The University of Southern Indiana Chamber Choir and Women’s Choir, directed by Daniel Craig, Associate Professor of Music, will perform their 2023 Fall Concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, October 29 in the Rice Library second floor Reading Room. The performance is open to the public at no charge.
The concert will feature works by Giuseppe Pitoni, John Michael Trotta, Z. Randall Stroope, Frank Ticheli, Randall Thompson and Philip Hagemann. The Fall Concert will also feature the premiere of Perhaps, based upon the poetry of Sara Teasdale composed for the choir by Thomas Drury, Instructor of Music. This work was first composed for piano and a soprano soloist and originally premiered in a recital last Spring at USI. Drury then arranged the work for the choir at the request of Craig.
“I believe that this particular choral arrangement is one of the most beautiful works Mr. Drury has written to date,†said Craig.
The Chamber Choir will also perform the final chorus of the opera Ruth by the department’s namesake, Philip Hagemann. The entire opera will be performed at USI in January in a collaboration between USI, the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus and Pegasus Opera Company from London, England. More information will be available on this performance closer to the new year.
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. – Identical rounds of 76 had Kate Petrova in the top ten with two out of three rounds complete in the Saluki Invitational at Dalhousie Golf Club.
Petrova’s rounds have her tied for 8th place with a score of 152. She is just one shot outside of the top five. Second on the University of Evansville women’s golf team was Magdalena Borisova. She made the Purple Aces’ largest jump of the day. After carding an 83 in the first round, Borisova posted a 4-over 76 in the second round. Her 159 is tied for 23rd place.
Jane Grankina is third for UE. Scores of 84 and 82 have her tied for 33rd. Destynia Sheridan and Trinity Dubbs completed Monday with scores of 168 and 169, respectively. Both opened play with an 86 while Sheridan posted an 82 in the second 18 while Dubbs finished with an 83.
Adeline Wittmer played as an individual and tallied scores of 92 and 100. Evansville is in 7th place with a 645 and is just eight behind Lindenwood for the 6th spot.
With a 2-round team score of 586, Austin Peay holds a commanding lead at the top spot with Stephen F. Austin in second, 32 shots behind. Erica Scutt of APSU leads the individuals with a 139. She is five in front of a second place tie. The third and final round is set for Tuesday morning.
EVANSVILLE, Ind. —Â The annual University of Southern Indiana Screaming Eagles Madness (formerly Midnight Madness) is scheduled for October 18 (Wednesday) in Screaming Eagles Arena to introduce the 2023-24 USI Women’s and Men’s Basketball teams. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m., and the event is open to the public at no charge.
Screaming Eagles Madness will begin at fan friendly 7 p.m. with the evening featuring USI Women’s and Men’s Basketball team introductions, performances from the USI Cheer and Dance teams, giveaways, and a variety of fan competitions. USI students will have a chance to enjoy the “block party” in front of the arena prior to the event and will include food, music, and games.
Festivities in the arena are not only open to students, but also faculty, staff and the general public.
USI Men’s Basketball enters its fourth season under the leadership of USI Men’s Basketball Head Coach Stan Gouard. The team will open its season against at Saint Louis University November 6. This will be the 25th season with the Screaming Eagles for Rick Stein, USI Women’s Basketball Head Coach. USI Women’s Basketball will open its season against Wright State University on November 6 at the Screaming Eagles Arena.
FOOTNOTE: Â EPD DAILY ACTIVITY REPORT information was provided by the EPD and posted by the City-County-County Observer without opinion, bias, or editing.
The University of Southern Indiana’s New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art (NHGCA) is proud to present Weee, curated by Chase Westfall and featuring works by artists Rachel Stallings Thomander, Steven Stallings Thomander and Kiki LaPomme.
