.
.
Signs point to a less-than-enjoyable Monday.
On the other hand, annoying the sort of people who feel “teaching young girls to make their own choices” is a bad idea gives those of us in the Reality-Based Community even more reason to stock up on Girl Scout cookies.
Apart from rewriting all badge books to include radical activists and gay role models, what’s on the agenda today?
JGabriel
… And Don’t Forget, People: Only 9 days left till Reaganmas, the 102nd anniversary of the birth of the Baby Reagan on February 6, 1911 (AKA, the beginning of the Reagan calendar).
.
Xenos
Mixed-sex scouting, like in the UK, ought to be seriously considered. Not so much because it is necessarily better for the kids, but because it drives the creepier adults out of the organization.
And who cares if some of the adults are gay, as all adults follow the same policies with the kids.
anthrosciguy
If only I’d been a girl I could’ve gone for that Radical Gay and Lesbian Hiking Badge.
Applejinx
Ye gods. The cookies fund an extensive plot to train Girl Scouts to go out and seize control of their sexualities, safely and responsibly giving themselves over to a myriad of sensual pleasurings, possibly whilst in uniform?
Heck with the cookies, can we fund this directly? :D
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
Hitting the road in a minute for a 4 hour drive to Kokomo. At least I hope it’s 4 hours. Lotta snow fell last night, and probably not just here. But I have 4WD, AAA, credit cards and a spare cell phone battery.
Adventure, here I come…
ruviana
@JGabriel: When do we get the Reagan apocalypse? Or did we have it already?
BillinGlendaleCa
@ruviana: Yes, the Reagan apocalypse already happened. It is sometimes called the Reagan Presidency.
Frankensteinbeck
This is the language of desperation, ladies and gentlemen. This isn’t political desperation, it’s cultural desperation. For the last two generations they’ve watched their children grow up and abandon their religion and their tribe. Like the Puritans before them, they’ve reached the point of freakout where they know the only way they can keep from disappearing is to make sure their children never learn about the other cultures surrounding them.
Randy P
I’m curious what the sexual rights for children are that I’m supposed to be objecting to. I suspect it’s “you don’t have to let the man touch you there”.
I raised two girl scouts and co-led a brownie troop one year. I have nothing but praise for GS and the capable confident girls they turn out.
For those not wingnuts, the scandal is that “only” 40 cents per box stays in the local troop, so they only have a few hundred dollars with no idea of what to do with it. They sell the cookies, they should be wasting all of those thousands locally on wild 11-year-old parties.
Yes, the cookies fund the national organization and the GS camps. That’s a good thing.
MikeJ
@RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist:
You’ll get there faster if you take it slow.
Joey Maloney
I just found out that my new kiln finally cleared customs. Now it has to be inspected by the local equivalent of UL and presuming it passes it’ll be here Thursday. So since the only space for it is on the roof I have to get busy building a shelter/heat shield for it. Fortunately the last tenant left an amazing assortment of crap out there so I don’t have to buy any building materials (and more importantly, haul them up 3 flights of stairs).
Joey Maloney
@Applejinx:
I used to have that DVD, but then I dated a girl who was squicked by age-play, so…
owlbear1
This really needs to remembered on RayGun’s birthday:
Grenada:
7,000 servicemen took 3 days to defeat 679 Cubans, 50 of whom were actually soldiers. The Pentagon awarded 19,600 medals associated with Grenada. 680 Bronze stars and 4,581 Army Commendation medals amongst them.
Nearly 30 medals per defeated Cuban.
gene108
Mmmmmmmm…Girl Scout cookies…made with real Girl Scouts…
Schlemizel
@JGabriel:
Wouldn’t that be Feb 6, 1? I assume years will be notated as BR and AR (anno Reagie)
Schlemizel
@Applejinx:
Both you and the girls would be better off if we did. The cookie manufacturer grabs too large a share of the take (IMHO). Write the troop a check & skip the cookie, that way they get 100% of your money.
And I say this as the guy who ran the Boy Scouts popcorn sales effort for several years.
Schlemizel
@ruviana:
AS Madge would have told you, “You’re soaking in it!”
