Brilliant read as usual Ms Stroop. I found it genuinely fascinating and prefer reading about as it’s something I still struggle with and I really did need to read this. Like a lot as often my thought process tends to be can I still find something good in Jesus’s teachings.

Let's see if we can raise $10,000 today for red state or national queer orgs. Post proof here in the replies that you donated to a red state or national queer organization and I will share. Who's with me? (I can't donate myself because I'm a journalist who covers these orgs)

Also please do not @ me with @heygavin.bsky.social submissions: Use the form! TYIA for your service.

P.S. If you're new here, and for some helpful context, I have been a walking Gavin Newsom hate account since he was the Mayor of San Francisco.

Bluesky, @nora.zone and I need your help: We're building @heygavin.bsky.social, a bot that will respond with a Gavin Newsom fact when you @ it. Please help us compile factoids with this form, which you can fill out as many times as you want!

Depression has made it hard to write lately. I'm now trying to write through this block by doing what I do best: looking back at the past, both my own and broader history, to find the patterns that explain the present. And maybe to write my way to hope? www.bugbeardispatch.com/finding-hope...

For me, it's like "Who Moved My Cheese?" (1998) but finding out there was never any cheese to begin with... Anyway, give Dr. Stroop a follow.

"In some ways, this moment feels like just another iteration of having the social contract I thought applied ripped up, which has been a fairly regular occurrence in my adult life as an exvangelical idealist who has had to shed layers upon layers of naïveté to learn to live in the gray..."

Nothing wrong with living in the gray as I have learned. It often does not mean we accept the status quo. Nor does it mean we do not hope for better for everyone and work towards those ends. I also feel the social contract was always for white cis het men.

"In some ways, this moment feels like just another iteration of having the social contract I thought applied ripped up, which has been a fairly regular occurrence in my adult life as an exvangelical idealist who has had to shed layers upon layers of naïveté to learn to live in the gray..."

Depression has made it hard to write lately. I'm now trying to write through this block by doing what I do best: looking back at the past, both my own and broader history, to find the patterns that explain the present. And maybe to write my way to hope? www.bugbeardispatch.com/finding-hope...

He should. This is disgusting. Far too many of us have dealt with a boss and warned others about this kind of behavior. It is insane that in 2026 this is still a discussion point.

Gotta say, it’s typical of the river fishermen to focus all the blame on the sea lions. Alternately they like to blame the Native Americans. Most of them bought into the mythology around the dams when they were kids, and it persists. But talk to salmon biologists and they can tell you the truth.

What are people's favorite phone games on Google Play or for Android in general?

She’s not even willing to go to bat for removal of the lower Snake River dams, the No. 1 cause of salmon decline in the system. She very nearly signed onto the Republican effort to make them permanent.

Further, culling sea lions in PNW rivers, while arguably necessary, will only ever be a stopgap measure. MGP shows no interest in addressing the root environmental causes of fishery collapse

I also like sea lions. They are admittedly causing problems for salmon fishery restoration efforts here though, and MGP isn't wrong that this needs to be addressed. It's just a bizare thing to be so focused on at this time wdfw.wa.gov/species-habi...

Is sea lion massacre a winning political issue?

So there's a black girl scout troop trying to raise money to to to Europe but they aren't close to their goal as of yet. Please share this and buy some cookies if you can digitalcookie.girlscouts.org/scout/reagan...

Also, the sealions in the Columbia are a symptom of collapsed fisheries, not the cause, you absolute nincompoop

Abd what about the pint-sized sealion you see when you look in the mirror? The one who obnoxiously goes on about "lowering the temperature" in politics when what your constituents want is for you to DO something about fascism and the murderous ICEholes? That demands heat, not your fecklessness

Any brainstorming on how to stop Trump from starting an illegal war with Iran tomorrow, or are you still all talk and no action about asserting Congress as an equal branch?

Giving credit where it's due, this video was inspired by the skeet below.

Post a banger that isn't in English Here's "Don't Shoot" (1982) from Leningrad-based then underground Russian protest rock group DDT. Frontman Yuri Shevchuk is still a thorn in Putin's side youtu.be/q8bESIU8g2U?...

This is what happens when weak minded Dems play by fake rules set by a criminal opposition party. If you believe your reps in Congress and the Senate are doing the best they can, because that's what they're saying, I feel very sorry for you. Kavanaugh is up there for life

Whereas if you say "yes, that was a Christian, and yes, this is a real pattern, and we need to reckon with that" — that's much harder. That requires something, asks something of us.

The "fake" framing is almost always about protecting the in-group's narrative, not about the person who was harmed. And the fact that it gets deployed as if it's a generous or clarifying thing to say makes it worse.

THIS THIS THIS

Aaaand the first Bugbear Dispatch repost is up! Now, for the first time ever, anyone can read my essay on how some of Jesus's teachings are outright harmful for free! Please save and share with everyone who calls authoritarian Christians "fake Christians" chrisstroop.wordpress.com/2026/02/18/t...

Of course more new content will also be coming to www.bugbeardispatch.com (hosted on Ghost). I know I've been lax, and I'm sorry--winter is never a great season for me and my depression, and this one has been particularly hard due to our murderous fascist regime. But I'm on the upswing. More soon

As I'm getting serious about a book project, I'll be posting occasional updates and reposts of older Bugbear Dispatch essays on my old WordPress site, chrissystroop.com. Here's a bit about what I've been up to and where I hope to be going: chrisstroop.wordpress.com/2026/02/18/r...

What are people's favorite phone games on Google Play or for Android in general?

look you'll find no greater guide on this particular subject than Dr. Stroop, who lived it herself. follow, share this article, support her work!

Oof, one more reason I'm glad I got out and onto Ghost, despite the stressful and expensive process

🎶I Have Found a[n abusive] Friend In Jesus🎶

Right? Everyone is just like, "Well it's Jesus, who is perfect, therefore it's okay, so stop thinking about it too much." It's tautological, circular. Jesus is Jesus because he's Jesus. Everything he said and did is good because it just is, that's why, so this also has to be good, so, um, shut up

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I am no longer an iPhone person. Samsung is eating Apple's lunch, and I'm sick of Apple taking its users for granted, and I needed to upgrade my phone, so... Anyone got any tips on essential or just cool Android apps or games to check out? Thanks!

worse is "church vs. culture" false binary

"If you read the gospels with a critical eye, you’ll see that Jesus does a lot of things we would never give anyone else a pass for, not least in his insistence on absolute obedience and loyalty to the point of isolating people from their families—the same tactic every abuser and cult leader uses"

That's why I stress that there are major problems IN THE GOSPELS. Paul didn't create the dark side of Christianity out of whole cloth. Jesus the literary character/Jesus of faith was very possibly on his way to becoming a first-century Jim Jones

love when the Nicene majority bend themselves into declaring a singular "church," and I'm like, buddy, just read up on the Marburg Colloquy for an intro into "unity"

But here's the thing about Jesus the literary character. He is the Jesus at the root of the many Christian versions of the Jesus of faith. He is the one who becomes a powerful symbol. That Jesus informs the theology of all major churches. So it matters quite a lot that he has a very toxic side

There is no singular "true" or "pure" form of Christianity, and the faith, the teachings of Jesus, and Jesus himself are what Christians make of them

Aaaand the first Bugbear Dispatch repost is up! Now, for the first time ever, anyone can read my essay on how some of Jesus's teachings are outright harmful for free! Please save and share with everyone who calls authoritarian Christians "fake Christians" chrisstroop.wordpress.com/2026/02/18/t...

As I'm getting serious about a book project, I'll be posting occasional updates and reposts of older Bugbear Dispatch essays on my old WordPress site, chrissystroop.com. Here's a bit about what I've been up to and where I hope to be going: chrisstroop.wordpress.com/2026/02/18/r...

My dear mother rejects the flat-Earth and chemtrails theory (Dad’s a meteorologist), and I haven’t checked where she stands on hollow Earth, but she’s all in on Nephilim. Demons, you see, are the ghosts of the irredeemable Nephilim. Thanks, JR Church and Gary Stearman! 🤦‍♂️

Funniest King Cake ever and I am here for it

Prop 187 failed in California Decades ago and is on the brink of implementation in Tennessee