"It started decades ago, in my opinion. It started decades ago with timeouts and last-place participation trophies."

"And sorry to put it so harsh, but it seems to me like we lost a good portion of a few generations of men who've just turned into complete fucking pussies."

Said Kid Rock, getting the last word in a discussion — with Bill Maher, Tim Ryan, and Pamela Paul — that started out with a criticism of the Boy Scouts changing its name to Scouting America.

"I did everything by the book the whole time. They changed the rules, and I should be grandfathered in. I shouldn’t have to abide by them."

Said Tony Cavallaro, quoted in "Authorities Seize Alligator Being Held Illegally in Home Near Buffalo/The alligator, Albert Edward, had been with his owner for 34 years" (NYT).

He was 11 feet long, 750 pounds heavy and 34 years old, and until this week, he lived in a pool house attached to his owner’s home in Hamburg, N.Y., about 13 miles south of Buffalo.

The [New York State Department of Environmental Conservation] said that Albert’s owner, Tony Cavallaro, had a license for the alligator, but it expired in 2021. In an interview, Mr. Cavallaro, 64, said that while visitors to his home did sometimes take pictures with Albert, they never swam with him or rode him. Instead, they would briefly get in the water for a quick photo with the animal, often when he was sleeping, Mr. Cavallaro said.

Cavallaro bought Albert as a newborn and believes "the poor thing loves me."

I'm interested in the law here, the always enticing notion that the law doesn't apply to you. Cavallaro also seems to believe that the law of nature — the dangerousness of alligators — does not apply to Albert.

But what's missing from this article is any mention of the comic strip that was once central to our culture: Pogo. There's an alligator named Albert, and you don't cite Pogo?

ADDED: The Wikipedia article linked above describes Albert Alligator as "An exuberant, dimwitted, irascible, and egotistical alligator."

"The evolution of cooperation required out-group hatred. Which is really sad."

Said the sociologist Nicholas Christakis, quoted in "Science is revealing why American politics are so intensely polarized/Political psychologists say they see tribalism intensifying, fueled by contempt for the other side" (WaPo).

The article is by Joel Achenbach, who cites this study:

Social psychologist Muzafer Sherif took 22 Boy Scouts and separated them into two groups camping at Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma. Only after a week did they learn that there was another group at the far end of the campground.What they did next fascinated the research team. Each group developed irrational contempt for the other. The boys in the other group were seen not just as rivals, but as fundamentally flawed human beings. Only when the two groups were asked to work together to solve a common problem did they warm up to one another.

Ironically, the top comments over there are about how Republicans are fundamentally flawed human beings. 

The alien's documentary about what gives meaning to the life of the humans.

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I love the work of Baron Ryan, and I looked him up to see what he might be doing. The main thing I found though was from 2014, when he was 17: "Nixa Boy Scout Earns All 139 Badges."

"We wanted to land on something that evokes the past but also conveys the inclusive nature of the program going forward. We’re trying to find the right way to say we’re here for both young men and young women."

Said Chief Scout Executive Mike Surbaugh, describing the "incredibly fun" process of deciding to change the name of the Boy Scouts program to Scouts BSA (USA Today reports).

Of course, girls can join Boy Scouts now, and why wouldn't they?

"Some Girl Scout badges promote stereotypical notions of femininity. Many are about helping others."

"Even the flowers badge asks girls to 'find out how flowers help people.' There’s also a focus on appearance. The independence badge, for 'striding down your path to changing the world,' includes learning how to 'make your clothes look great.' The 'eating for you' badge — recently called 'eating for beauty' — emphasizes how nutrition helps with 'smooth skin, shiny hair and strong nails.' The Scout Law for [Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts] includes similar virtues, like being honest, helpful and friendly. But girls might be better off, too, if more boys earned badges like those from the Girl Scouts for respect and fair play, and for taking responsibility for their actions, not to mention babysitting and making dinner. In that spirit, here are 10 Girl Scout badges that might benefit Boy Scouts...."

From "Things Boys Could Learn at Girl Scouts" (NYT).

"The Boy Scouts’ decision to open its ranks to girls appears to be less an evolution toward openness and inclusion than a calculated business strategy."

