The Georgetown Voice, January 28, 2010

VOICE the georgetown

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2012: THE YEAR SCIENCE CENTER CONSTRUCTION ENDS PAGE 4

BIG THREE MUST COME UP BIG AGAINST DUKE PAGE 6

KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF OUR THETANS PAGE 10

Georgetown University’s Weekly Newsmagazine Since 1969 w January 28, 2010 w Volume 42, Issue 17 w georgetownvoice.com

The Marshall inPlan Anacostia

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january 28, 2010

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Voice Crossword “Gray Out” by Mary Cass

ACROSS 1. It takes two 6. Backside 10. Healing wound 14. Admonish 15. Like Shrek or Fiona 16. First-person shooter video game

17. Verbally 18. Cook in the microwave 19. Model 20. Baby of the litter 21. Sailor’s yes 22. Without motive or provocation 24. Abbrev. for drunk?

answers at georgetownvoice.com 26. Rocks resistant to erosion and crustal folding 27. Runner’s long step 30. Apple bottom jeans and the boots with the ___ 31. “Two words you will never hear, ‘ __ Quit’” 32. It’s Always Sunny Irish Pub 33. Tied the knot 36. Adult insect 37. Restricted (abbr.)

38. Full of swamp grass 40. “Two and a Half __ “ 41. Common people 43. Picture 44. Follow commands 45. Red- __ Hawk 46. Common foot ailment 49. “It’s a kick in a glass!”

50. Pecuniary sums 51. Kind of tape 52. Reckless 56. Performs on stage 57. Detail 59. Turn on the __ and listen to the news 60. A horse’s walk, trot, canter, or gallop 61. Say yea or nay 62. Boot-shaped country 63. Diseases 64. Windows to the soul?

65. Greek state’s population

DOWN 1. Russian Caesar 2. Defender of liberty organization (abbr.)

3. High time?

4. Gorging 5. Describes “Even Steven’s” friend Todd 6. American theatre awards 7. French malaise 8. To irritate 9. Downwind 10. Indie band featured prominently on Garden State soundtrack 11. Plural prickly flora 12. Snobby 13. Like Berlin, Munich, or Cologne 21. Imitate 23. Mesopotamian, in ancient times 25. Doctrine of beliefs 26. Cloudy

27. Move like a fish 28. Domesticated 29. ___ Phillippe of Cruel Intentions 30. Derogatory term for an overweight person 32. Continues asking 33. Welt 34. Advantage 35. Changed the color of 39. Leave home 42. Kind of relationship 45. Sales or income, for example 46. Central 47. __ we meet again 48. Wasps’ homes 49. Paper font 50. Wise men 51. Ration out 53. Eve’s man 54. Farm building 55. Today in Spain (pl.)

58. Game 59. Free of __

ARE YOU A LOGOPHILE? Share your love of words and help write crosswords.

E-mail crossword@georgetownvoice.com.

editorial

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VOICE the georgetown

Volume 42.17 January 28, 2010 Editor-in-Chief: Jeff Reger Managing Editor: Juliana Brint Publisher: Emily Voigtlander Editor-at-Large: Will Sommer Director of Technology: Alexander Pon Blog Editor: Molly Redden News Editor: Kara Brandeisky Sports Editor: Adam Rosenfeld Feature Editor: Tim Shine Cover Editor: Iris Kim Leisure Editor: Chris Heller Voices Editor: Emma Forster Photo Editor: Hilary Nakasone Design Editors: Richa Goyal, Ishita Kohli Literary Editor: James McGrory Crossword Editor: Cal Lee Contributing Editor: Daniel Cook, Dan Newman Assistant Blog Editors: Hunter Kaplan, Imani Tate Assistant News Editors: J. Galen Weber, Cole Stangler Assistant Sports Editors: Nick Berti, Rob Sapunor Assistant Cover Editor: Jin-ah Yang Assistant Leisure Editors: Brendan Baumgardner, Leigh Finnegan Assistant Photo Editors: Jackson Perry, Shira Saperstein Assistant Design Editors: Robert Duffley, Megan Berard

Associate Editors: Matthew Collins, Lexie Herman Staff Writers:

Jeff Bakkensen, Cyrus Bordbar, Tom Bosco, Sonnet Gaertner, Aleta Greer, Victor Ho, Kate Imel, Satinder Kaur, Liz Kuebler, Walker Loetscher, Kate Mays, Scott Munro, Katie Norton, Sean Quigley, Justin Hunter Scott, Sam Sweeney, Keenan Timko, Tim Wagner

Staff Photographers:

Max Blodgett, Jue Chen, Matthew Funk, Danna Khabbaz

Staff Designers:

Marc Fichera, Dara Morano, Marc Patterson, Miykaelah Sinclair

Copy Chief: Geoffrey Bible

Copy editors: Keaton Hoffman, Matt Kerwin, Molly Redden

Editorial Board Chair: Eric Pilch Editorial Board:

George D’Angelo, Emma Forster, Molly Redden, Chris Heller, Imani Tate, J. Galen Weber, Dan Newman, Will Sommer, Brendan Baumgardner, Cole Stanger, Juliana Brint

Head of Business: George D’Angelo

Director of Marketing: Michael Byerly

The Georgetown Voice

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Advertising: (202) 687-6764 Newsroom: (202) 687-6780 Fax: (202) 687-6763 E-Mail: thevoice@georgetown.edu Web Site: georgetownvoice.com The opinions expressed in the Georgetown Voice 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. The Georgetown Voice is produced in the Georgetown Voice office and composed on Macintosh computers using the Adobe InDesign publishing system and is printed by Silver Communications. All materials copyright The Georgetown Voice. All rights reserved.

On this week’s cover ...The Marshall Plan in Anacostia Cover Photo: Will Sommer

the georgetown voice 3

q THROUGH THE WIRE

GU has wrong mindset on wireless At a town hall meeting on the issue of wireless internet access, Associate Director of Academic and Information Services Donna White betrayed a disturbingly resigned attitude regarding the University’s investment in technological progress, declaring, “Georgetown is never going to be on the leading edge.”

It’s not as if Georgetown lacks for recent developments to take pride in, like the recently completed Hariri building for the McDonough School of Business, or progressive plans for a new Science Center and the expansion of graduate student enrollment.

But this defeatist attitude from University Information Services toward reliable, campus-wide internet access—coupled, admittedly, with an underwhelming endowment—threatens Georgetown’s success as a modern university. The ambivalence about

technological advancement helps explain why many academic buildings have spotty or non-existent wireless service. Worse, while announcing a pilot network—serving only the current UIS office locations in St. Mary’s and the Harris Building just off Wisconsin Ave.—White announced no dates for the addition of service to students residence halls.

But most unsettling was White’s defense of the University’s piecemeal, limited investment in wireless technology. By expanding so slowly rather than building an extensive wireless network as other schools have, she said, Georgetown has avoided having to reinvest in costly new technologies on a regular basis.

For a UIS official to argue that any widescale investment is not worthwhile because it will eventually necessitate reinvestment

is wrongheaded and alarmingly Luddite.

Georgetown’s finances may be tight, but eschewing current technology to avoid the cost of upgrades down the line essentially guarantees that the University will be stuck with sub-par technology for the foreseeable future. For UIS to support such a policy is incredibly disappointing.

The administration needs to accept the necessity of improving Georgetown’s wireless network. Campus-wide Wi-Fi is no longer a luxury, but the norm, particularly at top ranked peer universities.

While UIS officials did announce at the town hall meeting that there is a project underway to slightly expand wireless service, the lack of a timeline and the disheartening comments from White do little to instill confidence in the future of wireless at Georgetown.

q ALL TOO SOON

Keep Duke Ellington School in Georgetown To anyone unfamiliar with the management style of D.C. Public School Chancellor Michelle Rhee, The Washington Post’s report that her department had recently evaluated the cost of moving the Duke Ellington School of the Arts out of Georgetown would scarcely seem like a reason to panic. To those familiar with the way she has run DCPS, however, outrage seemed like the appropriate emotion. In the past, Rhee has not invited community or parental input, instead announcing major decisions abruptly, even cavalierly. Parents of children at Duke Ellington can count themselves lucky that they are privy to Rhee’s plans before she publicly announces them—and they should take this opportunity to demand to be part of the discussion about whether to move the school.

The Georgetown community ought to join the parents in resisting relocation. Duke Ellington—a performing arts school where students must audition to be accepted into

its intensive art, vocal and instrumental music, dance, and theater programs—is a credit to the Georgetown community, hosting events open to the public. The school draws about 500 students from around the District, many from dangerous neighborhoods who are lucky to attend school in such a safe area.

While Rhee has backed away from an immediate move, she and Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) have indicated that they hope to move the school eventually. Fenty will not promise that the school will be in its current location in two years. “No, in fact, the opposite,” he told the Post. “We’re exploring all options for all of our schools.”

These other options are distressing.

Any move would deprive both the University and Duke Ellington students of valuable collaboration such as the production of Thornton Wilders’ Our Town this past summer. The cost evaluation reported by the Post looked into moving Duke Elling-

ton into an empty school facility near Union Station, which is neither as safe nor as wellequipped for arts programs as the current location. It remains to be seen whether the city even has the money to outfit a new home for Duke Ellington with the studios and sound equipment necessary to keep the school performing at its current caliber.

But if Duke Ellington’s unavoidable fate is to be moved from its current location to make room for a public high school that will serve the area, as Rhee proposed—Georgetown’s Ward 2 is, after all, the only ward in the City without one—her office needs to make a sincere effort to involve students and parents in the decision, especially since her unpopular and unexpected ousting of Principal Patrick Pope at nearby Hardy Middle School is so fresh in the community’s memory. If Rhee won’t engage in an honest dialogue for the parents, she should at least do it for the students who will be dramatically affected by the proposed change.

q WHIP ‘EM INTO SHAPE

Obama must deliver on promises President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address last night elicited both applause and laughter from both sides of the aisle. Despite the cheery atmosphere in the House chamber, the majority of Americans are still feeling the burn of an ongoing recession. Obama made bold statements in his address, but he needs to get tough, both as a president and as a politician, if he wants to see his lofty words put into action this year.

Appropriately, the speech focused mainly on economic issues.

Obama stressed that he has lowered taxes for 95 percent of Americans, and that the era of tax cuts for those with incomes of over $250,000 a year is over. The jury is still out on whether or not Obama will eliminate these Bush-era tax cuts on the wealthiest individuals—he does have a habit of making eloquent speeches and

then not bringing down the hammer. As the Treasury continues to hemmorhage money, Obama needs to follow through on these promises.

During this speech, Obama also started acting like a politician, which is something he hasn’t been doing enough of this year. In order to avoid a serious blow to the Democratic party’s ranks in the 2010 midterm elections, Obama has to stop playing nice and start pushing Republicans to engage with his agenda.

