Clare Sammells
csammells.bsky.social
Clare Sammells
@csammells.bsky.social
Anthropologist of Food, Tourism, and Latin America (Bolivia, Argentina, Antarctica). Lover of plants AND zombies. Barbershop singer. Assoc Prof at Bucknell U but all opinions are my own.
Reposted by Clare Sammells
18 years for having a stillbirth. Medical testing showed meth but a med examiner testified he couldnt say it was the cause of death. She’s 1 of at least 20 Alabama women who suffered miscarriage/stillbirth then faced sentencing as severe as for murder, rape or kidnapping. www.al.com/news/2022/09...
She lost her baby, then her freedom. ‘When the judge said 18 years, I couldn’t believe it.’
Brooke Shoemaker suffered a stillbirth in Auburn in 2017. Although a state medical examiner found the cause of death to be undetermined, the county coroner blamed her methamphetamine use. After she lo...
www.al.com
December 30, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
Who agrees? ✋
December 30, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
Remember DEI? More than 9 in 10 streaming shows are created by white people. Nearly 8 in 10 by men.

And the actors? 80% of all on-screen roles go to whites…

“Despite minority households and female audiences driving viewerships for top series”
More than 90% of streaming shows created by white people, study shows
Annual UCLA study finds declines in cultural diversity behind and in front of the camera since last year
www.theguardian.com
December 29, 2025 at 11:27 PM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
Whenever media say “end trans ideology,” they mean end the rights of trans people. Remember “gay ideology” referred to gay people marrying, having kids, not getting fired from work, showing affection in public without harassment (aka basic human rights). Transphobic rhetoric is recycled homophobia.
December 30, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
I feel like we haven’t fully reckoned with the with the implications of the reality that in the past generation, many have lost the ability to concentrate long enough to read a book.
December 30, 2025 at 3:54 AM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
I want to talk about how junk science ruins innocent lives.

The criminal legal system is overwhelmed by junk science.

IT IS AN OUTRAGE.

If you're not deeply disturbed by what's going on, I need you to pay close attention.

Let me explain. 🧵/x
July 4, 2023 at 3:59 AM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
Here's a tragedy of DOGE that most people will never know about, even though it has big consequences: no one is left to coordinate the transition to memory safe systems code. 🧵
"Memory Safety for Skeptics," published in the ACM Queue.

Arguing for why memory safety is worth pursuing, even amid competing priorities and limited budgets, and with or without Rust.
Memory Safety for Skeptics - ACM Queue
queue.acm.org
December 30, 2025 at 4:58 AM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
I do not like your AI slop
I do not like it, make it stop

I do not want an AI house
I do not want an AI mouse
No AI box. No AI fox—
That AI slop can go kick rocks

I would not AI here or there
I would not AI anywhere
No AI car, no AI czar

Your AI slop is killing trees
I do not like it, let me be!
December 30, 2025 at 3:32 AM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
A week ago my sister and I chatted about her use of AI at work, and yesterday she said exactly this. She started using it to save time, but she realizes that she now uses it as validation. She spends so much time editing its output that it doesn’t save time, but she no long trusts her own writing.
December 29, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
MTG is not your bigoted aunt or co-worker. She's an EXTREMELY wealthy fascist demagogue. You don't have to listen to random elite pundits and politicians lecturing you about "big tent" politics with respect to her.
December 29, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
Remember:

When Tylenol was poisoned *by an outsider* and killed people, the company recalled all their products & redesigned them.

When Intel’s Pentium had a bug so obscure it affected 1 in _9 billion_ long division calculations, they recalled their chips.

