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Message or Call: (240) 847-4653
info@usblindgolf.org
Regional Tournaments
Guiding Eyes Classic
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Pay for a Tournament
How to start a Jr. Golf program
MEMBERSHIP -
COACHES -
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TOURNAMENTS -
75th Nationals
Playing Blind Golf
The United States Blind Golf Association (USBGA) offers a great opportunity for golfers who are blind or vision impaired to play golf with others who have the same or similar vision loss. It has many benefits including: the chance to play golf and travel to spectacular places, meet some very interesting people and have a great time. We play golf by the USGA Rules of Golf and the Modifications of the Rules of Golf for Golfers with Disabilities. This includes grounding the club in a hazard plus permitting the coach to stand in the line of play while the golfer is executing the shot. The golfers compete with other golfers within their sight classification. The sight classifications include: B-1 no vision, B-2 little usable vision and B-3 better usable vision. Read more about the rules and playing guidelines in the IBGA Competition Guidelines.
Every golfer has a sighted person to assist them and we call these folks Coaches. The coach gives the golfer course description, gives correct yardages, and helps with club selection and proper alignment. Read more about How to Play Blind Golf. You can also read more about the important role coaches play on our Coaches page.
To view a complete list of tournaments for the USBGA, please visit our Events page.
For International tournaments, visit the Events Page for a calendar of all tournaments sanctioned by the International Blind Golf Association.
To pay the entry fee for a USBGA tournament, please use one of the two options below:
Tournament Fees
U.S. Open Tournament $250.00 USD National Tournament $200.00 USD Regional Tournament $100.00 USD
2) Tournament Fees Plus Guest and/or Other Fees Not Listed:
Pay online here.
Be sure to write in the comments section what your payment is for.
Mail your check made payable to USBGA:
US Blind Golf Association
540 SE 9th Ave
Ontario,OR 97914
Jeremy Poincenot
Representing the USBGA at the World Blind Golf Championships last August at the Whittlebury Park CC in England was an amazing experience!
Two years ago I had 20/20 vision and played to a 3 handicap. I'm a student at San Diego State University (SDSU), and in late 2008 I suddenly lost my central vision to Leber's Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON), a rare genetic disorder. At first I thought I'd never play golf again, but by the spring of 2009 I'd picked up my clubs. I played in a couple of tournaments that summer including the US Nationals, and set one of my goals for 2010 as playing and placing in the World's.
I was really excited when I was selected to participate, and I practiced a lot with my dad Lionel as my guide. The first day I played a solid round, and was happy to realize I was in the hunt. The second day I was nervous every shot and felt relieved when the round was finally over. But then I found out I had tied with Simon Cookson, a B-3 from England, and we had to go back out for a playoff. It hadn't rained during the tournament, but while we were heading out for the playoff there was a quick storm which stopped just before we teed off. I could still hear thunder which was scary, but I focused on hitting my tee shot. As Simon and I approached the green, I could tell everyone had come out of the clubhouse to watch the playoff. I was short of the green, and paced out the 19 yards for my chip shot. When I got to the flag I waved to the crowd, figuring I'd never again be in such a cool situation – in a playoff for a world championship! I was nervous but confident when I hit the chip shot. I heard a voice say, "That's a good chip!" then I heard my dad say, "Get in!" Of course I couldn't see it, but my dad told me I'd chipped it in. Simon said, "So, this is for the halve?!" He made a nice chip but it didn't go in, so I was the World Blind Golf Champion!
Competing with 60 men and women with various levels of vision impairment and their guides was an awesome experience. Everyone involved with the International Blind Golf Association was really nice, and I'm looking forward to defending my title in Nova Scotia in 2012!
To see the winning chip shot, click here.
To learn more about LHON, visit website click here.
For more information about Jeremy, visit website click here.
The article from English Blind Golf click here
The Inspiration of Jeremy Poincenot, from The Post Game website click here.
Joe Lazaro
At the tee, Boswell's coach, Jug Waldron, his fellow townsman from Birmingham, brought Boswell's driver firmly and delicately to the ball, with a touch that reminded one of billiards. Boswell, a husky fellow who played three years of varsity football at the University of Alabama, shifted his weight lightly from one foot to the other, flexed his shoulders and swung. The ball sailed 200 yards straight and true down the middle of the fairway.
On the greens they played like this: the player stood where he would play his ball, then, guided by his coach, carefully paced the distance to the cup, touched the pin to fix direction in his memory and paced back, the coach placing the putter in his hand and sighting to the cup. Direction was almost always good, distance less so, though Boswell sank one 35-footer.
Moving over the course, the coach held a club under one arm, the player grasping the shaft as a guide. Otherwise, the tournament looked like any other—rigid tournament rules, no concessions, a high competitive spirit, the new Warrington course (opened in June) sweltering beside Neshaminy Creek, the gallery differing only in that it was more vocal. A blind golfer knows how he has done only by the feel of the impact. Again and again the ball skimmed the trees like a bird, the player unaware of it until the gallery burst into applause or let out a groan.
Boswell and Waldron have played together for years. Jack Hayes, the famous White Sox second baseman who lost his sight, a relative newcomer who finished eighth, had played with his coach only a few times before the tournament. Blind golfers say that when perfect coordination between coaches and players is worked out, scores in the high 80s will be possible. Boswell, 10 times national blind champion, won with a total of 200 for 36 holes, 28 better than young Joe Lazaro, a Waltham, Mass. electronics worker who has been giving him tougher competition each year.
Most blind golfers are veterans who learned the game in veterans' hospitals. Some exceptions: Clint Russell, winner of the first blind tournament in 1948, a retired dairyman who made a fortune in the stock market after he retired; Nick Genovese, a Canadian nightclub singer; Ben Pearlman, a former bookie; Robert Allman, a onetime college wrestling star and radio sports commentator. Regardless of age, they all looked young, standing patiently by with serene, unlined features. Blind golf is pure form, and at its best the tournament looked like a demonstration of the mastery of form; the players graceful and unworried, intent on stance, swing and follow-through, as if no distractions whatever could reach out to them from the sunlit course.
About the USBGA
The United States Blind Golf Association is a non-profit organization founded in 1953. The goal is to increase awareness of golf for the blind and visually impaired in the United States through hosting tournaments and growing the sport by introducing youth to the game.
Remembering those we've lost
USBGA Contact Info
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Bank of America ROVAL™ 400
As the first playoff road-course races in NASCAR history, as well as the longest race track in NASCAR, the trailblazing ROVAL™ 400 debuted in 2018 and generated massive excitement among race fans. Bank of America sought to capitalize off the buzz by concepting an immersive brand activation to connect with fans in 2019.
"The Bank of America ROVAL™ 400 is all about excitement and creating memorable moments for our fans," Marcus Smith, the president of Speedway Motorsports, said in a news release. The motorsports industry contributes $6 billion to the economy of North Carolina annually. Bank of America's sponsorship of the ROVAL™ 400 are credited with helping drive the community forward.
Working with global sports agency, Octagon, Britten/BoxPop™ pulled out all the visual branding stops. Combining video game racing, a mini-racetrack, and pneumatic banking tubes that delivered prizes to spectators, the family-friendly activation included everything from a custom tent and BoxPop™ shipping containers to custom-made wooden cases for displaying NASCAR trophies and historic racing memorabilia.
mgm's luxury escape...
