Eight Black Belt schools to get books from University of Alabama library program
Tuscaloosa News – Dec. 11
The University of Alabama School of Library and Information Studies plans to award more than $11,500 in free new books to K-12 schools in the state’s Black Belt as part of an annual program. SLIS Book Bonanza for the Black Belt Program provides free new books to schools each December, according to a release from UA. Eight school libraries were chosen from 22 applicants to each receive more than $1,000 for new books, according to a release from UA. The schools’ librarians applied for the program in mid-November, according to the release. The 2013 winners were Barbour County High School, Carver Elementary and Arts Magnet School, in Montgomery, Carver Middle School in Eutaw, Dallas County High School, Gordo High School in Gordo, J.E. Terry Elementary School in Plantersville, McKenzie School in McKenzie and Marengo High School in Dixons Mills. The annual book program was established in 2009 by Jamie Naidoo, the Foster-EBSCO endowed professor for SLIS at UA.
Al.com – Dec. 10
University of Alabama students film pilot episode for TV show about zombie chasers
Daily Journal (Franklin, Ind.) – Dec. 10
The Super Skate on McFarland Boulevard turned into a dispatch center for a ragtag team of zombie chasers last week as production students from the University of Alabama Telecommunication and Film Department shot a pilot for their television show titled “Zom-Com.” The show follows a team of people who go on various jobs chasing zombies to collect data about them. “In the pilot, they botch one of their jobs and bring back incomplete data, so they don’t get paid as much,” Adam Schwartz, assistant professor in the TCF department, said. “To try to make up for that, they accept what is known throughout the zombie-chaser community as a suicide mission. The pilot follows them on that mission.” Schwartz is teaching the advanced television production class this semester and is making the pilot in collaboration with the students in Matt Payne’s seminar class called “Zombies in Culture.” Payne is also an assistant professor in the TCF department, and the two wrote the script together over the summer. The advanced television production class makes a pilot or Web series each semester the class is offered, but this is the first time the students have teamed up with another class to do so.
Column: Expanding economies will swamp U.S. aims
Aiken Standard (S.C.) – Dec. 11
Congress should not waste time debating a comprehensive climate change legislation in the coming year. First, the combination of the natural gas revolution created by fracking and the economic doldrums we are stuck in have already cut our emissions of greenhouse gases dramatically without Congress doing anything at all. If they did jump in, they’d be as likely to screw that up as make things better. In addition, we should wait because the current proposals on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are all expensive and will be cheaper in the future as technologies improve. Consider the change in cellphone technology and prices over the past 20 years. When the director of Wall Street wanted to emphasize Gordon Gecko’s power and wealth, he portrayed him holding a brick-size cell phone. Today, even schoolchildren carry iPhones, which are orders of magnitude more powerful – and much cheaper. That same innovative process will make both emissions reduction technology and mitigation efforts cheaper and better in the future. (Andrew Morriss holds the D. Paul Jones, Jr. and Charlene A. Jones Chair in Law and professor of business at the University of Alabama.)
BP Argues Companies Are Unfairly Cashing In On 2010 Spill
90.5 NPR (Central Ohio) – Dec. 10
Oil giant BP is challenging hundreds of millions of dollars in claims that were filed by businesses after the company’s 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The total price tag for BP’s oil spill is huge — $42.5 billion. At issue here is a fraction of that — but still a lot of money. BP says $540 million has been awarded to businesses for losses that “are either nonexistent, exaggerated or have nothing to do with the Deepwater Horizon accident.” … But now pressure on the company has eased some, and it appears BP’s strategy may be evolving. “Now we’re seeing what parties often do with this type of litigation: drag it out,” says University of Alabama law professor Montre Carodine. “Eventually, you force people who may have very legitimate claims to leave them on the table because they’re tired — you wear them down.”