Obama also promised to lower the costs of borrowing for college tuition, saying that “no one should go broke because they chose to go to college.” An educated workforce is increasingly important for the United States’ economic strength as we continue to shift from a manufacturing—to a service-based economy. Obama realizes this, and in the speech touted leg-

islation that will cap student loans at ten percent of an individual’s income. This makes it more affordable for critically important, but not highly compensated professionals like teachers and nurses to attend school.

Obama’s vow to take down the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, which prohibits openly gay citizens from serving in the armed forces, will probably be the most talked about part of this year’s speech. This is the right move for Obama to make on a critical and long-standing civil rights issue, even if is partly a response to Obama’s falling popularity with the gay demographic.

The President made bold promises, but he needs to deliver on them. The success of our country—not to mention the Democratic Party—will depend on Obama’s ability to turn these promises into policy.

news

4 the georgetown voice

january 28, 2010

Science building to be done by 2012

by Holly Tao A $6.9 million grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology will allow Georgetown to proceed with construction of its new science building—which has been on hold since 2008 thanks to the recession—and has given the project a deadline: 2012. “[Georgetown’s] acceptance of the grant … is a promise to NIST that a building will be built by 2012,” Dr. Makarand Paranjape, a Co-Director of the Graduate Studies in the Physics Department and a member of the Science Center Planning Committee said. “If not, the grant would likely have to be returned, so a building is inevitable now.”

Faculty and staff will move into the new research labs in summer 2012, and the building will be fully operational in fall 2012.

In addition to the $6.9 million

grant, the University has raised $25 million. On January 22, President John DeGioia said the projected total cost of the building is $98.5 million. The remaining $73.5 million will come from gifts, cash reserves, and loans, according to Professor Timothy Barbari.

Although Georgetown received less than half of the $15 million requested from the NIST, Ali Whitmer, a dean in the college, said that the recipients do not typically receive the full amount of funds requested. DeGioia said that the stimulus grant was very encouraging and will be treated “as if it were a gift.”

The $6.9 million dollars is specifically given to the University to start the Institute of Soft Matter Synthesis and Metrology, a project imagined by Georgetown physics and chemistry professors.

Soft matter—materials that fall between a liquid and a crys-

talline solid, such as gels, foams, granular matter—plays an increasingly important role in new technologies and industries.

Analyzing the structures, movement, and stability of these materials is vital for creating products like drug-delivery vehicles and plastics. The current research of Georgetown professors on soft matter played an important role in Georgetown obtaining NIST funds, said Chair of the Physics Department Dr. Edward Van Keuren.

“The most recent heroes in this story are the scientists whose work persuaded others to fund them,” Associate Provost Marjory Blumenthal said. “People bet on Georgetown, rather than other [universities].”

Some features of the Institute of Soft Matter Synthesis and Metrology may include an advanced imaging/light scattering/spectros-

copy center, a mechanical measurements lab, and chemistry facilities for synthesis, according to Dr. Daniel Blair, an assistant professor in the Physics department.

After the new science center is operational, the university plans to renovate the laboratories on the third through seventh floors of Reiss. The Reiss renovations and new science building will almost double the amount of laboratory space on campus.

The additional space will allow science departments to hire more faculty and expand their graduate programs, Barbari said.

A timeline has not yet been set for the renovation of Reiss, but the university intends to begin that project when the building is vacated in 2012, according to Barbari.

“I couldn’t be happier,” Barbari said. “This project is long overdue and it’s extremely gratifying to finally see it take off.”

GUSA prepares to take financial control

by J. Galen Weber The bill stripping the six advisory boards of their votes on the Funding Board has passed through the Georgetown University Student Association’s Ways and Means and Financial and Appropriations Committees, but GUSA senators are bracing for a contentious vote when the bill comes up again in the general meeting of the full Senate at the beginning of next month.

The bill will bring two major changes to the club funding process. Advisory boards will no longer have votes on the Funding Board, meaning the Finance and Appropriations Committee will be solely in charge of allocating the money collected from the student activities fee. Furthermore, all budgets passed by the Finance and Appropriations Committee will require approval from the GUSA Executive and full GUSA Senate before going into effect.

Senator Colton Malkerson (COL ’13), a sponsor of the bill, hopes to get a statement of support from one of the six advisory boards in order to sway undecided senators. However, opposition is already evident among the advisory boards.

Nick Calta (COL ‘10), chairman of the Sports Advisory Board, believes the new rules will be detrimental for club sports that rely on the Student Activities Fee.

“If we should concentrate power in anyone’s hands it shouldn’t be GUSA’s,” Calta said. “They are not good at dealing with realities or doing research. They told us to cut our reserves and then they were all shocked to find out they had a reserve fund.”

GUSA eliminated their reserve fund shortly after the senators discovered it.

Malkerson said the Finance and Appropriations Committee made changes to the original draft of the bill, adding in executive and Senate oversight in order to create a system of checks and balances.

He is unsure how much support there will be for the bill when it comes up before the full Senate and said at Wednesday’s Finance and Appropriations Committee meeting that he is “very paranoid” about how the vote could go. Malkerson estimated that he currently has the support of 12 senators, four short of the 16 votes needed if all senators are present for the vote.

The bill was passed by GUSA’s Ways and Means committee last Sunday, but only after the Speaker of the Senate, Adam Talbot (COL ‘12), insisted that at least two weeks pass for reflection and constituent consultation before the bill faces a vote in the full Senate.

Talbot said that he has not yet decided where he stands on

Shira Saperstein

The final battle: FinApp follows through on their funding board plans. the bill, and is waiting until next Wednesday’s town hall to make up his mind.

Student Activities Commission Chair Ethel Amponsah (NHS ’11) has voiced opposition to the bill, saying that GUSA’s first club funding reform bill displayed their lack of understanding of the process. She said that some of the six recommendations were impractical, while others were already being followed by all the advisory boards.

“They based their legislation on inaccurate information,” Amponsah said.

Amponsah says that her most important job is to advocate for student clubs and organizations,

which is best accomplished by giving votes to the six advisory boards during the allocation process.

“This bill takes a voice away from student organizations,” Amponsah said.

Members of the Finance and Appropriations Committee counter that the current system, where advisory boards vote on their own budgets, doesn’t make sense.

“It would seem odd for the people applying [for funds] to have a vote on the process,” Senator Colton Malkerson, a sponsor of the bill, said.

GUSA will hold a Funding Reform Town Hall meeting next Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. in Reiss 112.

News Hit

Lessons in satire

In the wake of an article published in the Georgetown Heckler that prompted protests and accusations of racism this past December, Georgetown administrators are planning to hold a discussion about satire and civility.

The upcoming event— originally described by University President John DeGioia as a “workshop,” but later characterized as a forum on the use and “boundaries of satire” in relation to a civil discourse in the campus community by Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson—will include faculty members, at least one student, and an outside speaker.

Olson wrote in an e-mail that the event will be an open discussion and wrote that it was not scheduled “in response to any particular event.”

Heckler writer Daniel Thoennessen said he had not heard about the forum.

“I haven’t heard anything about this particular event, so I’m afraid I don’t have any information to offer,” Thoennessen. “But it doesn’t seem out of the ordinary for the University to hold academic lectures, discussions, and/ or forums about issues it deems important throughout the year.”

The Dec. 12 Heckler article entitled “The Hoya Holds Annual Holiday Cross-Lighting Ceremony in Dahlgren Quad,” which included an image of three individuals in the garb of the Klu Klux Klan standing in front of a burning cross, led to an outcry from minority groups and a heated town hall meeting.

Former Heckler Editorin-Chief Jack Stuef (COL ’09) defended the article at the December forum saying, “The KKK isn’t funny.

The article is not trying to say that this is funny. The point of the article is to take the situation to the extreme.

To show what is maybe buried in this campus.”

—by Eric Pilch

news

georgetownvoice.com

Philly P open late despite promise

the georgetown voice 5

DC inspects Georgetown landlords

by Cole Stangler & Kara Brandeisky

by Eric Pilch

Despite public promises from its owner to close at midnight, Philly Pizza and Grill has continued operating into the early morning on some nights.

At a hearing on Jan. 12th the D.C. Board of Zoning Adjustment permitted Philly Pizza to remain open until the next hearing on Feb. 9 under a stay of enforcement, granted after the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs revoked Philly Pizza’s certificate of occupancy and charged that it’s violating its zoning agreement by acting as a fast-food establishment.

Two employees confirmed that the business regularly closes between 3:30 and 4 a.m. on weekends, depending on how many customers are present.

When Voice reporters visited Philly Pizza at 1 a.m. last Saturday, three middle-aged men sat down at a table upstairs, looked at a menu, and inquired about a waiter. An employee brought them paper cups of water. They were soon surrounded by Georgetown students eating pizza on paper plates. When Philly Pizza ran out of tables, the students sat on the floor.

Philly Pizza owner Matt Kocak denied that his establishment, which is classified as a sit-down restaurant in its certificate of occupancy, had agreed to shut at midnight.

In the Nov. 18 issue of the Voice, however, Kocak said he would

Last week the District of Columbia’s Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs sent out letters to over 125 landlords operating in the neighborhoods surrounding Georgetown University who are suspected of operating without proper business licenses, notifying them that they will face legal consequences if they do not submit to inspections.

The effort is part of DCRA’s “This Should Be Illegal” campaign, which began in 2008 and aims to ensure that landlords are complying with mandatory safety inspections for their properties and that college students are not living in dangerous conditions.

Letters from DCRA were postmarked between Jan. 20 and Jan. 22, and landlords will have until Feb. 5 to voluntarily apply for business licenses and undergo property inspections.

“The big thing with these properties is voluntary compliance,” DCRA spokesman Mike Rupert (GRD `09) said. “If they come in and get their permits and get their inspections scheduled, that’s ideal, when people do the right thing. If not, we do an investigation into the property.”

Rupert explained that it is pretty easy for inspectors to

Kara Brandeisky

Don’t forget the ranch: A hearing on Feb. 9 will determine Philly P’s fate. close at midnight if that would allow his restaurant to stay open.

“I’m gonna fight for reduced hours so [neighbors] can sleep,” Kocak had said. “We just want to make sure that Philly P’s door is open for everyone, lunch, dinner, and midnight. But not 2 to 4 a.m. … Nobody wants to lose Philly P’s.”

When Metropolitan Police Department cars pulled up outside Philly Pizza in the early hours of Jan. 17, employees quickly ushered its remaining customers into the basement where they were told to exit through a back entrance, according to Ryan Sprouls (COL ’13) and other students present.

“They shut the blinds in five seconds,” Sprouls said. “We were

all really confused as to what was going on.”

Although the restaurant continues to operate long past midnight, the situation outside the restaurant has drastically improved from months ago, according to neighbors.

“We haven’t really had the same kinds of problems,” said Jorge Gomez-Muller (COL ’10), whose front door steps on Potomac St. had previously been host to countless paper plates and at least one incident of public urination.

“It’s not as bad as before.”

