The Georgetown Voice, November 4, 2010

VOICE the georgetown

0

URIBE RETURN PROMPTS PROTEST PAGE 4

BASEBALL CLOSER LOOKING FOR HITS PAGE 7

MAD FOR MEGAMIND PAGE 11

Georgetown University’s Weekly Newsmagazine Since 1969 w November 4, 2010 w Volume 43, Issue 12 w georgetownvoice.com

2 the georgetown voice

november 4, 2010

Advertise with the Voice

hot off the blog

!

X VO

“D.C. Health Department asks GERMS to report Four Loko cases”

Y o udr a c oguol d here

“D.C. has highest student debt in the country”

... or her

“Georgetown baseball player pursues rap career” “Campus Crime Watch: Six laptop thefts in the past week”

e.

“Harbin freshman arrested for “use of a controlled substance”

“ Neighbors’ complaints stall Third Edition’s liquor license” “Georgetown has ‘almost entirely shed itself of its Catholic character’”

Vox Populi

blog.georgetownvoice.com

Voice Crossword “Election Day’” by Mary Cass

ACROSS 1. Genesis site 5. Gillette Razor 9. Musical staff sign 14. Cold cuts locale 15. “If ___ a Hammer”

16. In the front 17. Nerd 18. Popular political fodder 20. Thrown ball’s path 21. Type of ballot 22. A following 24. Director Hitchcock

28. Colored portion of eye 29. Actress Watson 31. Opposite of WSW 32. One-third of a hat-trick 33. Arm joint 34. Bench press musc.

35. Home of the Volunteers: Abbr.

36. Competitors for Nintendos 37. Japanese Wrestling 38. Plus 39. Greek titan who supported the heavens 40. National Yogurt Chain 41. Secretive govt. agency 42. Australian special forces 43. Christmas present?

44. Economist John Maynard ___ 46. Pope 49. Judge’s writings 52. Orioles’ Ripken 53. Star wars weapon 56. London Art Museum 57. 553 BCE 58. Arabic bread 59. Old knife 60. First letter of “circle” (but not the fourth) 61. Examined the sit.

62. “Hey, over here!”

DOWN 1. ___ Allan Poe 2. Tractor manufacturer

Contact business@georgetownvoice.com for more information 3. Occurs in early November yearly 4. Beat suffix 5. Boeing competitor 6. “One of ___ Nights” (Eagles song) 7. Starts with a shot 8. Yemeni port 9. Used in stare decisis 10. “Hail to the ___” 11. Zodiac sign 12. Suffix with Euclid 13. Macy’s original name: Abbr.

19. John on “Full House” 21. Dye plant 23. Capital is Tehran 25. Not donkeys but elephants 26. Opposition 27. Art ___ 29. British composer who wrote “Pomp and Circumstance” 30. Wharton degree 32. Spirit in a bottle 33. They may be electric

answers at georgetownvoice.com

35. Sailing action 36. Equilibrium 37. Jazz singing 39. Sterile 40. Lots 43. “Hearts of Darkness” Author 45. Like a perfect game 46. Meter masters 47. Atropos, Clotho, and Lachesis 48. Naval group 50. Wine valley 51. Big-billed bird 53. Mormons, briefly 54. U.N. worker’s grp.

55. Bitmap image format 56. Smaller than a tbs.

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 43.12 November 4, 2010 Editor-in-Chief: Juliana Brint Managing Editor: Molly Redden Editor-at-Large: Tim Shine Blog Editor: Chris Heller News Editor: Cole Stangler Sports Editor: Nick Berti Feature Editor: Sean Quigley Cover Editor: Holly Ormseth Leisure Editor: Brendan Baumgardner Voices Editor: Keaton Hoffman Photo Editor: Jackson Perry Design Editors: Megan Berard, Ishita Kohli Literary Editor: James McGrory Crossword Editor: Mary Cass Assistant Blog Editors: Geoffrey Bible, Julie Patterson Assistant News Editors: Emma Forster, Holly Tao Assistant Cover Editor: Marc Fichera Assistant Leisure Editors: Nico Dodd, Leigh Finnegan Assistant Photo Editors: Max Blodgett, Matthew Funk

Associate Editor: Iris Kim Staff Writers:

Thaddeus Bell, Akshay Bhatia, Tom Bosco, Kara Brandeisky, Matthew Collins, Matthew Decker, John Flanagan, Kate Imel, Satinder Kaur, Daniel Kellner, Matt Kerwin, Sadaf Qureshi, Rob Sapunor, Abby Sherburne, Keenan Timko, Imani Tate, Mark Waterman, J. Galen Weber

Staff Photographers:

Helen Burton, Julianne Deno, Lexie Herman, Hilary Nakasone, Seun Oyewole, Audrey Wilson

Staff Designers:

Richa Goyal, Catherine Johnson, Lauren MacGuidwin, Michelle Pliskin, Nitya Ramlogan, Amber Ren

Copy Chief: Matt Kerwin

Copy Editors: Emily Hessler, Tori Jovanovski, Claire McDaniel, Kim Tay

Editorial Board Chair: Hunter Kaplan Editorial Board:

Gavin Bade, Kara Brandeisky, Ethan Chess, Jackson Perry, Eric Pilch, Molly Redden, J. Galen Weber

Head of Business: Eric Pilch

MAN UP, MAN UP, MAN UP

A liberal’s guide to the new Republican majority After two years of scaling back progressive reforms to meet the demands of Republican dissent and obstruction, Democrats find themselves once more in the minority in the U.S. House of Representatives. They now face the same choice Republicans did two years ago: either return to the core values of their party, or continue attempting bipartisanship with an even more radical opposition majority. Any further concessions would be a mistake. Democrats in Congress and across the country must advocate for reform rather than continuing to allow Republican partisans to frame the national debate.

The newly empowered Republican Party will certainly be focused on repealing much of the legislation that Democrats advocated for over the last two years. Tuesday’s election is not a referendum on liberal policies; instead, it is a reflection of the Democratic Party’s inability to face down Republican

Domestic, year-long: $38 Domestic, semester-long: $27 International, year-long: $52 International, semester-long: $43 Mailing Address:

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

Office:

Leavey Center Room 413 Georgetown University Washington, D.C. 20057

Newsroom: (202) 687-6780 Fax: (202) 687-6763 E-Mail: 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 ... Judaism at Georgetown Graphic Design: Holly Ormseth

opposition and advocate for its core beliefs.

Democrats must not continue to give ground on these important issues simply for the sake of avoiding conflict or appearing bipartisan.

Congressional Democrats must be careful in the fights they pick over the next two years and throw what remains of their influence behaind legislation that addresses the country’s economic position. For example, Democrats should hold Republicans accountable for justifying the revenues that would be lost if the Bush Era tax cuts are renewed, as the presumptive Speaker of the House, John Boehner (R-OH) has pledged.

Further, Democrats should also propose investments in the country’s infrastructure, a policy that would not only improve the country’s roads and bridges, but create thousands of desperately needed jobs. Finally, President Barack Obama should renew his focus on energy security, an agenda item

that has been overlooked during the first 18 months of his administration. Building a domestic clean energy industry will create high-value jobs, lessen our dependence on foreign oil, and tackle issues of climate change. These policies will put Republicans in the untenable position of opposing legislation that would help move the country’s economy forward.

Though they should be primarily focused on economic issues, Democrats should not abandon the programs they have supported over the last two years. Despite their flaws, measures like Health Care Reform and Financial Regulation are necessary first steps towards addressing some of the nation’s most important problems. Democrats in Congress and across the country must frame solutions to these complex issues in a practical manner.

The rhetoric must shift from “change we can believe in” to change we can achieve.

SILENCE IS NOT GOLDEN

University keeps mum on DMT contradictions

Now that almost two weeks have passed since Charles Smith (SFS ‘14) and his friend John Perrone were caught cooking dimethyltryptamine in Smith’s dorm room, a clearer picture of the dramatic, early-morning evacuation of Harbin Hall and their arrest has emerged. Unfortunately, very few of the facts we now know have come from Georgetown itself. Over the last 12 days, the University has frequently dodged important questions about the events of Oct. 23 or contradicted statements from legal authorities without any explanation. This attempt to downplay the significance of these events rather than provide students with accurate, timely, or complete information is unacceptable.

Ever since the emergency evacuation revealed that Harbin’s Hall’s fire alarms were not functioning properly, University officials have been tight-lipped about the specific steps they have taken to ensure that residence halls’ alarm systems are in working order. In a meeting with student reporters, Vice President for Student

The Georgetown Voice

The Georgetown Voice is published every Thursday. If you would like to subscribe, make a check or money order payable to the Georgetown Voice and send it to the mailing address listed below. Subscription rates are as follows:

the georgetown voice 3

Affairs Todd Olson and University Spokesperson Julie Green Bataille were astoundingly dismissive of concerns about the system, saying simply that it had passed inspections before and after the emergency, and that the malfunction was “a one time problem.”

Since that meeting on Monday, Oct. 25, Olson and Green Bataille have failed to explain to the press or Harbin residents why an inspection before the emergency did not uncover the faults in the system, whether the subsequent inspection discovered the root of the problem, or even whether Georgetown has made any repairs to the system.

Olson also would not explain why he told parents of Georgetown students in an email that “there was never a health risk to students in Harbin” even though the D.C. Fire Department treated seven people in connection with the Harbin emergency and the Georgetown Emergency Response Medical Service treated three, two of whom required hospitalization.

Police records, which indicate that officers

found flammable liquids in Harbin 926, also contradict his statements.

In another inconsistency, Olson has repeatedly told the University community that reports of a strange odor led to the three arrests on Saturday. However, both the Metropolitan Police Department’s incident report and the D.C. District Court charging document from Perrone and Smith’s arraignment said that they were arrested after officers questioned another student who had purchased the legal drug K2 in their room.

The administration’s dismissive attitude and failure to explain why its statements contradict facts supplied by MPD are unacceptable. Georgetown may be concerned for its reputation, but its image is secondary to the responsibility it has to be straightforward about matters of public safety. Many students are unhappy with the way Georgetown handled the emergency. They have a right to have their questions about their safety and the University’s competence answered.

MAZEL TOV! YOU’RE HIRED!

Searching for a Rabbi, students find their voice Georgetown’s Rabbi Harold White has left a lasting legacy at this university.

During his 42 years at Georgetown, White helped found the Program for Jewish Civilization, led services for High Holy Days, and always made himself available to students from many faiths and religious traditions. The community will be sad to see him go, but White’s departure may leave the community with one last gift. To select his replacement, the University is using a student-driven process—one that would serve as an excellent model for future hiring decisions.

Unlike most recent hiring committees, the group charged with finding White’s replacement is actively soliciting student input. The search committee includes two students, Andrew Levine (COL ’11) and Merav Levkowitz (SFS ’11), who are committed to communicating the student point of view to administrators. Just last

Wednesday, Levine and Levkowitz hosted an open house to discuss with their peers what students need in a new rabbi.

Students won’t have any formal authority over the final hiring decision, but the University’s decision to work so closely with students during the initial phase of the selection process is a positive sign.

