10 23 14

FALL FASHION 2014

VOICE the georgetown

Georgetown University’s Weekly Newsmagazine Since 1969 w October 23, 2014 w Volume 47, Issue 10 w georgetownvoice.com

the

Voice

Oct. 23, 2014 This week: Editorial ... Inaccessibility spurs disability dialogue, pg. 3 News ... Students form new coalition for free speech, pg. 4 Sports ... Boxing hosts showcase on Healy lawn, pg. 6 Feature ... Fall looks by the Voice, pg. 8 Leisure ... Stop time at new Hirshhorn exhibit, pg. 14 Page 13 ... Things We Did During Midterms, pg. 17 Voices ... Does Georgetown hate the class of 2017?, pg. 18

FALL FASHION 2014

The Voice teaches you how to stay stylish in sweater weather.

Last week’s key:

–Leila Lebreton

This Week’s Horoscope

–Ambika Ahuja

Scorpio is the fiercest sign of the Zodiac. Scorpios are often misunderstood, but they naturally come off as mysterious.

They are able to see past the ulterior motives of others, but keep themselves guarded. The Scorpio always keeps it real.

Especially in love, Scorpios want the real deal or no deal at all. Happy Scorpio season!

BLOG

Editor: Ryan Greene

Assistant Editors: Grace Brennan, Marisa Hawley, Kenneth Lee

HALFTIME

Leisure Editor: Daniel Varghese Assistant Leisure Editors: Micaela Beltran, Erika Bullock, Simone Wahnschafft

PHOTO

Editor: Ambika Ahuja

Assistant Editors: Sabrina Kayser, Gavin Myers, Joshua Raftis

NEWS

Steven Criss

Assistant Editors: Shalina Chatlani, James Constant, Lara Fishbane

Dayana Morales Gomez

Editor: Julia Jester

VOICES

Editor: Chris Almeida

Assistant Editor: Grace May

EDITORIAL BOARD Chair: Ian Philbrick

Board: Chris Almeida, Shalina Chatlani, Steven Criss, Lara Fishbane, Ryan Greene, Julia Jester, Caitriona Pagni, Kenneth Lee, Daniel Varghese, James Constant

Editor in Chief

Managing Editor

Mary-Bailey Frank General Manager

Noah Buyon

Technical Director

Tim Annick

Managing Director of Accounting and Sales

Allison Manning

Managing Director of Finance

SPORTS

Editor: Chris Castano

Assistant Editors: Kevin Huggard, Joe Pollicino, Max Roberts

LEISURE

Editor: Josh Ward

COVER

Editor: Christina Libre

FEATURE

Editor: Caitriona Pagni

DESIGN

Assistant Editors: Elizabeth Baker, Sam Kleinman, Manuela Tobias

Editors: Pam Shu, Sophia Super

COPY

Staff: Caitlin Garrabrant, Johnny Jung, Erin McClellan, Eleanor Sugrue, Ellen Yaeger

Editors: Rachel Greene, Ryan Miller, Dana Suekoff, Lauren Chung, Maddi Kaigh, Andrew Frank, Jupiter El-Asmar, Bianca Clark, Michael Mischke

Editor: Dylan Cutler

Chief: Eleanor Fanto

Assistant Editor: Leila Lebreton

PAGE 13

editorial

georgetownvoice.com

The georgetown voice | 3

let me in

Construction, advocacy should augment campus disability dialogue

With much of Georgetown’s campus currently affected by construction, accessibility for disabled students and faculty has been severely curtailed. Fences crisscross throughways while concrete barricades block off roads and ramps. Although these blockages have been understandingly created for safety reasons, they have unacceptably rendered some buildings on campus functionally inaccessible by disabled students.

Flyers with handicapped symbols crossed out have appeared around campus that read, “This area is difficult to traverse for some of your friends and fellow Hoyas.” Although neither any individuals nor student groups have claimed responsibility for the postings, they have helped catalyze an important and long-overdue conversation about the treatment of disabled students on the Hilltop.

Construction has only magnified the issues confronted by disabled students on a daily basis. On Oct. 11, the entirety of the north end of campus was closed down with only one day’s notice, causing serious accessibility issues. Similarly, according to student disability advocate Lydia Brown (COL ’15), when the elevators in Copley Hall stopped functioning for a night in September, all disabled

students in the building had no choice but to relocate during the repairs. They spent the night in New South.

Disability access and the mentality of ableism are issues that merit address at a systemic level, rather than in an ad hoc response to the increased strain placed upon handicapped students by construction and unforeseeable incidents. Dialogue about these problems, however, has been thwarted in recent days. A Sept. 29 Lunch & Learn session for campus student group leaders sponsored by the Center for Student Engagement and hosted by Brown was virtually unattended.

The Voice spoke recentlywith Brown, who has proposed the establishment of a disability cultural center at Georgetown to address these concerns. There is little precedent for such an organization—only three universities in the country have centers dedicated to the cultural aspect of disability, as opposed to institutions that assist disabled students with accessibility issues. According to Brown, the impediments to the establishment of a disability cultural center are largely financial. Nevertheless, the university should consider collaborating with advocates like Brown as both a good-faith and necessaryinvestment aimed at addressing an inequality.

Historically, widespread student support has been necessaryto push social change at Georgetown.The 2007 founding of the LGBTQ Resource Center, for instance, represented the culmination of a dialogue with the university prompted by the student-organized “Out for Change” initiative. A similar cultural shift, rooted in student advocacy toward spreading awareness of disabilityissues, is clearlyneeded on campus.

Empathy and understanding will be the lifeblood of any such advocacy. Ironically, construction may prompt students to internalize—possibly in a temporary and reduced way—the routine struggle of navigating Georgetown’s campus as a disabled student.

A lack of disability awareness may also be attributable to a lack of participation by university bureaucracy. The creation of a disability cultural center would serve as an institutional touchstone and channel to facilitate dialogue between university administration, the Hoya population at large, and their classmates who suffer from disability.

If accessibility issues recently raised on campus are to morph into a meaningful wider dialogue surrounding disability at Georgetown, it is a dialogue that must both come from and involve all members of the community.

profit motive

open season

GU administration’s priorities turn away from student rights, well-being

District Council should advocate in opposition to concealed carry ruling

Earlier this month, GUSA revealed that university administration was considering consolidating the Women’s Center, LGBTQ Resource Center, and the Center for Multicultural Equity Access into a single entity. The proposal attracted strong criticism from all corners. Shortly after word broke, another possible administration consideration was announced: a third-year student meal plan requirement. Students reacted negatively to the proposal, which would require juniors to buy into university dining policy and remains on the table. And, last week, the Voice ran an article on the state of the 2010 Campus Plan, formed between the university and the Advisory Neighborhood Commission, that severely curtails the number of students permitted to live off-campus—a deal that forced discussion of a satellite campus last year and has prompted rapid campus construction to house students for next year.

All three of these proposals—and the groundswell of criticism that has attended them—share a common thread.

University administration has increasingly begun to propose changes motivated by factors other than students’ needs and desires. The university’s fiscal policy, endowment, ability to pay for infrastructure projects, and legal obligations to the neighborhood are obviously of preeminent concern. But a systemic issue arises when these concerns trump administrative regard for students’ rights and well-being—particularly when students historically have fought to win recognition of these rights.

Of the administration’s recent proposals, the consolidation of the three resource centers is the most egregious.

The implicit assumption—that minority, LGBTQ, and female students could

all be well-served by a single office—is belied by these organizations’ individual histories, which begin in student advocacy. The individual mandates of these institutions to the students they serve— and the fact that these mandates have not always been secured—merit dedicated, individual spaces on campus.

This need has not waned with time.

A bias-related assault on M St. that left a Georgetown student in the hospital just last month and a sexual assault on a female in the neighborhood this past weekend show that the university’s commitment to its students’ welfare must be reinvigorated rather than bureaucratically watered down. If the university is committed to cutting expenses, it should start with groups that do not expressly serve vulnerable and historically underrepresented communities.

University representatives have understandinglysought to strike a conciliatory tone. In a response to the consolidation proposal posted on IdeaScale, Vice President of Student Affairs Todd Olson stated that the administration “understand[s] and value[s] the work of each center, and the needs of all our students.”

These words will do little to change an emergent administrative culture that these latest episodes epitomize. The majority of Hoyas might be able to shrug off the inconveniences of campus construction, or forgive the administration for pondering ways to cut costs. After all, the 2010 Campus Plan has forced the university as a whole, not just its student body, into some tight corners. But a university policy dictated by interests that supercede the mandate to deliver the best outcomes for student academics and wellbeing—especially when those outcomes are the hard-won result of student advocacy in the first place—is an affront to all.

In response to a July ruling by U.S. District Judge Frederick J. Scullin Jr. that declared D.C.’s ban on firearms unconstitutional, the Council of the District of Columbia passed emergency legislation last month that allows gun owners in the District to apply for permits to carry concealed weapons. Modeled after similar laws deployed in New York, New Jersey, and Maryland, the new law mandates applicants to demonstrate that they require a firearm for self-defense against a specific danger. In a reasoned response to incidents like the Sandy Hook elementary and Aurora, Col. theater shootings, the legislation prevents individuals with a documented history of mental illness to receive a permit and prohibits carrying concealed weapons on public transportation and within government buildings, school zones, day-care facilities, and taverns.

Though passed unanimously, the new legislation was essentially a winless response to the sudden invalidation of the District’s former ban, which left the Council scrambling to fill the void. According to Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, the District must face the fact that, constitutionally, it cannot eliminate guns—only seek to minimize their misuse. By overturning D.C.’s original ban, however, the ruling has removed one of the staunchest urban examples of gun control and has also created a dangerous legal precedent.