When Philly Pizza faces the D.C. BZA again on Feb. 9, Advisory Neighborhood Commission Chair Ron Lewis and Commissioner Bill Starrels will make their case to shut the restaurant down.

A penchant for protests

gates, and fired teargas which drifted into student dorms. After the incident, students responded with strong support for the protesters. The president of the student body requested that the University take legal action against the police, and other students drafted a Student Bill of Rights which as-

The flurry of condemnation following the anti-war demonstration held during General David Petraeus’s speech last Thursday has made it one of the most notorious protests held at Georgetown in recent memory. A Jan. 22 editorial in The Hoya branded the protest as “an embarrassment to this University,” while the Georgetown University Student Association passed a resolution to condemn “the disrespectful and improper actions of the Georgetown students.” Yesterday, a counter-protest was held in Red Square, in which one speaker denounced the protesters’ actions as “disgusting.”

The widespread negative reaction to the protesters might create the impression that Georgetown is

a conservative university, intolerant of anti-war sentiment. This establishment image is reinforced by frequent speeches by government officials and the large number of alumni working on the Hill.

Yet as staid as Georgetown may seem, our school was once a bastion of political protest.

In September 1971, John Kerry, then the leading spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War, gave a speech in Gaston Hall and received a standing ovation. During the famous May Day Protests in May 1971, hundreds of anti-war activists sought refuge from the police on the Georgetown campus after a demonstration. When the police arrived at the University, they entered through the main

Saxa Politica

by J. Galen Weber

A bi-weekly column on campus news and politics serted that students “shall be free to examine and discuss all questions of interest to them.”

Perhaps most notable was the decision of some students to create an organization to protect student rights. They called the organization Students of Georgetown Incorporated, and every student

of Georgetown was considered a shareholder. The Corp eventually became the largest solely studentrun corporation in the world, but few know of its roots in the protest of the Vietnam War. The contrast is striking between the student body’s critical response to the protesters at the Petraeus speech and the support for anti-war protesters in the early 1970s. Then, protesters were sheltered by Georgetown students from the pursuing police; today students urge police to forcibly remove protesters from Georgetown buildings.

The lack of supporters for today’s protesters is due in part to their uncivil tactics, but mostly reflects the pervading attitudes toward today’s wars. A 1971 Gallup Survey showed that only 34 percent of college-aged Ameri-

determine what is happening at rental properties after talking to the residents, leading the agency to develop files on rental properties. Fines between $500 and $4,000 can be issued to landlords who remain incompliant. Legal action against landlords is taken only as a final step, according to Rupert.

“The big thing is, we don’t want to displace students,” Rupert added. “We want to make sure they’re safe … We encourage students and empower them with information to say to their landlord, ‘Hey man, is this safe?’”

Georgetown’s Off Campus Student Life office attempts to steer students to licensed landlords by checking all listings on their website and ensure landlords advertising there have a basic operating license, according to Director Anne Koester.

Rupert, a recent Georgetown graduate, highlighted the importance of safety inspections, pointing to the death of student Daniel Rigby (MSB `05), who was killed in a fire in an unlicensed rental property on Prospect Street in 2004.

“As you know, five years ago in Georgetown there was a big fire in an unlicensed home and Daniel Rigby died,” Rupert said. “If that home had been inspected, we would have seen some of the issues that led to his unfortunate death.”

cans supported the Vietnam War. In 2009, by contrast, 46 percent of college-aged Americans support the War in Afghanistan, according to a September Gallup Survey.

With the War in Afghanistan more popular than the Vietnam War, today’s protesters cannot expect the warm reception their predecessors received.

The protesters of today’s wars should avoid controversial and bold protests, because only a small percentage of the campus will support them. Instead, they should focus on more low-key efforts to challenge students’ views on the war, which will be far more effective than interruptions and incivility.

Want to picket Galen’s lines?

Email him at gweber@georgetown voice.com.

sports

6 the georgetown voice

january 28, 2010

JTIII will look for big three to step up against Duke

by Tim Shine In head coach John Thompson III’s six seasons at Georgetown, the Duke Blue Devils have emerged as the Hoyas’ preeminent non-conference rival.

The budding feud dates back to Thompson’s first meeting with the Blue Devils in 2006, when an unranked Georgetown squad toppled then-No. 1 Duke, announcing their return to the national scene. Two subsequent meetings resulted in Hoya losses, including a 76-67 defeat in Durham last season that kicked off an epic collapse.

On Saturday the Blue Devils return to the Verizon Center for the first time since 2006, and once again the match-up has far-reaching implications for the Hoyas.

Coming off a demoralizing loss to rival No. 4 Syracuse, No. 7 Georgetown (15-4, 6-3 Big East) can continue to stake a claim as a bona fide top-10 team with a victory over No. 8 Duke. A loss would likely remove the Hoyas from the conversation as one of the best teams in the country, at least for the time being.

Obviously, the Hoyas can’t afford to dwell on the past.

“The nature of Big East basketball is you cannot—cannot— be successful if you’re stuck on the last game, no matter what the outcome of that game was,” Thompson said.

Georgetown does have to learn the lessons of its 73-56 drubbing at the hands of the Or-

ange, namely that the Hoyas live and die by the fortunes of their big three, Austin Freeman, Chris Wright, and Greg Monroe.

Freeman was fine on Monday, scoring 23 points. But Monroe had just eight points and fouled out. While the big man sat with foul trouble, his teammates proved incapable of establishing an inside game. Wright, although he had seven assists, was 0-for-6 from beyond the arc and scored just seven points. It is becoming clear that the point guard needs to score for the Hoyas to win—when he reaches double figures, Georgetown is undefeated.

As the season has progressed, it has become apparent that Georgetown will have to ride its big three, as well as solid supporting players Jason Clark and Julian Vaughn.

“We have a core group that’s playing significant minutes, and that’s different than what we’ve had since I’ve been here, but I think that’s probably the best for this unit,” Thompson said. “But at the same time what seems to be getting lost in all that is when there are subs, when those guys are on the bench, I’m just as confident in the guys that are going in and the group that we have out there.”

Despite their coach’s confidence and their continued hustle, the Hoya reserves have so far proved incapable of doing the one thing that matters at the end of the game: scoring. The bench had zero points against Syracuse.

Greg Monroe looks to avenge last year’s tough loss at Duke.

HiILARY NAKASONE

Thus the burden falls on Georgetown’s stars to carry the load. Usually that hasn’t been a problem—four of the top six individual scoring performances under Thompson have come this season.

“It’s great to have a guy [that is scoring a lot of points],” Clark said.

“I think that every single one of our players on this team can go for 20 points in any single night. And I think it’s good because some of us are off some nights. Having other

guys that are capable of doing that gives you a lot of confidence.”

That may be the case, but against Duke the Hoyas cannot afford anyone having off nights like Monday. The Blue Devils boast one of the country’s most efficient offensive attacks, led by their own big three of Nolan Smith, Jon Scheyer, and Kyle Singler. Each averages in excess of 15 points per game.

The real key to a Hoya victory, however, will be whether

Monroe and Wright can shake off their performances against Syracuse and bounce back against the ACC’s top scoring defense.

“One thing that we’ve learned is that once you’re in a rhythm you just keep playing and everything will come back to you,” Wright said.

It will certainly be easier in front of a sold-out crowd in the friendly confines of the Verizon Center. Tip-off is at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

the Sports Sermon “Those pictures were taken and sent over a year and a half ago. I’ve definitely grown since then.”— NBA Star Greg Oden on his recently leaked x-rated photos the actual players who will be taking the field is required.

Although their uniforms may say All-Pro, their play during the season definitely does not. To date, 27 players have pulled themselves off the rosters, more than 30 percent of the elected roster. While there are always players that elect to opt-out of the Pro-Bowl, these numbers are unprecedented.

A huge contributing factor is that fact that the Pro Bowl will see no appearances from any Colts or Saints, who have 14 all-pro players on their rosters. When there is such an extreme dip in participation, the fans lose.

while providing those players with a weeklong celebration of It’s the perfect end to a their accomplishments. Now, treacherous, long, and hardwith the Super Bowl loomfought season. A week after the ing in the near future, the Pro biggest game of the year, the Bowl has an extremely diminNFL’s top players and coaches ished role. In fact, the current throw on their board shorts, time slot detracts from both toss a lei around their necks, the actual Pro Bowlers and and head down to Hawaii. the Super Bowl teams. In the The Pro Bowl is a celebraold system, the weeks before tion of a season of hard work Super Sunday were dedicatand dedication. There are no ed to the two teams about to more games to prepare for, no compete for a championship, more weekly film sessions or and the week after the Super training, just sandy beaches Bowl was dedicated to the Pro and luaus. Besides the few Bowl players. Now, the Pro injured veterans who would Bowl is just a weak appetizer rather rest at home with the with many replacement playfamily, every player strives to ers, and the Super Bowl conbe on the field that tenders have to Pete Rose Central hot February aftertake time away Da bettin’ line noon, representing from preparation their conference. to make extra apDookies Margin Hoyas Or, at least this is pearances. (underdogs) (duh!) the way it was up (favorites) The one posiuntil this year. tive that comes Retirement INT Favre Roger Goodell, from such a sysDistractions Commissioner tem is that many Adderall Hartley of the NFL, has Tebow Psalm 22:1 borderline All-Pro NFL turned the 2010 players will finally Pro Bowl into an experiment Not only will fans not get get the chance to play in the of sorts. He has heard the to see players like Drew Brees Pro Bowl. However, this posicomplaints of the current Pro and Peyton Manning because tive for those players is a negaBowl structure—how it means of the date change, but they tive for the fans. I’ll venture to nothing, the players don’t play will also miss out on Tom say many will find some other hard, and no one cares about Brady, Carson Palmer, Ben Ro- way to occupy their Sunday afit. Goodell took the criticism ethlisberger, and Phillip Riv- ternoon during the pre-Super to heart. This year, the Pro ers due to a host of “injuries.” Bowl weekend if it means seeBowl will be played the week Instead, fans will be treated to ing all of the familiar stars in before the Super Bowl, and in- less-than-stellar players. You the Pro Bowl. stead of Hawaii, the game will know something’s wrong with The basic fact is that an be played at the site of the Su- the system when David Gar- All-Star game that takes place per Bowl, Miami. rard and Vince Young, who at the end of a season will Although Goodell cannot have the 17th and 18th best never be the main attraction. be faulted for his continued quarterback ratings in the However, that doesn’t mean willingness to update and lis- NFL, respectively, are both Pro it should be further marginten to suggestions for league Bowlers. Put simply, that is an alized. Roger Goodell preimprovement, this most recent absolute joke. sides over the most popular change is a debacle. The move The pre-2010 Pro Bowl, al- and successful sport in North in time and place has created though not the most intense of America; he doesn’t need to a host of problems that have all games, served its purpose: change a thing. So, thanks for fans questioning the decision. it gave fans the chance to see the effort, Roger, but we’ll see First, a deeper look into the best players in the game you in Hawaii next year.

by Adam Rosenfeld

sports

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice 7

Hoyas own the high seas Hoyas can’t finish

by Tom Bosco The Georgetown Sailing team is off to a great start in 2010 after one its most successful winter breaks in history.

