Archive for September, 2012

Why I’m a Girl Scout

Saturday, September 22nd, 2012

I grew up in San Francisco, California and was definitely raised a city boy.  As a child, I could make my way around the Tenderloin at night as surely as Grizzly Adams navigated the Sierras.  I grew up on food from around the world and could use chopsticks as deftly as a country boy could handle a whittlin’ knife.  Buses and streetcars were my horses, alleys my hiking trails, skyscrapers my hills and mountains.  Guns, even the aquatic variety, were verboten (hunting was something done at antique stores or garage sales) and I think the only reason my mother allowed me fishing gear was because there weren’t any fish anywhere near us to be caught, other than at the grocery store; neither one of us would have known what to do if I actually did catch one.  In our family, “roughing it” meant going to “Opera in the Park”.

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Scouting for Boys

Friday, September 21st, 2012

As if the whole “we hate gays” atmosphere weren’t enough reason to avoid the Boy Scouts of America, there’s a whole ‘nother reason to stay away — a significant number of adult volunteers and employees of the BSA have been accused of using their position to molest boys and the organization has, in many cases, failed to report such allegations to authorities.  Even worse, in more than 100 cases, the group worked to cover up the accusations.  This really gives new meaning to the Boy Scout motto of “Be Prepared.”

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