'play ball park' all-star fan activation...
four fathers rolls out mobile taproom...
a celebration of women's pro tennis...
creating the ultimate dolphins fan zone...
https://britteninc.com/portfolio/bank-of-america-roval-400

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Dr. Ileana Johnson's wonderful article "The Prison of Socialism" doesn't do sufficient justice to the horrors of socialism and communism. Yes, it does mention violence to and enslavement of populations living under such regimes, but it doesn't describe the scope of population destruction. Apparently, the lessons of the 20th century need to be repeated for subsequent generations who have been misled into extolling the virtues of the socialist and communist ideologies.
By far, the worst genocidal communist was Mao Tse Tung. Per the highest estimates, Mao's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution resulted in the extermination of 73 million Chinese.
Joseph Stalin turned his Soviet Socialist Republic into a communist death camp. Through a series of purges and the infamous Ukraine Holodomor (death by starvation), it is estimated that 60 million people were eliminated.
Adolph Hitler is a less prolific but more conspicuous socialist killer than either Mao or Stalin. He killed upwards of 50 million in death camps and other purges.
Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge overthrew the government of Cambodia and instituted a communist regime that slaughtered about 20% of the Cambodian populace. The death toll will never actually be known but it is estimated to be upwards of 2 to 3 million.
The North Korean communist regime has been in the genocide business for nearly 75 years. The death toll, although unknown, almost certainly exceeds that of the Khmer Rouge.
There are, of course other 20th century genocides. The Turkish facilitated Armenian genocide basically wiped out millions of Armenian and other ethnic minorities. The Rwandan Massacre is the most recent genocidal slaughter having happened in 1994. The WW-2 slaughter of upwards of 30 million Chinese by the Japanese military is the largest genocide not specifically associated with socialism or communism.
"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions." — Adolf Hitler. He isn't the only one ——–.
I am the Founder and Past President of the Colonial Area Republican Men's Association (CARMA) in Williamsburg, VA.


John Arends ('77 journalism) has devoted much of his life to telling the Jack Trice story. And now it's one step closer to getting the national attention it deserves.
We profiled John as part of the VISIONS Across America project back in September 2012. Since then I've eagerly followed his progress toward getting his Jack Trice movie screenplay produced.
Just last week it was announced that John was chosen as one of six screenwriters to travel to Las Vegas for the second-annual Black List Screenwriters Lab. Hosted by Tony Hsieh's Las Vegas Downtown Project, the lab is a week-long intensive workshop with professional mentors focused on elevating the writers' work and preparing them for the "realities of life" in the profession.
The Black List is an online community where moviemakers find scripts to make and writers to write them … and where screenwriters find moviemakers to make their scripts and employ them. John says Trice has been trending on the Black List website for more than a year.
What a phenomenal experience we've had the last two weeks! Jim and I had an opportunity to meet with so many friendly, passionate, successful Iowa Staters in the upper Midwest states of Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. It never ceases to warm my heart that Iowa State grads are doing such amazing things all over the country.
We began our 10-day journey in Dearborn, Mich., world headquarters for Ford Motor Company and home to our own Matt Dunker ('00 mechanical engineering). Matt is a vehicle architect for Ford, and he's had a love affair with cars since he was just 15 years old. Matt will be featured in our special VISIONS Across America issue in spring 2014. That's Matt and me above at Ford World HQ.
Also in Michigan we met with Greg Clites ('74 meteorology, MS '81 civil engineering/water resources). Greg lives in Ann Arbor and teaches high school math in nearby Tecumseh. Greg struck me as being genuinely interested in students and their success – the kind of math teacher I wish I had in high school. His approach to teaching makes math relevant in students' lives. I'll feature Greg (shown at right in his Tecumseh High School classroom) in the next several weeks on this blog.
Between our appointments with Matt and Greg we visited the University of Michigan campus. The fall semester had not yet started, but the campus and downtown Ann Arbor were already lively and vibrant. I always think it's a treat to visit university campuses when we travel, so we try to make the time to do that whenever we can. We also made sure to stop by Zingerman's Deli, a gastronomical institution in the city of Ann Arbor. Yum!
Leaving Michigan and entering Illinois, we headed for the big city of Chicago. There we had a trio of wonderful interviews and photo shoots with alumni, and we had a rocking good time at the ISUAA Club of Chicago "Cyclone Summertime Happy Hour" event at the Millennium Park Grill (see earlier blog post).
Our first stop was with Theaster Gates ('96 community & regional planning, MS '05 interdisciplinary graduate studies). Theaster (right) is a hard person to describe in a few words. He's an artist, an urban planner, and an arts administrator. But within each of those categories, there's so much more. He's the director of arts program development for the University of Chicago; he's a potter and installation artist; he's a community organizer and cultural entrepreneur. We toured a few of the buildings within the Dorchester Project, an area he's developed for community arts on Chicago's southeast side. I can't wait to tell you more about him in the special issue of VISIONS.
We spent a full morning at the Lincoln Park Zoo – mostly for work, but I have to admit I always enjoy visiting a good zoo. It's especially fun when you have a tour guide like Anthony Nielsen ('97 fisheries & wildlife biology). Anthony is the lead keeper of the Kovler Lion House and Seal Pool, and he gave us a behind-the-scenes tour of both. I even got to touch Della, the gray seal. (That's Jim photographing Anthony and Della in the seal pool above.) Anthony has been with the zoo for 12 years, and he clearly loves the animals he works with. I'll write more about him, too, in the coming weeks.
Our last Chicagoland meeting was with John Arends ('77 journalism & mass comm) in Batavia, Ill. John is president and CEO of ARENDS, a communication and marketing company founded by his father, Don Arends, who is also an Iowa State graduate ('52 ag journalism). The Arends family has quite a number of Iowa State ties, including being named Family of the Year in 2010. John's wife, Anne ('78 PE & dance), and two of their three children, Allie and Kate, graduated from Iowa State; son David is a senior this year in kinesiology and health. Jim and I spent a fascinating afternoon with John, Anne, and their dog, Ellie, at John's office, which is located in an 1870s-era former windmill factory on the Fox River. (That's John with Ellie above.) John has quite a story to tell, and I'm really excited to be able to share it with you (soon, I promise).
I love Chicago, but I was relieved to leave all that traffic behind. Our next few interviews and photo shoots were scheduled in southern Wisconsin, an area that just cries out to be photographed. When we weren't on assignment, Jim and I rambled through the rolling countryside in search of the perfect red barn and the perfect black-and-white dairy cows to photograph.
Our first appointment in Wisconsin was with a dynamic duo that has both Iowa State connections and local ties. Kelli Cameron ('02 ag education) and Steve Servantez ('89 DVM) have a unique, interconnected story to tell. They both live in Janesville, Wis., and are equally enthusiastic about Iowa State and about their local community service projects. (Jim and I are with Kelli and Steve above).
Next up we met a young couple in Mt. Horeb: Karlee Michalski and Eric Meisel, left. Karlee is a 2010 apparel merchandising, design, and production major who works as an assistant technical designer at Lands' End. Eric is a data analyst at Medseek, a healthcare software firm in Verona. They are planning a May wedding. I love the story of how they met at Iowa State and how they're using their degrees in their first jobs right out of college.
