Library battles

In Alabama’s version of the national debate on what reading material libraries make available to children, last month involved an exchange of letters between Gov. Kay Ivey and Alabama Public Library Service director Nancy Pack.

The governor wrote of concerns over issues raised by some parents regarding books with sexual themes, either using graphic language and scenes or those seen as promoting alternative lifestyles and gender fluidity. Pack, the APLS director, emphasized in her response that parents have the responsibility to monitor what their kids are reading.

Now, AL.com’s Williesha Morris reports that Ivey has responded with proposed amendments to the APLS rules.

They are:

• “Make state aid for local libraries contingent on the adoption of sensible policies to facilitate greater parental supervision of their children.”
• “Require all expenditures of public funds to the American Library Association be approved by the relevant governing authority in an open, public meeting.”
• “Reaffirm local libraries’ ability to respond to parental concerns about sexually explicit or other inappropriate materials.”

As you can tell, there’s concern from the conservative side here over the national American Library Association and its influence over local libraries.

Still in a Russian prison

David Barnes, who’s still being held in Russia over accusations made by his Russian ex-wife, hasn’t gotten any noticeable help from the U.S. government according to his family, reports AL.com’s William Thornton.

Barnes is the man who’s from Gadsden and lived awhile in Huntsville before moving to Texas. He was going through a contentious divorce and custody battle when his Russian-citizen wife accused him of sexually abusing their two boys.

A DA investigated and didn’t buy the accusations, and Barnes was given custody of his children. So his wife fled to Russia with the kids, and when Barnes went to Russia after them he was arrested and has been in Moscow Detention Center No. 5 for 22 months.

He’s written to his family about the experience. They told the Wall Street Journal he’s sharing a cell with up to a dozen others. He said he gets a shower a week, sleeps on a steel bunk, reads, writes and prays. He also said he’s down 20 pounds.

The Journal reported that he’s one of about two dozen Americans who are being held in Russian jails or labor camps and haven’t been given a wrongful-detainment designation by the U.S. State Department.

Sister Carol Barnes said “We have heard nothing at all from the State Department here in the U.S. even though we have been constantly trying to get someone to pay attention to David’s situation in Russia. The administration has told us nothing.”

Quite the fellowship haul

Among those winning a 2023 MacArthur Fellowship “genius grant” is a Birmingham native.

AL.com’s Lawrence Specker reports that Imani Perry has been awarded $800,000 to be paid in quarterly installments over five years.

Yeah, that was $800,000 and she didn’t have to drive across the state line after work on Friday for a lottery ticket.

She can do what she wants with the money. According to the MacArthur Foundation, fellows “may use their fellowship to advance their expertise, engage in bold new work, or, if they wish, to change fields or alter the direction of their careers.”

If it were me I’d open a bait shop and you’d only hear my voice if you came in for a hundred crickets and a can of Copenhagen. But that’s why it went to Imani Perry instead.

The foundation said she is “an interdisciplinary scholar and writer giving fresh context to African American social conditions and experiences along dimensions of race, gender, and politics.”

Perry won a National Book Award in 2022 for “South to America.”

By the numbers

99

That’s how many homicides Birmingham recorded in this year’s first three quarters (through Sept. 30). That’s down 12 percent from 2022, when there were 112 homicides through September.

More Alabama news

Born on this date

In 1929, Autherine Lucy of Shiloh, the first Black person to enroll at the University of Alabama.