law, (b) subscribe to and abide by the precepts of the Declaration of Religious Principle (duty to God), and
(c) demonstrate behavior that exemplifies the highest level of good conduct and respect for others and is consistent at all times with the values expressed in the Scout Oath and Scout Law.

No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.

But here's the thing, and the root of why I'm opposing this. It doesn't go far enough. It really is that simple. Read More

Mormons say "gay scouts are OK".

TriSec for Scouts and Scouters

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Friday April 26, 2013 · 9:59 AM PDT

2013/04/26 · 09:59

But adults are still icky, of course.

Mormon Church OK with ending ban.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has given tacit approval to the Boy Scouts’ proposal to allow gay youth to join, saying they “appreciate the positive things” included in the plan to end the organization's controversial ban on gay boys.
The Boy Scouts of America last week proposed allowing gay youth – but not adults – to participate in the private youth organization. That came two months after they floated the idea of allowing gays and lesbians of all ages to join, a proposal that was denounced by the conservative religious groups that make up a bulk of Scouting.

Of course, since the Mormons run the show anyway, this seems to indicate that they are reading the tea leaves and seeing that the ban will be overturned, flaws and all. This looks like early damage control to me.

Has the BSA played it's hand?

TriSec

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Wednesday April 24, 2013 · 12:43 PM PDT

2013/04/24 · 12:43

I happened across something curious at the BSA's own websitetoday.

Note the way this is worded:

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT:
The following membership standard for youth members of the Boy Scouts of America is hereby adopted and approved, effective Jan. 1, 2014:

Youth membership in the Boy Scouts of America is open to all youth who meet the specific membership requirements to join the Cub Scout, Boy Scout, Varsity Scout, Sea Scout, and Venturing programs. Membership in any program of the Boy Scouts of America requires the youth member to (a) subscribe to and abide by the values expressed in the Scout Oath and Scout Law, (b) subscribe to and abide by the precepts of the Declaration of Religious Principle (duty to God), and (c) demonstrate behavior that exemplifies the highest level of good conduct and respect for others and is consistent at all times with the values expressed in the Scout Oath and Scout Law. No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.

What the heck is going on??

BSA coalition offers alternate proposal

TriSec for Scouts and Scouters

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Monday April 22, 2013 · 3:46 PM PDT

2013/04/22 · 15:46

This comes from The Inclusive Scouting Network

All adult applicants must possess the moral, educational, and emotional
qualities that the Boy Scouts of America deems necessary to afford positive
leadership to youth. The applicant must also be the correct age, subscribe to the
precepts of the Declaration of Religious Principle (duty to God), and abide by the
Scout Oath and the Scout Law.
That each Chartered Organization of the Boy Scouts of America shall have
the right (but not be required) to grant membership to individuals who, in the best
judgment of that Chartered Organization, demonstrate behavior that exemplifies
the highest level of good conduct and respect for others in accordance with the
mission of the BSA and is consistent with the principles and teachings of that
Chartered Organization, without regard to sexual orientation.

This differs from the BSA's own proposal that only addresses youth membership. The way the current proposal is worded, a scout can join, learn leadership skills, progress all the way to Eagle, and then immediately become irrelevant, ostracized, and excommunicated upon his 18th birthday.

In many ways, that's worse than excluding gays outright.

Marathon bomber link to local homicide?

TriSec

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Monday April 22, 2013 · 3:42 PM PDT

2013/04/22 · 15:42

This broke this afternoon....a little closer to home for me, as I live two blocks from the murder scene, and my Pack's Treasurer lives on the next street over.

Police probe link between bombers and unsolved triple homicide

Waltham police have stepped up their investigation of a 2011 triple homicide where a friend of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was brutally murdered, according to a relative of one of the victims who was interviewed by the Globe.
The relative said Sunday that police have renewed the investigation at the request of victims’ relatives who believe Tamerlan, and perhaps his younger brother, Dzhokhar, played a role in the homicides. Authorities have said the victims all had their throats slit.

Stephanie Guyotte, a spokeman for the Middlesex district attorney’s office, said, “We’re eager to pursue any new leads of information. It has been reported he knew one of the deceased victims. It remains an open and active investigation.”

This is my city.

TriSec

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Tuesday April 16, 2013 · 3:12 AM PDT

2013/04/16 · 03:12

Cross-posted at Four Freedoms Blog. Do come and visit if you can.

This is my city.

Yesterday was our day.

I mean no insult to New York, or those that were lost, but until September 11, it was just that, September 11, an otherwise ordinary day with no significance to New York.

Patriot’s Day is Boston.

It’s more than the sporting events. We do have the Marathon, which I shouldn’t have to tell you is the oldest annual marathon in the world, having been inspired by the 1896 Olympics. Hopkinton, the “scream tunnel”, Heartbreak Hill, Rick and Dick Hoyt, Copley Square…these are all household names around the world. Our other sports claim to fame on this day is the Boston Red Sox. Before the marathon was altered, it always kicked off at noon…and the Red Sox first pitch was always at 10:30 am, the only morning start in all of baseball.

The idea was the game would be just wrapping up as the runners hit Kenmore Square.

I used to work in said Square in those days; it was absolute chaos. The company I worked for at the time gave up trying to fight it…we went out for “lunch” at about 1:30 to catch the elite runners passing through, and we’d always wait for the Hoyts to pass by before heading back in.

TriSec

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Monday April 15, 2013 · 8:15 AM PDT

2013/04/15 · 08:15

Cross-posted from www.fourfreedomsblog , with the kind permission of author Bobr. (Please visit us for the links referenced; I didn't copy those over.)

To hear the gun nuts' hysterics, you'd think President Obama had declared himself Supreme Leader and was sending out the troops goosestepping into every community to arrest anyone with a gun. In reality, the Senate has finally agreed to discuss the possibility of expanding background checks. The notion of background checks is apparently forbidden in the Constitution if you believe these people. Their arguments against any sort of common-sense regulation are legion, and spoken with such earnest matter-of-factualness that you have to believe that they believe them. Perhaps it's time (again) to look a little closer at some of those arguments...

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Don't let the door hit you in the ass

BSA change comes from the inside

Liberal Confession - I handled guns!

My coworker is dead to me.

Ugly truths about the dead

I oppose the BSA's policy change

Mormons say "gay scouts are OK".

Has the BSA played it's hand?

BSA coalition offers alternate proposal

Marathon bomber link to local homicide?

This is my city.

Breaking down the gun arguments