The Boy Scouts of America have changed their name to Scouting America, to reflect on their new mission of inclusiveness to not only male juveniles, but towards LGBTQ people and the subset of young girls who like to wander through the woods, slashing at trees with tiny axes like boys do, and also because they were getting their asses sued off because of all the boy molesters they signed on as troop leaders.
This, naturally, revolted some people, and caused the formation of Trail Life, USA, which describes itself as “Christ-Centered,” and whose motto is “Let boys be boys.”
Why? I can't believe, "Let the little dickheads run around in the woods," was taken.
I suppose they couldn’t use “Yo! Boy molesters! Over here!”
The organization promises to promote “Biblical masculinity,” whatever that is. There’s a lot of different takes on masculinity in the Bible. There are women in the Bible, too, from Ruth, Esther and Mary to Delilah and Salome, who are my personal favorites, but let’s face it--the Book is primarily a sausage fest. Guys who killed whole tribes of people and had a lot of concubines often get a couple of verses or even a whole chapter in the Word of God.
If you want to read something solemn, self-important, and humorless about Biblical masculinity, have at it here. If you want it summarized, I’ll be happy to. You, as a Biblical dude, need to be the boss of your house and keep your wife and kids safe from the influences of gays and Democrats by any means necessary, whether that involves merely using the parental controls on your cable box, or guns and machetes.
Oh, and be someone your religion can count on when it needs a few bucks.
Either current version of Scouting bears no resemblance to the Scout days of my youth. Let me reminisce for you:
I was once a Boy Scout, in the worst boy scout troop ever assembled—Troop 555, the Triple Nickel, out of Lenni, PA. There were no Eagle Scouts in Troop 555—anyone who aspired to be one would have immediately been pummeled by the rest of the troop. There was one First Class Scout, who was routinely bullied. I had the good sense not to rise beyond the rank of Second Class. The alpha Scout of the troop was a gigantic Tenderfoot, a kid who was taller by a foot and heavier by a hundred pounds than any of the rest of us. He had no merit badges and an instinctive hatred of anyone who did.
In winter, we went to our Catholic school gym for Scout meetings and played basketball and buck-buck and otherwise tried to injure each other. In spring and fall, we would go camping in the freezing Pennsylvania woods, accompanied by our Scout leader, a devoted beer-drinker, who was helped by his assistant Scout Leaders, who were the men he liked to drink beer with. Sometimes they would make us sing songs around the campfire—it’s where I learned the lyrics to “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt,” but mostly they just drank beer and let all of us run around the woods with knives and hand-axes, looking for stuff to kill.
In the summer, they would take us to Boy Scout summer camp, where we camped with other troops. Our leaders would abandon us, sneaking into town to drink in a bar. Those were truly 555’s glory days—we specialized in waiting for other troops to fall asleep, then raiding their camps, piling on top of their tents until they collapsed, and then holding the canvas down with our weight in the hopes of suffocating the occupants. Then, when we were tired, we’d retreat to our own encampment, where one of our number, virgin as the rest of us, would entertain us by extemporizing songs about all the vagina he hoped to eventually get.
Good times.
This, naturally, revolted some people, and caused the formation of Trail Life, USA, which describes itself as “Christ-Centered,” and whose motto is “Let boys be boys.”
Why? I can't believe, "Let the little dickheads run around in the woods," was taken.
I suppose they couldn’t use “Yo! Boy molesters! Over here!”
The organization promises to promote “Biblical masculinity,” whatever that is. There’s a lot of different takes on masculinity in the Bible. There are women in the Bible, too, from Ruth, Esther and Mary to Delilah and Salome, who are my personal favorites, but let’s face it--the Book is primarily a sausage fest. Guys who killed whole tribes of people and had a lot of concubines often get a couple of verses or even a whole chapter in the Word of God.
If you want to read something solemn, self-important, and humorless about Biblical masculinity, have at it here. If you want it summarized, I’ll be happy to. You, as a Biblical dude, need to be the boss of your house and keep your wife and kids safe from the influences of gays and Democrats by any means necessary, whether that involves merely using the parental controls on your cable box, or guns and machetes.
Oh, and be someone your religion can count on when it needs a few bucks.
Either current version of Scouting bears no resemblance to the Scout days of my youth. Let me reminisce for you:
I was once a Boy Scout, in the worst boy scout troop ever assembled—Troop 555, the Triple Nickel, out of Lenni, PA. There were no Eagle Scouts in Troop 555—anyone who aspired to be one would have immediately been pummeled by the rest of the troop. There was one First Class Scout, who was routinely bullied. I had the good sense not to rise beyond the rank of Second Class. The alpha Scout of the troop was a gigantic Tenderfoot, a kid who was taller by a foot and heavier by a hundred pounds than any of the rest of us. He had no merit badges and an instinctive hatred of anyone who did.
In winter, we went to our Catholic school gym for Scout meetings and played basketball and buck-buck and otherwise tried to injure each other. In spring and fall, we would go camping in the freezing Pennsylvania woods, accompanied by our Scout leader, a devoted beer-drinker, who was helped by his assistant Scout Leaders, who were the men he liked to drink beer with. Sometimes they would make us sing songs around the campfire—it’s where I learned the lyrics to “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt,” but mostly they just drank beer and let all of us run around the woods with knives and hand-axes, looking for stuff to kill.
In the summer, they would take us to Boy Scout summer camp, where we camped with other troops. Our leaders would abandon us, sneaking into town to drink in a bar. Those were truly 555’s glory days—we specialized in waiting for other troops to fall asleep, then raiding their camps, piling on top of their tents until they collapsed, and then holding the canvas down with our weight in the hopes of suffocating the occupants. Then, when we were tired, we’d retreat to our own encampment, where one of our number, virgin as the rest of us, would entertain us by extemporizing songs about all the vagina he hoped to eventually get.
Good times.
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