The ruling reflects a wider trend in the legal battle to respond to gun violence, whereby gun control measures have increasingly left the legislature and instead have almost become the sole province of the courts. On the surface this makes sense, as such laws are, after all, often viewed as interpretations that push or redefine the boundaries of the Second

Amendment’s right to bear arms. The failure of national efforts to curb gun violence, however, is largely attributable to the lobbying influence of the National Rifle Association. More importantly, it is limiting dialogue that belongs in the public and legislative forum to the closed courtrooms of judges and NRA-backed citizen activists who prioritize preserving strict interpretations of the Constitutional letter over protecting citizens’ lives.

Although well-intentioned, the Council’s new law misses the inherent danger of enacting concealed carry regulation. In the face of the one-year anniversary of the District Navy Yard shooting, which left 12 people dead, it is clear that institutional regulations on the use of firearms ultimately cannot ensure the safety of innocent lives.

Of the approximately 3,000 residents who have registered firearms since the District’s past ban on firearms was overturned in 2008, Mendelson expects that hundreds may now be eligible to receive carry permits. Such a number suggests that any presumed increase to the safety of gun owners pales in comparison to the risk that the District’s population at large will face because of the larger number of guns being carried in the city.

The ruling that struck down the District’s original carry ban is presently under 90-day stay, meaning that, until the stay is up, the Council mayboth make revisions to the new law and ask the court to reverse its ruling.The application period begins today.

At this critical juncture, the Council should advocate that Scullin reconsider the ban’s constitutionality to avoid the legalization of conceal-and-carry in D.C., protect citizens’ lives, and preserve a sterling precedent for urban gun control. To do anything less would be to further jeopardize the already languishing gun control movement.

news

4 | the georgetown voice

OCTOBER 23, 2014

Hoyas United for Free Speech to protect student rights ELIZABETH TEITZ Hoyas United for Free Speech, a recently-formed unaffiliated coalition of students concerned with expression and diversity of speech on campus, is seeking extensive reforms to Georgetown’s policies and practices in a petition addressing “the state of free speech on campus.”

The students are calling for Dr. Todd Olson, vice president of student affairs, to remove restrictions on campus free speech zones, increase diversity of speakers and classes, and expand support for “currently unrecognized marginalized communities.” Their demands also include maintaining separation of the LGBTQ Center, Women’s Center, and Center for Multicultural Equity and Access, securing funding for interpretation for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, and developing safe spaces for the disabled community on campus.

The campaign is not recognized by the university and intends to remain independent going forward. Their next step will be to deliver the petition to Dr. Olson, allowing future actions to depend on the university’s response.

“If the university would really like to work with us, and would like to engage with us in a substantive manner on these issues, we’d be happy to do that,” Vincent DeLaurentis (SFS ‘17), a founding member of the coalition wrote in an email to the Voice. “But we’re also committed to making sure that speech is protected, and we’re not going to stop if the university ignores us or takes actions that continue to be oppressive of speech.”

“We haven’t had any issues with using the name Hoyas up to this point [despite being unaffiliated],” DeLaurentis noted.

“We would hope that the university would respect our use of the name as members of the Georgetown community. At this point, we consider ourselves more of a campaign and less of a group. However, it has become clear, especially after the failure of the Memorandum of Understanding, that there will need to be a group that monitors the university’s implementation of speech policy. Whether this is HUFS or another group should be decided at a later date.”

Higher edge:

a tri-weekly column about america’s universities

“Back in my day, I worked my way through college.”That’s reasonable enough for our parents to say, when referring to a time when colleges didn’t expect students to live on campus, mandate meal plans, require astronomically expensive textbooks, encourage extracurricular involvement, promote unpaid internships, and foster social interaction.These developments have all become integral components of the contemporary college experience.

For empirical evidence, spend a day on Georgetown’s campus.

Some college students worry about whether their investment will eventually pay off, and even more of them worry about how they will eventually pay off their investment. But in an age of high tuition costs and low minimum wages, an alarming number of students worry if they will even graduate at all.

A recent chart from Attn draws attention to a factor often overlooked when discussing college graduation rates—the minimum wage.

The chart indicates that when considering a summer break of 13 or 14 weeks, students could pay a year’s worth of the average public university’s tuition from a minimum wage summer job up until around 1980. Today, it would take over a year of full-time, 40 hoursper-week minimum wage work to cover the current average price tag of public college tuition—not including books, housing, food, or other living expenses. Not to mention, most students nowadays spend their summers interning for no pay in some of the most expensive cities in the country—D.C., New York, San Francisco—doing the work of a paid entry-level staffer, if not their highly-paid superiors.

Here’s how this problem developed. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 1978, on average, a year’s tuition and fees at a four-year, in-state public university was was $688 in that year’s dollars—equal to working 260 hours at the 1978 minimum wage of $2.65, or fewer than seven full-time work weeks. Sure, there’s the caveat of using a national average and the fact that room and board brings the grand total to $2,145, but making $1,378 in one summer makes a significant dent.

I’d have to make $23,100 in one summer to pay just half of Georgetown’s annual tuition, which is $22,100 more than I made in my

first summer internship (before taxes). But let’s compare apples to apples: in 2011, the average comparable tuition was $7,701, equivalent to working 1,062 hours at the current $7.25 minimum wage— nearly 27 full-time work weeks.

So why don’t low-income students just work full-time year round on top of their schoolwork? Well, because the job candidate with years of experience working at a restaurant does not look nearly as impressive as the candidate with four semesters and three summers’ worth of internships (some, if not most, presumably unpaid) alongside multiple on-campus leadership roles that require a high level of time commitment. And that’s assuming both have similar GPAs, requiring a similarsignificant amount of time to devote to their studies.

The minimum wage has increased by 273 percent since 1978.

The cost of a college degree has increased by 1,120 percent within the same time frame, but state funding toward colleges has been cut by 40 percent. Even textbook prices are joining the skyrocketing fun, with prices increasing by 812 percent. The conclusion: it’s impossible to afford college on one’s own with a minimum wage job. Therefore, the fact that only 59 percent of freshmen who started a four-year college in the fall of 2006 received a diploma within six years is sad, but certainly not surprising.

Fighting against the socioeconomic disadvantage unpaid internships cause students to deal with is one step toward leveling the playing field for college students, but it doesn’t stop there. Of the 3.55 million workers earning minimum wage in 2012, 50.6 percent were between the ages of 16 and 24 years old, and 20 percent were between the ages of 25 and 34 years old. The intertwined issue of high tuitions and low minimum wages, then, is one that follows economically struggling students long after they graduate. Students should never have to sacrifice their potential success by having to turn down a prestigious, yet unpaid internship to work a minimum wage job they are overqualified for. However, this reality is a constant presence on college campuses—and one that can be prevented by carefully evaluating how both college tuition costs and the federal minimum wage are addressed.

MINIMUM EFFORT FOR COLLEGE AFFORDABILITY

BY JULIA JESTER

HOYAS EXERCISING THEIR RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH. “There’s been some longterm frustrations with free speech on campus and how it’s handled, and just really wild inconsistencies in how it’s applied,” said Erin Riordan (COL ‘15), another of the coalition’s leading members.

Free speech zones currently include Red Square and the lobby of the Leavey Center, a designation that Hoyas United for Free Speech hope to change. The letter to Dr. Olson calls for “a firm timeline for the eventual elimination of specified ‘free speech zones’ (tabling areas) in favor of campus-wide protections for free speech.” It also asks that the university “immediately expand free speech zones (tabling areas) to include the sidewalks around Healy Circle and in front of Healy Hall,” which includes the area from which H*yas for Choice were removed in September.

The students also hope to reclassify folding tables as non-permanent structures. “If you are tabling, you are assembling a permanent structure, and if the university doesn’t want you to be tabling, they can accuse you of building something you shouldn’t be building and force you to leave,” said HUFS member Lexi Dever (COL ‘16).

“This [campaign] isn’t just about tabling or having broader free speech zones,” said Riordan, though she notes those issues necessitate more immediate solutions. The petition also demands that administrators diversify speakers that are brought to campus and the content of academic courses in order to be more inclusive of underrepresented perspectives and identities.

“I’m so excited about this campaign [because] it also looks at speakers on campus and in our classes, both in terms

GAVIN MEYERS

of what classes are offered and incorporating speech in our classes, and acknowledging that when you hear a limited perspective of voices, when you read texts by exclusively white authors or by exclusively men, you’re not really getting free speech … and that’s really harmful for students and our education,” Riordan said.

The petition has collected 250 signatures as of Oct. 21, according to DeLaurentis. In order to uphold the principles of equal speech that it aims to promote, the group operates as “a non-hierarchal collectivist movement” and emphasizes ideological diversity as a key goal. In addition to individual signatures, they are also accepting endorsements from organizations who want to vocalize their support.

“We have H*yas for Choice signing on to it, we have Georgetown University Fossil Free, we have Georgetown Solidarity Committee,” DeLaurentis said.

“We also have some smaller clubs who aren’t recognized by the university … there’s a variety of groups signing on for a variety of different reasons.”

While Georgetown’s Catholic identity has often been a concern in discussions of free speech, Dever views this identity as vital to the promotion of diverse speech.

“As long as Georgetown professes to be a university, it kind of has to permit free speech for everyone. It has to permit us to have the free exchange of ideas that a university is all about,” said Dever. “We need to be able to talk about things that are hard for us to talk about, and that do challenge our Catholic values as a university, because if we don’t do that, then we never grow in our understanding.”

news

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice | 5

Student leaders speak out against possible consolidation of three resource centers JAMES CONSTANT Georgetown administrators have, over the past month, engaged in discussions about consolidating the Women’s Center, the LGBTQ Resource Center, and the Center for Multicultural Equity and Access into a single center. Many student leaders, however, have spoken out against this possibility. “[Stand-alone centers] can be closer to these still fragile and and sensitive communities, and therefore be more in tune with their very real needs,” said Thomas Lloyd (SFS ‘15), president of GU Pride. “We hope that the university will not pursue any action that will undermine the distinct identities of any of the resource centers, hinder their abilities to serve their independent student communities, or make Georgetown’s commitment to

each of these elements of diversity any less powerful or explicit.”

