• Letters from CAMP Rehoboth
    • Current Issue
    • Past Issues
    • Advertising Information
    • Where Can I Get Letters?
    • The Write Stuff
  • Events
    • Block Party 2023
    • SUNFESTIVAL 2023
    • Women's FEST
    • CAMP Rehoboth Chorus Ensemble - Music of the Night
  • Programs
    • Arts & Culture
    • Education & Advocacy
    • Health & Wellness
    • Community Building
    • CAMP Facilities
  • About Us
    • Membership
    • Volunteers
    • Board of Directors
    • CAMP Rehoboth Staff
    • Reports and Financials
    • History
    • Employment Opportunities
    • Press
  • Resources
    • Beach Guide Directory
    • LGBTQ Resources
    • LGBTQ Providers
    • LGBTQ Delaware Data
    • Trans & Nonbinary Resources
    • BIPOC LGBTQ Resources
    • LGBTQ Local and National Resources Guide
  • Contact
  • Shop
close× Call Us 302-227-5620
close×

Search form

GA4 Tracking Code

May 18, 2018 - View Point by Richard Rosendall

Praying Away the Perfidy

The spring rains were not strong enough to wash away the smell of corruption. Here are several short takes on the news.

1. Congress doesn’t have a prayer. Speaker Paul Ryan demanded the resignation of Reverend Patrick J. Conroy, the 60th House Chaplain, apparently for offering a prayer questioning the tax-cut bill out of concern for the poor. Conroy pushed back and has kept his job. But this raises the question of why there should be chaplains at all. Indeed, James Madison opposed paying them with public funds. The chaplain’s job, judging by Ryan, is not to challenge legislators but to provide a thin veneer of piety to cover their rapacity, cruelty, and arrogance. Let them call Dial-a-Prayer and stop wasting our taxes.

2. Punching for patriarchy. Old comments keep coming back to haunt L. Paige Patterson, president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. In 2000, at a conference of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, he boasted of having counseled a woman who was beaten by her husband to stay, submit to him, and pray for him. This stems from complementarity, which teaches that men and women were created for each other. It is a euphemism for male supremacy. Its true origin is not the Bible but Plato’s Symposium, which, unlike the SBC, recognized that some people’s “other half” is of the same gender. Pro tip: you can pray just as well from a place of safety.

3. Guilty, guilty, guilty. Bill Cosby’s money and past impersonation of “America’s Dad” finally failed to protect him. He was convicted on three counts related to drugging and raping Andrea Constand. In an unsealed deposition from 2005, he had admitted that he obtained drugs to sedate women he wanted to have sex with. Whether he is sentenced to 30 years or gets off on appeal, the entertainer and philanthropist will forever be remembered as a monster who used moral scolding of the poor to conceal his predations. One advance that may come from his case is the repeal of statutes of limitations for such crimes.

4. Grifter in the oil patch. Scott “Cone of Silence” Pruitt is so corrupt and destructive of the EPA that I believe he needs his bloated security detail. Like Paul Ryan saying the social safety net hurts the poor, Pruitt had the gall to say that killing pollution regs will help the environment. So go ahead, stay home on Election Day and choke.

5. Moon-Kim summit. The leaders of North and South Korea shook hands across their heavily armed border on April 26. This comes none too soon considering that America’s president surrounds himself with men slavering for war. Keep in mind that Congress paid for its tax cut with a massive increase in military spending, which is like balancing your béarnaise sauce with a crème brûlée for dessert. The result will not just be a spike in national debt, but countless more in foreign dead missing from our casualty lists and war memorials. Do not stray far from the bathroom.

