sky

I recently finished another meteorology book. So fascinating....learning about entities bigger than your neighbors, than congress, than the catholic church.
In the last book, the most lasting tidbit I learned was that all precipitation results from condensation forming on one of the abundant dust particles constantly present in the atmosphere. One water condensed water molecule attracts another, and another, and yet another...and many many molecules later, the neighborhood weighs so much more than the other particles and forces can sustain...and what was once a part of our heavenly vision falls, violently or otherwise, to join us in this terrestrial chaos.
The most interesting tidbit from this recent book is that the frozen neighborhoods can be so delicate as to begin its fall in Calais and land in Eastport. So the next time you frolic in the fluff of the first snowfall, ponder that the flakes falling on your face started their life many, many miles away and rode the most efficient and wonderous public transportation available.

Scouts of America...Perverts?

With the Scouts of America recently reaffirming the imposition of a ban on gay scouts and leaders, you have to ask yourself "What kind of people are the leaders of the Scouts?"  There are a lot of ethical problems with this policy of theirs--regardless of how you feel about gays.

First, did the Scouts' leaders and the alleged parents that supported this policy explore--and explain, how the policy is going to be implemented...how they are going to determine if a nine year old boy is...oh, gay. Are they going to ask scouts if and with whom they have had sex? are they going to ask the leaders to prove their sexual history? And, how is that going to go down? For those boys who aren't sexually active, are they going ask them which gender they are THINKING about having sex with? Does the ban exclude those who are married but having sex with men? virgin boys that SAY they are gay but never end up having same-sex sex? If I send my boy to a scout meeting with remnants of pink paint on him, will he be deemed gay and booted? If he doesn't profess enough attraction to girls, will he be deemed gay and booted? If he wears his bandana slightly to far to the gay side, will he be deemed gay and booted? Well, I haven't heard that they do have a plan here, so this highlights my first concern with the Scouts of America: they committed to a policy that they can't enforce fairly, consistently, and accurately, if they can enforce it at all.

And, second, they can't enforce this policy without violating some pretty important civil rights, like an individual's right of privacy [who are they to make me or my nine year old son reveal our most personal thoughts or activities!] and an individual's right to freedom of speech [why can't my son simply say the two words "I'm gay" in front of a Scout?] Remember, my son may not BE gay or even be sexually active, but he has a right to say those two words.

Third, what kind of society have we created when one person's right to free speech is loudly supported when that speech express' his denigration and hate for others and yet another's right to free speech is trounced upon when he express's an affection for another human being---this is religious and civil liberties hypocrisy at its best and demonstrates why christianity has exhausted its cache as a moral guide.

Fourth, don't you find it kinda creepy that this kind of organization would even have sex this much on their brains. What will the pack leaders be thinking at these meetings from now on...will they be vigilantly on the look out for any signs or expressions of sexual attraction to the same sex?

Or is this a catholic church redux, where the organization relies on its history as a moral compass to avoid actually performing as a social and moral compass? Remember when the mandatory child abuse reporting laws came into existence, and the church fought tooth and nail to be exempt from reporting suspected child abuse. You have to ask yourself, "Why?" On so many levels, that is absolutely the wrong position to take: if you want to uphold your position in society as trustworthy, first, you give the appearance of complying with the larger group's wanted laws; and, second, you show your eagerness to protect kids from abuse.

But we now know that the church's foundation for exemption from these mandatory reporting laws may have really been to protect it, and its staff, from being subject to even another violation of criminal law when the truth about their rampant child sexual abuse and cover-ups were revealed.

Is this what the Scouts of America are doing...do they know something that we don't about their members and leaders..possibly, could this ban (since implementation seems impractical and impossible) really be just a ruse of a future defense if it is revealed that they have had a number of sexual predators "infiltrate" their ranks? Could this be their preparation of a red-herring defense, where they try to blame it "on the gays" that they now "ban."

I just think its creepy that the Scouts of America are actively and very publically admitting that they are thinking about my son's sexual activity--which they have to be if they are going to enforce a ban policy. Creepy.