3 15 2012

VOICE the georgetown

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BOATHOUSE PLAN SLOWLY MOVES FORWARD PAGE 4

HOYAS BEGIN DANCE VS. BELMONT PAGE 6

GONE FISHING IN YEMEN PAGE 10

Georgetown University’s Weekly Newsmagazine Since 1969 w March 15, 2012 w Volume 46, Issue 9 w georgetownvoice.com

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march 15, 2012

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March Madness returns: breaking down the road to New Orleans

DeGioia responds to attacks against Sandra Fluke WMATA AIMS TO DISPLAY REAL-TIME ARRIVAL INFO AT IMPORTANT BUS STOPS

Jack tears his ACL jumping on a couch, surgery probable Vox Populi

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301-526-7894 (cell) or 301-947-6500 (main office)

Voice Crossword “Certain Celebrations ” by Tyler Pierce 1

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Plantlife major 10.

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Cafeteria feature absent at Leo's 61. Not chill

example 11. Swelling of the artery walls

42. Haberdashery item 43. Home for a fetus 44. Human ___ Project

28. Water wader 29. Gods in Thai folklore 32. Babysitter’s handful 33. Celebration described by 20-Across and 50-Across 38. However, to a texter 39. Possible punishment for a 32-Across 40. Feathery scarves 41. Myrna of “The Thin Man” 42. Tow, as a barge 45. Beheaded Boleyn 46. Artist’s stand 49. Nosh 50. Fashion expectation on 33-Across 53. Back muscle, familiarly 54. Emma of “Easy A” 55. Replica, to a collector 56. It might be inflated 57. Geeks 58. Ignominy 59. “Thing,” to Caesar 60. Cafeteria feature absent at Leo’s 61. Not chill Down 1. Housing disappointment for most freshmen 2. Give it 110 percent, with “go” 3. Sit with bad posture

4. Bradshaw, who won four Super Bowls with the Steelers 5. Kind of beads 6. You shouldn’t talk to them 7. Hairstyles similar to beehives 8. Knight’s weapon 9. Like some content 10. Georgetwon, for example 11. Swelling of the artery walls 12. A handwritten document that has been corrected 13. Arizona town 21. Prime-time time 22. Real 27. Info at Dulles 30. Tuck partner

answers at georgetownvoice.com

31. Like the rainbow fish after sharing 33. Neanderthal era 34. Greek god of death 35. Model, at a photo shoot 36. Small hill 37. Blue shade 40. Crier 42. Haberdashery item 43. Home for a fetus 44. Human ___ Project 46. Computer key not found on a Mac 47. Ancient Greek marketplace 48. Friend of Spongebob 49. Archaic word for “braid” 51. Ain’t correct?

52. Small cave

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Email crossword@georgetownvoice.com

editorial

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VOICE the georgetown

Volume 46.9 March 15, 2012 Editor-in-Chief: Sean Quigley Managing Editor: Leigh Finnegan Blog Editor: Jackson Perry News Editor: Vanya Mehta Sports Editor: Kevin Joseph Feature Editor: Rachel Calvert Cover Editor: Richa Goyal Leisure Editor: Heather Regen Voices Editor: Connor Jones Photo Editor: Lucia He Design Editors: Julia Kwon, Kathleen Soriano-Taylor Projects Editor: Rob Sapunor Crossword Editor: Scott Fligor Assistant Blog Editors: Ryan Bellmore, John Sapunor Assistant News Editors: Soo Chae, Morgan Manger Assistant Sports Editor: Steven Criss, Abby Sherburne Assistant Leisure Editors: Mary Borowiec, Julia Lloyd-George, Kirill Makarenko Assistant Photo Editors: Julian De La Paz, Abby Greene Assistant Design Editors: Amanda Dominguez, Madhuri Vairapandi Assistant Cover Editor: Neha Ghanshamdas Contributing Editors: Geoffrey Bible, Nico Dodd, Iris Kim, Tim Shine

Staff Writers:

Geoffrey Bible, Mary Cass, Will Collins, Jane Conroy, Emma Forster, Daniel Kellner, Morgan Manger, Kelsey McCullough, Eileen McFarland, Matt Pacana, Paul Quincy, Adam Rosenfeld, Jake Schindler, Melissa Sullivan, Fatima Taskomur

Staff Photographers:

Nick Baker, Sam Brothers, Helen Guo, Kirill Makarenko, Tim Markatos, Jackson Perry, Matthew Thees

Copy Chief: Kim Tay Copy Editors:

Keaton Hoffman, Tori Jovanovski, Claire McDaniel

Editorial Board Chair: Gavin Bade Editorial Board:

Tiffany Brown, Rachel Calvert, Patricia Cipollitti, Nicolo Dona Dalle Rose, Leigh Finnegan, Julia Jester, Linnea Pittman, Cole Stangler, Julia Tanaka

Head of Business: Keaton Hoffman Business Staff: Sara Ainsworth, Zoe Disselkoen, Megan Fitzpatrick, Charmaine Ng, Aarohi Vora

I CAN HAZ NEWS?

We are all to blame for sensationalist media Even for the exceedingly low standards applied to the American press, in these past few weeks our media machine has outdone itself. The public has been exposed to an uncommon amount of sensationalized, dubious news reports surrounding topics like insurance coverage for contraception and the Invisible Children documentary about Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony. Although not altogether uncommon, this round of media malarkey is especially destructive for what it covers up—the civilian killings in Afghanistan, a pressing transportation bill in the house, Voter ID laws, and more. Sensationalism has become a natural part of our media’s culture, as people follow trends instead of properly informing themselves. We must commit to consuming thoughtful, competent media and shaping a society where others do the same.

Attention given to these topics is not wholly destructive. It is an achievement in itself that the largest ever viral video isn’t about some dumb cat or a teenage pop sensation; it

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On this week’s cover: Reproductive Justice at Georgetown Cover Design: Richa Goyal

focuses violence in Africa. The problem is the nature of the coverage—abbreviated versions of events shared on social media that rarely present the facts users need to make informed decisions. In the Kony coverage, for example, focus has been placed on a military that likely isn’t even in Uganda anymore, instead of on that nation’s catastrophic nodding sickness epidemic. Even when mainstream media gets the story right, it seldom digs deep enough to cut through the political crossfire on a contentious and emotional issue like contraception. When we compare what gets coverage to what legitimately affects our nation and world, it is clear that we need a priority shift in the media.

Media companies are not about to make this change out of altruism. While the mainstream media and social networking are at fault in this round of sensationalism, they are simply doing their job. These corporations exist only to make a profit, and will continue to feed us exactly what we ask for in the news.

There’s no revolution in the media industry coming. Changing the media market is the only feasible solution.

It is up to us to make smart choices and create a culture of discernment when it comes to media. Luckily, there are numerous smart alternatives to commercialized news. Public radio and television, many national newspapers, magazines on both sides of the political spectrum, and journalism-research institutions like ProPublica are all readily available on campus or online and offer more news and less entertainment than the mainstream.

Our career paths as Georgetown students will likely take us to positions where we interact with and consume news. Any of us with a problem with the press today must look inward at our own choices and investigate methods to educate others and spurn sensationalism in favor of quality reporting. These issues should not spark a practice in media criticism, but a critique of American society and why it encourages the news that it does.

VOTE FOR PEDRO

Voter ID laws undermine American democracy On Monday, the U.S. Justice Department blocked a proposed voter identification law from taking effect in Texas, saying it violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The measure, approved in May 2011, would have required voters to show photo identification in addition to already stringent voter registration requirements in the state.

The DOJ’s move is undoubtedly the correct one, but more must be done to combat these overt conservative efforts to disenfranchise minority voting blocs.

Supporters of S.B. 14, the law in question, say it is necessary to combat voter fraud. This stance is laughable. Voter fraud simply isn’t a problem in the United States; according to New York University Law School’s Brennan Institute for Justice, it is “both irrational and extremely rare.” The real motive here is to keep progressives from voting. For instance: a handgun permit is an acceptable ID for voting, but a university ID is not.

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More importantly, S.B. 14 intentionally disenfranchises minority voters in the state.

According to Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, “over 600,000 registered voters do not have either a driver’s license or personal identification...[and] a disproportionate share of those registered voters are Hispanic.”

Attaining that identification is no easy task.

Texas is required to issue a free ID to everyone, but only if the recipient has supporting papers. If they have been lost or never issued, the applicant must pay a $22 fee to obtain the documents, which, under this law, can be correctly construed as a poll tax. Moreover, picking that ID up from the Department of Motor Vehicles is difficult. Only 81 of the 254 counties in Texas have a DMV, and those lacking one are disproportionately Hispanic and lowincome. The state has also not proposed any education measure to spread word about the new requirements. All these factors add up to a clear violation of the Voting Rights Act.

Sadly, this is just one of many examples of conservatives voting to curtail minority suffrage. Move than a dozen states have passed laws to impede voting, including requiring birth certificates, limiting early voting, disenfranchising ex-felons, or requiring IDs. Obama’s DOJ has blocked such measures in Florida and South Carolina, but photo ID requirements persist in 12 other states, and 16 require a non-photo ID. Whether these laws are legal or not, they are bad policy. Voter ID legislation is a solution to a nonexistent problem, and each time one is passed fewer people who are entitled to participate in our democratic system are able to do so. Lawmakers should aim to make voting simple and convenient for their constituents. Perhaps then, our nation can begin to raise its abysmal electoral turnout rates. In every case, voter ID laws are not only overtly discriminatory, but highly corrosive to our nation’s democratic ideals.

JANIE’S GOT A GUN

Military culture must change after killings

In the early morning of March 11, a U.S. Army sergeant stationed near Kandahar, Afghanistan, slipped away from his base and murdered 16 civilians, including women and children. Evoking memories of the Haditha killings of 2005, as well as the recent urination on civilian corpses by U.S. Marines and the burning of Qur’ans on military bases, the tragedy provides an opportunity for the leaders of our armed forces to examine a military culture in which these atrocities arise.

It is startling to see such wanton acts of violence and cultural disrespect happen in so short a time span, and their occurrence suggests that many of our troops are not mentally separating enemy from civilian and terrorism from Islam in the field. From these acts, it is clear that certain military personnel have an obvious problem with Islamophobia and extreme acts against Afghani civilians. Such violations of human rights cannot become endemic in the American military.

The majority of military personnel are clear-

ly able to conduct themselves in a manner that befits their code of honor and follows international law. Unfortunately, there are a few outliers who manage to single-handedly damage the already precarious image of the American military overseas. But the actions of these individuals are not arbitrary or inevitable; such incidents can be prevented with cultural changes in our military ranks.

In many instances like this one, the outbursts may be a result of increased stress after multiple deployments, or a case of post-traumatic stress disorder. The killer himself was on his fourth tour of duty and had sustained a traumatic brain injury in Iraq. While these conditions do not justify the massacre, they exemplify the flaws of current policy in Afghanistan. Our troops are overworked and over-obligated. Their superiors should be doing more to ensure that their stress does not result in disrespect of Islamic and Middle Eastern cultures or the harm of civilians.

The example must come from the top.

As long as black prisons continue to operate, there is a clear message that lives of foreign civilians are disposable. The simple use of the phrase “collateral damage” to describe civilian deaths similarly dehumanizes those caught in the path of the American war machine.

We need to cultivate an understanding in our military that Afghan communities are just as important and human as our own neighborhoods. Afghan civilians need to know their lives are valued, and American citizens must be able to trust the military to be responsible under pressure. President Obama’s promise for a comprehensive review of the soldier’s actions is promising, but it is not enough itself. Stamping out intolerance, hatred, and indiscriminate violence in our military will require nothing less than a systemic change in the culture of our armed forces, and anyone looking to enter a field that interacts with our men and women in uniform should be ready to take up this cause.

