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Small towns and farms: Our "people estuaries"

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Tuesday, 27 August 2024

Written by D.G. Martin

"That couldn't happen if you moved every three years."
Reynolds Price, the late novelist and Duke professor, was talking to a group at a Southern Writers Conference in Chapel Hill about memories.
Our memories are our treasures. They are who we are. Looking backwards some of us see our parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, cousins, longtime friends, teachers, preachers, and the places we knew them--home, church, school, stores, and fields. Those people and places of growing up define us. They are our anchors. They are our foundations. They are our roots. At least they are, if we have those memories — if we remember where we grew up.
But fewer and fewer of us know where we are from. The average American moves every three years. You can't let you roots grow too deep if you move that often.
If you move every three years and live in a new neighborhood where everybody else is new, Price says, you are not going to have the same kind of memories as those who grew up in one place.
Does it make a difference? I think it does. I can't prove it, but look around at the people who are making a difference in North Carolina — the best business leaders, our best political leaders, our best teachers and writers.
Don't a disproportionate number of them come from small towns and farms?
What explains their success in the development of leaders for the rest of us?
Some big city snobs would say that these leaders have had to overcome their culturally deprived backgrounds. Look at the small towns, they say, and see nothing happening, backward schools, no theaters, no big libraries, no big-time sports.
Nothing there? Nothing but the stable nurturing that creates the self-defining memories that Reynolds Price talked about.
North Carolina's small towns and rural communities are the state's "people estuaries."
Estuaries are those protected brackish waters along our coast, which, with the marshes, swamps, and backwaters, are the most efficient producers of food in the state. They are a critical link in our food chain. We often think of those areas as underdeveloped backwaters. But they are irreplaceable treasures where the richness and stability of life makes for one of the earth's most productive ecosystems.
Reynolds Price was right. Those nurturing memories that the small towns make possible are important in giving people a sense of who they are. People who have a sense of who they are become our best leaders, which may explain why small towns are so successful in producing North Carolina's leaders.
They are our "people estuaries."

Editor's note: D.G. Martin, a retired lawyer, served as UNC-System’s vice president for public affairs and hosted PBS-NC’s North Carolina Bookwatch.

School Bells….er, Beeps…

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Tuesday, 20 August 2024

Written by Margaret Dickson

Across North Carolina, students are gathering their school supplies for the coming school year. Teachers are organizing their classrooms, and families are trying to squeeze out a last long weekend at the beach or the mountains. Excitement rules and both students and teachers look forward to seeing each other after a summer break, and—like it or not—socializing is a big part of being in school.
Decades later, I still remember the embarrassment of being reprimanded by a teacher for passing a note to a friend. I have not heard of that happening in years. Today’s students text each other, even if they sit across from each other in class. They are fully digitized and likely cannot imagine passing a contraband note.
School systems have noticed all the chirping and pinging, eyes glued to cell phones in laps and online bullying, and many are beginning to regulate various digital tools in classrooms. The New York Times reports that at least 8 states now limit cell phones in school. In North Carolina, Winston Salem and Forsyth County schools recently banned cell phone use during the school day, allowing use by high school students only during their lunch break.
Such policies sound both practical and reasonable so why not implement them in all school systems, including Cumberland County?
Like everything else in the digital era, it is complicated.
First, technology moves faster than school boards or legislators can make policy, and sometimes even understand what the new technologies are and what they do. Students are on to the next technology, such as artificial intelligence or AI, before many adults even know it exists, much less how it works and how to deal with it.
Secondly, we as a nation have mixed feelings about all digital communications, including cell phones. We love the convenience of them, so much so that most of us, including this writer, no longer have a landline, only a cell phone. Parents and students want, and sometimes actually need, to communicate with each other during the school day, and cell phones make that easy and private. In addition, some students do not have access to tools such as tablets and laptops and use their cell phones for schoolwork. And, in this era in which Americans have apparently decided that it is OK for even teenagers to possess military-style assault weapons, some argue that student use of cell phones can be a safety measure.
At the same time, digital communications of all sorts can have serious negative effects on mental health, especially for young people who are digitally bullied or those who have been abused by others through AI technology. Such digital behavior has resulted in youth suicides, and no one wants that.
So, what to do about this very 21st-century problem?
Increasingly, there are calls for developers of these complex digital devices and social media and AI platforms to build in “stoppers” of some sort to prevent misuse of technologies that did not exist on a commercial scale even a few years ago. Calls are also coming for both educators and students to learn not only about the capabilities of powerful technologies but about their very real dangers and how to use them responsibly.
The best description of all this I have read comes from the New York Times Education Reporter Natasha Singer, who described this complex school situation this way.
“Essentially, some say, we should follow the model of another program that has for many decades taught young people how to handle powerful machines without harming themselves or others: It’s called drivers’ ed.”