Over the weekend of January 2, the team took home first place in a 26-team field at the Rose Bowl Regatta, a feat never accomplished by Georgetown. In addition, two members of the team were named to the 2010 U.S. Sailing Development Team.

Over break, junior Charlie Buckingham, reigning College Sailor of the Year, and sophomore Sydney Bolger were named to the U.S. Sailing De-

velopment Team, a team picked by the United States Olympic Committee to identify and train sailors that have the necessary skills and potential to compete in the Olympics.

“The hope is that at one point in time they’ll do an Olympic campaign,” Sailing Head Coach Michael Callahan said.

Of the two sailors, Buckingham is closest to the Olympics right now. He sails a laser boat, which is a single-handed ship, and is currently in qualifying position for the Olympic team based on his past regatta performances.

Despite being in the top three in the country, Buckingham’s

MICHAEL KELLER

Bon Voyage: The Hoyas have left many opponents in their wake in 2010.

Tenacious D Rewind to March 31, 1984.

The city is Seattle, Washington.

It’s halftime of a very important basketball game. A Final Four game. And we are losing. Yes—we, as in the Georgetown Hoyas Men’s Basketball team—trail the Kentucky Wildcats by a score of 29-22.

Patrick Ewing hangs his head in the locker room, lamenting first-half foul trouble. (Big) John Thompson wipes sweat from his brow with that white towel he always drapes over his shoulder. This was supposed to be our year.

The players return from the intermission, and the game resumes its course. Kentucky’s lead diminishes, then disappears. Georgetown pulls away, advances to the championship game, claims its only

NCAA Men’s Basketball title in school history. And who led the charge? It had to be Ewing, right? Dave Wingate? Reggie Williams? Hardly. No one set any records that day. No sublime scoring outburst. In fact, the opposite occurred. The story was defense. Defense: the word upon which Thompson built the program, the reputation that preceded his teams.

Kentucky scored just eleven points on 3-33 shooting from the field in the second half.

The numbers on their side of the scoreboard didn’t change until nearly ten minutes had been played. That game represented, perhaps, the greatest defensive performance in college basketball history, considering the stakes. It provided a blueprint for Hoya basketball under the elder Thompson.

That game—a microcosm of a season that started with an

spot isn’t locked down because of competition from older, more experienced sailors.

Bolger ’s Olympic plans are not as developed as Buckingham’s, but Callahan believes she is one of the best sailors in the country for her age. Only a sophomore, Bolger is just starting out on one type of boat the USSDT uses, the 470.

“She’s got the potential to be an Olympian, for sure,” Callahan said.

Both Buckingham and Bolger were recently in Miami for an Olympic regatta. Nevertheless, Georgetown’s ability to get two sailors on the team says a lot about the program.

“I think what it means is that we’re able to attract some of the best sailors in the country here and it just shows the talent,” Callahan explained. At the team’s most recent competition, the Rose Bowl Regatta, Buckingham and junior Ashley Phillips finished in first place in the A Division and Bolger— who crewed for freshman Chris Barnard—finished in second place in the B division.

The victory and accomplishments of Buckingham and Bolger have made for a great start to the Hoyas’ season. But the team’s major goal is to get back to Nationals after last year ’s third place finish.

Callahan said that while the ultimate goal was winning Nationals, just qualifying for Nationals would be a challenge, considering the Big East conference is the best in the nation.

“But the first goal is to make it,” Callahan said.

emphasis on protecting the basket that ended with a championship banner—cemented defense as the cornerstone of the program.

Fast forward. January 28, 2010. The Hoyas have reclaimed a top-ten AP ranking after a year of absence from the poll’s

Backdoor Cuts

by Walker Loetscher

a rotating column on sports upper echelon. Many expected this team to improve upon last year’s disappointing season, which saw a talent-loaded squad fail to qualify for the NCAA tournament. But few expected them to improve so rapidly. There are multiple explanations for the team’s unexpected success: a dearth of talent across the country after a

by Nick Berti It’s not about how you start; it’s about how you finish. This clichéd adage has certainly proven to be true for the Georgetown’s women’s basketball team this past week.

Last Saturday, the Hoyas finished strong as they held off a second half surge from DePaul for a 74-65 victory, an exception to Georgetown’s season-long difficulty with closing, which finally caught up with them last night against Marquette.

The back-and-forth affair against Marquette just didn’t go the Hoyas’ way, as they led for most of the second half but relinquished the lead with 1:07 left.

On a night when freshman Sugar Rodgers carried the scoring load with 23 points, the rest of the team couldn’t find its groove, shooting 34.7 percent from the field and 29.4 percent from the threepoint line in the 52-45 loss.

Ultimately the difference between the DePaul victory and the Marquette defeat was how the Hoyas played in the final minutes. At home against DePaul, the Hoyas finished strong by outscoring the Blue Demons 28-20 in the final 11:37.

In the more hostile environment of Milwaulkee, Wisconsin, Georgetown committed four turnovers in the last two minutes and didn’t have a field goal in

top-heavy 2009 season that saw many programs lose players to the NBA Draft and graduation; better team harmony with the departure of DaJuan Summers and Jessie Sapp; a new offensive philosophy that encourages fast-breaks and better utilizes the talents of our various AllAmerican recruits. But more than anything, it has been a case of those players embracing the defensive legacy championed by the former Thompson.

Georgetown’s defensive statistics have improved across the board: opponents are scoring fewer points and shooting a lower field goal percentage than last year. Most notably, the rebounding woes that plagued last year’s squad have been righted. After being out-rebounded in 2009, the team has averaged 4.2 more boards a game than its opponents this season. This reflects the pre-

the last five minutes besides a meaningless basket with 6 seconds left.

Although the team lost last night, they can take solace in their win against DePaul. After leading by 13 at halftime, Georgetown let up as DePaul made a run of their own. But the DePaul rush awakened the Hoyas’ tough defense, and the Hoyas shut it down and took the lead for good.

“The game of basketball is a game of runs,” Coach Terri Williams-Flournoy said, “We’re going to make our run, they’re going to make their run, when all else fails we just have to get back and play defense.”

Letting teams back into games has been one of the Hoyas’ main concerns this season, but the toughskinned squad usually finds a second wind when the game gets tight.

“We’re a trapping team, we’re a running team,” Jaleesa Butler said, “so when we let teams get back in it or we start out bad, that’s just what we do, we run, we get rebounds, and we score.”

Along with agressive offense, the Hoyas have the ability to play lock-down defense to stop a run.

The Hoyas are poised to get even better after their Marquette loss. They look to start a new winning streak against Rutgers at home on Saturday. Tip off is at 4 p.m. in McDonough Arena.

cepts of a defense that works inside-out, ala the elite teams of Ewing and Big John. Julian Vaughn and Greg Monroe have become the most feared interior duo in the Big East, swatting away shots at a clip of five per game while improving their nightly averages in nearly every statistical category. Despite a loss earlier this week to fourth-ranked Syracuse—a game in which the offense was admittedly anemic—a renewed commitment to defense is once again the winning pedigree for the Hoyas. It always has been, always will be. If the players accept this identity—and it often looks like they already have—perhaps they can recapture the swagger and success of that Ewing-led team of a quarter-century ago.

Try to score one on Walker at wloetscher@georgetownvoice.com.

feature

8 the georgetown voice

a charter across the anacostia

by will sommer Although some successful businesses have recently opened on the street, space on Anacostia’s Martin Luther King Avenue SE doesn’t exude status like a K or M Street address does. It’s in Ward 8, the city’s poorest ward. With 43 homicides in 2009, it is also the city’s most violent. A half-collapsed building rots on the street, which local residents claim has been untouched since a 1968 riot.

Elsewhere, the street is spotted with the canker sores of poverty, derelict buildings and check cashing storefronts.

Yet the avenue is home to D.C.’s most successful open-enrollment high school, Thurgood Marshall Academy. This unlikely success story began in a similarly unlikely way: with ten students and a class project at the Georgetown Law Center.

The charter school’s interior reveals its Georgetown roots. A Georgetown pennant hangs next to a classroom entrance, signifying the teacher’s alma mater.

“It makes college more real,” Joshua Kern (LAW ’01), the school’s executive director, said. Kern and nine other law students, along with professors

100 % 90 %

from the Georgetown Law Center, founded Thurgood Marshall in 2000.

College is real for Thurgood Marshall’s students—last year’s seniors were all accepted to college, and 90 percent attended.

Ten years since its founding, Thurgood Marshall is one of D.C.’s highest performing public schools, outperforming Anacostia’s two other high schools in reading and math scores by nearly three-to-one.

Kern, in a suit with no tie, looks more Boston Legal than Boston Public. He seems to derive physical pleasure from getting things done.

On the phone with a friend, Kern reacts to good news by pounding his fist on a desk and exclaiming, “Yeah, I love progress!”

It was at Ballou, another Anacostia high school, where the idea for Thurgood Marshall was born.

Kern was placed there in 1999 to teach law to high school students as part of Street Law, a Law Center program that teaches legal concepts to D.C. public school students.

What they saw at Ballou convinced Kern that public education in Anacostia was fundamentally flawed.

“Until you see what’s happen-

ing, what’s not happening, you really just don’t understand how bad [inner-city schooling] really is,” Kern said.

Metal detectors and incessant PA announcements beat down Ballou students’ enthusiasm for learning. Just as damaging was the way teachers and administrators treated the students.

“There wasn’t really the expectation that the kids were going to learn,” he said.

Disheartened by what he experienced at Ballou, Kern, along with Lee McGoldrick (LAW ’99), an adjunct professor at the Law Center, approached thenLaw Center Dean Judith Areen at the end of the semester. They wanted to create a studentinitiated seminar, a rare type of Law Center class, on public education. Areen was skeptical and told them she would only approve the class if they could prepare a syllabus by the begin-

Ward 8 students proficient or advanced in 2009 on the DC-CAS

80 % 70 % Math

60 % 50 %

Reading

40 %

Graph by ISHITA KOHLI

30 % 20 % 10 % 0%

Anacostia

january 28, 2010

Ballou

Thurgood Marshall

Ward 8 High Schools

ning of the next semester. ”I think she felt like it was the beginning of break and these kids aren’t going to do it,” Kern said.

To Areen’s surprise, McGoldrick and Kern did prepare a syllabus, and soon began picking the law students who would join them. Street Law professor Richard Roe and McGoldrick became the class’s advisors.

The students spent the next semester figuring out how they could improve public education in D.C. After considering starting an afterschool program within the D.C. Public School system, Kern and his classmates decided to create a charter school in Anacostia.

“We wanted a truly college preparatory school in an area of the city that didn’t have one,” Kern said. “Why should kids who want that have to go all the way across the city?”

