Heads and tales: Vehicles of progress
By Wade Kwon
Gung Ho 2: Automotive Boogaloo: What happens when good ol’ boys and Korean gearheads join forces? Economic gains, waves of cars and … wackiness, natch. Hyundai’s $1.1 billion investment in Montgomery hasn’t been without its setbacks: language problems, rough handling of delicate machinery and … “according to a manager, when the company tried to send some workers to Hyundai Motor’s plant in Asan, Korea, it discovered that many employees didn’t even hold a passport.” The South Korea shall rise again. Hyundai’s not the only triumph: Mercedes and Honda are having record sales, too, thanks to state factories.
• Alabama plant is a Hyundai success story [JoongAng Daily (Seoul, Korea)]
Following the strokes: Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham say that stroke victims can recover use of their limbs, even five years later. Before, doctors believed that maximum recovery was limited to six months to a year after a stroke. Hundreds of thousands of stroke survivors could regain the use of previously impaired limbs, according to the study published today in the journal, Stroke.
• Stroke Victims May Regain Weak Arm Use [Associated Press]
Black and white and remembered all over: The Birmingham News published “Unseen. Unforgotten,” a special eight-page section Sunday (and online section) of photos from the 1950s and '60s, the peak of the civil rights era. An intern found the negatives at the newspaper offices 16 months ago. The images had never been published.
The newspaper shied away from aggressive controversial coverage of the era, choosing instead to hide the photos (some taken at great risk to the photographers) in a closet. The editors, perhaps wisely, did not respond in the main story. But this columnist and this other columnist have suggested that the photos’ publication will spark frank discussions on race. (One column is even headlined “City finally finds nerve to talk race.”)
We agree. Maybe the discussion can start in the newsroom as to why, in 2006, in a community that’s 43 percent nonwhite, is the newsroom’s leadership mostly white and male? Or the higher-profile writers, the columnists, mostly white and male? Or the departmental management? Someday, perhaps, they shall overcome.
• From negatives to positives [Birmingham News]
Also:
- Southside restaurant hostess aspires to be part-time server
- Early state tax refunds spark out-of-state lottery ticket spree
- Offensive T-shirts fail to shock illiterate classmates
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