“There’s no conspiracy going on,” said Shiva Subbaraman, director of the LGBTQ Resource Center. “[Administrators] should have talked to the students ahead of time, but no decisions have been made. A main thing that we are trying to do is to try and have all three offices expand their space—because we have no space—and there were questions about possibly increasing efficiency, like through sharing some of our student workers.”

Hoyas United forFree Speech, a new self-described “coalition of students dedicated to promoting free speech and expression on Georgetown’s campus,” has circulated a petition calling on the university to, among other things, “preserve existing safe spaces including the

Women’s Center, LGBTQ Resource Center, and CMEA.” An IdeaScale proposal called “Protect Our Safe Spaces” has garnered over 390 votes of approval since it was started three and a half weeks ago.

The proposal’s author, GUSA Undersecretary of Gender Affairs Mariel Jorgensen (COL ‘16), urged Georgetown not to consolidate “marginalized groups under one ‘other’ umbrella.”

“Georgetown was the first Jesuit university to establish an LGBTQ Resource Center on campus, and for the university to have it subsumed into a composite center would be to take steps backward with regard to supporting students and staying true to the Jesuit tenet of cura personalis,” Jorgensen wrote in an email to the Voice. “In order to protect the

interests, initiatives, ideas, and safety of students of all identities, Georgetown must protect its safe spaces on campus by recognizing the invaluable and unique roles played by the Women’s Center and LGTBQ Resource Center and the CMEA, respectively.”

Jorgensen’s proposal garnered enough attention online to warrant a response from Vice President of Student Affairs Dr. Todd Olson.

“We are having a discussion about ways to create more coherence in our diversity work, and wanted to raise questions with students about potential approaches to doing that. First, this is not anything close to a finished decision— it is a conversation,” Dr. Olson replied on IdeaScale. “Second, any potential changes would preserve the distinctive identity and mission of the three current centers.

We very much understand and value the work of each center, and the needs of all our students.”

Olson declined the Voice’s request to comment on the possibility of consolidating the centers.

One student who commented on the IdeaScale post expressed dissatisfaction with Olson’s statement.

“Dr. Olson, with all due respect, the conversation has been had. It has been had on our social media; it has been had in the coffee shops and other places around campus; and it has been had on Roundtables,” wrote Alexander Zajac (COL ‘15). “If the fact that this idea gained over 300 votes in less than one week isn’t enough to persuade the administration of the wild negligence they are committing here, then I am afraid that nothing else will be.”

Construction illuminates accessibility issues on campus LARA FISHBANE Though construction work on the north side of campus is an inconvenience for Hoyas who have to travel through the area, unclaimed posters appeared last weekend reminding everyone that these areas are even harder to traverse for disabled students.

“Most people might feel mildly inconvenienced, frustrated or confused by the frequent and ever-shifting campus construction,” said GUSA Undersecretary for Disability Affairs Lydia Brown (COL ’15).

“But they aren’t aware of the severe barriers to accessibility faced by people with disabilities without being told explicitly.”

While Brown does not know who is hanging the posters, she is in support of their message. “I think that the number one thing these posters are doing is raising greater public consciousness of the lack of physical accessibility on campus,” she said.

Margot Keale (NHS ‘16), however, believes the university is very cognizant of these barriers to accessibility. “As someone who uses a wheelchair, I know that part of the construction plan includes making sure that concrete is level, ramp slopes are to code, entries are wide enough, and push buttons are operable and appropriately placed,” Keale wrote in an email to the Voice.

According to Keale, students might be frustrated is “because they don’t know who to turn to, but the help really is there.”

Robin Morey, vice president for planning and facilities management, says the university is doing everything it can to respond to student concerns. “Our team has thoughtfully considered the impact of construction on accessibility issues by designing and constructing safe and appropriate pedestrian pathways, curb cuts and ensuring ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act-approved] access to facilities,” he wrote in an email to the Voice.

The issue of accessibility on campus is not limited to areas affected by construction.

Keale, for instance, is frustrated by the inaccessibility of the majority of apartments and dorms.

“Housing has been incredibly thoughtful and accommodating in providing me with a totally safe and accessible living area, which I am so appreciative of, but more often than not, I cannot get into my friends’ places,

and that has been somewhat disappointing,” she wrote.

Morey says he and his team are working to make all of campus more accessible. “We will continue to engage with our stakeholders on this matter and make reasonable accessibility improvements on our construction sites and campus wide.”

Brown believes that these efforts are not enough. “We must go beyond mere compliance. We have to go beyond making things minimally accessible,” she said.

“If we truly value a campus of diversity and inclusion, which is welcoming of all kinds of people, then we have to reconsider what our priorities are when we say the only reason we’re building a ramp is so that we don’t get sued.”

Brown ultimately hopes that the university is conscientious of disabled students when it makes decisions. “Instead of acting reactively all the time, we have to start being proactive. If compliance is the only goal, diversity and inclusion do not fit into that picture.”

not everyone enjoys the stAIRWAY TO HENLE.

ANDREW SULLIVAN

LANcASTER WILL BE REMEMBERED BY THE GU COMMUNITY.

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

Former SFS Dean Carol Lancaster dies RYAN MILLER Former Dean of the School of Foreign Service Carol Lancaster (SFS ‘64) passed away on Wednesday at the age of 72, according to an email from President John DeGioia. Dean Lancaster had stepped down as SFS dean last year after being diagnosed with a brain tumor.

After stepping down, the SFS board of visitors voted to create a scholarship in her honor for graduate students in the SFS Global Human Development program.

“She touched so many lives as an exceptional colleague, teacher, mentor and friend throughout her nearly three and a half decades at Georgetown,” President DeGioia wrote in his campus-wide email on Wednesday. “Her passion for our university—for our students, their growth and our mission— was unparalleled, and we were all deeply fortunate to have had the chance to be in her presence.”

Lancaster served as SFS dean from 2010 until April of last year.

Since Lancaster’s diagnosis in November 2013, James Reardon-Anderson, previously the senior associate dean, has served as interim SFS dean.

As a graduate of the SFS herself, Dean Lancaster worked in the U.S.

State Department before returning to Georgetown in 1996. Lancaster, botha dean and professor, had a great connection with her students, which her colleagues remember well.

“There were times when she’d notice that a student wasn’t well— tired, stressed out, hadn’t done well on a paper. She’d come into my office and ask how she could help the student—what did we know about the student, what resources could she direct the student to,” wrote Emily Zenick, associate dean in the SFS, in an email to the Voice. “And I thought—how remarkable—this insanely busy woman running a school is making this individual student a priority in her day.”

Before Lancaster stepped down, she began a new project on ethics, according to a webpage commemorating her life which President DeGioia sent in his email. She hoped to find ways to “better incorporate ethical thinking and decision-making inside and outside the classroom,” wrote SFS Associate Dean Jennifer Windsor on the page. The memorial page did not indicate whether other university faculty planned to continue Lancaster’s work.

A memorial service to honor Lancaster will take place this Sunday in Gaston Hall at 3 p.m.

sports

6 | the georgetown voice

October 23, 2014

The main event: Boxing brawls in six stellar bouts CHRIS ALMEIDA

The Georgetown Club Boxing team hosted their third annual Blue and Gray Gloves showcase on Healy Lawn this past Saturday.

Students from East Carolina University, Baltimore University, and the United States Military Academy joined the Hoya boxers in eight exciting bouts.

“I thought the showcase was absolutely phenomenal.

Before the show, everything went very smoothly. Things went great during the show.

We had a great emcee. And we had a lot of help after the show to help clean up,” said Jeff Wong (MSB ‘16), a co-captain of the team.

“From a board member’s perspective, I’m looking at not just the fights, but the logistics of the show.”

Not every member of the 25-person practice squad had the chance to fight, but those who didn’t suit up were on hand in their team shirts to help set up, run, and break down the event.

“There were very few hiccups. So, because of that, obviously the show was a success,” Wong continued. “The new members of the team did the bulk of the work. The day of, all of the administrative things were taken care of.”

There were only two fights that did not involve Georgetown boxers, and three that were exhibition bouts between two Hoyas, the rest consisting of Hoyas versus boxers from the other universities. Wong was involved in one of these exhibition bouts, fighting teammate DK Yun (COL ‘16).

“The fight went just about how I expected,” said Wong.

“There was some natural escalation as the fight went on, but I did expect that.

We were both pretty happy about how it turned out.”

Yun displayed similar sentiment regarding the fight.

“Jeff did really well. I felt like we were both very technical, and we both landed good shots. It wasn’t a wild fight,” he said. “We were demonstrating our skills in boxing, and that’s what I really enjoyed about the fight.”

The final fight of the afternoon involved Sinead Schenk (COL ‘17) and West Point fighter Richelle Radcliff. Schenk carried out an aggressive game plan, landing hard shots throughout the fight, causing the referee to halt the match on two occasions for a head count.

“I did well. I put in a lot of work. Over the summer I trained, and I trained a lot when I came back, so it finally paid off. I improved a lot since [United States Intercollegiate Boxing Association Boxing Nationals],” Schenk said. “I didn’t really want to beat the shit out of her, but once I was in the ring I did think that way... I wanted there to be no question at all, so I had to go after her.”

While all fights ended in decisions, with the exception of the exhibition bouts, which did not have victors, Schenk aimed to knock out her opponent.

“It sounds really barbaric, but the look in her eyes, I could tell she wanted to quit, so I thought that if I could hit her with one hard show she would be down. That sounds

VANIA SILVA

GEORGETOWN BOXING hosted ITS annual Showcase on healy lawn for the first time.

awful, but she was tough. I thought she would quit, especially after the second head count, but she kept going, so kudos to her.”