When deciding what to name the school, almost all of the students in the Law Center class chose to name it after Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court Justice and a lawyer in the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education case.

Like Dean Areen, D.C.’s Public Charter School Board took a chance on the law students, approving Thurgood Marshall’s charter in August of 2000. That left Kern and his classmates only one year to find a building and students for their new school, all while working on their law degrees.

“Law school became my second priority,” Kern said.

Thomas Hutton (LAW ‘00), a member of the law Center class who had already graduated by the time Thurgood Marshall received a charter, scoured the area for a location for the school.

“Where are we going to house this thing?” Hutton recalled wondering. “I can remember driving around Ward 8, block by block.”

Eventually the school found room in a church’s annex building.

In order to get students for

their charter, however, the law students had to grapple with a more difficult problem than limited real estate: winning the trust of a neighborhood that had been burned by outsiders before.

More than the Anacostia River separates Ward 8 from the rest of

linked to patronage scandals can seem incomprehensible to outsiders, including other Washingtonians. But many in Anacostia value Barry’s ability to stand up for the marginalized ward in local government.

“There was a lot of distrust when we opened this school,” Kern said. “It was from decades of false promises.”

As a primarily white group, the law students were out of place in Anacostia, a predominantly African-American neighborhood.

But Thurgood Marshall’s founders discovered that a legacy of distrust was a bigger obstacle than racial differences.

In one awkward attempt to win neighborhood support and gain students for Thurgood Marshall, Hutton crashed a meeting of a Ward 8 activist groups.

“Walking down there in my little suit and saying ‘Hey, we’re interested in starting a charter school here and we want to talk about it,’” he said.

“It was sort of a clumsy attempt to reach out to a whole bunch of people at once.”

Pillars of knowledge: Thurgood Marshall moved into its $12 million building in 2005.

Washington. Decades of neglect by the District government have left Anacostia impoverished, with a 28 percent unemployment rate in 2009, according to the Washington Post.

Ward 8’s disdain for outsiders is best personified by its councilman, former mayor Marion Barry (D). Barry is perhaps best known for saying “bitch set me up” on a surveillance tape, right after being arrested for smoking crack cocaine during an FBI sting operation.

Despite earning a misdemeanor drug conviction in the ensuing trial, he returned from jail for another term as mayor. In 2008, he won the ward’s Democratic primary with 77.5 percent of the votes cast. The ward’s willingness to elect a recovering drug addict who continues to be

feature

georgetownvoice.com

WILL SOMMER

Thurgood Marshall’s founders also had trouble convincing parents and students to take a chance on a smaller school that didn’t offer the benefits of much larger neighborhood schools, Anacostia High School and Ballou.

“You’re never going to have a football team, you’re never going to have a band,” Joe Feldman, the school’s first principal, said.

The law students managed to convince parents to trust them with their children through leaflets, community meetings, and introductions at Metro stations. By the start of the school’s first class in the fall of 2001, Thurgood Marshall had 80 students.

Kern attributes the school’s initial enrollment not to the school’s reputation, but to the failure of other Anacostia high schools.

WILL SOMMER

the georgetown voice 9

WILL SOMMER

Schoolhouse mock: Joshua Kern (LAW ‘01) shows off the mock court room.

Hall pass: Students at Thurgood Marshall don’t pass through metal detectors.

“There was a level of dissatisfaction that existed with the current options,” Kern said.

By the end of its first year, though, the school was still not rooted in the community its founders wanted to serve. The church’s leaders refused to renew the school’s lease or give it more room to expand, and the space they did have flooded.

“Every time it rained, I would have to mop up the basement,” Feldman said. “I was the highestpaid janitor you’ve ever seen.”

School space across the Anacostia River in Ward 6 beckoned.

Since leaving Anacostia would mean no longer being a college preparatory school for the neighborhood, Kern turned to D.C. Council Chair Vincent Gray (D), then the director of a charity for homeless teenagers based in Ward 8, for advice.

“So many organizations come into Ward 8 promising to do great things,” Kern said Gray told him.

“Ward 8 is like a city unto itself.

Things get hard, and they leave.”

Gray told him to try to stay in the community, even if problems finding space meant closing Thurgood Marshall. Eventually, the church leadership allowed the school to renew its lease.

Gray did not respond to a request for comment.

After spending $12 million on rehabilitating a disused elementary school, Thurgood Marshall moved into its new building on Martin Luther King in October 2005, leaving space issues behind The new building allowed the school to expand to its current enrollment of 391 students.

The school’s origins as a Law Center class are visible in its curriculum, which frequently incorporates the law in courses. Thurgood Marshall employs a retired lawyer who works with teachers to weave legal concepts into their classes.

“We want to give them some basic legal concepts and the skills that lawyers traditionally have,” Kern said. According to Kern, the school was founded to prepare students both for

Washington students. This score, along with a 67 percent proficient rating on the test’s reading portion, makes Thurgood Marshall not just the best scoring open-enrollment high school in Anacostia, but one of the best public schools in the city.

The school’s success is even more impressive considering Anacostia’s high rate of adult illiteracy, according to Barnaby Towns, the Director of Communications at FOCUS DC, an organization that promotes charter schools in the District.

Towns credits Thurgood Marshall with innovative use of tracking that catches students who are falling behind.

“They’ve been among the pioneers,” Towns said.

While Hutton is impressed with the progress made at Thurgood Marshall, he hopes the school will create change throughout the DC public school system. Still, he understands the concerns from charter school opponents about law students with little teaching experience operating schools.

“That’s one of the things that

college and for participation in American democracy.

This focus on the law is on display in the school’s mentoring program. One Saturday a month, students meet with mentors from the D.C. area, many of whom are lawyers.

School meetings on Saturday are just one aspect of Thurgood Marshall’s academic rigor. Even more significant is the school’s refusal to advance a student to the next grade if the school doesn’t think they’re ready.

“We have kids who were straight-A students in junior high school, at a DCPS junior high school, who come here and get an F,” Kern said. “It’s hard for kids to understand why they got an F.” Kern thinks that by the end of ninth grade students understand that they need to work hard at school.

This rigor is reflected in the school’s test scores. In 2009, 72 percent of Thurgood Marshall’s students scored proficient or higher on the math portion of the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System, the test used to evaluate

people will debate,” Hutton said.

“Do you want to turn over the education of children to dilettantes who don’t have the track record?”

Opponents criticize charter schools for lacking the oversight of traditional public schools, attributing comparatively higher test scores to the idea that only the most motivated students would attend a charter school.

The school’s community problems in Anacostia have eased considerably since its founding.

Nothing symbolizes Thurgood Marshall’s acceptance in Ward 8 like the support it now receives from Barry, its iconic councilman.

Barry attended the openings of the new school building and the dedication of a new gym in 2009, and Kern takes a break from work to eat lunch with him.

Although most of Thurgood Marshall’s founders no longer work there, McGoldrick, the professor who advised the class, said she’s proud of the work she and her law students did.

“What I saw was the uniquely right group of people and the uniquely right moment in time,” McGoldrick said.

Shhhhhhh! Don’t tell Georgetown students that Thurgood Marshall’s library is better than Lau.

WILL SOMMER

leisure

10 the georgetown voice

january 28, 2010

Charles Darwin, devolved

by Samantha Thompson “You’ve killed God, Sir.” When Thomas Huxley uses such grave terms to condemn the work of his fellow biologist Charles Darwin in Creation, director Jon Amiel sends a clear message to the audience: this Darwin biopic is rife with drama, but short on scientific explanation.

Based on the biography Annie’s Box, an account of Charles Darwin’s life written by greatgrandson Randal Keynes, Creation follows Darwin’s struggle to create On the Origin of Species, a book that would not only challenge religious authority, but also his own mental and physical fortitude.

Darwin, played somewhat convincingly by Paul Bettany, is an afflicted man torn between scientific discovery and the moral implications of his radical ideas. By proposing that nature, as opposed to a divine being, selects for the survival of a species, Darwin unintentionally declares a war between science and religion. And yet he finds himself entrapped in a war much more debilitating: a war against himself.

The death of his eldest daughter Annie, portrayed brilliantly by newcomer Martha West, plunges Darwin into what can only be described as a schizophrenic episode in which he is tortured by a myriad of hallucinations. The tortured scientist, as well as the film itself, is further plagued with the reappearance of Annie’s apparition, making it difficult to decipher whether it is truly Annie or merely her ghost present. Although his performance offers cinematic excitement, Bettany’s character unfortunately comes across more as a psychologically unstable mental patient than the exalted scientist who had the confidence to publish such a controverisl book and establish one of the more fundamental scientific theories of the modern age.

Through the loss of his daughter, Darwin’s religious faith also undergoes a palpable deterioration, causing a schism between not only Darwin and the Church but also between Darwin and his pious wife, Emma, played

by Bettany’s actual wife Jennifer

Connelly. Their relationship represents the inevitable conflicts associated with the convergence of science and religion, but ultimately suggests that the two can co-exist. Though in the film itself, science does not fare quite as well.

Science plays a subordinate role, as Creation is essentially a story about love, loss, and faith—leaving questions about how Darwin came to his scientific conclusions unexplored.

Although Creation certainly lacks the scientific edge that anyone familiar with Darwin’s accomplishments would expect from such a film, it does offer a revealing illustration of Darwin as a husband and father, challenging the popular conception of the man as a scientific figure devoted solely to research. Anyone looking for a period piece filled with heartache, tragedy, and family struggles will enjoy this film, but those interested in the reasoning behind Darwin’s scientific postulations will find themselves wishing they’d just spent their time with a copy of On the Origin of Species instead.

lez’hur ledger

Please don’t sue us, Scientologists

by Brendan Baumgardner I need to work on my mind thrusts. Yesterday, I learned that the negativity in my life is the result of my weak dynamic thrusts, which are the product of my overly dominant reactive mind storing engrams. Fortunately, all of these problems can be overcome through Dianetics, the therapeutic procedure practiced by Scientologists across Los Angeles county.

I’ll back up. I am not, nor do I intend to become, a Scientologist.

I am, however, a fan of absurd cultural phenomenon and secretive organizations, so Scientology intrigues me. I guess celebrities attending cultish ceremonies on private cruise ships strike a chord within me. When I discovered a personality test on the Scientology website, I knew what I had to do.

The test, as expected, was unusual. It consisted of two hundred questions ranging from “Do you often sing or whistle just for the fun of it?” to “If we were invading another country, would you feel

sympathetic towards conscientious objectors in this country?”

I’m the kind of guy who likes to whistle while invading other countries, so I was at a loss for what my results would say. Luckily, the Church of Scientology near Dupont Circle offers free analysis.

I arrived quiz in hand, and was introduced to Betina. She was a lovely young thetan who showed me a display explaining the Dianetic principles. The display was one of about ten brightly colored screens based around enormous flat screen televisions.

Each TV showed glossy, soft focus featurettes about Scientology.

They were all incredibly vague.