The next morning we headed to Lands' End headquarters in nearby Dodgeville. Lands' End is a big deal in this part of Wisconsin, and a quick look at our alumni database shows at least 30 Iowa State alumni currently working there in some capacity. Chief among them is Chris Kolbe, a 1992 fashion merchandising graduate who holds the title of executive vice president/brand president for the company – one of the very top positions. Chris has also worked for such fashion giants as Ralph Lauren, Saks Fifth Avenue, Liz Claiborne, and J. Crew.
While I was at Lands' End I also ran into Heather Sinclair, a 2011 graduate who practically lived here at the Alumni Center – she was really, really active with Student Alumni Leadership Council, and she worked briefly with me in alumni communications. Heather graduated with a double major in apparel merchandising, design, & production and journalism & mass communication (wow, that's a lot of "and"s). She now works for Lands' End as an assistant merchant and seems to love her new job and her new state of Wisconsin. We had fun catching up, as you can see in the photo of us above.
The last Wisconsin alum we met was Faye Perkins ('79 PE & biology, MS '85 exercise physiology). Faye (left) made my day when she posted a comment on the Wisconsin web page that ended with, "ONCE A CYCLONE, ALWAYS A CYCLONE!! I LOVE ISU!!" Faye is one of Iowa State's pioneer female athletes, one of our earliest female scholarship winners, and a member of the ISU Athletic Hall of Fame. She's been a faculty member, administrator, and softball coach at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. I found our time together absolutely inspirational.
At this point, we were three states down, one to go. But I was so enthusiastic about the story potential in Minnesota that I scheduled seven alumni in that state. So we still had our work cut out for us (and another three days on the road).
As it turns out, I am not the least bit sorry I "overscheduled" us in Minnesota, because the alumni we met there were outstanding, and every one was unique.
First off: Ron Schara ('66 journalism). If you live in Minnesota, and if you are a hunter or fisherman, you know Ron Schara. Even if you don't live in Minnesota, if you are a hunter or fisherman, you probably know Ron Schara. He's a living legend.
Ron is the executive producer of the popular television show "Minnesota Bound," which he hosts with his black lab, Raven. We met Ron and Raven and got to sit in on part of the outdoor filming of one of his shows. If you can't wait to read more about Ron, you can watch episodes of his shows online. That's Jim photographing Ron and Raven by the Rum River.
The next day, Jim and I once again found ourselves on a university campus: the University of Minnesota's main campus in Minneapolis. There we met with Louis Mansky (MS '86 microbiology, PhD '90), a professor and director of the Institute of Molecular Virology. Louis (shown at right in his office) spends his time focused on the important study of the HIV virus and how it evolves and mutates. Fascinating stuff.
It was a thrill to meet our next alumna, Ann Lindemeyer Burckhardt ('55 home economics journalism), because I grew up with her cookbooks. Do you remember the Betty Crocker cookbook? I think my mom had several versions. For a long time, that cookbook was THE go-to gift to take to a bridal shower. And Ann was the editor from 1956 until 1963.
She also published 11 cookbooks of her own and wrote for the food section of the Minneapolis Star Tribune for 24 years. I could tell you more about her, but then I'd give away all the good stuff. Needless to say, we spent a delightful afternoon with Ann in her Edina apartment (above).
Later that day we met Jeff Prouty ('79 industrial administration) for a decidedly NOT difficult appointment – on his boat in Wayzata. He had offered the opportunity for Jim and me to take a spin with him on Lake Minnetonka and said we could invite a few Iowa Staters to join us. I immediately called Russ Snyder ('73 landscape architecture), our ISUAA Club of the Twin Cities president, and he put together a small invitation list that included club leaders and members of our Young Alumni Council. Jeff is a management consultant and the chairman and founder of The Prouty Project in the Twin Cities. We had a thoroughly relaxing evening on his Think Tank II (that's Jeff with the boat above). It was the perfect way to end the day.
The next morning we left Minneapolis and headed to the southeast Minnesota town of Rochester, home of the world-renowned Mayo Clinic. There we met Lucas Carlstrom ('08 animal science), an MD and PhD student in molecular neuroscience at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. Luke (left) is starting the fifth year of an eight-year program there, and his list of accomplishments is already impressive.
And, finally…drum roll, please…our LAST interview on our LAST DAY on the road (for awhile) took us to the Prestegard Farm in rural Frost, Minn. A recent graduate, Richard Prestegard ('02 ag business) works with his father, Al, who attended Iowa State back in the early 1970s in farm operations.(That's Richard, left, and Al, right, chillin' in the field with Jim.) They currently farm land that's been in the family for five generations. Their corn-and-soybean operation offered a dramatic backdrop and a perfect end to a fantastic trip to the upper Midwest.
Jim and I were blown away by the number of happy, enthusiastic Iowa State alumni (and their friends) who turned out for the ISUAA Club of Chicago's "Cyclone Summertime Happy Hour" held last Friday (Aug. 10) on the patio of the Millennium Park Grill during our VISIONS Across America tour of the upper Midwest. It was a beautiful night to be in downtown Chicago, and the Cyclones just kept coming. I think all told we must have had upwards of 50 people show up between 5 o'clock and the time we left, and everyone seemed to have a great time.
I have to give a special shout-out to club leaders Scott DeKoster ('02 advertising) and Leslie Blake DeKoster ('03 industrial engineering) for helping to plan and promote the event. Scott arrived at the Millennium Park Grill TWO HOURS prior to the start of the event just to save enough space for the Chicago Cyclones to gather in the popular, no-reservations-accepted outdoor bar area (I eventually showed up with some stand-up Cys and cardinal & gold pom-poms, which seemed to help define the gathering space.) Soon Iowa Staters began arriving in droves, in grad years ranging from 1956 to 2012.
Even the band, The Walk-ins, got into the Cyclone spirit. Lead singer Joe Matise wore an Iowa State nametag and a Homecoming sticker and even joined us for a few group photos.
Here's Jim Fancher ('56 electrical engineering) and his wife, Carol, enjoying the festivities.
Chris ('01 management information systems) and Kristen Collins (above) have one of those "mixed" marriages: Kristen didn't attend Iowa State; she married into it. But you'd never know. She was one of the most enthusiastic Cyclones in the group.
We even had a couple from West Des Moines join our group. Kyle Nielsen ('07 journalism) and Allison Roby ('09) had just arrived in Chicago on vacation and saw the cardinal & gold, so they thought they'd stop by.
Thanks, Chicago. We had a fantastic time!


One of the values of ancient literature is its reflections of fundamental societal realities on the most basic level, allowing for deeper interpretation of social rules and interactions. One example of these ancient texts, Sophocles' Antigone, presents dilemmas between socially-constructed laws and sacred norms and the choice of individuals to overcome these constraints. Reactions of individuals when faced with situations constructed by Sophocles stem from the nature of their characters, and might be interpreted utilizing ethical theories. Particularly, conceptions of virtuous ethics might be superimposed upon two major characters of Sophocles' text, Antigone and Creon, to uncover ethical foundations of their actions in origins and causes of the central conflict which indicates that the conception of virtues is relative.
