A little cool, out, and yet bright and sunny. From the parking lot to the office I get to pass under and by a few bright trees, here are some maples I picked up in Talbird Circle — named in honor of the antebellum president of the university.
He accepted a captain’s commission in the 11th Alabama, stepping down after three months in 1861. The 11th Alabama fought in Virginia, but Talbird, older and not in the proper condition, mustered out before the shooting began.
He returned to Marion, to the school, and then took a colonel’s commission in the 41st Alabama infantry in May of 1862. The 41st marched and skirmished and fought in Tennessee, Mississippi and, briefly, in Virginia, but Talbird wasn’t around for all of that. He served for only a year, primarily at a prison camp, and then perhaps went with the regiment where they fought at Murfreesboro, before leaving the 41st because of a disability.
After the war, Talbird did not return to the university, but went back to the pulpit.
James E. Sulzby, Jr., a Samford grad and lay historian, wrote of Talbird:
It may be said that during the presidency of President Talbird, the college enjoyed its greatest prosperity until that time, yet experienced discouragements and disasters. President Talbird worked diligently on the endowment funds in an attempt to relieve the college of any indebtedness and to guarantee its future success. President Talbird, by his consisten Christian spirit, his fine administrative qualities, and his devotion to the Confederate cause, won in the estimation of all who him a position of wide influence.
Sulzby quotes an 1857 clipping from the Marion Commonwealth where a student wrote “There are not three students in the College by whom President Talbird is not dearly loved.”
And, hey, if only two people don’t love you, that isn’t so bad.
The modern campus has the cul-de-sac named after him. And there are pretty trees, with pretty leaves. I am sharing five of them with you here, having picked them up and carried them into my photo studio. There is more to read, after these:
Things to read … because sometimes words are worth a thousand words.
I hope we’re pleased with ourselves, Rural hospitals in critical condition
Since the beginning of 2010, 43 rural hospitals — with a total of more than 1,500 beds — have closed, according to data from the North Carolina Rural Health Research Program. The pace of closures has quickened: from 3 in 2010 to 13 in 2013, and 12 already this year. Georgia alone has lost five rural hospitals since 2012, and at least six more are teetering on the brink of collapse. Each of the state’s closed hospitals served about 10,000 people — a lot for remaining area hospitals to absorb.
The Affordable Care Act was designed to improve access to health care for all Americans and will give them another chance at getting health insurance during open enrollment starting this Saturday. But critics say the ACA is also accelerating the demise of rural outposts that cater to many of society’s most vulnerable. These hospitals treat some of the sickest and poorest patients — those least aware of how to stay healthy. Hospital officials contend that the law’s penalties for having to re-admit patients soon after they’re released are impossible to avoid and create a crushing burden.
So this sounds bad, Hearing aids stolen from 88-year-old retired naval pilot, but the update suggests one of two happy endings. Company to replace hearing aids reported stolen from 88-year-old veteran plus, the end of the story says the hearing aids were miraculously found. I thought, in reading the first story, that that would ultimately be the case. Funny how calling the police and finding the news media is calling the office can make that happen.
This is one of those shame-it-happened-but-the-timing-was-good kind of stories, Alabama team doctors help save life of LSU policeman struck by car after game:
Alabama team doctors Lyle Cain, Norman Waldrop and Benton Emblom climbed into a motorcade leaving Tiger Stadium on Saturday night, expecting to chat about the Crimson Tide’s thrilling 20-13 overtime win over LSU on their way to the airport.
Less than a mile from the stadium, however, they found their skills needed to save a life, as a car had struck an LSU campus police officer who was escorting the motorcade on a motorcycle.
“Our first thought goes from, ‘Wow, we just won a huge game,’ to ‘Wow, we need to try to save this person’s life,'” Waldrop said.
You don’t say … Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program:
The Justice Department is scooping up data from thousands of mobile phones through devices deployed on airplanes that mimic cellphone towers, a high-tech hunt for criminal suspects that is snagging a large number of innocent Americans, according to people familiar with the operations.
The U.S. Marshals Service program, which became fully functional around 2007, operates Cessna aircraft from at least five metropolitan-area airports, with a flying range covering most of the U.S. population, according to people familiar with the program.
Is it just me, or have you noticed fewer “But if you aren’t doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about” replies to news like that these days? Seems like you get a lot more “Meh,” instead.
An idea whose time has come, StoryTracker is a new tool to track how news homepages change:
Hopefully you know about PastPages, the tool built by L.A. Times data journalist Ben Welsh to record what some of the web’s most important news sites have on their homepage — hour by hour, every single day. Want to see what The Guardian’s homepage looked like Tuesday night? Here you go. Want to see how that Ebola patient first appeared on DallasNews.com in September? Try the small item here. It’s a valuable service, particularly for future researchers who will want to study how stories moved through new media. (For print media, we have physical archives; for digital news, work even a few years old has an alarming tendency to disappear.)
I wish there was the same sort of thing for old broadcasts. When you invent your time machine, take something like this back with you and just scoop the radio and television signals out of the air, would you?