The Dianetics panel, for example, seemed to focus on young, happy minorities moving in slow motion. There was also something about a volcano, and then it tried to sell me books.

The display on Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, was particularly absorbing. A video described his exploits at length, many of which were quite re-

markable. Did you know that at age thirteen Hubbard became the youngest Eagle Scout in history?

I certainly didn’t, and neither do the Boy Scouts of America, who keep no records of the sort.

A few minutes later, I met Sheila, the woman who scored my test. Her face was grave—apparently my survival dynamics were not in sync, and it was seriously affecting my life. Who knew?

My mistake came when, in an attempt to be agreeable, I admitted to having briefly seen a psychiatrist years ago. Psychiatrists, with their drugs and degrees, are the sworn enemies of the Scientology lot; Sheila told me how lucky I was to have overcome the trauma. My life force must be very strong, she assured me, but misguided. Luckily, Dianetics held the cure in the form of more videos and some strong-arm salesmanship. Though the $100 introductory seminar did sound delightful, I ultimately declined.

I’ll take a full wallet over hearty, dynamic thrusts any day.

“Brendan! How many times do I have to say no to The Mummy 4?”

IMDB

Extra-bore-dinary

by Leigh Finnegan As an intergalactic smugglercum-fighter pilot and a whipwielding explorer, Harrison Ford cemented his status as the biggest badass of modern cinema decades ago. But if the embarrassment of the last Indiana Jones movie and Ford’s continuing decline into the depths of senior citizenship haven’t entirely eroded his renegade reputation, his latest role—as a supporting character in a Brendan Fraser movie—certainly will.

In Extraordinary Measures, Fraser stars as John Crowley, a lovable businessman and dedicated father of two children who are battling Pompe Disease, a fast-acting, life-threatening muscular condition. At ages six and eight, the kids are quickly approaching the incurable disease’s life expectancy of nine years, and Crowley is frantic to prevent what most doctors declared as the inevitable. As a final act of desperation, Crowley jeopardizes his family’s finances when he quits his job to enter the risky private-research business with the eccentric Dr. Robert Stonehill (Ford), a disgruntled scientist with revolutionary ideas for the treatment of Pompe.

The pairing works surprisingly well, comically juxtaposing the buttoned-down Crowley with the rebellious Stonehill. Certainly, Ford’s extensive experience playing the insubordinate, condescending jerk who always manages to save the day serves him well.

But from the tear-jerking scenes of sick children laughing, to the casting of Fraser as the lov-

able good guy—not to mention Keri Russell as his flat, maternal wife—the movie takes few risks in its quest for audience affection.

Extraordinary Measures fluctuates between heartwarming moments of family love and desperate realizations that the children’s time is running short, though the latter scenes lack poignancy and empathy.

It certainly doesn’t help that the Ford-Fraser dynamic further undermines the intended emotional impact. Shockingly, odd couple comedy doesn’t lend much gravity to a movie about terminally ill children. Rather than providing comic relief for the occassionally distressing plot, the partnership makes the movie much more light-hearted than it should be.

Although the film claims to be “inspired by true events,” Dr. Stonehill is as fictitious as Winnie the Pooh. As much as the audience loves watching Ford drive a pick-up truck, mentally abuse young scientists, and mockingly call his business partner from the Garden State “Jersey,” his performance focuses on Stonehill’s larger-than-life personality at the expense of the kids he was invented to save.

The movie remains formulaic right to its end, when the overly-sappy score takes over and subheadings on the screen explain how the semi-fictional characters lived out their own happily-ever-afters.

Extraordinary Measures certainly ends with a smile, but the audience is happier for yet another Harrison Ford victory than for the family he delivered from misery.

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the georgetown voice 11

“You sounded like a Nazi Julie Andrews”—In the Loop

Archaeology photography: Can you dig it?

by Sara Carothers The Lucille and Richard Spagnuolo Gallery is trying to shed its perception as the odd room you might glance at while swiping your GoCard on the way into the LXR courtyard. The banners outside of Walsh announcing its new exhibition, The Creative Photograph in Archaeology, seem to herald the transformation of the space from an afterthought into a legitimate showcase of artistic works. And bringing in a high-quality, engaging photography exhibit doesn’t hurt, either.

Lining the walls of the gallery are 40 prints of equal size, and an immediately recognizable subject: the archeological ruins of Athens.

The purpose of the exhibit is not to simply appreciate the Acropolis, but instead to trace the evolution of the purpose of photography.

The world-renowned photographers that contributed to this exhibit came from Scotland, Austria, Switzerland, Greece, Germany, and the U.S., but Athens was chosen as the subject because it was the only place they had all photographed. Organized chronologically, the exhibit highlights how the innovations in individual photographers’ techniques highlight different conceptions of the same subject.

The earliest photographs, such as James Robertson’s “The

Temple of Olympian Zeus from the SW, 1853-54,” taken with some of the first photographic technology, were intended to serve primarily as explanatory images for those who had never seen Athens before. As you move through the

fascinating contrast to the earlier photographs.

Many of the most notable works included in the exhibit come from the influential Swiss photographer Frederic Boissonnas. In his prints, the ruins fade

Wait, is that a bare ass? Because those cheeks look like they could crush chestnuts. Color me jealous. exhibit, selected photographs explore the inside of the ruins and capture aesthetically intriguing details and hidden corners. The evolution showcased in the exhibit demonstrates how photographers adapted to the prolifera-

Fashion abroad, at home When my buddy Ben came back from his study abroad program in Egypt, he presented me with a traditional Egyptian dishdasha that he bought for me in Alexandria. The long pearl-white robe flows like gossamer and has an ornately stitched collar—not to mention the perfect pocket sizes for a phone and wallet held in one side and a 23.5 ounce dragon Joose caffeinated malt liquor beverage in the other.

Basically, the dishdasha is exactly what I’ve been looking for to throw on when I hit up the hookah tent on the front lawn during Georgetown Day. I couldn’t have asked for a better gift.

Donning the dishdasha got me thinking that it’s time we

tion of standard, landscape shots of the temples.

The Creative Photograph in Archaeology also showcases the relationship between archaeological sites and their visitors.

In the 1890s, Anton Silberhuber

bring some international flare to Georgetown’s buttoned-up fashion scene. After all, it’s no secret that our international students really only wear J. Crew, Ralph Lauren, Zara, and the ilk. It’s about time that Georgetown owns up to its international reputation by dressing the part.

I’ve long held that specialty garments from around the world can add a certain zest to an otherwise plain, preppy, or overly conventional wardrobe.

For inspiration, I propose we turn to our classmates who have recently returned from study abroad programs, and encourage them to wear and share the fruits of fashion they have brought from afar.

took photographs of a group of tourists he’d brought to Greece.

His shots of the same Temple of Olympian Zeus with a bunch of handlebar-mustached men standing in a row—wearing top hats and holding canes­—provides a

Students returning from Ghana, for instance, should be proud to show off their purchased West African dashikis and kufi hats. Since my father started doing research in Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal, he started bringing back traditional dashikis (colorful, loose, V-neck shirts

Suffer for Fashion

by Keenan Sheridan Timko a bi-weekly column about fashion with symmetrical and geometrical designs) as gifts. With a kufi hat, a brimless, woven cap, a pair of jeans and sandals, you’ll be as fly as Marvin Gaye in his 70s prime and ready to get it on with campus co-eds drawn to the shirt’s bright colors and intricate, abstract designs. Ladies can try this look out with a belt

Max Blodgett

into the background while more contemporary subjects take the focus, like a sheepherder or the Illisuss River flanked by telegraph lines on its banks. Boissonnas’ talent for drawing the eye to incredibly detailed and beautifully

and oversized shades to look cool while keeping cool outside on a scorcher.

For something even more sizzling than the continent of Africa, we can consult students back from the Big Boot at Villa le Balze. Every year seems to bring back more tales of vrooming on Vespas through cobblestone streets, clutching desperately to semester-long Romeos or Juliets, but rarely advice on how to achieve that “bella figura.” Italy doesn’t just represent D&G, as most Hoyas would believe, but encompasses the larger idea of, say, wearing white jeans and a cashmere sweater (ragazzi and ragazze both) in 85 degree heat just because it looks that good.

Also, men: keep in mind there is no Italian word for “shorts.”

Finally, female students returning from Chinese programs

lit foregrounds—while leaving a tiny outline of the Acropolis as a mark of place in the background—show that photographers of the early twentieth century began to put their personal mark on the places they photographed through a creative composition and intense attention to the effects of light and shadow.

Boissonas’ contemporary, Walter Hege, focused on capturing the statues inhabiting the temples.

In one image, he manages makes the caryatids of one ruin look like women truly tasked with supporting the whole structure, by photographing them close-up from above, with dramatic shadows and a steep drop to the bottom of the temple as a backdrop. Compared to the earliest photographs in the exhibit, where the statue-columns would have been seen only from the ground as part of an image of the entire structure, the later prints show the creative ways in which modern photographers reimagine iconic subjects.

Though small in scale, the Spagnuolo Gallery has thankfully added a thoughtful and professional addition to Georgetown’s nascent arts scene. Let’s hope the exhibit is only the beginning for Georgetown’s growing art scene.

In time, the gallery will evolve into a space for both immaculate presentation and more challenging, provocative works of art.

may have a cheongsam gown (male versions are changshans) for the Dip Ball come springtime. The Chinese elite popularized these shiny, body-hugging garments in the 1920s ,and the finest made versions still exude wealth and status.

On-campus fashion choices shouldn’t be limited to whatever co-eds purchase on M Street—there’s a wide world of attire we’re ignoring. Don’t be afraid to show the threads from your time abroad, even if they make your friends jealous that they stayed on campus. And they’ll be even more jealous when J. Crew releases its own line of dishdasha-inspired eveningwear.

Show Keenan what you learned while you were overseas at ktimko@georgetownvoice.com.

leisure

12 the georgetown voice

january 28, 2010

Critical Voices

Surfer Blood, Astro Coast, Kanine Records The bros in Surfer Blood either have great luck or a damn good sense of timing. Their monster single “Swim (To Reach the End)” dropped just as the indie scene was abuzz with words like “beachy,” “sunny,” and “summery,” making its way onto everyone’s favorite summer mixtape. But even the best albums of the chillwave and beach-pop movements might as well have “2009” stamped on their covers, diminishing any serious legacy except nostalgia (think Duran Duran as opposed to New Order). Surfer Blood managed to avoid this pitfall by waiting for the movement’s hype to pass.

Audiences now have to judge the band—and their newest album, Astro Coast—on their terms.

Given their penchant for sweet harmonies, catchy melodies, and ridiculous hooks, they are most properly lumped under “guitar pop”—specifically the genre’s indier side: Teenage Fanclub, (early)

Weezer, and the Shins—although they do still draw on some surfrock influences, too. The album has a proudly muddy sound, a style that sounds even better in a post-shitgaze world. It’s nice to know that it’s still possible to sound endearingly low-budget without sounding “bad.”