Linda Featheringill
@Randy P: #9
Sexual rights for youngsters:
I agree. I suspect these discussions promote the idea that you don’t have to have sex if you don’t want to.
Also, if the leaders discuss sexual abuse with the girls, perhaps they’ll open the doors to discussions later when the children need to talk with an adult about what is happening to them.
Bruuuuce
This weekend was a productive one, retail-wise. I ordered my Girl Scout cookies (two boxes for the family, and one sent overseas to a random person in the armed forces), found my daughter an R4 adapter for her Nintendo DS, and, most importantly, saw and ordered a box set of Quantum Leap at Amazon UK. Reviews suggest that the Region 2 discs actually have the original music; if so, I will be ripping them to one of my portable drives and making copies for backup faster than a Republican can vote against anything good for women.
Bruuuuce
@Schlemizel: The main reason I buy GS cookies is to support my friend’s daughter. While I understand what you’re saying about the baker’s cut, the young lady is strong with the Asperger’s (or high-functioning autistic, it’s somewhere in that zone) and she deserves every bit of reinforcement for her efforts as possible.
Cassidy
GS is mixed sex scouting; they turn no one away. I have two GS and am about to become one myself so I can help my wife. She’s the co-leader, but I’m the outdoors stuff person. They have very strict rules on adult male involvement, but if you’re willing to put in the effort, it’s a win for everyone.
Raven
@Cassidy: My friend’s group is incredible. They just finished a project making pillows into dresses for kids in Africa. They do incredible things for themselves and others.
Baud
@Schlemizel:
How long must we live under the yoke of Big Cookie? ;-)
Cassidy
@Raven: Yeah. I really like the GS’s. I was a Boy Scout growing up and learned to hate it before all the stuff I know as an adult. I know it’s not everyone’s experience, but mine was that it was a very exclusive place and full of cliques. I had that shit in HS and didn’t need it elsewhere.
Right now, my wife’s troop and 3 others meet on the same night in the elementary school, but they’re all different levels. I’m trying to convince her to convince them to combine as one troop with one leader and 3 co-leaders for each age group….a company of Girl Scouts.
Seriously, though, it make no sense not to. They can combine funds. Next month I’m going to teach a First Aid class for their merit badge and their is no reason for them all not to coordinate that kind of stuff together.
Hal
It amazes me that these people view reducing unwanted pregnancies as anti-population. Yes, living in third world slums with multiple children is great for the future of humanity. I can’t help but wonder (in non Carrie Bradshaw voice) if they just love the idea of billions of people to convert to evangelicalism, instead of the far more likely scenario of famine, wars, death and complete destruction of the environment.
Raven
@Cassidy: My cousin the Marine grunt was an Eagle Scout. His dad was one of the founders of Philmont. Me, as it happened, was asked to leave the Boy Scouts when I was in my JD phase. My cousin is a wing-nut who calls me (affectionately) “Mr Weather Underground). He did two years for trafficking and his youngest just got through doing 7 on a gun rap in Arizona. Funny how shit works out.
Baud
@Raven:
I think you’ve been kicked out of more groups than I’ve been a member of.
kay
@Hal:
It amazes me they don’t do something useful with this time and money.
If they’re worried about children and safety, why not go after Boy Scouts, where children were actually abused and adults covered it up?
Why not watch them?
The biggest scandal we have with GS is where parents steal the cookie money, yet GS gets all the attention on the Right.
gelfling545
@Schlemizel: Girl Scout troops actually do quite well on the sales and it all (the profits) stays with the area that sold them. It’s nothing as outrageous as the Boy Scout popcorn sale (I have experience with both). Cookie have allowed a lot of troops in less to extend their activities & people actually like the cookies.
Cassidy
@kay: Because BS’s pledge to the jeebus.
gelfling545
The Girl Scouts was wonderful for me. It taught me (starting back in 1958) that girls can really DO things, not just sit there and watch the boys do them. I guess this is a radical agenda to some people. My Mom was a scout leader in my “cadet” troop & some of the best memories of our life together involve scouting. It opened doors for my Mom, too, as she discovered that women could also be active in the community and not “just a housewife”. After my scouting years she went on to be involvement and to leadership roles in many local organization.
