10 27 2011

VOICE the georgetown

0

DCRA AND GU PARTNER ON OFF-CAMPUS LIVING PAGE 4

FOOTBALL CLINCHES WINNING SEASON PAGE 6

HALLOWEEN ON THE HILLTOP PAGE 11

Georgetown University’s Weekly Newsmagazine Since 1969 w October 27, 2011 w Volume 45, Issue 10 w georgetownvoice.com

OCCUPY DC OCCUPY DC

OCCUPY DC OCCUPY DC

OCCUPY DC

OCCUPY DC

OCCUPY DC OCCUPY DC

OCCUPY DC OCCUPY DC

OCCUPY DC OCCUPY DC OCCUPY DC

OCCUPY DC

OCCUPY DC

OCCUPY DC

OCCUPY DC

OCCUPY DC OCCUPY DC OCCUPY DC

2 the georgetown voice

Still

october 27, 2011

interested in joining

THE VOICE? WEDNESDAY NIGHTS LEAVEY 424

Email

editor@georgetownvoice.com

Voice Crossword “Race to the Top” by Scott Fligor

Across 1. Response to an insult 5. Stevie Wonder’s “___ She Lovely?”

9. Small earrings

14. Stitch’s ohana 15. Compressed file format 16. Too quiet, maybe 17. Milk’s favorite cookie 18. Playoffs 20. Iowa straw poll winner

answers at georgetownvoice.com 22. Academy awards 23. Bailed out insurance company 24. Deposed Iranian ruler 25. “Rocky Horror ___” 30. DC police: abbr.

33. Worthy principles 34. “Just kidding” 35. Sam Adams, e.g.

36. Actresses Diane and Cheryl 37. Shooting target?

38. Military chaplain 39. Cries of discovery 40. ___ Lo Green 41. Some farm workers 42. In favor of 43. Winter feature 45. Advil’s target 46. WWII zone 47. To title, again 50. Former Minnesota governor 55. Possible puzzle theme?

57. “Paradise Lost” illustrator 58. “The Hustler” author 59. Take ___ from 60. Consul suffixes 61. Boxing locale 62. Crunch’s rank 63. Front-runner, informally

Down 1. Untidy one 2. Franc : France :: ____ : Italy 3. Baldwin of “Schweddy Balls” fame 4. Piglet’s pal 5. Debilitates 6. Mooch 7. Northeast sports source 8. “Expect more. Pay less.” Co. 9. Vacillate 10. Instruct 11. Nocturnal bear?

12. Fashionable Christian 13. Obama and Lincoln, e.g.: abbr.

19. “On fire” 21. Manhandles 24. Often 1.5 fl. oz.

25. Rice dish 26. Potato state 27. Closet wood 28. Small bits 29. Scornful expression

30. Jason left her 31. Conservative Texan 32. Attire 35. Unadorned 37. Noble gas 38. Word of mouth 40. Boss 41. Intermediate to 43. Indian turnover 44. China piece 45. She can see Russia from her front porch 47. “The Godfather” composer Nino ___ 48. Penultimate fairy tale word 49. Mass seating 50. About 1/6 inch 51. Dutch cheese 52. Innocent reply 53. Waste allowance 54. Very recently: abbr.

56. Univ. profs

Are you a logophile?

Share your love of words and help us write crosswords.

E-mail crossword@georgetownvoice.com

editorial

georgetownvoice.com

VOICE the georgetown

Volume 45.10 October 27, 2011 Editor-in-Chief: Tim Shine Managing Editor: Sean Quigley Blog Editor: Leigh Finnegan News Editor: Holly Tao Sports Editor: Daniel Kellner Feature Editor: Kara Brandeisky Cover Editor: Iris Kim Leisure Editor: John Sapunor Voices Editor: Kate Imel Photo Editor: Max Blodgett Design Editors: Catherine Johnson, Kathleen Soriano-Taylor Projects Editor: Rob Sapunor Crossword Editor: Scott Fligor Assistant Blog Editor: Ryan Bellmore Assistant News Editor: Neha Ghanshamdas Assistant Sports Editors: Abby Sherburne, Kevin Joseph Assistant Leisure Editors: Mary Borowiec, Heather Regen Assistant Photo Editors: Julianne Deno, Matthew Funk Contributing Editor: Nico Dodd

Staff Writers:

Nick Berti, Geoffrey Bible, Rachel Calvert, Mary Cass, Patricia Cipollitti, Emma Forster, Julia Lloyd-George, Kirill Makarenko, Kelsey McCullough, Vanya Mehta, Sadaf Qureshi, Adam Rosenfeld, Jake Schindler, Melissa Sullivan, Nick Thomas

Staff Photographers:

Sam Brothers, Richard De La Paz, Abby Greene, Lucia He, Kirill Makarenko, Tim Markatos, Jackson Perry

Staff Designer: Julia Kwon

Copy Chief: Aodhan Beirne Copy Editors:

Claire McDaniel, Kim Tay

Editorial Board Chair: Jackson Perry Editorial Board:

Gavin Bade, Tiffany Brown, Rachel Calvert, Ethan Chess, Sean Quigley, Julia Tanaka, J. Galen Weber

Head of Business: Keaton Hoffman The Georgetown Voice

The Georgetown Voice is published every Thursday.

the georgetown voice 3 WINTER IS COMING

Occupy DC movement at a crossroads Since the Occupy DC protests took root in McPherson Square at the beginning of October, over a hundred tents have been erected, as well as more permanent setups to service the everyday needs of the occupiers such as food, basic medical care, clothing, and reading material. As the occupation approaches its second month, participants must work to ensure the longevity of the movement while facing two big challenges: the fast-approaching winter and ideological issues that threaten the unity of the movement.

A big hurdle for the occupiers will be staying on through the winter. Although milder than those in Boston or New York, D.C. does experience cold winters. Last winter, the average temperature was 38 degrees Fahrenheit. To combat the elements, McPherson Square will require sturdier, warmer shelters. But with adequate preparation, the occupation can and should stay

on through the winter months. Leaving would undermine the movement’s credibility and impact and allow politicians to divert national discourse away from the movement’s issues.

One of the more striking aspects of the movement is the sheer commitment of the occupiers. Their dedication to such a prolonged public display of discontent is a testament to the pervasiveness of the problems they are protesting. This movement has drawn a diverse group of protesters with many different priorities. But socioeconomic inequality and disproportionate corporate power underscore most of the specific issues, like student debt and environmentalism.

To prevent the movement from splintering, protesters should steer clear of identity issues and maintain their focus on socioeconomic inequality. While recognizing that prejudice, whether it is motivated by sex,

race, or religion, plays a significant role in inequality in this country, Occupy DC should focus its energy on reforming a corrupt and corporatist political system.

As the movement continues to gain political prominence, it should strive to maintain a unified front in the face of opposition.

Socioeconomic issues provide the most fundamental, unifying platform. This is not to say Occupy DC shouldn’t strive to be inclusive and accepting of all the occupiers’ personal causes. It should not tolerate racism or sexism from within the movement, but neither should it incorporate these issues as prominent facets of its platform.

To have the strongest impact, the Occupy movement, including Occupy DC, should strive for longevity and unity. Presenting a unified, committed front will augment the movement’s relevance in American politics.

Failing to do so will simply maintain the power of the very few over the many.

NO ENDLESS WARS

U.S. wars end, foreign policy lessons abound This week, the death of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi coincided with the announcement of the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq by the end of the year. The conclusion of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq and the NATO-led campaign in Libya should provide an opportunity for American policymakers to learn from both our failure at nation building in Iraq and the relative success of our measured strategy in Libya.

Touted as a way to export democracy, the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 seemed more like crash and burn than shock and awe. It has been clear for years that the invasion of Iraq was strategically foolish—even though the military campaign was a stunning success, America’s strategic position has been weakened by the war. America’s public image has also suffered. Filling the power vacuum left in the wake of a toppled dictator with autocratic American rule renders the supposed liberation futile.

In Libya, the U.S. maintained a much quieter role, collaborating with NATO forces and relying on remote air strikes to achieve military aims. This effort has thus far yielded positive results, as Gaddafi has been removed with no lost American lives and at a much smaller cost. Furthermore, the Libyan people have a far more positive opinion of America than Iraqis do.

Unfortunately, it appears that our policymakers have not yet absorbed the lessons of Iraq and Libya. Despite eight long, frustrating years of war, the Obama administration wanted to keep 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq beyond 2011. The complete withdrawal announced last week was not a result of a principled stance by the Obama administration but of the collapse of negotiations between the American and Iraqi governments to extend the immunity of American troops in Iraq. Despite the diplomatic efforts of the administration, the troops will be home by Christmas.

Even if Washington realizes that heavyhanded interventionism undermines our foreign policy objectives, policymakers should not consider the Libyan strategy a panacea for problems in the Middle East. It would be a dangerous gamble to apply it in Syria, for instance, due to the Syrian leadership’s relationship with Iran and the region’s likely outcry at yet another American-led bombing campaign in the heart of the Arab world.

The outcomes of our campaigns have been incredibly dissimilar. Iraq remains politically shaky and is quickly moving into Iran’s sphere of influence, while Libya may become one of the most Western-friendly Islamic countries in the world. For policymakers, this distinction ought to demonstrate that future attempts at regime change should be based on collaborative efforts with other nations and indigenous resistance movements, not American-style imperialism.

HUNGRY HUNGRY HOYAS

This newspaper was made possible with the support of Campus Progress, a project of the Center for American Progress, online at CampusProgress.org. Campus Progress works to help young people — advocates, activists, journalists, artists — make their voices heard on issues that matter. Learn more at CampusProgress.org.

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

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

Email: editor@georgetownvoice.com Advertising: business@georgetownvoice.com Web Site: georgetownvoice.com The opinions expressed in the Georgetown Voice do not necessarily represent the views of the administration, faculty or students of Georgetown University, unless specifically stated. Unsigned editorials represent the views of the Editorial Board. Columns, advertisements, cartoons and opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or the General Board of the Georgetown Voice.

The University subscribes to the principle of responsible freedom of expression of its student editors. The Georgetown Voice is produced in the Georgetown Voice office and composed on Macintosh computers using the Adobe InDesign publishing system and is printed

by Silver Communications. All materials copyright the Georgetown Voice. All rights reserved.

On this week’s cover: Occupy DC Photo Illustration: Iris Kim

Complaints about Leo’s deserve attention For years, complaining about the quality of the food provided at Leo J. O’Donovan Dining Hall has been among Georgetown students’ most common conversation topics. As healthiness and food choices have declined in recent years, prices have increased. Since Georgetown’s contract with Aramark, the company the University contracts to operate the dining hall, expires next year, the administration has an opportunity to address one of the most persistent, and easily addressed, sources of student discontent.

For the past two years, meal plan prices have increased as the variety of food options has decreased. Grab & Go selections have become worse since the notorious Norovirus outbreak of 2009, both in terms of options and value, especially when considering the cost per meal of a meal plan. Students are being

offered mediocre quality for outrageous prices.