The basic foundation of virtuous ethical theory is an assumption that to be perceived as a virtuous person, there is a necessity for several factors to be present. Waller claims that a virtuous person "is one who consistently does right acts for the right motives" (98). However, a better classification of a virtuous person follows from Aristotle, who insists a virtuous agent should first possess the knowledge, then choose acts for their own sake, and lastly his actions must proceed from character (98). Nevertheless, despite the wide range of variations among virtue theories, two basic elements remain essential for considering virtue – consideration of character in conducting ethical judgments and the necessity for consistency of ethical actions. Strong emphasis on character of the person performing the act originates from the idea that ethical choices are not a product of chance, nor they are derived or calculated as a mere response to the particular situation. Instead, the final moral judgment is a result of the specific intention originating from a certain personal moral code – virtue, which consists of internally developed set of moral ideals that a person consistently strives to improve or at least to come as close as possible. Waller acknowledges that "one cannot be virtuous or perform good acts by accident… it requires deliberate practice and consistent effort at character building… we aren't naturally virtuous, but we have the capacity to become virtuous by practice" (98).
Therefore, the idea of constant improvement of character in the quest for striving for ideal personal traits is vividly seen throughout the virtue theory. Nonetheless, similar accentuation is made on the consistency of performing good moral judgments and acts. This is the key to identify true virtuous character in a person; otherwise, if the person will be inconsistent, or willing to "give some slack" in particular situations (especially those who will satisfy egotistical desires), or otherwise refrain to follow set moral standards, he or she is not considered a virtuous person. Waller insists that inconsistency in moral decisions might lead to developing a habit, which suggests that a habit is a slippery slope towards acquiring vicious personal traits ultimately leading to vicious character. Thus, both considerations of character traits and consistency in making right acts for the right motives constitutes the backbone of virtuous theory, and thus are the principle criteria for identification of virtuous moral choices.
However, the notions of virtuous character and consistency of actions are not given at birth, but rather developed in the process of moral growth and ethical coming of age. Moreover, how does one receive the notion of ethical standards which, according to virtuous theory, he or she should always strive to achieve by conducting ethical choices? The underlying answer to this question lies in the notion that the formation of ethical identity and personal moral ideals occurs during societal interaction under the influence of social roles and traditions. Since "we aren't naturally virtuous" (Waller 98), and the achievement of virtuous characteristics occurs as a result of practice, there is a possibility of forming new virtues or the modification or total substitution of already existing ones. Besides, the actual practice of constant improvement of character entails change or initial formation of notions of what to strive for, and these ideas come from the formal and informal process of acquiring ethical knowledge from basic societal institutions of pedagogy – education, religion, personal experience, culture, time period, social surroundings, etc. Also, since virtues strictly exist in the personal realm and are a product of influences of different educations, social roles and personal experiences in the individual character development, the formation of variety of virtues are formed by social educational institutions, variety of virtues might be formed in a separate societal unit or a society in whole. Therefore, virtue and virtuous motives and character might vary on a societal and personal level, making virtue not absolute, but rather a relative concept.
Sophocles brilliantly highlights this notion of relative virtue in the character of Antigone and the further portrayal of a clash of virtues resulting in her conflict with Creon. First of all, the formation of her virtues was accompanied by a series of quite dramatic events – Antigone witnessed the tragic fall of her father, who married his mother, and therefore Antigone and Ismene had to live with a stamp of being both daughters of their half-brother and granddaughters of their mother. These circumstances aligned Antigone's internal ideals, assigning overriding values to extreme religious piety and inviolacy of laws prescribed by gods. This reliance on religion, fortified by her own personal family tragedy with time translated in the virtues of her character, where striving for an eternal afterlife with the dead became of greater value for Antigone then her present life: "I have longer to please the dead then please the living here… in the kingdom down below I'll lie forever" (Fagles 63). Here, her value system is based upon her life after and thus "pleasing dead" becomes her dominant virtue.
Although religious educations supported by factual examples from family experience were primary agents that shaped Antigone's virtues, they were not the only influence. She also has numerous social roles, which also contributed to the development of her moral character and the shaping of her virtues. In the society described by Sophocles, she is the noble daughter of King Oedipus, a loving sister of Ismene and a fiancé of Haemon, a Greek and therefore she is under obligations of patriotism. She is a citizen of Thebes as well, and therefore she must conform to the laws of the land set by the King. Despite all of these factors that helped shape Antigone's character, the greatest impact on the formation of her virtues is the fact that she is a woman, and therefore she has to be submissive to the rule of men. This concept, instilled by the norms and traditions of ancient Greek society, is best expressed by Ismene: "Remember we are women, we're not born to contend with men… then too, we're underlings, ruled by much stronger hands" (Sophocles 62).
The consideration of these values and their role in the formation of virtue of Antigone went to Creon's calculations about his decision on the incident. Above all, Creon from his position of the highest royalty, has to be the ultimate embodiment of social arrangements: he has to defend societal norms, promote rules and show ability to enforce laws. As a man he has to defend the common notion of superiority of males over females, and as a father he has to demonstrate a will to teach and instruct his children. These moral obligations and societal traditions form the basis of Creon's character, and also create a foundation for his virtues, where he always should strive to defend society and its traditions.
Therefore, because of the different origins of virtues and differences of the personal virtues themselves, there is a misalignment between Antigone's notion of ideals and Creon's personal standards. The rule of consistency as an important component to the existence of virtue makes both characters to act as their virtues dictate them, remain truthful to their values, and force making ethical decisions in sync with their moral codes. Therefore, when Antigone faces Creon, she refuses to even accept king's laws as legitimate: "Nor did I think your edict had such force that you, a mere mortal, could override the gods, the great unwritten, unshakable traditions… these laws – I was not about to break them" (Sophocles 82). Here Antigone is displays strong commitment to achieve the ideal reputation of honoring the laws of gods and paying proper attention to the dead, refusing to be subjected to laws made by mortal, even if the mortal is a king. Since her virtue dictates her to choose actions which will bring satisfaction in the afterlife in addition to her belief that she should honor the sacred laws before the common laws, and in her understanding if the conflict emerge between these rules, the sacred laws always override man-made. Creon's prohibition of burial is not seen by Antigone's system of values as a legitimate law since it contradicts the holy tradition, but rather a blasphemous practice, and therefore her life-goal becomes to preserve the sacred law. Her system of believes does not differentiate the dead – her interpretation of the sacred law is in accordance to her value system – everybody deserves honor in death, especially if this person is a close relative. Thus her duty to defend this practice only reinforces the virtue to strive to religious ideals, and even allows dismissal of the very value of life, elevating death as not the discontinuation of living, but rather a prospect for reunification with loved ones.
However, Creon has a different perspective on the situation. Since his system of believes stem primarily from responsibilities of his social role as a king and a ruler, rather then from feelings generated from emotions, especially those coming out from the mouth of women. His virtues are based on law and the adherence to the rules, and the traditions of society; he accentuates that "we must defend the men who live by law" (Sophocles 94). On the contrary, his virtue denies actions that follow because of affections: "Never let some woman triumph over us… better to fall from power, if fall we must, at the hands of a man – never be rated inferior to a woman, never" (Sophocles 94). Because of these factors, the virtue of his character are totally contrary to virtues of Antigone, where he has an even greater aspiration to preservation of law, order and traditions of the society than the sacred laws or feelings of affection.