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march 15, 2012

Long-delayed boathouse project moves forward

by Morgan Manger On Saturday, March 3, the National Park Service held a public workshop on the construction of a boathouse along the Potomac River waterfront near Georgetown. The project has been in development for over 20 years, with the process being elongated by the many layers of approval that the University must go through before it begins construction.

The Park Service first proposed the boathouse in 1986. Although progress has been made since then, development stalled in 2005 after the D.C. government decided to build a tunnel under the Potomac to deal with sewer overflows.

This project is not set to be finished until 2025, and will create some drop shafts that could have possibly been near a newly constructed boathouse.

flickr

Crew team members anticipate the boathouse construction on the Potomac.

“We’re not going to want to put money into building a boathouse only to find out soon that we have to rebuild it,” said Scott Fleming, Georgetown’s associate vice-president of federal affairs.

“We had to step back and figure out how those two things were going to connect.”

As a result, Georgetown’s crew teams continue to row out of Thompson’s Boathouse, located near the Kennedy Center, where rowers must share space with teams from area high schools and George Washington University.

While the current situation works, it is not ideal, say rowers.

“Pretty much every other team in our league has a boathouse of their own,” Tom Guthrie (SFS ’15), member of the lightweight freshman crew team, said. “Not having one puts us at a little bit of a competitive disadvantage because we don’t have the equipment or space for ourselves that would help us improve more.”

The University hopes to fix this issue by going back to working on the project with the feasibility study that was discussed at the meeting last week. The study

is being done to determine if the demands and usage of the boathouse and surrounding area are the same as they were in 1986 when the boathouse was originally imagined. “[We want] to better understand what the needs are, and to figure out a way to best meet these needs,” Tammy Stidham, a project manager at the Park Service, said.

“We have just confirmed that the usage and demands for this zone have been increased.”

The meeting allowed community members along with officials from the University and the Park Service to discuss the proposed boathouse and the zone around it.

Fleming felt optimistic about the meeting’s results. “I felt at the [meeting] that there were a number of issues that had arisen over the years that had been put to rest,” he said.

The Park Service hopes to be able to release the results of the study in the fall, along with another public meeting to present the publication. They hope that this process will be concluded by the end of the year, but this is still just the first step in the

possible construction of the boathouse. “[The study is] just looking at uses and demands, and we’ll have some next steps for further planning,” Stidham said. “So really this is just the very beginning, it’s hard to say how long it would be before something would be constructed or what would be constructed.”

Although the process has been a long one, Fleming feels the University is in a good place to move forward. “[We’re] in a relatively good spot right now. I feel like we’re at a point where we’re making some serious process,” he said. “We are absolutely committed to getting a boathouse…and getting it happening as soon as possible.”

In 2009, the University paid an independent lobbying firm, Carmen Group, $990,000 over the course of four years to approve the proposed boathouse.

The following year, according to a count by Vox Populi, the total lobbying fees amounted to $1,060,000 since 2009. Last year, the boathouse project halted again due to a pending Environmental Impact Statement to be issued by the Park Service.

Students support Fluke with petitions, gatherings

by Matthew Weinnman Over the past week, Georgetown students angered by radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s verbal attack on Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, have created petitions and begun planning events to protest Limbaugh’s comments, which drew national media attention and outrage.

Currently, members of several campus groups, including the Student Group Union, are planning a gathering next Friday on Healy Circle to demonstrate Georgetown coming together against Limbaugh’s statements.

According to Emma Greene, a founder of the SGU, the event will be “a gathering of as many Georgetown students as possible not on any particular side of the reproductive rights issue, but to stand together as a community to say that we support one another in voicing our opinions, and that we stand together in…respectful public discourse.”

“We are still in the process of reaching out to student organiza-

tions,” Jordan Daniels (SFS ’12), an organizer for the event, said.

“Within the next week we’re going to have all the student groups who want to be a part of it confirm sponsors.” Daniels said many groups have shown interest.

Daniels and other students are also working on a petition to circulate among the student body. This was partly inspired by President DeGioia’s letter to the Georgetown community encouraging civil discourse even in the current political climate.

“A diverse coalition of students has come together to answer President DeGioia’s call to reflect on our shared values as a community,” Daniels wrote in an email. “The goal of our project is to produce a student-generated letter in the spirit of DeGioia’s message.”

The letter will not be specifically sent to Limbaugh, Daniels said, since public discourse involves more than just one person.

GUSA Vice-President Vail Kohnert-Yount (SFS ’13) said, “Hoyas that hold a variety of per-

spectives on the contraception issue will be able to come together in support of a civil dialogue on these issues.”

Daniels described the petition as “an invitation to all students from across the political and religious spectrum to come together.”

The letter will be released for students to sign in the coming weeks.

On his radio talk show, Limbaugh called Fluke a “slut” and said he would purchase “all the women at Georgetown University as much aspirin to put between their knees as possible” after Fluke testified at an unofficial Congressional hearing in support of federally mandated health care coverage of contraceptives.

Katie Frederick, a graduate student in the School of Continuing Studies, has also launched a petition entitled “Mr. Limbaugh, Make Good on Your Promise.”

The idea of the petition is to ask Limbaugh to buy the aspirin he promised the women of Georgetown and to donate that aspirin

to low-cost medical clinics in the D.C. metro area that help lower-income households and the homeless.

“From the beginning I figured this was a long shot, but I think that it is important to stand by your word,” Frederick wrote in an email. She has compiled a list of potential groups to donate the aspirin should Limbaugh make good on his promise, but has not contacted them, “not knowing what politics that might bring into the situation.”

The major challenge facing this early petition movement was having much of the student body on spring break this past week.

Frederick endeavored to “pick up more support from people outside of the Georgetown community as well as people who may disagree with Ms. Fluke” by “aiming the petition at helping others,” she wrote.

Even if Limbaugh does fulfill his promise, “it would be somewhat of a compromise,” wrote Frederick. The only way for him to truly make amends, would be

to “tone down his show and be more respectful of those around him with different opinions,” she wrote. As of Wednesday night, the petition had over 120 electronic signatures.

Additionally, GUSA Senator Laura Kreese (SFS ’12) has introduced a resolution to GUSA “Concerning Civility and Public Discourse.” It calls on GUSA to commend Fluke on her model civil discourse, strongly support the statements made by President DeGioia, and encourage all members of the campus community to engage in civil public dialogue.

The student reaction thus far has sought to responsibly act upon President DeGioia’s declaration in his public letter that “this is our moment to stand for the values of civility in our engagement with one another.”

“President DeGioia’s call for civil dialogue was inspiring in the midst of the turmoil,” Kohnert-Yourt said.

Additional reporting by Vanya Mehta.

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Housing responds to student outcry over air conditioning

by Soo Chae On Wednesday, after an outpouring of student complaints and online protests, the Office of Student Housing addressed concerns that buildings on East Campus would not have working air conditioning until early May. In an email, the Housing Office said it will station a temporary chiller and generator to provide interim air conditioning for LXR, Nevils, and Walsh during the installation of a permanent chiller and cooling tower.

The short-term fix is projected to be up and running by the middle of the week.

The day before, Office of Student Housing informed the residents that due to chiller failures on East Campus, residents would not have air conditioning before early May. The email said that the University “recognize[s] this can be uncomfortable for periods of time.”

The email triggered united outrage from residents, prompting an online petition and a proposal

Students living on East Campus demanded air conditioning in dorms.

lUciA HE

Life report lacks data

Last April, the GUSA Executive commissioned the 2012 Report on Student Life, and allocated a large portion of their budget to the project. Although they call the resulting 73-page report “rigorous” and “empirical,” the report’s findings and methods are dubious at best.

From withholding data to undisclosed conflicts of interest to an unaddressed scope, there are many reasons why the report should be read with severe reservations.

GUSA charged a three-member Student Life Report Committee with the task of researching, with nine additional co-authors to write individual sections. The committee sponsored nine comparative trips to other universities, had access to numerous university surveys, solicited comments by schoolside blast email, and supposedly conducted numerous interviews with stakeholders on campus.

The report, published in February, says the committee engaged in a “rigorous and sweeping research process” to outline student engagement on campus. Their year-long research process still yielded a report riddled with faulty depictions.

The authors of the report do not publish the data they used. While they do analyze student life and draw conclusions from their analysis, very few of these conclusions are supported by data. The report contains no data tables from their surveys, no summaries of their comparative trips, and no transcripts of their interviews. If you, the reader, want to take anything away from this report, you’ll have to trust the authors that their methods were rigorous and that their conclusions are warranted.

And there are two more reasons why you shouldn’t.

First, the report does not disclose any conflicts of interest. For instance, there is a section on why the Hoya going independent is so critically important for the University as a whole, but there is no disclosure that co-author Lauren Weber is on the Hoya’s board of directors. Although the co-authors are called section authors, there is no mention of who wrote which section.

Second, if the authors are calling the report empirical (which they are), on principle, no one

titled, “It’s getting hot in here!” the same afternoon.

The online petition, written by David Schaffer (COL’14) on behalf of East Campus residents, objects to high housing fees and declares, “Accommodation is not just a request, but rather an obligation.”

The petition says East Campus residents have been patient throughout the upheaval, despite being subjected to faulty air conditioning since October and many other hitches in the area’s infrastructure, including defective elevators. “[The email] was not really accurate—it’s not even livable, and it’s not something that should be negotiated,” Schaffer said.

Michael Crouch (MSB’13) expressed similar concerns through IdeaScale, a new online platform for student propositions that made its debut in late February. “When we signed our housing agreement, it was with the thought that we would have air conditioning for the whole year,” he wrote.

The online movement was inundated with signatures expressing student support. By Wednesday, Schaffer’s petition had should have to trust them personally; the methods should speak for themselves. What’s the point of an official report if it is comprised primarily of the unsubstantiated perceptions of a group of students?

I can get that from a campus editorial or Vox comments (oh yeah, and the report cites Hoya editorials—not news stories—twice). In my own personal perfect world, a “report” should have more data than recommendations, but apparently the authors have the opposite perspective.

Saxa Politica

by Ryan Bellmore

A bi-weekly column on campus news and politics As a case study, let’s take the report’s most basic claim that student engagement and happiness go hand in hand. “Using [rudimentary empirical models], we found evidence of a positive, statistically significant relationship between student satisfaction and various measures of engagement—number and range of activities that a student is involved in, the administration’s responsiveness, faculty advising outside the classroom, etc” (page 9).

gathered over 362 signatures, and Crouch’s idea collected 85 votes, making it the most popular idea on the forum. Students also demonstrated prospective compensations alongside their signatures, including room changes, un-bolting windows, and fan supply to each and every room.

Each spring, the University looks at weather forecasts to determine the appropriate time to convert from heating to cooling.

The process occurs again in the fall, when air conditioning is transitioned back to heating.

“Turning on air conditioning is not as simple as flipping a switch,” Stacy Kerr, associate vice president for communications, wrote in an email in response to student objections targeting the timeliness of the operation.

“All campus buildings do not have the same heating and cooling systems…Converting buildings on campus from heating to air conditioning is a process that takes a few weeks and requires optimal day and evening temperatures.”