Other recent hiring decisions that had a large impact on student life involved far less student input, if any. While the University is quick to accept student suggestions for hiring community leaders like Rabbi White or LGBTQ Resource Center Director Shiva Subbaraman, it is rarely as receptive when hiring administrators.

For example, the appointment of Carol Lancaster as Dean of the School of Foreign Service involved little student input. Only one undergraduate student served on the selection committee, and active community forums were noticeably absent.

Similarly, the hiring process for Jeffrey Van Slyke as Director of the Department of Public Safety included only one student participant and no discussion of his controversial use of student informants and assault rifles at other universities.

The University should invite more student input on important hiring decisions.

Many administrators and staff have a direct impact on campus life for generations of Georgetown students. Successful administrators and educators are defined by their relationships with the students they serve, not just by the quality of their published research or the opinions of their administrative peers. Students must have more opportunities to voice their opinions in early stages of the selection process. Now that the University has shown us what a good model for hiring decisions looks like, it would take a lot of chutzpah to deny us similar opportunities in the future.

news

4 the georgetown voice

november 4, 2010

Uribe’s return to campus greeted by protest

by Cole Stangler The Adiós Uribe coalition, a group that has been calling for the dismissal of former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe from his position as a Distinguished Scholar in the Practice of Global Leadership at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, protested once again in Red Square on Wednesday afternoon as Uribe led a guest lecture in the Bunn Intercultural Center.

Citing his poor human rights record, several activists and Georgetown professors congregated at a bench in front of the White Gravenor patio to express their opposition to his appointment to Georgetown faculty.

The rally came a month after legal proceedings began against Uribe in two countries. In Colombia, he has

been implicated in the federal intelligence agency’s wiretapping scandal, and in Spain, he has been accused of spying on human rights activists.

Banners and signs at the rally trumpeted these charges. One attendee held a sign read “Take Uribe to the ICC (International Criminal Court).” “[Administrators] brought him here for one very simple reason— because he was a president, because he had his hands on power. That’s all that mattered in this discussion,” Mark Lance, director of Georgetown’s Peace Studies, said.

At the protest, Gerardo Cajamarca Alorcán, an organizer for the Colombian trade union SINALTRAINAL, spoke out against the human rights abuses of the Uribe administration, and links between members

of Uribe’s party in Congress and paramilitary forces.

“We are here in the name of the dead to call for peace, justice, and reparations,” Cajamarca said to rousing applause. “For our dead—not one minute of silence, [but] an entire life of fighting.”

Cajamarca also presented Georgetown students with a folder containing an investigation carried out from 2006 to 2008 by the Tribunal Permanente de los Pueblos, a Colombian non-governmental organization that documented military abuses against the indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities in the nation.

Not everyone in Red Square was fervently opposed to Uribe’s presence on campus, though. Some counter-protestors chanted pro-Uribe slogans as the other protest began.

JACKSON PERRY

Wednesday’s rally in Red Square featured a dramatic interpretation of Professor Álvaro Uribe’s presidency.

Federico Rivas (COL ’12), one of the counter-protestors, said that he recognized Uribe’s achievements, and thought it was important to acknowledge the enormous security challenges he confronted during his presidency.

Uribe’s second round of classes at Georgetown began on Monday, and he was invited to be a guest lecturer in several classes throughout the week.

Henry Thaler (COL ’14), who saw Uribe guest-lecture in Rev. Matthew Carnes’s Comparative Political Systems class, was impressed by the former president’s presence.

“I think its important to acknowledge that he’s a controversial figure and I certainly understand people’s objections, but I think it’s great that Georgetown can get somebody who played such a consequential role in international affairs to speak at the school,” Thaler said. “I think that outweighs the negatives.”

Carnes effectively shared his student’s mentality. Despite his reservations regarding Uribe’s human rights record, he thought that the exPresident’s presence can help spark meaningful discourse about Colombia and Latin America.

“Inside the classroom, we can have a level of discourse and a level of reflection that is unique to a university,” Carnes said. “It’s ironic and maybe tragic that I’ve had the opportunity to ask him more questions than human rights workers in his own country have been able to ask

him, and to me it’s an educational opportunity. That’s something universities do particularly well, and I would defend their right to do that part.”

Some faculty members who shared Carnes’ reservations felt that Uribe never should have been appointed in the first case.

On Tuesday, Anthropology Professor Jeanne Rappaport and Associate Professor of Government Marc Chernick wrote a letter to President DeGioia, which criticized the lack of transparency surrounding the hiring.

Additionally, Rappaport and Chernick asked that, “[Uribe’s] appointment be quietly terminated and that former President Uribe not be invited to return to the campus after his current visit ends on November 12th.”

Eight Georgetown faculty members and 150 professors from other universities have signed a document calling for Uribe’s dismissal.

Georgetown Professor Maurice Jackson, who signed the document, said that the appointment was not vetted adequately and that it ultimately reflects poorly on the University.

“It’s a condemnation of the people of Colombia to have such people speaking,” Jackson said. “You don’t gain prestige by doing something like this—you lose prestige.”

Jackson said the faculty could complain as much as they want, but that it was ultimately up to the students to put enough pressure on the University to reconsider the appointment.

In an email, Smith said that DPS is conferring with the Metropolitan Police Department on the burglaries.

“If people have the opportunity to burglarize people, people can push that boundary because they know that someone’s back here [living in this area]. It’s not the first year that [burglaries have] happened,” a student who was the victim of the attempted forced entry said. She wished to remain anonymous because she was concerned about her safety. “[This week] was the first time I personally saw a DPS officer back here. It took a bunch of burglaries for that to happen. Prospect is like an open door. I don’t understand why no one’s back here [in Village A].”

There have been 16 other oncampus burglaries during this school year. From Sept. 2009 to

Aug. 2010, there were 32 incidences of burglary in on-campus student residences, including four in Village A residences.

Smith and Officer Shannon Kasparek emphasized the necessity of including students in the security process. Kasparek said that officers have been looking at windows and checking doors to make sure that they are locked. Students need to make sure that they are not leaving unlocked doors and windows unattended, she said.

Another meeting between DPS, ResLife, and Village A residents has been scheduled to continue the joint effort by students and officials to address security concerns.

“Maybe by the end of that evening, we’ll have a pretty decent plan to work on,” Smith said. “We are in this together as a team and we need to approach it as a team.”

DPS, ResLife react to surge of burglaries in Village A

by Holly Tao Since Oct. 16, Village A has seen four burglaries and one attempted forced entry. The crimes have prompted the Department of Public Safety to hold a town hall meeting with Residence Life and increase patrols in the area.

In all but one of the Village A burglaries, the residents had left their doors unlocked. According to the Associate Director of DPS Joseph Smith, the four burglaries occurred in blocks D and E of Village A, and suspects typically stole laptops.

In order to address the string of burglaries and student concerns, DPS and ResLife held a town hall meeting in the Village A community room on Tuesday.

Twelve Village A residents attended the meeting.

Smith and Cory Peterson, the

Village A area coordinator, emphasized the difficulties associated with effectively monitoring Village A. “It’s a challenge, because when [the complex] was built, buildings weren’t built with the security environment in mind,” Smith said. “We’re reviewing the environment, saturating the area [with more officers], taking close surveillance, but we’re not going to be intrusive about it.”

Several long-term security projects are currently in the works.

As it installs wireless Internet access in dorms, the University is also installing a new surveillance system that should be operational in the next year, Smith said. The surveillance system will be wireless and will record high-resolution images.

Eight university offices and organizations, including DPS,

Housing, and GUSA, have also started looking into security issues on campus, such as the number of blue light boxes. They will also have to present their findings to the University at some point in the future, Peterson said.

Since the recent string of burglaries, there have been extra patrols at Village A. “There are two extra overtime details [at Village A]. All officers are told that when they have a free moment, [they should] check Village A,” Smith said.

Peterson said that DPS currently makes rounds in Village A twice a night on weekdays and three times a night on weekends. Each duty round can last anywhere from a half an hour to three hours. Peterson added that trees and shrubberies in the complex will be cut back to improve visibility.

news

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice 5

College Republicans celebrate, Dems mourn losses

by Thaddeus Bell “There’s absolutely boundless enthusiasm right now,” Sam Dulik (SFS ’13), a member of the Georgetown University College Republicans, said Tuesday night. Dulik and his fellow College Republicans were celebrating the midterm election results and the return of Republican control of the House of Representatives in Village C Alumni Lounge.

Cheering each time an election was called for a Republican, the students in Alumni Lounge snacked on chicken wings and cupcakes. Across campus, in Sellinger Lounge, Georgetown’s College Democrats were more subdued.

Members discussed the results with each other quietly, and some did homework. Cheers were rare and mild.

“We did what we could,” Sam Solomon (SFS ‘12), the College Democrats’ campaign co-coordinator, said as the Democrats racked up losses.

Before Tuesday night, both political organizations left the D.C. metropolitan area to campaign and canvass in contested states and districts.

While College Republicans travelled to liberal-leaning New Jersey, the Democrats

went to Louisville, Ky. and Philadelphia, Pa. “We took two vans out there and drove all night,” Solomon said. “The Louisville people really appreciated that we had come so far.”

Solomon had coordinated the trip, in which College Democrats campaigned for local candidates and Jack Conway, the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Kentucky Senator.

On Tuesday, Republicans cheered as Jon Runyan, a candidate they had campaigned for, won New Jersey’s third congressional district.

“We did door-to-door visibility, and we met the candidate,” Dulik said. “He’s a terrific guy, incredibly nice, a small businessman, and he’s never run for office before.”

As of Wednesday night, Northern Virginia’s closelycontested 11th District congressional race remained too close to call. The district, which includes most of Fairfax County, was a battleground for Georgetown’s competing political organizations. College Democrats campaigned for Gerry Connolly, who holds a slim lead over Republican Keith Fimian, the candidate supported by the College Republicans.

JACKSON PERRY

College Republicans rejoiced Tuesday night as their party retook the House.

College Democrats said they faced a hostile electoral climate this year, and many campaigns lacked the vitality Democrats shared two years ago. They added that Democrats’ control of Congress and the Presidency forced volunteers to frequently defend the record of the last two years.

“I think that in 2008, it was a lot easier,” College Democrats President Bryan Woll (COL ’12) said. “We were running a cam-

The District’s forgotten second party On Tuesday night, in a small, dimly lit Adams Morgan bar just off 18th Street, the old guard of the D.C. Statehood Green Party gathered together for an election party.

The crowd, which was heavy on tweed coats, traded stories from their daytime campaigning. They booed audibly when a close race was called for the Republicans and cheered when the Democrats hung on to another seat. The bar ’s choice to tune into Fox News proved controversial and the loud commentary about the on-air antics of Fox News’s Shepard Smith forced the bartender to change the channel to CNN. The Statehood Green’s candidate for At-Large member of the D.C. Council, Howard

University Professor David Schwartzman, pulled in only 6.8 percent of the vote. The At-Large race is a competition that allows anyone from the District to run in an open election in all of D.C.’s eight wards. Voters can select two choices, and the two best-performing candidates who are not from the same party are elected to the Council.

