GapersBlock.com - The Party Line
 

March 19, 2010 (Vol 7, #11)

In This Issue:
• Weekend Traffic: What's Happening This Weekend and Beyond
• In Other News: The Best from Our Topical Blogs
• The Party Line: Scouts' Honor
• Sausage Links: Big and Bea
• Administrivia: Fine Print, Etc.

Weekend Traffic
FIFTY ON FIFTY. The Chicago Alderman Project debuts tonight.
APPLES TO APPLES. Appleseed Cast plays at Bottom Lounge tonight.
RAMIS ON LIFE. Harold Ramis talks with Aaron Freeman about the meaning of life Saturday.
SHOP TO DROP. Swap-O-Rama-Rama satisfies your crafty shopping urge Saturday.
TRIUMPHANT RETURN. White Mystery returns from SXSW for their record release show Saturday night. More in Transmission.
PLAY FOR PIE. Hoosier Mama Pie Company is holding a scavenger hunt Saturday. Win a year's worth of pie!
MORE ST. PAT'S The Whale hosts its annual "Real St. Patrick's Day Parade" through Pilsen Sunday.
HUB 2 HUB. That's what Hubbard Street Dance and HUB 51 call their collaboration this Sunday.
...and so much more. Check out the full listings on Gapers Block.

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In Other News
Too busy frolicking in the pre-spring sun to keep up with GB? Here's some of what you missed.

A/C, our arts & culture section:
Do Kasey Keller and Chris Brown need your support?; designing the perfect commuter friendly shirt; an artist showswalking is the new drawing; Laura Shaeffer talks about the Op Shop; Steve at the Movies reviews The Runaways.

Drive-Thru, our food & drink section:
New brews from Two Brothers; Peasants' Plot CSA; a toast to the UNICEF Tap Project; a profile of the blogger behind Vintage Cookbooks; Chicago's Latino street vendors look for justice.

Mechanics, our politics section:
A KassWatch sighting; cars are smelly, stupid people killers; teachers, tear down this contract; parking policy and public transportation; warehouse workers picket the Housewares Show.

Tailgate, our sports section:
It's gut-check time for the Blackhawks; DePaul needs a coach; As the Bulls Turn; Blackhawks leave St. Patrick's Day bruised and beaten.

The Party Line

Scouts' Honor

Today's news du jour relates to the Boy Scout "perversion files."

An Oregon court is being asked, by attorneys for one boy, to order the Boy Scouts of America to open around a thousand files containing concerns about molestation of boys, as evidence that the organization has been covering things up about the problem for decades. Does this start sounding like Archdiocese 2.0?

I think there are some important differences. Now, I know that when we signed Abraham up last year, part of his Bobcat requirement was that we work with him on a special "sexual abuse" pamphlet [PDF] bound into every Cub Scout and Boy Scout book. And I sat down with him and did that. It was over 20 pages long. This was not set up by some consent decree or court order; it was voluntarily begun years ago by the organization. It's not hidden in some secret location; it's all over their web site and the rest of the Internet. And Abraham couldn't enter the ranks until we signed off on his understanding of the issue. That's pretty progressive, in my opinion. They're certainly not trying to cover up the problem.

The other difference is that there is some indication that the Scouting organization maintains its files to screen volunteers nationally for names that might cause concern, and not for hiding the problem. They use the files to control the problem. The Catholic Church often allowed their priests to stay on active duty, as if they'd done nothing wrong, and there was plenty of repeat offending.

But there is also the question of hypocrisy. How can organizations like the Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church, with their high-flown regard for human perfection, not only harbor sex offenders but also exhibit intolerance toward others, such as gays and atheists?

Somewhere in between all the Swiffer ads on this mommy blog is an open letter from 1997 by a mom condemning the organization for this hypocrisy.

I don't remember being given any anti-atheist or anti-gay pamphlets when we started, nor getting any lectures on it. And my experience has been that this problem is highly dependent on the jurisdiction. Unless you start getting into the racist edges of this city, you're not likely to find people with any problem with it at the district level and below.

I did see racism and intolerance in the 1970s, even in Lincoln Park. One of our boys was closet gay, and he was teased about it. (He did make it to Eagle Scout.) As the son of a Scouting official I was a kind of ambassador member of about a dozen troops, but my main home troop was the all-white Troop 87, located for decades at the Lincoln Park Presbyterian Church. I'm sad to say that Troop 87 once spent most of the 1974 Spring campout in a surreptitious race war with Jesse White's all-black Cabrini Green Troop 1151 (who outnumbered us by about 10 to 1). (I stayed out of it and in fact snitched about it; I had friends in 1151, and in any case I was offended by the action.)

(Trivia: Mick Scott, the original Potbelly bard and a Lincoln Park native, was a member of Troop 87 a few years before me. Mick's doing fine, back in the loft Wednesday afternoons after a recent medical setback.)

We'll see if the Scouts go the way of the Catholic Church on this. I think the main difference is that Scouting leadership, as well as parents, have maintained an aboveboard awareness of this problem for years. As to the Catholic Church, it seemed to deny there was a problem. And that made all Catholics look bad.

Sausage Links

• BigAssMessage.com -- for when you have to say it really, really big.

• That's What Bea Said.

Administrivia
This is the Party Line, a weekly email from GapersBlock.com, a Chicago-centric website. The Party Line newsletter is edited by Andrew Huff; the column is by Peter Zelchenko. Pete's opinions are his own and don't necessarily reflect those of Gapers Block or the rest of its staff (although sometimes they do). To thine own self be true We're always looking for new events, ideas and bootleg copies of Deathbed: The Bed That Eats. Send your ideas to inbox@gapersblock.com.

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