Therefore the central conflict of the play develops not simply between personalities of Creon and Antigone, but rather it emerges on basis of more profound belligerent dissidence between differences of perceptions, differences of moral ideals, and, most importantly, differences in virtues. Antigone's virtue dictates her to see Creon's actions as illegitimate and according to her a barrier to exercising her sacred moral duty, or even sacrilege of ancient sacred traditions. On the contrary, Creon sees Antigone's views as a threat to the social stability and his order of the law, which he sees as a shortcut to change in the status of women, inevitably leading to anarchy. He simply sees her action as acts of insubordination, and attempts to grasp power out of men's hands, which will result negatively. His personal justification of this view follows from his the conversation with only son Haemon: "…never loose your sense of judgment over woman… worthless woman in your house, a misery in your bed…whoever steps out of line, violates the laws or presumes to hand out orders to his superiors, he'll win no praise for me… anarchy – show me a greater crime in all the earth!" (Sophocles 93-94). Thus, his virtues largely based on duties of his social role as a king, polarize his life goals, transforming his perception toward one sided vision of the fulfillment of the law to the letter and enforcement at any cost. This virtue denies any argumentation of Antigone, Haemon and Tiresias identifying them as faulty and targeted only at undermining his authority, authority of the law and traditions. The dissonance between virtues of both characters and inability to accommodate for individual ideals and life goals ultimately leads to the tragic resolution of the conflict.
Therefore, Sophocles' Antigone provides a situation which may be interpreted utilizing views of virtue theory. In fact, it provides a clear stance on the nature of the concept of virtue, where, similar to the fact that there are no identical personalities Sophocles exemplifies that each individual possesses a unique set of virtues, which are different from set of virtues of other person. Although virtue theory does not specify whether virtues are universal or differentiate, Sophocles, by clever portrayal of the conflict between Antigone and Creon provides clear example of conflicting virtues and tragic events that follows. If the key players of the conflict recognized the concept of relative virtues and arrived at mutual understanding, the conflict might be less dramatic, or even might not arise at all.


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Après Nous, Le Déluge
Dubuque, IA. Edited volumes are boring. I suppose there is at least one exception, but Holy Scripture has the advantage of divine inspiration, and most editors are not God, though some aspire to the office. In general it is no fun to read books like this from cover to cover. They lack unity and purpose. I have certainly never read any of the several edited volumes to which I have contributed. And one of them is about zombies.
I have, however, read Making Sense of Diseases and Disasters: Reflections of Political Theory from Antiquity to the Age of COVID in its entirety, and while it suffers from all the necessary defects of the genre (along with some unnecessary ones), I have profited by doing so. While not all of them are political theorists, all the contributors to this volume do just what political theorists should: they connect the urgent questions to the perennial ones. They approach the pandemic via Hume and Madison, Locke and Bacon, Rousseau and Las Casas and Augustine, Sophocles and Thucydides. Novelists appear too. There is Camus, of course (how many essays about The Plague were written during those first two-weeks-to-slow-the-spread?) but also DeLillo and Saramago and Jhumpa Lahiri.
All this is to the good. If there is a single idea that rules our time, it is not progressivism or populism or anything like that. It is an unremitting presentism, the standardized form that all our ideologies have taken. "Hell is where nothing connects with nothing," wrote George W. S. Trow. But he was talking about television in the eighties, and could hardly have imagined the social media feed, where it is all present, all the time: one tweet gives way to the next, facts stare blankly at facts, and context reduces immediately to text, as the medium consumes every message. And so it is good first of all to put down the screen and take up a book. A book has a beginning and a middle and an end, and even an edited volume has some semblance of unity and purpose. And it is doubly good to read a book that connects the reader's present to the human past, and to the reflections of humans past on their own times. One way out of Trow's hell is to remember the hellish events of yesteryear. This book recalls our attention to the Black Death, the Sack of Rome, the Boxing Day Tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina, among other disasters, both real and imagined.
In their chapter on Augustine and "the flood,"—a kind of master metaphor for disaster as such—Richard Avramenko and Alicia Rolsma write that "[t]he confinement of the soul to the present is the very definition of amour sui." Disasters can induce this confinement, this flattening of the soul wrapped up in itself. They can narrow our horizons. But because there is also a history (and a future) of disaster, and because we can situate ourselves in this story, disasters are likewise an opportunity to widen our view. "For Augustine, the extension of the soul happens through a participation in disasters of past, present, and future." This is the unifying purpose of the book: to provoke us to participate, to turn the urgency of our feelings about the pandemic into an urge to enlarge our souls, to connect to others and to God by inhabiting more fully the human condition.
But I am dancing around a problem. There is an assumption at the heart of this and every similar project, and if the assumption is flawed, the flaw is fatal. The assumption is that "the pandemic" is or was in fact a disaster of a kind with the famous disasters these contributors mention. And that is precisely the assumption that half the planet finds risible. Here it is taken almost completely for granted and taken very seriously indeed: seriously enough to inspire what might otherwise be insightful work. It is odd to offer a book of "reflections of political theory from antiquity to the age of COVID" that includes very little reflection on the actual politics of COVID.
There is some reflection, however, and this makes the book better than most of what academics have written about COVID. In fact, the first chapter takes aim directly at that crucial assumption on which the other chapters rest. I might go so far as to say that if the first chapter is right, the rest of the book (with some scattered exceptions) is wrong. It would be one thing if the book set up a debate between these positions, but we get no such thing. Most of the contributors simply ignore the urgent question—which is the question about just how "urgent" COVID really was—and proceed to explore the perennial questions that really concern them. That would be fine, except that we are supposed to find their answers to those ancient questions applicable to current events. But this applicability depends on the assumption that current events are meaningfully similar to the past events they discuss. What if instead these theorists have been "cajoled into believing that COVID represents an unprecedented and objective medical threat" by interest groups who benefited financially and politically (but is there any difference) from the ensuing overreaction? So suggests Arpad Szakolczai in that opening chapter, on "The Permanization of Emergencies."
But if that is the case—if COVID is less like an echo of the Black Death and more like a prelude to dystopia (Szakolczai mentions Brave New World)—what then becomes of the often moving reflections in the rest of the book? What becomes of the fourth chapter's analysis of the Catholic concept of "solidarity," which "requires us to approach others, 'not just as some kind of instrument … to be exploited, but as our neighbor'"? What do we owe our neighbor when the appeal to solidarity itself becomes an instrument of exploitation, a situation surely just as historically common and as morally instructive as genuine disaster? What becomes of the seventeenth chapter's call for "radical empathy" for those who are "traumatized" by disaster, whether it is a tsunami or a pandemic? If Szakolczai is right, we should indeed feel empathy, but the traumatized would not appreciate it. There is a woman in my church who to this day wears gloves, two masks, and a scarf around her face, which I have never actually seen. What is her trauma? What am I empathizing with?
Most of this book is about how to respond, morally and politically, individually and collectively, to disaster. It is about right and wrong. But the dispute about "the pandemic" is not fundamentally about what is right and wrong; it is about what is going on.
Slavoj Zizek has compared the situation to a husband (the government) who regularly abuses his wife (the citizens), but who in this one exceptional situation just happens to be performing the heimlich maneuver and saving her life. Stumbling onto the scene, and knowing the husband's history, we might naturally assume that he is just doing what he always does. But we would be wrong: it's not what it looks like. My point is not that Zizek is correct (or incorrect) about what is really happening. My point is that what-is-right-and-wrong—the moral question of how we ought to respond to what we see the husband doing—depends entirely on what-is-going-on. Was the response to the pandemic, bungled or not, a well-intentioned effort to save lives? Or was it a concatenation of cynical efforts to make money, grab power, and advance ideas that will justify similar efforts when the next crisis/opportunity arises? If the former, solidarity and empathy are in order, and we have much to learn from this book. If the latter, solidarity and empathy are still in order, but most of the book has little to teach us about what these postures look like in our situation.
It is probably clear which half of the planet I live on. I think the first chapter is basically right and the rest of the book is mostly wrong, with some worthy exceptions. I think Jordan Barkalow's argument in chapter three that what the pandemic shows is nothing more complicated than the power of political "factions" to introduce "doctrines that undermine the potential benefits stemming from science" (and that the worst of these factions is Trump-loving "Christian nationalism") is especially and egregiously wrong, though it quite nicely captures the common sense of the other side. But I also think it is useful to emphasize what both these sides have in common. The garden-variety machinations of schemers and profiteers and ideologues may explain a great deal of what has happened (with no need for anything so exciting as a "conspiracy theory"). Yet there have always been schemers (who have occasionally been known to form conspiracies), just as there have always been disasters, and both sides might be able to agree that there is also something unprecedented about this pandemic. Of course it is obvious what the difference is: the Internet. It is always the Internet.
While it is good and right to connect the urgent questions to the perennial ones, it is also good and right to distinguish the questions we have always faced from the context in which we now face them. And both sides are often tempted to press their case by ignoring this difference. If one side errs by assuming that the pandemic can only be compared to the natural disasters of the past, the other goes astray by comparing it exclusively to the unnatural, man-made disasters that have always plagued us: the unnecessary wars and depressions and famines, which are always pushed by arguments about "necessity" by identifiable human beings who stand to benefit. But the Internet introduces something that I want to say is new under the sun, though I know from scripture that there is no such thing.
Committed skeptics and true believers alike often talk about the pandemic as if the Internet does not exist. Of course they do their talking on the Internet. Or, to be more precise, they talk (on the Internet) as if the Internet only has its notoriously bad effects on their opponents, while for themselves it is just a conveniently neutral medium for discovering and communicating The Facts about what-is-going-on. I do this too. How could I not? It is how any medium works. Eventually, using the medium to criticize the medium gets tedious, and we just have to accept it if we want to talk about anything else. But the medium's effects are not thereby diminished; they are strengthened. The medium remains the message, no matter what the message is. None of us is immune to this illusion of immunity, and so none of us is immune to the bad effects of the Internet. Among the worst of these is the temptation to believe that only our opponents have been badly affected, and that their views can be dismissed accordingly as the fruit of "disinformation" spread by "bad actors," or else of "propaganda" spread by those more respectable bad actors called "corporations" and "governments."
Yet the very worst effect appears not in our social relations but in our souls. It appears not in our political disunity, but our personal purposelessness. I think the Internet, or the form it has taken (since it could take other, better forms), has "confined our souls to the present" more effectively than anything humans have ever created. The chapter on Augustine mentioned above emphasizes how disaster can lead us into this "presentism," but that disaster can also take us out of it, out of ourselves. "Flood" as the generic form of all disaster can be destructive or redemptive; water is how we drown, but water is also the medium of baptism. What if we modified this metaphor? The flood of information, of opinion, of insight, of facts and fictions and truths and lies, the flood of the infinite newsfeed that drowns us in a perpetual present—what if that flood is precisely what generated this supremely strange event that we call "the pandemic"? What if that event was not a natural disaster that could either diminish or elevate our souls, but was rather the result of a diminishment already accomplished? What if the pandemic was not the flood, but the world that comes after it?
An easier way to say all this is that "the pandemic" simply could not have occurred ten years ago. That is my view, at least. I cannot prove it, and I have not identified the mechanisms by which the Internet could have conjured such a thing. But that is work which a book like this could have done. Political theorists will have to consider what the great answers to the old questions can mean in this very brave and very new world—a virtualized world with no beginning and no end, a world that is bad above all because it is so hellishly boring. What disasters, what conspiracies, what excitements will we not invent in our desperation to escape the endless scroll? Or, as Michael Buhler puts it in his very strong chapter on Don DeLillo's novel Falling Man:
'[w]hen you fill rooms with innocent victims, you begin to empty the world of meaning,' which leads to 'replacing real things with plots and fictions.' This all grows more sinister when images produced by terrorism lead us toward something 'larger and darker,' where an 'unremitting mood of catastrophe' provides us with 'emotional experiences not available elsewhere.'
If this is right, then perhaps the most useful chapter in the book is Lorraine McCrary's essay on Hull House. While Hull House is often cited as an model for what public health should be, McCrary's chapter suggests that it also stands as a rebuke to what public health has so obviously become in the years since Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr founded the famous settlement house. Instead of a technocratic solutionism which for the convenience of bureaucrats and advertisers imagines "public" as the opposite of "local," Hull House offered "a place where problems are studied not theoretically but with firsthand, intimate observation," where "instead of waiting for scientific proof of the cause, they set to work to create change," and where it is understood that "even science can be used to coerce." Hull House was also home to instructive disagreements. Unlike Addams herself, who emphasized government action on behalf of a collective, the doctor Alice Hamilton "highlight[e]d the need for an individual approach to the poor, the elderly, and the sick, [and] emphasis[ed] participatory local government as the form of government best positioned to provide this care." In this Hamilton echoes Augustine, whose insistence that compassion is the work of persons rather than states comes to the fore in Paul Krause's chapter on "The Politics of Sovereign Charity." For the Bishop of Hippo, "[o]ur response as individuals to the suffering of others ultimately shows the nature of the political society we inhabit."
Indeed it does. But everything depends on what the others are really suffering from, and on this we profoundly disagree. One reason to keep things local is that it is easier to know others' suffering when the others are known to us. When our knowledge of others' suffering is mediated by screens, when it is not really knowledge but "information," when it is an abstraction manufactured by an expert, it quickly becomes little more than a weapon. And what is the right response to this weapon? We counter the threat by closing ourselves off; the calls for sympathy harden our hearts. Is this not the political society we now inhabit?
On my side of the planet, we prefer information about the sufferings caused not by the virus but by the policies. There is plenty of it, an ocean of facts at our disposal. On the other side they have other facts, another ocean: a million deaths, as they say. But some days I wish I could just drop out of that all-too-public fight and go AWOL in the real world, the local world where the people who are suffering are the people I know, not the people I am told to know about, the people who are like so many zombies shuffling across my screen. People like my friend's sister, facing death from a cancer that recurred because she missed her screening, "because COVID." But also people like my brother-in-law's father, who nearly died, from COVID.
This is not a retreat from politics. I still have a dog in this fight. In fact, what keeps me on one side rather than the other is my belief that if we had been living more fully in that real world, a lot of what we call "the pandemic" simply would not have occurred (perhaps including the virus itself, if we accept the increasingly compelling theory that it was man-made).
And dropping out does not mean taking what we get. If our entanglement in the Internet made this happen, disentangling ourselves can make something else happen. I don't know what it will look like, but I think it will have to be less boring than what is happening now. For it is boredom that got us here and keeps us here; the profound boredom of the virtual, the boredom on which the empire runs.
Après nous, l'amusement. Hopefully.
Image Credit: Paul Cézanne, "The Gulf of Marseille Seen from L'Estaqueca" (1885).
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Adam Smith is Assistant Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Dubuque, in Dubuque, Iowa, where he also directs the Honors Program.
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Matt Stewart January 16, 2023 At 1:00 pm
Thanks for this, Adam. I think you've written might be the most compelling and reasonable assessment of the moment that I've yet read. Excellent concluding sentence, especially:
"For it is boredom that got us here and keeps us here; the profound boredom of the virtual, the boredom on which the empire runs."
Martin January 18, 2023 At 5:54 am
I appreciate that you slogged your way through an unimpressive book and then dutifully mentioned some of its chapters, however erroneous they are.
This part stood out, and I kept waiting for you to utilize the metaphor:
"The chapter on Augustine mentioned above emphasizes how disaster can lead us into this "presentism," but that disaster can also take us out of it, out of ourselves. "Flood" as the generic form of all disaster can be destructive or redemptive; water is how we drown, but water is also the medium of baptism."
What…what…what if the internet is indeed a medium of baptism, bringing us to a global awareness that was seriously limited in previous times? Or perhaps it is a birth: messy and chaotic? I know the book didn't venture in that direction, but your review points that way. Perhaps you can comment, or write an essay about it.
Adam Smith January 19, 2023 At 2:54 pm
Yes, I do sometimes entertain the idea that the Internet might be a redemptive "flood," in the sense that it brings something to awareness. I think, and hope, that it's making more people aware of the truth that tools are never neutral, that this was always a lie, and that if we do not all need to be Amish, we all need to start thinking like the Amish, or we'll lose our souls and any semblance of a healthy culture.
A more adventurous line of thought is that the internet, ironically enough, might be helping to disabuse us of our dogmatic materialism, and making it possible for people to take the notion of a spiritual realm more seriously than they could before. E.g., various essays on the "demonology of the Internet" (Paul Kingsnorth, Sam Kriss, Alan Jacobs have all written very good ones). I don't know how compelling it is, and there's a spectrum that runs from "this-is-a-useful-metaphor" to "this-is-a-metaphor-but-maybe-it's-more-than-that." But it's very intriguing.
I should add that for what it's worth, I myself have lately been disabused of a lot of my own materialism – my highly-educated-person's tendency to immediately dismiss as absurd any talk of demons and angels and such, a tendency which somehow coexisted with going to church and calling myself a Christian. It has been extremely surprising and pretty uncomfortable, and I don't know exactly what explains it. But I also know others who seem to be experiencing the same change, at the same time, and find it just as strange as I do. Something in the air?
Martin January 19, 2023 At 7:43 pm
Thanks for the double reply, Adam.
I recall an old saying and don't know the source:
"The devil is one who doesn't know whom he's working for."
The theological aspect is that Satan thinks he is satisfying his own will, but his rebellion is actually part of the Divine Plan.
Michael Sauter January 21, 2023 At 8:46 am
Bravo, Adam! And, color me dense, but I just realized that you are the "Smith" of the Substack with Tara, and composer of the hauntingly beautiful poem/song of Jesus drawing in the dirt. "But some days I wish I could just drop out of that all-too-public fight and go AWOL in the real world, the local world where the people who are suffering are the people I know, not the people I am told to know about, the people who are like so many zombies shuffling across my screen." I'm always telling people that I know half the people who live in my county but I don't know anybody who died of Covid. There's a monk at the Abbey's whose 94 year-old dad was taken. And my kids went to St. Bonaventure and, sadly, the President of the university, who had severe comorbidities, was taken. But that's it, even for my "friend of a friend" circle of people. I know many more deaths-by-suicide since lock downs and masks, as well as a new despondency in the young, with suicidal thoughts and hopelessness, beyond counting. You write, "I might go so far as to say that if the first chapter is right, the rest of the book (with some scattered exceptions) is wrong. Somehow this captured for me the hiccup and hesitation I feel, being the Parochial Administrator of a Catholic parish that used to be 5 rural parishes, and even of my work in campus ministry, starting (the "first chapter") anything. The pros and cons of what the word "amnesty" wants to cover seems also to want to paralyze any energy I have for 'programs'. So, I just sit with and counsel and pray for the lonely, broken and disheartened young adults as we wait for the flood.
Guilty as charged; I write the substack with Tara (not very regularly I'm afraid!), and composed the song in question. I'm especially glad you enjoyed that, by the way!
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Q: Android API 31 App Icon on Splash Screen too small I have configured the API 31 (for Android 12) splash screen, using the Android Studio built-in image asset creator.
I have the app icon and branding image showing when the app comes up. However, the app icon on the splash screen is very small. Its original size is 1024pxx1024px, so nothing too tiny to begin with.
I tried to Resize its scaling to 120% - it did not do anything - see the below image:

What am I missing? what to do?
Thank you!

A: I don't know about Android studio built in image generator. But you can https://icon.kitchen/ for generating your app icons and all. It works great I prefer this.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Månad: augusti 2010
Taio Cruz Explodes on the UK Chart
CHART SPOTLIGHT. Taio Cruz' "Dynamite" bowed atop the UK singles chart earlier tonight. The track has already spent 12 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, and is currently trailing Eminem and Rihanna at No.2. The track was co-written by the Swede Max Martin and produced by Dr. Luke and Benny Blanco. WelcheMusic notes that these songwriters only recently scored a worldwide hit with Katy Perry's "California Gurls." "Dynamite" has already reached the top in New Zealand, Ireland and Australia.
»«»«»«»« READ MORE ABOUT TAIO CRUZ»«»««««««««
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUjdiDeJ0xg
Taio Cruz Fan? Read earlier blog posts:
Will Kylie or Travie McCoy Take Taio Cruz Higher
Taio Cruz Sets New Record with Break Your Heart
Postat 29 augusti, 2010 5 februari, 2011 Författare welchemusicKategorier Chart SpotlightTaggar Benny Blanco, Dr. Luke, Eminem, Katy Perry, Max Martin, Rihanna, Taio Cruz1 kommentar till Taio Cruz Explodes on the UK Chart
Darin Scores His 18th Hit
23 year old Swedish-Kurd pop singer Darin scores his 18th hit on the Swedish singles tally as "Microphone" bows at No.16. Lifted from the latest album LoveKiller, the track is used in the promotional video for the 2010 season of Idol. No stranger to that talent show, Darin was the runner-up in 2005 beaten by Daniel Lindström.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_vBMW5u7Bk]
No less than five tracks have charted from his latest album. Apart from the title track, which soars 14-10 on this week's singles tally, the following tracks have peaked so far.
"Viva La Vida" was performed live on Idol last October, topping the charts for two weeks. This actually beats Coldplay's original chart performance as they peaked at No.7 in May 2008.
"You're Out of My Life" was produced by Arnthor of Jennifer Lopez fame and was Darin's entry in the Swedish leg of the Eurovision Song Contest 2010. It peaked at No.3 this March.
"Can't Stop Love" was written especially for the royal wedding of Princess Victoria and Daniel Westling, peaking at No.13 in June.
"Microphone" bows at No.16 this week.
His LoveKiller album enters at No.2 this week, unable to knock Iron Maiden's The Final Frontier off the top. Darin's first three albums (The Anthem, Darin and Break the News) all made it to the top, while 2008's Flashback peaked at No.10.
Postat 27 augusti, 2010 Författare welchemusicKategorier OkategoriseradeTaggar Arnthor, Coldplay, Daniel Lindström, Daniel Westling, Darin, Iron Maiden, Jennifer Lopez, Princess VictoriaLämna en kommentar till Darin Scores His 18th Hit
Roll Deep Puts Grime on the Map
Expect Roll Deep to crash the UK singles chart tomorrow with "Green Light." This is the follow-up to the No.1 single "Good Times." The track succeeded Diana Vickers' "Once" in May, earlier this year. "Green Light" features vocals by Tania Foster with appearances from Wiley, J2K, Breeze, Brazen and Scratchy. The track will be included on the upcoming album Winner Stays On, slated for release in October. Roll Deep is one of the hottest acts on the grime scene today, an urban music genre that first emerged in the East London part of Bow in the early 2000s. The style merges influences from UK garage, dancehall and hip hop.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GibLntdLiJA]
The first grime artist to reach international fame is Dizee Rascal, on the back of winning The Mercury Music Prize for the debut Boy in da Corner. N-Dubz, M.I.A., Tinie Tempah and Tinchy Stryder are other artists in the genre.
Postat 21 augusti, 2010 Författare welchemusicKategorier OkategoriseradeTaggar Diana Vickers, Duzee Rascal, J2K, M.I.A., N-Dubz, Roll Deep, Tania Foster, The Mercury Music Prize, Tinchy Stryder, Tinie Tempah, Wiley1 kommentar till Roll Deep Puts Grime on the Map
Listen to Billboard's Summer Songs
Our friends at Billboard has compiled weekly playlists of summer songs. WelcheMusic transformed the latest one into a Spotify playlist and re-discovered Monica, Rob Thomas and Maroon 5.
Click on the link to listen to the Billboard's Summer Songs playlist via Spotify.
Postat 17 augusti, 2010 Författare welchemusicKategorier OkategoriseradeTaggar Alicia Keys, Carrie Underwood, David Guetta, Flo Rida, Kenny Chesney, Maroon5, Miranda Lambert, Monica, Rob Thomas, The Black Eyed PeasLämna en kommentar till Listen to Billboard's Summer Songs


Definitely cleaning the house is not everyone's favorite task. But everyone loves the clean house.
Do you need to clean up in a hurry? Whether you're expecting guests, the guests just left, or you want to at least pretend that you have clean house.
Then don't worry, start with these basic home cleaning tips and tricks to clean the house and get the entire house sparkling.
It's simple: The faster you clean, the sooner you're done. The following house cleaning tips are guaranteed to answer your 'how to clean your house' question.
Once your done with house cleaning, that feeling of accomplishment when you see the whole place sparkling justifies the effort. But if you really want your house to sparkle then you must clean it thoroughly.
It can be exhausting but there are good housekeeping ways to simplify your work.
There are plenty of homemade cleaners,clean recipes, house cleaning checklists.
These house cleaning tips use some basic easily available things in your home like, lemon, vinegar and dish soap etc.
Some of this cleaning tips can be used regularly, while some are only needed once, but either way it is chock full of brilliant ideas.
Even if you don't like to clean, you will be excited to try these household tips.
Check out these 54 house cleaning tips. Hope you like it. Enjoy!!


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LDR-10 10'0" 32" 850 lbs 49"
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Chardon court gets personnel request
Diane Ryder
Geauga County commissioners acknowledged Tuesday that Chardon Municipal Court will expand working hours for its magistrate and a clerk, but they clearly weren't happy about expanding the court's 2010 budget by $17,225 when other departments' budgets are being cut. "The problem is, we don't have a whole lot of say in this," Commissioner Chairman Mary Samide said. "Chardon goes ahead and approves it, and we have to go along with it after the fact." The city of Chardon is responsible for 60 percent of the municipal court's budget, and the county pays the remaining 40 percent. The court handles traffic and misdemeanor cases for most of the county. In October, commissioners expressed frustration when court officials did not attend their annual budget hearing. Judge Mark Hassett instead sent commissioners a letter requesting the increased hours, and telling them he didn't believe it was necessary for court representatives to attend the hearing in person, even though he had done so in previous years. The increase will bring part-time Magistrate Daniel Bond's hours closer to full-time status, from 56 hours each two-week pay period to 64. It also increases a part-time clerk's hours from 56 to 80, or full time, with benefits. "We did not negotiate this," Samide said. "We tried to discuss it with them, but this is what they wanted, and this is what they got. All I know is, we're not brought into the mix, even though we're supposed to pay for it." "Everyone else is queuing up and cutting their budgets; all the other judges have done that. They all understand our situation," she added. Because of the economy, the county's sales tax receipts are down by 7 percent, Commissioner Tracy Jemison said. Anticipating lower revenues from the sales and property taxes, commissioners asked each department in the last quarter of 2009 to cut their 2010 budgets by as much as 20 percent. Although commissioners have said they hope to avoid widespread layoffs, they have laid off two workers each from the Building and Planning departments because of decreased workload. County Probate Court Judge Charles Henry told commissioners last month that he understands the need to cut costs, but asked them to assure him they still intend to fund and support the Lavrich Youth Center, a residence that serves at-risk youths. Tuesday, commissioners said they appreciate Henry's willingness to work with them, and will continue to support the center if money is available. "We agree that the service is needed," Jemison said. "If the freefall continues, though, it will affect all departments," Samide said. "We haven't changed our attitude toward (the center), but we're working with our bottom line."
Hit show unlikely to return for second season
Costas explains intricate system Astros used to steal signs


text:
Q: R - Match row to row and row to column to pull element between two dataframes I have two data frames "df1" and "df2".
drugs<-c("Drug1", "Drug1", "Drug1", "Drug2", "Drug2", "Drug2")
level<-c("1", "2", "3", "1", "2", "3")
df1<-data.frame(drugs, level)

standards<-c("Drug1", "Drug2")
std1<-c("100", "100")
std2<-c("200", "200")
std3<-c("300", "300")
df2<-data.frame(standards, std1, std2, std3)

I want to cross-reference the drug name in df1 with the drug name in df2, then match the level (1, 2, or 3) with the column in df2 (std1 with level 1, std2 with level 2, etc) and pull the amount (100, 200, or 300) from df2 and add it as a new column in df1 named "Amount".
I haven't been able to determine how I can cross reference based on rows of one dataframe with the row and column of another data frame to pull the associated element from that second data frame.
Any suggestions?

A: Here's One possible way of first reshaping df2 to a long format, stripping the std and joinig back to df1 while creating Amount in place (using data.table)
library(data.table)
tmp <- melt(setDT(df2), 1)[, level := sub("std", "", variable, fixed = TRUE)]
setDT(df1)[tmp, Amount := value, on = c(drugs = "standards", "level")]
df1
#    drugs level Amount
# 1: Drug1     1    100
# 2: Drug1     2    200
# 3: Drug1     3    300
# 4: Drug2     1    100
# 5: Drug2     2    200
# 6: Drug2     3    300

A: Here is an option using gather/left_join from dplyr/tidyr
library(dplyr)
library(tidyr)
rename(df2, drugs=standards) %>% #change the column name
            gather(level, Amount, std1:std3) %>% #convert from wide to long
            extract(level, into = "level", "(\\d+)") %>% #extract the numeric part
            left_join(df1, .) #do a join
#   drugs level Amount
#1 Drug1     1    100
#2 Drug1     2    200
#3 Drug1     3    300
#4 Drug2     1    100
#5 Drug2     2    200
#6 Drug2     3    300


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