Nevertheless, the administration was quick off the mark. According to the email sent out by Since none of the data cited by this claim are in the report, I can’t tell if they are misinterpreting something or making the claim up. To that end, I think they’re wrong. In my experience both reporting on and participating in many of the organizations discussed in the report, the relationship between engagement and happiness is more complicated than the positive correlation they allege. Based on the number of student-life burnouts I’ve met on campus—call it my own anecdotal survey—the most jaded and cynical students tend to have been the most involved. So how do I reconcile my perceptions with the conclusions in the report? Well, I can’t, because the authors withhold their data. The discussion ends there.

The report has more problems than data withholding and undisclosed conflicts of interest. Even the scope of the report is erroneous: the authors become so bogged down in short-sighted bureaucratic reform that they at once neglect the basics and the big picture. First, they don’t define their terms: what exactly is engagement? Also, the authors don’t attempt to lay a groundwork for student life as it exists. Some helpful information would have

Executive Director to Student Housing Patrick Killilee on Wednesday evening, the heat has been turned off in all residence halls, and a trailer-mounted chiller and generator will be deployed in the courtyard to function as temporary cooling.

Such promptness from the University brought about a breeze of relief. “I’m optimistic about the solution,” Schaffer said.

“It sounds like their temporary solution will do a lot to alleviate the problem,” Vail KohnertYount (SFS’13), a Nevils resident and GUSA Vice-President, wrote in an email.

Kohnert-Yount was active in spreading the word about the petition through various social networking platforms. “The issue was semi-resolved by the petition,” she wrote.

“The petition, media response and other groups bringing it into their attention really prompted [the University] their response to the situation,” Schaffer said.

Though residents are relieved, doubt nonetheless remains. “I’m concerned that [the University] they might take a little longer than planned,” Schaffer said. been, “how many students are engaged in student life?” or “to what extent are the students invoked?”

A report that claims to discuss student engagement but does not address these questions cannot be taken seriously.

Regarding the big picture, the authors of the report say that they tried to view student life through an institutional lens, but miss several key institutional policies. For instance, access to benefits is only mentioned once in passing. Having access to benefits is a prerequisite for student engagement on campus, so it deserves to be discussed.

As I’ve said in previous editions of this column, I am a huge proponent of self-study and evidence-based decision-making.

But trying to pass off a report, severely lacking in data and replete with undisclosed conflicts of interest, that also misses the point of what they are trying to say, does not help. A good report should be transparent, rigorous, and filled with data. The Student Life Report 2012 is none of these.

Check Ryan’s data at rbellmore@ georgetownvoice.com

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march 15, 2012

Georgetown opens dance with Belmont clash

by Daniel Kellner The madness is finally upon us. After a tremendous regular season in which the Georgetown men’s basketball team exceeded every fan’s and analyst’s wildest expectations, the third-seeded Hoyas will take on 14-seed Belmont in the second round of the Midwest Regional in Columbus, Ohio on Friday afternoon.

The Hoyas secured their tournament berth weeks ago, having solidly maintained their top-25 status since the fifth week of the season. Non-conference wins against Memphis (twice) and Alabama, in addition to a strong showing against perennial powerhouse Kansas at the Maui Invitational put Georgetown on the national radar after being overlooked in the preseason polls.

The Hoyas rode their momentum into conference play, with early wins against Louisville and Marquette catapulting them into the top 10. But the grueling Big East schedule eventually took its toll on the Hoyas, as they finished in a three-way tie for fourth in the conference, before bowing out in the third round of the Big East Tournament to Cincinnati.

Given their body of work, the Hoyas are pleased with their seed. Nevertheless, that number matters little to the players, who are simply eager to get their tournament run started.

“All you want is to find out where you’re playing, who you’re playing, when you’re playing,” said senior guard Jason Clark.

“This team has worked hard to get to this point. A three-seed in the NCAA Tournament is really big for this team.”

The Hoyas’ opponent, Belmont, is the largely unknown champion of the unheralded Atlantic Sun Conference. Even Clark admits he has never seen

them play. But the Bruins nearly defeated two-seed Duke in Durham in their opening game of the season and kept pace with Memphis just days later before letting the game slip away in the second half. Given the Hoyas recent first-round struggles against mid-major opponents, this year’s team is especially wary of the dangers posed by the matchup.

“I’m very motivated,” Clark said when asked about the team’s recent tournament troubles. “That doesn’t leave your mind at all.

You can’t wait to get back to this point so you can prove yourself.”

The Hoyas will have to channel that motivation into some of their signature, first-rate defense.

Belmont boasts the nation’s fourth highest scoring offense at 81.5 points per game, largely due to their army of three-point shooters. Of their nine players averaging over ten minutes a game, seven of them are threat to shoot from deep at any time, while as a team, they have attempted the sixth-most threepointers in the nation this year.

Though juniors Kerron Johnson and Ian Clark lead the team in scoring, the Bruins are extremely balanced and love to move the ball and find the open man.

“They’re a very good shooting team,” said Clark. “Their offense puts you in tough positions, so if you help, they’ve got shooters.”

Regardless of the threat posed by Belmont’s potent attack, Clark and fellow senior Henry Sims will feel added pressure knowing this is their last chance at a tournament win before they graduate in May. After falling to Baylor in the NIT first round as freshman, followed by shocking upsets to Ohio and Virginia Commonwealth in the opening rounds of the NCAA Tournament the next two seasons, the seniors are desperate to

Henry Sims is hungry for a tournament victory and a lasting legacy.

KEATON HOFFMAN

add a win to solidify their legacies on the Hilltop.

“It’s definitely on our list,” Sims said. “We failed at it the last couple of years. That is without a doubt on our list this year.”

If the seniors are able to check this important milestone off their list, the battle to prolong their careers becomes significantly more

difficult. Looming in the third round is a matchup with either ACC squad North Carolina State or, more likely, the six-seeded San Diego State, which was ranked in the top 25 for large stretches of the regular season. If the Hoyas can overcome this hurdle, they could face a rematch with 2-seeded Kansas in the Sweet Sixteen.

But all of this is pure conjecture and wishful thinking for Hoya fans unless the team can overcome Belmont on Friday.

For a battle-tested senior like Clark, the mindset going in is simple enough.

“You have to be on your Agame,” he said. “This is really crunch time.”

the Sports Sermon “Peyton Manning news conference was just interrupted by college basketball. I’m thoroughly pisstified, a level 6 on pisstification meter!!!” -@ochocinco on being thoroughly pissed. dits could not quite come to a consensus on the Knicks’ woes. Then, with Carmelo out with a groin injury, the Jeremy Lin-sational winning streak that followed showed just what D’Antoni ball could produce.

That Garden buzz was back for the first time since Anthony first became a Knick. To be fair, it had never truly left. Unfortunately, however, neither did the stubbornness that compounded Knick ownership throughout the past decade. They abided by Isaiah Thomas’ mentality of not admitting to personnel blunders, but rather threw money and draft picks to find new overpaid veterans who also flamed out.

With that in mind, it was incomprehensible for owner James Dolan to turn around and trade

son where he led a similar, defensive-minded, superstar-first team My uncle is twice my age. For in Dallas. Amar’e Stoudemire’s the last five years, I have had quite game is versatile enough to adapt the height advantage on him, too. as well—he played for much of And yet, I’ve never beaten him in his first two seasons and from a game of one-on-one. Perhaps it’s 2008-2010 without the guidance intimidation from the Allan Housof D’Antoni’s “seven seconds or ton jersey he wears for every one less” philosophy. of our battles—he bleeds orange The end to this honeymoon and blue, from the Garden’s glory was rapidly approaching anyway. days. He, like many other nostalgic Perhaps yesterday’s abrupt anKnick fans, always held out hope nouncement was not the timely for brighter days and a return to conclusion fans were looking for, the Knickerbocker buzz that took but looming divorces like this can over Manhattan in the ‘90s. erupt at any time. Take a look at They thought that return Jerry Sloan and Deron Williams’s would come under Isaiah Thomfalling-out as the prime example. as’ regime, but that ship sank For now, the Knicks will have faster than the Titanic. From Larry to adjust on the fly, in a manner all Brown to Lenny Wilkens, Knicks too reminiscent of last year’s upregimes ended quicker than they heaval at the trade deadline. Maystarted – until Mike D’Antoni, be my uncle is correct in declaring a casualty of thenthe season dead and Pete Rose Central Phoenix GM Steve gone. As it was, AnDa bettin’ line Kerr’s “defense wins thony was trying to championships” adjust to a completeDookies Margin Hoyas reign, fell into their ly new unit featuring (underdogs) (duh!) (favorites) laps in 2008.

Lin, Smith, a rejuveThus, after nated Novak, and D’Antoni Defense Woodson D’Antoni tendered Baron Davis.

DeSean Talent Megatron his resignation, even In a few years, the most hopeful of Magic Roll the dice though, this will be Nets Knicks fans were disremembered as a traught; my uncle at the surpris- Carmelo to preserve D’Antoni rough patch for a successful playing forefront. ball—he did, after all, give up an off contender. This group may “Season’s done,” he wrote to arm, a leg, and an Italian sharp- never bring a ring back to Madison me in an email. shooter to acquire him.

Square Garden, as was the hope D’Antoni proved to be a speTo be fair, I can’t blame Dolan before, but they have a lot of promcial kind of coach – he couldn’t here either. I still believe Carmelo ising basketball ahead of them. contend for the playoffs with the can and will be the answer in For now, the organization has Knicks’ gutted roster, but kept New York. As the franchise’s cen- to decide whether interim coach them entertaining and even estab- terpiece, the Knicks must build Mike Woodson is the long-term anlished the mirage of Chris Duhon around him. The pieces around swer behind the clipboard. If Sloan as a starting point guard. He the team’s stars—Jeremy Lin, or Phil Jackson comes knocking, needed some help and got it in the Steve Novak, J.R. Smith, Landry though, Woodson may simply be vaunted summer of 2010, netting Fields—seem natural in a high- the next casualty. Knicks fans can former Sun Amar’e Stoudemire in octane offense, but they need use that time to come to grips with free agency. to adapt. Anthony, a superstar, the Carmelo-New York marriage.

Three years later, D’Antoni is should not have to drastically al- Only a year ago, both sides were leaving in the midst of more New ter his game to suit the strengths clamoring for it, and with good York drama, that of the Carmelo of role players around him. reason. Now, both sides must realAnthony variety. The coach’s resThe other two pieces of the ize they’re in it for the long haul, ignation marks a culmination of New York triumvirate can suc- for better or for worse. Label me rising tension between a superstar ceed in a style that suits Anthony optimistic, but I think Melo and and coach that hit a crescendo. It as well. Tyson Chandler is just company will ultimately provide reached that level because pun- coming off a championship sea- more good times than bad.

by Kevin Joseph

sports

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice 7

Fresh start for Hoyas in Chapel Hill Infeld shines at Nationals

by Rob Sapunor The Georgetown’s women’s basketball team (22-8) will play the Fresno State Bulldogs on Sunday afternoon in Chapel Hill in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Going into the game, the team is focusing all its energy on taking the tournament title.

“We didn’t really care where we were going, who we were playing,” Head Coach Terri WilliamsFlournoy said. “At this point we’ve been off for a week and a half and we just want to play.”

The 17th-ranked Hoyas learned Monday night that they would be the fifth seed in the Des Moines region. The Hoyas have made the tournament three times in the past, and last year beat Princeton and Maryland to advance to the Sweet 16 before falling to top-ranked Connecticut after losing their lead late in the game.

Georgetown suffered a disappointing loss to West Virginia in its first game of the Big East Tourna-

ment, but posted big wins against ranked opponents Georgia, Miami, and Rutgers during the season.

Fresno State made it into the tournament after winning the Western Atlantic Conference. They have also won 17 of their last 18 games, but didn’t play a ranked opponent during that entire stretch.