Weee is open now through November 4, opening with a reception from 4-6 p.m. Saturday, October 14, in conjunction with New Harmony Second Saturdays. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
In Weee, artists Rachel Stallings Thomander, Steven Stallings Thomander and LaPomme explore and experiment with collective identity–its ideals, forms, rewards, limits and complications. The three siblings (two by birth, one by marriage) offer varied and personal perspectives on the often vexing question, “What does it mean to be and make in community?†The angles of these perspectives vary dramatically, reflecting the real, physical distances that separate the siblings—split between the East and West coasts—and the elasticity of the family relationships which hold them in a warm but wobbly orbit.
The works are not collaborative but developed in conversation. Much is shared among them by way of sensibility and strategy: color, curiosity, humor and play are family values, expressed equally in the material characteristics of the works. The pieces are further united by their surprising formal sophistication and the earnest critical inquiries to which they attest.
Rachel Stallings Thomander is a Colombian American artist, educator and curator based in Santa Cruz, California, where she lives with her husband and son. Her work addresses Latinx identity, early childhood education, and exchanges between craft, design and art. She holds an MFA from UC Berkeley. She has exhibited work at Tropical Contemporary, CTRL+SHFT, Nous Tous Gallery, Guerrero Gallery, Richmond Art Center and Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.
LaPomme is a multimedia artist living in Southern California. She has most recently done illustration work for herbal and wellness company, Solarray, as well as forming material for the children’s education and gardening project, “Something.†When not drawing in the studio, she is either making with the Scary Sugar artist’s collective, or making music, often with experimental pop band, Pigimichi.
Steven Stallings Thomander is a Colombian American artist, filmmaker and musician from Provo, Utah. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in studio art from Brigham Young University with an emphasis in new genres and is currently pursuing an MFA from Columbia University.
Citizens, including in Indiana, should have direct ballot power
Ohio effort tries to take that away
NIKI KELLY
Ohio is in the midst of a ballot initiative melee that can only be described as pulling the rug out from under its citizens.
But the fight there has made we wonder if Indiana should have some sort of citizen-driven ballot initiative process for when legislators simply ignore resident wishes and beliefs.
A Buckeye by birth and Hoosier by choice, I have had experience with both sides of the issue.
I voted on several of these initiatives in Ohio before moving to Indiana. I remember learning about term limits, higher education tuition credits and even taxes on carbonated beverages.
Ohio is one of 19 states that has a direct initiative process in which citizens can propose ballot measures without involvement from the state legislature if they meet certain qualifications — usually related to signature gathering and subject matter, as well as various deadlines.
Indeed, Ohio has had more than 300 of the measures since 1900, according to Ballotpedia. Many of those were referred by the legislature but dozens came from the citizen-led process.
Now Ohio is in the middle of changing a key part of the law: the threshold at which a constitutional amendment measure passes. Instead of being a majority at 50% + 1, it would rise to 60%.
Shifting gears
And why the sudden need for that change?
Because Ohio citizens were moving to vote on abortion access and GOP legislators just couldn’t handle that. Instead, they pushed through this massive change and created a special Aug. 8 election to have a decision before the abortion rights initiative, which is on the November ballot.
That is a shocking chain of events that should scare Ohio residents. And the irony is Ohio Republicans are using the lower threshold to take away citizen rights.
But in Indiana, using such vehicles is rare and can only be initiated by the Indiana General Assembly.
For instance, in 1988, state voters approved by 62% a constitutional amendment allowing a state lottery. And later individual cities or counties were given the right to approve local casinos in referendums.
In 2008, Indiana lawmakers let voters decide whether to transfer the duty of determining building and land value for property taxes to county assessor offices, a move which would eliminate township assessor offices. Resulting referendums abolished more than 950 such offices across the state.
And in 2010, citizens approved putting property tax caps into the Constitution.
But all those were at the behest of legislators, who have largely dismissed the idea of direct citizen involvement in making the laws or changing the Constitution.
A bold proposal
I have long thought it is time to give Hoosiers some sort of direct say in governance but there are ways to limit the power so that it is not abused.
Making it harder to get an initiative on the ballot — without the threshold change — is a worthy discussion for Buckeyes.
