You Have Got to be Kidding: Boy Scout Care Packages to US Troops Banned in Cambridge

"Cambridge votes down scouts' aid for Iraq GIs" sums up what happened. The Boston Herald reported that:

"Big-hearted Boy Scouts collecting donations for care packages for U.S. troops are still scratching their heads after being sent packing from polling stations when Cambridge officials ruled their generous effort 'political.'

" 'We just wanted to make a lot of troops happy,' said Scout Patrick O'Connor, 16. 'I was devastated that someone would think to take (the donation boxes) out,' he said."
(Boston Herald)

Collection boxes for the Scouts' project were at Cambridge polling places on election day. Someone said that the boxes were a "political statement," and out they went.

I sincerely hope that hate-the-military doesn't become fashionable again. I remember the Vietnam War period, and the virulent hatred of the 'baby killers,' as American GIs were sometimes called. That part of the 'good old days' I don't want to revisit.

In fact, I've been impressed at how those who oppose American efforts to use military force in dealing with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other terrorist entities have not descended to the standards set in the sixties and seventies.

Of course, this is Cambridge: home of Harvard and MIT.

I can understand why it's sometimes called the "People's Republic of Cambridge." Here's a little of what I found, on

• Urban Dictionary
• Wikipedia
• Boston Online

And, I found out a little about the city that's home to Harvard and MIT. From one point of view, it must be a wonderful place: It's the community

• That hired a full-time peace commissioner - a unique distinction in Massachusetts
• Where Nader seems to have outdistanced Bush in the 2000 election
• Where the average size of a family was 2.83 people in the 2000 census
• More million-dollar homes than any other in America
• A very diverse population
  • Almost a third of the people aren't white
  • Household median income is around $48,000
  • Working-class families and immigrants live there
  • Cambridge's City Hall received the first legal applications in America for same-sex marriage licenses

About being 'diverse' - those facts are part of the selection that Wikipedia used to show how diverse Cambridge was.

Living in a small town in central Minnesota, I'm not quite so excited about having working-class families and immigrants living nearby. We've got both, but I doubt that we're likely to be called 'diverse.'