Cathy Crea
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cathycrea.bsky.social
Cathy Crea
@cathycrea.bsky.social
Community College English and Reading instructor in White Bear Lake, MN. Chronic migraine. Knitter, bookbinder, metalsmith. 🐈‍⬛🐈‍⬛ She/they 🏳️‍🌈 Trans rights are human rights
Reposted by Cathy Crea
Hey Twin Cities - today our governor and both mayors announced that HSI - the feds - have over 400 agents in town for a two week push starting tomorrow.

Christmas Eve.

If Christ hadn't risen he'd be rolling in his fucking grave.
December 24, 2025 at 12:13 AM
Reposted by Cathy Crea
So the “figure out how to use it lest you be left behind” replies about ‘AI’ that have been popping up here strike me as inauthentic but also kind of funny because they grant the point that rather than an automation panacea these technologies are quite difficult to figure out how to use effectively
December 21, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Reposted by Cathy Crea
I have seen ZERO evidence of this in *any* humanities discipline. What I *have* seen is university administrations insisting to their humanities faculties that 1) "AI is a transformative tool for your disciplines!" 2) "No, we don't have any examples or suggestions, but you must find them or else!"
December 21, 2025 at 4:09 PM
Reposted by Cathy Crea
Blocking this site for the rest of the night to work on my book. But one last thing: I would love to interview an #ActuallyAutistic man in a same-sex relationship for one of the last two chapters of my book about autism and masculinity. My email is [email protected]. DMs open.
December 16, 2025 at 3:12 AM
I sent a little—anyone want to join me in donating?
PLEASE donate to our Venmo! We have trusted friends and collaborators bringing heat sources to as many people as we can find but we are running out of money and it is unbearably cold. Your neighbors need your help.
@supplydepotmpls 💕💸
Hey Minneapolis, these temps are brutal.

@supplydepotmpls.bsky.social provides critical resources to people experiencing food and housing insecurity.

Donations make an immediate, tangible difference in the well-being of your neighbors and community:

opencollective.com/sanctuarysup...
December 15, 2025 at 2:16 AM
Reposted by Cathy Crea
As Justin Reich wrote recently at the Chronicle, we don't know how to "teach AI." This is a complicated problem that it will take years and lots of experimenting to understand. Past failures are myriad and initiatives like Purdue's are falling into the same traps. www.chronicle.com/article/stop...
Opinion | Stop Pretending You Know How to Teach AI
Colleges are racing to make students ‘fluent.’ One problem: No one knows what that means.
www.chronicle.com
December 14, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Reposted by Cathy Crea
It’s good to see papers start to address LLMs as structural plagiarism — provenance, more hidden than the original words or training data. www.nature.com/articles/s42...
LLM use in scholarly writing poses a provenance problem
Nature Machine Intelligence - LLM use in scholarly writing poses a provenance problem
www.nature.com
December 14, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Reposted by Cathy Crea
Donald Trump has brought his lawlessness to Minnesota, sending ICE agents here to divide and terrorize our communities.

But House DFLers will always stand with our neighbors.

We are Minnesotans. And Minnesotans have each other’s backs.
December 13, 2025 at 8:15 PM
Reposted by Cathy Crea
Also, the workers in the original art risked their lives to make the lives of others better. These guys risk our lives to make their lives better.
I guess it's fitting that it's a reimagined, worse version of someone else's artwork
December 12, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Reposted by Cathy Crea
Earlier this week, 42 state attorneys general sent a warning letter to the major AI companies regarding the dangers and harms created by AI chatbots. It's as forceful an indictment of what's happening that I've found, so here's a short thread to walk you through the evidence they've compiled... 🧵
Big Tech warned over AI 'delusional' outputs by US attorneys general
Microsoft, Meta, Google and Apple were among the 13 companies that received a warning from a bipartisan group of state attorneys general, according to a letter from the state leaders, who said their c...
www.reuters.com
December 11, 2025 at 1:02 PM
My doctor gave me a new prescription a month ago. Because it’s some sort of special medication, the prescription went to one company, which did a prior authorization request, which was approved by a second company, and was then sent to a third for “fulfillment,” which meant they sent it to a… 1/1
December 11, 2025 at 6:16 PM
Reposted by Cathy Crea
5. Then we get to AI and get this boilerplate: "when educators embrace AI with curiosity and patience, it can reduce burnout by handling repetitive tasks, improving overall workflow, and even providing new ways to engage."

