Thoughts and Interesting Stories---Jeff Clark

My Saturday morning was free so I went and voted at the Carrboro Town Hall poll. Having the poll open at 8 AM made it very convenient. The poll was staffed by volunteers from my community, my neighbors. The woman who checked my name and address and printed out my ballot recognized my name and introduced herself as the mother of a friend of my son's from high school. Representatives from the local Democratic and Republican parties were there to supervise the process. Voting consisted of my taking a clearly labeled Scantron sheet and filling in the ovals with a pen. I fed my ballot to a scanner, which confirmed that my ballot had been read and stored my ballot in case of a recount.  I arrived when the poll opened, with five of my neighbors ahead of me. I left seven minutes later. Annually at election time voters in the poorer areas of Durham, a half hour away, stand in line for hours. It is a regular and predictable news story. Sometimes because they come straight from work they are ...

I attended a meeting yesterday of the North Carolina Ombuds. I have often missed in-person meetings but my class schedule permitted me to be off campus for it this time which was nice. I know many of the folk there by face since I've been doing this for over four years. Our meetings are advertised as a chance for us to talk about things that we can't talk about in our home institutions without violating confidentiality or appearing unsure where certainty is expected. As we have both educational and government ombuds at these meetings as well as full-time versus part-time ombuds (such as myself) it was a mix of topics, some relevant, some less so. It is a comfort to be among people willing to do good in messy situations, acknowledging our imperfections and striving to do better. Realistic or not our students often expect us teachers to be fully-formed, even though I am keenly aware when I improve in some area with the passage of time. The conflict resolution in the title refers ...

I am not a scholar of American governance, but from what I have read about the early years of our government the House was viewed as being more authentically representative of the will of the people than the Senate or the two other branches of government. Their powers were proscribed accordingly in the Constitution, with the Speaker of the House being after the Vice President in the line of succession. Some time ago I realized that in my lifetime the House no longer represented the people authentically. A state would be divided in one proportion between registered Democrats and Republicans and their House seats would have a very different proportion. The state legislatures often showed the same imbalance. A simple and thus incomplete answer has to do with the drawing of districts by the party in power every ten years. Technology has advanced to allow the drawing of districts with incredible precision to lead to maximum representation for those doing the drawing. Districts lack compactn...

At various points in my career I have struggled with distractions because of ongoing family issues. I love the members of my family and so when they are in pain it occupies a significant chunk of my mental real estate. The first time I couldn't avoid the issue was the premature birth of our first child, who arrived 6.5 weeks early. I was department chair at the time and I did what I could to teach my classes and enable my department members to do their job for the 23 days he spent in the neonatal intensive care unit when I was only sleeping a few hours each night. It was obvious to all around me what I was going through and my loved ones and friends all worked to lighten my load. Since then I have had other such issues, sometimes obvious (the death of my father) and often less obvious. I am introverted and do not easily go out of my way to share what I am going through or ask for help. I have a close relative right now whose dementia has taken a turn for the worse. I am physically ...

Sometime this past decade I decided that I had more than enough things. When folk ask me what I want for a birthday or Christmas present I've asked for experiences instead.  The experience can be a nice quiet inexpensive meal together; for special gifts I've asked for tickets to concerts. I look around at all the things that I have and somehow "have" doesn't seem to be the right word. 90% of it all seems to be things I have accumulated but no longer or rarely use. These objects all have a pull on me, the memory of their past usefulness. Many times those memories are mundane and not part of who I am. I try to divest when I can. As I do I find myself loathe to part with some things, even if I no longer use them and know that in donation there is a chance that someone else could. There is the real sore spot; some complacent greed I have for the blessings God has given me in stewardship. I work at it, for this is not who I want to be but who I have let myself become t...