Though they have yet to win a seat on D.C. Council, the Statehood Greens represent an important force against the political establishment in a city that is almost completely dominated by the Democratic Party and lacks any meaningful Republican opposition. This September, D.C. Council Chair Vincent Gray challenged incumbent

Mayor Adrian Fenty in a hotly-contested primary. But when Gray prevailed in the primary, the race more or less ended, leaving many D.C. voters out of the political process

City on a Hill

by Eric Pilch

A bi-weekly column on D.C. news and politics and granting the Democratic Party a virtual monopoly on the general race once again.

The D.C. Council races also ended with all of the same Democratic incumbents cruising to victory, with the exception of Independent At-Large David Catania (SFS ’90, LAW ‘94), who was able to win easily due to the unique structure of the At-Large election.

paign of change and hope.”

Regardless of the uncertain outcome of a few remaining races, College Republicans said they were ecstatic.

“The energy has been above anything we have seen since 2004,” Colin Cortes (COL ’13), the treasurer of the College Republicans, said. “Hopefully we keep that energy into 2011 and 2012 so we can take back the Presidency and the Senate.”

The Democratic stranglehold on local politics has two effects. First, because the Democratic primaries effectively choose the eventual political victors, anyone who is not a registered Democrat has little say in the political process.

Secondly, because they are sure to be reelected as long as they run as Democrats, members of City Council often act in ways that belie Democratic ideals.

As Schwartzman explained, the most recent D.C. Council—the same individuals who will be in power for the next two years with the exception of incoming Mayor Gray—made a number of painful cuts to health care and welfare services in the midst of the recession, and ran a disquieting deficit.

Schwartzman and other Greens are quite familiar with accusations that they contribute

NEWS HIT Early apps rise Although the number of prospective students who applied early to Georgetown University dropped in 2009, Georgetown’s Early Action applicants hit a record high this year.

Georgetown has received well over 6,500 early applications postmarked by the Nov. 1 deadline, according to statistics provided by the Admissions Office. This number marks a significant increase from last year ’s 6,124 applicants.

The drop which caused a decline in selectivity. The percentage of students accepted rose from 18.7 percent to 19 percent.

After EA applicants jumped from 4,500 in 2007 to the previous record of 6,213 in 2008, the count dipped last year to 6,124.

Charles Deacon, dean of undergraduate admissions, said that the admissions office will not have complete information about the applicant pool until next week, but the raw numbers suggest that the class of 2015 may set new selectivity records.

—Emma Forster

to the “spoiler effect.” Democrats across the country are fond of complaining about Green Party candidates who siphon away progressive votes from their party. This election cycle is no different—consider the grumbling about LeAlan Jones allegedly causing Democrat Alexi Giannoulias’s narrow loss to Republican Mark Kirk in the Illinois Senate race.

But Greens in D.C. play an important role in keeping the political class honest. While Schwartzman may have come up short in his At-Large bid this cycle, one can only hope that he will find a way to prevail in the future. A challenge from the left could be the right antidote to the too often passive Democratic establishment.

Like tweed coats and lean to the left? Email Eric at epilch@georgetownvoice.com

sports

6 the georgetown voice

november 4, 2010

Hoyas ride wave of momemtum into tournament

by Adam Rosenfeld Last Saturday, the Georgetown men’s soccer team celebrated on North Kehoe Field as they defeated the No. 6 University of Connecticut Huskies. Not only did the win signal a victory over one of the top teams in the nation, it also meant the Hoyas had clinched the program’s first Big East Blue Division regular season championship since 1994.

However, a few short weeks ago, the division championship seemed far out of reach after the Hoyas lost to Cincinnati 2-0 on Sept. 25. Georgetown had gone five games without a victory and was struggling to turn the season around.

The winless streak was particularly baffling because Georgetown pulled off an exciting win against Northeastern in double overtime, and then handily defeated nationally-ranked Michigan State team 4-0 in the season’s opening weekend.

What followed were tough losses at the hands of New Mexico, Denver, a tie at Princeton, and a loss to UPenn. When Georgetown experienced the loss to Cincinnati, they found themselves at a crossroads in the season.

“We didn’t have a lot of confidence,” head coach Brian Wiese said.

“We had to take a real hard look at what we were doing, because we weren’t a cohesive group at the time.”

The Hoyas’ response to this five-game winless streak was nothing short of historic. The squad first defeated Adelphi in the program’s first night game on Multi-Sport Field, then reeled off eight more victories that culminated in the win against UConn.

“The hardest and most important thing was getting that first win against Adelphi,” Wiese said. “That win settled everyone into their roles and we handled ourselves very professionally from there on out.”

The nine-game winning streak was the longest in recent memory,

and it featured a collection of nail bitters and blowouts as freshman midfielder Steve Neumann came off the bench and carried the team.

“He fits in really well [with] the guys around him, and now the guys have the belief that Steve can win a game for us,” Wiese said. “And that’s a powerful thing.”

The Hoyas kept rolling thanks in no small part to Neumann’s contributions. After relatively easy victories over Seton Hall and Villanova, the Hoyas again pulled out a tight 1-0 victory on the road at Pittsburgh. The Hoyas then gave Marquette a 6-2 drubbing at home to steamroll into their big match against UConn.

Rain postponed the matchup against UConn for 24 hours, but it was well worth the wait.

The Hoyas beat the Huskies 1-0 on—what else— a Steve Neumann goal.

“They’re a frightening team because they’re the total package,” Wiese said. “We did a great job keeping them away from our goal and capitalizing when we had a chance. … It’s a tribute to the boys and their hard work.”

The Hoyas’ success began after playing great defense while being extremely opportunistic on offense.

At the heart of the defense was senior goalkeeper Matthew Brutto.

With Brutto in net as the team’s last line of defense, the Hoyas had a chance to win any game. On average, Brutto allowed a miniscule 1.13 goals per game and shutout the opposing team six times.

The offense was anchored not only by Neumann but also senior captain and workhorse Jose Colchao. While Neumann lead the team in points with ten goals and seven assists, Colchao’s contributions weren’t measured just by his five goals and four assists alone.

According to Wiese, Colchao’s contributions to the team come in

Courtesy SPORTS INFO

Steve Neumann has been the difference in the second half of the season.

the form of his athleticism and bluecollar work ethic.

While it is hard to ignore some of the individual performances that comprised this special season, the Hoyas know what really counts is their play in the Big East Tournament and beyond. Last year, the Hoyas’ season came to an end with a disappointingly early exit in the conference tournament against DePaul, a fate Wiese doesn’t think this year’s team will fall victim to this year.

“This is a different year and a different team,” Wiese said. “Last year it was a survival game, this year it’s an opportunity to have a special season.”

Although the Hoyas lost their last game of the season at Notre Dame, they still have the top seed in the Blue Division, which gives them an automatic bye into the quarterfinals this Saturday. The Hoyas will also have extra incentive to win this weekend. This year, the semifinals and finals of

the Big East Tournament will be played at the beautiful Red Bull Arena in New York.

“It’s a huge motivation for us,” Wiese said. “One of our goals at the beginning of the year was to make it to Red Bull Arena, now it’s right there for us to take.”

The Hoyas will have their chance to punch their ticket to New York this Saturday at North Kehoe Field against Providence at 1 p.m.

the Sports Sermon “What the fuck? Who ordered this crap? I wouldn’t feed this to my dog,” — Tennessee food critic Randy Moss.

ing, and Allen Iverson are all legends in the pros. But out of all of the NBA jerseys hanging in McDonough Gymnasium, only four of them belong to players who have been coached

by John Thompson III. And those four are the only Hoyas to have made the NBA after playing in the Princeton offense. We now know that Hibbert and Green have the ability to succeed in the NBA, but the fact that both of these top-20 picks took so long to adjust to NBA play shows how Georgetown’s basketball program isn’t meant to put player on the fast track in the NBA. When high school players sign their letters of intent to play for Georgetown, they

possess enough skill will make it to the next level.

In an Oct. 29 game against Hoyas who make it to the the Detroit Pistons, Jeff Green NBA have the foundation for drove down the lane and made success, but they do have to a game-winning shot with 2.5 build themselves up to play a seconds left to give the Oklafaster, harder game. The last homa City Thunder its second thing the Princeton offense enwin of the young season. courages is speed, which is vital His clutch layup gave Hoya when playing with the NBA’s fans a pleasant flashback to 24-second shot clock.

Georgetown’s 2007 climb to Greg Monroe has only played the Final Four. In one of the last 52 minutes so far this season, but games he would play alongside the 10 rebounds he pulled down Roy Hibbert, Green hit a buzzagainst the Celtics show the er-beating shot in the Sweet Sixpromise his career holds. If the teen against Vanderbilt. paths Hibbert and Green took are With Green on the verge of a any indication, however, it will be breakout season in the NBA, now a while before Monroe starts makis a good time to look at his first ing big contributions to his team. few years in the league. In his The fact that Monroe was a highfourth year of proly-touted prospect fessional ball, Green in high school and Pete Rose Central is averaging 19.7 is younger than HibDa bettin’ line points per game. Yes, bert and Green were Dookies Margin three games is a small when they were Hoyas sample size, but his drafted may acceler(underdogs) (duh!) (favorites) improved scoring— ate his professional his average was 10.5 Brian Wilson Everyone The Machine development. points per game in Although MonGrossman Seriously?

McNabb his rookie year, 16.5 roe should have a Dolan Less cancerous long career in the Asbestos in his second year, and 15.1 last year— NBA, it is not easy and Friday’s game-winning shot know that JTIII’s program will for everyone. Ever since gradushows that he is more confident turn them into all-around good ating in 2008, Patrick Ewing Jr. than before, even when the game players. The Princeton offense has been on the cusp of playing is on the line. forces every player on the floor, in the NBA, only playing a few Green’s former teammate no matter their size, to possess preseason games for the New Hibbert has put up big numbers a diverse skill set. It is not un- York Knicks, before being cut this year, too. Instead of entering common for a center to be at the in both 2008 and 2010. As some the NBA draft after his junior year, top of the key or to make a lot of of his former teammates are setHibbert stuck around for his se- assists. Everyone is constantly tling in with their NBA teams, nior season. Even though this put moving and finding a way to Ewing is still trying to find his him a year behind Green, this sea- get the best shot—not necessar- way. son he has averaged 18.3 points ily for themselves but for the For four consecutive seaand 10 rebounds per game—al- team. The Georgetown style sons, Hoyas have walked out of most doubling his average in both of play encourages teamwork, the front gates and into the NBA. categories from last season. precise execution, and strategy. But for those players, it is not a It’s not news that Hoyas can Players will be well-rounded matter of just getting there, but play excellent NBA basketball— on the court when they leave building on their skills successPatrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourn- Georgetown, and those who fully enough to stay there.

by Nick Berti

sports

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice 7

99 problems but a hit ain’t one Sun sets early on football

by Tim Shine It’s no secret that most Georgetown students are multitalented, but a graduate student competing for the closer role on the Hoya baseball team while managing a fledgling rap career sounds like a joke. He agrees.

“It was just a joke, a complete joke,” Mike Seander said. “Really, I’ll admit it first, it’s pretty ridiculous.”

Seander, better known to his newfound fans as Mike Stud, never intended to become a rapper. He was a pitcher, and a pretty good one—as a freshman at Duke, he picked up nine saves with a 1.61 ERA. And standing 6-foot-3-inches at 215 lbs, he definitely looks like he should be throwing heat, not spitting it.

