UA students help out in Marion
Selma Times Journal – May 17
For three weeks, the brightest minds at the University of Alabama will work to improve the Black Belt and, more specifically, Marion. Fifty students from the university have taken part in the Honors College’s University Fellows Experience. The program began May 10 and will end May 28. “The first week was spent traveling around the Black Belt, including Selma last Wednesday,” said University Fellows student communications coordinator Alan Blinder. “The two weeks after that are spent working on numerous projects”…“We want to take these extraordinary students and prepare them for leadership while they earn a degree,” said Dr. Jacqueline Morgan, the associate dean of the Honors College and the director of the University Fellows Experience. “These students come for all disciplines, but their similarity is their passion to be leaders…“We started this so we could make a relationship with the community,” said Morgan. “The Black Belt Experience was created so we could show them (students) how to be involved with an area that has great strengths but also weaknesses.” Morgan said that Marion’s location provided a logical site. “Being so close to the university, Marion and Perry County seemed like the perfect place for us to continue to invest.”…
Experts suggest their ideas for capping the BP oil spill
The Guardian (United Kingdom) – May 18
Dr. Philip Johnson, petroleum engineer at the University of Alabama: I know a way to collect that oil that will absolutely work, is not hard to rig-up, and that is very familiar to BP. They lift many, many wells with gas lift – basically gas injection into a deep point on a pipe. The gas lightens the fluid in the pipe and carries it upward. It works at depths far greater than these, and in this case the gas could be air from large surface compressors. Think of a big vacuum cleaner. Oceanographic archeological digs use these as well. They are very common, but unusual at such depths, except in the oil industry, where they are common to 8000 ft of well depth. If BP can slip a smaller pipe (say 18 inches or so to make it easy) into the open end of the leak and gas lift it, it will collect the bulk of the oil. The lifting process will even pull the introduced pipe firmly into the open end.
FastCompany.com – May 18
Indianapolis (Ind.) Recorder (Associated Press) – May 17
Bingo inquiry puts lobbyists in spotlight
Montgomery Advertiser – May 18
…David Lanoue, chairman of the University of Alabama Department of Political Science, said that the state learned a clear lesson after the trial and conviction of former Gov. Don Siegelman in 2006…”The obvious lesson we’ve learned in the Siegelman case is that politicians and lobbyists are not allowed to cross the line into actual quid pro quo,” Lanoue said. “I’m not taking the position that that’s what actually happened in the Siegelman case, but what we learned is that quid pro quo is easy to define with words, but it’s much harder to define in practice.”…