Juneteenth

Juneteenth celebrated in Alabama but not yet declared permanent state holiday: Alabama Public Radio – June 19

… Dr. Joshua Rothman is a Professor of History and Chair of the History Department at The University of Alabama. He said making Juneteenth a permanent holiday is more than just getting the day off but is about thinking of the history of Alabama. “If it’s the kind of holiday that we want to use to reflect on history, and on the past and on slavery as an institution, then having it as a state holiday might be a way to keep that kind of conversation and that kind of knowledge going,” he said. “So, I can see how there would be value in having it both being a state holiday and a federal holiday.”

Hear Here Alabama

Rural Alabamians can have their hearing checked: Alabama Public Radio – June 21

Selma residents will have the opportunity to have their hearing screened tomorrow. The project is called “Hear Here Alabama.” It’s sponsored by the University of Alabama to increase access to hearing healthcare in rural areas. A separate clinical study will focus on how to provide over-the-counter hearing aids to those who need them. *Marcia Hay-McCutcheon is a professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders at UA. She says hearing loss can be difficult for people to process.

Criminal Justice Reform

How a second chance for aging, nonviolent Alabama prison inmates died in Montgomery: Al.com – June 22

… “I wished all people would realize that prisons are the single most costly institutions in our state after public schools,” said Susan Dewey, professor of criminology and criminal justice at The University of Alabama.

Housing History

Most liveable city: How Vienna earned its place in housing history: City Monitor – June 22

… The massive economic dislocations of the postwar years gave the Social Democrats’ housing plan an edge. By 1924, the municipal government was the biggest property owner in Vienna. “The Social Democrats took advantage of a crisis,” says Janek Wasserman, associate professor of history at The University of Alabama. “They used that hyperinflationary moment to basically expropriate land and property from people going under – the people who owned a lot of the real estate stock in the city.” … “In the United States and in much of Europe as well, cities are often fairly left-leaning, but it’s a question of having the revenue for any of these large infrastructure projects,” says Wasserman, author of Black Vienna: The Radical Right in the Red City. “And that’s just not there.”

OceanGate

UA geologist shares perspective on lost OceanGate submersive: WVUA – June 22

… University of Alabama geologist Fred Andrus says this interest we have in what’s down below sea level is practical and just in our nature as human beings. Andrus: “…then I think others are just drawn to it because of the mystery. We don’t know much about the sea floor and you often hear the cliché that we know more about the surface of the moon than we do the bottom of the ocean and that’s true. The water makes it very difficult to measure the even pretty simple things like the details of what the bottom is composed of and as you have seen recently how difficult it is to find the lost objects under the ocean.”