Dr. “Better a Duck” Shields (she/they)

Laughing ICE Goons Seize Dad Who Fled Ukraine War at Walmart Dmytro Kulyk is facing deportation as refugees become the Trump administration’s latest target.

EXCLUSIVE: A Ukrainian dad escaped Vladimir Putin’s drone and missile attacks back home only to be grabbed by a band of laughing ICE stooges in a Walmart parking lot in Minneapolis.

Imagine centering the dude with the Nazi tat who has never won an election, while ignoring Michelle Wu, the only mayor of Boston in history to run for re-election unopposed.

Kind of a feckless and inept editorial choice.

“The Constitution does not permit the government to arrest thousands of individuals and then disregard their constitutional rights because it would be too challenging to honor those rights.”

I'm just going to say a thing.

What a person looks like is not reflective of their soul. Insulting the appearance of bad people who do bad things as an outcome or indication of their rotten hearts perpetuates the notion that conventional beauty = virtue, a myth that's led to untold human damage.

You can't... repeal... a scientific finding. At that point it's just called lying about it.

I went to college for criminology and criminal justice and used to do research into law enforcement misconduct as part of my education and have been working on zines lately that through that lens - I've got a zine examining scams and how race and gender play a part I'll have out soon. Also this:

Red construction paper card with red drawn hearts with the words ice in it crossed out

The card says happy Valentines everyone not you ice and then it has a picture of the earth saying not you with an angry ice cube that has its arms out stretched like it’s trying to take over the world

My daughter made a Valentine for the occasion.

If Bad Bunny can cover the history of Puerto Rico, colonialism, transatlantic slavery, hemispheric consciousness, as well as contemporary life and politics in under 14 minutes, you can do your 15- or 20-minute conference presentation with time to spare.

Now we have…

New Book Network? As the primary pluralist OA alternative that covers religion and theology books? Which is fine, but very different format and type of engagement.

I don’t always have 90 minutes for a podcast, I want to send 10 minutes reading a carefully crafted and critical review.

It was open access.

The reviews were meaty.

There was genuine pluralism of content and among reviewers.

Reviews were generally pretty timely.

This is really, really sad.

I thought this was one of the best publishing interventions in book reviews in the past two decades that I have been reading academic theology and religious studies.

IR US is for grad students and ECRs so that they can workshop a research project, practice presenting initial findings and more formally at conferences, integrate critical engagement and understand what it takes to revise and submit for publication. The best part: @drfstewart.bsky.social as a mentor

Ok! Well I will try to remember to give you an early Amazon (I know I know, but…) review when I have a copy and let all the clergy and engaged lay people who read know when it comes out for pre-order.

Are you going to do any kind of book release events?

I‘d love to help promote you.

Congrats!!

Book cover. Three triangles in corners have grass, a road, and a cityscape. Text on black background says: Abolition Ecclesiology: A Spatial Theology for a Church Against Prisons, Hannah Bowman

OK but this is too exciting to wait on sharing: my book! It has a cover! (Coming in November from Fortress Press, pre-orders will be available sooooooon)

I Bought Slop: A Conversation on the Accidental Purchase of AI-Generated Material - ACRLog Editor’s note: This guest blog post is by Natasha Finnegan, Cataloging and Metadata Librarian, Nicole Kulp, Serials and Electronic Resources Librarian, Sara Wheatley, Acquisitions Specialist, and Emil...

I wrote a post with three of my colleagues about the proliferation of AI slop in our library purchasing. I am immensely proud of what we wrote, and I hope it spurs on needed conversations, especially with our publishers and vendors.

New Mozilla Firefox version to allow AI features to be blocked Mozilla will allow Firefox users to entirely block current and future generative AI features on the browser.

Mozilla will allow Firefox users to entirely block current and future generative AI features on the browser after user feedback revealed many who wanted an AI-free browser experience.

This makes me happy:

"Ahmed’s @saranahmed.bsky.social conceptualising of knowledge, or more accurately, knowingness indicates that @ its core are 2 aspects: agency and authority Whilst the subaltern often has the agency to speak, or be recognised, they lack or are denied the authority to be seen or heard (Spivak 1988)"

The National Council for Adoption describes itself as a “leading authority about adoption,” but that’s only because its mission is to *promote* adoption. It’s best understood as the adoption industry’s main lobbying group. Its president recently resigned to take a job in Trump’s DHS. +

It's remarkable how little Orwell's depiction of AI in 1984 has figured in public discussions of this new scourge. As Orwell would have it, AI is only good at injuring the AI tech workers (who treat its output w/ complete contempt).

Opinion page of the Onion Jan-Feb 2026 issue with a piece titled "Anyone Else Have Those Weird Dreams Where Sobbing Future Generations Beg You To Change Course?" by Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI

@theonion.com is so worth the subscription for this

A new bill in New York would require disclaimers on AI-generated news content A new bill in the New York state legislature would require news organizations to label AI-generated material and mandate that humans review any such content before publication. On Monday, Senator Patr...

A new bill in the NY state legislature would require news orgs to label any content “substantially composed, authored, or created" with generative AI. It would also require that humans review that content before publication. More details @niemanlab.org. www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/a-ne...

Ugh I’m sorry

Maura Healey is now the only Democratic governor in the whole country with a 287(g) agreement. It is shameful that she insists on collaborating with a rogue, fascist agency.

AWS generates an estimated 50-70% of Amazon’s income according to most sources, which I feel compelled to remind people trying to organize an Amazon retail boycott meant for Bezos. We have to think more critically about how we apply pressure to corporate powers.

Over the next year, I’ll be transitioning into the role of editor-in-chief for the journal Biblical Interpretation. So a reminder to all you who work on biblical and adjacent materials to consider submitting. brill.com/view/journal...

I understand the impulse, but this is either clearly false (see fascist political variations of Hindutva and Buddhist nationalist movements like 969) or a narrowly semantic definition of fascism which makes it uninteresting.

"Not performing as expected" ≠ losses/risk of closure

Its = "smaller revenues than we promised shareholders"

Nestlé, PepsiCo, Sysco Corp, PFG (Performance Food Group), Tyson Foods, Unilever, Perdue have annual revenue in the BILLIONs.