Read more
Good Riddance to 2025
Not gonna lie, I don't really want to look back at the shithole year we're about to leave behind. Even as I type this, the year continues to be shitty, with two GOP congressional representatives putting forth bills likely to be voted on before Christmas that
The Ugly Reality of American Islamophobia
Moral panic, especially in the United States, has always been a defining leitmotif of The Bugbear Dispatch. Sometimes, that means writing about current events directly tied to the news cycle; sometimes it means writing more abstract or at least less newsy essays with insights that are relevant to our historical
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