Thoughts and Interesting Stories---Jeff Clark

I grew up with a lot of symbols around me; most people do. I had a Statue of Liberty pencil sharpener; I had a miniature Liberty Bell.  Most of the symbols weren't physical objects that I owned but were large things that belonged to the nation. The Lincoln Memorial was always my favorite, in contrast to the Washington monument. The Lincoln Memorial gave priority to Lincoln's words about freedom, particularly freedom for all. The Washington monument is a big phallic symbol. Washington deserved better in my opinion but it's hard to be build a memorial to someone who kept despair at bay for many years of fighting losing battles against the British until his war of attrition paid off and they gave up. How do you build a memorial to someone who refused to be crowned king and then walked away from the presidency in order to ensure that liberty would outlast him? The White House is a symbol; its nickname is the People's House. It is a weird mix of really important offices and ...

 

Mathematics as a discipline teaches accountability. Every claim, whether it be a computation result or a statement (theorem) about how things work is accountable. We teach this accountability developmentally, with lower expectations at the beginning, and sometimes folk who study mathematics casually don't understand this. In my multivariable calculus classes, which I teach most frequently, I usually phrase my expectations as "give me a reason to believe your answer", citing my time working at an investment bank where my recommendations had financial repercussions and my supervisor never took my word for anything. In higher-level mathematics classes such as Abstract Algebra or Analysis I can be more explicit: these are the things we all agree to assume, these are the proof techniques which we understand; can you make an argument that convinces the community who have accepted those axioms and rules of inference that what you claim is true? We work hard to remove the ego fro...

Attorney General Pam Bondi appeared before a Senate oversight committee yesterday and refused to answer questions she didn't like from the Democrats, casually accusing them of crimes without offering any proof.  It started me thinking about oversight. The US was founded in opposition to the notion of any leader being free of oversight; our three branches of government were set up to check the power of each other. It is failing now because all three of the branches are under the control of a party or politicians who have betrayed their oaths to serve the constitution. In my own professional life I have had oversight the entire time. As a faculty member I have often reported to a department chair; when serving as department chair I have reported to a dean or associate dean; when serving in our shared governance system, chairing a Task Force, the Curriculum Committee, and Academic Council I have had oversight from Academic Council. Oversight can be frustrating but almost all of my ove...

  What kind of nation lets its children go hungry?