Raven
Is Marsha Blackburn as stupid as Sarah?
arguingwithsignposts
I would like to support the girl scouts, but i hate hate hate having kids sell things, anything, to raise money. Reminds me too much of my early years trying to sell fucking candles in my neighborhood for little league. And don’t even get me started on the guilt trip of parents selling their kid’s shit at work.
The cookies are cookies. They taste okay. I’m glad there’s funding for worthy efforts, and all that.
JPL
@Raven: wow.. that’s a deep thought.
BillinGlendaleCa
@Raven: Yes.
SATSQ
I just watched that segment, the contrast was striking after watching K-thug take down Richard Hass.
J.D. Rhoades
Do they really think that going after the Girl Scouts (The GIRL SCOUTS, for Chrissakes!) is going to be anything but a PR disaster? Is there any outcome to this that doesn’t lead to the Right looking even crazier and more marginal and making reasonable people reluctant to be associated with them?
bemused
I was shocked to see Krugman on Morning Joe. Richard Haass looked like he was gnashing his teeth.
Bruuuuce
@J.D. Rhoades: I’ll bet they figure that since the Left went after the Boy Scouts of America and got sympathy, far less a PR hit, they can deal with those pesky girls and it’ll be just fine.
Elizabelle
@bemused:
Yeah, it was a pleasure to turn on Morning Joe at 7:05a, and there was Dr. Krugman.
Batting down the new talking point that not reducing the deficit immediately is just like not acknowledging global warming. They’re just the same.
Then they announced: “next up, Marsha Blackburn.” There she is, waiting near a staircase somewhere in the House.
Click went the remote. TV off for the day.
Warren Terra
@Schlemizel:
@gelfling545:
It is nice that the Girl Scouts have some of the right enemies. But aren’t there genuine issues about the cookie sales? You’re paying five bucks for a box of cookies that would retail at your supermarket for two, which is fine, it’s a fundraiser, except that I seem to recall that the local troop (indeed, local troops in general, this isn’t a redistribution issue) keep surprisingly little of that sum, that a whole lot goes to a bloated and overpaid central organization and to sweetheart deals with their friends. Now, these were accusations I heard an awfully long time ago, and I can’t vouch for them. But they were worrisome.
raven
@Warren Terra: Worrisome how? Don’t buy them if you don’t want to.
Schlemizel
@gelfling545:
They get 40% (according to what I have read) so If I give them $10 they get to keep 4 – hardly a great deal. I give them $10 and they get to keep all of it for the girls.
Now, as stated above, there are other reasons you might want to buy the cookies & thats all good too. Whatever you think is supporting the cause. But if you can do without the cookies & you are not providing some other experience for a kid consider making your money go much further & just donate.
BTW – the troop I managed popcorn sales for was very low-key. They not only didn’t push the effort they intentionally down-played it. We usually had >50% participation and nobody was upset by that.
Gindy51
@Cassidy: Yep, my dad was one of the guys who helped with camp set up and the heavier lifting, and that was way back in the 60’s. They always accept help, although back then background checks were not necessarily needed.
I buy the cookies and donate them to the local women’s shelter via my daughter who is a volunteer there. there are a lot of little kids who stay at the shelter and they really enjoy the cookies.
El Caganer
Big headline on my computer screen saying there’s a bi-partisan immigration bill in the works. I’m not sure if it’s a spoof or not.
raven
@Gindy51: There ya go!
Cassidy
Oh FFS. Really? Right now, my GS’s have sold almost 800 boxes of cookies, just in their troop. Now, at 4 bucks a box that comes out to $2976. I suck at math, but 40% comes to $1190.40. That’s a significant chunk of change considering it only costs a couple bucks a night per girl to stay in one of the camping properties.
Four of those girl are on economic aid and most of these girls have families that are poor or working several jobs. So, you’ll have to pardon me if I don’t give a flying monkey fuck about some “concerns” about the goddamn cookies. These cookies just made sure some low income kids get to go camping or some other activity that doesn’t involved sitting at home and watching the tv.