“I’m not trying to be something that I’m not,” he said. “I play baseball. I went to Duke and Georgetown. It’s just kind of something, for whatever reason, I’m good at.”

No, Seander’s account is not your typical up-from-the-streets rap

MIKE STUD MUSIC

Stud is bringing a new feel to the ‘pen.

story. But while he may not have been shot nine times, he does have a long scar on his arm thanks to Tommy John Surgery. It’s actually the reason he’s at Georgetown. Seander blew out his elbow and missed a season, giving him an extra year of eligibility. It cost him a few mph off his fastball, but Georgetown was still eager to let him try to replicate his dominant freshman year.

What the Hoyas didn’t know, however, is that Seander didn’t just pick up strikeouts at Duke. Thanks to a few musically-inclined teammates, he learned how to put together tracks and produced a few songs.

Of course, it was nothing serious.

The songs were just something fun to play at parties. Seander wasn’t trying to get noticed.

“I didn’t put anything up, [but] we would send them all out to buddies,” he said. “We’d play them at parties and people were like, ‘This is hilarious.’”

But apparently the network of college baseball players is a pretty effective way to virally distribute music. Only about a week before coming to Georgetown, Seander got a call.

It was a Providence-area R&B singer named Gerven asking to feature him on a song he was working on. All of a sudden, Seander found himself laying down a verse in a recording studio with a singer who he had never met before.

Then, as quickly as it happened, it was back to reality for Seander. It was time for him to begin studying in the sports industry management graduate program and return to baseball, his first passion. And he definitely wasn’t going to be bragging to his new teammates about his brief detour.

“I never said a word to anyone,” Seander said. “I’m the new guy here, what am I going to tell everyone, I’m a rapper?”

Hoya recruit bedevils Duke There are few joys in life greater than besting Duke’s Blue Devils. So when the Hoyas landed a new recruit on Nov. 1—6-foot-8inch center Tyler Adams—it felt like a preseason victory. Adams, in order to play for Georgetown, had decommitted from Duke.

A few weeks ago, I wrote that in the world of college basketball recruiting, it gets late early, and the Hoyas needed to move quickly to secure a good recruiting class. At the time, the Hoyas had zero committed recruits in the Class of 2015, while Big East rivals Villanova, Syracuse, and Louisville each had several.

Since then, the Hoyas have quickly built a recruiting class that is nothing short of formidable.

When Adams ditched Duke and quickly committed to Georgetown after attending Midnight Madness, he became the fourth recruit to commit in the last month and a half.

Weighing in at 255 lbs, Adams is a broad-shouldered bulldozer who will act as another frontline presence for the Hoyas.

Extremely difficult to score on, Adams could become one of a long line of great defensive Georgetown centers.

But the first puzzle piece that fell into place was 6-foot-5-inch shooting guard Jabril Trawick of Jenkintown, Pa. Trawick is a four-star recruit who gained recognition at the AAU Myrtle Beach Slam 2 this summer for

He didn’t need to. The other Hoyas, like Gerven, found out about their new pitcher’s rap skills on their own.

Just like at Duke, the music was a hit with Seander’s teammates. Only now, they weren’t his only fans. The track he was featured on started to attract some attention, and someone from Universal Music reached out to him and built him a website. A local DJ found his songs online, and now his stuff is being played at bars like Rhino. Budding rap promoter (and Georgetown Sports Information Director) Mex Carey set him up with a feature in the Washington Post. And now, just months after first fooling around with a microphone, Seander, who produces and records about a song a week, has people emailing him clamoring for more.

Seander is not letting the attention go to his head though. He says he wants to take his music as far as it can go, but he doesn’t hesitate when asked to choose between a rap career and a shot at playing professional ball. It’s baseball all the way.

That’s music to the ears of head coach Pete Wilk, who expects his new potential closer to help improve an already veteran Georgetown squad. Seander’s rhymes though? Not so much.

“He hates rap. He’s a big slow country guy,” Seander said. “But he’s a great guy. He’s been nothing but supportive. As soon as it started to happen, me and Mex sat down with him. He was like, ‘Hey, as long you stay focused on baseball, have fun.’”

That’s exactly what he plans to do. Seander’s going to keep putting out tracks as fast as he can, and is even preparing for his first live performance. But pitching comes first.

Who knows? Come spring, he could be the first closer to come out of the bullpen to his own song. his ability to get to the rim and consistently hit threes.

The Hoyas soon landed DeMatha High School star and Maryland native Mikael Hopkins, a powerful, 6-foot-8-inch forward-center who will spend most of his time in the post once he gets to the Hilltop. Hopkins is

Backdoor Cuts

by Tom Bosco

a rotating column on sports a nice score for head coach John Thompson III and his staff as he’s only Georgetown’s second DeMatha recruit in the last 40 years.

Georgetown’s fourth verbal commitment comes from Brandon Bolden, another Midnight Madness attendee, and the Hoyas’ first commitment for the Class of 2016.

by Daniel Kellner

To put it kindly, this has been a season of highs and lows for the Georgetown football team.

Despite a remarkable 3-1 start to the year following their winless 2009 campaign, with Saturday’s 24-11 loss to Fordham—the team’s fifth straight defeat—the Hoyas (3-6, 2-2 Patriot League) have guaranteed that 2010 will be their 11thstraight losing season.

After defeating Holy Cross on Homecoming, the Hoyas’ problems began when they took on Colgate on Oct. 2, and were trampled by the Patriot League favorite Crusaders, 34-3.

“There’s no excuse, we just got our ass beat that day, plain and simple,” head coach Kevin Kelly said.

Since that trouncing in Hamilton, N.Y., Georgetown has failed to regain its early momentum, descending into mediocrity. Many fans feel that the unfortunate turnaround has been due to a change in the offensive scheme, and a misuse of junior quarterback Scott Darby.

“Part of it is that we’re not running the ball as much with [Darby] and I don’t know why that is,” WGTB Sports Radio host John Kenchelian (Col’ 12) said.

“He’s a really good runner and he doesn’t shy away from contact, which makes him a lot different than some other quarterbacks.

If you run the ball with Darby, people will play him to run and that opens up the passing game.”

Despite the team’s poor results, the Hoyas have remained competitive. In fact, three of their last four games

Although Georgetown snatched Bolden, a 6-foot-8-inch forward from South Carolina, early in his recruitment process, he has said he felt sure that Georgetown was the best fit for him.

Thompson still has one spot left to fill in the Class of 2015 and two more spots for the Class of 2016. But for now, he has met the challenge that other Big East counterparts seemed to get a jump on, and has formed a deep class that will be highly competitive.

More important than who’s coming in, however, is how the Hoyas’ future teams will look with these players on the roster. This year ’s team will be guard-focused with Austin Freeman, Chris Wright, and Jason Clark at the helm, but it looks as though Thompson is aiming to make

were decided by five points or fewer. Wagner needed a 54-yard field goal to extend the game into overtime, while Bucknell needed a fourth quarter interception return for a touchdown to secure their victory against the Hoyas.

But the Hoyas have blown fourth quarter leads three times on heartbreaking plays this season. In the close games, they have been victims of costly and untimely errors which allowed the coaching staff to blame their losses on simple lapses in execution.

“We haven’t won. We’ve been close but we haven’t finished,” Kelly said. “We started out strong, but still we’re three games ahead of where we were last year and so it’s all about how you look at it. Is the glass half full or half empty?

Right now it’s half full.”

This might be cold comfort for the players, though.

They truly believed they had a shot at the school’s first Patriot League title.

“Our expectation is to win every game, so we’re going to take one at time,” Kelly said earlier this year.

Now, the team’s seniors have two more games to finish their careers on a high note. The young players have a chance to gain more valuable experience before putting this season behind them and begin preparing for 2011.

“We’ve got a lot of talented players, a lot of young players,” Kelly said. “We really only have 15 seniors, so a lot of the guys are back next year.

And that’s what you’ve got to look forward to.”

Georgetown ‘Big Man University’ once again.

After Freeman, Wright, Julian Vaughn, and Ryan Dougherty graduate this year, Georgetown’s remaining roster is awfully tall, with nine players measuring at least 6-feet-6-inches including newcomers Hopkins and Adams.

Trawick, Clark, Vee Sanford, and Markel Starks will be the only players on the roster under 6-feet-6-inches.

Georgetown will be tall once again after this year. But in the meantime, the good news is that our recruitment class—which was empty just one-and-a-half months ago—is almost filled. And that’s big.

Think you have the skills to get the last scholarship for next year? E-mail Tom at tbosco@georgetownvoice.com

feature

8 the georgetown voice

november 4, 2010

feature

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice 9

An exercise in understanding: Judaism at Georgetown

by Sean Quigley In 1968, Georgetown University became the first Catholic institution in the country to employ a full-time rabbi when it hired Harold White, a 36-yearold ex-military chaplain, as a Jewish Chaplain and Lecturer in Theology. But it was not so he could lead Georgetown’s Jewish students, who by his estimate made up just one percent of the student body at the time.

University President Rev. Gerard Campbell told him he was interested in the common roots that Christianity and Judaism share. He wanted White to teach Georgetown students about the deep connection between the two religions—about how Jesus was born and lived as a Jew, and about the ways Jewish thought influences Christian tradition.

Though he was surprised by the offer, White accepted.

“That idea allured me, the idea of teaching Judaism to non-Jews to make them appreciate their own religion more,” he said. “That’s really the reason why I came.”

From forging lasting relationships with students and alumni of all faiths to establishing the Program for Jewish

Civilization in the School of Foreign Service, White has arguably done more than anyone else to build and strengthen the school’s Jewish community in the four decades since he first came to Georgetown.

“He is Jewish Georgetown,” Jacques Berlinerblau, director of the PJC, said. “There’s no Jewish Georgetown without Rabbi White. On any level— intellectual or spiritual—his is an incredible body of work that has affected thousands, potentially tens of thousands, of people.”

In conversation, the people skills that helped White forge so many connections are readily apparent. Silver-haired and wizened but retaining an affable vigor, White sounds authoritative without being condescending, and is simultaneously formidable and approachable. He combines the networking skills of a politician with the warm openness of a religious man, emanating a gruff but personable kind of charm.

“Rabbi White is irreplaceable,” Rev. Philip Boroughs, Vice President for Mission and Ministry, said. “He has been one of the most significant lead-

MATT FUNK

Yalta Part 2: Jewish and Catholic Campus Ministry representatives meet.

ers of our religious community in the myriad ways that he has served the Jewish community on and off our campus.”

But soon, he will have to be replaced. After 42 years as the University’s Senior Jewish Chaplain, White decided to retire at the end of last June and take on an advisory role at the PJC. A committee formed by Boroughs of students, faculty, staff, and campus ministers of different faiths is in the process of choosing his successor and hopes to announce a selection by the end of this academic year. But because of his omnipresence and comprehensive personal connections in the Georgetown Jewish community, it will be difficult for any anyone to replicate fully the role he’s performed.

“We are not seeking to replace Rabbi White, but to find a worthy successor,” Boroughs said.

White’s tenure at Georgetown, inspired from the onset by a desire to increase CatholicJewish understanding, can be measured in part by the constant dialogue between Catholicism and Judaism that inspired his hiring in the first place.