Underclassmen are particularly victimized by the poor quality of Leo’s because they are forced to get expensive meal plans. Aside from the convenience and greater choice, it would actually be cheaper to eat out because of the cost of a single meal at Leo’s, which under most plans is over $10. Aramark has a de facto monopoly on food services on campus, which allows the company to neglect the quality of their service and offer fewer options at increasingly higher prices.

Another cause of students’ frustration is the way food is served. The mixture of self-service and worker-served food is maddening and inefficient. Slow service and frustratingly long lines at lunch and dinner only intensify students’ already dim view of Leo’s. Because Leo’s is the only cafeteria on

campus, its slow service has a dramatic impact on the happiness of many undergraduates.

Although these complaints about Leo’s have been standard aspects of life on the Hilltop for the past few years, they need not be permanent. Students should not have to shudder when they think of their dining hall. If the University is going to require underclassmen to purchase meal plans, then the overall quality of meals and services must be satisfactory to students.

Fortunately, Georgetown can use the negotiations over a new contract with Aramark to demand an expansion of options or a reduction in prices. If Aramark cannot fulfill the humble desires of students, the administration must do what is in the best interests of the student body: get rid of the company and find a new dining services provider.

news

4 the georgetown voice

october 27, 2011

Georgetown, DCRA partner on off-campus housing

by Soo Chae and Matt Weinmann Over the past month, Georgetown administrators and the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs have come together in an unprecedented partnership to aid students who rent privately- owned properties in the neighborhoods surrounding the University.

The two sides first met about a month and a half ago in an effort to identify unlicensed off-campus houses and to deliberate ways to ensure that off-campus housing units frequently rented by students are properly licensed and inspected to comply with D.C. building and safety codes.

Georgetown is the first District university to share information on student housing issues with DCRA. “It’s the first time we’re doing this with any of the universities in D.C., and we’re looking forward to seeing how this

pilot initiative works out and whether we can replicate this with some other universities in town,” Helder Gil, DCRA’s Legislative Affairs Specialist said.

The partnership with DCRA is a part of a University initiative that encourages landlords to work toward high quality of living conditions in the neighborhood. The University will contact landlords to sign a pledge that publicly demonstrates their commitment to “maintaining the quality of life in our community and to your neighbors publicly.”

According to Stacy Kerr, Georgetown’s vice president of communications, the names of the landlords who sign the pledge will be placed on a rolling list featured on University websites, including the Off-Campus Housing website.

Kerr said that all landlords are encouraged to sign the pledge, and the University will promote everyone who does in return.

Along with the new list of recommendable landlords, the University will continue to update its “list of properties of concern.” Landlords will receive a written notification when a complaint of an issue that may undermine student safety and living conditions is deemed credible by the university.

When three complaints accrue over a two-year period, the university will add the residence to the list. The OffCampus Student Life website states that possible issues that may lead to warning include “poor property or lawn maintenance, trash and/or recycling disposal violations, noise issues, and other conduct matters.”

Once placed on the list, the residence will remain on the list of properties of concern for a full calendar year. It will only be removed if no further reasonable complaints are reported during that period. The

very similar group of people that come to all those. … We can use meeting times to brainstorm ways to address concerns.

What is the setup of the new funding system, if it gets passed?

It is in the process of being drafted into formal documents that can be released to groups.

We’re going to be releasing a final draft to student groups on Thursday evening and then I think Andy [Koenig]’s going to formally announce it, and we’re going to have a meeting on Saturday to discuss and vote on the funding process to meet our October 30 deadline.

Can you give some details on the new system?

It’s complex. There’s a lot that goes into it. … The first point is that it’s going to be a budget process. Groups will give budgets and costs for what they need. There is a separate travel fund, and increased percentage just for travel.

There is a separate “ad hoc fund” so groups can come and get additional funding throughout the semester. There is streamlined approval process where events that don’t meet certain risk factors can be approved without a vote but only with signatures by commissioners and chairs.

There is a new process of incentives that will penalize groups for going a certain amount into the red zone … that’s to help keep groups from both overbudgeting and overspending because we want groups to hit what they need, and we’re trying incentivizing that by putting in penalties. But we have cushion space to help student groups. It’s about finding that balance about where do we have to put limits to keep groups from going too far and where can we give groups some autonomy and understand the difficulties that groups face with budgeting. These were not in the past systems.

What are some challenges facing the new system?

The biggest challenge is that we just don’t know what we might encounter. We’ve tried to address as many concerns as we can but there is not really a way to test run a system with SAC funding.

Groups had concerns, we tried to address all of that, and I think we’ve done a good job. We have no real way of knowing if the system works until we actually implement it…. I’m only speaking on behalf of myself, not on behalf of the other commissioners. I support the system, I think the system will be implemented but we have

list will also be on Off-Campus Student Life and Off-Campus Housing Resources websites for students to access.

According to Gil, the pledge system is a University initiative, separate and apart from DCRA. DCRA’s role in this particular arrangement is to ensure that any housing unit is properly licensed and is in compliance with various building and safety requirements. This new landlord pledge system will help protect students from living in an environment that poses a threat to them.

“I think [the pledging system] is a positive step to ensure student safety,” Gil said.

“It should help deal with issues with students living overcrowded or in basement units that don’t have the necessary fire escapes, the wiring that may not be fully legal, all sorts of things.”

Gil referenced a fire that occurred in 2004 at a townhouse

on Prospect Street that resulted in the death of Daniel Rigby (MSB’05). The townhouse had several fire code violations.

“There are other instances throughout the city of people living in housing conditions that are substandard,” he said. The University is hopeful about the new faculty of resources this collaboration with DCRA will bring to students.

“Our paramount concern for our students is home safety, and Off-Campus Student Life collaborates with DCRA in order to ensure that students know about this very important resource,” Anne Koester, director of Off Campus Student Life, wrote in an email.

Koester encouraged students to take full advantage of the information provided to them by confirming that their landlords are in possession of a Basic Business License and to demand home inspection when any concern arises.

On the record with new Student Activities Commission Chair Newly elected Student Activities Commission Chair Jack Appelbaum (COL ‘14) sat down on Tuesday to discuss his visions for SAC and the challenges that face the system. Interview conducted and transcribed by Fatima Taskomur.

What are your overarching goals for the year?

We’ll reform the funding process and I hope to develop that process and really internalize it ... so groups can successfully use it to help their program [and] benefit their program. Hopefully address some of the difficulties that groups face, whether it be from the Office of Campus Activity Facilities or other University organizations and try to kind of address and alleviate those concerns, make it easier to make events and funds approved … and help with space issues on campus, which is a struggle that all groups face.

How do you plan on achieving this?

We’ll use some Google forums and some resources that exist in the university. We will be using technology to reach the groups and give us feedback directly, so they don’t have to go to a forum.

We’ll obviously continue to have roundtables, but we find that it’s a

no way of knowing that until the commission votes and until they express their views.

Appelbaum answered one more question in a follow-up email.

What is the Student Group Union’s role, and is it fulfilling a niche that the school needs?

I think the SGU can play a very positive role on campus. Most importantly, I think it can promote collaboration between student groups, which can lead to co-sponsorships, better organization, etc. I think this will improve programming on campus.

max blodgett

Jack Appelbaum plans to engage more clubs in his new position as SAC Chair.

news

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice 5

Thefts, burglaries down from last year CycleBeads study contested “Especially when walking home late at night, I frequently see DPS officers on campus and in the neighborhood,” Shantel Jairam (MSB ’15) said. “It definitely makes me feel a lot safer.”

DPS has worked with the Metropolitan Police Department off campus to secure additional patrol officers in the West Georgetown and Burleith neighborhoods.

“Since the inception of these patrols, there has been a noticeable decrease of street crimes in the campus periphery,” Smith wrote.

Crimes of vandalism and bias could also have been deterred by increased DPS presence. While in August and September of 2010, there were a total of six reported cases of biased or racially motivated crimes, such as the drawing of swastikas, this semester has seen none of these types of crimes.

Still, students express concerns about off-campus safety, especially

after the recent report of a “forcible fondling” on S Street.

“It’s definitely concerning, especially because it happened in broad daylight,” said Connor Gilbert (SFS ‘15). “We still have to be constantly vigilant about living in a city.”

DPS has also expanded liaisons with GUSA and the LGBTQ Resource Center. Last Thursday, DPS worked with the Georgetown Bookstore to give an information session to students about preventing laptop theft and securing personal information in the case of theft. Every Saturday, DPS offers a Rape Aggression Defense course to female students, staff, and faculty members, which teaches self defense techniques.

Smith asserts that in comparison to other neighborhoods and the greater D.C. area, the crime rate for Georgetown University has remained relatively low.

“Over the past several years we have worked hard to help make the

Brown’s schools’ IMPACT

likely to do well on the CAS tests no matter what. Brown’s proposal would exempt new teachers in the District’s poorest schools from assessment for a few years.

Brown isn’t just focusing on teacher evaluations, however. He says he is also looking at incentives outside the school system to get the best teachers into struggling classrooms, using other states as his

by Amy Liu In recent months, the Georgetown community has experienced a downward trend in crimes on campus and in surrounding neighborhoods.

Department of Public Safety crime reports indicate that incidences of theft, by far the most common crime on campus, exhibit a cyclical pattern, picking up during the fall and spring months and declining during winter and summer. However, there have been fewer thefts this fall compared to last year. While the DPS crime log reports 37 thefts in October of 2010, this month has only seen 14 so far.

According to DPS Associate Director Joseph Smith, DPS has increased patrol numbers on campus in recent months, in addition to increasing personnel in investigations and crime prevention efforts. The bike patrol program has expanded to 15 certified patrol officers.

“We feel that bike patrols greatly increase our deterrence through greater visibility and improve our mobility and response time considerably,” Smith wrote in an email. “When criminals notice this seemingly ubiquitous presence, they are less apt to commit crimes here since they may feel that their chances of getting caught have increased.”

Students say they have noticed the increased DPS presence.

Last Friday, D.C. City Council Chairman Kwame Brown announced he would propose legislation to reform another one of former D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s policies, the IMPACT teacher evaluation system.

The IMPACT system has been exacerbating problems of educational inequity and cyclical poverty in the city’s schools, and the Councilman’s proposal stands a chance of changing that.

Under current arrangements, teachers who reach the “highly effective” status under IMPACT can earn an additional $10,000 per year if they work in some of the poorest schools. There are additional payments of up to $10,000 for teachers whose students do better than expected in the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System and incentives of up to $5,000

for teachers in high-demand areas like special education.

Even so, a troubling distribution of good teachers exists in DCPS. Of the 663 deemed “highly effective” by the latest IMPACT evaluations, only 71 work in the forty-one schools of Wards 7 and 8, while 135 of the top educators work in the ten schools in wealthy Ward 3.