Schenk’s fight was a crowd favorite, energizing not only the audience, but other members of the team.

“Our last person to fight was [Schenk], she’s a sophomore,” said Vania Silva (COL ‘16), a team co-captain. “It was a great fight against the West Point girl. She did phenomenally. Everybody loved it.”

Given that the showcase has traditionally been held in Yates Field House, the move to the idyllic Healy

Lawn was a much appreciated change of venue. The team hopes to make this move an adjustment that continues into future years.

“I think it was great. I was surprised we were able to have it on Healy Lawn. I was very pleased about that.

Turnout was amazing,” said Silva. “I think everybody had a good time, especially at the end with the main event, everybody was cheering.”

The team is also looking to expand the event, aiming to have more groups on campus present during the showcase to expand the cultural impact and appeal.

“For next year, we definitely want to keep it at Healy Lawn. We want to increase club sponsorship,” said Yun. “This year, we had the Hawaii Club. They sold baked goods there. But we want to expand it to other cultural clubs. We’re going to have a table for them so they can bring food.”

The Georgetown Boxing Team is currently exploring their options regarding their next fight. However, they are certainly pushing to box again in the District and if all goes well then look for another showcase to hit Healy Lawn next October.

Chris tano’s SPORTS SERMON--as C “You got to respect your teammates. We do that shit, do stuff by example,” - Xavier guard Dee Davis at Big East Media Day Playing pickup sports might be one of the most dangerous choices you can make. If you’re choosing to participate in that type of setting, chances are you don’t play on a collegiate or professional level. No one wants to risk their health in a game that doesn’t matter, but when it’s all someone has, these competitions become all or nothing.

I hate playing pick-up soccer on Kehoe field. If you try and start a game with your friends, eventually strangers show up, ask to join the game, and the dynamic completely changes. You’re no longer aware of everyone’s skill level, people are trying to prove themselves to those they don’t know, and the danger factor increases tenfold. Especially in the wake of the World Cup, everyone’s Ronaldo, everyone’s Messi, and every game is a final.

This phenomenon happens everywhere. I once joined a game of soccer at my local gym in Vermont and almost came to blows with three Bosnian men (spoiler alert, I would’ve lost handily).

Why? Because I wasn’t running hard enough for their liking. That would’ve been cool had I been a player in the Bosnian national team setup. I understood where they were coming from, but we were alone on turf on a Saturday morning, and mine were the only soccer socks that matched on the whole field.

Now I’m a grouchy kid, so normally I’d be willing to chalk this issue up as a “me problem.” But I’ve seen enough games to know that this phenomenon affects even the most level-headed participant.

I recently played a game of pick-up basketball. Admittedly, I am not cut out for the baller life, and prefer to play a rather understated game. I don’t have the shot, I don’t have the swag, and I certainly have no desire to be any better than I am.

That generally keeps me from trying to be like Mike.

That didn’t stop some of my teammates (some of the smartest kids I know) from knocking into each other more than a few times in the name of looking hard. They were good friends and yet, there they were bumping chests and staring each other in the eye. And to be honest, although I don’t like it, I understood where they were coming from.

The problem is that if someone isn’t playing at a higher level, and pickup is all they have, that’s the competitive pinnacle of their athletic career. Consciously, or subconsciously, the seriousness becomes second nature, and that can become dangerous.

I’m just as guilty of this oversight as anyone else. I stopped playing soccer five years ago and have pretty much regretted it every day since. Every time I go out to play pick up, it’s not just to beat the other

team, but to prove to myself that I could’ve continued on if I’d wanted to.

That’s just the nature of the game. It’s the nature of sports. We’ve deified athletes. We are at a point where Tom Brady, LeBron James, and Derek Jeter have a place in the American Pantheon along with Jesus Christ and good ol’ Honest Abe. Our glory is earned not on the battlefield, but on the court or rink or turf. That’s how we become great. So when pickup is the only chance to get out there and show your stuff, you better believe everyone gets right down to business.

That sort of feeling is what makes pick-up fun, but also a little dangerous.

Taking things too seriously can lead to unnecessary injuries, all in the name of living for a little glory of our own. Let’s be real, without that little bit of competition, these games aren’t fun at all. But with competition has to come a little perspective. You might be playing a game of football on Sunday, but you’re still going to have to study for that midterm, or head into your nine-to-five this week.

It’s a downer, but it’s worth keeping in mind before someone can no longer participate thanks to the dark side of casual play. Leave the intensity to the professionals, the injuries to their‘ trainers,‘ and the field at the end of the day having enjoyed yourself.

sports

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Field hockey’s greatest show on turf JOE LAPOSATA

Hoya goalie Rachel Skonecki recorded a four-save shutout as the women’s field hockey team (5-9, 0-3 Big East) beat the Colgate Raiders (4-9, 3-1 Patriot League) 3-0 on Sunday.

Team Co-Captain Emily Weinberg opened the scoring with a goal that came just past the 24-minute mark. “It’s always good to put the first one in,” said the junior midfielder.

The Hoyas relaxed into the game after putting themselves on the board. Sophomore forward Aliyah Graves-Brown was instrumental in moving the ball around on offense. Her effort was rewarded when she scored the second goal of the game.

“Forwards, our number one job is always to get the ball in the back of the net” said GravesBrown. “[We’ve] been trying to focus on constant movement.

Especially, a big thing with us is communication between our [midfielders] and our forwards, which you know, makes us super successful, and wreaking havoc and making their defenders have terrible days.”

Weinberg capped the win off with her second goal on a counterattack 37 minutes in.

The Hoyas also did well on penalty corners, edging the Raiders 11-5 in that category. “I thought they looked good. We’ve been working really really hard on them and I think they’re starting to come together, for sure” said Weinberg.

“I’m really, really proud of them for coming back after I

Feeding america’s hunger for competition

Field Hockey looks Strong going into their matchup with Temple. think a really hard fought battle against Villanova Friday night that didn’t necessarily end in our favor,” said Georgetown Head Coach Shannon Soares.

“We talked about making strides forward after a match like that and building on it as opposed to taking steps back, and I think they did that today.

We asked them to commit 70 minutes of simple Georgetown field hockey and I think today they did a good job of that.”

Georgetown also outshot Colgate 15-7. “We really tested their goalkeeper,” said Soares.

“In the past, we haven’t done a good job of really taking shots as soon as we penetrate our opponent’s circle and today, we made that goalkeeper have to make some saves. She made some pretty darn good ones but also, that increased our opportunities to put the ball in the goal and I was proud of them for doing that today.”

The Hoyas’ next game comes against Temple (11-5, 2-1 Big East) this Friday on MultiSport Field at 1 p.m. It will be the

GU HOYAS

toughest challenge since the Hoyas played at Connecticut on Oct. 4 when they lost 6-0.

“We’re so excited about that challenge on Friday. Temple is a top-10 team in the country.

This’ll be the first time that we’ll get to host them here on the Multi-Sport Field... Hopefully we can continue to make steps forward and build off of today’s success too,” Soares said.

Soares had a few simple words of advice for her team after the game.

“When you commit to playing a full game of Georgetown field hockey, which is a simple possession-based style of hockey, you’ll reap what you sow.”

With Sunday’s win, the Hoyas move to 5-9 on the season, remaining in last place in the Big East behind Villanova.

Friday’s game against Temple will be their last Big East matchup, a category in which they are currently 0-3. The Hoyas’ remaining two games will be at Liberty (9-7,3-0 Northern Pacific) and at home against Towson (2-12, 0-3 CAA).

No love for tennis teams in losses DAYANA MORALES GOMEZ

The Georgetown men’s and women’s tennis teams traveled to Charlottesville and Blacksburg, Va., respectively, last weekend for the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s Atlantic Regionals. Unfortunately, in preparing for their upcoming season, the men’s and women’s teams fell short of any large victories at the invitational.

Of the seven men who traveled to the competition, six competed in the singles bracket.

The standout performance came from Marco Lam, a freshman from Hong Kong, and the only singles player to advance to the second round, defeating William and Mary’s Scott Huang 7-5, 6-1. He was defeated

by Penn State senior Tomas Hanzlik in the round of 64, 6-3, 6-1.

– BuckWild –

Emmy Bucks’s TRI-weekly column about sports

Georgetown Head Coach Gordie Ernst praised Lam’s performance along with the performance of fellow freshman, Peter Beatty. “Peter Beatty and Marco Lam, they showed really good promise... They just showed what they’ve been doing all fall.

They are very, very competitive and were able to bring their best tennis at times.”

At the same time, Ernst acknowledged the overall subpar performance of the men’s team on the road.

“I wasn’t thrilled with the performance. We certainly had our moments… There’s no question we could have done better.”

The women’s team sent four singles competitors and two doubles teams. They had a similarly disappointing performance. “We were expecting to do better,” Ernst said.

The performances by the two teams point to a larger problem the tennis teams are experiencing: lack of practice space. “[Relocating] has been challenging. We have a good backup site at Georgetown Visitation, but it certainly isn’t easy. We have to be out of there before 3 o’clock. A lot of times, when kids get out of class, that’s when we can do our best individual work and whatnot. Those are the things we are missing out on right now.

We’re just trying to make due.”

Still, Ernst believes the teams will be prepared to take on their Big East competitors come January. “We can [win] it.

We have enough talent and we have enough veterans to win the Big East this year—I really believe that.”

Competitive eating has become a delicious part of our nation’s sporting history. What started as pie eating contests at county fairs has turned into major sport.

Many Americans only go big and refuse to go home. With that mindset, it’s no surprise that even competitive eating has reached the professional level. There are multiple organizations that promote competitive eating events, domestically and internationally. The All Pro Eating Promotions sanctions competitions that abide by the picnic-style rules, meaning they must eat the food without modifying it before consumption. Another recognized organization is the International Federation of Competitive Eating, which was established in the 1990s and hosts almost 50 Major League Eating events per year.