The Bulldogs are led by sophomore Ki-Ki Moore, who transferred from Washington State but earned the WAC player of the year award in her first season on the team. She had 6 double doubles this season, averaged 16.6 points per game, and shoots 34% from beyond the arc.

Georgetown has experience on its side heading into the tournament, having gone through a grueling Big East schedule and boasting seven seniors on its roster. They realize that every game has the potential to be their last, and will be taking that mindset into the game on Sunday. However, the relatively untested Bulldogs are making their fifth straight appearance in the Big Dance.

Tia Magee will leave it all on the floor in her last NCAA Tournament.

ABBY GREENE

Parity for Hoyas in NCAAs

When I first saw Georgetown’s draw for the NCAA Tournament, I thought to myself that the Hoyas could beat any team in their path. Then I had that second thought, and it was the same one that seemingly every pundit had this week—there’s a serious chance that they will lose to Belmont.

Selection Sunday is a special time for irrationality and speculation, but even now, a few days later, I feel mostly the same way.

And really, I believed the same thing last week, when the Hoyas were knocked out of the Big East Tournament by Cincinnati, and even two months ago, when they first lost to the Bearcats. The Hoyas are good enough to beat any team in the country, but they’re capable of losing to pretty much everyone.

Saying that would count as damning the Hoyas with faint praise, except since it basically makes them a fringe Final Four contender this season. Besides Kentucky (and maybe Syracuse, before news of center Fab Melo’s

ineligibility broke), every top team has plenty of losses next to its name, and many have one or two to non-tournament teams. No one is invulnerable, meaning that the volatility of the tournament’s single-elimination format should victimize even more teams this year—and perhaps benefit a hot (or lucky) team even more.

This kind of parity has been increasingly common for a long time now, with the ubiquity of early-entry to the NBA leaving less talent to go around. Lottery-pick talent still carries teams to the top of the polls (Kentucky, North Carolina), but the inexperience of their future All-Stars allows veteran teams with a slightly lower tier of talent (Missouri, Syracuse) to be just as competitive. Then there are teams like Georgetown and Marquette, without a sure-fire first-rounder on their roster and just three upperclassmen apiece, that defy both conventions yet nonetheless spend time in the top 10. Very few of the best teams can dominate based on

“We want to go out with a bang,” senior guard Rubylee Wright said. “Everybody knows what it’s going to take, and the different level to get to the Sweet 16”.

Although Georgetown had a disappointing end to the season, falling to St. John’s in the final home game before the West Virginia loss, the squad feels that it is a veteran team that knows how to look past these setbacks.

“I feel like we’ve been playing good, but that season’s over,” said junior guard Sugar Rodgers, who leads the Hoyas in scoring. “It’s a different season, and we’re just going to go out and play hard.”

One thing that could make it feel like a new season is that Sunday’s game comes exactly two weeks after their exit from the Big East Tournament. This break did give the Hoyas a chance to get fresh legs and regain their strength; it’s also a long time to stay focused. Fresno State, for one, has played 3 times since Georgetown’s last contest.

If the Hoyas advance past Fresno State, they will play the winner of the Georgia Tech vs. Sacred Heart game on Tuesday, and can expect to face top-seeded and undefeated Baylor in the Sweet 16 if they win that game. However, the Hoyas know not to look down the road just yet, as anything can happen in their first game.

“This is the tournament; try not to look out past anybody,” senior forward Tia Magee said. “I’m going to go out and play like it’s my last game, because it might be.” ability alone, which means results more often than not come down to execution. And for one game, a mid-major can certainly out-execute a top team.

Which brings us back to Belmont. The overwrought echo chamber that is the professional bracketology circuit has used this same logic to make the Bears a favorite upset pick. Some of the talk is justified—Belmont’s sharpshooting is a classic Cinderella trait—but

Double Teamed

by Tim Shine a rotating column on sports the piling on has become excessive (check out Casual Hoya for an exhaustive rundown of the media’s Belmont picks). If the Bears can knock down their threes on Friday and keep the game at the same pace that allowed them to score the fourth-most points in the country, I have no doubt they can beat the Hoyas. What I doubt, however, is that it will be easy for Belmont to execute that game plan.

by Melissa Sullivan This past weekend, the Georgetown University men’s and women’s track and field teams participated in the NCAA Championship at the Jacksons Track Center in Nampa, Idaho.

The women were successful in the tournament—between placing 4th in the distance medley relay and senior Emily Infeld becoming a national champion in the 3,000-meter race, they tied with Baylor for 16th place overall.

For the DMR event, junior Rachel Schneider led off the Hoyas for the first 1,2000 meters. She was followed by junior Amanda Kimbers, and sophomore Chelsea Cox ran the third leg before Infeld anchored the team with an impressive finish time of 11:05.53.

“We followed our same routine for the entire day of the race,” said Infeld. “We approached this meet as we did any other meet. Coach [Chris] Miltenberg always tells us to follow our same routine and not do anything different.”

That strategy has been a part of the women’s track and field program for the duration of the season, and has proven successful in their meets.

After the DMR event, Infeld looked forward to the 3,000-meter run, which provided her a chance to prove her speed.

“I felt really good going into the 3,000 [meter] on Saturday,”

Georgetown is a flawed team.

The pundits don’t have that wrong. The Hoyas turn the ball over, Hollis Thompson and Jason Clark disappear at inopportune times, and they can’t hit their free throws. These aren’t always problems, but inconsistency has been at the root of most of Georgetown’s losses this season. However, these are far from the only qualities that define Georgetown. The Hoyas have been one of the best defensive teams in the country, and despite a blip against Marquette or an impressive performance by Cincinnati’s Yancy Gates, they still are. In one aspect, they are the best defense in college basketball— Georgetown has the nation’s best three-point field goal defense, allowing opponents to shoot just 27 percent from beyond the arc.

Conveniently, Belmont likes to shoot the three. They’ve been pretty good at it too, hitting 37.8 percent from long-range. Of course, that’s mostly come against the weak competition of the Atlantic Sun conference, not the lengthy Georgetown defense. In

she said. “The DMR was tactical, so I did not split a very fast time.”

As a means of preparation, the All-American stuck with the team’s mantra of not changing tactics. “I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary,” she said.

“I tried to stay relaxed and have fun with the race.”

But Infeld did identify specific parts of her performance that she wanted to improve before the big race. “I was really looking to work on certain areas, such as my kick, which I was lacking [during Friday’s event],” she said. “I was fired up to race and learn from the mistakes.”

The senior completed the event with a time of 9:15.44, breaking the facility record by 14 seconds. The run earned her the title of NCAA Champion, as well as All-American status for the tenth time.

“I am still very shocked and excited,” she said. “I have strived to win for a long time and am…excited that my training paid off, but I am more so excited that I was able to work on the mistakes of my race [from Friday’s race].”

On behalf of the Hoyas, Infeld is proud of their overall success, but it also looking forward to the final chapter of her senior season.

“I am very proud of my teammates,” she said. “Our team works so hard, and we have so many talented girls that will get to compete in outdoors.”

fact, against Duke and Memphis, the only two major-level talents the Bears faced, they could only manage about 31 percent from downtown.

If there’s anything Georgetown fans have learned over the past few years, it’s that bracket prognosticating is a fool’s errand.

You can look at the numbers, you can look at which team is hot or has more experience, but neither statistics nor heuristics can answer the question of who is going to win this Friday, let alone who’s going to be cutting the nets down in three weeks. It’s frustrating to us as spectators, because we’ve spent five months watching games and still can’t answer that simple question.

After Ohio and VCU, I’m well aware that Belmont could win.

They could, but they shouldn’t, because Georgetown is very good at stopping teams from doing the things Belmont is good at. It’s not as reassuring as predicting a win, but at least I can take solace in that.

Join Tim in his Columbus hotel room!

RSVP @ tshine@georgetownvoice.com.

feature

8 the georgetown voice

march 15, 2012

JUSTICE VS. JESUIT VALUES:

BY VANYA MEHTA

THE STRUGGLE FOR REPRODUCTIVE

feature

georgetownvoice.com many law students spend their lives fighting. “For professionals who are going to be lawyers…that doesn’t really match up with our future career goals,” Percival said.

After presenting the memo to Georgetown, members of LSRJ met with the Law Center administration in a private meeting to discuss their demands. “They made it very clear to us that they were not willing to change the policy unless there is a legal mandate to do so,” Percival said. “They weren’t really expecting a legal mandate.”

Although the Affordable Care Act will require Georgetown’s insurance plans to cover contraception with no copay, administrators refuse to discuss the matter until its enforcement.

“We offer plans that are consistent with our Jesuit and Catholic identity and mission,” University spokeswoman Stacy Kerr said.

“We’re not saying that a student cannot have contraception, we’re saying we offer a plan that does not offer contraceptive coverage unless it’s medically necessitated. But you don’t have to buy our plan.”

***

RIGHTS

“I

was in shock the first time I tried to get my prescription filled as a student, and I was told that I owed seventy-five dollars.

I’ve never paid over twenty dollars for it. I was hurt and embarrassed and felt powerless.”

This is the story of one of many anonymous law students, explained in a survey-based memorandum delivered two years ago to the University by the Georgetown chapter of Law Students for Reproductive Justice.

On Feb. 23, Sandra Fluke, a third-year Georgetown law student, testified in front of the House Democratic Steering Committee after being turned away by the Republican-dominated general body. As former president of the Georgetown chapter of LSRJ, Fluke’s testimony was an attempt to shed light on the “financial, emotional and medical burdens” women face when denied contraceptive coverage. She expressed the dire need for birth control for students at religiously-affiliated universities.

Fluke told the story of a friend who suffers from polycystic ovarian syndrome. Rejected by Georgetown’s health insurance plan, this student’s prescription for contraceptives became a matter of life and death. Life for her at Georgetown meant shelling out 100 extra dollars every month, as both her fertility and health required hor-

ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES

mone replacement through a daily birth control pill to treat PCOS. Neither her doctor’s verifications nor her own homosexuality was enough to convince the University that her prescription was necessary for purely medical reasons.

Fluke’s testimony has reignited the debate about reproductive justice at Georgetown, where a tradition of Jesuit identity is consistently cited as justification for denying contraception coverage to students and employees.

Her testimony came in the midst of an overwhelming controversy surrounding the Obama administration’s new contraception mandate, which has yet to be implemented as part of the Affordable Care Act. The federal regulation will require all insurance providers to cover free birth control for employees—leaving no exceptions for religiously-affiliated organizations like hospitals, charities, and universities. Two weeks ago, the Senate defeated a Republican measure to reverse the mandate by a very narrow margin.

Shortly after Fluke’s testimony conservative radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh broadcasted derogatory, personal comments about the law student in a clip where he questioned her motivations for supporting the contraception mandate.

“What does it say about the college coed Susan Fluke [sic], who goes before a congressional

committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex,” Limbaugh said.

He also implied that Fluke’s parents should be ashamed to see that their daughter “testifies she’s having so much sex she can’t afford her own birth control pills and she agrees that Obama should provide them, or the Pope.”

Limbaugh’s comments elicited nationwide backlash. On March 2, GEICO, Sleep Train, Legal Zoom, and Citrix Systems pulled their advertisements from Limbaugh’s show. Since then, Fluke has appeared on CNN, Good Morning America, ABC News, and several other major media outlets speaking out against Limbaugh’s remarks. Even Republicans like Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and House Speaker John Boehner (ROH) have criticized Limbaugh for his language and message. President Obama called Fluke to offer his support, telling her that “her parents should be proud.”