The reasons for this are obvious. Although the bonus sums are smaller for teachers who earn high IMPACT grades in wealthier school districts, they are easier to attain.

Then there is the issue of job security. Teachers can be dismissed for poor scores on the evaluations, and it routinely happens. It’s much more attractive for teachers, especially inexperienced ones, to take the hit in their salaries in exchange for classrooms full of motivated, financially-secure children who are

City on a Hill

by Gavin Bade

A bi-weekly column on D.C. news and politics guide. For example, California will cancel out portions of school loans for teachers going into low-income or rural schools. Maryland will cover up to $11,000 of debt if a teacher stays in the profession for four years. Illinois offers low-interest housing loans, and Mississippi has a plethora of tuition reimbursement programs for both undergrad and graduate teacher education.

by Neha Ghanshamdas Recent studies published in the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care claim that CycleBeads, a contraceptive tool developed by Victoria Jennings, the director of the Institute for Reproductive Health at Georgetown, are more effective than male condoms.

A color-coded string of beads used to monitor the days of a woman’s menstrual cycle, CycleBeads employ the Standard Days Method, which helps prevent pregnancy by marking the days a woman is most likely to get pregnant.

The study concluded that with typical use (in contrast to perfect use) Cyclebeads’ effectiveness is 88 percent, while national studies indicate that typical use effectiveness of male condoms is 85 percent.

“Essentially both condoms and the SDM are controlled by the user, so it’s really important to use them correctly otherwise there is a high risk of pregnancy,” Jennings said. “Whether it is perfect use or typical use, both are similar.”

Amy Tsui, the director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute of Population & Reproductive Health at Johns Hopkins, agreed that CycleBeads had the poten-

These are all good ideas in theory, but they become more difficult in practice in D.C. Besides budget issues constraining new spending, any property incentives would have to be sizable to provide an adequate incentive for teachers to move into the District from Virginia or Maryland. There’s also not a lot of concrete evidence that these incentives work in other states. Many are quite new.

Even so, Brown is pushing the educational debate in D.C. in the right direction. Teacher accountability is indeed important, but it should not cost struggling schools the good teachers they need.

Even current DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson, Rhee’s former employee, has expressed initial support for Brown’s plans. Educational reformers of Rhee’s ilk tend to forsake the interests of teachers in return for what they say is a focus on results for kids. This has been part of the justification for breaking teachers’ unions nationwide:

tial to address those women who had an unmet need for contraception, saying that CycleBeads were cost effective. One group of intended users for CycleBeads are women who live in developing countries.

However, skeptics remain weary of research methods as well as potential bias. Slate magazine called the study “more propagandistic than scientific.”

“We need validation by doing a few more studies,” Tsui said.

She also stressed the importance of cross-validation obtained through third party studies. Tsui said that the risk for potential selection bias exists, considering the diverse range of sites and the potential distinctions in the manner in which subjects were counseled. She also said that the type of funding needed for the method is beyond what was available, but remains supportive of the method itself.

“We at the institute think it is a very helpful tool for women who have no good training on their fertility cycles,” Tsui said.

“There are a lot of us who tend to discount the effect of the rhythm [method] and the SDM but it’s due its own opportunity to prove itself and I think part of it is they don’t get awarded enough for these studies to go in full.”

the educational system is not there to serve educators, but the students.

While that may be true, the line can’t be drawn so clearly. The happiness and comfort of teachers obviously has an impact on their ability to teach well and where they choose to teach. It is refreshing to see members of the policymaking, administrative, and teaching communities find a place where their interests— and the interests of the students— all align in addressing the impacts of poverty on DCPS. One hopes this signals a new focus on economic factors, as well as teacher accountability, in the educational discourse here. Only through this paradigm shift will we begin to see improvement in a system still struggling to come to terms with massive amounts of economic and achievement inequality.

Give Gavin fair compensation for being highly effective at gbade@georgetownvoice.com

sports

6 the georgetown voice

october 27, 2011

Homecoming heroes: football clinches winning season

by Kevin Joseph Having spent the last five Saturdays in enemy territory, the Hoyas were ecstatic to return to a packed Homecoming crowd.

“I actually started to miss Multi-Sport Facility,” junior linebacker and Patriot League Defensive Player of the Week Robert McCabe said, drawing laughs from Head Coach Kevin Kelly and his teammates.

With the way the Georgetown football team (6-2, 2-1) played in its 40-17 homecoming victory over Colgate after five straight road games, it’s hard to blame him.

McCabe iced the game in the fourth quarter with an interception return for his first career touchdown. Always modest, McCabe deferred to the strong play of his defensive front, saying that he was simply in the right place at the right time.

“We had them on the ropes,” he said. “I was just there to make the play and take it in.”

McCabe was certainly not the only Hoya making big plays in coverage. Junior cornerback Jeremy Moore had two interceptions on the day, and just like McCabe, deflected praise to Kelly.

“All I did was play my role,” Moore said. “Coach made a great play call.”

The Hoyas were grateful for the return of Moore, arguably their best playmaker, who had not played in two weeks. With a blocked punt and 38-yard kickoff return, Moore had a huge day, earning him the College

Football Performance Awards National Defensive Back of the Week award.

Offensively, the Hoyas dominated the line of scrimmage, creating gaping lanes for the Hoyas quartet of talented running backs. Senior Chance Logan led the attack with 11 carries for 73 of the Hoyas 189 rushing yards, while sophomores Dalen Claytor, Nick Campanella, and Brandon Durham all pitched in to round out the Hoyas’ attack.

“They were doing the dirty work,” Logan said. “I wasn’t being touched till five yards down the field. Those holes were huge––it wasn’t me at all.”

But this win was not about personal accolades. After an afternoon of filling the stat sheet, the Hoyas clinched their first winning season in the Patriot League.

“It’s huge,” Kelly said, who also guaranteed his first winning campaign with the Hoyas.

“I’m so proud of our players, especially the guys that have been around here. They’ve gone through some tough times but they’ve persevered. It was a cumulative effort from all phases.

To me, this was a huge team win and I’m so happy and excited for our guys.”

The celebrations will not last long, however, as a winning season was just one of their goals this season. With the conference win against Colgate, the Patriot League title remains within the Hoyas’ grasp.

Whether they can reach it will hinge greatly on this weekend’s battle with Holy Cross in Massachusetts.

LUCIA HE

The Hoyas had plenty of reasons to celebrate Saturday, routing Colgate 40-17.

Holy Cross currently leads the Patriot League with a 2-0 record, while Hoyas are 2-1. A victory would move Georgetown to second place and set up a potential conference championship matchup against Lehigh on the last game of the season.

Yet, that match up seems ages away with two tough con-

ference opponents before then.

Regardless of where the Hoyas finish, they will be pleased with their success, recognizing how far the program has come in just a few years.

“We were all here when we didn’t do so well,” the tailback said, referring to the team’s 0-11 record. “Coming back from that,

not stopping – coaches said this season would be different.”

But the Hoyas aren’t just satisfied with this season being different—they want a title.

“We still have our sights on the Patriot League,” Moore said. “Homecoming’s great, another win is excellent, but at the end of the day, the Patriot League is our main mission.”

the Sports Sermon “The world can’t go without basketball; the world is shaped like a basketball.”

—Bucks’ point guard Brandon Jennings on the NBA lockout lem for Georgetown football. Before, it was easy to justify avoiding football games, as the team was consistently trampled by schools we would expect to embarrass in other sports like basketball and soccer. There is an almost comical stigma attached to supporting the team or showing any authentic interest in their success. Our inability to prove our superiority over the likes of Yale, Penn, Lehigh, and Holy Cross requires Georgetown fans to hold modest expectations and accept defeat, a skill few on the Hilltop possess.

However, times have changed. The program is no longer a point of humiliation.

of Georgetown sports. If our basketball team loses in the As the Georgetown football first round of the NCAA Tourteam traded handshakes with nament, we are all shocked the Colgate players and coaches and devastated. But let’s say following a 40-17 homecoming the Hoyas do the unthinkable victory, the packed grandstands and win the Patriot League this of Multi-Sport Field filled the year. The Georgetown comair with resounding applause. munity might smile, but we’ll Sadly, this was one of the see if it actually puts butts in only times the crowd seemed Multi-Sport Field’s remarkably invested in the contest at all. uncomfortable seats.

Much of game was observed in The simple reality is that relative silence, so much so that even though no current students it is unclear which was quieter have witnessed a basketball in the second half: the crowd or tournament win in their time at the Colgate offense.

Georgetown, we still relish the After such a crucial win, opportunity to prove ourselves which guaranteed a winning on a national stage against the season and kept the Hoyas in best competition. What matters the hunt for their is not our own conPete Rose Central first Patriot League nection to the team, title, why is there but how we are Da bettin’ line such hesitance to perceived by those Dookies Margin Hoyas show pride in our who watch and (underdogs) (duh!) football team? We (favorites) compete against us. have no reservaWhile the FCS NBA playoffs Season tions, for example, MLS playoffs is filled with talabout showing our football La Russa Games 6 & 7 ented Media fanatical support for players, it will Big 12 B-ball Pedigree WVU the basketball team never present our at the Verizon Center. Nor do This year, they have been win- program and its fans with the we have a shortage of die-hard ning and winning big. To put it opportunity to demonstrate NFL and college football fans. in perspective, if Georgetown school pride on a regional scale, What is it about Georgetown was a Football Bowl Series let alone a national one. Consefootball that makes it so unap- school, the Hoyas would be quently, there is little motivation pealing and foreign to the ca- bowl eligible. They’re on the for students to invest themselves sual Hoya sports fan? cusp of finishing their best sea- in Hoya football when they can Regardless, the team will son in the Patriot League ever. just watch the FBS and then go be more than happy to come Shouldn’t that be enough to at- crazy during basketball season. away with the win, even if the tract fans to watch one of our Even in these relatively dark twelfth man may have let them campus’ favorite sports? times for our basketball prodown. They are used to havPlaying one notch below gram, our own football team reing their home fans drowned in the Football Championship mains an enigma, irrelevant to out by more vocal away sup- Series must not be enough of a most of the campus. Two years port. Even when we manage to draw for most Hoyas. Our dis- ago, Georgetown football finfill the meager 2,500 seats with illusionment with Georgetown ished its season winless. Now Hoyas, like this past Saturday, basketball as a perennial elite it sits with a chance to rewrite our Lilliputian stadium lim- program has skewed our view its legacy, just three wins away its the potential for a dynamic of more moderate success, like from a conference title. One can crowd atmosphere. a Patriot League title challenge. only hope that the campus will But Multi-Sport Field, the Spoiled by the Final Fours and take notice before this nail-bitsmallest stadium in Division I national title on our resume, ing and unprecedented season football, is only part of the prob- we have a very idealized view comes to a close.

by Daniel Kellner

sports

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice 7

Hoyas await Big East showdown Cross country races for title

by Abby Sherburne Georgetown women’s soccer coach Dave Nolan has some sound advice to offer his players before their first postseason match of the year.

