The Unbearable Ubiquity of "God Bless the USA"
The song we grew up with was a harbinger of American authoritarianism all along
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Some Thoughts about Fear, Death, and Christianity
In his Society without God (NYU Press, 2008), sociologist Phil Zuckerman documented the many ways in which the Scandinavian countries--some of the least religious on earth--put highly religious countries, and particularly the United States, to shame with respect to positive social outcomes. It's a good read, and, while
The Autumn of Our Discontent
Thoughts on Political Violence and the Death of American Civil Society Update: Shortly after the publication of this essay, Disney reinstated Jimmy Kimmel (presumably as a result of calculus over the loss of Disney+ streaming subscriptions). This is a victory, though not a massive one. The legacy media are still
Let's Speak Ill of the Dead: Reflections on James Dobson
Administrative Matters Hello, fellow bugbears! It has been a painful process—and the financial blow remains painful, and will for some time—but the migration of ye olde Bugbear Dispatch from Substack to Ghost is more or less complete! It will still take me some time to master the Ghost
Testing out Ghost
Hello, fellow bugbears! I'm in the process of migrating everything from Substack to Ghost. If you received The Bugbear Dispatch via email before, you should be getting it now. I'll check in with some of you to make sure that's happening. Meanwhile, my old