ETA: The GS is a great organization. At the local level you do find a bunch of god-bothering soccer mom’s who use it as as status symbol, but overall they do good things.
bemused
@Elizabelle:
It’s been so long since Krugman has been on Morning Joe, I was glad I was up to catch that segment. I had no idea that Haass wasn’t primarliy a foreign policy guy but a Pulitzer Prize caliber economist as well, : ).
I tuned out the tv when Marsha showed up too. She was in friendly territory and not sitting across from Krugman so she wasn’t going to get challenged much, if at all but that woman never wavers from her practiced line of garbage. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
gex
Them interfering with women’s ability to get affordable exams makes me want to explode with rage. Fuck the GOP for working as hard as they can to kill people so they can whip people into a froth over the culture wars that were only ever about gaining votes and never about principle.
Women need to get their annual exams. It is painfully clear to me what the consequences of NOT getting them really is.
WereBear
That does seem to be the path they have chosen.
We moved too much for me to advance beyond Brownie, but I applaud the Girl Scouts for evolving along with our civilization, and their support of strong, confident women.
While the Boy Scouts are part of that “standing athwart history yelling Stop!” crowd.
Suffern ACE
Bah. I was in 4-h, and find this obsession with scouts to be absurd. Always been coed, alway pledging our hands for larger service. County fair beats the snot out of camping.
RSA
That’s some crazy stuff. When I look at what Journey Books are about, for example, they seem great. But I guess if you have mental problems, you’ll read…
GregB
Soylent green is people and Girl Scout cookies is abortions!
jayjaybear
@Suffern ACE: How much 4H is going on in urban areas?
liberal
@owlbear1:
Agreed, but it’s better than invading Iraq.
mandarama
@Raven:
As someone who suffered within her constituency for a while, I can attest that she is not as stupid as Sarah, but it makes her worse: she’s of average intelligence and maximum bubble-privilege. The worst combination, really–plus her voice reminds me of a nearby mosquito in summer.
One plus of the gerrymandering…without moving, I got kicked back to Cooper’s district. Of course, I guess when your silver lining is a Blue Dog Dem, you know you should have just kept heading north after school. Sigh.
gex
@Schlemizel: Some people wouldn’t give directly, but they will buy overpriced cookies for whatever reason. In that case, they get $4 more than they would have otherwise. I think that’s where the ridiculousness of the numbers makes some sense.
liberal
@arguingwithsignposts:
Aw, come on, sometimes it works out pretty well.
gex
@Gindy51: Back then the background checks weren’t necessarily needed? How so?
Suffern ACE
@El Caganer: yeah. But it’s being referred to as an outline and that’s just the senate. An outline of the shape of perhaps what will be drawn up.
Jamey
Hey, my daughter is selling GS cookies. Any takers?
gex
Most ridiculous statement so far on this thread: “although back then background checks were not necessarily needed”
Elizabelle
@bemused:
Did they keep poor Dr. K there for Blackburn’s segment? He was already complaining MoJo is too early to get up for.
Listening to and responding to Blackburn? Cruel and unusual.
===
RE Girl Scouts: I think they’re allowed to create their own service projects now, and that offers a lot of creative and useful possibilities.
(And they’ve got a unit on internet bullying. They do keep up with the times.)
Don’t remember being indoctrinated into lesbianism or radical politics, but I passed through years ago. Just remember it was always cold or raining on the campouts.
Nina
We had one girl in our troop pod sell over 2000 boxes of cookies, and it’s going to fund a trip to Wildwood, New Jersey for all the girls over 11 in the troop; they’ll camp on the beach and party at the amusement park. We also have a mixed-income troop.
In the past 4 years our troop went from 3 girls to 16 girls. The growing pains have been hectic. Our juniors leader is a lovely lady but not very forceful, so most of the meetings are very chaotic and they don’t really learn as much as they used to.
There is a right wing ‘answer’ to the Girl Scouts called something like American Girl, where the activities are primarily focused on preparing the inmates to be good wife material. Cooking, cleaning, knitting, the only outdoorsy stuff they do is gardening. Folks at the top of the organization raking off big salaries. Yet another facet of the conservative con.