“Just beat Syracuse.”

Sunday’s clash isn’t just another rivalry game. It will decide if the Hoyas will return to the Big East semifinals for the first time since 2007. Only redshirt senior Ingrid Wells remains from that team. This year ’s seniors will be eager to make an appearance before their careers with the team come to a close.

The Hoyas (14-5, 8-3 Big East) finished off their stellar regular season by blowing out Villanova 6-0 on Senior Day. However, after securing a firstround bye, which puts them straight through to the quarterfinals, the team’s record will count for nothing going forward. Even though the Hoyas edged the Orange earlier this season 3-1, pre-

vious success means nothing in tourney play.

“It’s knock-out stages, it’s win and move on, lose and go home,” Nolan said. “Last year we played South Florida early in the season and beat them comfortably, and then when we came to play them a second time here, they totally changed their approach. They beat us. It was a real kick to the stomach.”

Wells agrees with Nolan’s sentiment, noting their quarterfinal exits in the past two seasons, which were especially heartbreaking since both came in double overtime. She has no doubts about the team’s drive to reach the semifinals, but they both know that beating the same team twice in one season is no easy feat.

“When you’re the team that’s won the game, you generally don’t change anything,” Nolan said. “When you’re the team that’s lost the game, you now see things and you may change how you approach the second game.”

TIM MARCATOS

Ingrid Wells looks to lead the Hoyas through a tough Big East field in her final season.

Theo catches his moneyball The Chicago Cubs recently spent $18.5 million on talent that won’t even step foot on the field during his time with the team.

In fact, he won’t even be in the dugout.

After being named the President of Baseball Operations for the Cubs, Theo Epstein has likely become Major League Baseball’s highest-paid executive. Not only are the Cubs paying a ludicrous fee for Epstein’s services, but they also have to compensate the Red Sox, for whom he had one year left on his contract. The Red Sox will probably receive a player from the Cubs for Epstein.

Can someone who will never set foot on the diamond really be worth the same to a team as

someone who can throw a 95 mph fastball?

This odd transaction is just another example of front office executives making front page news, something largely unprecedented in previous generations.

With more exposure to the mainstream media, do front office executives really deserve all this attention? What is their actual value to franchises?

At $3.7 million per year, Epstein may seem expensive for someone who will spend twothirds of his day on his Blackberry. But the guy is responsible for scouting and drafting young talent, and negotiating trades and deals with free agents. His skills in these areas could help the Cubs

Defensively, Georgetown is remarkably similar to Syracuse, with both teams allowing 22 goals on the season. However, on the offensive end, the Hoyas have the clear edge.

“We want to continue doing what we’ve been doing all year, which is scoring goals,” Nolan said. “We’ve scored 49 goals this season, I think 32 of those are Big East play. That’s a lot of goals.”

But the Hoyas cannot simply rely on their offensive output.

Defensively, the team needs to step it up if they are to survive this single-elimination tournament against some of the best allaround squads in the country.

“We’ve got to try and shut out teams to give ourselves the best chance to win,” Nolan said.

An at-large bid for the NCAA tournament is also on the line.

Last year’s squad played underdog in the NCAAs all the way to the Elite Eight, where they fell to Ohio State. This year they’re more feared and more respected. As a result, they have a big target on their backs.

Their Big East melee comes first, however, and the Hoyas know not to look ahead before they have finished off their rival. The Big East is far too competitive and unpredictable to give anything but their best effort.

“I know that any team has the ability to win the Big East so it is hard to say what I expect to see,” Wells wrote in an email.

“Every team is fighting for the same goal so I expect for every team to play at their best.”

With the season in the balance, the Hoyas will kickoff this Sunday at 1 p.m. on North Kehoe Field. win their first World Series title in over a hundred years.

I’m not necessarily saying that Epstein himself is worth the fat paycheck. His nine years with the Red Sox were mixed, despite winning two World Series titles. He made some amazing moves, like trading shortstop Nomar Garciap-

Double Teamed

by Nick Berti

a rotating column on sports arra in 2004 in one of the gutsiest GM moves ever. Nevertheless, he has made his fair share of blunders, especially with the signings of Carl Crawford and John Lackey over the past two years.

Breaking the 86-year curse that plagued the Red Sox was nothing short of incredible, but remember

by Melissa Sullivan The Georgetown women’s cross country team will start its postseason this weekend, traveling to Louisville for the Big East Championships. The No. 6 Hoyas will look to repeat their success from a year ago, when seven runners placed in the top 20 overall finishers, resulting in a second place showing.

The Hoyas have had a tremendous campaign thus far, living up to their preseason No. 1 ranking.

After opening with a firstplace showing at the Harry Groves Invitational, the Hoyas finished fourth out of 45 competitors at the Paul Short Invitational.

But despite the positive results, head coach Chris Miltenberg has tempered expectations for the upcoming race, seeing it more as a training ground for the NCAA Championship later this fall.

“It is very tough to say” how the team will do in the Big East race, Miltenberg said. “We are running against the best competition in the country, and it will really get us ready for the NCAA Championship.”

With six other teams ranked in the top 25, the Hoyas will have a very good idea of where they stand after testing themselves against the mighty Big East.

“It’s a good chance for us to race some of our major competitors at the NCAA,” junior Emily Jones said.

that Epstein always had a large payroll to work with–the third largest in 2011. I’d like to see him work with a more limited budget before I fully judge him as a GM. Still, he shouldn’t have too much trouble managing the Cubs’ payroll, as they are one of the best financed teams in the league.

Yet, the best are the ones who can produce Epstein-like results with fewer resources–a lot fewer.

Andrew Friedman, for example, has helped the Tampa Bay Rays to the playoffs in three of the last four years, including a World Series appearance. The Rays’ average payroll during that stretch was $55.2 million, well below the league average, and even more impressive was how they made the 2011 postseason after losing Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena to free agency. As far as I’m con-

“We are lucky to be in the Big East with such strong teams. It benefits us to race against them and see where we are.”

Senior Emily Infeld feels that regular season standings are not accurate predictors of postseason success, and the strength of the team is what matters.

“Cross country is all about the toughness,” Infeld wrote in an email. “I feel that we are the toughest team. We want to just keep competing and getting stronger every week.”

Infeld has been a star on the racecourse for the Hoyas this season, finishing fifth at the Pre-National Meet two weeks ago and leading the Hoyas to a second-place overall finish behind No. 1 Florida State.

“I feel like our whole team gained a lot from PreNationals,” Infeld wrote.

“Our team is very excited to be racing against the best competition in the country this weekend, as the Big East proves highly competitive.”

Miltenberg is similarly confident in the squad’s postseason potential due to their consistent preparation at the highest level. Having proven themselves against the best all season, the Hoyas know they can give any team a run for their money.

“We train with the best people in the country every day, we run against the best competition at our meets,” said Miltenberg.

“That gives us confidence.”

cerned, any GM who make sthe playoffs consistently with less than $60 million dollars is worth A-Rod money. Luckily for owners, the demand isn’t there and the best GMs remain vastly undervalued.

It will be interesting to see if the value of GMs continues to increase around baseball. Maybe the next generation will give up its dreams of hitting the gamewinning home run in the World Series and instead hope to one day watch the team they built be crowned champions. While we are still a long way off from cherishing GMs as our heroes, there is no doubt of their growing influence over the game.

Do you find Moneyball as sexy as Nick does? Let him know at nberti@ georgetownvoice.com

feature

8 the georgetown voice

october 27, 2011

feature

georgetownvoice.com

AMERICAN AUTUMN Inside Occupy DC

by Gavin Bade

GAVIN BADE

Walking into the Occupy DC demonstration in McPherson Square on a Saturday afternoon is like entering a beehive. Yells and clanking pots emanate from the kitchen tent. The Welcoming Committee greets visitors from the information booth. Homeless men and women stand listlessly smoking cigarettes. Bearded men and women with head-wraps talk and gesture earnestly as they bustle back and forth carrying medical supplies, saws, and whatever else their tasks require.

This Saturday, a large crowd was gathered near the statue of General James McPherson, having an impromptu discussion of institutional racism. A black Muslim woman was standing on a curb, her pink head-scarf rustling in the wind as she gestured to the crowd. She spoke of the need to address psychological oppression of minorities within the movement and to give these marginalized groups more influence.

The discussion had been prompted by a group of members of the Black is Back Coalition. Aiesha Fleary, a member of the group, said they simply came down to the square carrying their racially-themed signs and a debate sprung up.

Like other occupations around the globe, Occupy DC was born in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, a demonstration that began on September 17 at Zuccotti Park in New York City. Inspired by an Adbusters’ poster featuring a ballerina, the Wall Street bull statue, and an open question—“What is our one demand?”—the occupations are a loose protest against economic inequality and corporate greed.

Much like its sister demonstrations, Occupy DC has become a commune of tents in the heart of the District. Together, the protesters have created their own society essentially from scratch, providing each other with food, tobacco, warmth, security, and government while they protest “indefinitely.”

Since beginning on October 1, it has grown exponentially: occupiers said the number of tents has doubled from around 60 to over 120 in just the past week and a half.

Although events like the Black is Back debate can make Occupy DC look scattered and dysfunctional, there is an extraordinary amount of organization and cooperation between the society’s many factions. In less than a month, the occupiers have managed to design a responsive, inclusive government and high-functioning bureaucracy. Although far removed from the traditional American conception, their novel model of cooperative democracy is key to their functioning and survival as a political force.

The racial discussion continued in an orderly fashion until shouts sprung up from a vacant field behind the crowd. The group started using a technique they’ve dubbed the “human microphone,” where the crowd repeats what the speaker is saying so that everyone can hear, even from far away. “Mic check!” one person yelled. “Mic check!” the group responded. “The general assembly will begin in two minutes!” And in kind, “The general assembly will begin in two minutes!”

At general assembly meetings, decision-making is based on a consensus model, not majority-rule. In discussions and question sessions, traditionally marginalized voices—namely minorities and women—are given priority in the speaking order, or “stack,” along with less-vocal occupiers. This is supposed to ensure no one person or group monopolizes the conversation.

In the consensus system, one dissenting voice is enough to block a proposal, and everyone must be satisfied for the group to move forward with a plan.

Occupiers recognize and dislike the amount of time it takes to address issues in the assemblies, but legislative efficiency is at the bottom of the priority list.

The intent is to keep the movement unified. In an occupation including so many identities and groups, fractionalization is one of the biggest threats to the little tent society.

Beyond that, the model also works to keep the movement autonomous. The occupiers have already rejected attempts by groups like MoveOn.org to group them into an established cause. Kelly Mears, who quit his job and deferred his student loans to join the tech team, thinks the consensus process protects the group from co-optation. “It makes it very difficult for a radical ad hoc voice to override a lot of tacit understandings of a majority of people,” he said.

Reporting to the general assembly are democratic committees devoted to every aspect of life at the occupation. For example, the movement has set up a full-service kitchen serving free food to voluntary occupiers and the homeless.