Despite sounding low-budget, the group never comes off as amateur. They wield their hooks sparingly, never wearing out their welcome in the way a lesser group might. The occassional clumsiness of their lyrics— the otherwise excellent “Twin Peaks” contains the lines “Let’s have fun at the video store/with Blue Velvet and other titles”—is excusable in the recent history of guitar pop acts.

With the Shins and the Strokes all but entirely broken up, and Vampire Weekend and Phoenix feeling too similar to their predecessors to represent a new generation, there’s a hole to fill in our collective heart with the sign “kind of underground pop/rock” hanging above it. The band sounds too “indie” to fill the Strokes’ shoes—that’s a spot best left for Free Energy when their album drops in May—but they’re lined up to be the Shins for a new generation.

Voice’s Choices: “Swim (To Reach the End),” “Floating Vibes,” “Take It Easy” —Matthew Collins

DJing: a game of fundamentals “Do you have any Taylor Swift?!”

It’s a daunting question for a bearded 22-year-old, especially when shouted in the dark, point blank, while DJing a Georgetown party. It becomes an almost existential query, really: Do I want to play a Taylor Swift song at this party, or am I willing to hurt this stranger ’s feelings? Let’s call it a “crisis of party aesthetics” with more at stake you may realize initially realize.

In a certain sense, DJing a house party can be a lot like coaching a Little League team.

Ultimately, the point of the activity is for the players, coach-

es and parents to have a good time, make some new friends, and hopefully learn a lesson or two about life (it’s a slippery conceit, so bear with me). But more often than not, parents will get a little too caught up in the heat of the game and decide that they would like to share a few words with the coach. We all know that the appropriate occasions to share such concerns are not during game-time situations (especially heated ones), but a few polite requests can be acceptable. It’s when people get pushy that problems arise.

It’s no secret that many people live vicariously through

Kanye West, Storytellers, VH1 Kanye West’s episode of Storytellers, VH1’s answer to MTV Unplugged, originally aired in February 2008, immediately following an embarrassing time in Kanye West’s career. 2008’s Glow In The Dark Tour was a success, but the critical reception of 808s & Heartbreak was tepid, to say the least. If anything, the television event and newly released album of the same name are opportunities for Kanye to show his fans that he is still capable of bringing energy into his live performances and rock crowds with songs off 808s.

One would expect that Storytellers would be a “greatest hits” of West’s career, but there are plenty of gaps in the set list.

Where is “Paranoid”, arguably the best song on 808s? And only nine tracks? Where are the extended performances? Kanye recorded three hours of footage for the VH1 broadcast, so Storytellers could have been pumped up with plenty of songs. music, like some parents live through their children—if you have an interest in music, chances are that you would ascribe a bit of your identity to, say, Taylor Swift. Trust me, the DJ—or in our analogy, thecoach—knows this, as he like-

Yr Blues

by Daniel Cook a bi-weekly column about music ly has children himself (and if not, probably shouldn’t be coaching Little League). If he’s a good coach, he has watched your kid play carefully, and he knows what she can do. Even if the coach doesn’t feel your child is particularly talented, he would never insult your af-

Kanye fails worst with Storyteller’s spoken word tracks. Kanye doesn’t tell us anything specific, only vague statements borne out of his big ego and his tendency to yell into microphones. He tells the crowd that he’s not going to tell the story behind songs, because “certain things are too serious.”

Yet, his ego shows no sign of deflation. “You could’ve been anywhere in the world this evening, but you wouldn’t be as happy as you are right now.” Thanks for reminding us, Kanye.

All considered, some tracks— most notably “Touch the Sky” and “Flashing Lights”—are reminders that Kanye is a great performer when he turns off the auto-tune.

And let’s not forget, $12 for both a CD and a DVD is a bargain price for what would have been more than $20 just a few years ago.

Storytellers may only be memorable because its release captures Kanye at a low-point in his muchacclaimed career. Storytellers is nothing new from an artist who thrives on being new. Instead of being an essential album in Kanye’s discography, like the Glow In The Dark Tour live album could have been, Storytellers leaves fans asking “What if?” What if Storytellers had an expanded track list? What if Kanye included liner notes? What if he just starts rapping again?

Voice’s Choices: “Touch the Sky,” “Flashing Lights” —Nico Dodd fection for her, nor deny her the opportunity to play if she’s fit to do so.

But if it’s the bottom of the seventh, tie-game, with a runner on third, it is definitely not the time to be telling the coach that your child should be pinch-hitting. For starters, you should respect the fact that the coach has dedicated far more time to sculpting the team than you have. Not only has he given his own time to help you out, but chances are that the only reason the team is in a position to win is due to his preparation and decisionmaking.

More importantly, however, have respect for the other parents: this has clearly become an exciting game, and

Concert Calendar THURSDAY 1/28

Of Montreal (with James Husband) 9:30 Club, 7 p.m., $25 The Slackers (with Kill Lincoln) Rock & Roll Hotel, 8 p.m., $15

FRIDAY 1/29

Cowboy Mouth (with Junior Brown) 9:30 Club, 8 p.m., $25

SATURDAY 1/30

Tea Leaf Green (with Elmwood) 9:30 Club, 8 p.m., $17

SUNDAY 1/31

Music Helping Haiti (feat. Echo Boom) Rock & Roll Hotel, 5 p.m., $12 Those Darlins (with Pine Hill Haints) Black Cat, 9 p.m., $10

MONDAY 2/1

The Silent League (with Bone Gunn) DC9, 8:30 p.m., $8

THURSDAY 2/4

Magnetic Fields Lisner Auditorium at GWU, 8 p.m., $35

while you may mean well, the collective enjoyment of the participants should not be overshadowed by your desire to see your baby succeed. Even if your daughter is the most popular kid at school right now (ahem), it doesn’t mean she can pull off a squeeze bunt.

Lord knows, coaches are not infallible (there are a lot of bad coaches out there), but take a good look around before you decide to assert your agenda.

This isn’t the majors—no one is paying the coach—so let’s just extend as much mutual respect and courtesy as possible and just let the songs play.

Help Daniel rub the pine tar off of his iPad at dcook@ georgetownvoice.com.

fiction

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the georgetown voice 13

Modern World

Halves Speak not to me, O love, in halves: Half-sincere, half-impassioned, Half true.

Instead let my ears hear heavenly truths, Full of meaning and youthful vitality.

Whisper the lustful flutterings of maidens Maddened by loves’ caress.

O Modern World!

Where today is Virtue? Honor?

Such ideals have eroded through time Like the once majestic columns of some Divine Temple Hear this, a lone cry in the darkness: Raise our young to heights unknown, Shake off the rust which neglect has left, Remember the old ways, now discarded as unfashioned O Modern World! Rise Forth!

And Glory in the Eternal!

To the Dreamer Dreamer, Optimist, Romantic, O what burdens, self-employed, Your tender hearts do bear.

by Scott Munro

But you, select few, must bear them, Hold them close, let them nourish As the nectared wine of Immortals.

For in this death is overcome, sorrows lost, Empires conquered.

Youths O young faces, O bright eyes, Take arms against this sloth, That loathsome sloth this age begets Raise your weary brows From out dusty tomes, written by our dusty fathers.

O Young Faces, O Bright Eyes, Now is the time for lustful nights And luminous days filled with childhood vigor.

Regret not an hour wasted, Nor a moment lost.

JI-NAH YANG

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14 the georgetown voice

january 28, 2010

Coffee break: Bringing addiction to a grinding halt

by Marie-Camille Negrin My freshman fall semester was spent in line at MUG and Uncommon Grounds deciding which drink to try. The delicious-sounding names of the drinks made them that much

more enticing—who wouldn’t want to quench her thirst with a drink called “The Anarchist,” “The Yankee Buster,” or “The Peter Cottontail”? By conducting a highly scientific study of how long each drink took to make, whether the use of the

MATTHEW FUNK

The best part of wakin’ up is a throbbing, caffeine-induced headache.

espresso machine was necessary, and how much caffeine each beverage supplied, I had soon compiled a list of go-to favorites.

MUG and UG’s amusing menus soon lost their novelty, but I kept going back for more.

Soon I was drinking a cup to wake me up, another to sustain me through classes, and a third to get through my work at night. Judging by the Disney World-like lines in which I patiently waited, I didn’t appear to be the only Georgetown student that needed Corp-supplied energy boosts.

It was only this summer when I went home that I realized how dependent I had become. My parents only own an espresso machine and I began to face intense cravings for the elongated, dark bitter drink, especially with all the Corp-supplied tweaks and additions. Without my fix, intolerable headaches ensued, followed by crankiness no cup of tea could cure. Had all those Life of Bryans, Café au Laits, and the occasional Red Eye really affected me?

My summer withdrawal symptoms should have been a

warning, but when I returned to campus this fall, I quickly fell back into addiction. Soon after my relapse, though, I was saved from a lifetime of caffeine cravings and a downward spiral into a mocha-flavored hell.

At 10:05 one October morning, I convinced myself that I needed a cup of coffee before my 10:15 class, lengthy line at MUG be damned. My bag was heavy, I was over-heating in my winter coat, and the person at the front of the line appeared to be paying for his Dubliner in pennies. I had ten minutes to get to class, and I loathe being late, which only made me sweat more. Watching in agony as the MUG employees lackadaisically worked the espresso machine, I realized that I was completely stressed out about something that wasn’t indispensable. The foam topping off the whole situation was that when it finally arrived, my cup of coffee was lukewarm.

Rushing to class, it struck me that drinking coffee had ceased to be a pleasurable experience.

Those ten minutes would have been much better spent taking my time getting ready or conversing with a friend. In the

end, I didn’t even drink the coffee. Somewhat to my surprise, I was still awake at the end of class, proving to myself that I hadn’t really needed the stimulant. With the revelation that in wasting time and money on coffee I was essentially paying to be anxious and late for class, I resolved to put an end to my coffee habit.

Now if I’m cold, I drink decaffeinated tea. If I’m tired in the morning I take a shower.

If I need a break I download music, go on Facebook, or take a nap. I realized that morning that being dependent on coffee, just adds another layer of stress to my life that I can do without. I can’t say I’ve completely given it up, but it has become a treat for me, rather than a routine. It is something that I enjoy after a meal or with a friend, because in the end, sharing time over a cup of coffee is always more enjoyable than drinking on the go.

Marie-Camille Negrin is a sophomore in the College. She likes her sugar with coffee and cream.

Logistical fault lines, too, run under Port-au-Prince

by Colton Malkerson The 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit Port-au-Prince on January 12 affected three million people—killing over 100,000, about 80 percent of whom had to be buried in mass graves. Thousands still require medical attention, millions are homeless, and many lack necessities as basic as water and food.

In such a catastrophe, everyone’s first priority must be preserving life and assisting those in dire need. However, the critical situation in Haiti is unique and presents certain hidden risks for the United States. Before involving ourselves even further in the recovery efforts, we must examine the complexities of our long-term strategy for this island nation.