This incident is just the latest episode in LSRJ’s struggle for reproductive justice at Georgetown. For years, Kelly Percival, a leading member of LSRJ, has worked closely with Fluke and other law students to get the University to cover contraception for all students. “This is a battle we inherited,” Percival said.

In March 2010, members of LSRJ sat outside the dining hall for three days with an anonymous survey of questions related to their experiences with the student health plan—particularly with regard to gaining access to contraceptives. The stories they uncovered indicated a broad range of experiences where women struggled to gain access to contraceptives for medical reasons.

“That’s when we found out that a significant number of students have this problem,” Percival said.

On Oct. 7, 2010, LSRJ presented a memorandum based on the results of their survey to the administration on what they called “inadequate reproductive health coverage under the current student health insurance plan.”

In the memorandum, LSRJ cites the survey of 348 Georgetown Law Center students, concluding that 65 percent of students attempting to gain access to birth control for medical reasons were subject to “extensive questioning, inordinate clerical issues, extensive delays, or other complications because of disbelief from doctors and insurance administrators.”

One story in the memo reveals cases of students choosing to lie about medical conditions to continue their prescriptions. For one student, lying has led to even greater problems in her medical care. “When discussing how other

medication interacts with my birth control, I am forced to lie and say I am not taking birth control to prevent pregnancy. This may . . . lead to receiving wrong medical advice,” reads the student’s anecdote, quoted in the memo. “Moreover, it is difficult to discuss issues relating to sexual health, especially concerns over sexually transmitted diseases, because I am forced to lie to my doctor about my sexual practices.”

This encourages the type of unethical behavior against which

On Georgetown’s undergraduate campus, activists confronting the administration have been confronted with a similarly unflinching resolve.

On March 27, undergraduate activists from H*yas for Choice and United Feminists, in part of an action called Plan A: Hoyas for Reproductive Justice, chained themselves to the statue of John Carroll on the front lawn. The duct tape over their mouths read, “President DeGioia: Take the tape off our mouths and the chains off our bodies.” At the time, Heather Brock (COL ‘10), former president of H*yas for Choice, wrote on the Plan A blog that “the message is simple: Georgetown’s policies are chaining us to the past and silencing our ideas.”

LEXIE HERMAN

In 2010, Plan A Hoyas chained themselves to the John Carroll statue in a high-profile protest.

The University’s response was unequivocal. Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson wrote a letter to leaders of United Feminists and H*yas for Choice, explaining that “Georgetown’s policies and practices rest on the strong underpinning of Catholic social and moral teaching and its affirmation of the dignity of all persons from the beginning of life to its natural end.”

Kristina Mitchell (COL ’10), a central organizer of the Plan A actions and a former member of United Feminists at Georgetown, said the administration took a long time to respond to their demands.

“They seemed very unwilling to reevaluate or rethink [the policy],” Mitchell said. “I know that this is still an issue important to a lot of students, particularly because the people who are being affected by this are on Georgetown’s insurance plan, … people who don’t have any other way to access health insurance, … often people who come from less affluent families.”

Brock asserts that the chaining of students to Carroll’s statue, though drastic, forced the administration to meet with the students.

“They refused to meet with us prior

“

In her testimony, Fluke cited her friend with PCOS who was denied access to contraception for medical reasons because doctors did not believe her story. “Some say my friend’s tragic story is rare.

It’s not. I wish it were,” she said to Congress.

However, the University denies the frequency of these cases.

“Students are routinely afforded insurance coverage for contraceptive medications when a medical condition is present that necessitates their use,” Kerr said. “Instances where a student has been unable to access contraceptive medications for medical reasons are rare.”

Kerr also insisted that the Student Health Center and the Office of Student Insurance work to “minimize administrative issues for students seeking insurance coverage for oral contraceptives prescribed for medical conditions.”

The Student Health Insurance office at Georgetown declined to comment on contraception coverage in its health plan, the Premier Plan. Currently, the Premier Plan, provided by United HealthCare Company, requires full-time stu-

37% of covered women were required to pay out-of-pocket for birth control. Over three years of law school, this cost can reach $3000.

---LSRJ survey

to [the action],” she said. “It takes action and sometimes drastic action for the University to listen. That was our goal.”

For years, female student activists speaking up for reproductive justice are asked the same question—what did they expect when enrolling in a Catholic university?

Fluke has a simple response to this question. “We can only answer that we expected women to be treated equally, to not have our school create untenable burdens that impede our academic success. We expected that our schools would live up to the Jesuit creed of ‘cura personalis‘—to care for the whole person—by meeting all of our medical needs.”

Mitchell agrees. “Georgetown is Jesuit, but also says in all its recruiting information that it respects people of all faith backgrounds and different cultural backgrounds,” she said. “We thought that that should mean that people who aren’t Catholic who go to Georgetown should also be able to have access to full health coverage.”

dents “to enroll in the most comprehensive student injury and sickness plan offered through the University, unless their other insurance coverage meets specific University requirements.” Law students and undergraduates are covered by the same student insurance policy.

United HealthCare Insurance Company has not released a statement regarding Fluke’s testimony.

The LSRJ memo claims that several other Jesuit universities cover contraception for their law students, such as Boston College, Fordham Law School, and DePaul University. According to a report by the Guttmacher Institute, all of these schools are in states that mandate contraception coverage.

However, Massachusetts and Illinois include an exemption that would allow religious universities to opt out of the mandate.

Boston College and DePaul University, therefore, provide contraception coverage even though it is not required.

Fluke’s friend is not the only student who has had troubles with

the georgetown voice 9

VOICE ARCHIVES

Plan A Hoyas demonstrate for contraceptives and sex education in Red Square. medically-mandated contraceptives. Alysse Poppa (COL ’13) also suffers from PCOS, and has been taking oral contraceptives for medical reasons since before she arrived at Georgetown. Upon beginning her freshman year, Poppa brought her normal prescription for birth control to the Georgetown Hospital’s pharmacy, and was rejected. To avoid the lengthy “override” process and prove her medical necessity, she opted out of the student plan. The override process at Georgetown involves providing a doctor’s note or some form of proof that the student has a medical need for birth control.

“How many loops do you have to get through to get your medicine?” she said in an interview. “I see that as being a huge flaw in the system.”

In the LSRJ memo, one student reported a severely delayed process for attaining birth control. “Simply because I am sexually active, the doctor assumed I was lying even though I have medical needs,” the student wrote. “I struggled with getting an ‘override’ because the doctor was hesitant even though I reported severe pain and mood changes that affect my functioning as a student.”

Much like the Plan A activists, Poppa sees reproductive justice as, at least in part, a socioeconomic issue. She strongly believes the financial burden placed on students by the lack of coverage is unjust. “It becomes a debate of, do I want to keep myself healthy? Do I want to eat?

When you start having to budget in your medical needs, other things have to fall off your list of priorities,” she said. “Especially for college students, this is not the time that we should be worrying about making ends meet.”

The LSRJ memo paints a similar picture. “Thirty-seven percent of covered women were financially burdened by being required to pay out-of-pocket for birth control

that can cost nearly one hundred dollars per month,” it reads. “Over the course of three years of law school, this unreimbursed cost can reach $3000.”

When asked about the University’s response to all the scenarios presented in LSRJ’s memo, Kerr said the University was not prepared to address the issue. “No one has come to us saying, here are 100 women and they haven’t gotten health insurance [for contraception], and they all have the same issues,” she said. “I don’t know, I can’t answer that. It’s a hypothetical that hasn’t been answered.”

However, the Obama mandate continues to fuel LSRJ’s fight.

“It’s so important for students, especially for graduate students, because our best option for health insurance is usually the University’s plan,” Percival said. Unlike undergraduates, many law students enter Georgetown no longer being eligible for their parents’ health plans.

In the memo, LSRJ explains that “as a professional school, students at GULC are not differently situated from faculty and staff. Many law students are in their mid-twenties to thirties or older, are married, have children already, or have been using birth control for most of their adult lives.” Three of the four Georgetown faculty healthcare plans do cover contraception, because Georgetown is unable adjust details of plans that are part of a national pool. According to Kerr, Georgetown provides one contraception-free option to remain consistent with its mission.

Although usually not as financially independent as law students, undergraduates have a large stake in the issue as well.

“We as young adults have choices to make about our lives, and the University shouldn’t take away the safety of those choices,” Brock said.

leisure

10 the georgetown voice

march 15, 2012

Ewan McGregor fishes for compliments with Yemen

by Jane Conroy As long as you don’t have plans to seriously pursue becoming a fisherman in the desert, Ewan McGregor will charm you in his attempt at this impossible task. Though his latest film, the aptly titled Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, is blithely unconcerned with the gritty details of this aquatic pursuit, the movie portrays an entertaining and inspiring tale of unlikely individuals working together toward an even unlikelier end.

The movie’s most standout quality is its excellent acting.

Emily Blunt impeccably plays young British professional Harriet Chetwode-Talbot, who directs a wealthy sheik’s pet project to introduce salmon fishing to his country. Dr. Fred Jones, played by McGregor, is the fishery consultant who advises her. McGregor and Blunt lead a skilled and moving cast, creating a film that is at least as charming as it is absurd.

Witty, understated dialogue and smooth directing add much to Salmon Fishing. Screenwriter

his execution of the subtle and improbable development of the Harriet/Fred romance between Blunt and McGregor’s characters is tender and compelling.

comedic effect, particularly in several ridiculously worded and comically golden instant-messaging conversations between the prime minister and his press of-

ficer, who has taken an interest in the titular salmon fishing project.

Throughout the various directions taken by the movie, the dynamic between Blunt and McGregor keeps the film cohesive.

Harriet is a straightforward character: successful, beautiful, and enamored with a new soldier boyfriend recently deployed in the Middle East. Fred, however, is more unusual; he has an overly polite, boyish, and at times painfully awkward kind of charm that keeps his character afloat despite an initial lack of appeal. He transitions from someone so socially inept that Harriet mistakenly believes he has Asperger’s syndrome to a man with a real chance of winning her affections. The film also distinguishes their relationship with a characteristically British stiff upper lip—Halstrom directs their emotions fully and beautifully, as they are expressed without any of the excessive drama or overtly physical demonstrations we have come to expect from a romance film.

But aside from the romance and politics, the plot surround-

in addition to not being taken

by Kahlo, the photos are copies that are aged through a careful process to make them look like the originals.

However, a larger issue than the misleading content of the exhibit is the overt dullness of the collection. If visitors are not drawn in by the way Frida once selected, saved and annotated some of these images— among over 6,000 were found at her home in Mexico, Casa Azul—visitors will likely be left underwhelmed by the exhibit. The miniscule size of the photos compounds the general disenchantment that the exhibit provokes, as the pictures are far too small to see and, for that matter, to appreciate—hence the magnifying glasses offered to Artisphere visitors. For an artist who was heralded for her bold and colorful style, these tiny snapshots offer an unsatisfying peek into the incredible life behind her art.

There are, however, a few gems tucked away in the painstaking collection of tiny photos.

One notable image by Tina Modotti, an Italian artist and politi-

cal activist, shows overlaid images of an ear of corn, a guitar neck, and a crescent of bullets arranged in a way that captures the Soviet Union’s hammer and sickle. Another standout is a photo of Kahlo with her doctor, positioned next to her last signed self-portrait in her studio at the Casa Azul. This photo is particularly striking, as it is one of few on display connecting images of her personal history to her artistic career.

The biographical context of the collection is another missing element that the exhibit would benefit from including. Frida’s dramatic and compelling personal history, from her debilitating accident at the age of fifteen to her countless affairs with men and women, is hinted at but for the most part left unexplained.