Alex, a full-time sophomore at George Washington Univer-

sity living at the occupation, explained that all the food comes from donations—ranging from single orders of Five Guys fries to a recent gift of 300 pounds of apples from a friendly farmer (Many of the protesters declined to give their last names, fearing disapproval from employers or family members.) The kitchen does not have a permit, but that hasn’t been a problem with the police.

“We’ve just reorganized and rebuilt off the trees, which was one of the cops’ stipulations,” she said. “They didn’t want us damaging park property, which we’ve been pretty respectful of.”

The movement is actually operating on a food surplus. Spoilage and waste is a bigger problem than hunger. The biggest problem with the Food Committee is finding someone to wash the dishes.

To the end of respecting their new home, the occupiers created the Sanitation Committee. Tom Regis—known as “Tobacco Tom” for his free cigarettes program— is a member of the committee de-

voted to ensuring litter doesn’t jeopardize the occupation.

“Frankly there’s been a lot of cigarettes, and we’ll find a lot of organic matter like food scraps,” he said. “I made an announcement about three or four days ago to the GA that sanitation is what we need to be concerned about, because other ‘Occupies’ are being evacuated right now for sanitation reasons. ... Since then, it’s been better.”

Cigarette butts were noticeably absent from McPherson on Saturday. The activists have even been rotating their tent locations and re-seeding the grass they trample down. The committee has also been leading sanitation marches to clean up other parts of the city, like Dupont Circle.

“It was great outreach because people tend to engage in conversation when you’re reaching for a cigarette butt under their bench,” Regis said.

To service the inevitable bumps and bruises (and occasional case of trench-foot), the movement has set up a medical

“Our condoms have been flying off the shelves,” a member of the medical team said.

GAVIN BADE

Members of the Facilitation Committee show off the schedule of events for the Sunday to come. service for occupiers. Most of the medical supplies are simple first aid, but they are slated to get a number of doctors on call beginning this week, according to Ellie, a medical staffer.

National Nurses United also approached her last week, and now they staff the medical tent twice a week. The station offers free care to both occupiers and the homeless. “I would have left if we weren’t helping the people who originally lived here,” Ellie said.

Meanwhile, the Action Committee is responsible for planning protests. Sara Shaw was the facilitator of the Action Committee on Saturday. She still holds a full-time job, despite living at the occupation.

She says participation has been strong and growing. One of the committee’s efforts has been a bank action, where occupiers march to banks that received bailout money, close their accounts, and transfer their funds to local credit unions.

There are also burgeoning media and technology teams to connect the D.C. occupiers to movements across the nation and provide the press with accurate information. According to Mears, the media team has become more of a public relations institution, fact-checking reporters, following the news, and managing the Twitter and livestreamed events. They are currently raising money to start their own newspaper.

They also work on information generation and dispersion, compiling information on everything from where the good pizza places are to lobbying practices for activists and larger media.

As the movement’s notoriety grows, the protestors are also finding themselves with significant funding. Finance

Committee member Rooj Alwazir said Occupy DC has generated $16,000 in three weeks.

According to Alwazir, on-site donations have been approaching $800 a day, with $1,200 more coming in online. On Saturday, the GA consented to open an Occupy DC account at Signal Financial, a local credit union.

Despite this success, the group isn’t eager to spend. Alwazir said most of the funds are being set aside for the winter ahead and any possible legal fees.

The De-escalation Committee is responsible for working with the Metropolitan Police Department and maintaining order in the camp, running nighttime patrols to protect the group from unfriendly interlopers, and mediating conflict between occupiers. Shaw said that the police have been relatively accommodating of the protests.

There have been no arrests of any McPherson Square occupiers, a fact most participants attribute to MPD’s experience with protestors, the protestors’ good behavior, and strict rules surrounding police conduct.

For instance, the police have to give three warnings before they make any arrests.

“They haven’t really given us any problems,” Shaw said.

“Once they figure out that we’re marching they usually get some cop cars on the route and block traffic.”

Behind all this organization is the Facilitation Committee, the institution that first decided on the format for general assemblies and trains participants in the democratic techniques of the consensus model.

“The facilitator exists to ensure that we stick to process, that all voices are heard and that voices aren’t dominant over other voices,” said Drew

RACHEL CALVERT

Franklin, one of the original committee members. “They guide discussion but … they remain as neutral as possible.”

This role is not fixed, but rotates amongst different members. No one person is supposed to lead discussion too much in order to ensure equal input.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the movement is that it is completely leaderless. No person interviewed for this story, even those leading the GA, would say they were more than just a member of the group.

Consensus rules and the absence of a leader are supposed to prevent co-optation by one set of interests. There are some de facto leaders who spring up, but they are not given legitimacy by any power other than experience. As quickly as they appear, their power is checked by facilitators moving them down the speaking order.

Like in any governance structure, there are power dynamics at play. For one, the Facilitation Committee has the opportunity for an enormous amount of clout because they designate and train facilitators for each committee.

“A lot of us feel like we are overstepping our role a little bit,” Franklin said. “And we’re doing it with the best of intentions which is to keep things organized and keep things going efficiently.”

A big issue is the lack of accountability—collective responsibility means collective blame. The Facilitation Committee is working on incentive structures to make every committee accountable to one another, but these plans are in their nascent stages.

The De-escalation Committee is also a sticking point,

the georgetown voice 9 especially when it tries to discipline fellow occupiers. On one occasion, a few members put a sign up on the McPherson statue, and De-escalation members felt it would attract police attention.

“They ... declared that they were on the De-escalation Committee as if they were wearing that as a badge, and it gave their instructions more weight,” Franklin said.

The situation progressed to yelling and the sign was removed, but not before prompting considerable discussion in the camp.

Race has also become a contentious issue, as the Black is Back coalition made clear.

Facilitators are supposed to be trained to minimize white privilege by prioritizing marginalized voices, but there has been concern that this was not happening regularly. In response, the Facilitation Committee decided to stop allowing each committee to name its own discussion leaders.

In one De-escalation meeting, a woman also complained that female members were being relegated to more menial roles. On Saturday, a People of Color working group and an Anti-Racist White Allies organization had just formed to discuss diversity issues, but they remain controversial.

Despite the importance of these issues, the biggest obstacle is independent of the movement: the coming winter.

The occupiers have considered weatherizing tents, investing in space heaters for the medical tent to warm up those with hypothermia, or finding a big room to hold GAs indoors. Recently, a Winterization Committee has been formed, but its plans are still in the beginning stages. The protestors expect to take cues from Boston and New York, but that strategy guarantees nothing. One thing is for sure though—they intend to tough it out.

“We need more bodies in the park ... in order to secure more funding that we’ll need to winterize, and also just to secure more body heat,” Mears said.

As for the motivations and goals of these protestors, there is no easy answer.

There is little desire among the activists to settle on a list of demands or even a set of goals for the occupation. They fear allowing outside interests to pigeonhole and hijack the movement, so they simply choose to adopt no single organization’s goals. Indeed, their model of governance is designed to do just that: allow for such a wide range of voices that there can be little hope of explicit demands.

Even so, this does not prevent them from agreeing on many issues—enough to have the motivation to live together through considerable hardship to fight for an abstract notion of political change.

There is one big policy goal they all seem to be behind: corporate finance and lobbying reform. Each protester expressed dismay at the level of corporate control of government and many showed support for public campaign funding. If there is a rallying cry for the movement, it’s this issue. Even so, the group still appears too happily fragmented and opposed to unification to come up with a platform any time soon.

Perhaps that’s not what’s most important. The level of governmental sophistication is nothing short of remarkable for a tent colony that has only existed for 26 days. Along with an array of political desires, this experience is how Alex, the George Washington sophomore, framed her motivation for joining the movement.

“I’m here because it’s almost a social experiment,” she said. “People seeing if we can build a self-supporting, sustainable community. And so far, I’d say it’s doing pretty well.”

RACHEL CALVERT

Food Committee volunteers feed occupiers and the homeless alike.

leisure

10 the georgetown voice

october 27, 2011

The Rum Diary not very intoxicating

by John Sapunor Johnny Depp is not a pirate.

A simple fact, but he seems to forget that at times. To Depp fans’ delight (and four-year-old Captain Jack fans’ chagrin), his work in The Rum Diary returns the actor to the world of author Hunter S. Thompson, whom Depp craftily portrayed in the cult favorite Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The Rum Diary, an adaptation of Thompson’s novel of the same name, is a fitting tribute to Thompson’s work, but its

sluggish plot progression and burdensome editing stretch what should be a concise adventurecomedy into a vapid two-hour feature.

Depp stars as Paul Kemp, a 1960s freelance journalist with a fondness for booze. After a hungover interview, Kemp lands a job at a Puerto Rican newspaper, where he takes on light stories, such as interviewing obese Americans who spend their days in a bowling alley. Then he comes across Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart), a charismatic real-estate

tycoon (or, as Kemp would say, a “bastard”) who wants Kemp to write some fluff pieces to minimize the controversy surrounding his hotel construction plans.

Kemp may have an insatiable appetite for cigarettes and alcohol, but as a journalist, he values nothing more than truth. After getting bailed out by Sanderson following a binge of 470-proof moonshine, Kemp becomes indebted to the businessman’s agenda, but he still spends the rest of the movie digging deeper into the hotel scheme.

The Hell’s Angels don’t have shit on this motor bike gang: The Three Amigos.

imdb

While the plot is necessary to steer the movie forward, The Rum Diary really exists to show off a chain of unconnected Thompsonesque events. In one scene, Kemp and his photographer roommate Bob Salas (Michael Rispoli) go to a hermaphrodite witch doctor to prepare their rooster for a vicious cockfight. At another point, Salas and Kemp buy hallucinogens from their other boozed-out roommate, and a Fear and Loathing-style acid trip ensues. In a running sub-plot, Kemp falls for Sanderson’s playful girlfriend Chenault (Amber Heard), and a classic love-triangle conflict ensues.

The Rum Diary’s pace is where the movie tumbles. The film’s central plot is really just a device to transport the characters from one ridiculous adventure to the next. This isn’t a bad strategy, but by trying to capture the essence of Thompson in these brief nonsequiturs, the film finds itself too far off-track to keep an audience engaged. The simple solution would have been to reduce the movie to a more palatable length, but director Bruce Robinson’s unwillingness to cut scenes will

have audiences fixated on their watches for the final third of the film.

Depp’s performance is entertaining as usual, but compared to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Kemp doesn’t have much in the way of dialogue and voice-overs.

The movie’s best moments occur when Kemp interacts with the ridiculous cast of characters, including the bipolar newspaper editor (Richard Jenkins), his incessantly-drunk roommate Moberg (Giovanni Ribisi), and the slew of Americans pouring into Puerto Rico.

