45 Years, or 450: What the T-Word Did to Prairieland
GretchenLet’s imagine that the protest outside the Prairieland detention facility in Alvarado, Texas on July 4, 2025,…
This Is Not a Big Deal. Relax.
GretchenICE’s Mobile Fortify app turns facial recognition into a street-level surveillance tool aimed at non-citizens…
ICE’s domestic terrorism problem
GretchenIn all of the horrific stories surrounding the killing of Renee Good by ICE officer…
The wealthiest man in the world is an illegal immigrant
GretchenA few days ago, J.D. Vance accused Ilhan Omar of “immigration fraud.” She responded in a statement…
Craven Tigers and Screeching Canaries: How the DHS Uses Bad Data to Fuel Deportations
GretchenThis May, the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology released an updated version of…
The immigrant physicians sustaining U.S. healthcare
GretchenThe intersection of healthcare and immigration policy is found in the halls of hospitals and…
America’s vaccination against equity, and its adverse effects
GretchenThe language used to justify policy is…fraught. Every new program is a triumph, as is…
Mind the strings: Grok 3 and biased AI puppeteers
GretchenGenerative AI isn’t supposed to have opinions. Not unless it’s playing a character or adopting…
No border wands, just brutality: what the death of the CBP One app portends
GretchenIt’s infuriating that I have to defend this profoundly unjust yet unfairly maligned, rights-violating, prison…
Deus ex Smartphone: Healthcare Access Isn’t Going to Democratize Itself
GretchenOne of my first-year classes in college was History of Theater, in which I learned…
Healthcare tech’s turf war hurts patients- here’s how to protect yourself
GretchenQuick recap In my last post (Down the patient portal: the world of healthcare tech…
Down the patient portal: the world of healthcare tech serving you data about you
GretchenThe subject of patient engagement tools, especially patient portals, took up permanent residence in my…
Out of our minds: externalized cognition and UX design
GretchenImagine an app that feels like it thinks along with you, rather than for you….
Leveling up in the DOOM pile that was 2024
Gretchen2024 was…a learning experience. Every day I learned something, whether I wanted to or not….
The painbot
GretchenSora is a video generation model that translates text to video, a product of OpenAI…
I (don’t) feel your pain: A conversation with ChatGPT about what “empathic AI” in healthcare really means
GretchenThis is an essay in two parts: First, a somewhat rambling conversation that I had…
Editorial Cartooning as Visual Storytelling
GretchenPolitical cartoons illustrate the cultural zeitgeist– literally– while also offering critical commentary on it. An…
AI, the labor-saving device
GretchenThe discussion about AI, specifically about generative AI (whether it’s labeled as such, or just…
Content design for a nonprofit community makerspace
GretchenWhat even is a makerspace? If you’re not familiar with makerspaces, here’s a definition: they’re…
Letter to the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee regarding CBP One
GretchenDear Committee Members, specifically Chairman Green, I would like to know why, in numerous published…
J.D. Vance’s weird, dumb, little racist jab at CBP One
GretchenNote: All quotes from the debate in this post are pulled from CBS News’s transcript,…
AI Facial Recognition Technology in CBP One™
GretchenMy review of the mobile app, CBP One™: The Border in Your Pocket, considered factors…
CBP One™: The Border in Your Pocket
GretchenIn August of 2018, in light of the growing number of apps under Customs and…
Decoding the Gurus
GretchenI’m a podcast junkie, and have been for– wow– fifteen years now. I listen to…
AAEC 2019 meeting at CXC in Columbus recap, and some rambling semi-related personal musings (Part II)
GretchenThis post is a continuation of Part I– if you haven’t read that yet, click…
AAEC 2019 meeting at CXC in Columbus recap, and some rambling semi-related personal musings (Part I)
GretchenAfter devoting myself to editorial cartooning at a rapidly increasing pace since the end of…
iZombie and intuitions about spirit possession
GretchenSo I’ve been binge-watching the show iZombie on Netflix recently. It’s a supernatural legal drama…
On the death, dearth, and demographics of political cartoons
GretchenAs you may have noticed, I’ve been off the blog for quite some time, as…
Student claims in-class tirade against trans woman pastor Constitutionally protected
GretchenHey, did you hear? A student at Indiana University of Pennsylvania was kicked out of…
In which I interview myself about American Atheists Con 2018
GretchenWho are you, and what’s your history re: religion and stuff? Raised Lutheran (ELCA) in…
A great mythtake
GretchenRecently I was listening to the Embrace the Void podcast episode “Tolerate Me Bro!” about…
Good luck, Ohio
GretchenOhio’s governor John Kasich has signed into law a ban on abortion performed on the…
Inside (outside) football
GretchenThe insider-outsider problem in the study of religion entails that an insider in a religious…
New site, and update
GretchenAs you may have noticed, I’ve been drawing a lot of comics lately. I’ve become…
“Summer of Justice” recap
GretchenHot.The so-called “Summer of Justice” protest week was…hot.Wichita, Kansas, site of the original 1991 so-called…
Happy not to be on that team
GretchenI can’t help wondering if, after having established his character Dilbert as the office Everyman,…
How many more?
GretchenThree more police officers were killed today, in Baton Rouge. Three injured. The same word…
Too adult to Pokemon
GretchenThe late comedian Mitch Hedberg had a joke about Little League. It went like this:…
Good luck, Indiana
GretchenYour governor is a monster.So’s mine, of course– my governor is Sam Brownback, after all….
How the toupée fallacy enables judgmental jerks
GretchenThe toupée fallacy is named for a particular example of the informal fallacy that goes…
They’re coming back
GretchenOperation Save America, the successor to Operation Rescue, has announced that they’re returning to Wichita…