My column from last week about my failed experience as a Boy Scout and my snarky comments about the Boy Scouts’ new “video game” badge has drawn fire. Today a letter to the editor in the Hibbing Daily Tribune from a regional Scout leader criticized the piece. For one, the “badge” in question is not a Boy Scout merit badge but in fact a Cub Scout belt loop. I concede that point. As for the central theme of my column, that scouting’s attempt to modernize through a kabuki theater video game badge is lame and that I am a comically inept outdoorsman, well, I stand by that. And if, as the letter queries, my boys show an interest in scouting I’d be happy to enroll them. Getting kids outdoors in organized activities is great. All for it.
And now I move on to my next cause: punching puppies and shouting angry, negative comments at the flag of our nation. Yes, this is sarcasm. My legal department has advised me to state this at all times. My legal department is not real. I do not have one.
Where was the video game badge–er, belt loop–when I was in scouts. I might have attended more than three meetings. Hell, I might have even earned a badge.