Baud
@Jamey:
I’ll take one million boxes. Please bill to Mitt Romney for President as “consultant services.” You’ll get your money.
Shrillhouse
Everyone knows the Girl Scouts are just a recruiting activity for lesbians and witches. By the time these girls attend their first Lillith Fair, they’re already well-versed in lady love and the black arts.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Yet here you are.
NotMax
Have never had an entire GS cookie. Tried one a long time ago (50 years back, maybe) at someone else’s behest and had to spit the first bite out as it was disgusting. Like painting the tongue with shortening.
So bites: 1, sales: 0.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I bet they don’t have a problem with Boy Scouts introducing their members to the Christian Anti-Gay agenda without their parents consent.
If you don’t like what the Girl Scouts are doing, then don’t buy their cookies; I don’t buy anything from the Boy Scouts. But don’t act like their program is something you’ve never heard of before.
bemused
@Elizabelle:
Nope. I only stuck around to see if Krugman was still at the table when Marsha came in but no such luck. It would have been fun.
Mark S.
@J.D. Rhoades:
I don’t think the Right gives a shit about appealing to anyone besides their rapidly dwindling base. Calling 47% of the population moochers is pretty indicative of that.
Schlemizel
@gex:
I don’t disagree – if buying cookies is the only way you will give then by all means do it. But, if you can see your way clear why not cut out the middleman?
JoyfulA
@Bruuuuce: The Right’s been going after the Girl Scouts for a long time. Decades ago, in Philly the Archdiocese replaced them with Campfire Girls (which must be a wimpy organization; I’d never heard of them before) because the Girl Scouts were explaining birth control.
Ron
I saw this graphic a while back and all I could think was this made me even happier that we ordered 3 boxes.
gelfling545
@Warren Terra: From their website
The national council is paid a royalty by the baking company for the use of the GSA name & trademarks.
Of course, it would be great if people would just write a check to the troop but – people don’t very often. I’ve had to be involved in fundraisers for any number of groups and the GS cookie return is rather generous compared to the proposals presented to us by various companies for fundraising when I was teaching.
Svensker
@JoyfulA: Speaking as a former Campfire Girl, the CFGs had 2 things over the GSs:
1. Much better uniforms (snappy navy and white with colorful “Indian” beads, instead of those puke green and brown unis)
2. Campfire Mints are a million times better than GS cookies which indeed do “paint the tongue with shortening”.
Got no idea about the organization though. Does Campfire even exist anymore?
Kay
@Suffern ACE:
Boehner has hinted it has to get done (for Republicans) so I think the tentative plan is to assure passage thru the Senate and then hope he breaks the Hastert rule again.
OTOH, there’s political risk for Obama, because Republicans can just blame him if nothing passes, which would probably fly with the vast majority of the public. Too, that lets the GOP placate their anti-immigrant base while mouthing platitudes about “inclusion”. Obama will then be labeled lame duck, weak leader, etc., so this isn’t w/out risk for him, or Democrats generally.
Democrats have quite a bit of leverage, but it’s not all upside for them.
Baud
@Kay:
Why do you believe that? I haven’t seen much evidence of the public blaming Obama for GOP intransigence yet. The press is another story.
Woodrowfan
I can’t eat the cookies (none are sugar-free) but from now on I’ll just hand them some cash.
Woodrowfan
sometime ago I read a funny fictional account of GS cookie sales. They had contestant to sell the most cookies. The winner was the girl whose 18 year old sister went down to the gate of a nearby Naval base with the cookie order sheet.
Frankensteinbeck
@kay:
Your determination to treat conservatives as reasonable people and try to find consistency in their positions is admirable, Kay. That’s not snark, you’re an on-the-ground activist, and people like you break through the bubble of the reasonable but misled folks hidden in the crowd. The truth here is, the Boy Scouts look like a Leave It To Beaver episode and the Girl Scouts don’t. For the Christianists this was always unacceptable. Now that the culture war has entered kamikaze mode, that difference is enough to put the Girl Scouts on the Enemy list.