ChatGPT was made deadly *by its team*.
i don’t see how any of the benefits of chatgpt and other consumer-facing LLMs can possibly outweigh their incredible ability to induce suicides
Adam Raine’s life hurtled toward tragedy soon after he began talking with ChatGPT about homework. Analysis of his ChatGPT account shows how the chatbot became a confidant as he planned to end his life.
December 28, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
Maybe, if you're not actually in university classrooms, teaching students in the age of gAI, perhaps you might want to stop and listen when people actually in those classrooms raise concerns about what they are seeing; and not just dismiss us as luddites, or boomers, or cruel profs playing cops
December 28, 2025 at 1:56 PM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
The Epstein Files aren't about what Trump *knew*.
The Epstein Files are about what Trump *DID*.

This is an important distinction to remember. We can't let them shift it.
December 26, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
Dean Martin, born Dino Paul Crocetti, son of Italian immigrant Gaetano Crocetti

Frank Sinatra, son of Italian immigrants Antonino Sinatra and Natalina Garavanta

Merry Christmas to everyone except Stephen Miller and his enablers and handlers
December 26, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
#4 sounds like a lovely book but I didn't write it. Have had whānau up and down the country send me clippings lol
Whoever put together this list that has been circulated to regional papers, didn't fact check.
December 25, 2025 at 6:43 AM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
It is EXHAUSTING not only being made responsible for coming up with new kinds of assignments for our students; it's also tedious reading op-eds that suggest the core problem is a crisis in teaching. But, as Chris and I lay out here, this isn't a crisis in teaching; it's an attack on learning.
"We envision a resistance that is...a repudiation of the efficiencies that automated algorithmic education falsely promises: a resistance comprising the collective force of small acts of friction."

"How to Resist AI in Education" by me & @cnygren.bsky.social
www.publicbooks.org/four-frictio...
Four Frictions: or, How to Resist AI in Education - Public Books
We are calling for resistance to the AI industry’s ongoing capture of higher education.
www.publicbooks.org
December 24, 2025 at 7:39 PM
Merry Christmas!

Remember, once you stop believing in a certain someone, you become part of the Santa magic.
December 25, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
A small (personal) example of this book’s intellectual dishonesty:

My father-in-law is reading In Covid’s Wake, and excitedly told me he found a passage where I’m quoted. The quote in question is me saying the FBI worked to censor speech on social media.

Huh? When did I say that?!
December 24, 2025 at 7:00 PM
MY EQUALLY GEN X SPOUSE HAS NEVER HEARD ABOUT THE AUDIENCE LYRICS FOR BILLY IDOL'S "MONY MONY" good lord how did I raise two kids with this person without realizing this??
December 25, 2025 at 2:00 AM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
This whole time people on the left have been clear—we don't care if Bill Clinton is in the Epstein files. Release them in full & let justice be served. We're not in a cult and that's what justice demands.

Now Bill Clinton is calling for their full release.

And suddenly MAGA is silent. Fascinating.
December 24, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
Okay, so at the request of the lovely @trance.bsky.social , I'm going to tell a story about what happens when a shitty person is "just joking", and then discovers there are consequences.

AKA That Time Kat Started An Antifascist Hallway Riot In The Third Grade.

Grab your beverage of choice.
February 16, 2025 at 8:53 AM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
Delete that shit right now friends.
Heads up to artists still using Twitter- Twitter is now adding an "Edit image" button under all images posted on the site that allows everyone to feed it into genAI and modify it as they wish with a prompt
December 24, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
Hoverboards are the future, segways are the future, betamax, laser disc, Google glass is the future, 3d tvs are the future, curved screens are the future.

Like do we have to traipse through the whole graveyard of tech to get these people to understand just becauae you say it doesn't make it true.
December 24, 2025 at 1:57 AM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
For non-academics: this means the student is likely done at OU because the TA gig is attached to tuition waivers for graduate school. Sunk time at OU will be lost and the options are to quit or start over somewhere else.
December 23, 2025 at 4:15 AM
Reposted by Clare Sammells
ICE has posted a video of Santa Claus arresting immigrants. Your government is hijacking a symbol of charity to spread fear and hate. it’s up to all of us to defeat these twisted fascists.
December 22, 2025 at 11:49 PM