In the only U.S. venue of this traveling exhibition, Frida Kahlo: Her Photos tries to take

Simon Beaufoy adapted the original novel for film, showing the same skill with which he adapted the Academy Award-winning Slumdog Millionaire. Director Lasse Halstrom, who directed such films as Chocolat and Dear John, is no stranger to romantic movies, and

To complement its blatantly romantic moments, the film’s story also incorporates themes of politics, religion, war, and terrorism. McGregor’s awkward mannerisms and the remarkably cavalier role played by the British government have a delightfully

IMDB

Bait so hard, salmon fishers wanna fine me, but first regulators gotta find me.

ing the actual salmon fishing in the Yemen is nonsensical. If while viewing the film you find yourself questioning the sanity of people who would transport ten thousand salmon to Yemen without so much as a single trial run, you’re too logical and critical for this film. In addition to the technical impossibilities, heavy-handed fish metaphors dropped throughout the movie prove bothersome at best. Halstrom could not have more obviously communicated that McGregor represents a salmon finally swimming upstream if he actually forced the actor to swim up a river in the film. Oh, wait… he did that.

The minor flaws of the movie, however, do not reduce its lasting charm. The humor and subtle relationships keep Salmon Fishing in the Yemen riveting even when it’s ventured into the realm of the unbelievable. Despite the impression you might have gotten from Map of the Modern World, Yemen proves the perfect backdrop for a quirky romance, with a little aquaculture on the side.

on the tricky task of capturing an artistic icon’s private life.

While the Artisphere exhibit contains some interesting tidbits of Kahlo’s collected images, her photos might be best served to return to their original exhibit at Frida’s Mexican home. Someone should have told the Artisphere that Kahlo’s own studio would have been a better setting for an exhumation of her knickknacks.

Too little, too late: Artisphere paints Kahlo’s life in photos

by Mary Borowiec If you are offered a magnifying glass while walking into an art exhibit, it is natural for a bit of confusion to set in. These sentiments set the tone for Frida Kahlo: Her Photos, the highly anticipated U.S. premiere exhibition at Rosslyn’s Artisphere, as Kahlo’s photos hold their own element of surprise.

While one might expect to see deeply personal photos taken by Kahlo, offering a glimpse into her complicated marriage with Diego Rivera or her friendship with Leon Trotsky, the featured photos are not “hers” in the way that viewers might assume. Rather, the collection of more than 250 photos consists of those that Kahlo owned, making the collection a display of Kahlo’s interests and surrealist vision as opposed to her art itself. With the exception of a handful of photos taken by the artist herself, the majority are photos taken by famous photographers of her day, most notably Man Ray, Brassaï, and Tina Modotti. The exhibit’s title is misleading in another sense;

artisphere

For the full collection of Frida Kahlo’s favorite photos, make sure to visit FridaKahloJudgesYou.tumblr.com.

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“take me to bed, or lose me forever.” — top Gun

the georgetown voice 11

lez’hur ledger

Leave your house to go see Jeff, Who Lives at Home

by Will Collins Wr i t e r / d i r e c t o r / a c t o r brothers Mark and Jay Duplass have, in recent years, been known for a brand of offbeat humor associated with a film movement called “mumblecore.” This genre is usually defined by a socially downtrodden middle-aged man going through some event and handling it in the way that a socially downtrodden middleaged man would, often with self-deprecating humor, as in the FX show The League. Jason Segel and Ed Helms, who play brothers in Jeff, Who Lives at Home, the brothers Duplass’ most recent effort, are perfectly cast for the film’s niche humor and surprisingly well-suited for the movie’s sentimental notes.

Though not the sort of outright clever, laugh-track humor that fills sitcoms like How I Met Your Mother, the film does pack in a serious amount of laughs generally induced by the teddy bear figure of Jeff (Segel) who is determined to find mean-

ing in what most others would consider a simple wrong number phone call. Getting a phone call from someone looking for “Kevin,” Jeff makes his decisions for the duration of the film based on his sightings of people who share the name.

Assuring himself that there is a reason for everything and that following his gut will lead him to his destiny, he manages to cross paths with his estranged brother. Together, the childlike mannerisms of Helms and Segels add a certain sadness to some of the more futile, midlife-crisis situations the film tackles.

The opening of the film sets the audience up for the “mumblecore” humor style, with Jeff speaking into a recorder about the significance of the little girl’s inability to drink full glasses of water in the film Signs. It’s a bit of a serious, although awkard, opening mologue, which breaks into slapstick humor once the viewer realizes Jeff is on the toilet. In addition to Segel’s quirky por-

America(n Muslims), fuck yeah!

In the post-9/11 era, American Muslims have struggled to assert their patriotism while simultaneously observing a religion that many perceive as fundamentally at odds with American society. Naturally, reality television programs have latched onto this conflict, featuring a batch of American Muslims who buck the gruesome American stereotype of bomb-wielding, misogynistic extremists.

MTV’s The Real World: Sydney and The Real World: New Orleans both included a Muslim woman in their casts. Parisa Montazaran and Sahar Dika, respectively, were unveiled, liberal Muslims who offered a rebuttal to claims that radical Islam was a rampant threat to the very fiber of American society. Other than Montazaran’s unwillingness to drink in excess and Dika’s shame in not being a virgin, both women shared many of the same values as their cast mates. A string of other programs, including Family Feud, Survivor, and Big Brother all forwarded the same narrative: American Muslims are just like you.

Then came All-American Muslim, a TLC show that followed five Lebanese-American Shia Muslim families living in Dearborn, Mich., a town that boasts the largest concentration of Arabs in the U.S. and the largest mosque in North America. Unlike shows before it, All-American Muslim featured a variety of Muslim experiences. Nina Bazzy-Aliahmad is a businesswoman who sought to open a nightclub in her community, defying the male-dominated and culturally conservative culture in which she was raised.

Fouad Zaban is a conservative football coach who respects all Muslim rites and traditions, including veiling his daughters and strictly enforcing Ramadan. Mike Jaafar is a deputy police chief whose children have Western names and are unveiled. In the Amen family, Shadia is a tattooed single mom until she marries Jeff McDermott, a white man, and converts him to Islam. Shadia’s sister, Bilal, makes a decision to begin wearing the hijab, feeling it will protect her from men.

The show sparked instant controversy when Lowe’s de-

trayal of Jeff, Susan Sarandon, in her role as Jeff’s relatable mother, brings depth to the sad frustration of a mediocre day-to-day life. While not for everyone, the particularized, awkward sense of humor blent with painstaking, and sometimes sad, overtones makes the film charming. By crafting a story that takes place over

just one day, the Duplasses excellently bring out the theme if providence over which Jeff spends the film obsessing. In this short span of time, the paths of all the major characters eventually cross, solidifying Jeff’s destiny.

Though the film has a few twists and turns that are not necessarily shocking, an un-

expected air permeates Jeff.

Its humor is dry and ironic, setting the film apart from its “mumblecore” classmates.

Someone searching for a modern-day Seinfeld should look elsewhere, however; Jeff, Who Lives at Home is a movie about “something,” even if it’s hard to pin down exactly what that something is.

iMDB

Not pictured: Jason Segel’s nether regions, not covered by pants. It’s seven inches? Challenge accepted. cided to pull out of advertising on it. The decision came in response to letters it received from born-again Christian David Caton, who claimed the show was Islamic propaganda.

The company’s reservations prompted a wave of advertising withdrawals from 65 different companies, all of which felt that All-American Muslim was a lightning rod for discord that conflicted with their brand messaging.

trash talk

by Keaton Hoffman a bi-weekly column about reality television As advertisers backed out, so did viewers. Despite premiering to favorable ratings in November, by the January finale viewership had slumped below the watershed one million mark. This week, TLC announced that AllAmerican Muslim would not be renewed for a second season.

The story of All-American Muslim provides insight not only into the ways in which American society views Muslim Americans in the post-9/11 era but also into how we see the teleology of as-

similation. All-American Muslim separated itself from other reality shows because it depicted the reality: not all Muslims are just like you. Some American Muslims wear hijabs, don’t drink alcohol, and speak Arabic at home.

True, some also have premarital sex, wear Western clothing, and play football, but any portrayal of Islam in America is incomplete without both parts. By featuring conservative Muslims as well as progressive Muslims, All-American Muslim showed U.S. audiences the true face of Islam in America.

What perhaps disturbed viewers and advertisers more than the cultural differences expressed in the show was the way in which the characters changed over time. Bilal Amen went from being unveiled and Western to choosing to wear the hijab.

Shadia converted her husband to Islam. Instead of following the typical assimilation narrative, AllAmerican Muslim showed some Muslims becoming more conservative, not more liberal, as they lived in the U.S. Not only were Muslims practicing their own religious customs in America, but some were also moving away

from the liberal values supposedly inherent in American society.

All-American Muslim’s cancellation reinforces the sad truth that many Americans have ignorant and bigoted views toward Islamic religion and culture. But more importantly, it reveals that Americans are unwilling to accept immigrant cultures that separate themselves from the pot instead of melting into it. Muslims like Montazaran and Dika are welcomed into American society because they largely ignore their culture in favor of Westernization, but Muslims like the Amen family who seek to exercise their religious freedom in America are marginalized.

This week, Bravo extended its monopoly over the portrayal of obnoxiously rich lifestyles with the premier of Shahs of Sunset, a show which follows filthy rich Iranian-American families in Los Angeles. Underneath all the Maseratis and mascara, the show contains no real speck of Islamic culture—or any real substance at all. I have no doubt it will be highly successful.

Send Santorum-fueled rhetoric to khoffman@georgetownvoice.com

leisure

12 the georgetown voice

march 15, 2012

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

Lucero, Women and Work, ATO Records With the way it pushes the boundaries of country and punk, infusing the two seemingly disparate styles into alternative rock, Lucero is something of a musical anomaly. But the band makes its unusual group of influences work, due largely to lead singer Ben Nichols’ bourbon-soaked voice, which brings this unlikely pairing of genres together brilliantly. With their tenth release, Women and Work, Lucero dives right into its Memphis roots to demonstrate a side of the band not seen in their previous work.

The title says it all—this is an album about women, work, and everything in between. Though much of Lucero’s previous output deals with these subjects, Women and Work takes a completely different musical approach. The first

half of the LP smoothly transports the listener from the smoke-filled dive bar of Rebels, Rogues & Sworn Brothers to the music halls of Memphis and Nashville. From the very beginning, Lucero puts out a refreshing, honky-tonk Springsteen sound. With a wailing horn-line and driving keys from start to finish, the titular song, “Women and Work,” captures the essence of the first half of this album: “Now the women and the work and the booze in between got you pukin’ in the aisles smashin’ TVs/ Kid don’t let it get you down.” Lucero cuts through the sloppiness of day-to-day life, delivering a song that can get you through the week.

In the album’s latter half, Lucero goes back to the songwriting style of notable older tunes such as “Nights Like These.” Unfortunately, Lucero’s new direction in Women and Work loses its charm with songs like “Like Lightning”—the emotional lyrics on this track, as well as others on the album, are powerful and well-written enough to take center stage, but get drowned out amid the blur of horns and keys. Only when Lucero falls back on its signature songwriting does the LP shine. As Nichols laments on “Sometimes,” the feeling of estrangement draws listeners in to connect with the singer’s deepest emotions.

Bad casting: What Dafoe?

You probably know who Willem Dafoe is—you’ve seen him as the Green Goblin in Spiderman, or recognized him in Platoon, The Boondock Saints, or American Psycho.