Besides teaching hundreds of Catholic and Jewish students, perhaps his biggest contribution to interfaith understanding on campus was the establishment of the PJC in 2003 with the help of Georgetown professors Robert Lieber and Yossi Shan.

Offering a certificate program in the SFS and a minor in the College, the PJC is dedicated to exploring Judaism as a community and as a civilization, and to promoting interfaith relations, especially Jewish-Catholic understanding.

According to Berlinerblau, it is the first and only program of its kind at a foreign service school in America. Thanks in no small part to the courses and guest lectures provided by the PJC, interreligious dialogue has become something of a specialty for Georgetown.

“If there’s something we do at Georgetown, it’s interreligious dialogue. There’s no shortage of it,” Berlinerblau said. “I know of few universities as committed to the question as we are.”

it is toward providing the Jewish community with religious services. O’Brien remembers looking up to White during his time as an undergraduate and said that, though he is Catholic, he considers White his rabbi.

exact number of Jewish undergraduates is difficult to measure, but Reichmann says six percent of the current student body identified as Jewish on their applications. Of these, she estimates about a quar-

jackson perry

At the center of it all: Rabbi White has been Georgetowns Senior Jewish Chaplain for over four decades.

Rev. Kevin O’Brien (COL ’88), executive director of Campus Ministry, traces Georgetown’s particular interest in Catholic-Jewish discourse back to Nostra Aetate, a document that came out of the Second Vatican Council meetings in 1965 which called for an increased commitment to vigorous, open dialogue with Judaism.

“Georgetown took it very seriously,” he said. “One of their responses was hiring Rabbi White.”

Ever since, the Jewish Chaplaincy under White has been geared almost as much toward engaging non-Jewish students as

According to Debbie Reichmann (COL ’93), Campus Ministry’s Jewish Program Coordinator, the Jewish Chaplaincy organizes events like a Jesuitsponsored Shabbat service during Jesuit Heritage Week, and a Jewish-Christian interfaith Passover Seder designed to highlight the connection between Passover and Easter, in addition to standard services for major Jewish holidays.

While it emphasizes these kinds of interfaith events, the Jewish Chaplaincy’s main purpose is to provide religious services and support for Georgetown’s Jewish students. The

ter—around 100 students—are religiously active.

The Jewish Student Association exists to give this small but robust population of practicing Jewish students a sense of belonging at a Catholic school like Georgetown. Making frequent use of the Jewish Community House, a University townhouse on 36th Street and the sole space on campus designated exclusively for Jewish religious and cultural events, the group holds weekly Shabbat services and acts as a social hub for the Jewish undergraduate community.

As the Jewish community

and the JSA grow, the house is proving increasingly inadequate.

“It is unequivocally not big enough,” Jesse Mirotznik (SFS ’12), co-president of the JSA, said. “A house is an awkward space to have a prayer and community center to begin with, but as a growing community, it really doesn’t fit our needs at all. I can think of two events just in the past two months where people have showed up and found it to be so crowded that they left because there just wasn’t enough space.”

The lack of space makes attempts to interact with and engage other student religious groups even harder. Mirotznik said he is worried that there will not be enough space to fit both the JSA and the Muslim Student Association during their upcoming joint Shabbat service.

Campus Ministry is aware that the Jewish Community House by itself is insufficient, but it doesn’t seem to have a solution.

“We recognize that the space is inadequate,” O’Brien said. “Getting more space for Jewish students is a priority. … It just comes down to restructuring and reorganizing the space that we have.”

O’Brien also pointed out that the Muslim prayer room in the Copley basement doesn’t meet the needs of the Muslim community, either.

Concerns about meeting and prayer space notwithstanding, Jewish students don’t seem to have much trouble retaining their identity and practicing their religion at Georgetown.

“A lot of Jewish students I know were worried because Georgetown is so Catholic,” Merav Levkowitz (SFS ’11) said. “But I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Georgetown.

There are so many Jewish activities and a lot of flexibility.

It’s a pretty big presence on campus.”

Mirotznik said he initially loved everything about the school except its Jesuit identity.

But he discovered that Jesuit values were very close to his own, and that he has come to appreciate the school’s heritage.

“I’ve had a lot of good experiences with Jesuits on an interpersonal level,” he said. “I wouldn’t change Georgetown’s Jesuit identity if I could.”

Students and administrators, both Jewish and nonJewish, tend to agree that the University fosters an extremely welcoming environment for students of any faith.

“Georgetown has historically been a very welcoming environment for all faiths,” Reichmann said. “It’s a very spiritual place.”

Whoever ends up succeeding White will have the luxury of working at an especially open and welcoming campus.

For Rabbi Bruce Aft, the Interim Jewish Chaplaincy Director filling in for Rabbi White for a year while the search committee finds a permanent replacement, the transition from leading a congregation in Springfield, Md. to Georgetown has been a smooth one.

“It’s amazing how welcoming everyone has been,” he said. “The whole community has provided support with any issues I’ve had so far.”

Though Mirotznik said that Aft has done “a fantastic job” in his first two months at Georgetown, JSA Co-President Lili Bayer (COL ’11) said that it would be difficult for the community to adjust to anyone, no matter how competent or qualified, after having the same rabbi on campus for over 40 years.

But White has a good idea of what he wants his eventual permanent successor to bring to the table.

“We need an energetic individual with a vision for

Sam Blank (COL ‘12)

julianne deno

the future, someone who’s committed to interreligious dialogue,” he said. “Someone who has experience in building community.”

White said he hopes to see the PJC expand into a fullfledged academic center with endowed faculty chairs and a graduate program in the future. He also expressed a desire to see closer collaboration between the Jewish Chaplaincy and the PJC, and even suggested the creation of a center for Jewish-Catholic understanding akin to Georgetown’s existing Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.

“It’s very difficult for nonJews to recognize that Judaism is more than a religion, that Judaism is a civilization,” he said. “That’s why I created the PJC, to present Judaism as a civilization, as more than a religion. That’s where we need education.”

Reichmann said that though she was pleased with the state of the Jewish community at Georgetown when she was an undergraduate in the early ‘90s, when she returned to campus over a decade later to start working for Campus

MAx Blodgett

Jesse Mirotznik (SFS ‘12)

Ministry, she was shocked by how much Jewish organizations had expanded. For that reason, she is excited what the future will hold.

“I’m happy with where we are, but I don’t want to close the doors on improvement,” she said.

White sees the future of Judaism at Georgetown, just like the four decades he spent at the helm, being defined by interreligious dialogue, but perhaps of a slightly different variety.

“We’ve changed. We have to look at the campus and realize that we are no longer just children of Abraham here— we’re Jews, Catholics, and Muslims, but we’re also Buddhists and Hindus,” he said.

“I’d like to see an increase in dialogue with the non-Abrahamic faiths. That would mean a great deal to me.”

In White’s view, Georgetown is a perfect place for this kind of dialogue to happen.

“Georgetown students are far more spiritual than at other universities, because religion is expected. It’s encouraged.

Religion is very respectable here,” White said. “Georgetown is unique.”

leisure

10 the georgetown voice

november 4, 2010

Georgetown photographers get exposed

by Nico Dodd

In the three years since its inception, FotoWeek DC has become a photography festival recognized worldwide for its gallery exhibitions all over Washington, D.C. It features speakers, workshops, and a competition with 13 categories, ranging from photojournalism to mobile phone photography—meaning that your Twitpic could go up against pictures from pros from all around the world. This year ’s highlights include a launch party at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, a concert featuring District natives Thievery Corporation, and free portfolio reviews from professionals.

In association with Fotoweek DC, GU Art Aficionados will be unveiling its new exhibit “Multiple Perspectives” on the second floor of Walsh this Saturday at 5 p.m.

The exhibit will feature student photography, and is de-

signed to increase Georgetown University’s exposure during FotoWeek.

“Some people think there’s a total dearth of creativity [at

“It’s really nice because we not only have every grade represented but every school,” she said. “It’s refreshing because it reminds me that Georgetown is

to the medium, or through the subject matter they capture. The photos selected for the exhibit encompass a huge breadth of subjects, from pic-

Don’t let Chad Kroeger look at these photographs. He’ll write another soft-rock power ballad.

Georgetown],” GUAA President Caroline Gralton (COL ’11) said.

Gralton hopes that the exhibit, which will feature 30 of the over 150 submissions GUAA received, will disprove this.

actually a creative place. That’s the whole thing that Art Aficionados wants to promote.”

GUAA left the exhibit’s theme of “multiple perspectives” intentionally broad. The artist can demonstrate this through either the approach

P.J. Clarke’s is everything an upscale, all-American restaurant should be: decked out with red and white gingham tablecloths and simple ceramic dining ware, with “Hooked on a Feeling” playing over the buzz of a large crowd. Close your eyes and forget that the room you’re in is massive, and you’ll wonder why you took the Metro just to get to Mr. Smith’s.

Considering the famous name, its pleasantly surprising that the a meal at P.J. Clarke’s won’t cost as much as a trip to their location in São Paolo. It’s no half-priced Qdoba night, but P.J. Clarke’s hearty Ameri-

can style cuisine earns every dollar. The appetizer section boasts a classic Creamy Tomato Soup for just over seven dollars. A tasty, buttery slab of cheddar toast floats on top to keep it interesting. Their burgers are served on a small plate and accompanied only by a pickle slice, but the juicy, topquality beef makes up for the fact that you had to pay extra for the side of fries.

Under the heading “Big Salads,” the Grilled Chicken Caesar lives up to its classification—it’s a meal and a half, but the monstrous, crunchy croutons and heaps of shredded cheese make you crave every bite. The entrees section gets a little pricier—$15 for Baked Mac and Cheese with Bacon and $35 for a New York Strip Steak—but with generous portion sizes and a comfort food quality, they’re well worth the dent in your wallet.

Nothing makes you forget a restaurant’s good food like subpar booze choices and bad service, and P.J. Clarke’s successfully avoids this pitfall.

Order a bottled import off their extensive beer and wine menu

Shira saperstein

tures of reflected landscapes to wide-angled crowd shots.

In addition to having their work seen by their peers, participating photographers have the opportunity to be published. At a reception following the opening this Saturday, three photos

will be chosen to appear in The Anthem, Georgetown University’s literary magazine.

Georgetown University alumna Miykaelah Sinclair (SFS ’10) won second and third place in Fotoweek DC’s new category for Mobile Phone photography [Disclosure: Sinclair is a former Voice staffer]. Sinclair ’s photo, a spontaneous mobile phone photo of two figures seemingly preparing for a kiss, illustrates the dissolving line between professional photography and amateur talent—a middle ground that the exhibit tries to explore.

The organizers of FotoWeek have also adapted this year’s festival to embrace the democratization of photography that new technologies allow.

“First we had separate categories for professional and amateur,” explains Linda Roth, a spokesperson for Fotoweek DC. “Now we don’t because sometimes you can’t tell the difference. Who knows? In the future there may not be a difference.”