I have two primary concerns with our efforts in Haiti.

The first is that by becoming so involved in the relief efforts, we risk entangling ourselves in a country that may be beyond our capacity to assist.

In addition to great loss of life, the earthquake also largely

destroyed the Haitian government and infrastructure. The Presidential Palace is completely collapsed. Parliament is gone. There is no reason for the Judiciary to function. Many Cabinet members, ministers, and government workers have been killed or are still missing.

The President of Haiti is living and working in the backyard of a police station. The Haitian government, which at its best was corrupt and ineffective, is now nearly nonexistent.

This breakdown has forced other nations, led by the United States, to provide essential services in Haiti.

Ten thousand U.S. troops are providing security and humanitarian assistance. The U.S. Air Force has been given control of the airport to help foreign forces and aid organizations land safely. Illegal Haitians in the United States have been granted Temporary Protected Status. U.S. ships are pumping in clean water and acting as hospitals.

Food, supplies, and money are pouring in from around the world.

Even the Haitians don’t think their government is up to the task. ABC News’ Martha Raddatz reported that when the U.S. troops began patrolling the city streets Haitians cheered because they thought the United States was taking over.

While many things remain uncertain in Haiti, one thing is clear: foreign states, particularly the United States, are the only thing protecting the country’s relative stability and remaining infrastructure. The Haitian government has all but ceased to function and has practically abdicated its sovereignty to foreign states.

But the United States cannot and should not stay in Haiti forever. The reality is that at some point U.S. troops will need to come home. We must keep this logistical concern in mind and begin thinking about disengagement even as we expand our presence in Haiti so dramatically.

My second concern is that if Haiti is to have any shot at long-term stability without permanent international support we must change our aid

strategy for the country. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton have been tasked with overseeing the fundraising and rebuilding efforts for Haiti, pledging to “make sure [our] money is spent wisely.”

But, as New York Times columnist David Brooks pointed out the other week, over the past twenty years trillions of dollars have been spent on assisting developing nations, yet these nations remain impoverished while countries that receive little foreign aid, like China, have seen tremendous growth and poverty reduction. I am no expert, but it’s clear we must be doing something wrong.

Private American donations have brought in more than $300 million and the federal government has pledged hundreds of millions more. Much of this money will go to the long-term rebuilding efforts in Haiti, an admirable cause. However, if we apply the same old strategies proven ineffective in the past we will be needlessly wasting the generosity of the American public and not giving the Haitians all the support we can.

When providing assistance to Haiti we must demand better from the government, refusing to allow old practices to set in again. We should also invest less in aid like food and medicine that helps a person for only a day and instead invest in economic development that gives people an income that provides aid forever.

We are still in a period of critical relief. We must continue rushing in supplies and helping the Haitians who badly need it.

Yet, we must be cognizant of the fact that this is a complex situation. Haiti cannot become dependent on the United States because at some point we will need to leave. We must also ensure that our long-term investment in Haiti is used more effectively than in the past. It is in both our and Haiti’s interest that we get this right.

Colton Malkerson is a Freshman in the School of Foreign Service. Visit www.redcross.org to donate to the Haiti relief fund.

voices

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15

Lessons learned between a rock and a hard place

by Ryan Lundquist I was 12 and visiting Georgetown for my second college tour —I know that sounds crazy, but in my family of four brothers, when one of us visited schools, all of us visited the school to save time—when I heard what has become my favorite story.

My family being strict Irish Catholics and our visit falling on a Sunday, we headed to Dahlgren Chapel dressed in our finest to join a shuffling crowd of guiltylooking, hung-over undergraduates. During the hour of ritual worship and deity-eating, the priest devoted his sermon to a parable about a young man and a boulder.

As the priest told it, God commanded the most devout man on earth to push a massive boulder sitting next to his house up a hill.

Being the most devout man on earth, he stood at the base of that boulder and strained with all his might to move it. Try as he might, he could not move the boulder, and collapsed in a heap next to

it. Once he woke up, he got some food and, despite his weary body, returned to pushing the boulder; still no progress.

This pattern repeated itself for a few days, then weeks, then months, then years, until this man had become stronger. Finally, a day came where he got the previously stationary stone to budge. Over the course of a few days, he got the boulder into position atop the little hill, at which time God said, “Good work, my son. Now rest.” And rest he did, because let’s be honest, that guy was beat.

Back when I first heard the tale, I thought this was a pretty good story. Last Sunday – eight years after the Lundquist Georgetown college extravaganza – as I sat a pew in Dahlgren once again, waiting for the sermon to begin, I remembered the story of the devout man and wondered, “What was that guy thinking?”

I’d been living by the motto “work smarter, not harder” for a long time. Why walk across the Key Bridge, for example, when

you could stand outside the Southwest Quad and catch a GUTS bus that’ll get you to Rosslyn at the same time? But as I reflected on the old sermon I realized that the point of the priest’s story was that the existence of a shortcut isn’t always enough to make taking that

“

puter science class, that’s why I’m majoring in American Studies and English. It’s not that I disagree with my father’s point —I recognize that there is a limited number of people who can pass Organic Chemistry—but his stance hearkens back to an antiquated view of academia as a rigidly separate hierarchy of disciplines, ignoring the modern necessity of interdisciplinary studies. I’m not sure when this perceived hierarchy of academic disciplines was created, but I am certain that it is outdated.

Maybe I’m just a little oversensitive after years of, “You’re taking what? Is that actually a class?” I’ve noticed a trend at Georgetown, though, wherein cultural and interdisciplinary study seem to be taken less seriously. During New Student Orientation week, my Orientation Advisor introduced his girlfriend to our group and promptly ridiculed her American Studies major, pointing out that while she gets to take classes like “Baseball in America,” he has to take Orgo.

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or a few clicks away, I found my life empty because it was built on all the unimportant things we’ve created to make our lives a little more full.

Do I think the old man pushing for years against a stationary rock is a fool? To a certain

I remembered the story of the devout man and wondered, ‘What was that guy thinking?’

shortcut worthwhile.

For a long time, I’d felt empty, without any tangible reason. It was sort of an out-of-place, disconnected feeling; a nagging concern that I didn’t belong or didn’t deserve to be where I was. The feeling didn’t come from a lack of accomplishment, I realized reflecting on the parable, but a lack of commitment. I had done everything I was required to do to make it to Georgetown and progress through sophomore year, but I’d forgotten that fulfilling your duties with the minimum possible effort isn’t the same thing as leading a fulfilling life.

The secret life of an Am-Stud Major Much to the dismay of my father, a computer scientist, all three of his children pursued majors in the humanities. When my twin brother shared with us that the engineering and pre —med majors at Johns Hopkins, who make up roughly 75 percent of the undergraduate class, call history classes and the like “arts-and–crafts time,” my dad chortled in tacit agreement.

When I—at the time an intellectually puffed–up freshman— protested, Dad argued that there is simply a different degree of rigor in the practical knowledge needed for engineering classes than for liberal arts classes.

“If you walked into an upper–level computer science class,” he said to me, “you would have no idea what was going on without the skill set developed in earlier classes. However, anyone can walk into any level English class and be able to understand what’s being discussed.”

I readily admit that I would have no idea what was going if I walked into an introductory com-

I looked back and saw that even in pledging a fraternity – an act that required what might be the most commitment I’d ever given—I gave the least and did the least possible to make the cut.

My pledge brothers knew it, and deep down I knew it too. I had

Culture and Politics majors are the black sheep of the School of Foreign Service – an acquaintance once commented that CULP majors might as well just do International Politics, a “real” major.

My friend Dan seems to think that being an American Studies major means that I’m a repository for any historical or cultural fact regarding America. When I can’t answer one of his trivia questions, he asks me what the point of my major is if I don’t know which movie won the Best Picture Oscar in 1973.

Carrying On

by Kate Mays A rotating column by Voice senior staffers

Perhaps the wariness towards interdisciplinary work speaks to academic institutions’ conservatism. More recent pedagogical criticism raises questions about how methods of teaching can adapt “learning for a world of constant change.” In a paper titled as such presented at a June 2009 colloquium on the “Future of the Research University,” Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown describe the importance of shifting from a system that emphasizes learning as a passive “acquisi-

all the excuses you can think of— I was sick, I was too busy, I didn’t like hanging with so-and-so, I had family issues—all valid reasons not to participate, yet all a bit false at the same time. Revisiting that sermon made me realize that laziness, sloth, whatever you want to call it, was taking over my life. Instead of physics, Hulu.

Instead of friends, Facebook.

The problem is that the character-building, meaningful activities take so much effort, and opportunities for distraction and relaxation are always readily available. In a world with literally anything we need a phone call tion of skills or ... information.”

We’ve already seen how new media and technologies are transforming our cultural landscape— at some point these changes are going to need to trickle down into academia, but not just in specially—designed programs, in every discipline. There are some professors at Georgetown who incorporate different technologies into their courses. When one of my English classes created a wiki on Finnegans Wake for example, we still had to engage with the material, but the digital format required us to consider not only what we were learning, but also how to best structure and convey that information using a variety of mediums.

When we graduate, inevitably we will be presented with a variety of multi–media platforms in our “real life” jobs. Some, like Facebook, we’re already familiar with, but in the context of our personal lives. As the digital world blurs the lines between work and home, it is imperative that we become adept at applying our acquired knowledge to them.

Most of us already do this outside of class, but the Internet is not going away and the academic institution should be doing more to adapt. I wouldn’t go so far as Mark Taylor, chairman of Columbia University’s religion department, who wrote in an April 2009 New York Times op–ed that universities should abolish tenure and establish a mandatory retirement age for professors. His point,

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extent. Why didn’t he just go out and build a big lever or a crane or something? He could have done that job with so much less effort—but that’s not the point.

The point is that the more you do things the easy way, the easier it is to wind up not doing any of the hard, but more rewarding things in life.

Ryan Lundquist is a sophomore in the College.

He used to halfass everything, but then he joined B-Frat. however, that liberal arts study is in a state of crisis and needs a drastic overhaul, starting with more flexibility between academic departments and disciplines, is a good one. Much like the dying newspaper industry, both suffer from an unwillingness or inability to break from tradition.

This week I had to send in a transcript for a job that I’m probably not qualified for (although according to a career advisor, with my majors I am qualified for pretty much every job—barring those in medicine and engineering— which makes me suspect that I’m not especially qualified for any jobs), and I was a little embarrassed looking it over, skeptical of how seriously a prospective employer would consider a person who has taken classes like, “Musicals on the Stage and Screen,” “Advertising and Social Change,” and “Sports Personalities of the Twentieth Century.”

Yes, all of those fill my American Studies requirements. Perhaps they sound a lot like a higher—education equivalent of “arts-andcrafts” classes, but that doesn’t mean they’re not academically and practically relevant—especially for a real world career in the Information Age.

Kate Mays is a senior in the College and a Voice Elder.

Because, really, who needs a job anyway?

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