EDIT – @Baud:
And happily, the national press is good at hiding information but lousy at telling Americans how to interpret. That might be because they’re so out of touch.
Kay
@Frankensteinbeck:
In terms of chldrens issues, I think conservatives aren’t so much ideological as just deeply, deeply impractical. I really believe this. I sometimes work with kids and the whole court-social services network in my practice and it’s a conservative area here so I go back and forth with them a lot on these sorts of things. Ultimately we always come down to a disagreement where I’m suggesting something I see as practical and obvious and they’re going on and on about some Big Theory.
A couple of years ago this county had the highest teen pregnancy rate (per capita) in the state. Because I deal with a lot of teenage never-married parents, a group of us lawyers were talking about it. So I’m the one liberal, which they tease me about. In any event, I got frustrated and said “I think I would put birth control on the steam table at the high school, next to the tater tots”. Kidding. I was kidding. The response to that was horror, and a stern lecture on how I had such low standards for behavior. But I was talking about right now, and they were off on this big freaking round-table tangent, as usual. I see it again and again. I don’t want guns in schools, they want to “change the culture of violence”. Okey doke. I’ll get right on “changing the culture of violence”. They’re always at 30,000 feet. In a way, to me, they’re just completely unhelpful adults. Useless, for all practical purposes.
merrinc
@Randy P:
Not exactly. 10 year GS volunteer here; former service unit manager and cookie task force member. Troop profit varies by council and the council keeps the remaining profit. None of it goes to national. Councils may or may not use cookie funds to support their camps but keep in mind that for most councils, over half their revenue comes from product sales.
And no, GS cookies aren’t the huge RIP-OFF that is Boy Scout popcorn. I am happy to pay $4 for a box of Thin Mints (every council sets their price, so that will vary by locale) because they are simply awesome and not that much more expensive than a box of decent cookies from the grocery store. But I always felt quite aggrieved when my son’s BS troop tried to get me to spend $25 on a box of fucking popcorn that would cost $4 anywhere else.
Yes, the companies baking the cookies also make a profit. Two bakers in the US make GS cookies: ABC Bakeries (parent company: Interbake Foods) and Little Brownie Bakers (owned by Kellogg.) The horribly capitalistic parent companies insist that their subsidiaries make a profit. ABC and Little Brownie Bakers do much more than just bake the cookies, though. They work with GSUSA to develop the marketing materials and the girl program built around the annual cookie sale. Take a look at one of their websites. It’s much more involved than baking some cookies and sticking them in a pretty box.
J R in W Va
I’m going to go out on a limb and conclude that the issue is that the wing-nuts think all that stuff on their stupid graphic is bad, while liberals (like me) think it’s all good.
Conservatives think we should be teaching young women to be subdued, modest, humble, quiet, and obedient. Liberals think we should be teaching all youngsters to think independently, be ambitious, learn complex things (including real history that includes the New Deal, the Great Society AND the successes of the labor movement) and go on to have a good job with real responsibilities that can support them and their family.
I think teaching young people about human sexuality and birth control is great, and should taught prior to puberty, so the kids learn what they need to know before they are drenched in hormones. But I’m a crazed liberal, what do I know?
I also think teaching people that they can think independently once they have learned some facts is a good thing, unlike Republicans, who are against many facts that get in the way of their ideology.
The cookies aren’t all great, some are better than others, but the cause is good and the Thin Mints and Samoas are good enough to be worth buying to support the GS. My neighbor started a group of Girl Scouts when her kids got to that age, and managed to take a bunch of underprivilaged girls on a cruise in the Carribean. Pretty good, on cookies!
Kay
@Frankensteinbeck:
I watched one episode of Sarah Palin’s daughter’s reality show (I ended up liking the daughter, incidentally) and I was struck by this again, with Palin. She’s so impractical! She’s supposed to be this Tundra Mom, and she’s all but useless. She tosses off cliches to the two girls, who are in LA and really, failing at living on their own. They’re overwhelmed with the little boy, they’re miserable and fighting, and her response is to just spout things like “work hard!” or “reach for the top!”.