American cuisine from a New York eatery... in D.C.

by Leigh Finnegan

Who doesn’t love Teddy Roosevelt? He shot bears, he’s on Mount Rushmore, and he had one of American history’s best mustaches. That must be why at the P.J. Clarke’s near the Farragut West Metro stop, the fourth and latest location of the famed New York City saloon, the biggest and most prominent of the hundreds of framed, old-timey pictures scattered in an intentional hodgepodge across the walls is a giant painting of our mustachioed 26th president.

Under Teddy’s watchful eye, the main dining room at

Leigh Finnegan

Where everyone knows your name... as long as you work on the Hill.

Leigh Finnegan

The interior is all red, white and blue, but the star of the menu is soylent green. and not only will the server pour the first half into a handled mug for you and leave the bottle, if he notices the cup running low you’ll get the second half poured for you, too.

It’s a nice bit of customer service that often falls by the wayside in restaurants as large and crowded as P.J. Clarke’s.

Good food, good atmosphere, good service: is P.J. Clarke’s the next big restaurant for the Georgetown crowd?

Georgetown Class of 1980, maybe. The establishment’s best features are its upstairs bar and the Sidecar @ 1600 K

Street, a swanky and less Roosevelt-approved private club downstairs. Although college kids love bars, this one caters to an older demographic. The tipsy Tuesday night crowd was as boisterous as they were middle-aged—jackets and ties loosened, drinking martinis and watching the election results roll in.

So go for a burger, stay for dessert (the Double Fudge Brownie is rich and delicious), and pick up a kitschy “P.J. Clarke’s” tee on the way out. In 20 years, it’ll remind you of a classy place to get bombed on a Tuesday.

georgetownvoice.com

“i ain’t fartin’ on no snare drum.”—airheads

Megamind, minor success

by John Sapunor In the battle for adult-friendly, animated movies, Pixar always edges out Dreamworks—blame it on that tearjerking Up. But with Megamind, its latest release, Dreamworks seems to be embracing its role as second fiddle to the infallible studio that gave us Finding Nemo. It’s like a stereotypical superhero movie, with one big catch: the hero is a maniacal, blueheaded evil genius.

Megamind, voiced by Will Farrell, is a sympathetic super villain whose only friend is the hilariously lovable Minion, an alien fish voiced by David Cross.

Sound familiar? It should—Pixar released Despicable Me this summer, which had the same basic premise. And although it may sound like a cheap rip-off, Megamind has some original elements, and a storyline that stands its ground against Pixar’s never ending wave of hits.

Megamind’s problem isn’t a trio of hapless orphans, but his own success—after finally taking control of the city, he is left with the devastating realization that there is no use causing mayhem if no one stands against it.

His solution? Transform an ordinary citizen into his next archnemesis, Metro Man. For the job, he picks Hal, a quirky cameraman voiced by Jonah Hill.

The rest of the movie is a comical mess of role reversals that keep the audience guessing who to root for, right up to the satisfying but predictable end of this breed of family-friendly movie that we know and love.

The fun-for-the-whole-family aspect succeeds thanks to a captivating new take on the relationship between superhero and villain. While this comes at the expense of a continuous stream of laughs, it proves effective—in the downer of an opening scene, Metro Man’s silver-spoon upbringing is contrasted with Megamind’s childhood in a prison. You’d be a supervillain, too. It might not seem so heart rending to the kids, but it will keep them—and their parents—firmly planted in their seats.

But even with its funny moments and necessary sadness, Megamind is far from perfect. Its use of Michael Jackson’s “Bad” and two AC/DC songs feels forced and uninspired, a lackluster attempt to excite the audience’s older members. And although the vocal talents of Will Ferrell and David Cross are fantastic, Jonah Hill needs to practice his voice

Comic book of revelations

I love a good end-of-days story.

But the doomsday genre, which was once packed with literature like The Stand and Lucifer’s Hammer, lay fallow for the better part of my life, tainted by the hyperChristian, Rapture-inspired fiction like Left Behind and Kevin Costnerdirected schlock like The Postman.

Luckily, the apocalypse was saved. All things Armageddon burst back into popular culture in the last decade, most notably in the form of a re-ignited interest in the zombie genre. What prompted this post-apocalyptic trend?

It’s wasn’t the novel; that well was practically emptied in the mid1990s by Blindness and Children of Men. It’s certainly not the short story or the poem either, although I’d love to see someone try an epically apocalyptic modern poem. It was comic books.

Y: The Last Man, an epic about the last man to survive a genderspecific plague, debuted in 2002, and the first-runs of of The Walking Dead and DMZ soon followed. The three comics are all completely different from one another, but they share a common subject: The human race, post-apocalypse.

“How would a someone survive if the world collapsed?” they asked. “What would the world even look like?”

By tackling these questions, writers Brian K. Vaughn, Robert Kirkman, and Brian Wood injected gritty realism into a genre that had succumbed to campiness. They eschewed traditional plot devices to illustrate that in a post-apocalyptic world, there is no happy ending.

There is no ending at all.

“At that time, it was unheard of to just do a zombie book that

acting—his character sounded a little too much like Jonah Hill, which gave the effect of bad dubbing.

Is it worth it for a college student to sit through 100 minutes of background toddler chatter?

That depends how much you like 3-D. While some think the effect is overrated, Megamind has some of the best animation out there, and the art direction is impressive enough to make up for some of the forced jokes and corny music placement.

But come on, Dreamworks, up your game—after a hundred Shreks, isn’t it time for something original? Even with all its punched-up qualities, it’s impossible not to think of Megamind as this month’s Dispicable Me remake. A noble effort, yes, but if Dreamworks really wants to conquer Pixar, it needs less 3-D eye candy and more of Toy Story 3’s uncanny knack at causing kids and parents alike to bust out a box of tissues. had nothing special whatsoever.

No sci-fi elements, no heavy action stuff, no twists, no superpowers,” Kirkman, author of The Walking Dead, said in a 2007 interview with IGN. “And that’s kind of why I wanted to do it.”

Literary tools

by Chris Heller a bi-weekly column about literature The lax editorial oversight that is typical of comic books allowed the Vaughn, Kirkman, and Wood to plumb the depths of the genre.

They had no guarantee that they could finish their stories—comics’ notoriously low start-up costs provide publishers with an incentive to take risks—but they nonetheless laid narrative foundations for the long-term development of revolutionary plots.

The true strength of the comics laid in the industry itself. Adult-

the georgetown voice 11

CONCERT CALENDAR THURSDAY 11/4 Future Islands with Lonnie Walker, Romantic States Black Cat, 8 p.m., $8 Flourescent Scents with The Echo Wall Velvet Lounge, 9 p.m., $8 Friday 11/5 Rocky Erickson with Benjy Ferree Black Cat, 9 p.m., $25 Ra Ra Riot with Givers 9:30 Club, 5:30 p.m., $18 saturday 11/6 Freelance Whales with Miniature Tigers Black Cat, 9 p.m., $12 sunday 11/7 Land of Talk with Suuns, Little Scream Rock & Roll Hotel, 8:30 p.m., $12 Black Mountain with The Black Angels 9:30 Club, 7 p.m., $18 Music Band with The Runaway Suns Velvet Lounge, 7:30 p.m., $15 Monday 11/8 Vampires Everywhere with The Perfects Rock & Roll Hotel, 7:30 p.m., $10

themed comics are only successful if the writer pushes the boundaries of his genre. It happened in the 1980s when Frank Miller and Alan Moore turned America’s superheroes into tortured souls. It happened again in the 1990s when Ghost World redefined the high school narrative.

These comics had a profound impact on their respective archetypes. Each comic reshaped the tone and style of the genre they explored, injecting fresh concepts into a traditional—and in the case of The Walking Dead, often ridiculed—storyline. Writers like Vaughn, Kirkman, and Wood set their sights on life after an apocalypse last decade.

Not so coincidentally, their successes lead to a surge in the genre’s representation in film, television, and of course, more comics, almost immediately after their respective publications hit stores. As pop culture tastemakers, many of the

Tuesday 11/9 Sylver Logan Sharp Bohemian Caverns, 8 p.m., $20 Jónsi (of Sigur Rós) with Mountain Man 9:30 Club, 7 p.m., $35 wednesday 11/10 Bonobo with Tokimonsta 9:30 Club, 6 p.m., $25 The Blow with Blair Black Cat, 8 p.m., $15 Lorree K Slye Blues Alley, 8 p.m., $20 Thursday 11/11 Steven Page (of Barenaked Ladies) with Kate Miller-Heidke 9:30 Club, 6 p.m., $25 Man or Astro-man? with Dex Romweber Duo Black Cat, 8 p.m., $15 friday 11/12 Suicidal Tendencies with Underdog 9:30 Club, 6 p.m., $25 The Morning Benders with Twin Sister, Oberhofer Black Cat, 9 p.m., $15 Jonathan Butler Blues Alley, 8 p.m., $43

comics saw second (or third) lives in adaptations, which also drew success and acclaim.

Comic books harness the imagination unlike any other form of literature. By merging text and images, readers enjoy the immediate satisfaction of a scene without the absolute detail of film or television. And the result is books like Y or The Walking Dead or DMZ, which carry enough pop culture value to ignite mainstream trends. There’s more going on than a simple production advantage.

So those of you interested in pop culture prognostication, take heed. It’s going to be comic books, not crystal balls, that determine the shape of things to come.

Do you wish Chris were the last man on Earth? Let him know at cheller@georgetownvoice.com

leisure

12 the georgetown voice

november 4, 2010

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

Matt and Kim, Sidewalks, Fader Label On Sidewalks, Brooklyn drum-‘n-keys duo Matt & Kim stick to the formula of enthusiastic pop tunes with a twinge of youthful nostalgia that they established on their 2009 breakout album, Grand. By singing about concrete, sidewalks, and sleeping on rooftops, these wistful teenagers find joy adrift in an urban landscape. It’s hapless yet hopeful. But while the couple’s bouncy tunes convey this sentiment well, their energy can’t overcome the fact that Sidewalks is one repetitive album.

With Sidewalks Matt & Kim don’t stray too far from what they know works. Kim Schifino’s heavy-handed crash cymbal and drum stomp stills are the band’s driving force, while Matt Johnson’s über-happy synths and staccato vocals fill out the melody. But Sidewalks

sheds some of the duo’s raw feel and post-punk nature.

Heavier production creates a fuller sound with greater vocal layering. With a sped-up tempo and the same emphasis on the chorus, Sidewalks is more dance-pop driven than the couple’s previous albums.

Boisterous bass and a tuba over poky keyboarding make up the album’s single, “Cameras.” The song is full of energy but with a finer polish and less punk percussion than the band has used in the past. The opening song, “Block After Block,” eschews the loud drum kick and uses a fast-paced drum machine complimented by sleigh bells and cheerful synths instead.

Matt & Kim split the recording time between Brooklyn and Atlanta, lending a dirty South hip-hop influence to their beats. The opening of “Good For Great” sounds like the midi version of an ATL rapper ’s track, until Matt’s nasally voice jumps in. When’s the last time you heard a Southern rap with a chorus this nerdy? “So many books that I didn’t read / but there’s so much air I chose to breath?”

Unfortunately, like past Matt & Kim albums, Sidewalks lacks depth. It is invigorated by some tighter songwriting and a

Have you herd about wool?