"The move allows the organization, which has been rocked by revelations of decades of sexual abuse, to improve its public image.... Most crucially, it’s a direct attack on the Girl Scouts, a group that shares some historical roots with the Boy Scouts but has grown into a very different organization, with very different values. Unlike the Boy Scouts, in which individual troops are overwhelmingly affiliated with churches — a large share are tied to conservative denominations; an estimated 20 percent of scouts are Mormon, for instance — the Girl Scouts are a secular organization.... The Girl Scouts have long focused on social justice, diversity and inclusion in their activities...."

From a NYT op-ed titled "Girls, Don’t Become Boy Scouts," by Kate Tuttle.

If I were a young girl, I'd pick the organization that had activities that were fun and useful for me to learn, and "social justice, diversity and inclusion" doesn't even sound like an activity.

"The Girl Scouts Have Accused The Boy Scouts Of Secretly Trying To Recruit Girls To Appeal To Millennial Parents."

Buzzfeed reports.

The strongly worded letter — obtained by BuzzFeed News — alleged that BSA was "surreptitiously testing the appeal of a girls’ offering to millennial parents."...

"Through various means we have learned that BSA is very seriously considering opening their programs to girls and we have made repeated efforts to engage with them and talk about the implications," the [Girl Scouts] spokesperson told BuzzFeed News on Tuesday.

"It's a potentially dangerous and bad idea," the spokesperson said, citing research supporting "single gender programming" which says that girls learn best in an all-girls environment when it comes to scouting.

Note: This isn't about transgender kids. It's about the perceived attitude of millennial parents.

That was a nonapology from the leader of the Boy Scouts.

All day, I've been seeing that there was an apology, and I just got around to reading it:

I want to extend my sincere apologies to those in our Scouting family who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree. That was never our intent. The invitation for the sitting U.S. President to visit the National Jamboree is a long-standing tradition that has been extended to the leader of our nation that has had a Jamboree during his term since 1937. It is in no way an endorsement of any person, party or policies. For years, people have called upon us to take a position on political issues, and we have steadfastly remained non-partisan and refused to comment on political matters. We sincerely regret that politics were inserted into the Scouting program.

The leader (Michael Surbaugh, the Chief Scout Executive) is obviously reacting to criticism. He knows there are people who were offended, and he's mollifying them. It's not the most exaggerated form of nonapology, because he doesn't say I'm sorry if you were offended or I'm sorry that you were offended, but he's speaking to the offended and showing that he cares about their feelings.

It's also missing the most important element of an apology: An admission of wrongdoing. In fact, Surbaugh argues that the Boy Scouts did everything right. They were completely politically neutral, making the same invitation to the President that they always make and not intending for the President to inject any politics into the event. I'd say Surbaugh's purpose here is to defend the Boy Scouts and concede nothing.

Interestingly, Surbaugh does not even say that the President did wrong. The President got the standard invitation, accepted it, and showed up and said what he decided should be said. He was given a speech opportunity and he operated independently of the Boy Scouts, who just gave him the platform. He was free to speak, and, as is often the case, some people think he made some bad choices. What Surbaugh seems to care about is that the President's choices about what to say not be attributed to the Boy Scouts, because he, understandably, doesn't want any political positions to seem to belong to the Boy Scouts.

(It reminds me of cases in which a public school gives the valedictorian the podium at graduation and the valedictorian, given a speaker's slot, chooses to thank Jesus. The school isn't endorsing religion, just following a neutral policy of giving a forum to the student with the highest grades. In that situation, the school has an obligation to avoid taking a position on religion, and the valedictorian, speaking for herself, is free to thank Jesus. That can be accepted as perfectly fine.)

Something else that makes what Surbaugh said not a real apology is that there's nothing about the future. It sounds as though the Boy Scouts are going to keep doing what they've done since 1937 and invite the President to speak and that the President will be on his own. Surbaugh doesn't even say he hopes that the criticism the President received this year will influence Presidents in the future to keep politics out of the Jamboree speech. He just regrets that it happened this time. Regret is an element of an apology, but only one of several elements.

Conclusion: That was a nonapology.

"For more than 100 years, the Boy Scouts of America... have ultimately deferred to the information on an individual’s birth certificate to determine eligibility for our single-gender programs."

"However, that approach is no longer sufficient as communities and state laws are interpreting gender identity differently, and these laws vary widely from state to state."

Girls who want to join the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts.

These are not female-to-male transgender persons but girls who prefer the activities offered in Boy Scouts: "they would rather be camping and tying knots than selling cookies."