Bureaucracy aside, one question remains: how did eating become a professional international sport?

It may have all started in 1919 when Ping Bodie, an outfielder for the New York Yankees, supposedly challenged an ostrich to a pasta-eating contest in Jacksonville, Florida. The legend claims the ostrich couldn’t get past the eleventh bowl, making Bodie the champion. Notoriety for eating feats grew in 1963 after Eddie “Bozo” Miller downed 27 roast chickens (2 pounds each) at a Trader Vic’s restaurant in San Francisco, setting a new Guinness World Record.

But the turning point for competitive eating occurred when George and Richard Shea took over publicity for Nathan’s Hot Dogs. Nathan’s had hosted its traditional Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest since the 1970s. In the mid 1990s, however, the Shea brothers took the annual hot dog eating contest to a new level. They gained the support of local restaurants and increased advertising for the event by involving local TV networks.

Instead of an audience of hundreds, eaters were performing on multiple television networks, including ESPN, in front of thousands. The Sheas, recognizing the profitability in holding contests where participants shovel down food in obscene quantities, founded the IFOCE. Don’t be fooled into thinking competitive eating is for the faint of heart. On the contrary, this is a sport that must be trained for.

The period prior to consumption is the true test of champions, though, as eaters prepare for the big day by stretching their stomach’s capacity. Stretching one’s stomach can involve drinking massive amounts of water within a short period of time.

Another method combines the water-drinking technique with eating large quantities of low-calorie foods. Ed “Cookie” Jarvis, now retired, used to consume whole heads of boiled cabbage followed by two gallons of water in the days before a competition.

Because of the dangers of training, the IFOCE does not encourage intensive training prior to major league competitions. How they expect contestants to prepare is anyone’s guess.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect about competitive eating is the impressive physical shape of professional eaters. Gone are the days when spectators placed their money on the biggest eater on the stage. The top eaters today are lean and mean. In fact, the record holder for greatest number of chili cheese fries eaten in 10 minutes (8 pounds) is held by Sonya Thomas, a 44-year-old woman who barely weighs 100 pounds.

In addition to training, eaters have developed various techniques to achieve maximum consumption. For example, some eaters prefer to dunk their food in water before shoving the it down their throats. The idea is that getting the food wet makes it easier to chew and swallow. Famous professional eater, Takeru Kobayashi, has developed the “japanesing” technique, also known as the “Solomon Technique,” where an eater breaks his or her food into smaller chunks to fit more food into his or her mouth. Joey Chestnut, another of the world’s prominent competitive eaters, prefers to jump up and down while chomping down on his food.

Today’s world of competitive eating has become grand in scale, filled with rules, regulations, and intensive training.

ESPN commentators have compared the success of Joey Chestnut, the current record holder for Nathan’s Hot Dog eating contest, to that of Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. The world of sports will not remain stagnant; it will continue to grow and evolve. And it seems it is growing and evolving in the same way as the American waistline.

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October 23, 2014

FALL FASHION

2014 From the steps of Lau, to Healy Hall, and around to Henle Village, the Voice helps you stay in style as you weave your way through the maze that is Georgetown’s campus.

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It’s all in the details...

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October 23, 2014

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SPECIAL THANKS TO...

Director: Caitriona Pagni Photographer: Julia Tanaka Models: Edward Crotty, Rahul Guha, Helena Lu, Sonya Patel, Logan Spalding Hair and Makeup: Caitriona Pagni, Julia Tanaka, Christina Libre, Megan Howell, Sophie Super, Pam Shu, Leila Lebreton

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October 23, 2014

Meditate through ‘Days of Endless Time’ exhibit at Hirshhorn Museum SABRINA KAYSER The soft strings of a cello draw the viewer into a dark gallery. This tranquil greeting opens “Days of Endless Time,” the Hirshhorn Museum’s new moving-image exhibition that explores the slowing and suspending of time to counteract the speed of the technological age. When you enter the gallery, time becomes irrelevant, and the whole experience is a single moment of infinite stillness.

After passing the source of the music, a video of an artist playing the cello on the edge of a Valley in the Alps, Sigalit Landau’s “DeadSee,” comes into view. In the video, the artist floats on the Dead Sea in the middle of a coiled chain of watermelons. On the screen emerges a green spiral, slowly unfurling like a spring fern. The artist’s naked body comes into view, curled around one of the concentric rings of the spiral.

With her left arm pressed against her body and her right arm reaching above her head, she clings to a red, gashed watermelon, shocking against the green spiral and the steely blue water.

The spiral suddenly gets down to two rings, then just one, leaving

the artist exposed on the edge. The final circle unfurls and is pulled off screen, Landau upside down slowly trailing along behind it, until only the rippling blue grey water is left, ruffling in the wind that blows over the Dead Sea.

grow up next to the wreckage. At the end of the video, the trees turn into a forest, transitioning into a winter wonderland when Beeck sprinkles white sand into “snowdrifts” and brushes away patches to create a frozen river.

“The hills are alive with the sound music, with songs they have sung for a thousand years.”

Time flies when you’re having fun, or so the saying goes. Hans Op de Beeck’s 22-minute-long video, “Staging Silence,” is a foray into change and time, and engages your imagination to the extent that time really does fly. The artist constructs and destroys various building sets that he creates. The video

Breeches&BODICE: A bi-weekly column on style by Tim Annick

Every time you wear your yoga pants somewhere other than Down Dog or Core Power Yoga, remember that velour jumpsuits were once cool, too.

Yes, I said it: your SoulCycle-brand athletic gear is the soulmate of Paris Hilton’s Juicy Couture jumpsuit. Sweatpants, yoga pants, and that Lululemon hoodie you’re wearing are yesterday’s acid wash jeans, shoulder pads, and scrunchies. And they’ll look just as ridiculous in time.

But don’t worry, Britney Spears made it through 2007, so you can make it to 2015, as long as you reserve your athletic wear for the only place it is appropriate: the gym. It’s one thing to dress comfortably, but it’s entirely different when comfortable means sloppy. Do yourself a favor and get dressed when you leave your dorm room. Your sweatpants are just undermining your ability to

begins with normal table objects: a thermos of coffee, two mugs, an ashtray, and a burning cigarette.

Beeck proceeds to turn the thermos into a building, adding stacked tupperware and other kitchen objects to create the sky-

grow up (and your ability to get hired by Deloitte, duh).

The Casual Reign of Terror began back in the early 2000s, when Gela Nash-Taylor—wife of Duran-Duran bassist, John Taylor—and her friend, Pamela Skaist-Levy, launched the infamous Juicy Couture velour jumpsuit after realizing, as Taylor said in a 2003 New York Times article, “no one was doing great, sexy basics.” After jumping from Paris Hilton to Madonna and up-andcomer Kim Kardashian (Yeezy taught her), the velour jumpsuit made its way to the mallrats of suburban America. Happily, last spring the Georgetown location shut its doors as the company announced it was helping lazy Americans find salvation by closing all of its U.S. stores.

But with the loss of the jumpsuit comes the proliferation of its spiritual descendants, the oft-dis-

scrapers of a city. Perhaps the most powerful transformation is the palace garden, which includes a fountain, hedges, gazebos, and a stairway to a building. We see Beeck take away the hedges and fountain, see him cut away slices of the cake-palace, see the foundations fall into ruin, and trees

HIRSHHORN

Nature’s ability to set you into a serene rhythm is a prevalent idea throughout many of the exhibit’s works. This theme is clear in the tranquil floating on the Dead Sea, as it also is through the awe-inspiring echoes of the Alps. Perhaps the most obvious use of nature to create a meditative state is David

On a scale of one to basic, you’re a pair of Lululemon groove pants. cussed yoga pant being one example. More recently (and horribly), there’s a newcomer in town: “Fall’s New Chino Alternative,” a sweatpant made with, according to the Wall Street Journal, “tailored silhouettes and more-polished fabrics.” These aren’t the staple that you wear around the house while playing on your Nintendo 3DS, spilling salsa and Tostitos crumbs all over.

Unfortunately for suitable sensibilities, sweatpants have been dragged up from the minors to the major league pitcher’s mound. They’re everywhere, from your neighborhood fast-fashion store to the cashmere-and-silk department store section. Sweatpants are the new wave of the comfortable-chic legacy—the new velour tracksuit.

While “tailored” sweatpants have been career-makers for new clothing designers, no amount of tailoring can distract

anyone from the fact that you’re actually just wearing sweatpants in real life. Corporate America wants us to believe that these are an entirely new take on those crumb-covered sweatpants.

If you don’t feel like your closet desperately needs a pair of elegant sweatpants, how else will you be coerced into spending money you probably don’t have for something you definitely don’t need? Sweatpants as high fashion are just enabling the further dissolution of formality and respect that we are already lacking.

While I rarely wear activewear unless I’m on my way to work out, believe me when I say I understand your desire to be comfortable. With a closet full of flannel shirts, oversized sweaters, and an affinity for loafers, I worship at the Temple of Cozy.

Being comfortable is my first consideration every morning.

Claerbout’s “Travel,” a 13-minute-long video of soothing forest scenes. The most daring of the many artworks was Guido van der Werve’s “The Day I Didn’t Turn with the World,” a series of stills from 24 hours that he spent standing and turning at the North Pole.

The thread that binds these thematically disparate works is their meditativeness, and the temporal suspension that occurs as you stand before each one—a reflective relief from the effects of the Age of Technology. The world is faster now, and people are more productive, but have less time.

Sitting in front of these images helps viewers slow down and slip into a sublime state of calm and awareness. External stresses fade and viewers focus solely on being an observer, and nothing else. In the exhibit, one feels completely natural in the dark and muffled gallery rooms, yet only upon re-entering the bustling, noisy outside world can viewers fully appreciate the power of nature, of silence, and of stillness.