But to this writer, he’s more than just an actor. He’s an artist. No, he’s an icon. Maybe it’s his deep, grainy voice. Maybe it’s the intensity of his facial features. Whatever it is, Dafoe has a lure that keeps me shelling out money to see him on the big screen, as I, in a state of fanboy hypnosis, continually ignore the title or synopsis of the film I’m about to witness. Forget the movie; it’s Willem I’m paying to see.

Every movie fan has a Willem Dafoes. (Some, like me, have several Willem Dafoes). And studios take advantage of this. Movies often count on the sway of their stars to drag audiences to theaters, especially if the film’s subject matter lacks broad appeal. Actors like Will Smith, Brad Pitt, and Johnny

Depp can bait their admirers into seeing movies without a breath of hesitation. For an extreme case, look no further than Eddie Murphy. The marketing campaigns of his films rely solely on the public’s familiarity with Murphy. If the trailers for his piece-of-shit movies focused on anything else, they’d bomb! Actually, they bomb anyway, so who knows—maybe a black hole would emerge and destroy the Earth if a film starring Eddie Murphy were to pursue a marketing campaign without “Eddie Murphy” prominently stamped on billboards and trailers.

Power players aside, more perceptive movie fans may develop fondness for lesser-known actors whose on-screen presence has an inexplicably delectable appeal. I went through a phase where I’d see any movie starring Ben Kingsley after I came out of Shutter Island in awe of his, um,

Though this alt-country band strikes a perfect balance between music and lyrics in some songs, the grittiness and heart-on-your-sleeve songwriting that make Lucero a gem within the country and punk circles too frequently gets put on the back burner. Lucero’s real talent still shines through in their artful play between clashing genres, even if Memphis-style honky-tonk may get listeners dancing.

Voice’s Choices: “Women and Work,” “Sometimes” —Shom Mazumder

Say Anything, Anarchy, My Dear, Equal Vision Records Of Anarchy, My Dear, Say Anything’s first release in three years, front man Max Bemis said that the band has moved past its days of writing “petty Ben Kingsley-ness. And then one day I found myself in the front row of Prince of Persia, thinking of the lives in Africa I could have saved with the money I had just spent on a movie I knew would suck. And it did suck. But I couldn’t help myself; I needed my Kingsley.

But Ben Kingsley is nothing compared to Willem Dafoe. I’d take

Box Office, Baby!

by John Sapunor

a bi-weekly column about film a bullet for that man. Don’t believe me? Let me walk you through my experience with Antichrist, the arthouse darling directed by Lars von Trier, the purveyor of all that is grotesque in contemporary cinema. I stumbled over to my local theater in Los Angeles after seeing Dafoe in a press conference for the film. The ticket said it all: Unrated. Not even the MPAA would touch this shit.

songs about hating people” and found new stability and maturity. Like many of us, Say Anything has graduated from its early-aughts anxiety, but Anarchy retains the band’s awkward, hyper-personal character to create a balanced, introspective album.

Album opener “Burn a Miracle,” acts as a classic anti-government punk anthem, reasserting the band’s irreverence and establishing the anarchist theme of the rest of the work. The chorus barely conceals the lyrics “burn America” through the singer’s guttural vocals. Although more contrived than the rest of the album, the song contains some outlandish, yet apt, metaphors, attesting to Bemis’s strength in channeling his eccentricities into his songwriting.

The band’s autobiographical tendencies only come out on the second track, entitled “Say Anything,” in which Bemis declares that he would prefer genocide to the thought of losing his wife, Eisley’s Sherri Dupree-Bemis.

The track is saved from its overly sentimental subject matter by Bemis’s characteristically awkward turns of phrase: “I’d throw up every morning, pull my nails out, take a wrench to all my teeth / To put a ring upon your digit, have Boom. First minute, and I’ve already seen penetration. I was seventeen and owned a computer—big deal. But lo and behold, my eyes were unaccustomed to the genital mutilation that carried the last third of the movie.

Nope. The Internet did not prepare me for that one.

That night I disgusted myself.

Willem Dafoe was so captivating that I gave the movie a thumbs up.

I’ve seen the movie three times now, for no other reason but to catch Willem Dafoe deliver a commendable performance. The lengths to which I’ll go to see my favorite actors may come across as a little excessive, and I could not agree more. I bet half the audience members at that Antichrist showing now have PTSD, myself included.

This weekend I was feeling thirsty, so I took two doses of Dafoe. I knew, before watching The Hunter, that the plotline would be dry, but the chance to see 90 minutes of the master at work

you fidget in your bed with me.”

Other tracks are not so successful in combing Bemis’s idiosyncrasies into love ballads. While the delicate “So Good” may reassert Bemis’s affection for his wife, the pop-culture-infused lyrics come off as more cliché than sincere.

Absent from the record is the pissy brand of rage which made Say Anything popular among preteens, save the throwback “Admit it Again,” the band’s renewed tirade against urban, hipster snobbery. Filled with highly personal rants against pretentiousness— “Don’t want to hear about how the latest Rihanna single is a postmodern masterpiece”—the track initially strikes an angry, whiney tone, but transitions to a reserved sound that is more consistent with the rest of the album.

Say Anything’s early releases were notable for their angst and intensely personal subject matter.

And while Max Bemis might have moved past his days of drug use and mental illness, Anarchy, My Dear is the musician’s newest effort to channel his odd personality into strangely endearing music.

Voice’s Choices: “Of Steel,” “The Stephen Hawking” —Connor Jones had me sold. I saw it, was disappointed, but had no regrets.

Next, I saw John Carter, which only features Dafoe’s voice (although, before seeing the film, I read a self-assuring piece that mentioned Dafoe’s methodical approach to motion capture).

This time around, I did appreciate the movie, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover an enjoyable film. Meticulously following an actor is, after all, not without its payoffs.

For the most part, infatuation with an actor is a waiting game.

The fan, always waiting for an actor to own a role, must indefinitely watch banal movies until a real gem comes out. It can be bone-crushing work maintaining loyalty for an actor through the good times and the bad. Luckily or not for me, the bad side of Willem Dafoe harbors medieval-style genital mutilation.

Swoon over John at jsapunor@ georgetownvoice.com

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the georgetown voice 13

We’re GoinG All The Way Dear Fellow Hoyas, Georgetown’s going all the way this year! No one can stop us as we tear up the competition! We might not have any wins in the past three years in the tourney but that’s in the past and can’t happen again. THEY WERE ALL FLUKES. I mean, we nearly beat Syracuse and now they don’t have Fab Melo, which is FABulous news and they are doomed. I lined up before sunrise for every game and camped out all night before we beat ‘Nova. And you can trust me, this team is good. Ottomatic was snubbed from the awards and Henry Sims is THE Beast of the Big East. Big Man U baby! It’s going to be 1984 all over again and we’re all running to the White House and shit is gonna be off the hizzle. Who the fuck is Belmont? I don’t even know where that is. And we’re gonna roll through KU and UNC on our way to the Final Fucking Four! No one better get in our way cause it’s the Hoya Train To Mardi Gras where we’re gonna cut the nets down from Bourbon Street! We Are Georgetown! LOL! Hoya Saxa, Jack Hoya (COL ’15)

MADHURI VAIRAPANDI

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14 the georgetown voice

march 15, 2012

Hunger pains: Teens starving for better literature

by Jill Robinson March 23 is generally not a particularly memorable date. But this year, it is a day of incredible importance for a multitude of children and young adults: At 12:01a.m. on Mar. 23, 2012, the first Hunger Games movie premiers. The first book of Suzanne Collins’s trilogy appeared in print in September 2008 and has since become a critical success, having been named one of the New York Times’s “Notable Children’s Books of 2008,” translated into 26 languages, and published in 38 countries. But all this hype begs one very important question: does The Hunger Games deserve of all its acclaim?

The Hunger Games is set in a future after the destruction of North America, in a nation called Panem which consists of a wealthy capital that controls 12 surrounding, devastatingly impoverished districts.

Mostly as a means of controlling the populace, the capital selects one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to represent each

district in the “Hunger Games,” a sporting event in which the participants kill each other until only one remains. By the end of the novel, 22 children are dead, and by the end of the series, the death toll is in the thousands. Collins’s novels present violence apathetically; the books are filled with so much assault and murder that the reader stops identifying emotionally with any of the deaths. I once heard someone say that The Hunger Games is like The Departed, only five times worse, and with children. The statement was meant as a joke, but there is some truth to it: the characters are viciously massacred, and those children lucky enough to survive rarely meaningfully reflect on the deaths. The Hunger Games desensitizes people to violence to an absurd degree, particularly for the age group for which it is targeted.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics and the National Adult Literacy Survey, about 70 percent of high school students need some form of reading

remediation, and 42 million adult Americans cannot read. Clearly, there is a problem in the United States regarding literacy, which forces concessions to be made.

When the majority of kids who are behind in third grade are doomed never to catch up, it is easy to dismiss quality of literature for the sake of kids reading at all.

The middle of an educational crisis, however, is not the time to give up on education. How can teenagers be expected to read and appreciate Wuthering Heights when Twilight is celebrated as the ideal of young romance? (Never mind that every girl now wants to marry Edward Cullen and live happily ever after in an unhealthy relationship completely dependent on only one man who dictates the minutiae of her life.) On a more basic level, Twilight is a poorly edited book, riddled with grammatical and spelling errors, which cannot even pretend to be educational.

The Hunger Games is not overall a poorly written book, but the subject matter leaves much to be desired. A

friend of mine commented recently that when she was 11, she wanted to go to Hogwarts, and now children want to marry a vampire or participate in a murder for others’ entertainment. The Hunger Games is not necessarily a bad book, and I am by no means advocating a ban.

I’m simply challenging the amount of praise bestowed upon it.

It is easy to praise books like The Hunger Games and Twilight because they encourage kids to read who otherwise wouldn’t, but in doing so, these books are placed in undeservedly high esteem. Twilight is not equivalent to Wuthering Heights, and The Hunger Games does not meet the same standards as A Farewell to Arms. Publishing is a business, and any book can become best seller. It is not fair to expect students to challenge themselves when they receive the message that they should be satisfied and entertained by Twilight and The Hunger Games. A publisher’s greed—or an author’s ego—is not worth the sacrifice of a child’s education. It’s excellent that children are reading,

but quality is just as important as quantity. We want a world of intellectual thinkers who are able to interact constructively with a text.

I’m simply asking that we take a reality check before praise for these books becomes too lofty.

When we lower the quality of literature that we expect children to be satisfied with, we are disrespecting them as individuals who have the potential to become critical thinkers. Children should be encouraged and have the opportunity to read authors like Hemingway, Twain, and Shelley. At 12:01 on March 23, 2012, I will be sitting in a theater watching The Hunger Games and I’m sure the movie will be fantastic, but on March 24, I will be back in my room reading Thoreau, because that is the reading required at an education institution of this caliber.

Corp, written by Connor Jones.

Indisputably, the article was inflammatory, as evidenced by the massive amount of reader feedback. Many of the commenters demonstrated their frustration with Jones’s position and were quick to point out the flaws in his argument. However, as DeGioia wrote in his Mar. 2 letter, civil discourse must come from a place of respect for divergent perspectives. While I respectfully disagree with the purpose of Jones’s piece, I do feel that the article deserves greater attention as an example of provokative journalism.

In my experience, Corp services have strived to be in line with the mission statement of the university, in that it “aims to form individuals ... dedicated to innovation and social justice.” Not only has the Corp done a signifi-

cant amount for the Georgetown community, but it has innovated and created opportunities for the community despite the constraints of the space allocated to them. As the article correctly states, Corp Philanthropy donated well over $40,000 to student programs and initiatives, while other funds and time are donated to outside causes.