And they say shifting attitudes are on their side: Bathrooms are going unisex in deference to transgender people, the Supreme Court has redefined marriage to include same-sex couples, and even the Boy Scouts have softened their stance on gay scouts and scout leaders.

In this liberal-minded community, about two hours north of San Francisco, a group of girls ages 10 and 13 who have named themselves the Unicorns... began to consider themselves Boy Scouts last fall, after they enrolled in a skills-building course, Learning for Life, that is affiliated with the organization and is offered to boys and girls. Several Unicorns had tried the Girl Scouts but found the experience too sedate: rest time and whispering instead of playing tag and lighting fires.

Rest time and whispering! Is that really what Girl Scouts do? Obviously, the Girl Scouts object to that characterization.

[E]xpanding the definition of “Boy Scout” is alarming some parents, who voiced concerns about the prospect of shared tents, the erosion of valuable boys-only time and the possibility that girls — who already outperform boys in many areas — might start to snap up all the leadership positions.

Former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, current president of the Boy Scouts of America, had said last May that the ban on gay scout leaders "cannot be sustained."

Yesterday, acceding to social change, the Boy Scouts announced the end of the ban.

What does this mean for religious traditionalists?

[T]he new policy allows church-sponsored units to choose local unit leaders who share their precepts, even if that means restricting such positions to heterosexual men. Despite this compromise, the Mormon Church said it might leave the organization anyway....

“The church has always welcomed all boys to its scouting units regardless of sexual orientation,” the statement by the Mormon Church headquarters said. “However, the admission of openly gay leaders is inconsistent with the doctrines of the church and what have traditionally been the values of the Boy Scouts of America.”

The statement also suggested another reason the Mormons are considering withdrawing from the Boy Scouts: the possible creation of its own boys’ organization to serve its worldwide membership. “As a global organization with members in 170 countries, the Church has long been evaluating the limitations that fully one-half of its youth face where Scouting is not available,” the statement said.

Nixon: "Let me say something before we get off the gay thing. I don’t want my views misunderstood."

"I am the most tolerant person on that of anybody in this shop. They have a problem. They’re born that way. You know that. That’s all. I think they are."

Anyway, my point is, though, when I say they’re born that way, the tendency is there. [But] my point is that Boy Scout leaders, YMCA leaders, and others bring them in that direction, and teachers. And if you look over the history of societies, you will find, of course, that some of the highly intelligent people . . . Oscar Wilde, Aristotle, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, were all homosexuals. Nero, of course, was, in a public way, in with a boy in Rome.

Haldeman: There’s a whole bunch of Roman emperors. . . .

Nixon: But the point is, look at that, once a society moves in that direction, the vitality goes out of that society. Now, isn’t that right, Henry?

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

New policy announced today.

Gay adults are still excluded.

I note that "sexual orientation or preference" refers to a person's status or feelings, not behavior. And yet, I'm presuming the Boy Scouts reject all sexual acting out by youths, so that hasn't been the basis of discrimination.

"The Boy Scouts of America may soon give sponsors of troops the authority to decide whether to accept gays as scouts and leaders..."

"... a potentially dramatic retreat from an exclusionary nationwide policy that has provoked relentless protests."

100 years ago today: "Arthur Eldred, a 17-year-old Boy Scout from Long Island, became the first person to earn the Eagle Scout rank."

"Eldred's initial accomplishment was to complete the requirements for the rank of Eagle Scout only six months after that supreme award in American scouting was announced in April 1912." 

The leaders of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), assuming it would take several years for any boy to earn the required 21 merit badges, hadn't yet devised a final review system for Eagle candidates; they hadn't even settled on a design for the medal....

Out of the more than 115 million boys who have passed through the Boy Scouts of America in the last 102 years, approximately two million have become Eagle Scouts, a 2% rate that has climbed to about 4% of all scouts in recent years....

Many went on to notable careers and distinguished service to the country. The list of famous Eagles over the last century includes movie and television stars, six Medal of Honor recipients, Nobel Prize winners, novelists, a number of astronauts (including most Shuttle astronauts), Tuskegee airmen and Japanese-American internees, congressmen, senators and governors, an endless number of corporate CEOs and university presidents, a U.S. president (Gerald Ford), and the first man to walk on the moon (Neil Armstrong). But there are other, perhaps less obvious, Eagles as well: sexologist Alfred Kinsley, Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and Washington's disgraced ex-mayor Marion Barry....