From my perch on the second floor, next to a window situated behind oak trees its not uncommon to see the taillights of my teenager daughter's car fade into the distance. Unlike her parents when they were in high school, she isn't headed to a job. She is headed to volunteer, often the head of her brother bops along in the seat next to her. For her generation, volunteering is as much a part of high school as dances, games and pep rallies. Maybe even more so.   While there is an intrinsic motivation to be involved in their schooling community, I'd be remiss if I didn't think it was also a function of state policy . You see, Florida's merit-based  #scholarships   #brightfutures  requires 100 hours of volunteer service (fn1).   Thinking back decades ago when I roamed the halls of high school I don't recall the same type of engagement in volunteering amongst my friends. So, just maybe, amongst some of the flaws any merit-based aid system presents this ...

Words become art when sequentially placed in such a way as to stir the emotions and imagination. It is a task evidenced by countless crumpled drafts covering floors or empty pages staring back at the creator. But, alas!  #chatgpt  has arrived. Like you, I have had some, though not extensive, consideration of this  #technology . During a recent rumination of the technology it struck me - the  #art  of  #writing  is experiencing what the visual arts already has: mass production. At least as I recall the essay of Walter Benjamin from 1936 entitled “ The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction .”  When art becomes mechanized, it becomes mass produced. So what does this mean? One answer is the likelihood of future “truths” conjured by  #ai  will be contingent on its ability to separate the more frequent conjecture from less prominent primary and seminal source documents.   And that is what great writing - unpliagarized wri...