No evidence is provided to support this frequent claim.
December 11, 2025 at 11:53 AM
Reposted by Cathy Crea
Most college students are not that. Increasingly they are engaged in carework, have full-time jobs, or are otherwise responsible for things that they were not some fifteen or twenty years ago. Indeed, only the MOST privileged student has the time or space to fulfill the image of a full time student.
December 10, 2025 at 7:43 PM
Eye. Shingles.

Go get your Shingrix. (I may be subskeeting someone here)
I am baffled by this because I have had so many friends with shingles and NONE of them made it sound fun. Not one. A vaccine that made me absolutely miserable for 48 hours would still be a huge improvement over the mildest case of shingles I've heard of. (Also it made me tired for 1 day.)
All over my FB people talking about their bad experiences with shingles vax and dissuading each other from getting it! We need to give people real info on how to mitigate the symtoms caused by vaccines because vaccines are always better than meeting a virus unprepared. Yet drs aren't coaching ppl
December 9, 2025 at 3:50 PM
This! This is how I wandered in to being chair of a state rep’s campaign!
I really can't emphasize enough that if you care about local politics, all you gotta do is show up. Just a regular schmegular person showing up. Literally just show up consistently in person and within a remarkably short amount of time, you will have a shocking amount of influence.
December 6, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Reposted by Cathy Crea
As we follow the trajectory of the student at OU who wrote an essay citing zero sources and making no argument, got the instructor fired by claiming her 1A rights were violated, went on a tour of rw media and now seems poised to become a part of the TPUSA speaker circuit: (1/4)
December 6, 2025 at 4:09 PM
Reposted by Cathy Crea
I felt compelled to make some flyers to welcome these Twin Cities tourists!

High res downloads of these posters (as well as others) are available for FREE on my Ko-Fi shop.

ko-fi.com/pailbn/shop/...

#art #digitalart #poster #flyer #minneapolis #stpaul
December 4, 2025 at 5:59 PM
Reposted by Cathy Crea
I'm moving and I went to a UHaul shop to buy some boxes. I struck up a convo with the cashier who revealed that she has a PhD in applied econ, is a former prof, and is working there to help her parents. She lamented that she no longer has access to journals in her field. Here's what I told her: 1/4
November 25, 2025 at 2:51 PM
This year’s Year Compass is out. I like sitting down with my first year experience students and doing it with them.
YearCompass
YearCompass | The booklet that helps close your year and plan the next one.
yearcompass.com
November 25, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Reposted by Cathy Crea
One of my favorite things is getting to tell friends who are new to NYC that the subway "stand clear of the closing doors please" voice is a trans woman named Bernie Wagenblast and she's amazing.
November 24, 2025 at 6:19 PM
I made these pumpkin cake bars with King Arthur’s Measure for Measure gluten free flour for Thanksgiving since I’ll have a guest with celiac. They are light and airy. That little bit of maple syrup in the frosting makes it so good.
Pumpkin Cake Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting
A moist, deep-gold pumpkin cake bars topped with rich frosting, perfect for autumn.
www.kingarthurbaking.com
November 24, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Reposted by Cathy Crea
Like, you could write an entire book length case study in "ways Roblox completely fails at Trust and Safety". I advise every parent I know to get their kids the fuck off Roblox, or at the very least, directly monitor who's contacting them and what they're playing *extremely* closely.
November 23, 2025 at 3:01 AM
Reposted by Cathy Crea
I am by no means a prominent public intellectual, but my inbox is increasingly filled with messages from people who have been convinced by sycophantic chatbots that they have discovered revolutionary theories that entirely upend our scientific understanding of the universe.
November 21, 2025 at 2:49 AM
I love this—saving for class…
November 20, 2025 at 9:38 AM
Reposted by Cathy Crea
People are holding administrative burden parties to collectively take on tasks
www.wsj.com/lifestyle/re...
Essay | How to Turn the Bureaucratic Grind of Life Into a Party
We all feel it: the growing stream of administrative tasks sapping our time, spirits and social lives. Admin Night represents a tiny, nerdy resistance.
www.wsj.com
November 19, 2025 at 12:54 PM