UA professor, student make documentary of Robert Reed’s life after tornado story
Tuscaloosa News – Nov. 27
A University of Alabama professor and a student who became intrigued by Robert Reed are making a short documentary, not just of Reed’s heroism on April 27, but his life story. “It’s a personal story. It’s a story that had a life before the 27th, and it continues after the 27th,” said Dwight Cammeron, a telecommunication and film professor at UA. Reed has lived a hard life. After football glory as a quarterback at Aliceville High School in the 1990s, his dreams of sports fame fizzled when he dropped out of college. He later served nearly eight years in prison for drug charges…If not for his life before April 27, Reed wouldn’t have been in the trailer park at all to rescue people from the rubble. And perhaps only he could have saved them in time because of his physical strength…Reed said that before April 27, people saw only his intimidating size and his past. Now, he’s considered a hero, and that day has rewritten the way people look at him…It’s that story of redemption that touched Cammeron, he said. Called “April’s Hero,” the 30-minute documentary will delve into Reed’s life a bit deeper than previous media coverage…
UA student to join U.N. event
Tuscaloosa News – Nov. 24
A University of Alabama student has been selected to join climate change experts and United Nations representatives as they meet in South Africa to develop an international climate change agreement. John Canada, a chemistry major at UA, was selected by the American Chemical Society to attend the U.N. conference along with four other students from across the country.
Allen and Jemison Building undergoing transformation
Tuscaloosa News – Nov. 28
Original renderings of the first floor have been adapted as structural needs became apparent. Hallways had to be created up front, where offices were originally planned; now the first thing you’ll see will be a 1,500-square foot gallery operated for and by the University of Alabama art department, with works primarily from students and faculty in the master’s of fine arts program. Much like the Ferguson Center Gallery, exhibits will rotate regularly, but the Washington Center has more space, and will be more accessible to off-campus community. There’ll also be a second gallery space in the center, for artists occupying studio space, on the second floor.
New book by former UA professor Ralph Voss looks back at Truman Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood’
Birmingham News – Nov. 25
A Kansas native who grew up in the prairie town of Plainville, Ralph Voss won’t ever forget the fear that spread throughout the state following the most notorious murders in Kansas history. “I remember very vividly that, up until that time, my parents had never locked the doors at night,” Voss recalls. But all that changed one November night in 1959, when farmer Herbert Clutter and his wife and two of their children were roused from their sleep and murdered in their rural Holcomb, Kan., home. Voss, who now lives in Hoover and is retired after 31 years as an English professor at the University of Alabama, was 16 and a junior in high school at the time of the Clutter murders.
Alabama on the brink of exodus
RT.com – Nov. 26
A US District judge in Alabama has made a move that will block legislation in the state’s controversial immigration bill, a step that is earning support from Hispanics and temporarily slowing the mass exodus out of Alabama. . . . Samuel Addy of the University of Alabama writes in a report from October 2011 that under the legislation in its strictest incarnation, the state is looking to lose around $40 million if only 10,000 undocumented workers stop working in the state and go elsewhere; The Alabama Farmers Federation predicts that more like $63 million will be lost because of HB 56. Since the passing, the economy has already suffered immensely, with sales in some parts of the state down by 60 percent, reports USA Today, and businesses becoming shorthanded without immigrant workers, thus unable to provide services and make ends meet.
New immigration laws could hit farmers, drive up food prices
(Nashville) Tennessean – Nov. 27
A set of tough new immigration laws that went into effect this year in Georgia and Alabama has highlighted the degree to which farmers in the Southeast have come to depend on foreign-born labor. And now, as Tennessee rolls out similar reforms, some in the agriculture industry are worried lawmakers may create a labor shortage here. . . . Alabama’s initial estimate is $40 million lost, and Sam Addy, an economist at the University of Alabama, said that figure likely understates the damage.
After turkey time, stores prep for Black Friday
Tuscaloosa News – Nov. 24
Black Friday — the big shopping day after Thanksgiving — will have a new meaning this year. It’s the day when the best bargains and biggest door-buster sales might be found during the blackest predawn hours. Stores throughout the Tuscaloosa metro area will start Black Friday earlier than ever this year. Some actually will kick off their sales on Thanksgiving night. Others, like Kmart, are open today. “Clearly, retailers are taking no chances this year,” said Kristy Reynolds, an University of Alabama professor of marketing.
1965 shooting shows pitfalls of closing old cases
Associated Press – Nov. 27
On a late-fall evening 46 years ago, gunfire shattered the revelry at a nameless juke joint in this rural crossroads. When the smoke cleared, Joseph Robert McNair, a black father of six, lay at the feet of the community’s white constable. That McNair was dead, and that Luther Steverson had killed him are about the only details on which folks around here agree. Five months ago, the U.S. Department of Justice — which has been looking into scores of civil rights-era deaths — closed a reinvestigation of McNair’s shooting and informed family members that there was nothing to prosecute. But The Associated Press has found a number of people whose eyewitness accounts conflict with the official finding that Steverson fired just once in self-defense. . . . The hearing concluded that no crime had occurred. But conviction after conviction in these old cases has proven that such results cannot always be taken at face value, said historian David T. Beito. “There are certainly many examples that you could point to in Mississippi in that period of deception by authorities, of authorities circling the wagons to protect each other,” said Beito, a professor at the University of Alabama.
Alabama law takes bite out of pupil’s apple for teacher
Washington Times – Nov. 24
That apple for the teacher is likely history in Alabama, where broad new ethics laws ban virtually all gifts for instructors and other public employees. The rules, which went into effect this year, are meant to wipe out political corruption and stop lobbyists from influencing lawmakers. But the measures were written so broadly that they prohibit all public-sector employees, including teachers, from accepting anything “of value.” . . . “The way these reforms were sold to the public is that there was a big concern with lobbyists. I don’t remember anyone being concerned about a teacher getting a $10 gift certificate from Target,” said Montre D. Carodine, a law professor at the University of Alabama. “There’s some concern that this law has gone too far. It’s a time-honored tradition, being able to give a teacher a gift for the holidays.”
Tiny flame sheds new light on supernova explosions
Net India – Nov. 24
A team of researchers has gained new insights into the titanic forces that drive Type Ia supernova explosions after studying the behaviour of small flames in the laboratory. These stellar explosions are important tools for studying the evolution of the universe, so a better understanding of how they behave would help answer some of the fundamental questions in astronomy. . . . “Our goal is to provide a more realistic simulation of how a given supernova scenario will perform, but that is a long-term goal and involves many different improvements that are still in progress,” said Dean Townsley from the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa.