02 19 15

VOICE the georgetown

LINKS TO THE PAST

By Shalina Chatlani and Ryan Greene

Finding Georgetown’s historical treasures Georgetown University’s Weekly Newsmagazine Since 1969 w February 19, 2015 w Volume 47, Issue 21 w georgetownvoice.com

the

Voice

Feb. 19, 2015 This week: Editorial ... Aramark just can’t have it all, pg. 3

Discover georgetown’s history

The Voice explores the countless on-campus artifacts that constitute Georgetown’s rich history.

The Georgetown Voice welcomes responses, questions, and opinions from its readers. Submit all e-mails to editor@georgetownvoice.com. Please include your name, year, and school. Bear in mind that letters may be edited for length and clarity and may be published and used in any medium.

Mixed Doubles

News ... GSC and workers seek fair process to organize, pg. 4 Sports ... Baseball starts their season, pg. 6 Feature ... Artistry, archives, and artifacts: Gtown’s history, pg. 8 Leisure ... American art masters present: America, pg. 10 Page 13 ... Beating a dead horse, pg. 13 Voices ... Breaking the silence about Venezuela’s crimes, pg. 14

– Kathleen Coughlin

Mixed doubles similar to a regular crossword puzzle, but each word corresponds with two clues. For example, ECLIPSE could be “New Moon sequel” and “Astronomical event.” Once you determine which clues match up, add up their numbers, and that corresponds to their spot in the puzzle.

Across: 1. Hint on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”

2. Chick’s little brother 3. Lady pig 4. Move over 5. Regional twang 6. Often 7. Visit habitually 8. Wide open 9. Something depended upon for escape 10. Straight dress 11. Mistake 12. Grave or Aigu 13. Bewitch 14. A way in 15. Abandon 16. Time unit 17. Release 18. White bird 19. Encourage someone 20. Plunged 21. Stephen King novel 22. Christian love

23. The Dread Pirate ____ 24. Tiny 25. Actors Julia, Emma, or Eric 26. Despair 27. Fire a weapon 28. Plant Down: 1. Influence 2. Waste system 3. James Cameron epic 4. Ben E. King song 5. Thin 6. Continues 7. Father of Isaac & Ishmael 8. Monetary penalty 9. Bring under control 10. A characteristic 11. 16th president 12. Someone into needlepoint 13. Tennis tag-team 14. Money raised 15. Sulked 16. Emotion 17. CO City

Last week’s key:

18. 1986 Wil Wheaton & Keefer Sutherland flick 19. Daisy and Tom of East Egg 20. Ascribe 21. Eco-friendly 22. Twist 23. Central figure 24. Brain 25. Large rock 26. Electric scooter 27. X and Y 28. Breeze 29. Distressed by 30. Probably the worst movie adaptations of a TV series I’ve ever seen 31. Jealous 32. 15th president 33. Chopping tools 34. What you’re doing right now

This Week’s Horoscope

– Ambika Ahuja

Your average Aquarius is known for being a thirsty pervert at heart. Although, most of them don’t even have a heart. Have you tried getting Aquarians to express how they really feel?

Tough luck bro, because it won’t work. They’re brutally honest about everything else, though. If you really want to know how fat that dress makes you look, be sure to ask an Aquarian. This sign is also the quirkiest of them all. From their sick sense of humor to their collection of crazy socks, Aquarians are sure to shake up your world. If you don’t believe me, try dating one!

georgetownvoice.com

VOICE the georgetown

Volume 47.21 February 19, 2015 Editor-in-Chief: Dayana Morales Gomez Managing Editor: Caitriona Pagni General Manager: Mary-Bailey Frank Webmaster: Maya McCoy Editors-at-Large: James Constant, Julia Lloyd-George, Ian Philbrick Contributing Editor: Chris Castano Blog Editor: Marisa Hawley Halftime Leisure Editors: Erika Bullock, Graham Piro Halftime Sports Editors: Alex Boyd, Rob Ponce News Editor: Lara Fishbane Sports Editor: Joe Pollicino Feature Editor: Ryan Greene Leisure Editor: Daniel Varghese Page 13 Editor: Dylan Cutler Voices Editor: Noah Buyon Photo Editor: Joshua Raftis Cover Editor: Christina Libre Design Editor: Eleanor Sugrue Spread Editors: Pam Shu, Sophie Super Assistant Blog Editors: Grace Brennan, Morgan Hines, Carley Tucker Assistant Halftime Leisure Editor: Michael Bergin Assistant News Editors: Courtnie Baek, Ryan Miller Assistant Sports Editors: Isabel Echarte, Kevin Huggard, Max Roberts Assistant Feature Editor: Shalina Chatlani Assistant Leisure Editors: Dinah Farrell, Sabrina Kayser Assistant Voices Editor: Leila Lebreton Assistant Photo Editors: Vicki Lam, Carolyn Zaccaro Assistant Cover Editor: Megan Howell Assistant Design Editor: Ellie Yaeger

Staff Writers:

Chris Almeida, Sourabh Bhat, Emilia Brahm, Emmy Buck, Brendan Crowley, Patrick Drown, Emmanuel Elone, Tyler Kranawetter, Joe Laposata, Brian McMahon, Maneesha Panja, Thomas Stubna, Manuela Tobias, Colleen Zorc

Staff Photographers:

Ambika Ahuja, Saman Asdjodi, Jen Costa, Megan Howell, Gavin Myers , Freddy Rosas, Taryn Shaw, Andrew Sullivan

Staff Designers:

Erin Annick, Lizzy Blumberg, Caitlin Garrabrant, River Davis, Katie Hyland, Johnny Jung, Erin McClellan

Copy Chief: Dana Suekoff Copy Editors:

Lauren Chung, Bianca Clark, Jupiter El-Asmar, Alex Garvey, Rachel Greene, Madison Kaigh, Suzanne Trivette

Editorial Board Chair: Kenneth Lee Editorial Board:

Shalina Chatlani, James Constant, Isabel Echarte, Lara Fishbane, Dayana Morales Gomez, Ryan Greene, Caitriona Pagni, Ian Philbrick, Daniel Varghese

Director of Finance: Allison Manning Director of Human Resources: Michael Sitcawich Accounts & Sales Representative: Suzie Park The Georgetown Voice The Georgetown Voice is published every Thursday.

Mailing Address: Georgetown University The Georgetown Voice Box 571066 Washington, D.C. 20057

Office: Leavey Center Room 424 Georgetown University Washington, D.C. 20057

Email: editor@georgetownvoice.com Advertising: business@georgetownvoice.com Website: georgetownvoice.com The opinions expressed in the GeorgetownVoice do not necessarily represent the views of the administration, faculty or students of Georgetown University, unless specifically stated. Unsigned editorials represent the views of the Editorial Board. Columns, advertisements, cartoons and opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or the General Board of the Georgetown Voice. The university subscribes to the principle of responsible freedom of expression of its student editors. All materials copyright the Georgetown Voice. All rights reserved.

editorial

The georgetown voice | 3

corporations are people, but so are workers

Aramark must protect all workers in new contract

On Wednesday afternoon, over one hundred students joined Hoya Court employees and UNITE HERE, the union representing Aramark employees who work at Leo O’Donovan Hall, to present their demands for better working conditions as Aramark renegotiates a new labor contract with its food service employees. Two separate petitions organized by Hoya Court workers and the Georgetown Solidarity Committee demanded that Aramark allow workers at Hoya Court and Einstein Bros Bagels a fair process to organize, improve workplace protections, and provide more sustainable food options.

In the two weeks since the Voice published a feature investigating the inequities that Aramark’s workers face on campus, students have learned that the injustices Aramark’s managers perpetuate extend to Hoya Court, where its workers are not unionized together with those at Leo’s. As the Editorial Board predicted back in Oct. 2013, because the uni-

versity decided to procrastinate on extending the benefits of the Just Employment Policy to Hoya Court, its workers have been left vulnerable to abuse at the hands of Aramark management. They have come out with harrowing stories of abuse that the spirit of the JEP would not have tolerated.

The strong support the Georgetown University community has showed to the campus’ Aramark employees is exactly the unity and resolve that the Editorial Board called for two weeks ago when we learned about the contract negotiations.

Organizations such as H*yas for Choice and the College Democrats helped publicize and circulate GSC’s petition in the weeks before GSC presented their demands to Aramark.

Over 2,000 students, faculty and staff expressed their appreciation for the hard work of Aramark’s employees and their disappointment at Aramark’s management practices. Even students from American University came out to show their support at yesterday’s rally.

Georgetown must continue to stand with the workers and keep up the pressure on Aramark. If Aramark allows its employees at Leo’s a fair process to organize, then it should also allow Hoya Court employees to do the same so on the principle of equity. Aramark workers at Leo’s will also be in a better position to negotiate with Aramark’s managers, who should make the choice to acquiesce to the workers’ demands. All of Georgetown University’s community, as well as supporters in other D.C. area colleges, are watching.

Aramark’s current contract with Leo’s expires in 2017, and other bidders will make compelling cases for the university to replace Aramark when negotiations for a new dining services contract begin in the very near future. Until then, if Aramark wants to stay at Georgetown, it must repair its long track record of mismanaging its frontline employees.

Otherwise, its presence on the Hilltop will no longer be welcome.

you get a trainer! you get a trainer!

More funds essential for club sports athletic trainer

Earlier this month, Georgetown’s club sports athletes started a petition to Georgetown University Student Association’s Finance and Appropriations Committee calling for them provide a stable source of funding for their athletic training program. They believe that the Advisory Board for Club Sports cannot support the program with its reserve account. They request help from GUSA to provide a sustainable source of funding.

All university-recognized club sports organizations have access to Katharine Gray, the sole athletic trainer at the Center for Student Engagement, albeit through a tiered system. She is only available at practices and competitions of club sports that are categorized as “high-risk,” which are men’s and women’s rugby, boxing, and ice hockey. Other club sports must request access to her services through an application-based process. Women’s basketball and the triathlon team are among the groups that have successfully done so.

GUSA’s FinApp committee should support the petition. An advisory board’s reserve

funds help contribute to larger expenditures and shoulder deficits incurred by the accounts of individual student organizations. Club sports cannot be expected to withdraw from their reserve funds simply to ensure that teams have the ability to treat and avoid injuries.

Currently, varsity athletes have access to 10 athletic trainers, who work with four physicians, compared to only one trainer for the club teams.

This disparity is unacceptable. Club sports athletes are Georgetown’s representatives wherever they compete. Their injuries are no less serious than varisty athletes’ injuries. They deserve nothing less than an equal access to medical treatment.

A lack of funding for more athletic trainers is only part of the problem. Allocating access to trainers based on the likelihood that a sport will cause an injury is efficient, but a serious injury in a “high-tier” sport is no more damaging than a serious injury in a “low-tier” sport. All teams should be able to receive a trainer’s help as soon as possible. More money would afford the club sports program the flexibility they need to remove the tiered system.

Club sports are a major facet of Georgetown’s recreational life. In Dec. 2014, the campus had 1,142 club sports participants—just over one sixth of the undergraduate student body—in over 31 teams. Yet, the university administration has a long track record of providing insufficient support to club sports. The lack of suitable practice space for club athletes and the continual deterioration of Kehoe Field—despite years of nearly universal support for the field’s renovation—is the best example of that fact.

Requesting funds from GUSA’s FinApp committee is nonetheless a small-scale fix for what is a much larger problem. Some students may balk at the petition, since FinApp would have to draw money from GUSA’s budget or from the Student Activities Fee, diluting the remaining funds available for other GUSA initiatives or student organizations in other advisory boards.

Ultimately, GUSA should not have to bear the brunt of the club sports funding request. Rather, the university itself should be responsible for giving its club sports the support they need.

dorm room squatting

ResLife still has time to reverse study abroad policy

Sophomores planning to study abroad fall semester next academic year have just submitted their applications last week. Housing selection is just weeks away. This means that the Office of Residential Living will enact the new housing timeline it decided to delay for a year last February.

The new policy will not allow students accepted to study abroad in the fall to enter the housing lottery. Instead, they will be contacted during their time abroad to select their spring semester housing. Furthermore, students hoping to switch housing in the middle of the semester must now specify a vacancy that they can switch into during the spring.

This means that students can no longer request a spot in any available space.

These policies make it very difficult for fall study abroad students to ensure that they can live with their friends come spring, much less in an on-campus apartment that is informally

considered, among students, a widely perceived right for juniors. When students can still “hold” places for others through informal agreements that the university did not recognize, the new policy is much more restricting.

Unless fall study abroad students can find spring study abroad students to switch places with or juniors who can “hold” the apartment with sophomores, they likely will not be able to find a specific apartment to switch into.

This year, as juniors are now guaranteed housing, the current policy is a slight improvement from the one the Office of Residential Living tried to push last year. However, it still leaves students confused and worried about their spring housing situation.

With this new timeline, students who study abroad in the fall will still be unsure of where they will live and who they will live with in the spring. Studying abroad during the semester is an opportunity that the university

heavily advertises to current and prospective students, but the university’s housing policy complicates many students’ decisions and, for some, has discouraged them from pursuing the chance to study abroad.

The 2010 Campus Plan legally requires the university to house 385 more students on campus, but it does not demand that students select housing after receiving study abroad decisions. ResLife’s new policy therefore places an unnecessary burden on fall study abroad students.

While administrators have articulated that it does not plan to change this new housing policy, a few weeks remain before the new policy will affect this year’s housing decision.

If the Office of Residential Living caved into student input when it attempted to put off the policy last year, then it should do so again this year and allow fall study abroad students to enter the housing lottery.

news

4 | the georgetown voice

FEBRUARY 19, 2015

Aramark workers and students rallied to present petition to Hoya Court managers CAITLYN COBB & RYAN MILLER A group of Georgetown students and workers from Hoya Court, Einstein Bros., and Leo’s rallied on Wednesday to present two petitions to Aramark managers in Hoya Court. A group of non-unionized Hoya Court and Einstein Bros. workers presented a petition asking Aramark for a fair process to organize as workers, while the Georgetown Solidarity Committee also presented its petition to Aramark in support of both unionized and non-unionized workers.

“This is the first time that we’ve presented [the GSC petition] directly to managers… they’ve been aware of its existence,” Georgetown Solidarity Committee member Claire Kelly (COL ‘17) said.

Negotiations between Aramark and the current union of Leo’s workers will begin on Friday.

“We hope that Aramark chooses to make the right decision. … Students are going to keep pushing for our community members,” said GSC member Lily Ryan (COL ‘18). “The workers are part of our community.”

The Hoya Court petition, signed by 83 percent of Hoya Court employees, asks not only for Aramark to recognize their right to unionize, but also for Aramark to treat the Hoya Court employees with respect, according to Subway employee Erenia Pacheco.

Unlike Leo’s, Cosi, and Starbucks employees, workers at Hoya

Court and Einstein Bros. do not have any contract with Aramark.

Leo’s worker Donte Crestwell, said, “Workers here [without contracts] are the same [as us]. They have bills to pay and families to feed just like us.”

Crestwell was involved in the initial unionization of Aramark workers in 2011. “Today is about the same message, that we are equal to [workers at] other universities and deserve respect,” he said.

“WHO WOULD WANT TO COME TO WORK KNOWING THAT ... NOBODY RESPECTS YOU?” Pacheco described examples of worker mistreatment of non-unionized employees and threats of being fired from managers that sparked this desire to ask for the fair process to organize.

“There was an incident where a manager was about to slap a worker’s hand. And they’ll just be calling out our names like ‘stupid’ and all this,” Pacheco said. “Who would want to come to work knowing that you’re going to work at a place where nobody respects you? If it wasn’t for us, this operation wouldn’t be running.”

Additionally, she recalled an incident in which a manager at Hoya Court refused to accept a note she received from a doctor for missing work due to illness, then demanded to see it weeks later. “[There is] a lot of disrespect going around here,” Elevation Burger employee Francisco Lopez said. “Too many people are getting yelled at like they’re their own son.

Some people are getting yelled at like they’re animals.”

According to Lopez, there is a fear that workers will be fired for any small mistake. “Everyday you shouldn’t be coming to work thinking, ‘oh I’m going to get fired, I might get fired today if I do this or do that,” Lopez said.

Furthermore, the only way for employees to express their concerns or file complaints is through a corporate hotline.

“For employees who are not represented or those that are and feel uncomfortable using the grievance process, we have a toll-free employee hotline that allows our employees to confidentially report any workplace issues or problems,” Karen Cutler, Director of Corporate Communications at Aramark, wrote in an email to the Voice.

However, according to Lopez, this hotline is ineffective. “All they tell us to do is call that hotline that’s in the back, the Aramark Corporate. …you know it’s going to take them a week to get back to us. …we just have to deal with it.”

DAYANA MORALES GOMEZ

HOYA COURT CROWDED WITH STUDENTS AND WORKERS HUNGRY FOR CHANGE. Despite the reported incidents, Pacheco expressed her gratitude in seeing the student support through the GSC petition and the student presence at the rally on Wednesday.

“I feel so grateful [for the student support]. When I first heard about it, I was like ‘Oh my god,’ you see how crazy it is that students care more about our work than our own managers,” Pacheco said.

According to Kelly, the student support is about providing momentum after workers initiated a dialogue. “When this started picking up speed, it was because worker’s told us something was wrong.”

Student members of the American University Worker’s Alliance, Cass Harlos (AU ’18), and Ellie Bloomberg (AU ’18), also attended the rally, and were positive about it and its aims. The AU Worker’s Alliance is currently involved in its own conflict with Aramark, according to Harlos. “Aramark has been understaffing, cutting hours,

and other general signs of disrespect against workers that are violating their contracts,” she said.

With the negotiations on Friday and the presentation of the petition on Wednesday, the Hoya Court employees remain hopeful that their requests will have an impact on their current working conditions, according to Pacheco.

“Hopefully they’ll stop with their attitudes, and screaming at people and stuff, and treat us with respect, and the business will keep running like before,” Pacheco said.

Lopez expressed similar sentiments on the impact that their petition will have on the negotiations.

“Hopefully if we do get the fair process and have a chance to do that, they’ll be more willing to listen to us, and sit down and have one on one conversations with us now that they see that we’re actually serious about that we can’t take all this mistreatment,” Lopez said. “That’s all we want in the first place, is for them to listen to us.”

Student Activities Commission considers restructuring process to fund student groups THOMAS STUBNA The Student Activities Commission is considering restructuring its process of funding student organizations beginning next semester.

Under the proposed system, groups would apply to 1 of 10 general tiers of funding ranging from one hundred to several thousands of dollars and receive their entire semester’s budget in a block disbursement, according to SAC chair Connor Maytnier (COL ‘16).

“SAC would take into account the size of the group, their past levels of funding,” and an “events plan—a rough sketch of the semester—and determine which tier the group would fit in,” he said.

According to the proposal sent to all SAC club presidents and treasurers, “SAC would still hold separate ad hoc and travel funds.” There would

SAC considers a tiered system to redistribute funds,

also be a “new initiatives fund” available for clubs “looking to substantially increase from past semesters’ levels of programming and spending.”

The proposal replaces the current system of itemization in place since 2012, according to Associate Director of the Center of Student Engagement Amanda Carlton.

“As part of its ongoing work to be responsive to group needs, SAC regularly revisits its funding guide-

JOSHUA RAFTIS

lines, processes and structure,” she wrote in an email to the Voice. “It’s unclear what impact this would have on the current cuts that SAC faces in allocating to groups.”

Groups are currently required to create line-by-line budgets for all programming, one full semester in advance. “The budget guide is very objective. We allocate for events and food based on estimated attendance numbers,” Maytnier said.

The idea arose from constraints groups have faced when changing plans. “It’s restrictive. Groups are trying to budget months in advance, and that can be very difficult for something that’s far down the road,” Maytnier added. “If the Event Authorization Form doesn’t get submitted, if you are not able to have that event, it’s very likely that there will be a financial penalty.”

According to Maytnier, feedback thus far has been mostly positive. For every response opposing the change, there were four responses in its favor. About three-quarters of respondents thought they received adequate funding, and there are no discernible opinion trends based on size or type of club.

For Fiscal Year 15, the SAC budget exceeds $320,000, funded mostly from the student activities fee and Student Affairs via tuition. This

spring, SAC deemed $210,400 of requests reasonable, but could disburse $151,000. Consequently, requests are scaled to 71.8 percent.

Robert Shepherd (MSB ‘15), Chair of GUSA Finance and Appropriations, assured the Voice that the move is not an austerity measure. “The university’s budget climate does not affect SAC’s bottom line in any way,” he wrote. Pending the upcoming budget summit, “SAC has requested a significant increase in funding for FY16.”

Though a decision might be far away, a change must be determined this month if it were to affect next semester. SAC will hold a meeting open to the public on Monday, and Maytnier encourages groups to contact their commissioners. “We could move more money more freely,” he said. “This should be seen as being an elimination of bureaucracy.”

news

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice | 5

LGBTQ Resource Center sponsors new group to address issues faced by queer men of color had the original idea for the group.

“As I often say, we are not ‘a single monolithic community,’ but several communities with varying needs,” she said. Subbaraman then asked García, a board member of Pride who has worked at the center for three years, to be the student leader. “For the first time, in the seven years since I have been on campus, there were several men of color [with the Center],” said Subbaraman “I thought it would be an empowering space to have for all of them.”

According to García, the group’s creation was not motivated by any dissatisfaction with GU Pride. “I think that GU Pride itself has been very good about representing minorities . . . [Thomas Lloyd, (SFS ’15), GU Pride president] has been exceptional in his support,” he said. “I think that throughout his time as president . . . he’s made a point of making GU Pride as representative a community as possible.”

Furthermore, García emphasizes the importance of staying united and standing with GU Pride, instead of forming a separate student organization for LGBTQ students of color. “I think that fragmentation is what a lot of times kills movements,” he said. “Georgetown

culture is not at a place yet where we can afford to be divided.”

García explains the group was motivated by a desire to discuss the “sensitive intersection” between color and sexuality and to investigate the unique experiences and challenges queer men of color might have navigating two marginalized groups. He mentioned that queer men of color generally come from cultures that are less accepting of their sexualities. Additionally, they may face marginalization from within the larger LGBTQ community. “Largely across the country LGBTQ leaders are white. . . .

On the whole, [queer people of color] have less access to positions of leadership and, in some cases, to services or programming,” Garcia said.

Student Maya Ingram (COL ’17), who identifies as a queer woman of color, echoed this, explaining that the public’s idea of a queer person is a “rich, white, gay male.”

“That stereotype separates people from the community,” she said.

Ingram also elaborated on what she called the “disconnect” between queer communities and communities of color. “Sometimes people [of color] get

fetishized. . . . Sometimes there’s bad feelings about gay rights being like the ‘new’ African-American rights.”

Ingram was supportive of the effort behind the group, but was frustrated that it would not be open to queer women. Though she admitted men likely had unique experiences, she believes “there’s still enough in common with queer men of color and queer women of color that you can collectively have a group and still be aware of the fact that we have different experiences.”

García also explained that there would likely be differences even within the group. “We still have to be very aware that ‘people of color’ is a very

CITY on a HILL: HOYA SEE, HOYA DO

old-fashioned gaffes? All this sounds familiar, and not in a good way. The junior-league imitation game is strong.

To understand why the D.C. mirror effect is bad for GUSA (and maybe Georgetown), we have to take a hard look at D.C. itself. Last year, David Rothkopf argued in Foreign Policy that Washington has an institutional habit of suppressing novel and potentially transformative ideas to protect the status quo.

The nation’s central bureaucracies structurally produce think tanks, policymakers, and pundits too conventional, uncreative, and cravenly unchallenging in their thinking.

Quoth Rothkopf, “the city most in need of big, new ideas may be home to the most dumbed-down smart people of all.”

How does this culture affect Georgetown? Beyond the preponderance of smart people on campus and the poor facsimile for national politics that plays out annually, our everyday interactions with Capitol Hill may also play a role. In fact, GUSA elections are only the most obvious (and odious) examples of the D.C. mirror effect.

Take the Congressional internship, a kind of campus-wide honeypot. No one denies answering phones for one’s senator laudably facilitates the democratic process. You might even learn something. The

problem arises when doing so blinds us to the blanched ideas that pass for Congressional policymaking—or, worse, dupes us into worshipping the same uncreative mold.

Next, consider Georgetown’s much-touted professor-practitioner, who divides time between Georgetown classrooms and the World Bank, Obama administration, or another policy entity. From professionals who have capped off their careers with teaching (Madeleine Albright, Dennis Ross) and those who shuttle between the two (Chuck Hagel, Ron Klain) we Hoyas of course benefit immensely. But we might also question some of them as products of lived-in Washingtonian surroundings.

Finally, speakers whisked to campus, advertised, and plunked at podiums. Last week, Georgetown hosted two high-profile District emissaries in as many days. On Wednesday, Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) spoke at the invitation of GU College Democrats.

The next morning, amid a cacophony of media coverage, FBI Director James Comey discussed police-minority relations in Gaston.

LILAH BURKE A new weekly peer-led discussion group for queer men of color, led by Esteban García (SFS ’18), is set to begin meeting the week of Feb. 22. The group will be a sub-section of GU Pride and sponsored by the LGBTQ Resource Center.

The group arrives on the heels of several other peer-led discussion groups sponsored by the Center including the Queer Women’s Collective, Getting Bi, and EmbrACE. García said, “GU Pride in the past year has taken initiative to kind of cater to the minorities within our community, . . .

Part of that diversification was people saying, . . . ‘We have very specific needs and very specific experiences that we can all benefit from talking about.’”

The new group will informally discuss their experiences on a weekly basis, as well as meet once a month with Drs. Matthew Schottland and John Wright, both of whom work in CAPS, for a more structured conversation about the issues faced by queer men of color.

Sivagami Subbaraman, the director of the LGBTQ Resource Center,

a tri-weekly column about D.C. NEWS AND POLITICS

According to the website of the International Society on Infant Studies (whose unfortunate acronym is ISIS), babies as young as four months exhibit a behavior called mirroring, by which they mimic the expressions, vocalizations, and emotions of their parents.

For most Georgetown University Student Association executive candidates, that mimesis starts a few hours into campaign season.

And who are the parents, so to speak, from whom our candidates take their cues? Trade Healy’s Gothic bulk for the Romanesque porticos of Capitol Hill and you’ll have some idea. Switch the Wadibia/Cheney ticket’s “Dignity” for Obama’s “Hope,” or Margolis/Shymansky’s “Believe in Georgetown” for Romney’s “Believe in America,” and you’re getting warmer. Interpret McNaughton/Simons’ emails to student leaders as strategic efforts to curry favor and you’re there.

Call it the mirror effect, imitation game, or monkey see, monkey do.

Washington, D.C.’s greatest coup is the ease of its own impersonation, the export of its hometown brand. The effect is that what passes for politics

BY IAN PHILBRICK

on Capitol Hill translates mimetically to the Hilltop with ill-disguised glee.

And the effect is strong. Every national political season has snafus; this year’s GUSA elections didn’t disappoint. The campaign’s obligatory scandal stemmed from a petition floated to candidates by the Georgetown Israel Alliance that affirmed Israel’s right to exist and opposed Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction legislation. Though every campaign save Luther/Rohan initially agreed to GIA’s pledge, blowback from Muslim students compelled all but Rosenberger/Varghese to change their minds.

Several candidates publicly blamed GIA for the episode, most rancorously Chris Wadibia (COL ‘16) during Monday’s presidential debate. A campaign manager characterized the incident to me as a “political grenade” engineered to torpedo campaigns. And on Monday, Rosenberger alleged that his opponents had recklessly signed a statement whose implications they didn’t understand, a mistake they never publicly admitted.

Mudslinging? Questionable honesty? Distancing? Flip-flopping? Good

broad term. We’re very different.

The experiences of a black person at Georgetown is not going to be the same as a Latino person or an Asian person. . . . There is still diversity within us.” García hopes the group may celebrate these differences and possibly bring them up in discussion.

Though García’s discussion focused on the challenges for queer men of color on a national level, he did specify some issues on the Georgetown campus, including recent bias-related assaults on students perceived as queer. “On a campus like Georgetown, unfortunately we are still very much informed by our experiences as people of color.”

ANDREW SULLIVAN

NOT ALL MEMBERS OF THE LGBTQ COMMUNITY ARE “RICH, WHITE, GAY MALES.”

With so much GUSA politicking, debating, and campaign chicanery afoot during their visits, one imagines either visitor could’ve gotten the impression he’d never left Capitol Hill at all.

So what’s a Hoya to do? The past two weeks prove that the Hobbesian realist adage that life is “nasty, brutish, and short,” recited semesterly in international relations courses, rings equally true of GUSA campaigns.

That’s a mercy, but it also places the burden of resisting the Georgetown-D.C. mirror effect on us—and our candidates.

Both Capitol Hill and, lately, the Hilltop have more than enough bad politics as it is. Both mirrorer and mirrored could use a change.

This campus, city, and country need reformers, disruptors, and re-imaginers to redeem D.C.’s stultifying status quo. And considering Georgetown’s long litany of government-serving alumni (GUSA and otherwise), it’s likely these habits are being incubated on campus as we speak.

Maybe there’s one in that IR lecture. With any luck, we’ll elect two today.

READ MORE ONLINE:

Yik Yak raises questions about online forums on college campuses

sports

6 | the georgetown voice

February 19, 2015

Baseball has mixed results in opening three games MATT JASKO

After a 19-29 campaign in 2014, the Georgetown baseball team (1-2, 0-0 Big East) returned to action this past week with three games at the Wake Forest Invitational in North Carolina against Virginia Commonwealth University (1-1, 0-0 Atlantic 10), the University of Delaware (1-1, 0-0 CAA), and Bucknell University (1-1, 0-0 Patriot League).

On Friday, the Hoyas fell to both VCU and Delaware—by scores of 6-3 and 3-0, respectively—before righting the ship with an 8-5 victory over Bucknell on Saturday.

Georgetown was able to pound out 10 hits and draw two walks in their first game back against VCU, but were only able to move three men across the plate in the 6-3 loss. The runs batted in came from junior center fielder Evan Ryan and senior infielder AC Carter, as well as freshman middle infielder Chase Bushor, who came through with an RBI sacrifice fly in his first career at-bat.

Starting pitcher and Preseason All-Big East senior lefthander Matt Hollenbeck threw four innings, giving up three earned and one unearned run, five hits, two walks and one hit batter, while striking out one.

Hollenbeck did a good job of throwing strikes, but felt that he “did it a little too much in advantage counts.” Head Coach Pete Wilk said that his starter was “a little bit up and down,” but added that “[Hollenbeck] competed and made pitches when he absolutely had to.” The sophomore right-hander Simon Mathews relieved him and contributed four innings while giving up two earned, five hits, zero walks, and striking out two in the losing effort for the Hoyas.

In the second game of the day, despite suffering a 3-0 defeat, the Hoyas got a strong effort from the 2014 team pitcher of the year, junior right-hand-pitcher Matt Smith. The 6’3, 215 pounder from Pennsylvania didn’t show any rust as he hurled a solid seven scoreless innings of three-hit ball, surrendering only one walk while sitting down an impressive seven batters. Coach Wilk commented, “For his first outing, I thought he was outstanding.”

In a scoreless game, junior right-hander Tim Davis threw a scoreless frame in the 8th, but gave up three runs in the 9th.

Georgetown was able to record five hits, including two doubles from sophomore infielder Jake Kuzbel, but still fell short 3-0.

Smith was not upset with personally not being able to get credit for a win despite a strong outing saying, “The ultimate goal is to make the tournament as a team, and to give 150% and perform not necessarily for myself, but for the team.”

In the Hoyas’ last game in North Carolina, they finally broke through with an 8-5 triumph over the Bison of Bucknell. After being held scoreless through the first three innings, junior catcher and designated hitter Nick Collins, strode up to the plate. Collins said he, “was just trying to get a pitch to hit and start [the Hoya offense] off,” and that’s exactly what he did. Three batters later, Evan Ryan got Collins home, and then the floodgates opened.

The pivotal at-bats in the inning came from freshmen Austin Shirley and Chase Bushor, who each came through with two-out, tworun knocks.

“You truly never know what you’re going to get from freshmen until the lights are on and there’s somebody in the seats,

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Matt Smith and the hoyas will have some time off before they face Davidson.

and both of those guys really stepped up,” Coach Wilk said.

Senior infielder AC Carter drove in the final two runs of the inning.

On the hill, freshman Kevin Superko made his first collegiate start. He threw five shutout innings, giving up only two hits and two walks to five strikeouts. Superko said he was “excited, maybe a little too excited in the first inning,” but added he was able to “calm down thanks to catcher, Eric

Joe o’s Pollicin

Webber and the middle infielders Ryan Busch and Chase Bushor.” Red shirt freshman Vince Leoni, junior Tim Davis, and sophomore David Ellingson all combined to go the rest of the way and preserve the Superko’s first career win in an 8-5 victory over Bucknell.

D.C.’s first major snowfall prevented the Hoyas’ from playing their home opener on Wednesday afternoon against crosstown rival George Washington (1-1, 0-0 Atlantic 10).

The teams rescheduled the contest for March 4. This weekend’s game scheduled against Fairfield were cancelled as well.

Looking ahead, the Hoyas now turn their attention to a three-game set at Davidson (0-0, Atlantic 10 from Feb. 27Mar.1. It’s another chance for them to get Coach Wilk his 300th career win.

“He’s always had our backs,” Hollenbeck said. “We’re looking forward to getting him 300.”

SPORTS SERMON---

“I tried to tell them. They wouldn’t listen”-Duke freshman center Jahlil Okafor on insisting to his teammates that mermaids are real.

LeBron James participating in the dunk contest. Georgetown basketball playing Maryland or George Washington.

Floyd Mayweather fighting Manny Pacquiao. In a parallel universe, all of these hypotheticals would have happened in a heartbeat. But they haven’t.

Why? Because in an age where athletes and teams are concerned with what occurs off the court almost as much as what occurs on the court, players can not afford to take risks that will damage their brand.

These hypotheticals all exemplify the current status quo in sports, where, rather than giving fans what they actually want to see, athletes and executives only do things that will build their respective brands.

What is a player’s brand, anyway? We hear our favorite athletes and teams invoke “their brands” all the time when speaking of whom they will play for or play against, the endorsements they will sign, or the off-the-field events that they will participate in. Simply put, it all boils down to making money. The more prestigious your brand, the more money making opportunities you will have. Thus, athletes and players will do whatever they can build their brand or prevent it from suffering any self-inflicted wounds that will damage it and lead to less future dollars flowing in.

As a result, the greatest basketball player of this generation, LeBron James, has never participated in the NBA Slam Dunk Contest. Why? Because James, despite being arguably the greatest dunker of all time, fears the slight possibility that he will lose. Failure means his brand suffers, which lessens his future earnings potential. It does not matter to James that

his participation in the contest will probably lead to the highest ratings ever for All-Star Saturday Night and that every basketball-playing teen will want to buy whatever sneakers he decides to wear that night. It does not matter that winning will only further add to his legacy, as he will join the likes of other all-time greats who won the contest such as Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. For James, all that matters to him is the possibility of failure.

Another example of this kind of brand-building is the Georgetown basketball program and its scheduling, or lack thereof, of notable local programs such as Maryland and George Washington. While egos and old grudges on both sides have primarily been the reason that has prevented both teams from playing one another, it certainly does not help the equation that either does not want to lose the other, as it will diminish their local standing. Although a matchup between both teams would lead to sell-outs at both teams’ respective buildings, the Xfinity Center and the Verizon Center, either one cannot afford the possibility of failing.

George Washington, on the other hand, has been clamoring for a matchup with the Hoyas for years only to find themselves stonewalled. It does not matter that only 1.5 miles separates both schools and that a prospective matchup would lead to increased fan interest throughout the D.C. area.

Georgetown would rather opt to play the Texas A&M-Corpus Christis and Western Carolinas of college basketball in a nearly empty Verizon Center because they do not want their brand suffering the possible

embarrassment of losing to the Colonials.

Although recent developments point towards an upcoming May fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquaio, it should not have taken this long for two of the greatest pound-for-pound boxers of all time to meet in the ring. But the undefeated Mayweather seemed hesitant to put his unbeaten status at risk against a challenging opponent. It did not register to Mayweather that a potential fight between him and Pacquiao would lead to record pay-per-view buys and that he would stand to make more than $100 million dollars from the bout. It did not register that even those who have not watched a boxing match in their life, such as myself, would all be glued to the television for this intriguing matchup. Mayweather could not take the chance that his brand would suffer.

I understand that teams want to put themselves in favorable positions that allow them to succeed both in terms of wins and losses on the field, and financially off the field.

They will do whatever they can to maintain or increase their brand’s status. But since when did sports become an endeavor that rewards those that play passively, rather than those that take on the role of the aggressor? Athletes and teams need to realize that doing what’s best for the fans, instead of themselves, will actually work best for their brands and their bottom-lines. But doing that requires taking some risks— ultimately, fans need to start calling their favorite athletes and teams out to the point that their brands will suffer due to inaction. Only then, will athlets and teams start to act.

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the georgetown voice | 7

Men’s hoops blows by Red Storm CHRIS CASTANO Freshman guard Isaac Copeland defied his years once again to help the Georgetown men’s basketball team (17-8, 9-5 Big East) put together another strong conference win, this time against St. John’s (17-9, 6-7 Big East).

The Hoyas calmed the Red Storm 79-57 in a game that should have been closer than it was.

Georgetown head coach John Thompson III opted for an unconventional lineup against the Johnnies, entrusting Copeland with just the third start of his career on the Hilltop. The Raleigh native repaid his coach’s faith with 12 points, but contributed most under the Hoyas’ own basket, where he collected a career-high nine rebounds.

“Some people happen to just get the ones that fall to them,” said Thompson of the freshman’s rebounding. “[Copeland] goes upstairs to get them and he gets the ones out of his area. That energizes our team and it energizes him, but he got some big, big rebounds today.”

The highly rated freshman recognized the importance of one of his more understated contributions, not only for the record books but also for the Hoyas’ team dynamic.

“I think once I started getting some rebounds it opened the door for everybody else to crash the boards,” said Copeland. “We’re a pretty athletic team too. Nobody really talked about our offensive rebounds, but I think we’re starting to make a statement now.”

Georgetown’s game was deceptively balanced. Senior center Josh-

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E-Volution: gamers becoming athletes

Six hoyas scored in double-figures in the Hoyas’ win against st. john’s. ua Smith, senior forward Mikael Hopkins, freshman forward L.J. Peak, and junior guard D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera each had 12 points each, but the majority of the Blue and Gray’s offensive production came in the second half as they shot 68.2 percent from the floor and 70.0 percent from outside the arc.

“In the first half we were also getting open shots, they just weren’t going in,” Thompson said. “The shots that we missed in the first half we were fortunate to make in the second half.”

The Hoyas also benefited from a misfiring St. John’s team. Leading scorer D’Angelo Harrison scored a measly five points, all of which came from free-throws. Chris Obekpa, touted as one of the top shot blockers in the nation, had a torrid evening dealing with Smith in the paint. In fact, the last points the Red Storm scored in the first half came when senior center Joey De La Rosa scored a reverse layup with 8:43 left. The Hoyas then went on a scoring streak that saw them take a 33-23 lead into the break.

freddy rosas

The Red Storm never came within 10 points of their Big East rivals during the second half. The game finished with the Hoyas boasting a 22-point advantage over their opponents. Before the game, analysts predicted Georgetown would walk away with a mere six-point victory. Despite their success, Thompson is keeping his head level.

“We’re better. We can’t get complacent. We are going to have some pretty hard practices here the next couple of days,” said Thompson. “I think that a lot of it is our players, it takes time, but I think they’re starting to take pride and understand that attention to detail is important. We still have to keep the focus that we’ve had lately and still keep trying to get better.”

That focus will shift now to DePaul (12-14, 6-7 Big East), who the Hoyas will host Saturday at the Verizon Center at 8 p.m. The last time the two teams met, Georgetown managed to pull out a 78 - 72 win at the Allstate Arena.

Women’s lacrosse drops opener JOE LAPOSATA The Georgetown women’s lacrosse team (0-1, 0-0 Big East) suffered a painful road loss to the University of Delaware Blue Hens (2-0, 0-0 CAA), falling 17-5 at Delaware Stadium on Saturday.

Last year, the Hoyas posted an 11-9 record and reached the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive year. This season, the team returns 22 letterwinners from that team, which also appeared in the Big East Tournament Championship Game.

The Hoyas were set back early after the Blue Hens scored a goal past sophomore goalkeeper Maddy Fisher in the first minute. The Blue Hens scored three more by her before the Hoyas could notch their first.

– twohandtouch –

At 22 minutes, senior midfielder Mollie Caputo put one in the back of the Delaware net to put the Hoyas on the board, 4-1. Goals by sophomore Colleen Lovett and junior Corinne Etchison helped close the game, but Delaware was able to put up five consecutive unanswered goals over a 9-minute span and the Blue and Grey was never able to catch up fully. Entering halftime, the Hoyas trailed the Hens 12-5.

The second half saw a stagnant Hoya offense score no goals over the full 30 minutes.

Junior Megan McDonald, who had come in as a replacement goaltender with five minutes left in the first half, let in five of 10 shots she faced, all in the second half. This left the final score of the game at an unimpressive 17-5.

Georgetown’s sloppy play was highlighted by the stat line: the Hoyas managed to recover just 10 turnovers from Delaware compared to the 19 they lost. This clearly translated into a 30-14 shot differential to favor Delaware. This was in stark contrast to last February’s contest between the two teams, which Georgetown won 19-11 to qualify for the NCAA tournament, where they would advance the quarterfinals.

The Hoyas will host an exhibition game on Multi-Sport Field against the Scottish National Team this Saturday at 3 p.m. This will be the last exhibition game of the season.

The next regular season game of the year will be on Feb. 28, when they host Princeton (00, 0-0 Ivy League) at MultiSport Field at 3 p.m.

In the world of sports, there have always been the fringe activities whose participants know that what they do is a sport while still trying to convince outsiders that this is the case. In the past, dancers, cheerleaders, and even track athletes have had to defend their positions as athletes to friends, family, and professional organizations.

It was not too long ago when the International Olympic Committee voted to remove wrestling from the games before facing a wave of backlash that forced them to reverse their decision. However, in a time where the world has become more and more digital, there is a new wave of competitors fighting to be recognized as athletes, and they compete almost entirely online.

The world of eSports really started before the turn of the century, but it has seen nearly exponential growth in the past decade as the rise of online game has taken the world’s teenagers by storm. In 2010, approximately $5 million was paid out to winners of eSports tournaments worldwide—that number skyrocketed to over $30 million in 2014. In March of 2014, a single tournament for the computer game Defense of the Ancients 2 featured a prize pool of over $6 million. In late 2013, the League of Legends Championship sold out the Staples Center, home of the Lakers and Clippers, in about an hour. Besides the 15,000 in the arena, approximately 32 million fans watched live streams of the tournament. Compare this to around 15.5 million fans who watched the 2014 NBA Finals and you’ll begin to understand that eSports is no joke.

Nearly all of the eSports viewership comes via some form of internet live streaming. This is similar to the system that the NCAA has been perfecting that allows fans of March Madness to watch any game from any mobile device with internet access, and it is an extremely successful system. The most popular streaming service, Twitch.tv, was the subject of an intense bidding war over the summer between tech giants Google and Amazon which the latter won, acquiring Twitch for around $1 billion. The main drive behind Twitch is the personalities behind these professional gamers, who often draw well over 10,000 viewers to their long-lasting streams and, consequently, attract large amounts of advertising revenue. Picture being able to watch and chat with some of the best and most likable pro athletes like Rob Gronkowski or Chris Bosh as they practice with their team each day; that is the best explanation of why

so many fans tune in to watch others play games.

All these numbers may still leave many unconvinced, but that has not stopped the rapid growth of eSports across the globe. Several governments have begun to grant work visas to professional gamers to allow them to move to areas where the competition is fiercest.

Similarly, some American universities, like Roger Morris University in Chicago, are beginning to grant athletic scholarships to eSports players.

Meanwhile, Major League Gaming, a company that hosts its own eSports leagues and tournaments, and has a popular streaming service similar to that of Twitch, recently announced their plans to build a dedicated arena for tournaments in China. Last spring, Call of Duty became the first eSport featured in the Summer X Games when eight of the games’ top teams competed for gold medals alongside skateboarders and BMX riders. Only a few weeks ago the PC shooter Counter Strike: Global Offensive followed Call of Duty and was featured in the Winter X Games. As for individual standouts, former MLG employee Ryan Wyatt—now the Global Head of Gaming Partnerships at Google—and professional Call of Duty player Matthew Haag were both named to Forbes’ 30 under 30 to watch in 2015.

Despite all the recent breakthroughs made in the realm of eSports, it’s hard to consider them equivalent to something like baseball or football, at least in the West.

In Asia, eSports are essentially equivalent to conventional sports.

The biggest StarCraft and DOTA players in Asia see the popularity that Tom Brady or Sidney Crosby see in the U.S. In 2004, well before the exponential rise of eSports in America, over 100,000 gathered at Gwangalli Beach for the final of the StarCraft pro league. Essentially, eSports are the opposite of many products in the world: they have a huge following in Asia and an emerging market with room to grow in America and Europe.

Thus, while many conventional American sports are busy marginalizing their influence, the eSports communities are beating conventional sports in the race to provide younger generations with On Demand content from any internet connected device.

While the debate over if eSports are actually sports continues to rage, I don’t really think professional gamers should care; the popularity and legitimacy is there even if the title isn’t.

8 | the georgetown voice

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February 19, 2015

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serve important religious texts that were being destroyed in Europe and asked for key books to be sent to the colonies. Tucked away within the depths of the university, these pieces of history live on.

Also in Lauinger Library, the Booth Family Center for Special Collections is the largest collection of historical items on campus. Divided into four groups, manuscripts, art, archives, and rare books, Special Collections contains over 100,000 rare books, 500 paintings, 15,000 prints, and 800 catalogued collections of manuscripts, including the original handwritten manuscript of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, according to university librarian Artemis Kirk.

Despite the availability of this collection of original artifacts to the public, however, the reality is that the majority of students on campus don’t even know such archives exist. In fact, the archives are not widely publicized.

Hooper accredits the lack of visitors and publicity to inadequate or nonexistent cataloguing, lack of courses and faculty who are trained to take advantage of the materials, and the “curious” preference of researchers to access an online copy of a text rather than the physical copy.

“With Google and others doing so much scanning, most rather good collectors find that there is a market mostly for their most unique items,” Hooper said.

“And there is then pressure to digitize those unique items, which then removes the need for scholars to visit the originals.”

Library directors found three years ago that demand for hard copies had decreased sharply, and, as a result, they began the process of digitizing many of the university’s rarest texts. Nonetheless, curators recognize that while books can be transformed into an online format, the sensuous experience of some exhibits on campus is something that cannot necessarily be replicated.

In order to improve public and student access to Georgetown’s tremendous collection, Special Collections, directed by John Buchtel, is receiving a major upgrade. Currently, the Special Collections department on the fifth floor of Lau is being renovated, with a grand opening ceremony scheduled for March 23 of this year.

With plans to build a bigger entrance, as well as public waiting and reading spaces, Buchtel hopes that

the department will become not only more visible but also more comfortable for visitors. The most important change that the new space will bring, he believes, is better storage for the collection. The new storage space will not only be larger but will also have hightech climate control capabilities, which will help preserve sensitive materials.

“We recognized for a long time that we were outgrowing our space, and that this [Lauinger] is an aging building, so we realized that we needed to refurbish our environmental controls especially,” Buchtel said.

“But also, in 1970, when Lauinger was built, nobody really thought of Special Collections as something that you routinely include in a Georgetown student’s education.”

To that end, the new department will contain a classroom which Buchtel hopes will serve as a way for more courses to engage students directly with historical documents, something that Special Collections has been pushing for over the past several years. “[We] call up the faculty [and] tell them ‘I see that you’re teaching a course on the French Revolution.

Would you like to show your students pamphlets and documents from the 1790s?’” Buchtel said. “And that way we can give students a tangible experience of history.”

Buchtel, whose desk chair in a temporary office on the first floor of Lauinger rests comfortably amid piles of documents and a sea of book-covered carts, pointed out just three of his favorite special items that he thinks deserve greater public attention. All three, adorned with ornate patterning on their bindings, lacked the simplicity of cover titles or even minor descriptions that would give away their identities or the identities of those who once carried them.

Folding the first book open as carefully as he could, Buchtel revealed a 1482 print edition of Euclid’s Elements in Latin, produced just 43 years after the invention of the printing press and complete with elaborate drawings and diagrams of the foundational theorems of geometry. In addition to historical texts, Georgetown houses a number of scientific works as well. In the Woodstock Theological Library, for instance, there rests a second edition copy of Copernicus’s “On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres” from the mid 16th century, as well as some original prints by Galileo.

the georgetown voice | 9

Shalina Chatlani and Joshua Raftis

Hidden in Plain Sight: Accessing the university’s artifacts “Ignatius of Loyola started out as a soldier, you know.” Father Leon Hooper, S.J., caretaker of the Woodstock Theological Library, located in the rarely-visited lower level of Lauinger Library, recounts the story with a beaming smile. “Well, one day he got hit by a cannonball!”

During his bed-ridden recovery, St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, experienced a radical rejuvenation of his faith and developed his Spiritual Exercises, his discernments of the spiritual world and a foundational work of Jesuit faith.

Perhaps as fascinating as St. Ignatius’s metanoia itself is the fact that within the Woodstock Theological Library, one of several impressive and clandestine archives at Georgetown, there survives a 1540 first edition of the Spiritual Exercises, worth over $1 million and safely locked up in a temperature-controlled room.

Indeed, visitors, who could easily become overwhelmed by the ubiquitous sight and smell of old, leather-bound books on all sides of the one-level library, are granted access to a tangible timeline of about 17,500 historical and religious texts from the 13th through the 19th century, all of which detail the stages of the university’s spiritual and physical conception.

“One of the oldest things we have [is from] the 1200s,” Hooper said, delicately holding the fragile text. “They didn’t have the printing press or paper developed, so animal hide is what it’s all hand written on. It’s a holy office, what the faithful would sing, maybe five, six times a day. As you can see, it has been used a lot, the fingerprints are everywhere.”

Georgetown, the oldest Catholic university in the country, provides a home for hundreds of thousands of texts, pieces of art, and artifacts dating from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the Jesuit religious order through the founding of Washington, D.C. to modern day. While the stone, neo-Gothic style buildings may seem like the only visible remnants of the past left on campus, several inconspicuous havens throughout the university shelter objects far older than Healy and White Gravenor Halls.

According to Hooper, during the 18th century when Jesuits were suppressed for, among other things, denouncing the immorality of slavery, Jesuit priests who had settled in Maryland worked to pre-

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By: Shalina Chatlani and Ryan Greene Moving on to his second favorite set of the works, Buchtel unveiled a collection of the writings of the stoic philosopher Epictetus, translated to English and printed in London in 1804, interleaved with a 1670 print of the same work in Latin. The owner of the book was clearly a scholar and wanted to read the text very closely, Buchtel said.

The director then revealed the book’s subtle secret: Thomas Jefferson personally owned it. Books of the day were printed in sets of eight sheets, with each set categorized by a letter, A through to Z. The owner of the book had written a T next to the set labelled I, and, likewise, an I next to the set labelled T. Buchtel explained that during the early 19th century I and J were the same letter in the English language, so the mysterious marking “TI” was actually Jefferson’s quirky way of initialing his books with a sort of hidden signature.

Hooper, who has also worked extensively with dense historical texts for years, puts the experience of holding such a priceless artifact into context.

“Just the weight of the volumes is enough,” he said.

“It’ll definitely convince you that someone has been doing quite a bit of thinking!”

The final book Buchtel demonstrated was a 1574 edition of the Roman Missal, the Roman Catholic liturgical book for the celebration of Mass, complete with high quality illustrations. While impressive in its own right, the 450 year old book was personally owned by none other than Archbishop John Carroll, Georgetown’s founder.

“To think,” Butchel remarked, “a young John Carroll was walking around the Maryland colony holding onto this Missal.”

Many of Carroll’s other personal possessions are kept in university President John DeGioia’s office.

Of particular note is a portrait of Carroll painted by famous American portraitist Gilbert Stuart. Hanging on the wall near the center of DeGioia’s conference room, Carroll’s portrait commands attention while still capturing his piety.

Clifford Chieffo, professor emeritus and former university curator, said that the portrait, given Stuart’s reputation for artistical accuracy, is one of the artist’s greatest works and depicts what Carroll genuinely looked like—“a man like any other,” as Chieffo put it. Other personal effects, such as the crucifix Car-

roll used throughout his life and held on his deathbed, are kept securely in the office.

Carroll’s writings have generated some of Georgetown’s oldest myths, Chieffo said. During the War of 1812, for example, when much of D.C. was burned to the ground by the British army, Carroll exchanged letters with then-university President John Grassi, informing him that the U.S. Congress could meet in Georgetown’s Old North, if need be. While Congress did not take Carroll up on the offer, Georgetown’s archives still have the original letters.

Other documents are unique for their depiction not of extraordinary or famous chapters and characters in Georgetown’s history, but rather ones which bear a striking resemblance to the realities of today.

For instance, the university archives contain a handwritten poem from 1867 decrying the quality of food on campus.

“Come rally round the flag boys And strike for better grub We’ve stood it long enough boys But now we’ll make the rub.”

Some of the texts provided insight into Georgetown’s history of student activism, showing how many early Georgetown protests were far more intense than today’s social media student movement.

University archivist Ann Galloway presented decrees written by the student body following the “student rebellion” of 1833. When a student was expelled for public drunkenness during a class trip to the Capitol, student protests turned to violence and resulted in full-blown fistfights with Jesuit priests, according to Galloway.

Of course, not all of the university’s noteworthy historical items reside in Lauinger. Many religious items remain in use and on full display in Dahlgren Chapel. A large, iron cross, brought over to the Maryland colony by the first Jesuits, rests on the wall directly across from the sacristy, which contains the consecrated Eucharist. The cross was used during the first legal celebration of Mass in Maryland and has been with the Jesuit community ever since, Vice President for Mission and Ministry Father Kevin O’Brien, S.J., said.

Even more fascinating is that underneath Dahlgren chapel rest the final remains of Elizabeth and John Dahlgren, who are buried in a family crypt

around the resting place of their infant son Joseph.

The Dahlgrens’ donation, made in memory of their son, created the chapel, the first alumni-funded building on campus, O’Brien said.

Far from being a stereotypical tomb, Dahlgren Crypt is a beautiful sanctuary, with light streaming in from windows built into the very walls that surround the three graves. Carpeting and modest furniture give the tomb a comfortable feeling, but the air is tangibly electrifying.

The Crypt, where all three graves rest nearly directly underneath the altar, is one of the holiest places in all of Georgetown, explained O’Brien. Among the many spiritually fundamental aspects of the resting place is an etching of Mark 10:14 on Joseph’s tombstone, which reads “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not. For such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Father Hooper acknowledges how coveted of a collection Georgetown has, and ensures that the university would never give any of the books up to another institution.

“It belongs to the Jesuit provinces,” he said, “and of course, it’s also our patrimony!”

He, just as the other archive curators and directors on campus, affirms that the past is, in many ways, still alive, if one only knows where to look for it.

Top from left: the Holy Offices on animal hide (13 c), Dahlgren family graves within the Crypt, illuminated manuscript, iron cross brought with Jesuits on the Ark and Dove to the Maryland colonies (17 c), one of a complete set of polyglot Bibles (16-17 c), entrance to Dahlgren Family Crypt, Torah (19 c), Woodstock Theological Library, Qur’an (17 c).

Bottom from left: entrance to the Dahlgren Family Crypt, original edition of St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises (16 c), cover of John Carroll’s personal Bible (18 c), letters of correspondence between John Carroll and George Washington (18 c), stained glass of Dahlgren Chapel (19 c), artwork in a polyglot Bible, portrait of John Carroll painted by Gilbert Stuart (19 c), Father Hooper showing a polyglot Bible.

Cover: John Carroll’s crucifix, held on his deathbed.

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10 | the georgetown voice

February 19, 2015

American Masterworks presents a flawed, yet beautiful America KIERAN MCLEAN An expensively dressed woman gazes sternly through a portrait at a naked Greek sex slave statute in the center of the room. A black man being chained into slavery on one wall looks out at four white men pleasure cruising on another.

The juxtaposition is nothing short of breathtaking.

These are just a few of the dialogues created in the National Gallery’s newest exhibit American Masterworks from the Corcoran 1815-1940. Containing its first Remington cast, “Off the Range (Coming Through the Rye),” its second-ever Edward Hopper painting, “Ground Swell,” and Frederic Edwin Church’s iconic “Niagara” (1857) the exhibit functions both as a trophy room and a controlled detonation of ideas.

The exhibit ranges over the foundations of American art all the way to the edge of postmodernism. Entering, the viewer is confronted with a rose colored vista of the ruined Parthenon, Samuel Robinson Gifford’s “Ruins of the Parthenon.”

To its left lies an impressionist blur of a French valley with Theodore Robinson’s “The Valley of the Seine, from the Hills

and Albert Bierstadt’s Mount Corcoran” and “Last of the Buffalo” all display the North American wilderness in its most picturesque majesty. All three works, from members of the Hudson River School, are enourmous—each larger than a person, and luminous in detail.

National gallery

“WE’re going to Need a bigger beach!”

Opening with Gifford’s “Parthenon” and Robinson’s “Valley” forces the viewer to enter the gallery through the birth of American art—frozen mid-transition from a European framework into its own movement.

Out of ControL A bi-weekly column about gaming by Christopher Castano

Like any self respecting Legend of Zelda fan, my gullet spewed rainbows when Nintendo released Hyrule Historia, their compendium of all things Triforce. And like the rest of my quasi-Kokiri brethren and sistren, when I got my hands on a copy, I immediately flipped to the highly-touted series timeline. Nintendo had finally organized all the Zelda titles into what they claimed was a coherent chronology of each and every epic adventure. However, instead of a linear progression, my brain was scrambled by a timeline that split into three separate branches after just four of the series’ then-15 titles.

For those who haven’t seen it, the timeline progresses in a linear fashion up until it reaches The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina

Just a few steps around Gifford’s “Parthenon,” a brutal gender dialogue awaits next door. A portrait of a wealthy, displeased looking woman gazes down on the centered statue of a naked woman in Hiram Powers’ “The Greek Slave, 1846” positioned as a sex slave. Although the

of Giverny, 1892.” The selection highlights the foundations of the first uniquely American art movement. Lacking the historical legacies of mid-19th century European nations, Americans designated their untouched wilderness as the center of their national identity.

of Time. The alternate timelines within the series main timeline have been created thanks to series hero Link’s time traveling capabilities.

To be honest, this was a letdown. While Zelda fans finally had the answers we’d been seeking in terms of the series’ continuity, they came in the form of a jumbled mess. But I guess we should’ve expected as much considering Nintendo’s strength has never been in creating an expansive gaming universes (á la The Elder Scrolls). So if that’s the case, why even try to assign order to the chaos?

The answer lies in the early stages of development of the first installment of the series. When series creator Shigeru Miyamoto and company were creating the concept of Legend of Zelda, their

curator’s intention of placing these two pieces together is unclear, the sight of the two pieces in conversation with each other, though, is striking.

In the next room, the three keystones of the collection— Frederic Church’s “Ni/agara,”

In Mount Corcoran, Bierstadt creates a vista that spans from the bottom of Mount Corcoran to an open sky that dominates half the portrait, projecting the viewer into a sense of limitless space and cultivating the sense of manifest destiny these landscapes embodied.

It’s dangerous to travel alone through an uncontinous story original idea for the game was to create an adventure where a hero travelled back and forth between the past and future (hence the name “Link”). The idea evolved over time into the tried-and-true formula we know and love today, but the idea of time travel never really left the series. And honestly, trying to create a timeline for the Legend of Zelda really only served to confuse a concept that didn’t require a universe or timeline in the first place.

Nintendo is the true king of innovation. Games like Super Mario Galaxy or Pokémon Gold/ Silver are perfect examples of games that hold true to their roots, but push the boundaries of what’s acceptable within the universe. However, Nintendo’s innovation comes at the price of continuity. Trying to connect a Zelda game where characters

travel via bird with a Zelda game where characters travel by train is difficult. Trying to connect a Mario game where he’s on an Island shooting sludge with a souped-up water gun and a game where he’s laced up his cleats and is playing a full-contact version of soccer with his friend is difficult. At least, in the case of Zelda, the series creators can default to time travel, because there aren’t a lot of other mechanisms they could’ve relied on to justify such huge jumps in narrative.

Some Nintendo franchises lend themselves to a timeline better than others. For instance, Metroid and Star Fox (minus a few forgettable titles) have escaped the sort of haphazard game design to which their peers were subjected. Here, the timelines make sense. But for other series, which involve characters like

The room invokes a visual of 19th century ideology and the power and potential of a working democracy mirrored by the stunning natural beauty of the American continent.

The back of the exhibit brings viewers face to face with the race relations rendered invisible in Church and Bierstadt’s landscapes. Aaron Douglas’s “Into Bondage” from 1936 depicts a man being chained into slavery directly opposite the wealthy boaters of Edward Hopper’s “Ground Swell” from 1939—highlighting the direct exploitative relationship between the blacks who built the country and the whites who enjoyed it.

American Masterworks from the Corcoran is the curator’s equivalent of being gifted a fortune in a distant relative’s will. The exhibit’s arrangement both highlights some of the Corcoran Gallery’s finest American art and presents it in fresh and engaging dialogues. It is sure to become a necessary visit for nature lovers and American history buffs alike.

National Gallery of Art 6th & Constitution Ave N.W. Feb. 7 to May 3 10 a.m to 5 p.m.

Mario or Kirby, there’s no point in trying to establish continuity where it doesn’t exist.

Don’t think people have tried to put Mario games in order? Oh sweet summer child. Since the dawn of the internet, forum denizens and bloggers alike have been attempting to arrange the (mis)adventures of everyone’s favorite Italian plumber.

Let me be the first to tell you they’re some of the most convoluted catalogues I’ve ever laid eyes on. After Zelda, the possibility of Nintendo releasing an official Mario timeline is a little more plausible. But it’d just be silly, and is honestly better left to the online enthusiasts.

In the end, does the inclusion of a canon timeline in Hyrule Historia really hurt the series all that much?

Not in the slightest. But does it make anyone even slightly familiar with the games cock their head and scratch their skull a bit?

You betcha.

Play a tune on Chris’s ocarina at cdc67@georgetown.edu

the georgetown voice | 11

“That didn’t pan out.” — True Grit

georgetownvoice.com

The Duff is not ugly or fat King Hedley II claims its rightful throne EMILIA BRAHM CAITRIONA PAGNI

The Duff, directed by Ari Sandel and based on the novel

by Kody Keplinger, will bring you back to familiar moments of invisibility (and worse, unasked for visibility). The film stars Mae Whitman as Bianca Piper, the “DUFF”—designated ugly fat friend—who is cyber-bullied by the popular girl (played by a wicked sharp Bella Thorne) when she is seen with the popular guy, Wesley, played

by Robbie Amell, a social role deemed too big for her average appearance.

Although The Duff’s drab-to glam, stick-it-to-the-popular-kids plot has been well-rehearsed by essentially every high school drama in the history of cinema, Sandel still manages to traverse uncharted territory in the film’s clever and biting commentary on the quirks of American youth culture in the 21st century. At the beginning of the film, Bianca likes eating pizza while watching horror movies and wearing unflattering sports bras. Bianca is not ugly or fat, like the term duff demands—it’s just that she isn’t long and slim à la Hepburn.

Her arms and thighs have flab—and you see it shake on screen! But no matter how many times we repeat that she is so beautiful in her own way, in the eyes of her classmates, Bianca Piper is a DUFF, and people pay her less attention because she doesn’t look or carry herself as strikingly beautiful or sexy, not even in an alternative, gothchic, Kat Dennings kind of way.

Whitman’s performance is both endearing and powerful, perfectly depicting the cringe-worthy strife of an awkward teenaged girl trying to find love while still maintaining a modern feminist sensibilities. Bianca is foul-mouthed and does not shy away from the

DUFF: Dirty underwear feels funny

idea of sexuality, on several occasions passionately disclosing her sexual fantasies featuring her various crushes. Essentially, the character of Bianca gives the bird to traditional notions of a well-mannered, lady-like, chaste female protagonist.

Despite the fact that the movie largely revolves around Bianca’s love interests as well as her quest for physical transformation, thankfully, she refrains from pulling a Sandra Dee and never loses sight of her self in the process. Her desire for transformation remains independent of the desires others have of her.

In this way, The Duff is wonderfully different from that other caterpillar-to-butterfly classic, Mean Girls, where the protagonist Cady Heron is slim, big-breasted, tall, made-up, and transforms into a goddess just by wearing a pink miniskirt instead of earth tones.

The DUFF can’t measure up to the rapid-fire complex humor of Mean Girls, but it focuses directly and entertainingly on how American society’s typical body-positive narrative pretends that “standards of American beauty” don’t matter when, in fact, physical appearances remain influential in determining an individual’s self image and social role.

Throughout the film, Bianca doesn’t stop depending on people’s opinions of her. She ultimately finds confidence—a confidence that is based in a recapturing of her own look and an ownership of her appearance—in other people paying attention to her.

Sandel illustrates wonderfully and kindly that this day comes only when we find a way to present ourselves to the world that rings true. In their very different ways, Bianca’s personal journey can remind us of this. The Duff is an important movie and pretty cute, too. It must have a lot of self-confidence.

IMDB

GRAHAM PIRO

The presentation of August Wilson’s King Hedley II at the Arena Stage is, much like the play itself, daring. Hedley takes place on one stage with no props—save for the occasional chair, drink, or gun.

Many playwrights shy away from the intimidating task of crafting a story that eschews typical scene changes or pyrotechnics. Wilson’s ambitious script is brought to life by a talented cast, and Hedley triumphs because of it.

Set in 1985, King Hedley II’s story is nothing unique: the eponymous King returns home from time in a penitentiary and tries to get his life back on track. The progression of the story is almost non-existent because Wilson chooses to focus on the characters more than any sort of plot. The play is character-driven; audience members hoping for an engrossing story will be sorely disappointed.

There is little to no background given at the beginning of the play, which leaves the uninformed viewer at a loss as to the plot for much of the first half. Even if the connection

isn’t made, the natural charisma of the actors draw in audience members confused by the story.

The play’s limited scope allows the audience to connect with what happens on stage, as the all-black cast shines. Bowman Wright, who portrays the play’s protagonist, is especially noteworthy. His performance perfectly mixes the desperation and bitterness that encapsulates his character. Wright’s use of volume is particularly effective, highlighted by a brutal and loud monologue, that concerns the struggles the King faced prior to and during his time in jail. Wright knows exactly when to rein his performance in, and his natural intensity provides the play with an emotional core.

Accompanying Bowman is Kenyatta Rogers, who plays the cocksure Mister, a close friend of King Hedley. Mister is an interesting foil to King; brash, arrogant, and extremely loose with his money, Mister lacks King’s weariness, and is a valuable source of comic relief. Veteran André de Shields, meanwhile, steals every scene he’s in as the proselytizing preacher Stool Pigeon, whose ridiculous prophecies about

the wrath of God and the end of the world repeatedly drew major laughs from the audience.

The comic relief is much-needed early in the play in order to prevent the extremely depressing themes of the story from overwhelming the audience. Wilson does not flinch from depicting the struggles of blacks in 1980s America, and many of the comments he makes about discrimination and stereotyping ring frighteningly true today. In this way, the performance is well-timed.

Watching the play is an ambitious undertaking, as it clocks in at a hefty three hours. But the script manages to make every moment count, and the character dynamics convey the messages that Wilson is trying to send about racism, both past and present. Ultimately, King Hedley II is frightening and provokes both laughter and thought. The power of this production is a testament to expert writing and incredibly talented actors, which will leave the audience shaken to its core.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center Feb. 6th - Mar. 8 arenastage.org

AdMo’s latest Asian joint is full of BUL JACKSON SINNENBERG BUL, Korean for “fire,” is the most recent in a series of trendy— read: caters to yuppies—Asian restaurants to open in the heart of Adams Morgan. Like other joints along this row, BUL falls into the unfortunate restaurant trap of high prices for too little food. Even the most conscious consumer could end up paying an arm and a leg for what even a fitness junkie wouldn’t consider a satisfying meal.

BUL seems to favor style over substance, keeping with the trends as opposed to trying to be original. Like many other restaurants in the area, there are few things in terms of BUL’s atmosphere that make it stand out. Its furniture is your basic, modern, one-step-upfrom-IKEA curvaceous table and chair design. The only items that contained traces of authentic Korean culture were Sake bottles arranged above the main bar and a TV streaming Korean dramas.

Fortunately, BUL offers some traditional Korean dishes, albeit with little new or interesting takes to offer. The seaweed salad was nothing special—it tastes the same

wherever you get it. The potato shrimp, meanwhile, was bland and oily. For main courses, referred to as ‘Big Anjus’, you have to choose carefully—price seems to be inversely proportional to the amount of food provided.

I ordered the Pork Belly Ssam, a hot skillet of pork belly served with sticky rice. While the pork belly was undeniably crisp and tender, the $20 price tag for so little was not worth it. The Korean pork fried rice was delicious, especially with the fried egg on top, but BUL’s real winner was the Three Mushroom Bibimbap with Bulgogi. The Bulgogi, Korean marinated beef, was incredibly tender and juicy, soaked in the right amount of marinade, and perfectly complemented by the rice and veggies of the Bibimbap. With the Bulgogi and fried egg, the Bibimbap came out to be about the same price as my Ssam, though it contained about double the portion.

I capped my meal off with a Taiyaki, a duo of fish shaped, Korean soft-waffles filled with chocolate and served with a side of either chocolate or vanilla ice

cream. The waffle was a bit too hot when served, but ice cream complimented it well.

BUL also provided an eclectic selection of drinks to pair with their fare. All of BUL’s teas seemed passable. I tried the Genmaicha—it smelled of Nori and tasted like it too. There is also a seasonal array of Kombucha, a fermented tea drink to appeal to more adventurous diners. For our upperclassmen, there is also a large variety of Sake and import beer on the menu. I would recommend a selection within the Japanese culinary family with either the “Laughing Buddha” Sake or the Koshihikari Echigo rice lager for a different light beer experience.

BUL has the potential to present an above-average, charming dining experience, but not a very user-friendly one. At the end of the day, while BUL did not exactly set “fire” to my taste buds, it’s tasty Korean fare managed to give me a pleasant, warm feeling.

BUL 2341 18st St. N.W. Tues.-Sun. 5:30 p.m.- 10:30 p.m. buldc.com

leisure

12 | the georgetown voice

CRITICAL VOICES

José González, Claws, Mute

Vestiges

and

José González’s first release in seven years, Vestiges and Claws, shows that while he may not have been in the studio since the release of the first iPhone, he has not lost his touch.

This album isn’t a departure from González’s particular beaten path, yet it proves that the Swedish-born singer-songwriter didn’t need to change his sound to make a record worthy of merit.

Vestiges and Claws is a consistently great production. The album is

Imagine Dragons, Smoke + Mirrors, Interscope After the rapid, unexpected success of their first album, Night Visions, Imagine Dragons set expectations for a follow-up as demanding as the illustrious anthems which dominated their debut. Their highly anticipated sophomore release Smoke + Mirrors falls just short of expectations with its clearly overambitious recipe.

On this album, the group took advantage of its impres-

driven by González’s unique, slightly nasal voice that swings somewhere between Art Garfunkel and a post-Beatles John Lennon. Musically, the sparse melodies incorporate beautifully-delivered fingerpicking and subtle percussion that take a back seat to González’s guitar and vocals. He also spruces up his songs with a surprising use of instruments like flutes and bongos.

This album’s excellence is exemplified in “The Forest”, a quiet, relaxing track tucked in the middle of the album. González’s poetry comes to the forefront in lyrics such as “Landscapes blurred by rain / Mountains covered in snow / Why didn’t I see / The forest on fire behind the trees?”

The simple wilderness images conjured by the song take the listener to a man’s internal conflict, played out in a cold winter morning.

While the majority of the album’s tracks have vocals, González delivers a gorgeously rendered instrumental in “Vissel.” This song serves to high-

light González’s unique musicality, as he simultaneously picks a gorgeous guitar line and whistle, and enhance the quality of the album.

Like most albums, Vestiges and Claws has tracks it could have done without—“What Will” among them—but even the record’s low points aren’t that low, managing to provide compelling, if sometimes bland narratives.

Vestiges and Claws is only hampered by the fact that it is José González’s first album in seven years. He benefits, however, from the fact that he continues doing what he already does well: pleasant acoustics, cool rhythms, and a soothing voice. González has clearly come back from his seven-year studio absence with an enthralling passion for his craft.

sive knack for concocting electric mixtures of fervent beats and sweet, melancholic lyricism. Each track blends familiar sequences of clapping, synth, electric guitar, and steady drum with the commanding presence of its dark, introspective lyrics.

In the chorus of the opening track, “Shots,” lead singer Dan Reynolds chants, “I’m sorry for everything / Oh, everything I’ve done / From the second that I was born it seems I had a loaded gun / And then I shot, shot, shot a hole through everything I loved.”

As the album progresses, new layers of style, beat, and sound emerge and multiply.

At first, this is intriguing, but too quickly, it’s overwhelming.

By trying to explore different styles, the group fails to strike the successful balance of their eclectic powerhouse records “Radioactive” and “Demons.”

“Friction” is a good example of this musical exploration gone wrong. The song experiments with the combination of Eastern strum and Western dub, culminating in an undesirable clash of instrumentals and thrashing vocals. Similarly innovative tracks like “Dream” and “Summer,” however, manage to succeed because they allow Reynolds’ broad vocal range to shine as he shifts between pure falsettos and deeper tones, with a rugged intensity.

Building upon the triumph of their early success, Imagine Dragons’ Smoke + Mirrors clouds a recognizable technique with an excess of stylistic influences, reflecting endless images of unfulfilled potential.

Voice’s Choices: “The Forest,” “With the Ink of a Ghost” —Riiley mellen

Voice’s Choices: “I Bet My Life,” “Dream” —Dinah farrell

CONCERT CALENDAR FRIDAY 2/20 Randy Thompson Band Gypsy Sally’s, 7 p.m., $15

SATURDAY 2/21 The Soul Rebels The Hamilton, 8:30 p.m., $20

SUNDAY 2/22 Punch Brothers 9:30 Club, 7 p.m., $38

FRIDAY 2/20 Martha Reeves & The Vandellas The Howard Theatre, 8 p.m., $30

SATURDAY 2/21 Alvin Risk U St Music Hall, 10 p.m., $10

MONDAY 2/23 Ariel Pink 9:30 Club, 7 p.m., $20

Reel talk:

February 19, 2015

Rom-Coms are long gone

A bi-weekly column about film by Brian McMahon As I spent my Valentine’s Day devouring cookies and avoiding whatever it is Fifty Shades of Grey is offering, I got to thinking about the state of romantic comedies, as I do from time to time. Raised on the sappiness of gems like Love Actually and The Notebook, I find myself terrified by the dearth of successful romantic films in recent years.

Gone are the glory days of Sleepless in Seattle and Notting Hill, delightfully formulaic movies led by endlessly bankable stars. In their place, the past decade has brought us middling work from the likes of Katherine Heigl, Gerard Butler, and just about everyone else willing to foray into the field. Hollywood is simply running out of crowd-pleasing storylines, forced to regurgitate beloved tropes to the point of mediocrity.

This is not to say that this millennium has failed to produce winning films about relationships and their complexities. The films have simply matured and morphed, adding depth and new forms of adversity. This is displayed in films like Knocked Up, (500) Days of Summer, Silver Linings Playbook, Her, and Don Jon, which all center around relationships but contain much more nuance. Even the recent films that come closer to fitting the traditional rom-com mold—entries like About Time and Crazy, Stupid, Love—go beyond the leading stars to consider the impact of family and loss on one’s life and loves.

Perhaps we can trace these developments to the evolving priorities of Hollywood and its stars.

Titans of the rom-com world like Julia Roberts grew into increasingly serious and challenging roles.

Even younger stars like Reese Witherspoon and Matthew McConaughey matured quickly, ascending from the environs of Legally Blonde and Failure to Launch to consistent awards contention.

We are still waiting to see who will emerge as the next group of superstars with staying power, but for now that group looks capable of making names for themselves without coasting through shallow parts. Jennifer Lawrence may already be the most recognizable actress on the planet, and she has accomplished this not by playing soft, lovable characters but instead by doling out heavyweight performances seemingly at will.

In similar fashion, Shailene Woodley finds herself at Hollywood’s forefront before the age of 25. The Secret Life of the American Teenager may not have offered her a profound role, but like Lawrence she has already shown off award-worthy talent alongside George Clooney in The Descendants and significant profitability headlining the Divergent series. Even when these young superstars test the romantic genre, they avoid superficial throwaways, instead turning to projects like The Fault in Our Stars and Serena that allow for worthwhile artistic expression.

For budding and established male stars, our culture’s affinity for big-money blockbusters paves the way to stardom.

The Chrises—Pine, Evans, and Hemsworth—have all found their way into franchise films.

Who needs more of This Means War when you can simply wait for the next Star Trek or Avengers to roll around? Even Ansel Elgort, Woodley’s lover in The Fault in Our Stars, finds himself following her to Divergent and all of its crowd-pleasing moneymaking.

At this point, it seems unlikely that breezy love affairs will take over our cinemas any time soon.

Besides the fact that Marvel and DC plan to dominate our moviegoing lives for the foreseeable future, cinephiles continue to hone their self-awareness. Hatred and prejudice and bias endure in the news, and people want discussion and dialogue regarding these issues in their entertainment, making it difficult to swallow stories and films that show a lack of interest in social discourse. We have reached the point where vapid rom-com characters feel misguided and maybe even detrimental to the cause of ensuring equality throughout American life.

But thankfully if you still find yourself in need of a rom-com fix, plenty of classics have survived.

You can still watch Harry and Sally or Edward and Vivian. You can transport yourself back to the golden ages of predictable onscreen romance, when the stars were willing to play the parts, when we did not ask quite so much of our movies and our stars.

Have what Brian’s having at bem64@georgetown.edu

voices

14 | the georgetown voice

FEBRUARY 19, 2015

After Chapel Hill, forgetting the “American” in Muslim-American RAMEEN DHINDSA Imagine if a Muslim man killed three American students: the country would be in outrage, and he would immediately be labeled a terrorist. However, when white man kills three American students, he is simply labeled a frustrated neighbor who got a little carried away after a municipal argument.

On Feb. 10, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 46-year-old Craig Stephen Hicks murdered Deah Barakat, age 23, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, age 21, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, who was just 19. All three victims attended North Carolina State University in nearby Raleigh. Killed instantly with a bullet in each of their heads, the students’ deaths have been chalked up to a long-standing parking dispute between the victims and Hicks. The police have been exceedingly careful to avoid using the term “hate crime” when discussing the horrific deaths.

Deah, Yusor, and Razan were all born and raised in America.

Deah was in his second year at the UNC School of Dentistry, and his wife, Yusor, had also been accepted into the school for the upcoming fall semester. Her little sister, Razan, was a sophomore in NC State’s undergraduate program.

The media, in addition to the police, has had an undeniably muted response to the tragedy. Though mainstream outlets were quick pick on the possibility of a hate crime, there has rarely been any discussion about the anti-Muslim biases that clearly have a dominant presence in mainstream American media, and how that clearly affects the response from the American public about the event. Had the victims been of a background that embodies the stereotypical image of an American, the response from the media and the public would likely have been magnified. What the media has failed to recognize is that Americans—not Muslims in the far-off Middle East—have been killed.

The evidence is in the news headlines. The day after the shooting, Fox released an article with the headline “North Carolina man charged in the #ChapelHillShooting death of 3 Muslim students,” neglecting to mention that the students were American, born and bred. Although they were indeed Muslim, identifying them solely as Muslim makes it harder for readers who do not share the same background to sympathize with the situation. Fox also released another questionable headline the same day, stating, “Parking Dispute, Not Bias, Triggered Triple Murder, Say NC Police.” It’s impossible to rule out the possibility of the shooting being a hate crime within the first 24 hours; for Fox to claim so is downright irresponsible, and downplays the severity of the forces at play in this crime.

However, because the students do not “look” American, their lives do not seem to be as important as Joe Sixpack, with his blonde hair and blue eyes. Why are other Muslim-Americans and minority pop-

ulations the main individuals grieving the event? Why doesn’t America feel like it has lost three citizens?

This is an issue that resonates deeply with me. After 9/11, my family suffered from reprisal attacks carried out by ordinary American citizens. I have had and have had family members who have been brutally bullied, threatened, and even murdered because they didn’t look quintessentially American. Directly following 9/11, my cousin, who wore a patka, a traditional head covering, was constantly bullied, beaten up, and scrutinized by his classmates.

He remembers his patka being snatched off his head in anger nearly every day.

My family, like the victims at Chapel Hill, do not fit an image that evokes sympathy in the hearts of other Americans. When I am asked what country I feel most attached to, I instantly answer “America.” I grew up watching the same television shows, going to same sporting events, and facing the same issues as any other

American teenager. However, I, along with others who look like Deah, Yusor, and Razan, are not accepted as American. This, I think, could be largely due to the fact that Americans unfairly relate Muslims to the label “terrorist.”

Islamophobia is a real and relevant issue in this country. If it is not an issue, as some claim, Hicks’ actions would not need to be justified as an overreaction to something as unimportant as an argument over parking. He would be called a terrorist, because he endangered American lives. Further, if it was not a hate crime, why are the victims countlessly referred to as “Muslims” in the media? Why not just “Americans”? Why is their identity based solely off their religion? I just hope it doesn’t take any more American lives to change this conversation.

RAMEEN IS A SOPHOMORE IN THE College

Violence in Venezuela: Publicizing President Maduro’s crimes Marielena Octavio Violence is a normal and daily occurrence in Venezuela. It is common to wake up, get to school, and hear a story about someone you know getting mugged at gunpoint the night before. Statistically, someone gets shot and killed every 30 minutes in Venezuela. Kidnappings, muggings, violence—these are all part of our daily lives. It’s no longer shocking to hear these stories; in fact, most Venezuelans don’t even bat an eye at the violence surrounding them.

Recently, the Venezuelan government under President Nicolás Maduro approved a bill that le-

galizes the use of lethal violence against protesters. The bill is a response to the increasing number of protests denouncing high rates of inflation, lack of food and services, and rampant insecurity that are happening throughout the entire country. As the price of oil continues to drop, more protests asking for change are expected.

Now, for Venezuelans—a people so accustomed to violence—this bill is many steps too far.

This bill is not only a very obvious and clear violation of human rights, but it also legalizes the already-normalized violence and military repression so prevalent in Venezuela. It goes completely against the constitution,

MARIELENA OCTAVIO

GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH... LITERALLY. VENEZUELA IS IN DIRE STRAITS.

not to mention the famous words of the praised “liberator” of the people, Simón Bolívar: “Curse the soldier who aims his gun against his own people.”

The situation gets worse: a resolution passed this January states that the armed forces should go to “extremes” not to use force against pregnant women, boys, girls, adolescents, older people, people with special needs, or other “vulnerable” people. Despite the stipulation, force against these “vulnerable” people is not completely prohibited. And where is this line drawn? Unfortunately, it depends solely on the discretion of the president.

But wait, there’s more bad news. There is also no line drawn between what kind of protest the armed forces are allowed to employ lethal force against: Does this include peaceful protests? If a group of students are peacefully protesting for higher salaries for their professors, can they be legally massacred? I guess so.

Again, this line also depends on the discretion of the president, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that a protest supporting the government—even if it does get violent—will be exempt from the use of lethal force.

This is not where the problems end. The government often relies on paramilitary forces that are extremely violent and have

been known to attack opposition protesters in previous protests as well as intimidate voters on election days. These paramilitary forces now are legally allowed to carry out these violent and illegal acts, without any repercussions— not that there were any before the bill was passed.

These paramilitary forces are not even the only concern.

There is widespread corruption in the armed forces and the police which has unfortunately become a normal occurrence. Stories about victims attempting to report crimes, then getting to a police station and seeing their very own muggers or kidnappers in uniform, are extremely common.

Under the same protest law, this corruption is legalized. When a police officer or general of the armed forces commits one of these crimes, they’re not considered criminals under the law I could go on, because there are many more aspects of this law that make it even more outrageous. I am disgusted at my government and at this violation of human rights, which shows how little human rights matter to the government of Venezuela.

The government essentially created a “legal” instrument to keep using the same brutal force it has always used to repress protests— but only opposition protests, of course. Protests were essentially

the last tool left for the opposition, which I count myself a member of, to fight against the repressive dictatorship. Under Venezuelan law, most opposition leaders have already either been incarcerated or stripped of their powers. Elections are often rigged, and at this point I do not even think my vote counts at all. Protests were the last thing we had to demand change from this government, and now even that is gone, unless we are willing to put our lives on the line.

In fairness, we already do every time we leave the safety of our homes—but the risks we face are now legally protected by the government.

The most outrageous fact of all is how little attention and action from the international community this bill has had. There is nothing “disguised” about this dictatorship, and now with the price of oil plummeting, black gold cannot even guarantee its survival. Repression will. Unfortunately, the international community seems content to sit in silence and enjoy the massacre that will occur.

MARIELENA IS A SOPHOMORE IN THE SFS

voices

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THE GEORGETOWN VOICe | 15

GIA replies to last week’s GUSA campaign endorsement sanfu HARPER WEISSBURG Last week, rumors surfaced on Facebook and in campus media regarding a leadership statement presented to GUSA presidential and vice-presidential candidates by the Georgetown Israel Alliance (GIA), of which I am president. GIA collaborated with all GUSA candidates as well as other student leaders to draft this statement, which, if affirmed by a campaign, would serve as GIA’s criterion for an endorsement. However, these rumors, which went uncorrected by both GUSA campaigns and campus publications, mischaracterized GIA’s intention to secure a safe space for open dialogue on campus about the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS) and the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state. In writing this, I will address the rumors perpetuated by campaigns and reported on by publications alike in an effort to set the record straight.

Allegation: GIA unjustifiably politicized GUSA. This is patently false: GIA was driven to speak with GUSA because of greater circumstances at play. On an organizational level, GIA and J Street U, a “pro-Israel, pro-Palestine, and

pro-peace” student group that advocates for a two-state solution, are no longer able to broker dialogue directly with Georgetown’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) because of a recent “anti-normalization” policy adopted by the National SJP organization that prohibits members from engaging with student organizations that do not recognize Israel as an apartheid state, which it is not.

Thus, GIA felt the need to ask GUSA’s help to mediate future conversations because we no longer can. BDS is unfortunately a student government issue, and if it is brought to Georgetown, it will inevitability fall under GUSA’s responsibilities to address. Ten years ago, the BDS movement began on college campuses and was brought to student government where it was voted on by student representatives, and on those campuses, the movements often transitioned from being anti-Israel to anti-Semitic.

Consequently, although GIA agrees with Chris Wadibia and Meredith Cheney’s comment in The Hoya, “[that] GUSA isn’t the platform to express political views,” BDS is a student issue—not a political one.

Allegation: GIA “deceived, lied, or took advantage” of the campaigns to manipulate them into

CARRYING ON

affirming its leadership statement.

Once again, false: campaigns and campus publications alike have misrepresented the chronology of GIA’s conversations with GUSA candidates. GIA provided both the Voice and The Hoya time-stamped correspondence from the following tickets: Chris and Meredith, Tim and Reno, and Sara and Ryan, all of which evinced that the above campaigns affirmed our original statement in that order. When it comes the Abbey & Will, we were under the sincerest of impressions, following a face-to-face conversation with their campaign manager, that they were in fact the first to affirm our original statement. GIA therefore believed it had achieved fourfor-four agreement from the candidates—up until Feb. 8, we thought the Joe and Connor ticket was a satirical campaign. Once informed otherwise, we went to them straight away; they did not sign on to the original wording of the statement.

When rumors began to fly about campaigns pulling their support for GIA’s statement, no campaign verified the claims being made by speaking with GIA leadership—instead, they bought into them and retracted their support as a defensive political maneuver. Our theory is that the candidates that re-

GETTING REAL ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH

BY JULIA LLOYD-GEORGE

A rotating column by senior Voice staffers

This past weekend, I did something incredibly nerve-wracking for me. No, it wasn’t exposing myself to the arctic weather or even the smutty antics and laughable dialogue of Fifty Shades of Grey— though I did both. I’ll spare you the think piece. I got onstage in front of other humans and talked about vaginas.

Being in The Vagina Monologues is something that I’ve always wanted to do at Georgetown, but only did my senior year because of study abroad conflicts and extreme underclassman shyness. Crossing this item off my bucket list has been a rewarding experience—it forced me out of my comfort zone. It challenged me to tackle performance anxiety, as well as a taboo subject of both political and personal significance, all in one fell swoop.

This recent experience has also gotten me thinking about another taboo subject that has failed to gain the kind of mainstream attention that comes with nationally popular theater productions and Beyoncé’s stamp of approval: mental health.

The social stigma surrounding mental health issues on a campus like ours with a culture of perfection should be no great shock, as keeping up appearances demands repressing all signs of “weakness.” Dismantling this structure of silence is necessary to making any kind of progress.

In the way that The Vagina Monologues allows a space for women to be vocal about a subject that is typically kept in the dark; we need more spaces like this for mental health activists to share

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nounced their original affirmation failed to confer with their staffers before affirming our statement, and rather than admitting their own mistake, they simply withdrew their support and falsely accused GIA of lacking transparency. Candidates admitted to internal miscommunication failures and acting on behalf of rumors in off-the-record conversations with GIA, but were not willing to do so publicly.

Allegation: GIA’s final leadership statement stifles conversation about BDS. False: GIA’s leadership statement was still evolving when rumors began circulating, and the final wording, developed from our conversations with candidates and other student leaders, excludes all BDS language. After I shared GIA’s finalized statement with members of SJP, who had taken umbrage with earlier drafts, one of them posted the following status on Facebook: “I have some very exciting news to report. After conversations with a number of GUSA campaigns and the GIA, the GIA has agreed to remove ALL language regarding BDS from their endorsement criteria.” This is wholly inaccurate. GIA was never engaged in dialogue with Georgetown SJP regarding the possibility of eliminating BDS language from

their stories and encourage others to do the same.

We need this now more than ever, and it seems like students are ready for change. Mental health on college campuses has seen an uptick in news coverage in recent years, mostly because the incidence of students dealing with mental health issues appears to be rising. A recent study from UCLA showed that the percentage of surveyed students who reported to have felt depressed has risen from 6.1 to 9.5 percent in the last five years.

The reasons for that rise are difficult to fully understand, but the simultaneous increase in visibility of these issues and of an apparent willingness to admit them are cause to be at least a little optimistic. That raised percentage, however, is also an indication that more students that need more help.

It’s undeniable that this should be seen as a call to action for the colleges that owe accessible mental health services to their students.

When I interviewed students in the fall of 2013 about their various experiences with Counseling and

Psychiatric Services on campus, I found that many struggled with the long wait times, the lack of individual attention, and the financial difficulties of sustained care.

Many also pointed to the institution’s lack of visibility on campus, as most students get little more than a few brochures about counseling services at NSO and have to independently seek out those resources. Part of the problem is that the students most in need are least likely to have the energy to get help, so it’s the responsibility of the institution that provides those services to make sure they’re at least as visible as the free condoms that H*yas for Choice gracefully doles out to the community.

Across the country, students appear to be rising to the challenge posed by insufficient mental health services. At Yale, for instance, a student suicide has sparked an explosion of op-eds in the Yale Daily News as well as the activism of the college council and other campus groups to create programs to connect students with campus re-

our leadership statement. The decision was internal to GIA, and derived from conversations with candidates. However, GIA was pleased to discover we could arrive at wording that was considered a win-win, as the above quote shows.

It greatly saddens both me and GIA that only one campaign felt comfortable signing our final leadership statement. Our final criteria for endorsement asked candidates “to support students and student groups that advocate for Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state” in the name of protecting open dialogue. This watered-down statement is anti-nothing; yet only Tim and Reno honored their original commitment to this justified ask. Setting aside the political implications of signing any statement, the fact that only one GUSA campaign affirmed Israel’s fundamental right to exist scares pro-Israel students on campus.

The conversation isn’t over, and GIA hopes to continue as a partner in securing safe space on campus for this dialogue.

HARPER IS a SOPHOMORE in the SFS

sources. A college council student coalition, a Mental Health Fellows program, and mandatory bystander workshops are just a few of the ideas apparently coming to fruition on Yale’s campus.

These are all encouraging signs, and Yale’s innovations are ones that we should explore on our own campus. Though Active Minds, a student organization that works to destigmatize mental health problems, has already made positive first steps at Georgetown, I knew nothing about it until I did a little research. We need more visibility for such organizations, as well as real institutional change.

The recent GUSA brouhaha has positioned mental health policies at the forefront of discussion, as the Luther-Rohan ticket has promised to prioritize mental health reform in their potential administration.

Propositions like required Title IX training, expansion of CAPS hours, and subsidizing CAPS visits are goals to applaud and perhaps the greatest reasons I’ll vote for them, besides their penchant for funny videos. I also hope, however, that a new administration would also work to create more spaces for mental health education and advocacy. We need a radical change in our culture as well as our institution, and that starts with a willingness to speak.