There’s one scene where the older daughter is looking for day care, like, the day before she needs it, and I’m just thinking “is there no one who can help her with this?”
bemused
@Kay:
They’re dreamers.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
Maintaining that kind of respect for people is the only way to convince them. Contempt and mockery can shame them into inaction, but not persuade. Again, I admire it. Unfortunately, I see only three explanations to the situation you’re describing. A) they value their children much less than abstract ideals. B) they operate deeply on gut instinct and have the mentality of a sitcom, so their precious daughter learning about sex is a terrifying step closer to having her violated. C) they’re so immersed in tribalism they’ve cut off their ability to think about alternatives, rejecting anything that doesn’t meet the party line before even comparing it to their love of their children. I can’t respect any of these, although C is the most reachable.
EDIT – @Kay:
In Palin’s case, I’m almost positive it’s A. The woman publicly spews narcissism and hate, and privately steals and cheats and treats everyone around her like shit. I would be surprised if she cared for her children enough to put actual thought into what’s best for them. I do think she’s not a typical case, a much worse than average person.
bemused
@Kay:
That just confirms my belief that Palin is a very lazy person.
Kay
@Frankensteinbeck:
I was surprised by the reality show, and of course maybe it’s not “reality”, maybe Palin is actually speaking with them off-camera in a more direct way, but I was surprised that she would let that out like that. I can’t be the only viewer who thought her behavior (not the girls, who act like what they are, which is overwhelmed) was just deeply weird. She essentially gives them her stump speech. “Thanks, mom!” Maybe the money’s good enough that she doesn’t care, or she doesn’t know how it appears to an outsider.
Kay
@bemused:
She isn’t though, “lazy”. It was just one episode, but she’s going all the time. She’s running all over, just chirpy and energetic and positive!
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
Bear in mind the category of people for whom running around all the time talking is very easy and may even be pleasant and restful – but thinking or especially exerting any kind of self-control is a huge labor. That’s not a particularly rare trait, and Palin could be the poster girl for those people.
NotMax
@Kay
Gee, doesn’t Mama Grizzly ever go into hibernation?
(imploring the universe) Please?
Original Lee
@Xenos: Venturers is mixed-sex Scouting, and the kids really like it.
Forum Transmitted Disease
Holy fucking hell. Well, looks like the wife and I will be writing the Girl Scouts a check.
Wish I could write the version of Boy Scouts I had as a kid a check; sadly, that organization no longer exists.
Scamp Dog
@Svensker: Yes
bemused
@Kay:
I say lazy in the sense that she has time for her own wants and needs but not so much for others. There seems to be a lack of parenting skills or instincts. Whether it is that she has no clue or it’s laziness or self-centeredness, I don’t have a clue, but I sure have felt sorry for those kids.
J
I hope some of the Cookie money is going to promote interracial lesbianality too!
Bulworth
Uh oh. Paying “New Age” consultants to consult. The evangelicals favorite bugaboo term, New Age. It was a common term used about two decades ago. Typical fundies, being all out of date.
And “radical activists” and “lesbians” as role models. Oh dear. Yeah, I don’t know why any organization, especially one for girls, would want to include among its role models those terrible “radical activists”, some of whom were women and might have been teh gay, who fought for safer work places and to improve human rights.
pseudonymous in nc
@arguingwithsignposts:
Seconded. Selling shit for school stuff is even worse. Also, the way that certain parentals decide to get competitive about it and set up cookie stands at workplaces or at pitches around town.
Steeplejack
@Kay:
She’s probably playing to the camera.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Our lesbian household bought 2 boxes of cookies. For the sake of our waistlines, that was as far as we could go.
Elizabelle
@Kay:
I’m seeing a blogpost, Kay.
Or even an op ed for your local, and regional, paper.
Villago Delenda Est
@Woodrowfan:
Every year at cookie time, the daughters of some of the officers in the HQ would hit the building and fulfill their quota and then some.
Soldiers (and all military types) LOVE cookies. Natural place to sell a ton of them.
Xecky Gilchrist
I’ve seen this thing floating around Facebook (happily, entirely in the context of mockery. I’ve done a decent job winnowing my friends list.)
The part about ‘”good” and “information-based”‘ forms my current favorite usage of Snot Quotes.
