Camp for children in foster care
CBS 42 (Birmingham) – June 25
Higher education for children in foster care can be a difficult dream. Especially since most college-aged students get too old for foster care, leaving them on their own. But 20 foster care teenagers are spending the week at the University of Alabama. They are part of the Nsoro Pre-collegiate Summer Program. The camp helps them figure out a to make college part of their futures.
Baldwin Horizon 2025 Plan headed for scrap heap?
Mobile Press-Register – June 25
Baldwin County commissioners will consider action at their work session to scrap the award-winning Horizon 2025 Plan citing a recently passed state law prohibiting any action that supports “United Nations Agenda 21.” … Baldwin commissioners adopted the plan in July 2009 after hiring Genesis Group to develop the document. The county paid roughly $280,000 for the plan that was drafted after a series of public meetings. Funding came through Coastal Impact Assistance Program grants with the county spending about $30,000 out of pocket, according to records … University of Alabama law professor William Andreen, a noted environmental law expert, said the new state law “does not create any new grounds for reviewing Baldwin County’s comprehensive plan. The due process clause of the 14th Amendment forbids any state from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, and that has been the law of the land since 1868 when the 14th Amendment was ratified.” Andreen said the U.S. Supreme Court upheld zoning in a landmark 1926 case in Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co. “As I said before, Agenda 21 is not a legally binding instrument,” Andreen said, “and, as a result, no administration has ever sought Senate ratification. It is not law; only a set of policy recommendations to further the laudable goal of sustainable development.”
The Sophie Kerr Prize
Maryland Life – June 26
Fear, hope, anxiety, racing heart, shuddering bouts of inadequacy, sudden serenity in acceptance of the Fates’ apportioning whatever the outcome might be…these are a few of the feelings coursing through the minds of finalists hoping to snag the largest undergraduate literary award in the world: the Sophie Kerr Prize, given each year to a graduating student at Washington College in Chestertown. Forty years ago, popular Denton-born writer Sophie Kerr—author of 23 novels, 500 short stories, and innumerable magazine articles—left a small fortune to Washington College, along with a carefully worded will requiring a monetary award to be given to a graduating student exhibiting the most “promise for future fulfillment in the field of literary endeavor.” Last year, the award was a staggering $61,000, one facet of a bequest that also funds a visiting writer’s series—which has featured over 200 prominent writers so far—along with scholarships and books for the library … Emma Sovich, 2008 recipient of the prize and now editor of the long-established Black Warrior Review at the University of Alabama, recalls the crazy trajectory of submitting a portfolio. “Even after I spent more than a year identifying my core interests and where I wanted to go as a writer, I spent 10 hours the night before the submission deadline editing my portfolio. I made my poor roommate read through the ordering of items and check for typos. I was an utter wreck. I think it was delivered barely in time.”
Money camp for kids makes financial literacy fun
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – June 25
Many people believe you’re never young to learn essential money saving skills. That’s what Camp Cash is all about. It’s at the University of Alabama, for middle school-age students 11 through 14. They will learn how to develop essential money management skills, experience college life and leadership skills. To qualify, campers must have an A or B average.
OPINION: Immigration after the SB 1070 ruling
Los Angeles Times – June 26
The Supreme Court’s immigration decision is a step back from the brink, leaving much less room than many expected for state immigration enforcement. Although the justices blocked most provisions of Arizona’s controversial 2010 policing law, they upheld the one of most concern to immigrant rights advocates: the section that requires local police to inquire about the immigration status of people they stop for other reasons and whom they suspect are in the country illegally. Even this part of the opinion is more tenuous than many expected, leaving open the possibility of future reconsideration by the court. But pessimists are still anticipating the worst — that the ruling will open the way to a host of other states itching to follow in Arizona’s footsteps and pass similar punitive policing laws … study by the University of Alabama estimates that as many as 80,000 unauthorized immigrants have left that state, eliminating an additional 60,000 jobs up and downstream in the local economy and costing the treasury $260 million in tax revenue. More than half the farmers and half the restaurant owners in Georgia reported experiencing labor shortages this year. Growers across the Southeast are planting fewer acres and moving away from labor-intensive crops.
Quilter trades in needle for paintbrush
Tuscaloosa News – June 26
Jamie Glass has been sewing quilts for 20 years. A few months ago she decided to take her quilting expertise to a new place: The side of a barn. “I had seen this in quilting magazines and thought it was neat,” Glass said. To make the quilt, Glass put down her thread and cloth, and picked up a paintbrush and a couple of sheets of plywood to create her quilt square, which now hangs on the front of a friend’s barn in Duncanville … The 8-foot-by-8-foot quilt square features a six-point yellow star with a blue background surrounded by black and white checkerboard. Glass and her friend, Mike Stanley, who owns the barn, came up with the original design, which remains untitled. “Mike raises and races quarterhorses, and one night we were sitting around talking, and I said, ‘Don’t you think it would be neat if we did this?’ and it evolved from there,” Glass said. “He is a retired deputy sheriff, so we put a star on the inside and his brand in the middle of that. We used blue and yellow because those are his racing colors.” Stanley had never heard of a barn quilt before, but was open to the idea when Glass suggested it. “My mother hand quilted and gave us kids all a quilt,” he said. “So I liked the idea when Jamie told me about it.” The pair started with a 4-foot-square prototype to work out the bugs before proceeding to the larger piece. “It was a lot of fun to plan it and draw it out, making sure the star was perfect,” Glass said. “It even took a little geometry.” The mathematical calculations posed no problem for Glass, who teaches in the math department at the University of Alabama.