In the end, The Rum Diary will please Fear and Loathing fans who would like to see Depp’s antics in a tropical setting, but the film excludes a key element of Thompson—his raw, spontaneous nature. Still, Kemp is a delightful character that Depp nails from the get-go, and if the film is viewed as a tribute to Thompson, it’s hard to feel completely let down by some extraneous scenes. Or maybe the key to enjoying this movie is right there in the title. Just stay away from that 470-proof stuff. Not even Thompson could handle that.

If you still haven’t put together a costume for this weekend’s events, Georgetown Park Mall houses the temporary Halloween store Total Fright.

A self-proclaimed “boo-tique,” Total Fright offers elaborate costumes, accessories, and

makeup. Those on a budget can pick up their “Nerd Wig” and glasses, don a trench coat, and masquerade as the Ninth Doctor Who. Better yet, you could buy a two-dollar bottle of glitter and say you’re Ke$ha—creativity at its finest.

Get away from the Hilltop this Halloween

by Heather Regen If Leo’s orange-frosted pound cake hasn’t gotten you into the Halloween spirit yet, don’t worry. From embassies to theme parks, D.C. offers plenty of chances to don a costume and forget about those last few midterms for the weekend.

Just off of Dupont Circle and a short GUTS bus ride away, trick-or-treating awaits.

Continuing a longtime D.C. tradition, embassies will be handing out candy to costumed students from 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. this Friday. The School of Foreign Service Academic Council provides maps of participating embassies when you get off the bus, but if you’re short on time, plan strategically—the Japanese and Korean embassies hand out green tea and lychee flavored candies, while Indonesia usually sticks to Kit Kats.

This year, the Japanese embassy has expanded its festivities, presenting a program called “Spooky Japanese Cin-

ema.” The last film of the series airs this Friday at 6:30 p.m., and while tickets are free, you’ll need to RSVP on the Japanese Cultural Center ’s website before heading over to the embassy. Friday’s movie, The Great Yokai War, offers a nice contrast to the typical Exorcist viewing and tells the whimsical story of a boy who fights evil monsters and trickster spirits in a supernatural battle shot with stopmotion puppetry.

Those looking for real horror, however, will have to venture a bit further off campus. Despite its corny motto—“Slicin’ and dicin’ for 19 years!”—Markoff’s Haunted Forest in Maryland offers a genuine terror-inducing experience. Located in the middle of the woods, Markoff’s tells its guests to ditch their costumes and bring hiking boots and warm clothes.

Once there, you choose between two trails through the forest, where actors wait, ready to horrify. The event offers zip-

lines and ghost hunts in addition to the forest fright tour, and runs from Friday to Monday starting at dusk. In the same vicinity, Nightmare Screamer, a less campy, theme park version of Markoff’s, offers a corn maze and a haunted insane asylum in addition to its own forest tour. Tickets for both events are $25,and can be purchased online.

Back in D.C., the Georgetown Theatre Company offers a classy way to enjoy a Halloween free from fake corn syrup blood and plastic masks. On Saturday night at 8 p.m., the theatre troupe will read works by Edgar Allan Poe at the Grace Church on Wisconsin Avenue. Admission is free, although the Company suggests a $10 donation.

Also on Saturday, the Smithsonian’s Air and Space museum offers “Air & Scare.” From 2 p.m. to 8 p.m., the museum displays exhibits on space aliens, screens episodes of The Jetsons in its Imax Theater, and offers karaoke.

These zombies took the Occupy DC movement quite literally.

flickr

georgetownvoice.com

“What’s the matter, kid? don’t ya like clowns?” —The devil’s rejects

The Spooky Screen

the georgetown voice 11

The Voice picks its favorite Halloween movies

#1: The Shining, Stanley Kubrick,1980 Watch The Shining by yourself. Just keep an extra pair of pants handy. Kubrick’s attempt at horror is as terrifying as it is gorgeous. The ominous twins, the bloody elevator, and the ghost of an old English gentleman set the scene for Jack Nicholson’s dip into insanity. There is no shortage of iconic imagery in this film, but the sheer terror of a psychotic father bent on killing his wife and metaphysically talented son is what makes this the best Halloween film of all time. In fact, you’ll still get the creeps after watching this 60 times, which is also the number of doors used in takes for the “Heeeeere’s Johnny” scene. And if there’s one lesson you can take away from this film, it would be as follows: go out on Halloween, or just stay in and have fun with your friends. If not, you might find yourself drowned in a state of “all work and no play,” and that would be bad. Very bad.

—John Sapunor #2 The Nightmare Before Christmas, Henry Selick, 1993 So Tim Burton didn’t actually direct it, but who cares, he was born in Halloween Town! It’s probably the best stop-motion movie ever, and you can watch it anytime as both a Halloween and a Christmas flick—now that’s bang for your buck. This dark story of the pumpkin king bringing his form of Christmas to unsuspecting children of the world features romance, intrigue, and even explosions, and its influence on emo kids cannot be understated. And Danny Elfman should be forced to compose Halloweenthemed music for the rest of his days, just as Santa was forced down into Oogie Boogie’s lair.

—Rob Sapunor

#3: The Thing, John Carpenter, 1982 Though it bombed at the box office back in 1982, The Thing makes today’s CGIbloated horror flicks look like shit. Made in the golden age of sci-fi, John Carpenter ’s cult classic finds the perfect balance between psychological terror and gore. Isolated in a research institute in the Antarctic, an American crew suddenly finds themselves picked off one by one by a shape-shifting alien that had slept dormant under the ice until they arrived. Think you can’t be scared shitless by a stop-motion animation alien? Carpenter will prove you wrong.

—Heather Regen

Girl, what you sippin’ on?

Let’s be honest: I write a drinking column. I like going to bars. I like the décor, the loud music, the varied atmospheres, the availability of alcohol. I like to see friends or people I haven’t seen for a while, and I like meeting new people.

But, at the risk of painting myself as too anti-social, my favorite thing by far about bars is the people-watching.

For anyone who considers people-watching an acceptable pastime, bars are a gold mind of potential material. And the crowd at any two bars is never the same – the experience is guaranteed to be much different at Rhino than, say, on U Street, or at your local bars at home.

But spend enough time in the dark corners of bars and you will notice that, no matter how diverse the clientele may be, customers always seem to follow a few certain predictable patterns. So without further ado, I present to you my system of stereotyping people by what they order at bars.

Natty, Bud, Michelob, Coors: People who get take-out more than twice a week Sierra Nevada, Stella, Yuengling: People who wear V-necks on a regular basis Rum and Coke: People who wear collared shirts on a regular basis Gin and Tonic: People who secretly wish they had more opportunities to curse other people out

#4: Army of Darkness, Sam Raimi, 1992 Bruce Campbell is a badass, and there is no better example of this masculine demigod’s badassery than Army of Darkness. After being sent back to medieval times, Bruce blasts witches with his broomstick, mutilates enemies with his chainsaw, and slays an army of undead skeletons. The third film in the Evil Dead trilogy, Army of Darkness is a gore-fest full of laughs, screams, and some really funky special effects. The medieval setting provides a fun backdrop for the genre (think Monty Python or Princess Bride), and the overall comic-book feel makes this one of the strangest movies you could pop into your VCR Halloween night.

—John Sapunor

Wine: People who like to talk about art; people who wish they could talk about art; Europeans.

Cape Codders: Girls who went to high school in New England Vodka Tonic: People who really just like to drink water

Whiskey business

by Mary Cass

a bi-weekly drinking column Anything straight up/neat: Badasses Tequila shots: Girls who wish it was Spring Break already, guys who carry condoms in their wallet Long Island Iced Tea: People who are really, really good at drinking Sangria: Girls who love de-

#5: The Exorcist, William Friedkin, 1973 Watching this in Healy with a couple hundred other students might make it seem like a funny movie. But just wait until you’re walking down an empty cobblestone Georgetown street at midnight and the fog begins to creep through the air.

You will be freaking out as you sprint back to your haunted dorm room. This Georgetown favorite is still as scary as ever, but it also maintains a level of relevance in this day and age: following Michelle Bachmann’s appearance on the cover of Newsweek, a Jesuit was promptly contacted to perform an exorcism.

—Rob Sapunor signer clothes A round for the bar: People who love to shout at their TV Bloody Mary: People who think drinking before 10 a.m. is totally acceptable Pitchers of anything: People who get way too into the same ‘90s or Top 40 playlist that plays every night Vodka Red Bull: People who can’t afford cocaine Mojito: People who think it would be cool to bike to a bar Pimm’s: People who think everything is cooler if you say it in a British accent Jaegerbombs: People who mostly use the internet to watch YouTube videos Martini: People who wouldn’t be upset if their lives looked more like Mad Men Whiskey Sour: People who wouldn’t be upset if their lives

#6: Ghostbusters, Ivan Reitman, 1984 “Who you gonna call?” That’s right, ‘80s cult classic Ghostbusters has it all: over the top ‘80s hair, ridiculous special effects (which have aged well), and a slew of truly great one-liners (“Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!”). With an ironic applicability to the jobs crisis, Ghostbusters tells the story of three NYU parapsychology professors who stumble into the soon-booming ghost busting business after getting forced out of their university positions. Part of a lost generation of truly great family-friendly classics, not many films can approach Ghostbusters’s sci-fi comedy genius, except maybe Ghostbusters 2, or, fingers crossed, Ghostbusters 3.

—Mary Borowiec

looked more like a Western White Russian: People who think sleeping for 18 hours sounds like a great way to spend a day Champagne: People who make way more money than you do.

So there you have it, a semi-comprehensive compilation of my research. Of course, these are just stereotypes.

They don’t apply to everyone and should never be taken 100 percent seriously. But the next time you find yourself striking up a conversation at a bar, it couldn’t hurt to check out what they’re drinking—you wouldn’t want a Whiskey Sour to end up in a duel with a Tequila shot.

Call Mary out on her prejudice at mcass@georgetownvoice.com

leisure

12 the georgetown voice

october 27, 2011

C r i t i c a l V o i ces

She & Him A Very She & Him Christmas, Merge Records December 25 is a full two months away, ornaments are still packed in boxes, and presents have yet to be bought, but none of this has stopped indie pop duo She & Him from releasing a Christmas album. In A Very She & Him Christmas, the quirky M. Ward and actressturned-singer Zooey Deschanel take on the difficult task of making holiday cheer relevant in October.

While the album succeeds in inspiring some Christmas morninglike glee, a few tracks fall short of bigred-bow worthiness. It’s a sampling of technically polished, if sometimes campy, songs. The group’s third fulllength album offers few surprises, but it’s hard to resist the nostalgiainducing numbers.

The holiday cheer reaches a

height in fast-paced “Sleigh Ride” and “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”

The vocal contribution of Ward on these upbeat tracks provides a nice contrast to the sometimes somber Deschanel-only numbers. In “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” Deschanel’s vocals have the almost conversational magic that made her rendition of the song in Elf memorable (and Ward’s rich crooning easily rivals Buddy).