Hirshhorn Museum 7th St. & Independence S.W. Mon. – Sun., 10 a.m.– 5:30 p.m. hirshhorn.si.edu

Flannels and oversized sweaters speak for themselves, but as for loafers, a loafer is literally a person who idles time away. There’s even a maxim about guys who wear loafers: “Never do business with a man who wears loafers.”

You just slip them on. They’re magnificent.

But that’s just it, ease and comfort undermine your respectability as a contributing member of society. When you wear sweatpants, yoga pants, or pajamas to class, you are making it explicitly clear to the professor that you don’t take them, their class, or even your classmates seriously. The utter lack of respect sweatpants convey just makes you look lazy and apathetic.

Before the commodification of athletic wear, one could say that clothes made the man or woman. Now, it’s more like clothes make the boy or girl.

Forget acting your age, focus on dressing your age.

Get Juicy with Tim at tra25@ georgetown.edu

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“Because there is no land of tolerance. There is no peace. Not here, or anywhere else.” — X-Men

the georgetown voice | 15

Exorcise your nightmares on M Street Bienvenue to Chez Billy Sud AMY CHAR After Homecoming this Saturday, it will be easy to reach the level of inebriation required to traipse around town in a costume without feeling like a massive tool. Don your costumes a week early—it’s up to you whether your sartorial decisions will involve an obscene amount of salmon-colored apparel—and join the District’s finest in kickstarting Halloween a week early with the Nightmare on M Street Halloween Bar Tour.

You’ll have to select a check-in location from four of the 36 bars participating in the event. Although all check-

in locations are conveniently situated near a Metro station (and McFadden’s is definitely doable by foot from the Hilltop), the event struck a deal with Uber to offer new members $25 off their first ride and to enter existing members into a raffle for Uber credits.

Even if you don’t select McFadden’s as your check-in location, be sure to stop by and enter its Midnight Costume Contest.

The first prize is a trip for two to Las Vegas to wreak salmon-tinged havoc in Sin City.

Feel free to lose your iPhone, your dignity, or all recollection of the night, but don’t lose the wristband you’ll receive at check-in. Without

it, almost all of the bars will deny you entry. The few bars that won’t will charge you a cover, which the wristband exempts you from. Additionally, all of the drink specials will be off limits without a wristband.

Let’s be real: as college students on a budget, it’d be nice to drink something other than Natty Light or Burnett’s without striking up a large tab.

With $2 Coors Lights, $3 Blue Moons, and $4 Bacardi drinks in Dupont Circle and Gallery Place, you’ll feel like you’re moving up in the world.

Nightmare on M St. Around Dupont Circle Sat., Oct. 25, 5 p.m. - 1 a.m.

Iñárritu soars to new heights with Birdman BRIAN MCMAHON The theatre, the theater, what’s happened to the theater?

Alejandro González Iñárritu’s new film, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), undertakes a satirical meta-analysis of theatrical performance. Michael Keaton plays Riggan Thomson, an actor past his prime, fighting to remain relevant and produce something meaningful by adapting Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” for the Broadway stage. As he does so, he faces the perils of a chaotic personal life, a volatile cast, and the voice of his past superstar self urging him to return to the blockbuster glory of his early years.

Edward Norton and Emma Stone match Keaton’s energy, playing the high-maintenance actor, Mike Shiner, and Thomson’s troubled daughter, Sam, respectively. We often see Thomson on his own, with the voices in his head and feelings of insignificance bearing down upon him, but the most memorable scenes include his interactions with the aforementioned costars.

Keaton and Norton feed off of each other’s frenzy, as their characters tussle over creative differences, leading to hilarious verbal and physical sparring. Stone’s Sam, meanwhile, steps in to deal

heavy blows to Riggan’s psyche, reminding him of the superficiality of his acting and parenting performances.

Keaton’s performance is zany and electric and even worthy of Oscar attention, but director Iñárritu (Babel, Biutiful) and director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki (Gravity) steal the show.

The camera expertly follows the cast of Riggan’s show with long, tracking shots that never allow them to truly leave the stage and performance behind. Even as they shed their Broadway personas, the characters find themselves tossed between personal and professional problems, making the enclosing world of the theater inescapable.

We get the sense that we are watching a play even after the curtain drops, glancing from face to face and from one hurried conversation to the next as the camera bounces back and forth between the show’s audience members.

Besides the innovative work behind the camera, the script breathes fiery life into the players. Iñárritu takes every chance to deride Hollywood, Broadway, and the construct of the actor. He cleverly juxtaposes theatre and theater, standing Thomson’s fading star against Shiner’s overzealous thespian. Thomson just wants to be happy after being “Hollywood miserable” for decades,

and Shiner can only perform when onstage.

Shiner, along with Lindsay Duncan’s hostile theatre critic character, harp on the craft of acting and the ability to find the truth and meaning that can only classically-trained actors can possess.

Riggan adamantly believes he can accomplish something of consequence with his play, yet each time he takes the stage, he leaves disappointed by the lack of emotional clout in his performance.

As the camera and script sink their teeth into pot shots at actors, acting, Hollywood, and the consumerist media, they also convey a familiar but nevertheless powerful message. Riggan, Mike, and those around them want ill-defined “truth,” passionately denouncing Hollywood’s ability to produce it while obsessing over awards. Instead, the meaningful moments of Birdman happen off-stage for the most part, except when Thomson brings reality to the spotlight himself.

Birdman is at one moment exuberantly fun and the next poignantly sardonic. Keaton and his supporting players expertly jump from being predictable and archetypal onstage to confused and relatable behind the scenes. They leave you unsure about the value of fame and performance, while making clear just how human their alter egos really are.

CAITLIN CAIN Lovers of unpretentious, French food classics may have been disappointed when Georgetown mainstay Cafe La Ruche closed this past summer, but the tradition is alive and well in the Canal rowhouse’s new occupant, Chez Billy Sud. Sud—French for south— refers both to the Southern French cuisine it focuses on and its location south of its older brother, Petworth’s Chez Billy DC. The two eateries share Chef Brendan L’Etoile’s interpretation of simple French food (think steak frites and duck confit), and are run by restaurateur brothers Eric and Ian Hilton.

From the very first step into the restaurant, Chez Billy Sud welcomes you with Belle Epoque lamps glowing red and warm.

Burnished hardwood floors, freshly-pressed tablecloths, and large vanity mirrors transform what felt like a Normandy brasserie as Cafe La Ruche, into a Provencal chateau.

The menu is simple, offering hors d’oeuvres, entrees, and—of course—les desserts. I started with “Les Betteraves,” a sweet, yet acidic dish of roasted beets, beet soubise, hazelnuts, Roquefort, and Anjou pear. True to Chez Billy’s theme, the Roquefort cheese hails from the South of France, and as a caseophile, I was pleased to begin my meal with such a decadent, butyric favorite of mine.

But, if you are not so fond of sheep’s milk cheese,

(or perhaps you are like my brother who is a firm believer in beets tasting like dirt), don’t take alarm, for there are plenty more hors d’oeuvres to be had. On the rustic side, the hors d’oeuvre menu includes a hearty fish soup, and on the more refined end, Chez Billy Sud offers little toast crisps with red winepoached duck eggs.

The classics on the entree menu were perfectly executed. The duck confit was salty and rich, with meat falling off the bone and melting off the fork. The boeuf bourguignon is almost as rich as the chocolate side of les desserts.

The “Delice au Chocolat”––chocolate mousse, hazelnut, orange, and passion fruit––pairs excellently with an espresso to end your evening, or even better, with their Armagnac Old-Fashioned with rum and orange bitters. The Tartes aux Pommes, however, was my favorite (and a French classic), filled with spiced apples and brandy caramel, with a dollop of chai ice cream on top.

By the end of the meal, I couldn’t help but sit back and take in the aesthetics. Murmured conversations, silken lighting, and impressionist paintings paired with the simple, butter-soaked classics leave a satisfied palate and a deep yearning for the white sand and turquoise, Mediterranean water of Southern France.

Chez Billy Sud 1039 31st St. N.W. Tues.-Sun.5:30 p.m.-10 p.m. chezbillysud.com

“I’m telling you the golden age is la Belle Epoque.”

Carolyn zaccaro

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CRITICAL VOICES

Annie Lennox, Nostalgia, Island Records Like any good hipster, Annie Lennox has brilliantly appropriated some of the most loved songs of all time for her new album, Nostalgia.

Over the course of her career, Lennox has proved her Midas touch. She has been known for her Eurythmics-era hits like “Here Comes The Rain Again” and the iconic “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This).” Her solo career yielded “Walking on Broken Glass” and “No More ‘I Love You’s,’” which,

Cold War Kids, Hold My Home, Downtown Records I would have said that Cold War Kids did a fantastic and appropriate job of promoting their new album, Hold My Home, if its content wasn’t so dull. The singles are catchy, the pre-release interviews are exciting, and the teaser music video for “All This Could Be Yours” is downright sexy.

Unfortunately, Cold War Kids got their fans aroused for no good reason. Despite some

let’s be honest, your parents probably have on CD. Her latest album, Nostalgia, is a soaring, yet wistful compilation of jazz and blues covers, paying tribute to Duke Ellington’s syncopated world. Lennox’s vocals are flickering candles in a fall wind, resolute and sinuous, awakening a visceral resonance and crafting an individual nostalgia with every note sung.

While the album is an immense musical achievement, it removes these songs from their original context: their cultural resonance and importance within the American canon, as they depict the life of African-Americans.

Lennox’s interpretation of canonical social commentary doesn’t lend appropriate resonance to the selected works. “Summertime,” from Gershwin’s opera, Porgy & Bess, carries with it the weight of troubling and stereotypical representations of African-Americans,

as well as its serving as a launchpad for black actors.