Right now, signatures must be collected in 44 of Ohio’s counties and there is a 10-day cure period if a campaign doesn’t gather enough signatures. The new proposal would require signatures from all 88 counties and eliminate the cure.
There is a case to be made that the signature levels can be met going to only more populated parts of the state and leaving out rural Ohio. That is something Indiana should consider if lawmakers here ever move to allow direct initiatives.
Many Hoosiers would love to have medical or recreational marijuana legalization on the ballot, as several other states have done. Others I could think of include the growing financial commitment to private school vouchers; firearms regulations, and of course, abortion access.
Lawmakers often say they trust Indiana voters, so maybe it’s time they show it.
Along the way, it eats away at everything it touches. Along the way, it prompts people to act in ways they never thought possible.
Consider the way Republican U.S. senators are reacting to the news that U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-New Jersey, faces serious bribery charges.
Several of them—Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Marco Rubio of Florida and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, among them—have said that Menendez should not have to resign his seat in the U.S. Senate, even though senators from Menendez’s own party and leaders from his own state are calling for him to do so.
The Republican senators’ reasoning is curious.
Most businesses would distance themselves from or even cut ties with someone who has been charged with something as serious as Menendez has. Those businesses would see it as a question of maintaining their enterprise’s reputation.
These Republican senators, though, see it differently. They argue that holding onto a position of great political power is a right.
Menendez, they contend, is entitled to remain part of what has been called the world’s greatest deliberative body until a court bailiff and prison guards haul him away to a cell.
Given that these same senators have sat silent while their GOP colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives have begun impeachment proceedings against President Joe Biden even though no one yet has produced evidence that the president has done anything meriting impeachment, this is odd.
What makes these senators act so strangely?
Well, this is where it gets interesting.
Their arguments really are not about Bob Menendez, who has demonstrated ethical blindness for years. In just about any other time and in just about any other circumstance, his Republican colleagues in the Senate would have been happy—no, thrilled—to make him the poster boy for political malfeasance.
But these are not normal times.
These are the years in which Donald Trump rose to political prominence.
And many—no, most—Republican members of the U.S. Senate voted to retain Trump in the presidency after he’d fomented an insurrection to overturn the results of an election that his own administration oversaw.
They have continued to condone, excuse and support Trump even as charge after charge has piled up and as courts have determined that the former president committed rape and defrauded the public. They have abided Trump’s nonsensical charges that the entire legal system—including judges he himself appointed—has been “weaponized†against him.
And they have ignored or downplayed the seriousness of the charges filed against the former president in states both red and blue. They have accommodated themselves to the notion that it is okay for a former president to take classified documents—some dealing with the most sensitive issues of national security—and house them insecurely, then refuse repeated entreaties and demands from government officials that they be returned.
This is where corruption becomes the most corrosive.
Corruption such as this doesn’t confine itself to the person who tries to take things—classified documents, an election, a woman’s body—that don’t belong to him. No, it demands that others, such as Tuberville, Rubio, Cotton and their cohorts, become accustomed to looking the other way when such transgressions occur.
Corruption on this scale requires others to treat such behavior as if it were normal.
As if it were okay.
Then, having made all those demands, such corruption always commands that those who have yielded their moral integrity yield still more.
Eight years ago, men such as Tommy Tuberville, Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton likely could not have imagined championing a man who betrayed the oath he took to defend the Constitution and treated the safety of our nation as a party favor.
But that was then.
This is now.
Now, they defend Bob Menendez—who has credibly been accused of taking $500,000 in bribes—because setting the precedent that breaking the law disqualifies one from holding public office might anger Donald Trump.
Maybe this shouldn’t be surprising.
Once one has decided that fraud, insurrection and rape are acceptable, bribery isn’t that much of a leap.
That’s the thing about corruption.
It always wants more.
It always demands more.
John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. The views expressed are those of the author only and should not be attributed to Franklin Colleg