New CEO Michael West emphasizes philanthropy as driving force behind the evolution of the Corp. “Philanthropy and Service are at the heart of what we do,” West said, “and while the people we give to may change, the mission never does.”

Though the evolution of the Corp in this respect is admirable, Jones wrote about some other alleged activities of the Corp. While commenters flocked in droves to decry his selectivity and “unfair” attention to “insignificant” detail, he did not publish illegally obtained quotations. Commenters were justified in pointing out that underage drinking is commonplace on college campuses, especially within social groups. The bonds and family atmosphere that the Corp fosters simply makes it one of those social groups. They were also justified in saying that other student groups should also be examined more closely, and maybe even in saying that the recurring attention to the Corp is seemingly a result of bias.

However, this was not an exposé of the Credit Union nor the B-Frat, as some commenters pointed out. This article was writ-

ten without malicious intent as a profile of an evolving corporation, not an attack. While the article might have included new information for some readers, the information obtained from the anonymous source did not reveal anything newsworthy. The real story worth publishing, albeit perhaps not in a feature spot, is that one or more employees wanted to expose certain practices he, she, or they witnessed and perceived as wrong or flawed. However, in the process of trying to expand the piece, a decisive stance was lost for the article itself, and readers’ opinions ran the gamut. More regrettably, students from the Corp were shed in unflattering lights, especially in promoting illicit activities in emails.

West assumed the role of CEO on Mar. 1, the day of the publication. For a leader just stepping into office and for a retiring board which has sacrificed countless hours for the corporation and community, the article was both unlucky and unfair. But West is positive about the criticisms, and looking forward to taking on his new role, improving the Corp, and giving back to the Georgetown community by “shaping a place that has been my home for the past three years,” as he put it.

So instead of arguing and picking sides, I think we should heed the words of our president. DeGioia, to the glee of Jesuit professors across campus, quotes St. Augustine in his closing: “Let us, on both sides, lay aside all arrogance.

Let us not, on either side, claim

that we have already discovered the truth. Let us seek it together as something which is known to neither of us.”

While he wasn’t channeling St. Augustine to reason the dialogue on the Voice article, his intent is still applicable. The article was open for comments, allowing the community to respond and converse, and share their thoughts.

And isn’t that aligned with the mission statement of the University, the Jesuit values on which our school was founded, and the respective aims of the Corp and student media? Fostering conversation and engaging a community are noble pursuits. While the article was undeniably incendiary, it accomplished both of those goals.

Both the Voice and the Corp have something to gain from this experience. I disagree with the purpose of the original article, but I think that reading the piece in light of DeGioia’s address allows for growth. Jones’s journalistic practices were denounced and Corp baristas were called out for not wearing hats when they prepared everyone’s favorite Pygmalions. But as evidenced by the Corp motto, we’re all students, and if we listen to DeGioia we can all try to be civil, and maybe even grow up a little.

Jill Robinson is a freshman in the College. She may be reading Thoreau on Mar. 24, but she’ll want to be reading Harry Potter.

Corp controversy shows need for more civil discourse on campus

by Abby Sherburne In the past few weeks, media attention has fixed on Georgetown as a result of Rush Limbaugh’s slanderous comments against Sandra Fluke (LAW ’12). President John DeGioia came to the defense of Fluke and Georgetown women with a well-received letter to the Georgetown community.

“We have learned through painful experience that we must respect one another and we acknowledge the best way to confront our differences is through constructive public debate,” DeGioia said in his response.

Although DeGioia was referring to civil discourse in the political media front, his words are directly applicable to our campus media coverage; specifically to the Voice’s Mar. 1 feature on the

The Voice cries foul: That man being served is not a student!

RICHARD DE LA PAZ

Abby Sherburne is a sophomore in the College. She commented on the feature under the name “Sporty Spice Girl.”

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“Frothy mixture” definition hurts more than Santorum campaign

by Connor Jones Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has become an object of ridicule in popular culture.

Santorum’s statements—including ones describing how President John Kennedy’s 1960 speech on religious liberty made him want to “throw up” and claiming that Obama wanted to send more kids to college to make them liberals—raised eyebrows even inside Republican spheres.

The former Pennsylvania senator has been stumbling over phrasing for years. After a 2003 interview with the Associated Press, Rick Santorum was widely criticized as homophobic. “In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality,” Santorum said in the interview. “That’s not to pick on ho-

mosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality—” At this point, Associated Press reporter Lara Jakes Jordan stopped Santorum, and famously said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t think I was going to talk about ‘man on dog’ with a United States senator, it’s sort of freaking me out.”

If nothing else, his remarks were inarticulate. Though, in Santorum’s defense, he has listed a lot of things which are not marriage. According to some of the Senator’s own statements, “man on dog,” napkins, and paper towels are similar in that they are all not marriage.

As if to punish the senator, sex columnist Dan Savage began a campaign to shame Rick Santorum by launching a Google bomb, a technique of

FLICKR

“Now, Barack Obama doesn’t realize how marriage has never included dogs.”

Consumerism on cable

While surfing TV channels over spring break, I noticed a show on ABC called Shark Tank.

A knock-off of a British and Canadian show called Dragon’s Den, Shark Tank provides entrepreneurs and ambitious small business owners with a chance to pitch their business or product to boardroom of “sharks,” shrewd, self-made millionaire investors with a considerable talent for making money. The contestants approach the sharks requesting a specific dollar amount for a percentage of their company, make their pitch, and wait to see if the sharks care to make them an offer. Many propositions are immediately dismissed as ridiculous and hopeless, while others are so potentially lucrative that the sharks will compete with one another for the contestant’s partnership.

The show has good entertainment value, as it combines dramatic negotiations with innovative thinking and feel-good stories about hard-working people just trying to taste the American dream. However reaching a deal with the sharks is almost universally seen as a good thing, despite people often losing over 50 percent of their business for a few thousand dollars. The sharks wield all the power, as they know that these people need their investments to fulfill their dreams, and, as a result, they are able to take advantage of just a about every contestant for the sole purpose of making these self-described “filthy rich” people even wealthier.

However, even more concerning is what the show reveals about the true nature of our brand of capitalism and consumer culture.

With respect to the success of the

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tricking Google into listing certain links first in searches. Savage held a contest among his readers to determine what new definition should be given to the word “Santorum.” Once he picked one (“The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex”), Savage encouraged his supporters to link Santorum’s name to the new definition of the word. Formerly, the new definition of Santorum appeared at the top of Google searches; now, due to changes in Google’s search-rank algorithm, it appears closer to the bottom of the page.

It is often neglected in this discussion that the name Santorum is shared by many people who are completely innocent of any sort of homophobia. Savage’s neologism smears not only the former senator, but his parents, siblings, and children. In addition, children should be able to Google search a contender for President’s last name without unwittingly finding content that is entirely age-inappropriate. American schools encourage civic-mindedness among youth, but Savage and his supporters are too blinded by their hatred of the former Pennsylvania Senator to seriously consider the unintended consequences of disseminating such an obscene phrase.

In a larger sense, the Google bomb lowers national political contestants, the show actually does profess some positive principles, demonstrating considerable rewards for hard work, diligence, and innovation. It may appear easy on the show, but for the most part, those who come away from the shark tank with a smile do so because they have earned it with their sweat and brainpower. Even if they do lose a disproportionate

Carrying On

by Dan Kellner A rotating column by Voice senior staffers

amount of their business to the sharks, they still are able to earn a solid living with the investment they received on the program.

Nevertheless, with a closer look at the products and services actually being presented, we can begin to see the core problem highlighted by the show. Rather than creating items and investing in businesses that help improve society as a whole, the show encourages and rewards the invention of consumer goods that are utterly worthless to people except in their ability to provide very temporary and rather meaningless pleasure.

dialogue, which only breeds resentment and discourages open communication of ideas. Liberals sneer at Savage’s redefinition of Santorum’s name; to them, it’s a fitting punishment for Santorum’s statements on homosexuality. Fundamentally, though, the act amounts to digital name-calling. In likening a man’s name to a byproduct of a sex act, Savage and his supporters merely demonstrate their opposition; they do nothing to change the opinions of those who might actually agree with Rick Santorum. The appeal of Santorum’s campaign is largely his earnestness among conservatives, but also among the general public.

Democrats and Republicans should at least agree that Santorum’s orations on his sick daughter Isabella and on the plight of blue-collar workers are endearing. Savage’s attack on this man only tarnishes the gay rights movement in the minds of American voters.

In a country like the United States, government can change public policy, but it can’t change the way people think. For gay marriage to be legalized and for homophobia to disappear, the attitudes of the people who otherwise support Santorum’s statements need to change.

And these people cannot be ignored by coast-dwellers. National opinion and the opinions of law makers

For example, one bright group of teenagers created a line of cheaply-made bracelets called “Flipoutz.” Each bracelet was made for approximately 69 cents, though they sold for nearly five dollars in retail. Hence, if the business were to become a success, it would mean people are wasting $5 for something that really isn’t worth more than the plastic it’s made with. The bracelet, like many of the items on the show, offers no utility and is simply another scheme, though well-intended, to get people to spend their hardearned cash—cash they should be saving to invest in healthy foods, housing, education, and numerous other outlets that can improve one’s health and their society.

Of course, saving five dollars on a bracelet is not going to help pay your mortgage, but this example demonstrates a larger principle at work—that we, the consumers, frivolously spend our money on far too many useless things like novelty bracelets. This notion carries over to excessive luxury purchases, which, although we may use them in our daily lives, often far exceed what we actually need to live a healthy and enjoyable life. While voters lament the lack of affordable housing, crises in public education, and decaying infrastructure, they continue

don’t matter to homosexual youth; if their parents or their communities disapprove of them, they have no hope. Savage’s neologism only sets back this fight for hearts and minds, reemphasizing gay stereotypes.

Still, Santorum himself is hardly blameless in this controversy. Rather than provoking the ire of pro-gay activists by seemingly comparing gay marriage with “man on dog” marriage, he should have simply stopped speaking. In the original interview, the objectionable statement followed a criticism of the Supreme Court’s Lawrence v. Texas (2003) decision that the Constitution contains a right to sexual privacy. Santorum’s point, before he got off track, was that if Americans have a right to consensual sexual acts, then they have the right to bigamy and to incest.

Instead of saying that Kennedy’s speech made him physically ill, he could have emphasized the importance of faith in public life. Both the candidate’s bombast and the ensuing character assassination make for unproductive and harmful political discussions.

Connor Jones is a freshman in the College. He’s been trying to link “DeGioia” with “forehead” as a Google bomb for years. to buy numerous pairs of shoes, new clothes, touch-screen phones, and even cars that cost far beyond their families’ economic means. Not only do we diminish our own savings, but our money ends up in the hands of sharks, whose only plan for it is to create the next useless item or luxury product that we will indiscriminately spend on, and not to build schools, feed the poor, or provide a better work environment for their employees.

Consequently, while I appreciate the entertainment value of Shark Tank, it raises several crucial concerns about our consumer society. Though probably few would argue we place too much value in the acquisition of material goods, it is important that we start to understand the dire consequences of what may seem like meaningless transactions. If we can better orient our spending and investment towards the improvement of society, rather than the pursuit of useless goods, we will have found a broadly effective response to many of our nation’s core issues.

Dan Kellner is a senior in the College.

Say what he will, he already owns 13 Flipoutz in all five collectable colors.

JULIA KWON

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