Letter to a Cub Scout

You may remember poor Zachary Christie, who was suspended from school for bringing his combination knife/fork/spoon from Cub Scouts to school. He was later given a reprieve from the school board, which lessened his suspension but didn't end it entirely.

From the article:

Dear Zachary Christie,

Well you sure have had an exciting time recently. You joined the Cub Scouts. Good for you. I see that you are in the first grade so you must be either a Bobcat or Tiger. Before you know it you will be a Webelo and be on your way to becoming a Boy Scout.

I know you will follow the Cub Scout Promise, The Law of the Pack, and the Cub Scout motto. They will be the foundation upon which you will build your life as you grow from a boy into a man. I know that might sound like a long way off right now but it will come sooner than you think.

I also heard that you received a real neat camping tool that has a bottle opener, knife, a spoon and a fork. It will come in handy when you go on cookouts and camping trips with your Cub Scout Pack. Your Mom says that you like to eat with it at home. She sounds like a real good Mom. (When you get older ask her for a Swiss Army knife. It has a screwdriver, scissors and all kinds of other neat blades and tools!)

Then someone told me that you took your camping tool to school because you wanted to eat your lunch with it. And then you were called to the Principal’s office and suspended. I was very sorry to hear that since you did not do anything wrong.

I am also sorry that you had to learn that just like kids grownups do dumb things sometimes.

They make rules thinking they are protecting you from bad things happening to you but I think that they have forgotten what it is like to be a 6-year-old first grader.

You should be very proud of yourself that you stood up and defended yourself before the school board. Standing up for yourself when you know you are right is a lesson that you have learned at a very early age. It is a lesson that many adults often forget.

You are developing your character right now and I bet you don’t even know it. Character is one of those big words that adults use but I doubt many of them understand the meaning. I will make it simple for you. Character is how you act when no one is looking. That means if you do something wrong just because no one saw you do it, it is still wrong. And while you might think you got away with something there are two people who will always know what you did—you and God.

You have already showed that you understand that key element of becoming a good citizen and a good man. Never forget it as everything else you do in life is based on that simple principle.
Don’t let all this attention bother you. You know how grownups make a big fuss over things sometimes and then it all goes away. You just get back to being a good student, a good Cub Scout and a good son to your parents.

Someday Zachary you and your friends and other kids in other countries that you don’t even know will be running the world.

As a grownup, I hope I am around to see your generation take charge. Because after reading about you and recently having met some other kids who are like you, I know America will be in good hands.

Now go out and have fun being a 6-year old Cub Scout. Keep us all informed about how you are doing. And I hope someday you earn Eagle Scout rank. Somehow I think you will.

Your friend,

The Cowboy Libertarian

P.S. To all the grownups out there here is what Zachary is learning as a Cub Scout. 6 years old and he is learning a code of conduct that will stand him in good stead all his life. Atta boy Zachary!

Cub Scout Promise
I, (say your name), promise
to DO MY BEST
To do my DUTY to GOD
And my Country
To HELP other people, and
To OBEY the LAW of the Pack

Law of the Pack
The Cub Scout follows Akela.
The Cub Scout helps the pack go.
The pack helps the Cub Scout grow.
The Cub Scout gives goodwill.

Cub Scout Motto
DO YOUR BEST

Cub Scout Gets to Stay in School

In an update to a story I wrote about earlier, the scourge of Delaware who was kicked out for bringing a Cub Scout knife/fork/spoon combo to lunch is getting to stay in school after all.

Zachary Christie, 6, had faced 45 days in an alternative school for troublemakers after he took the utensil — a combination folding knife, fork and spoon — to school to eat lunch last month. Now, he could return Wednesday.

The seven-member Christina School Board voted unanimously Tuesday to reduce the punishment for kindergartners and first-graders who take weapons to school or commit violent offenses to a suspension ranging from three to five days.

The problem remains that he gets suspended AT ALL. This is a kid, for crying out loud.

You can find the original article here. There is some more background information in it.

Those Evil Cheerios Are a Problem No More

Nick Gillespie writes today about how General Mills has been reigned in over their claim in Cheerios ads that it helps lower cholesterol.

"FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg and deputy Joshua M. Sharfstein -- both with backgrounds running public health agencies -- notified General Mills that it was violating the law with its two-year-old marketing campaign that said Cheerios can lower cholesterol by 4 percent. The FDA said the company was essentially making a drug claim, which would require clinical studies and agency approval before a product is put on the market. The food giant has removed that claim from its Web site and a spokeswoman said it is in discussions with the FDA."

You can read the original article here, which also touches on Cass Sunstein, the regulatory czar under Obama.

Another Menace To School Safety Is Out

This kid brought a knife to school. And the ever-vigilant administrators kicked him out for school safety.

Problem is, the kid is six years old and he brought a new Cub Scout fork/spoon/knife combo to use at lunch. Yeah, that's it, save is from the violent first graders. The perp has been suspended for 45 days.

The school board is defending its decision. "There is no parent who wants to get a phone call where they hear that their child no longer has two good seeing eyes because there was a scuffle and someone pulled out a knife," said George Evans, the president of the Christina district’s school board.

"Zachary wears a suit and tie some days to school by his own choice because he takes school so seriously," said Debbie Christie, Zachary’s mother.

These "zero tolerance" rules are a farce. They're in place from lawmakers that have no sense, to save school boards from thinking critically. It's obvious this kid is no threat. The school board, however...

You can find the original article here.

The Resale Roundup Could Put You Out of Business

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has made a new law banning the resale of products with lead if the products don't meet a certain safety level.

Initially intended to be aimed at new toys from big corporations, it now applies to all toys -- new or used -- sold by corporations, thrift stores, flea markets or your neighborhood yard sale.

Yup, that's right. Have a yard sale charging a few cents per item and you could be facing stiff fines -- $100,000 per infraction and up to $15 million for a related series of infractions.

The CPSC says the hefty fines are necessary and Consumer Reports agrees. "The former civil penalty limit of $1.87 million was too small to be an effective deterrent to large companies who flagrantly violated the law," said Don Mays, senior director of product safety planning at the publisher of Consumer Reports. "Mattel and its subsidiary Fisher-Price, for example, recently paid a $2.3 million penalty for importing about 2 million toys that violated the CPSC 30-year-old lead paint ban — that amounts to just over one dollar per toy."

The CPSC defends its meddling into things: "Many children have choked and died on small parts that have broken off or been incorporated into toys", said CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson.

Besides everyday people trying to make an extra buck off a yard sale, charities are going to be hard-hit. They don't have much of a margin of profit and now they have to spend extra money looking through toys that could get them fined out of business.

If you want to see the guidelines, you can find them here (PDF).


You can find the original article here.