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Social Media targeted pieces, for influencers and trending topics in the Journal workplace digital universe.
The Price of a Break. AI-Generated.
I have spent thirty years in the classroom. I know what it means to be tired. I'm fifty-three, a full-time professor, and the two months between June and July are not a vacation so much as a different kind of work — training, professional development, the reading and recalibrating that makes the other ten months possible. I guard that time carefully. I've had to learn how.
By Bertyl Kently6 months ago in Journal
What I Owe. AI-Generated.
I have never borrowed money from his grandparents. That's not an opinion — it's the shape of what happened. Dominic and I have been together since we were teenagers, which means his grandparents have had years to decide what they think of me. What they think, in short, is not much. There's been name-calling, steady criticism, the particular cruelty of people who make clear they consider you a problem someone else imported into their family. I learned early to keep my distance and my composure. I got good at both.
By Bertyl Kently6 months ago in Journal
Authorship vs Refinement
Much of the confusion surrounding artificial intelligence and writing comes from a failure to distinguish between two fundamentally different acts: originating ideas and refining their expression. These acts are often treated as interchangeable, as though whoever touches the final form must also be the source of the thought itself. That assumption does not reflect how writing has ever worked, nor does it reflect how human thinking actually unfolds.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast6 months ago in Journal
Institutions Fear Inference More Than Lies
Institutions are often willing to tolerate isolated falsehoods, minor inaccuracies, selective framing, and even outright contradictions. A single lie can be corrected, buried, explained away, or isolated from the larger structure. What institutions consistently resist is not merely factual disagreement. They resist inference. They resist the moment when separate observations are connected into a pattern, and the pattern begins to imply responsibility.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast6 months ago in Journal
Immunity and Practical Unaccountability
In theory, no one is above the law. This phrase is repeated often enough that it functions as a civic mantra, a reassurance that power is ultimately constrained and that authority remains accountable to the same moral and legal standards imposed on everyone else. On paper, police officers, prosecutors, and government agents are subject to the law just like any citizen. They can be investigated, disciplined, sued, or prosecuted when misconduct occurs.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast6 months ago in Journal
Writing as Journal, Not Just Product
Not everything that matters begins as something meant for an audience. Much of what shapes a person most deeply starts as private wrestling, unfinished realization, unresolved tension, or a question that has not yet settled into a firm position. Treating writing only as a product meant for consumption misunderstands one of its most essential functions. Before writing becomes communication, it is often orientation.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast6 months ago in Journal
Every Alternative Is an Admission
The Current System Should Not Be Treated as the Neutral Baseline The current redistricting system is often treated as the normal starting point, while every alternative is treated as an experiment that must justify itself. That framing is backwards. The current system is already an experiment in political assignment. It already decides which voters belong together before they vote. It already gives enormous power to whoever controls the boundaries. It already allows voters to be packed, cracked, attached, diluted, concentrated, divided, or rearranged while still maintaining the appearance of legal process. The familiar system should not receive moral credit merely because people are used to it.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast6 months ago in Journal
Why This Conversation Has to Happen Now
This Is Not an Abstract Exercise Brainstorming alternatives to redistricting can sound theoretical until the country enters a moment when the map itself becomes one of the main weapons of national power. At that point, the question stops being academic. It becomes immediate. If congressional control can be altered not mainly by persuading voters, but by changing the containers those voters are placed into, then redistricting is not a procedural side issue. It is one of the most consequential political powers in the country.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast6 months ago in Journal
My Sister Wanted a Sister and Got Comforted. I Wanted a Brother and Got Called a Psychopath.. AI-Generated.
I don't remember crying. My parents remember it for me. I'm sixteen and the only boy among six children. My sisters are fourteen, eleven, nine, eight, and five. According to family legend, when my parents first told me I was getting a sister, I cried — really cried, the kind that apparently revealed something alarming about my character. By the second announcement, I wasn't happy but I kept it together. By the third, my mother sat me down and told me there was something deeply wrong with me. She used the word psychopath. My father backed her up and told me to stop being a baby and act like a man.
By Bertyl Kently6 months ago in Journal
Why Your Instagram Bio Is Quietly Costing You Followers
Most Instagram users spend hours perfecting their content while completely overlooking the silent saboteur lurking at the top of their profile. The bio section, along with those crucial first elements visitors see, often becomes the invisible barrier between gaining and losing potential followers.
By Kirby Soto6 months ago in Journal
