Holiday toy drive to benefit Alberta Elementary students
Tuscaloosa News – Dec. 4
University of Alabama student Rebecca Ellison and members of the online group TuscMoms are organizing a holiday toy drive to benefit schoolchildren at Alberta Elementary. T-Town Toys for Hope began as a wish of Ellison’s to provide consolation for children who may have lost their homes or possessions in the April 27 tornadoes. Ellison, a junior majoring in early childhood special education, lost her home near the Schlotzsky’s Deli on 15th Street East in the tornado. A mother of a two-year-old son and six months pregnant, she felt compelled to provide a bit of consolation to the children at Alberta Elementary.
UA professor talks about reporting in Birmingham during civil rights era
Tuscaloosa News – Dec. 4
This was a common scene in Donald Brown’s life more than fifty years ago when he was a general assignment reporter at The Birmingham News. Now, he sits in a shared office in a swivel chair, legs crossed, hands pressed together. He looks like a grandfather, complete with silvered hair and laugh lines around his eyes when he smiles. You can almost see the young man he used to be, behind the glint of his wire-framed glasses. He is a monument to a different time; one of the worst times, some might say, in the history of Alabama. “Birmingham really was a pivotal point for human rights in the U.S., and I was just a kid,” Brown said. “What did I know?” Brown, a former editor at The Tuscaloosa News, is an adjunct journalism teacher at the University of Alabama, but in the late 1950s and early ’60s, he was a young man just starting his career and his family. Though he was not considered a main reporter on the civil rights beat, assignments on the topic were unavoidable.
UA psychiatry professor discusses SIDS
MSNBC – Dec. 3
SIDS is the sudden death of an infant below the age of 1 where a very thorough investigation fails to explain why the death occurred. Dr. Marc Feldman is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Alabama. “We have to understand a few things about sudden infant death syndrome. One is that there is typically no warning sign.”
Some Alabama business leaders seek more confidence despite jobs report
Birmingham News – Dec. 3
Alabama employers won’t crank up their job creation engine until business and consumer confidence rise, some state business leaders said Friday, despite a strong national job report released Friday. . . . Ahmad Ijaz, an economist with the University of Alabama’s Center for Business and Economic Research, said small businesses won’t begin hiring again until they are sure what the costs will be under new financial regulations and President Obama’s new health insurance program. Lack of demand for their products in the current economy is another challenge, he said. “Businesses generally hire workers if they need them, and a lot of the jobs lost during the recession are most likely not coming back, either due to technology, firms relocated elsewhere or the fact they can produce the same amount with less number of workers by becoming more efficient,” he said.
College News
Tuscaloosa News – Dec. 4
The University of Alabama Library Support Staff Association is supporting the Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots by providing a collection box in each of the UA Libraries. The campaign runs through Dec. 16. Support the less fortunate children in the area with a new, unwrapped toy and enjoy the true meaning of this holiday season. Alabama Credit Union awarded Roger Smith a $1,000 scholarship on Nov. 21. Smith is a UA freshman from Trussville who plans to major in telecommunication and film…
UA radio station ready to rock 7-hour music fest on its airwaves
AL.com – Dec. 5
A college radio station that doesn’t emphasize local music, as in music written and performed by its fellow students, isn’t doing its job. 90.7 The Capstone, the University of Alabama’s student-run station, pushes a local agenda. With its upcoming “Tuscapalooza” on-air music festival, the station will air 10 live artists playing in-studio sets from 1-8 p.m. Sunday. Artists will get 30 minutes to an hour to play the set, which will be available via radio at 90.7-FM or online atwww.wvuafm.ua.edu.
Arts Council hosts sculptors for talks, tour of SPACES Bienniel Sculpture Trail
Huntsville Times – Dec. 2
The Arts Council will host sculptors Austin Collins and Craig Wedderspoon for a series of special events on Friday and Saturday. Collins, a professor of sculpture at the University of Notre Dame, and Wedderspoon, an Associate Professor of Sculpture at the University of Alabama, are two of the artists who have contributed to the SPACES Biennial Sculpture Trail, which includes 25 outdoor sculptures in Huntsville.
Visiting philosopher talks metaphysics
Crimson White – Dec. 5
There was a basketball game going on when visiting philosopher Hud Hudson spoke Thursday night, but no one in his audience cared that they got inductive arguments instead of jump shots and possible world systems instead of free throws. In Smith Hall, the matchup was Atheists vs. Believers. It was the second in the Philosophy Today lecture series, which brings prominent minds from around the country to UA to put a philosophical spin on hot-button issues like torture, immigration and faith. The question of the night: Can God exist in a world of evil?
The Neuroanthropology of Embodiment, Absorption, and Dissociation
PLOS Blogs – Dec. 3
On Thursday, Nov. 17th at the American Anthropological Association meetings in Montreal, Canada, I attended a double panel of neuroanthropologists hosted by the Society for Psychological Anthropology. Organized by Christopher Dana Lynn (University of Alabama) and Jeffrey G. Snodgrass (Colorado State University), the panel was titled “The Neuroanthropology of Embodiment, Absorption, and Dissociation: Research in Ritual, Play, and Entertainment.” . . . First up was Christopher Lynn, University of Alabama, whose Groucho Marx mustache is unforgettable. Chris reported on two studies, which I admired for their innovation and simplicity.