BearTM is dead.

He was to me once in the very early days, but I'll bite my tongue on that.

I've always wondered whether his "feud" with Tamar wasn't just performance art.

He used to snipe at me occasionally, but nothing notable, until a conversation in a thread (probably about affordable health care) that took a number of side paths. I posted a link to an article about how some treatments for HIV were showing promise in certain cancers (probably from WebMD or a similar site, not one of those crackpot "Cure Cancer With This Simple Trick!" sites).

Bear called me a liar and a few other choice words until O2C posted further information indicating the article I'd posted was accurate.

/discussion

I do love that his legacy (added to the smilies by Tamar) is this:

I use that one a lot.

I don't recall Tamar and Bear ever being on opposing sides of anything.

given the behind the scenes intrigues and perfidy she'd create, probably not.

The whole overthrow Borgs, for instance...

Mostly I remember him threatening to throw Batboy on the grill back in the good old TNZ days. Always worth a chuckle.

This is ancient history, so I may be disremembering, but Tamar was on a tear back then (coming off banning Ted, for example), and there were some words exchanged between her and Bear in the RR. Don't recall what it was all about. Also, because I never visited Caht, there may have been something going on there as well that I knew nothing about.

It was around that time that Tamar introduced the : bearTM : smilie and, with a nod to @Shirogayne and her encyclopedic recall, I believe that was when Bear left, long before the general panic exodus of rightist trolls when Anc took over.

Again, ancient history. I could be wrong.

With tighty righties nearing a mass extinction event, I think we should be nurturing the few that are left. Can anyone reach out to @Zombie ? I got dibs on nurturing him.

The person who posted the info about Bear on FB was not Zombie, but a different (former) poster.

I'm not familiar with any particular spat between the two of them (After Listy stepped down, I tried not to interact with him much at all) but when I think about it, I think you're right about the timeline of when he left the board.

Preacher? I'm unfamiliar with this and it isn't mentioned in his obit.

Are you sure that you're not thinking about Bulldog?
(many similarities including something of a physical resemblance)

Bear was a Wiccan and very involved in that IIRC.

I believe he was the equivalent of Catholic Bishop in the circle in which he travelled. I'm not sure how their ecclesiology worked.

Confirming that @Zombie did, in fact, die from the 'rona.

Damn. Another list I didn't make...oh, wait... never mind...

*Has Doctor Strange porthole me down to Hell*

Me- So, how d'you feel about Trump now, eh, Zombie?
*Gets up in his face* Hooowwww dooo youuu feeel about him nooowww Zooombbiiieee!!?!

Zombie- Stop it, isn't Hell bad enough?

Me- No.

yeah, that's the one

Didn't know what either looked like. Maybe their posting styles were similar but it's been so long since either posted here that I can't remember.

Even the Annarchives fail sometimes

Well shit, it just occurred to me that @BearTM was a member on here. I kind of remember him.

THAT I remember.

Bulldog was a conservative preacher who actually had enough intelligence to oppose GWB's Iraq adventure. We didn't agree on much, but I sure admired him for being willing to see past the bullshit and acknowledge that we were on a disastrous course.

He was also very actively opposed to Ted Cruz.

I haven't heard anything from him or about him in so long that I have no information on his attitude toward Trump, but I think there is a very good chance he is in that minority of white American Evangelicals who are solidly anti-Trump. Bulldog was a very principled man, not just a reactionary "God, guns & 'Merica" sort.

I doubt he supports Biden, though -- he had nothing but bad things to say about Biden, who was a senator from his state.

Dropping like flies.

more like a Mormon one... there's also a lot of emphasis placed on "lineages" of teacher/student descents, which leads to a lot of debates over pecking orders at the conventions.