6. Survivor: Knowhere. If you doubted that the next Marvel movie could be as good as Black Panther, congratulations. Avengers: Infinity War appears to be in a contest to see how many actors can be wasted in one movie. My favorite moment came when the ten-year-old next to me yelled “You idiot!” at Benedict Cumberbatch. Central to the plot are six “infinity stones” that together convey the power to kill half the universe, which the villain wants to do because of food shortages or some such brutal excuse. The stones are what Alfred Hitchcock called a MacGuffin, an object that drives the story. MacGuffins were parodied endlessly over the decades when TV’s Doctor Who worried about the Sash of Rassilon and other artifacts getting into the wrong hands. Infinity War got into the wrong (screenwriters’) hands, though it is breaking box-office records. It is capably made. Film lovers deserve more.

A grownup friend whispered, “We had a good run,” referring not to movie franchises but to America, which after 242 years is a theater full of hungry fans laughing at facile dialog.▼

Email Richard Rosendall

‹ May 18, 2018 - CAMP Rehoboth Membership 2018 by Glen Pruitt up May 18, 2018 - Volunteer Spotlight - Patricia and Russell Stiles ›

Past Issues

Issues Index

  • November 16, 2018 - Issue Index
  • October 19, 2018 - Issue Index
  • September 21, 2018 - Issue Index
  • August 24, 2018 - Issue Index
  • August 10, 2018 - Issue Index
  • July 27, 2018 - Issue Index
  • July 13, 2018 - Issue Index
  • June 29, 2018 - Issue Index
  • June 15, 2018 - Issue Index
  • June 1, 2018 - Issue Index
  • May 18, 2018 - Issue Index
    • May 18, 2018 - Cover-to-cover with ISSUU
    • May 18, 2018 - The Way I See It by Murray Archibald
    • May 18, 2018 - Speak Out - Letters to Letters
    • May 18, 2018 - In Brief
    • May 18, 2018 - CAMPmatters by Murray Archibald
    • May 18, 2018 - CAMP Out by Fay Jacobs
    • May 18, 2018 - CAMP Feature by Chris Azzopardi
    • May 18, 2018 - CAMP Stories by Rich Barnett
    • May 18, 2018 - Millennial Times by James Adams Smith
    • May 18, 2018 - President's View by Chris Beagle
    • May 18, 2018 - Straight Talk by David Garrett
    • May 18, 2018 - CAMP Critters
    • May 18, 2018 - CAMP Rehoboth Membership 2018 by Glen Pruitt
    • May 18, 2018 - View Point by Richard Rosendall
    • May 18, 2018 - Volunteer Spotlight - Patricia and Russell Stiles
    • May 18, 2018 - Volunteer Thank You
    • May 18, 2018 - Out and Proud by Stefani Deoul
    • May 18, 2018 - CAMPshots Gallery 1
    • May 18, 2018 - CAMPshots Gallery 2
    • May 18, 2018 - CAMPshots Gallery 3
    • May 18, 2018 - Women's FEST Sports Results
    • May 18, 2018 - CAMP Cheers!
    • May 18, 2018 - Hear Me Out by Chris Azzopardi
    • May 18, 2018 - Eating Out by Fay Jacobs
    • May 18, 2018 - Around Town by Sondra N. Arkin
    • May 18, 2018 - It's My Life by Michael Thomas Ford
    • May 18, 2018 - Out & About by Eric C. Peterson
    • May 18, 2018 - How Come It’s Poodle Beach?
    • May 18, 2018 - Spotlight on the Arts by Leslie Sinclair
    • May 18, 2018 - CAMP Arts by Doug Yetter
    • May 18, 2018 - Booked Solid by Terri Schlichenmeyer
    • May 18, 2018 - CAMP Dates
  • May 4, 2018 - Issue Index
  • April 6, 2018 - Issue Index
  • March 9, 2018 - Issue Index
  • January 26, 2018 - Issue Index

Follow Us

Follow us on Social Media!

RECEIVE WEEKLY EMAIL

Information

  • Letters
  • Events
  • About Us
  • CAMP Center

Support CAMP

  • CAMP Membership
  • Volunteer
  • Contact Us
  • Donate
Copyright © CAMP Rehoboth, 2023
  • p. 302-227-5620
  • info@camprehoboth.com
  • 37 Baltimore Avenue, Rehoboth Beach, DE 19971