“Strange Fruit” is about lynchings throughout the U.S.; the strange fruit in the poplar trees are hanging corpses. The pain and struggle that these two songs represent are trivialized by Lennox’s covers. She shamelessly appropriates these songs which, while beautiful, are meant to convey much more than prettiness. They are anthems of a marginalized group of people who have suffered—and continue to suffer—in their own nation.

Say what you would like about the beauty of Lennox’s renditions, but, as a white person of Scottish descent, Lennox has not paid the cultural dues required to sensitively and suitably appropriate these works.

exceptions on its tracklist, Hold My Home is disappointingly lackluster.

But lest you think that Hold My Home is a total flop, rest assured, there are undoubtedly some diamonds in the rough. The lead single, “All This Could Be Yours” opens with a thumping piano line that brings to mind an angrier Billy Joel and a percussive Billy Squier-esque backbeat.

“Hot Coals” is another decent find in the mix of forgettable songs. Nathan Willett’s voice sails from gravelly lows to passion-driven, stratospheric highs. The track is made all the more powerful by despondent lyrics and an abrupt, yet strangely fitting ending.

Sadly, for every memorable song on Hold My Home, there are several duds. The LP’s anachronistically named second track, “First,” is one

such piece. With lyrics such as “first you get hurt/then you get sorry,” Willett gives an uninspiring, monotonous testament to a lost love. Although Dann Gallucci’s backup vocals somewhat balance the essentially tedious track, “First” is an appropriately bland representation of the album to come.

It’s been a decade since Cold War Kids released Robbers and Cowards, the album that placed the group at the forefront of the indie rock scene. In the absence of any truly stellar recordings since, however, Cold War Kids disappoint their indie following, and are beginning to seem as gray as the former Soviet Bloc.

Voice’s Choices: “Mood Indigo,” “Georgia on my Mind” —Tim Annick

Voice’s Choices: “All This Could Be Yours,” “Hot Coals” —Riley Mellen

CONCERT CALENDAR THURSDAY 10/23 RDGLDGRN 9:30 Club, 7 p.m., $15

SATURDAY 10/25 Dan + Shay 9:30 club, 5:30 p.m., $20

SUNDAY 10/26 The Halloween Tour Black Cat, 7:30 p.m., $25

FRIDAY 10/24 The Jayhawks 9:30 Club, 5:30 p.m., $35

SATURDAY 10/25 Nathan Fair Gypsy Sally’s, 6 p.m., free

MONDAY 10/27 The Flatliners Black Cat, 8p.m., $12

IDIOTBOX:

october 23, 2014

Amazon Prime your social commentary

A bi-weekly column about TV by Julia Lloyd-George

It often seems like the only thing families have in common is their final initial. Many of us are familiar with these pervasive dysfunctional families, if not ambivalent members of one.

Family sagas of dysfunction are hardly new to television, but those with contentious social issues nestled inside the narrative are more rare. The challenge is presenting them within a striking and believable story, raising both visibility and questions without being preachy or isolating.

The creative team behind Transparent, Amazon’s answer to the success of Netflix’s original series, such as House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, treads this line with the grace of a seasoned acrobat.

A show about an idiosyncratic group of biologically related humans, Transparent locates its nexus in the family patriarch’s process of coming out as a woman. Mort becomes Maura, stepping gingerly out of the closet in her twilight years. It’s a transition that her three grown children attempt to accommodate amid their own respective crises of identity, their flawed and stunted natures tripping them up at every corner.

“Cinematic” is a buzzword thrown far too often at critically acclaimed shows in this Golden Age of TV, but Transparent does feel less like a TV show and more like a film. It’s defined by a mood and narrative process that we’re more used to seeing in indie films, lacking the polish we’re accustomed to seeing on television. Perhaps that’s why it’s so suited for binge-watching. The end of each episode never feels like a definitive break, and the cruising narrative and rough-around-the-edges vibe are perfectly adapted for continuous viewing.

As a transgender woman reconciling her need to be honest about her identity and her feeling of obligation to her children, Maura, portrayed by Jeffrey Tambor, is arresting to watch. Any Arrested Development fans familiar with Tambor’s role as dysfunctional family patriarch will be struck by the difference here, though Tambor still carries himself with the

rock-in-the-storm serenity of a prison rabbi (“no touching!”).

More importantly, though, Maura’s struggle with acceptance is void of the stereotypes attached to transgender characters. She is not on the fringes of society—in fact, she appears to be the head of a privileged Jewish family based in a wealthy L.A. suburb—nor does she cling to the image of a “noble victim.”

Though she exhibits a quiet strength throughout, she’s just as flawed and conflicted as her children. As they attempt to figure out their own love lives and gender identities, as well as be proper grown-ups with jobs, Maura tries and fails to dole out the proper dose of tough love.

A relevant criticism about the character is that she isn’t played by a trans actor, an objective that the media has to reconcile with its ultimate objective of selling shows by casting bigname actors, like Jeffrey Tambor. The sad truth is that there just aren’t many mainstream transgender actors, though pioneers like Laverne Cox of Orange is the New Black are beginning to change that. The hope is that Transparent can pave the way for similar shows with trans people actually playing the main roles, and the fear that audiences won’t buy it will be rendered moot by a surge in popular interest.

Initially, it was strange to be watching Transparent alongside shopping for books and getting that rush of dopamine following the confirmation of my free two-day shipping, but I quickly got over it. Television is a constantly changing medium, one that the Internet has taken over in full force. Some of the freshest shows have emerged out of this revolution, a trend even HBO has recognized since it announced its transition to a stand-alone service (goodbye, cable).

If that’s what it takes to avert the bureaucracy of network television and get the representation of minority characters the media badly needs, I’m all for it. Let’s hope the growing pains are minimal.

Define your gender with Julia at jfl49@georgetown.edu

georgetownvoice.com

PAGE THIRTEEN

the georgetown voice |17

– Dylan Cutler

voices

18 | the georgetown voice

OCTOBER 23, 2014

Uncovering Georgetown’s vendetta against the class of 2017 ROEY HADAR Georgetown sent students into an uproar when it announced that it was considering a third-year Leo’s meal plan requirement for students. There are many problems that would come out of this requirement, with overcrowding at Leo’s and financial troubles for the students among them.

But while these are struggles that would likely affect all students, the brunt of the damage will be borne—yet again—by the class of 2017.

It’s as if the University is trying to tempt us with privileges just to take them away when it comes time to reach them. As a freshman, I remember being excited at the prospect of studying abroad fall semester and then having the freedom to return to an apartment or townhouse. Now, I have had to all but give up on studying abroad because it

likely means that I would be placed in VCE for a third year running after returning from abroad. The University would essentially be penalizing me for studying abroad. A third consecutive year of dorm life is enough of a deterrent from studying abroad to keep me on campus. When students opposed the idea, the compromise offered by the university was to postpone the implementation of the policy one year so that, instead of affecting the class of 2016, it affected the following group of students.

It comes as no surprise that Georgetown Dining wants to expand its monopoly on food services starting with my class. I’ve spent almost a year and a half now waiting for when I get to cut the significant expense of a meal plan out of my budget—I would assume most of my classmates have as well.

Students should have the freedom to drop meal plans

if they so choose, especially after spending two full years chained to Leo’s. Tuition is already a large enough burden on its own. With a 4 percent increase each year I have been here and financial aid resources that are still relatively finite, why force students into another financial obligation?

My financial aid package was cut even after I submitted paperwork showing that my household experienced a decline in income. If the school is providing less money, how can I be expected to pay even more than I anticipated to afford any meal plan?

So what new, unpopular rules will be enforced on the class of 2017? Is Georgetown going to close basketball ticket sales to us? Will the University force D.C. to push its federal drinking age up to 25 starting with our birth year? Will the housing office force us to wait another year for town-

houses? These are unlikely, as well as absurd, but given the way the University has already made us the proverbial guinea pig for its experimental policies, it is impossible to know what is on and off the table.

All of this speaks to a broader point. The University, although a not-for-profit institution, is still run like a for-profit business, and these kinds of businesses need to listen to their investors. The biggest investors on the Hilltop are the students. Add up the total tuition bill for all students at Georgetown over four years and it blows Frank McCourt’s $100 million donation out of the water.

So why does the school keep making choices that do not reflect the best interest of an overwhelming majority of students? Expressing disagreement helps get student voices heard, but there must be a proper dialogue. The university needs

a system of gauging student opinion by expanding its discussions with GUSA and the student body at large.

Making big decisions that affect so many students with such little student input is incredibly misguided and leads to a lot of preventable unrest. I have hope that the school will give up its threeyear meal plan requirement in the face of strong student opposition. Maybe eventually, the university will open up a dialogue with students and heed our requests. But just in case, I’ll be keeping a few moving boxes and suitcases in my room for when Georgetown forces me and the rest of the class of 2017 to go live on a satellite campus.

ROEY HADAR SFS ‘17 SAYS HE DOESN’T WANT A MEAL PLAN, But WE KNOW HE’S LYING

Outsmarting your cerebellum: Seizing both the day and night JOE LAPOSATA No matter the diversity of interests at Georgetown, everybody from the athlete to the student guard to the poor soul in Lau at 3 in the morning has at least one thing in common: we’re all really, really tired.

And although this is entirely valid, the response should

not be to “take naps.” I don’t even like the term “to take a nap.” I prefer “time pilfering” or “daylight pillaging.” Such dark practices are evil and we should all strive to do them as little as possible.

Now, when I say this, your reaction is probably one of serious doubt, and I can understand why. The supposed point of naps is to recoup sleep

RIVER DAVIS

WHY BOTHER WITH SLEEP WHEN A CUP OF CORP COFFEE COULD BE YOURS?

not gained overnight, and if so then that’s fine; you’ve essentially traded an hour then for an hour now. If, however, you’re napping because you’re “tired” even though you’ve gotten enough sleep, then I’m sorry to inform you that science has rendered your problem invalid.