Deschanel masterfully handles the melodies of classic holiday songs like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” with her staple soulfulness and charm. The mellow “Christmas Day,” a track that rightfully draws on an excellent Beach Boys cover, is a refreshingly uncommon Christmas song with a chorus well suited to Deschanel’s voice. The twangy guitar backing from Ward compliments the lilting verses and lends the song a spontaneous and unhurried feeling.

Still, the Christmas spirit seems to fade in the thoroughly sad “Blue Christmas,” and while Deschanel’s light ukulele strumming on “Silver Bells” and “Little Saint Nick” is a welcome break from an otherwise guitar-heavy album, her usually bubbly vocals fall flat on the high notes. And despite the songwriting prowess that was evident in

A decade after the iPod

On October 23, 2001, Steve Jobs took the stage in Cupertino, Calif., to announce what he called a “breakthrough digital device”— the first iPod. It had five gigabytes of storage and cost $399.

Critics were not convinced.

The name iPod itself was mocked as “Idiots Price our Devices” and “I Prefer Owning Discs.” But the iPod was not just another MP3 player, like many people claimed.

It was the first device that made the music industry’s transition to the digital world possible.

In 2001, consumers had already begun listening to MP3’s instead of CD’s, but rarely legally.

In June 1999, peer-to-peer file sharing service Napster launched, and six months later it was facing a lawsuit from Metallica, the first of many from the recording industry.

But despite the lawsuits, people kept downloading. Napster usage peaked at 26.4 million users before shutting down in July 2001. Still, in

less than two years, Napster created an unstoppable force in the music industry.

Napster had its flaws. Besides the fact that it was illegal, it was also slow and unreliable. But the popularity of Napster revealed a relatively untapped market for digital music. And so Apple stepped in with iTunes, a more functional (and non-free) version of what Napster tried to create. When the iTunes Music Store opened, Apple was the only legal vendor of major label music on the Internet. Its success made digital music mainstream and gave law abiding citizens an alternative to shady downloading.

And then came the iPod. While it wasn’t the first MP3 player on the market, its connection to iTunes presented an easy, organized, and legal transition to digital music. As the iPod gained popularity, the culture it created continued to upset tradi-

the twosome’s previous albums, A Very She & Him Christmas is devoid of original songs. The lack of original writing contributes to the rehearsed, sometimes forced feeling of the album.

In October, the holidays may seem distant, but the better songs on A Very She & Him Christmas will still be on repeat when Christmas morning rolls around, even if a few tracks are best left under the tree.

Voice’s Choices: “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” “Christmas Day” —Emily Hessler

Coldplay, Mylo Xyloto, Capital Records The cover of Mylo Xyloto is a graffiti-splattered maelstrom of color that bombards the eye like a set of fireworks. With even their tion within the music industry.

People bought fewer albums and more singles. Up-and-coming artists could break out without a record deal.

While iTunes provided a solution to the problems of illegal downloading, it didn’t eliminate the problem entirely. Napster not only made music free—it made people believe that music should be free. A 2010 survey by Forrester Research found that only

byte me

by Kelsey McCullough a bi-weekly column about technology 44 percent of Internet users, and 64 percent of those who download digital music, believed music was worth paying for. This attitude was reflected in album sales worldwide during the past decade. From 2000 to 2010, album sales dropped 56 percent.

While some people saw this decline as a “lost decade” for mu-

cover art looking like an obnoxious attempt to draw attention, Coldplay once again appears to be foregoing subtlety in favor of grandeur.

Critics have already used this tendency as a reason to pan the superstar quartet, citing the album’s meaningless yet catchy title and formulaic approach in a bid to prove that Coldplay is all style without substance. But the band shamelessly churns out one epic showstopper after another, and with good reason—their strength lies in their ability to translate universal themes into titanic anthems.

Mylo Xyloto is a concept album that explores what frontman Chris Martin calls “a romance in an oppressive environment.” Tinged with candy-colored rebellion and heavy with escapism, the concept establishes an ebullient atmosphere. This rousing sensation is immediately felt in the opening duo of “Mylo Xyloto” and “Hurts Like Heaven.” Probably the fastest Coldplay song in history, “Heaven” effectively combines the band’s classic sound with new electronic influences.

Next comes another highlight, “Paradise,” which deftly mixes signature Coldplay chart-topping ingredients (violins and a “whoasic, others saw it as an opportunity.

People clearly were looking for access to free music, which they now felt they had a right to, and the music industry needed a way to cash in. While advertisement-based Pandora caught on quickly, subscription services like Rhapsody, which has fewer than one million subscribers, never really took off.

Despite the troubled start of subscription streaming services, Daniel Ek, the CEO of Spotify, saw the proliferation of smartphones as the perfect opportunity to make streaming music viable. Spotify allows users to stream unlimited music for free for the first six months. After the first six months, however, non-paying users will be limited to 10 hours of music per month and at most five plays of the same song. Launched in the United States in July, Spotify and its American users are still in the free-of-charge honeymoon period.

After that, Spotify is hoping they can finally be the one to convince Internet users to pay for music.

oh” refrain) with cascading vocals and irresistible melody. Continuing the showstopper trend, the track list follows with arena anthem “Charlie Brown,” which could have only been created for a stadium of shiny-eyed youths.

Other notables include the quiet yet powerful acoustic ballad “Us Against the World” and lead single “Every Teardrop is a Waterfall,” which (if you ignore the cringe-inducing title) is an appealing ode to finding refuge in music. “Princess of China” is a graceful Rihanna collaboration that features a seductive, synthesized sound. The remaining songs are noticeably weaker and do little more than contribute to a sense of coherency.

It is easy to dismiss Coldplay as merely an assembly line for sugar-coated hits. To do so, however, is to ignore the very real ability that has ensured the band’s longevity. Though no lyrical geniuses, they are masters of creating uplifting melodies. Mylo Xyloto will galvanize Coldplay haters yet again, but let’s face it, they’re just jealous.

Voice’s Choices: “Heaven,” “Paradise,” “Princess of China” —Julia Lloyd-George Competitors to Spotify are popping up everywhere, and rumors have begun that Google, Amazon, and Apple are all working on their own plans to get into the game. If services like these truly start to take off, the effect could be a transition away from music ownership altogether.

Ten years after the announcement of the iPod, the music industry is a far cry from what it was in the early 2000s. The iPod may not have been the first MP3 player, but it was the one that encouraged people to transition into the digital era of music. It raised the expectations of consumers who now expect to be able to easily put 10,000 songs in their pocket. Even if the classic iPod itself has become outdated, the phenomenon that it started has already had an immeasurable impact on the music industry.

If you’ve ever stolen an iPod, email Kelsey at kmccullough@ georgetownvoice.com

georgetownvoice.com

page thirteen

the georgetown voice 13

BY ROB SAPUNOR AND MADHURI VAIRAPANDI

voices

14 the georgetown voice

october 27, 2011

A colorblind case for income-based affirmative action

by Kate Imel Recently, while filling out forms for a fellowship, I found myself confronted with the all too familiar race-based form that instructs me to please mark the box titled “White/ Caucasian.” Of course, if I object to providing this information, I do have the option of marking the corresponding box. But I think it’s safe to say that marking the “I decline to respond” box is basically saying, “I’m white or another race that isn’t considered diverse enough for this institution.”

Initially, lawmakers intended affirmative action to bring racial and cultural diversity and equality to universities, which it succeeded in doing. It also, however, succeeded in perpetuating the same kind of racism it was created to balance by including race as a factor in the admission process. This debate has resurfaced in the past few weeks after the University of California schools publicly announced that they would begin to take race into account in admissions due to the drop in racial

diversity on campuses. In 2003, the UC schools decided to end the use of affirmative action in admissions, but as a result, they have seen a significant drop in African-American and Hispanic students.

The decision has been met with public outcry and heated debate on the constitutionality of considering race in the admissions process in public universities. A bake sale held by the College Republicans at UC Berkeley caught the attention of national media when they varied the price of cookies by the race of the buyer—$2.00 for Whites/Caucasians, $1.50 for Asians/Asian-Americans, $1.00 for Latinos/Hispanics, $0.75 for Blacks/African-Americans, and $0.25 for Native Americans.

While the benefits of a racially diverse campus are many, the discrimination of affirmative action can no longer be denied. At the root of affirmative action is the acknowledgement that some prospective students have to endure numerous hardships and these students deserve more consideration than a more privileged student. What affirmative ac-

tion fails to acknowledge, however, is that though there is a strong correlation between race and opportunity, it is not a matter of causation.

To assume that because a student is a minority, he or she has not received the same educational opportunities might be correct the majority of the time. But it is not because of the color of the student’s skin; it is, rather, because of the socio-economic status of the student. To equate socio-economic status with race sets a dangerous precedent and in effect only perpetuates racial stereotyping and profiling.

And students of the UC schools aren’t the only ones up in arms.

Abigail Fisher, a white woman from Sugar Land, Texas, claims that she was denied admission to the University of Texas because of her race.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on this case during this term and re-evaluate the constitutionality of the Grutter v. Bollinger decision that allowed for racial preference to play a role in higher education.

Though it is unlikely that Fisher will be able to prove that her de-

nial at UT came down solely to a question of race, the very fact that it played a part is a problem. If, on the other hand, Fisher was denied admission because her father is in the top one-percent of household incomes in Texas and was privately educated in high school while someone else—minority or not—struggled through one of the worst public schools in her district with a single parent working two jobs, then Fisher’s denial would be more founded.

I will not feign to be a victim of affirmative action in any way. I have not suffered a particularly intense hardship that won me a spot here, and I do acknowledge that a student who endured great hardship to get to Georgetown might, in fact, be more worthy of my spot. This hardship or lack of opportunity that affirmative action seeks to balance is not race-based, but means-based. If in the coming years, affirmative action goes colorblind and becomes based on socio-economic status, the end product might very well be the same as it was before. But at least the means would justify the end.

In a country that just recently built a national memorial to a man who implored his fellow Americans to judge men not “by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” it seems odd that we uphold a law that explicitly defines a man by his race. Where Martin Luther King championed man’s achievement based on his drive, ambition, and most importantly his ability to overcome hardship, affirmative action champions race. Rather than judge a potential student on his or her achievements, it places him or her in a box— white, Asian-American, AfricanAmerican, Hispanic, etc. Perhaps as a country we need to redefine how we conceptualize diversity.

Perhaps diversity is not a color.

Diversity lies, rather, in someone’s personal history.

As I planned my Halloween costumes for this weekend, inevitably my thoughts turned nostalgically to the Halloweens of my past. Every Halloween growing up, the thing I looked forward to the most was candy.

(And committing minor acts of vandalism. But mainly candy.)

But now, as a Georgetown senior, it’s amazing to see how the holiday has evolved and grown up with us. How we celebrate holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas doesn’t really change as we grow older. But celebrating Halloween has a very distinct lifecycle.

