For starters, the camp is bigger than 100 acres--by a factor of about 800! The Scout reservation alone covers more than ten thousand acres; in addition, it borders a national forest, giving them access to another seventy thousand-plus acres. Hikes of five to twelve miles are daily activities, in addition to the activities that they are hiking to or from. This camp is in perhaps the most rugged part of the Appalachian Mountain range, so on those hikes, elevation changes of 2500 feet are not uncommon. (Not the Himalayas, by any means--but definitely not Kansas, either!) Coupled with possible temperature and humidity conditions of the region in July, an extremely overweight person walking the trails is a serious candidate for stroke, heatstroke, dehydration, or heart attack. The Jamboree is staffed and led predominantly by volunteers--none of whom want to risk the liability of having to deal with these afflictions on a trail in primitive conditions. So it is a health and safety issue for the boys (and adults) who participate--and it's also in keeping with the BSA's program of getting boys out from in front of the videomonster, and getting them physically fit and active to be better able to serve their communities and country.
This moron says "the pictures so far from the Jamboree don't show the boys doing anything other than being normal teenagers." Bull-hockey. Whitewater-rafting, kayaking, backpacking, scuba-diving, rock-climbing, rappelling, BMX/mountain-biking, skateboarding, zip-lines--those guys are doing more in ten days than most kids will get to do in their entire teen-age years. Packed in with a thousand other things they're doing at the same time, the Scout Jamboree will be more intense and stressful than anything this side of military basic training. And a kid who's not fit and who goes through that could find himself in a hospital. A lot of people on this board and elsewhere are applauding Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" program--the BSA just got a century head start on it.
He's got a few other facts wrong. For example, the BSA desgregated its camps and its individual units in the 1950's, in response to the Brown and other court rulings. (Maybe not in the forefront of the civil rights movements, but not bringing up the rear either.) It is patently false that the BSA allowed segregation in Jamborees in the 1970s and '80s. Those Jamborees were held on a US Army base, where segregation was prohibited by law, and the BSA enforced a policy of racial non-discrimination. If individual units tried to push segregation, they were in violation of BSA rules.
While I don't agree with the BSA on everything, I think this idiot needs to get his facts straight before he spouts off.
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