See, what people say when they nap is “I need a rest” when what they mean to say is “I need energy.” And although your body’s natural response to a need for energy is to make you drowsy, you’re smarter than your cerebellum! Drink some coffee for the caffeine, take a jog for the epinephrine, watch a scary youtube clip to get your heart racing; all of these things are chemical ways to cheat and buy yourself time.

And to be clear, that is what you’re buying: time, the one thing you can never get back.

Even if medical science can extend your life, time in your youth is more valuable than time in your old age because your energy levels allow you to be more productive with it.

I’d like you, the reader, to please think about all the things you’d like to do. Ignoring any work you can get doneand to be clear, you could get a lot of work done- but imagine all the enjoyment you could have in your life with an hour

and a half extra every day. All of that reading for pleasure you used to do in high school could be a reality again, or, if you’re anything like me, you could invest yet more time into your Steam account. You deserve a mental health break that isn’t biologically obligated.

It’s important to realize that excess daytime sleep, comfy though it may be, is absolutely a choice. If a cup of coffee buys you the same energy as a hourlong nap, then the decision to nap is a decision that you’d rather not have cognizance and fine motor control for the next hour. And to those of you who admit the choice but still prefer to indiscriminately murder the sunlit hours, don’t brag about how great a nap you had. I enjoy all the time I spend playing FIFA but that doesn’t make it time well spent.

This should not be construed as an argument against sleep generally; at least, not yet. For now, sleep is a biological necessity. The instant it isn’t anymore, I’m changing my personal motto from “carpe diem” to “carpe diem et noctem.” But at least as of today, medical science has yet to find a way to eliminate the need for sleep and you should get between 7.5 and 9 hours of sleep a night. My point is that anything more than that is just wasteful. What’s more, not tak-

ing that 2PM nap will actually allow you to get more sleep that night: the work you can do in that extra daytime hour will let you go to bed an hour earlier.

The most frequent argument I hear against this philosophy is one of doubt and concern, mostly under the impression that even moderate use of artificial stimulants is bad for you. This is nothing short of Neo-Luddism, and denies the reality of modern science and chemical engineering. Science may not yet have solved the problem of sleep, but it has at least allowed us to ignore it in the short term and push through when we need to.

Delay your nap until it’s bedtime and you’ll get another full REM cycle.

Georgetown students are busy enough; there’s no need to throw your excess time in the garbage. That we must waste any time sleeping is tragic enough, but try treating your wasted time as you do your actual trash and do your best to reduce, reuse, recycle.

Kill the nap, save your day.

JOE LAPOSATA COL ‘16 will nap when he’s dead

voices

georgetownvoice.com

THE GEORGETOWN VOICe | 19

Forget the fourth wall: Breaking Hollywood’s glass ceiling GRAHAM PIRO The Bechdel Test was concocted by the eponymous Alison Bechdel as a method for determining how well a film represents female characters.

Bechdel was a cartoonist who originally came up with the idea for the test as a joke. The test has grown to be far more than a comic strip, and while it has its flaws, it raises some very important points about the nature of gender equality in Hollywood.

The test has three separate components. First, does a film have two or more female characters who have lines?

Next, do these females have a

conversation with each other?

And finally, is that conversation about something other than a male character? It seems overly simplistic, which it is, but an incredible number of major blockbusters fail this litmus test. For example, half of the movies released in 2014 failed the test.

While the test does produce some interesting results, it is not without its flaws. Take a film like Gravity, which does not pass the test because it only has one female character, but then centers on this female protagonist for its entirety. It also allows too many films to slide by without presenting much of a challenge. Limitations notwithstanding, the test

WHEN IS THE CATWOMAN REBOOT COMING OUT?

ELIZABeth blumberg

CARRYING ON

still begs one very important question: does Hollywood do a sufficient job of creating female characters?

The short answer? No. But the extent is greater than the one we see on our side of the silver screen. The New York Film Academy released a study that discovered that in 2012, only 4.1 percent of directors, 12.2 percent of writers, and 20 percent of producers were women. Certain male writers have made a name for themselves by writing “strong female characters.” Joss Whedon’s cult hit series Buffy the Vampire Slayer became renowned for its creation of a strong, yet flawed female protagonist. So why don’t more writers do this?

It may be that male writers simply don’t know how to create female characters. There are obvious exceptions to the rule, but the tendency for females in movies is to be relying on or serving male characters. Even worse, writers simply substitute masculine characteristics to make the female stronger. In The Hunger Games, which many point to as the shining beacon of feminism in Hollywood, Katniss Everdeen adopts several masculine characteristics in order to appear strong. She is the

The sky is falling: Leaving red meat behind

BY ISABEL ECHARTE

A rotating column by senior Voice staffers

It’s hard not to be pessimistic about the fate of the world, given the recent slate of depressing news—the Islamic State, protests in Hong Kong, Syria’s civil war, natural disasters, West African’s Ebola outbreak, just to name a few. In fact, it feels impossible to be optimistic at all. Maybe I’m more cynical than most, but I’m sure modern civilization as we know it is ending sometime in the uncomfortably near future. Most reports about climate change—assuming you are not getting your information from Fox News—contain a tone of unavoidable doom.

Seeing all this unfold is terrifying, considering there is, more or less, nothing I can do to stop the Islamic State, find those 43 students missing in Mexico, or help Syrian rebels win Aleppo. The world is falling apart and there is nothing I can do about it.

In an attempt to do my part in bettering the world, though, I recently decided to stop eating red meat (specifically beef, for those of you who consider pork to be red meat). No, eating red meat doesn’t have some strange butterfly effect that helps Mexican cartels or Bashar al-Assad’s government. It does, however, have a substantial impact on the environment.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or, again, watching Fox News), you know that climate change rhetoric is quickly evolving from “future consequence” to “current international crisis.” Recently, several large companies, such as Coca-Cola and Chipotle, have listed climate change as a possible issue for the future of their respective businesses. The Pentagon now considers climate change a threat to national security. The world is in turmoil and, as a college student who is trying to get her degree on

archetypal “ass-kicking” female hero that has become the norm in Hollywood. Her range of emotions is good, but simply handing her a bow and arrow and having her shoot things is a poor excuse for crafting a memorable character.

Female characters that are multi-dimensional and layered without having to adopt male characteristics are few and far between. Hollywood needs to learn how to create these types of females that are strong on their own terms, and not on the male’s.

Some recent films have been making progress for gender equality. Disney’s smash hit Frozen was widely praised for its female leads who actually possessed feminine characteristics. In order to accomplish this, screenwriter Jennifer Lee made all of the male characters in the film either incompetent, passive, or downright manipulative and evil. A balance must be struck between the two.

From now on, instead of the Bechdel Test, I propose a different sort of three-step test. Does a female character affect the plot of the film (or TV show) in such a way that a male could not? Do multiple female characters show depth by not constantly serving the

time, there isn’t a lot I can do to stop that. But for right now, the one, simple thing I can do to at least reduce my contribution to all this is to not eat red meat.

“

But, in a world where we need to ... figure out how to feed 9 billion people 30 years from now, it seems immoral to eat beef.

”

If you’re reading the Voice, you’ve probably seen Food, Inc. or Supersize Me, and may have read all about the mess that is the American food production industry. But, for those of you who might need a refresher, here are some basic numbers according to National Geographic: beef requires about 30 times more land (pastures and cropland for growing feed) to produce the same number of calories as pork, and almost 50

times more land than eggs. It takes about 36.2 thousand calories of feed to produce a thousand calories of beef, compared with 11.3 thousand for pork and 8.8 thousand for poultry. Beef requires about 10 times more irrigation water than do pork or poultry, and it produces about five times the amount of carbon dioxide as pork and poultry do.

I know that not eating beef won’t automatically return a bunch of grain back to American cropland to be directly exported to countries experiencing food shortages—I’m an economics major and I know the system is more complicated than that. But, in a world where we need to cut down on emissions and try to figure out how to feed 9 billion people 30 years from now, it seems immoral to eat beef.

Every time I take a bite of beef, I feel a pang of guilt—or maybe just a spike in my cholesterol. Every time I take a bite

male characters? And finally, and perhaps most importantly, could the female characters exist in the film without the presence of a male character?

This test is far from foolproof, but it’s a step in the right direction. Integrating more female writers and directors into the production process will help spur some change.

For an industry that enjoys boasting of its progressivism and liberal values, Hollywood has not done a good job of achieving gender equality both behind the camera and in front of it. No one is to blame in particular, but that doesn’t mean that nothing can be done. Writers need to begin to focus on crafting female characters on their own terms, as actual people, instead of implanting masculine characteristics as an easy way to make them appear brave and strong. Until then, it will take more than one of Everdeen’s arrows to break through the glass ceiling in Hollywood.

GRAHAM PIRO COL ‘17 thinks heteronormativity is so yesterday

of red meat, I know that I could be doing more to make one teeny tiny impact on one problem the world is facing right now.

Not eating that steak really could save 120 gallons of water, 2.6 kilograms of carbon dioxide, about 430 square feet of pastures, and 10,000 calories worth of feed (these calculations were done assuming a piece of steak is about 300 calories—a little less than 3 ounces).

Those numbers may appear surprising, but I’m not writing this column to try to convince you stop eating red meat. I wanted to explain what I’m doing hopefully to have a small (or just non-negative) impact on a few recent headlines, so that you can look at your consumer choices and find that there are one or two things you find fault with. Maybe you decide that red meat, or non-organic food, or cosmetics tested on animals isn’t something you support. And maybe making that little change won’t have the most far-reaching impact, but at the very least if we start questioning what we support as consumers, we can be more informed about the impact we’re having on those distant headlines.