North Carolina Taxpayers deserve better than this

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Tuesday, 20 August 2024

Written by John Hood

In 2021, the North Carolina General Assembly enacted a budget that funded core state responsibilities, instigated critical repairs and renovations of government facilities, built up savings reserves, and slashed tax rates on personal and corporate income.
Overall, it was a prudent and balanced plan. In a column published in mid-November 2021, I called it an example of “constructive conservatism” in action, although I did note I was “not sold on all the capital projects funded by the new budget.”
I was referring to a long list of nonrecurring grants to localities, campuses, and private organizations tucked into the budget bill and the accompanying committee report. Such “pork barrel” spending is hardly novel. And every project has passionate advocates. Still, the farther legislators stumble away from state funding for state-owned facilities — or from approving pots of capital funds to be awarded to local governments by a specified formula — the less defensible their handiwork becomes.
That is, at least, the theoretical argument against pork-barrel spending. I’ve made it many times. Now, thanks to intrepid reporting by the Raleigh News & Observer and The Assembly, we know that the 2021-22 budget contained an especially egregious example.
Buried on page H-54 of the committee report was a two-year, $25 million grant to “the US Performance Center in Kannapolis for capital needs.” That’s all the provision states.
Created by sports enthusiasts Ike Belk and David Koerner, the US Performance Center is a private company, not a charity. It operates the Human Performance Research Institute on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where it trains athletes and conducts research. The founders’ medium-term goal, reported The Assembly, is to convince dozens of the boards governing Olympic sports to base their operations in Charlotte. Their longtime goal is for the Carolinas to host a future Summer Olympics.
You may think this a bold, exciting goal. You may think this a pipe dream. For now, set that aside and consider a simpler, more immediate question: should the taxpayers of North Carolina be compelled to fund the operations of a private company?
Yes, I know the budget provision confined the use of state funds to “capital needs.” That’s not what happened, however. The N&O reported that the US Performance Center spent $67,000 of the money on hotel bills (including $1,300 at a Ritz Carlton), $55,000 on vehicle loans, $34,000 on meals and entertainment, and more than $13,000 to pay late taxes and penalties to the Internal Revenue Service.
Moreover, the folks behind the US Performance Center didn’t stop at $25 million. They also created a nonprofit entity, the North Carolina Sports Legacy Foundation, and secured another $30 million in state money in the 2023-25 budget passed last year. The nonprofit had previously attracted only a trickle of private contributions (topping out at $167,500 a year) before snagging that $30 million. Of that amount, reported The Assembly, the nonprofit paid US Performance Center $9.8 million for “consulting services” and spent $2.9 million on salaries and benefits.
Like the much-larger NCInnovation — also funded almost entirely by taxpayers through a special provision, with little public discussion — these two related entities have essentially become creatures of the state, though with even less accountability.
The state budget office is reportedly scrutinizing the US Performance Center’s expenditure of its “capital” grant. And while no Olympic sport has yet moved its headquarters to Charlotte, I suppose anything is possible in the future.
It’s hardly premature, however, to question whether state lawmakers ought to have funded these projects the way they did. Was there truly no better use of $55 million in taxpayer money? No public facility, building, or infrastructure that needed refurbishing? For example, an estimated $20 billion maintenance backlog in our local water and sewer systems appears to have knocked North Carolina out of the top spot on CNBC’s ranking of best states to do business.
On this matter, the General Assembly blew it. The taxpayers deserve better stewardship of their hard-earned dollars.

Editor’s note: John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His latest books, Mountain Folk and Forest Folk, combine epic fantasy with early American history (FolkloreCycle.com).

Publisher's Pen: Unity Reception welcomes civil rights activist Clarence Henderson

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Tuesday, 20 August 2024

Written by Bill Bowman

The Unity Reception is the brainchild of Semone Pemberton, a local community activist and currently a senatorial candidate for North Carolina District 19.
According to her, bi-partisan community events play a crucial role in developing healthy communities while providing an effective platform for local community leaders and potential community leaders to meet and listen to the citizens while enhancing relationships essential for transparency, trust, and support. Pemberton's motivation for the event is rooted in her belief in the power of unity.
We agree and applaud Pemberton's initiative as the near-perfect example of how proactive community involvement and events of this type can have the potential to galvanize relationships between all citizens, civic leaders, and elected officials regardless of race, religion, gender identification, or political affiliation.
Pemberton's Unity Reception will host special guest Clarence Henderson, a key figure in the Civil Rights Movement, who brings a legacy of fighting for transparency, justice, and equality, topics that resonate deeply with all Americans.
Now in his 70s, Henderson leads the Frederick Douglass Foundation of NC with relentless and unwavering resolve. The Frederick Douglass Foundation's mission is to make a difference in the world by empowering individuals. They believe that every person has the potential to create positive change.
Following the tenets of Frederick Douglass, Henderson and the Foundation work to expand individual freedoms, promote education and self-sufficiency, and build strong families.
Henderson is an electrifying speaker, captivating audiences with riveting tales from the Civil Rights movement with a message intended to ignite their ambition with a bold call for entrepreneurship and business opportunities, which he believes are the ultimate game-changers.
The Unity Reception will also feature NC Senator Dave Craven, the youngest serving State Senator in North Carolina and Vice President of Business Development at The Fidelity Bank. Also speaking is lawyer Senator Amy Galey from Alamance County.
The Unity Reception is a ticketed event open to the public, allowing involved Fayetteville and Cumberland County community residents to listen to these dynamic speakers' unifying messages over heavy hors d'oeuvres and beverages.
It will take place on Tuesday, Aug. 27, from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Kress Building, 229 Hay Street in Downtown Historic Fayetteville. To purchase tickets or to get more information, contact heather@fayforward.com or call 910-745-0501.
Closing note: Regardless of race, religion, gender identification, or political affiliation, this event is about "unity." With unity, nothing else matters! Thank you for reading Up & Coming Weekly.

(Top Photo: Clarence Henderson, far right, was part of the Greensboro sit-in, a civil rights protest in the 1960s that helped push the conversation regarding segregation in the United States. Henderson will be speaking at the Unity Reception, Aug. 27. Bottom Photo: Henderson gives a talk during an event. Photos courtesy of public domain)