Elizabelle
I’ll put this up on a later open thread too.
Animated short of astronaut Ron McNair, who as a child insisted on borrowing books from the Lake City, SC public library in 1959, even though it wasn’t for “colored folk.”
3:18 minutes. Talks about how teenaged McNair saw Star Trek, with its integrated cast, as “science possibility” rather than sci fi.
Today is the 27th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger’s destruction.
Reformed Panty Sniffer
@Svensker:
Yes, Campfire still exists: see http://www.campfireusa.org for more information.
My 10 year old’s school has a campfire group, which she tried for a year. It was a bit chaotically run, seat of the pants style. She soured on it after a week-long actual camping trip held at a local BSA campground). She will never camp again if she can help it. She now only wants to vacation at a “resort”.
The people we met at the camp were very earnest and low-key. I do think there is a subtle religious vibe to the group, not as prominent as the BSA, but there nonetheless.
cckids
@Randy P:
This may differ council-to-council; my daughter had her last year of cookie sales in 2012, and her troop got .85 per box (out of the $4.00 sales). Still a sucky percentage compared to Boy Scout popcorn, but WAY easier to sell.
Woodrowfan
@Villago Delenda Est:
Which reminds me, my nephew deployed a couple weeks ago,. Will soon be time to mail some cookies!
cckids
@J.D. Rhoades:
I know, right? I saw AL’s graphic last week on some other site (no idea where), and the close-to-universal reaction to it was : “Wow, where can I buy more cookies?”
Quaker in a Basement
Oh hell yes. Double my Thin Mints order!
Yutsano
@cckids: I have a couple of sources for GS cookies that I fully intend to exploit. I buy up my supply for the year, they freeze beautifully and I have cookie goodness in the summer when no one else does. NOMZ!!
cckids
@Elizabelle:
Yes, they do! The new(ish) badge I love is called “Couch Potato”, designed by a group of teen girls. It requires girls to put some thought into the TV they watch; chart commercials & find out the reality behind them, look at programs for gender & other stereotypes, log hours they spend on TV & Internet, do surveys of peer groups to find out their watching habits, try a no-TV week or weekend & come up with alternate activities, etc. Fun & thought provoking.
cckids
@Yutsano: After my daughter selling them for 10 years, I’m having a bit of withdrawal now, though I will admit that I’ve still got some of last years boxes in the freezer. We’ve found a younger girl to support, though. I do NOT miss having 200-300 cases of cookies stacked in my dining room.
Last year we volunteered to be the council liason to get the “troop” cookies overseas; we sent over 3000 boxes. My BIL got 75 to distribute to his unit, he was quite popular.
cckids
@Nina:
If I can offer some advice; having the girls run most of the troop is more chaotic, but they learn more real-life skills & you’ll have better retention rates than if it is leader-run. They really want to make their own decisions. I liken it to being a coach rather than a CEO; you have to facilitate & try to keep the trains running, but let them learn to make decisions & live with them. For some girls in our helicopter-parent society, it is the only place they get to be decisive & have a voice.
cckids
@merrinc: Amen! you put it very well.
trollhattan
Quite late to the thread and haven’t parsed all the comments so, any anybody help me out with the source of the OP graphic? Which band o’ morons came up with this one?
My kid didn’t join GSA but now I want to buy the dang cookies anyway. Somebody at the office will eat them, even if I won’t.
Sue (Garnet's foster mom)
GO Girl Scouts!!!!
yopd1
My daughter just started Daisy’s. Can’t wait to start helping her sell cookies. Anyone want a box. ;-)
rammalamadingdong
In my youth I was one of the models on the cookie boxes. My face was on Thin Mints and my legs were on Peanut Butter Patties. FTW
Kathy in St. Louis
@Randy P: I can hardly believe that they still only get 40 cents a box for the troop. What a total gyp. They were getting that the years that I was cookie chairman for a troop, and that was over 30 years ago. I just bought 7 boxes from my granddaughter for 28 dollars. I don’t mind, but I think that the next time I’ll just buy one or two boxes and send the rest of the money directly to the troop.