Random thing you love right now that doesn't deserve its own thread

Last I heard, the BSA still require a statement of religious faith for membership. Atheists are not welcome. As I understand it, this is a side-effect of the BSA essentially being bought and paid for by the Mormons.

The Mormons, (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), dropped the BSA as the activity arm of their youth program as of last year, i.e. they are no longer affiliated.

Yes, but the residual effects of their decades-long affiliation definitely still remains. Even if the Mormons are gone (which, the church may have dropped them, but that doesn't mean the members have - they probably won't go away until some "prophet" declares them on the same level as coffee or something), these policies are not.

It depends on the actual group. I know some leaders who will simply "not notice" if someone substitutes for or leaves out the God stuff. But again, that's not a general endorsement from me. I'm sure it varies greatly from region to region.

I have my kids in cub scouts and the religion aspect is generally side stepped. I'm hoping the official policy updates in the next few years.
We're a very agnostic pack and it's handled by saying all religious requirements are handled at home instead with the pack.
The patriotism is the part I struggle with due to the way the US handles it.
I'm always on the fence of continuing or not.
Part of it comes down to, I have yet to find a single kid's activity that doesn't have some issues either with the organization, the activity, etc.

MaxShrek wrote:

With the Cub Scouts talk, reminds me I told somebody I am an Eagle Scout, and they told me Boy Scouts are Nazi Youth.
Tough crowd.

Lord Baden Powell (Creator of the Scouting movement) had a rather unfortunate admiration for some of Hitler’s ideologies - he was a known admirer of Mein Kampf and said so in his personal diaries, while also noting that Hitler didn’t actually follow any of the ideas he included in the book.

He was invited to meet Hitler to discuss aligning the Scouting movement with the Hitler Youth movement, but he never attended. MI6 records from the time confirm this. However Nazi Germany did ban the scouting movement as a potential competitor to the Hitler youth, and one likely to challenge Nazi ideology, and added Baden-Powell himself in the Nazi ‘black book’ of notes people to be taken into immediate custody in the event they invaded the British Isles.

How far Baden-Powell’s alleged Nazi sympathies went are matters of academic conjecture for the most part, his family insist that he was horrified by the actions of the Nazis before and during the Second World War while some academics have him as a full on sympathiser.

As someone who owes a very great deal of who I’ve become to the scouting movement (I was involved from cub scouts at the age of 7 all the way through to being a leader in my late 20s) I have to say I was never aware of the allegations against Baden-Powell for Nazism (while fully aware of the racist allegations against him from his time in Africa) at any point. I didn’t pick up on that until his Statue in Poole, UK was briefly targeted during the BLM protests here.

There are also - as far as I can tell - only those 2 incidents as confirmed matters of involvement with Hitler or the Nazi party. The rest is mostly a lot of self appointed biographer’s speculation (which also allege he was a closeted homosexual) most of which seem extrapolated out as far as it’ll go rather than anything backed up with additional evidence.

Moved to Canton, Ohio. Spending a few weeks at the in-laws until we can move into the new house. Anyone around?

There's a small contingent of us up in Akron, and more up near Cleveland. There's also a larger group of folks I've gotten to know through the locals who aren't GWJers.

Be careful, those Ohio Goodjers are weird.

Welcome to Ohio, Iso! What brought you to Canton?

The Browns?

LeapingGnome wrote:

Welcome to Ohio, Iso! What brought you to Canton?

fangblackbone wrote:

The Browns?

Pretty much.

Actually, we’re moving to be closer to my wife’s family in Louisville, Ohio. If you have a group I’d love to hang out and host once we get in the new house.

fangblackbone wrote:

The Browns?

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa browns

My wife just baked fresh blueberry muffins. The smell in this house right now is absolutely awesome, and the muffins are pretty darn tasty, too!

The feeling when you help your neighbor catch their dog that escaped from the back yard. Luckily I was finishing a walk with Lumpy, and their dog (who loves playing with Lumpy) saw him and immediately left the middle of the street to play with Lumpy. I was then able to grab the neighbor dog and help them bring him inside. It’s been a while since one of our dogs escaped but it’s a nice feeling helping a neighbor like that. It was a young dog too, and it was running around at full speed, so we’re all lucky Lumpy and I showed up when we did because one of the community’s bigger roads is really close to where we are.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

Release the KRAAAAAAAAAAAKEN

I dig it. A nice nod to the Metropolitans logo, the tentacle in the negative space... It all looks really good. And "kraken" is just plain cool.

I like to think the release the Kraken and dog stories are somehow related.

My 7 year old getting in a heated argument with our 10 year old about how numbers go in patterns and circles, with the 10 year old claiming that numbers go in endless lines.

WizKid wrote:

My 7 year old getting in a heated argument with our 10 year old about how numbers go in patterns and circles, with the 10 year old claiming that numbers go in endless lines.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but if I remember my theoretical math correctly, aren’t they both right?

WizKid wrote:

My 7 year old getting in a heated argument with our 10 year old about how numbers go in patterns and circles, with the 10 year old claiming that numbers go in endless lines.

That’s awesome!! Who’s winning?

I just want to see a transcript of the argument. Sounds like a good read.

I'll see what I can do.

WizKid wrote:

My 7 year old getting in a heated argument with our 10 year old about how numbers go in patterns and circles, with the 10 year old claiming that numbers go in endless lines.

In 40 years your kids will be racing each other to colonize the moons of Jupiter, one using an engine based on linear math, the other on circular math. Mark my words.

UpToIsomorphism wrote:
LeapingGnome wrote:

Welcome to Ohio, Iso! What brought you to Canton?

fangblackbone wrote:

The Browns?

Pretty much.

Actually, we’re moving to be closer to my wife’s family in Louisville, Ohio. If you have a group I’d love to hang out and host once we get in the new house.

When Phishposer was still in Cincinnati he hosted an S&T at his place. I met ErikTheRed and a couple other folks there, and hosted a GWJer at my house. ThinJ hooked me up with a nice big PC case years ago. And OG_Slinger and TrueHeart78 are somewhere in Ohio too, along with Garion333 who’s in Cleveland I think. And the folks out near Hocking Hills running Ravenwood Castle. b12n11w00t is in Wilmington.

Alas, I have escaped Ohio for Colorado as of May of this year. Good luck!

LupusUmbrus and Pyroman were there for some of those as well. That was like 7-8 years ago at this point. Yikes.

More Taskmaster has been announced.

I keep forgetting to catch up on this on YouTube. Thanks for the reminder!

PaladinTom wrote:

I keep forgetting to catch up on this on YouTube. Thanks for the reminder!

Do. It's worth it.

Since it's on Channel 4 now, I wonder if there's any chance of a Netflix deal for new episodes like with Bake Off.

Some of the later seasons are going to start airing in the US next month but it's on The CW so it's be censored. And, if they do season 7, I'm curious how they will handle Phil's wang.