As temperatures plunge and another frigid winter grasps the Hilltop with its icy claw, instead of a cotton, polyester, or synthetic sweater, consider opting for a wool one.

Grandma’s often-neglected hand-knitted gifts are becoming increasingly more visible in fashion magazines and on the runway thanks to the public’s rekindled desire to wear wool—both for the warmth and for the world.

Long thought to be an unrefined and low-tech source of clothing, wool has reemerged as a popular fabric because of some high-profile endorsements touting the textile as ecologically responsible and fashion-forward. Wool is biodegradable over time and, un-

like synthetic fabrics, causes no damage to the environment due to chemicals released during decomposition. While cotton requires mass amounts of pesticides for a fruitful harvest, natural wool production is possible—and in fact thrives—without them. Wool holds its shape better than synthetics and cotton. It’s warmer in winter but breathes during the summer. New techniques can make wool ultra-soft (even softer than Merino) and some high-quality wool can even be machine-washed and ironed, making maintenance as easy as cotton. Plus wool doesn’t rip over time.

The modern movement for increased production and use of all-natural wool gained mo-

hint of Southern swagger, but their two-instrument punch gets old and the giddy dance beats lose their fun a little too quickly.

Still, there is something endearing about their music. The overly-simple pop tunes are full of vitality and pure joy. It’s far from a complete album, but Sidewalks has a few catchy singles that will have you dancing and smiling, whether you’re a hipster from Brooklyn or a homie from Hotlanta.

Voice’s Choices: “Block After Block,” “Cameras,” “Red Paint” —Luke Howley

Elvis Costello, National Ransom, Universal Elvis Costello is a rock legend. He has continued to explore new genres since the late ‘70s, when he first grabbed mentum from the most royal of places. His Highness Prince Charles, a long-time proponent of environmental causes, launched the Campaign For Wool in January of 2010. He hopes to spur increased wool sales and production over the next five years by educating the public about the sustainability

Suffer for Fashion

by Keenan Sheridan Timko a bi-weekly column about fashion of wool and encouraging its new fashionable role.

The Campaign For Wool got its first boost of publicity thanks to a series events staged in London. A flock of sheep with yellow-dyed coats were placed to graze in London’s famous Savile Row in

America’s attention as a lastminute replacement for the Sex Pistols on Saturday Night Live. Starting as a leader in the New Wave movement, he explored soul, pop, and jazz, with varying degrees of success.

Across his long career, he has produced solo albums, duets, and multiple bands. He hasn’t been afraid to cross boundaries in music, and listeners never know exactly what to expect, which was obvious in the mixed critical reception of his last album Secret, Profane, and Sugarcane.

So when you start listening to Elvis Costello’s National Ransom, you might find yourself wondering why you’re listening to country. Fiddles and the twang of banjos are all over this album. But as with the rest of Costello’s discography, there’s always layers to consider. Decoding the lyrics reveals a strong populist message, hidden behind Costello’s crooning wordplay—after all, Costello did once declare himself the “Rock and Roll’s Scrabble champion.”

The opening track, “National Ransom,” starts the album off at a quick pace, with jangling guitars and a bouncy bass line that recall his magnum opus, My Aim is True. Other tracks continue to combine West End, high-end tailors like Anderson & Sheppard and Gieves & Hawkes launched wool-suit promotions, and global fashion retailers like Pringle, Prada, Burberry, and Selfridges prominently displayed wool garments in their fall style advertisements and offerings.

Currently, the Campaign For Wool has hundreds of retail partners, including Harvey Nichols, Jaeger, Marks & Spencer, and Topshop. “Wool Week,” as it’s been dubbed, also includes knitting lessons and innovative wool window displays to catch the attention of busy Londoners and draw public support.

You don’t have to live across the pond to support the natural wool movement.

Loudoun County, just outside

Costello’s roots with a strong bluegrass influence, especially “I Lost You.” After five banjo based songs, however, Costello shifts gears. “You Hung the Moon,” a gentle ballad, sounds more appropriate for a couple’s wedding dance than a barnyard hoe-down. Driven by a slow piano and softly sung lyrics, it is probably the most romantic song on the album. Costello blends National Ransom’s contrasting elements nicely in the closing track, “A Voice in the Dark,” a sort of rollicking love song for everyone who feels alone.

On National Ransom, Costello strives to create something cohesive and melodic, but the road there is a disjointed one.

His talent is unquestionable, but exploring genres willy-nilly puts him at risk: he’s a rookie at the new sound, albeit a very naturally skilled one. The album has some marvelous songs, but National Ransom lacks the unity it needs to be truly successful.

Costello has found another niche that he has the potential to conquer, but this record doesn’t quite do it.

Voice’s Choices: “National Ransom,” “You Hung the Moon,” “A Voice in the Dark” —Paul Quincy of D.C., is home to WeatherLea Farm, one of many farms in Northern Virginia that sell artisanal wool sweaters, socks, and hats. Last spring, WeatherLea, a member of the Loudoun Valley Sheep Producers Association, periodically held spinning and weaving demonstrations. Additionally, Carodan Farm produces all-natural wool garments out of Chincoteague Island, Virginia and takes orders online to get you through the winter.

Make sure you act now before you’re just another person hopping on the wool bandwagon. Because let’s face it, nobody likes to be a sheep when it comes to fashion.

Tell Keenan about your new technique to make things ultra-soft at ktimko@georgetownvoice.com

fiction

georgetownvoice.com

odetoautumn To Autumn

Autumnal vessels, like rain in their golden decent, fall about A moment nearly frozen, as they, varied in color, hang in the air, Lazy languid beings, Unwilling to succumb to earth’s alluring charm.

O Bright season!

What mysteries yet untold do your frigid days withhold?

Fate

That beguiling goddess of twisted fate wanders the ephemeral planes snatching loves lost to ill placed stars Aimlessly she strikes unwitting dreamers wasting innocent hours in youthful meadows.

What a draconic mistress indeed.

Yet this goddess be no mistress over me.

Emerald Fields

Oh you, true lover among modern falsehoods, come forth and be not bashful.

Oh you, muse for the dribble my pen draws, shine forth, and light the Darkness of my youth.

For in this youth, wasted days in Emerald fields, I so long for a love as love can only be, Among two youths in emerald Fields.

Nitya Ramlogan

Poems by Scott Munro

Nimble Nimbus

O That I this Nimble Nimbus be floating in heaven's sapphire embrace.

So that I, On a tempestual winter’s noon when Eastern Skies darken black, to your golden shores may glide.

Perhaps simply to gaze from high upon your features formed to perfection

by Loves tender touch, like that most divine mortal, Starter of Wars.

And how I yearn that you on those shores, Where the cerulean Sea berates crystalline sand, O how I yearn that you were all-encompassing air.

So that I, until times eternal march do end or until my immortal spirit be slain in your sweet folds would forever remain.

the georgetown voice 13

voices

14 the georgetown voice

november 4, 2010

Censure for censor? Accepting a blogger’s remorse

by Chris Heller At least once a week, I censor my peers.

This is an aspect of my job as editor of Vox Populi, the staff blog of the Voice, that I rarely question.

Inappropriate comments, like those that include slurs or offensive language, always catch my attention as if they have flashing lights attached to them; I click a few buttons, type a few words, and I’m done.

Then, Kelly Baltazar was arrested, rumors about her personal life overwhelmed a post about the arrest, and I deleted an entire thread of comments.

In the midst of last week’s coverage of Baltazar’s arrest, which came only days after Charles Smith (SFS ‘14) and John Romano (COL ‘14) were arrested for operating a so-called “drug lab” in their Harbin Hall dorm room, I struggled to consider how the reaction to the story would affect Baltazar’s life.

I focused on the facts—her name, her background, and the charges.

Hours later, I realized the conse-

quences of reporting those facts.

Vox has always enjoyed lively and entertaining comments from readers. In-jokes about University administrators are common, and some commenters choose to adopt the personalities of Hollywood stars and radio rock front men. But on the night of Baltazar’s arrest, a new kind of commenter overpowered the traditional Vox stalwarts.

Some anonymously called for her corporal punishment. Others spread unsubstantiated rumors about Baltazar’s history. Few attempted to encourage reasonable discussion. And I was stuck in the thick of it all.

For the first time, I considered the impact of my censorship. Is it acceptable? Should I apply the fact-checking standards of blog content to readers’ comments? Do libel laws apply to anonymous comments?

After considering these questions, I censored the most egregious comments. There simply wasn’t enough time to seriously discuss the moral implications of censorship, so I began to edit.

I was wrong.

As I sat in front of my laptop, more and more commenters maligned Baltazar. A few hours into the evening, the server that hosts Vox crashed under the weight of 15,000 page views; readers were reloading the page again and again to see the more than 150 comments left on the post. The comments built up faster than I could edit them.

Vox’s comment policy lays down specific guidelines about editorial authority; editors can delete any offensive, threatening, hateful, or excessively crude comments.

Still, I felt uncomfortable deleting entire comments.

I believed that readers’ comments should reflect the various attitudes that exist within Georgetown. Editors have the authority to remove the offensive bits, I thought, but not foolish or unverifiable claims. Vox is widely read in large part because it elicits conversation between commenters and readers, even when they’re conflicted or vindictive. Before I wrote about Baltazar’s arrest, I never

imagined I would need to delete entire comment threads.

By the next morning, however, a flood of complaints arrived.

Many argued for deletions, if only because the comments reflected poorly on the University. I neither buy this argument nor consider Georgetown’s image concerns a valid reason for censorship. But, one criticism particularly hurt.

“Almost 4,000 miles away is not [too] far away to be incredibly disappointed in the Georgetown Voice,” one of the Voice’s Twitter followers wrote.

Was it wrong to keep the comments open on the post? Should I have been stricter, or was it appropriate to give commenters the opportunity to prove themselves capable?

I doubted my decision. Although readers deserve the opportunity to comment on blog posts, I had ignored my responsibility to monitor both content and comments. The unique circumstances surrounding the comments, which included a whirlwind of rumors and hearsay, convinced me that

a tougher reaction was necessary to restore standards of decency in our comments.

I removed all of the post’s comments, left an explanatory note, and closed the comment section.

The anonymity associated with blogs tends to frighten news pundits and traditional journalists. Despite my experiences, I still believe that anonymity is a reasonable sacrifice if it encourages conversation. As more and more readers look to blogs for their news, though, there needs to be an equally increased vigilance against rumormongering.

I’ve written my share of anonymous comments online. Hell, I’ve even written some hateful words about other people after losing my composure. Being a censor, however, taught me the golden rule of the Internet: nobody wins a flame war.

Chris Heller is a senior in the College. His preferred forms of censorship include book burnings and black bars.

To national detriment, Golden State voters defy the high

by Julie Patterson My home state, California, has been through a rather tumultuous decade of politics: a joke of a recall election in 2003 featuring bodybuilders, porn stars, and child actors; the 2008 ban on previously legal gay marriage; and in Tuesday’s election, a failure to legalize the state’s most popular recreational drug. In many elections, the nation watches the West, and we always manage to disappoint. We put an actor in the governor’s seat, we revoked rights from our citizens, and now, we’ve let antiquated conservative values trump legitimate concerns about the state budget and crowded prisons.