Where before we went doorto-door trick-or-treating in our

costumes, we now go to parties, or bar-to-bar for Halloween specials and themed drinks. We no longer carve pumpkins, but we buy them and hope (in vain) that they don’t get smashed by drunken marauders by the end of the weekend. We used to buy children’s costumes of action figures and Greek goddesses; now our costumes tend to involve even less fabric and far more irony. We watch movies like Saw and Paranormal Activity 3 instead of Hocus Pocus and Don’t Look Under the Bed. Something has subtly and slowly changed from the Halloweens of our childhood to now. It’s not just the addition of alcohol and the sexualization of costumes to our Halloweens. The change lies in our fear.

We used to be afraid of monsters and witches, bumps in the dark and black cats crossing our paths. But our fears are no longer limited to the creepy crawlies and shadows lurking under our beds.

We can no longer ensure our safety by simply pulling the bedsheets over us (if I can’t see them, they can’t see me!) or by throwing water on witches.

Our fears are more intangible, less the monster of our imagination and more the fears that accompany our daily existence. We’re worried about getting jobs, about

our families, about violent crime and bad economies and devastating wars and a lot of other things that we used to be shielded from beneath the mask of childhood.

The older we became, the harder it was to believe in the monsters in the closet when the news on TV gave us plenty of real ones to choose from. At Halloween, we retreat from the terrors of the real world to indulge once again in the thrills and chills of our childhood, back when your fears were no match for the Superman “S” you sported on your chest.

What we were for Halloween was more than a costume—it was our identity for the night and we dared the scariness of the night. This in no way excuses me shooting my old neighbor with a bow and arrow when he jumped out and scared us. But honestly he should have known better than to mess with an eight-year-old, sugar-fueled Pocahontas.

No matter how old or jaded we become, there is still something about Halloween that never loses its magic. Our fears may have changed as we have grown older, but Halloween remains the one day a year when we entertain our superstitions, when we seek the adrenalinefueled excitement of a good scare. We search out the shivers, the jangling nerves, and

the heightened sense of danger that always seems to permeate the air on Halloween.

Halloween will always be a holiday where, for at least a few minutes, I’ll push away my rationality, my common sense, and my belief that there’s no such thing as ghosts, or the supernatural, or mischievous spirits. I think there’s a small part in all of us willing to trade the fear that everyday reality brings us for the delightful shiver down our spines from monsters and witches and black cats and a thousand other superstitions that seem possible on that most haunted of nights.

I’ll never get tired of seeing the little kids running around with their bags of candy, adorned in princess dresses or the latest superhero costumes.

They still feel the spirit of the electric possibility of the otherworld on that night. Let them have their monsters and boogeymen, their witches’ potions and things that go bump in the night. Their monsters are still the figments of their imagination, and their magic is still strong enough to protect them.

Kate Imel is a senior in the College.

She’s mad this article is the only affirmative action she’ll be seeing this week.

Tricks and treats: college unmasks a new Halloween

by Rachel Braun Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. It’s not just the scary movies, the haunted houses, the crisp fall weather, the pumpkin pies, the apple cider, the bonfires, the haunted corn mazes, and the hayrides. What other holiday encourages, even requires, you to put on a crazy costume and get tons of treats (or perhaps more realistically for the average Hoya, a sloppy makeout with someone whom you think is the hot guy from your English class, though you can’t really be sure under his Dread Pirate Roberts Mask)? And no, Mardi Gras doesn’t count.

They might not be smashed, but some hooligan stole all their teeth.

FLICKR

Rachel Braun is a senior in the SFS. Every day except Halloween Rachel dresses like a gorilla, but for Halloween she’ll put on a mask.

voices

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice

15

High hopes for Libya and the future of U.S. intervention

by Asjed Hussain Congratulations are due to the people of Libya. After months of civil conflict, the tyrant who oppressed them with his iron fist is gone. However, a warning is needed as well: that was the easy part. What Libya is faced with now is much more cruel and much more destructive than any tyrant could be. It lurks behind the joyous celebrations, behind the statements of global political leaders, and behind the news streams around the world of Gaddafi’s death. It

is the potential that Libya’s reconstruction will fail.

In a transitional democracy such as Libya, this is a very real threat. It may not seem as if the United States and other nations should concern themselves with Libya’s problems, but the repercussions of Libya’s future will resound throughout the world. We all need Libya to succeed because the involvement of the U.S. in future crises is contingent upon Libya’s outcome. In a world where people are becoming increasingly interdependent, no one

Believe it or not, this guy was actually an extra on Jersey Shore.

FLICKR

Facebooking the dead

Every October 25, my Facebook experiences its annual flood of wall posts. This inundation of birthday wishes from friends, family, distant cousins, Sunday school teachers, past hookups, and people I just plain forgot about is something only Facebook could facilitate. But another event on that day spawns an almost equally predictable outpouring of well-wishers—the death of my soccer teammate and friend, Will Wardrip.

Two years ago Will and three friends were driving, sober, down a steep grade in the foothills of suburban San Diego when Will’s friend lost control and flipped the car. Will, who wasn’t wearing a seat belt, was catapulted out of the front windshield and crushed underneath the car.

My entire community was rocked. Will was the kind of kid that everyone loved: smart, athletic, funny, popular, and with a smile that could light up a room.

In the wake of his death, our school canceled classes, vigils were held at the beach, and the funeral was packed to the brim with anyone who had ever met Will, except me.

I watched from afar, from my freshman dormitory on the other side of the country. I had just gotten back from my birthday dinner at Tombs when my mom called and broke the news.

I was shell-shocked. I did the only thing I knew how to do—I cried. Bawled, actually. And then I turned to Facebook for more.

Facebook was my only window into the pain of my com-

Let the Voice be your voice. We accept opinions, letters to the editor, personal experiences, and creative writing that are exclusive to the Voice. Submissions do not express the opinion of the board of the Voice. The Voice reserves the right to edit submissions for accuracy, length, and clarity. To submit, email voices@georgetownvoice. com or come to the Voice office in Leavey 424.

Opinions expressed in the Voices section do not necessarily reflect the views of the General Board of the Voice.

can afford to ignore the plight of others.

Much progress has been made in the Middle East since the Arab Spring began earlier this year. This week Tunisia held fair, free elections. Egypt ousted its dictator. Syria is currently experiencing protests despite a governmental crackdown that has taken the lives of around 3,000 Syrians and imprisoned thousands more.

Libya, however, is the only nation in which there was an actual revolution that completely wiped away the old regime and left the people with a clean slate.

This is the Libyan people’s chance to start anew, and the rest of the Arab world is watching. If Libya succeeds in creating an inclusive and tolerant democracy, it will be a symbolic victory that might just provide the impetus for major reforms throughout the Arab world. On the other hand, if Libya falls through, dictators around the world could use Libya’s failure as an example to quell pro-reform sentiments.

The U.S. should look on as well. Libya’s outcome will affect us more drastically than we may munity, a looking glass through which I could catch vague glimpses of the mourning. On Will’s wall I found accounts of the accident, including articles from area newspapers and video clips from local news stations. I chatted with classmates of mine who had known Will. I commented on mutual photos of us goofing around on soccer initiation night, and, through videos his mom had tagged Will in, relived Will’s short, but sweet, life. Facebook made it

Carrying On

by Keaton Hoffman A rotating column by Voice senior staffers

easy to mourn.

On October 26, 2009 (just one day after Will’s passing), Facebook Head of Security Max Kelly explained in a blog post that in response to the death of a fellow Facebook employee, Facebook had “created the idea of ‘memorialized’ profiles as a place where people can save and share their memories of those who’ve passed.” A memorialized profile can receive wall posts, photo tags, and video messages, but cannot be accessed by those other than

think. After 10 years of waging ineffective, seemingly pointless wars, a sense of overwhelming apathy over what we are fighting for and how we are fighting for it has pervaded the atmosphere of our daily lives. But the success in Libya so far has been refreshing. We need Libya to succeed because it will remind us of what we really should be fighting for: hope and peace.

The people of Libya called out to the rest of the world in their time of despondency and we delivered. This was America at its best. This was not the domineering America in Iraq, nor the excessively confident America in Afghanistan. This was the U.S. taking measured, calculated steps to assist people who were asking for help, people who were confronting the prospect of mass murder at the hands of an oppressive dictator. Most importantly, we intervened and accomplished our mission with minimal costs and no loss of American life.

As the world continually becomes more interconnected, the question we should ask ourselves is when is it appropriate and legitimate to get involved in friends, is unsearchable, and is wiped of all personal information. In the same post, Kelly reflected that “as time passes, the sting of losing someone you care about also fades but it never goes away.” Memorialized pages are the salve to that sting.

It’s been two years since Will died, and, I must admit, Facebook has changed the way I remember his death. Each year as the “Happy Birthdays” roll in alongside the “I miss you Wills,” I take the time to reminisce about Will’s legacy, how he’s taught me to cherish the people around me, to live in the moment, and never to take anyone for granted. I scan through old photos.

I post thoughtful messages on his wall. I watch old videos that make me laugh and cry at the same time. Remembering Will is easy and makes me feel good.

But is that what mourning is supposed to be about?

Facebook exists to facilitate the relationships we already have. With a little effort and something called a telephone or, God forbid, mail, you could share photos, reconnect with old friends, and learn about people’s days. But Facebook has made all of this much easier, more convenient, and simpler. No longer does it take a significant sacrifice to ask your friend how they’re

situations concerning other nations. We should not be asking ourselves if the U.S. should completely stay out of the affairs of the world. To advocate such isolationism would be to reject the intertwined essence of the twenty-first century, and in some cases the very ideals of liberty that America was founded upon. The intent of an intervention is just as important as the methodology and practice of it, and both these aspects play into a successful mission as in Libya.

If the revolution in Libya results in a stable democracy, then the case for measured and careful foreign intervention will be further solidified. For now, I can only hope that our world leaders continue to exhibit the same courage, wisdom, and vision that they showed in Libya, and take similar actions in other parts of the world where the people are in need and in want of help.

Asjed Hussain is a freshman in the SFS. He’s hoping the U.S. will intervene in his living conditions in Darnall Hall. doing, just look at their profile for a few seconds and suddenly you’re reconnected. Death is the same way. Facebook allows me to conveniently express my grief at my leisure, without any real cost on my part.

But some things aren’t supposed to be easy. Death is hard.

Death sucks. Facebook has made it so that instead of doing the tough things like laying flowers on Will’s grave, getting coffee with his grieving mom, or calling up Will’s friend who lost control of the car that day, I can comfortably express my grief online. Love is sacrifice, but Facebook has eliminated the need for any sacrifice.

So while I appreciate how Facebook has changed our lives, I dislike how it’s changed our deaths. That’s why this year I’m remembering Will the old fashioned way: calling friends, looking through old yearbooks, and taking the time to meditate about what life means to me.

Rest in peace, Will Wardrip. I’ll remember you forever, Facebook or not.

Keaton Hoffman is a junior in the MSB. He didn’t think Albus Dumbledore was dead until he didn’t poke him back.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN From the Georgetown Voice