Proposition 19’s defeat in Tuesday’s referendum was more than just a blow to stoners across the nation. If the referendum had been successful, it would have legalized and regulated the production, sale, and use of marijuana, bringing major revenue to our financiallystrapped state. Politicians in Sacramento can now share the blame for the state’s fiscal woes with California voters who weren’t willing to let go of their outdated reservations about marijuana use and pull the state out of debt.

Who are those naysayers kidding, anyway? Residents of California know how easy it is to get high with impunity in the Golden State. The real change

Prop. 19 failed. Let’s go to the beach and blaze in our misery.

AMBER REN

that would have resulted from Prop. 19’s passage would be the legal oversight of a huge cash crop industry. A booming business would have moved out of the underground and into the great, disinfecting sunlight of government legitimacy.

However, voting yes on Prop.

19 was not just a question of allowing Californians to smoke marijuana more safely. If the state gained control of the marijuana industry in California, the tax revenues from sales would bring needed relief to the state’s $19 billion deficit. Estimates show that regulating marijuana would bring in an estimated $1.3 billion annually.

The biggest financial relief associated with Prop. 19, however, would have been the money saved by making cuts to law enforcement, since police officers would no longer be arresting otherwise law-abiding citizens who happened to be holding more than an ounce of the good stuff.

Legalization would have also relieved California’s already overcrowded prison system. With pot legalized, the California justice system would be able to focus its efforts on preventing crimes that actually have victims and putting real criminals in prison, saving a significant amount of money while doing so.

The fact that California, a bastion of liberalism and relaxed living, failed to legalize a substance

that is so ubiquitous within its borders does not bode well for the rest of the nation. We failed to break open the door to legalization, and this will certainly have ramifications for the nation’s potheads.

Voters and legalization advocates in other states may decide that if not even the crazy state full of pot-smoking hippies is prepared to legalize the drug, policy reform efforts in the more conservative states aren’t even worth pursuing.

A world away from the circus of California politics, the District of Columbia recently legalized medical marijuana. This legalization came a full 12 years after voters overwhelmingly approved medical marijuana use in a referendum. The delay, as is usually the case with D.C. politics, was due to Congressional interference. The Barr Amendment, which has been attached to D.C.’s annual budget since 1999, blocked the District from using funds to implement a medical marijuana program.

After Democrats swept Congress in the 2008 elections, the Barr Amendment was knocked down and medical marijuana in D.C. became a reality. With Republicans back in control of the House, though, medicinal use in the District—despite great support from its residents—is threatened once again.

A lack of progress in the West, indicated by Prop. 19’s failure,

combined with conservative control of half of Congress, presents a threat to the District’s medical marijuana users. Dispensaries are just now opening across D.C., but Republicans are likely to stall or stop their spread.

The crusade against legalization in the District and elsewhere will likely be strengthened by Prop. 19’s failure. Had the measure passed, it would have sent a message that Americans support, or are at least ready to tolerate, a more open marijuana policy.

Maybe I’m an idealist who thought legalizing and regulating marijuana would be good for the state and the nation. Or maybe I’m a stoner who just wants to buy her weed in peace. Regardless of my motivations, I think it’s high time we reconsidered why there is such a cultural aversion to marijuana— on our campus, in our hometowns, and across the country in general.

Let’s update our laws to reflect our harmless cultural practices, and make some money off of it to boot.

It’s a good thing that the legalization movement has strong leaders like Snoop Dogg and Zach Galifianakis to fight again when the issue inevitably surfaces in the future.

Julie Patterson is a junior in the College.

She thinks Snoop has a sensible weed policy. His advice?

“Smoke Weed Everyday.”

voices

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice

15

Advent of an age of reason: Moderates rally for cause

by Claire McDaniel My life is insane. Being a PreMed Biology major and living in Harbin have forced me to accept that madness is par for the course at Georgetown. Yet this Saturday, as I stood in the midst of the immense crowd on the National Mall, I realized that this was not the way the rest of the country ought to be.

I’ve lived abroad for a good part of my life, but I identify myself as an American. Coming back for college, though, has made me realize that something is keeping me from totally qualifying as American. I

have no need to be maddeningly confrontational.

In spite of the insanity of getting to and from the rally and the ridiculous size of the crowd, the central tenet of the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear—spoiler: fear loses— was the need for moderation. To me, the rally showed the need for calm, reason, cooperation, and a 2010 update of “why can’t we all just get along?”

I wholeheartedly agree with Jon Stewart and his defense of sanity. Perhaps it’s because I went to high school in neutral Switzerland.

But coming back I felt more than a

TRAVIS SMITH

Jon Stewart preached the truth. Colbert spread the fear. No one could see anything.

Administrative error

Georgetown is a great university—in spite of its administration. I know I will look back happily on my time here long after I’ve graduated—in spite of its administration.

Every year, we learn about something stupid the administration has done and it aggravates students whose disappointment with the University usually lays dormant. This semester alone, the discovery of the “noose” that supposedly hung in one of Georgetown’s tunnels and administrators’ bungled responses to the drug-related arrests in Harbin Hall betrayed the stunning lack of leadership and competency, which, sadly, we’ve become accustomed to.

When the administration thought that someone had placed “a possible noose” along with some racist graffiti in the tunnels beneath Healy, Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson and Vice President for Public Safety Rocco DelMonaco immediately issued a rote campus broadcast

email. Calling the “acts” “disturbing,” they accused the hypothetical perpetrator of “undermin[ing] the values of our community.”

Hours later, the administration realized that the noose was in fact climbing equipment and the graffiti was years old. We don’t know how the University came to believe it was a noose, or how they realized they were wrong.

But we do know that no responsibility has been assigned publicly, and the entire incident has just become another joke about the idiotic administration.

Incidents like this show why it is difficult to take seriously any email that decries an attack on the Jesuit values of our community, especially when it doesn’t come from University President John DeGioia. If the leader of the University doesn’t take it seriously, why should we? During the troubling DMT episode, DeGioia was again completely absent.

Although it was news of drug manufacturing in Harbin that was scandalous enough to distract

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 413.

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

little ostracized for simply speaking calmly about controversial issues. Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, Fox or MSNBC, the pros and cons of Leo’s and Lau—I’m not indifferent to these subjects. Just because I shy away from melodrama does not mean that I don’t hold opinions.

I’m not going to hit you over the head with what I believe.

Maybe it was the neutrality, but something about living in Switzerland made me far less inclined to rely solely on the passion of an argument to win it. Not to say my reasoning is superb, but I have a certain amount of restraint when arguing, a sense of calm that keeps the dispute reasonable. When I came back to America, part of the culture shock I experienced was the vehemence with which people would quarrel.

I’m not saying that there isn’t discourse and disagreement outside the U.S. (Have you ever watched a video of the British Parliament in session?) Yet, there still is an Old World sense of respect that infuses discussions with a polite calm.

There are those who try to fearmonger to support reactionary policies, us from studying for midterms, the fact that Harbin’s fire alarms failed to sound when officers tried to use them to evacuate the building was the most important revelation of the day. The University feebly excused itself by explaining that multiple redundancies were built into the system.

“Although the audible portion of the fire safety evacuation system did not sound the redundancies built into our emergency evacuation system worked,” Olson wrote in the email to the campus community on Oct. 25.

Carrying On

by Jackson Perry A rotating column by Voice senior staffers

These redundancies included having police officers “make personal visits” to dorm rooms. In reality this meant that Metropolitan Police Department and Department of Public Safety officers ran down hallways and hurriedly pounded on students’ doors.

Georgetown is stubbornly not admitting the fire alarm failure was a mistake. Even if it was not any individual administrator’s fault, the fire alarms are the administration’s responsibility.

The University claims the alarms would have sounded if an actual fire had occurred. But the idea that only a fire necessitates a quick and orderly evacuation

like Glenn Beck or Stephen Colbert’s satirical character, but they do so with restraint.

Even the most radical Swiss political parties, whose major platform is kicking out all of Switzerland’s immigrants, don’t propagate their beliefs with any more vitriolic force than moderate parties do. Their most radical advertisement consists of hands reaching for a pile of Swiss passports. Imagine that—conservative ads without explicit racism.

Where are all the Swiss versions of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck?

They don’t exist (or at least not in the mainstream).

The moment that gave me the most hope for America and embodied the true spirit of the rally, did not come from a speech. It wasn’t scripted and it wasn’t on the Jumbotrons. In fact, it didn’t even involve Stewart or Colbert. But it was the perfect metaphor for the essence of the rally.

Near where I was standing, there was a huge tree that was inconveniently bare until about fifteen feet up, where a branch provided an ideal perch to see the rally.

A man decided he wanted to sit up is laughable. If there had been a credible threat to the building that required immediate evacuation—like an actual methamphetamine lab—and the “audible portion” of the evacuation system didn’t work, heads would have rolled before the day was out.

In both the noose and DMT incidents, the University has refused to take responsibility for its failures. This amounts to a failure of leadership. A leader assigns responsibility to someone when something goes wrong or takes blame upon him or herself. Our community doesn’t have such a person. We have a frequently absent figurehead, DeGioia, and the manager of the University’s affairs, Olson, but neither is a leader.

Throughout the Harbin episode, we received several campus-wide emails, but none of them came from DeGioia.

Fire alarms did not go off in a freshman dorm when they were pulled during an emergency, and Georgetown students had been arrested on several drug charges, yet these instances did not merit any message from the president of the University.

What better time than now for our campus to have a real leader, to take some responsibility and have an open and honest discussion about the mistakes that were made and how the University plans to avoid such mistakes in the future. Instead, we got vague and misleading emails from the Vice President for Student Affairs,

there, but couldn’t for the life of him climb up it by himself. His plight drew the attention of the crowd around him and we started to cheer him on. “Yes, you can!” started to echo around the area, and with the help of the people near the tree, he reached the branch. If a crowd of strangers can come together to help a man climb a tree, don’t you think that as a nation we can come together to become saner?

Soon after the tree climbing incident, something in the atmosphere of the day led my friends and I to start pointing out what we called “Team Sanity Moments.” Using a small sign we had been given that had the words “Team Sanity” written on it, we held it up to note any situation we encountered that was particularly sane in an effort to channel the rally’s cause.

College is insane; the rest of us should tone it down a little.

Claire McDaniel is a freshman in the College. She compares radicalism to swiss cheese, pungent but with lots of holes. and deafening silence from the President of the University.

During an interview in September, a Voice reporter asked DeGioia to respond to criticism that he is not as involved in student affairs as the presidents of other schools. “I was pretty available all weekend,” he said.

He went on to explain that his job was just too difficult to make time for us. “The hardest challenge in the job is the expectations of multiple constituencies, particularly when the requirements for representing the University, both in a philanthropic context and a public way require a considerable amount of travel.”

While DeGioia has been trying to build a campus in India, the school’s main campus has broken. Many students feel disenfranchised by the way their school is run, and any faith that many of them had in the administration has disappeared, at least for the time being. DeGioia has acted more like a Vice President for External Affairs, an ambassador for Georgetown to the outside world, than the leader of our community. Georgetown does need someone to represent the University around the world—but we need a president more.

Jackson Perry is a junior in the College. He believes that to be transparent, DeGioia should invest in an invisibility cloak.