8 24 2012

VOICE the georgetown

0

GEORGETOWN WELCOMES NEW DPS CHIEF PAGE 4

WOMEN’S SOCCER DOMINATES SEASON OPENER PAGE 6

YO! CHECK OUT THE SUSHI PAGE 10

Georgetown University’s Weekly Newsmagazine Since 1969  August 24, 2012  Volume 47, Issue 2  georgetownvoice.com

“Whatcha lookin’ at?”

Voice Photo Contest 2012

2 the georgetown voice

august 24, 2012

Voice Sudokuanswers at georgetownvoice.com

hot off the blog !

X VO

PREFROSH PREVIEW: YOUR HANDY GUIDE TO NSO

Georgetown law student and journalist in Syria, whereabouts unknown

Campus Plan negotiations resurrected GEORGETOWN RANKS SECOND MOST POLITICALLY ACTIVE, BEST COLLEGE CITY

georgetownvoice.com twitter.com/gtownvoice blog.georgetownvoice.com

Spotted: Jordanian Queen Rania on campus with President DeGioia

Talk Back

blog.georgetownvoice.com || georgetownvoice.com

Voice Crossword “Java Fix” by Mary Cass

ACROSS 1. Some Prosecuters (abbr.)

5. Pointed (like a gun) 10. Actress Gardner and others 14. Golfer Ballesteros

15. Game Show consonants 16. Gospel Singer Winans 17. A Yankee in Italy 19. Napolean Dynamite’s favorite animal 20. Amazonian fish 21. Night flight

answers at georgetownvoice.com 22. Triple liqueur 23. It makes dough rise 24. World Cup sport 28. Put down 29. Fed. bureau of bomb-sniffing dogs 32. “My ___” (host’s offer) 33. LPs 34. Spoken 35. Indian princess 36. Sounds of pleasure 37. Get up 38. Memo heading (abbr.)

39. “Hey Juliet” ‘90s group 40. Desist 41. Sweet ___, from It’s Always Sunny 42. Brainstorm 43. Like some Star Wars troopers 44. The “R” in NPR 46. Madrid’s Mrs. 47. Joe 49. Massacre instrument 54. Like ___ thumb 55. Frozen chocolate 56. British greeting?

57. In the area 58. Parisian ponds?

59. Affirms 60. Barbizon painter Jules 61. Well-protected attribute

DOWN 1. Immediately (abbr.)

2. Actress Moore 3. Declare 4. “Bouna ___” 5. One who takes a bow?

6. Sir Newton 7. Range parts (abbr.)

8. ‘80s “Telephone Wire” band 9. Oppoite of up (abbr.)

10. Stomach fillers 11. Meat-free 12. Card game ___-deucy 13. Bone dry 18. Enlarged area on a map 19. Head 21. Georgetown science building 23. Big Boat

24. Classy violin (abbr.)

25. Speak 26. J. Geil’s band 80s hit 27. Genesis firstborn 28. Bleeding Love singer ___ Lewis 30. Parisian cup 31. Runs away from 33. Juliet’s beau 34. Double-stuffed cookie 36. ___ but a goodie 40. Argue 42. Un bon brainstorm 43. Lullaby rocker 57. Schoolboy 58. Elvis Presley’s “___ Lost You” 59. Half a score

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

Email crossword@georgetownvoice.com

editorial

georgetownvoice.com

VOICE the georgetown

Volume 47.2 August 24, 2012 Editor-in-Chief: Leigh Finnegan Managing Editor: Keaton Hoffman Blog Editor: Vanya Mehta News Editor: Gavin Bade Sports Editor: Kevin Joseph Feature Editor: Connor Jones Cover Editor: Neha Ghanshamdas Leisure Editor: Mary Boroweic Voices Editor: Claire McDaniel Photo Editor: Lucia He Design Editors: Amanda Dominquez, Madhuri Vairapandi Projects Editors: Christie Geaney, Cannon Warren Puzzles Editor: Tyler Pierce Assistant Blog Editors: Morgan Manger, Jamie Niu Assistant News Editors: Julia Jester, Matt Weinmann Assistant Sports Editor: Steven Criss Assistant Leisure Editors: Will Collins, Julia Lloyd-George, Kirill Makarenko Assistant Photo Editors: Julian de la Paz, Matt Thees Assistant Design Editors: Lauren Ashley Panawa

Staff Writers:

Jane Conroy, Shom Mazumder, Matt Pacana, Paul Quincy, Heather Regen, Adam Rosenfeld, Melissa Sullivan, Fatima Taskomur, Ambika Tripathi

Staff Photographers:

Max Blodgett, Kirill Makarenko, Tim Markatos

Copy Chief: Tori Jovanovski Copy Editors:

Patricia Cipollitti, Kim Tay

Editorial Board Chair: Rachel Calvert Editorial Board:

Aisha Babalakin, Gavin Bade, Patricia Cipollitti, Nico Dona Dalle Rose, Keaton Hoffman, Julia Jester, Linnea Pittman, Cole Stangler

Head of Business: Aarohi Vora Business Staff: Sara Ainsworth, Zoe Disselkoen, Meghan Fitzpatrick, Charmaine Ng

The Georgetown Voice

The Georgetown Voice is published every Thursday.

This newspaper was made possible in part with the support of Campus Progress, a project of the Center for American Progress,

online at CampusProgress.org. Campus Progress works to help young people — advocates, activists, journalists, artists — make their voices heard on issues that matter. Learn more at CampusProgress.org.

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

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

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

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

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

On this week’s cover: I am ___ Cover Design: Neha Ghanshamdas (SFS ‘14)

the georgetown voice 3 SAFETY DANCE

New DPS chief should change safety priorities Earlier this summer, Jay Gruber replaced Rocco DelMonaco as Georgetown’s newest Department of Public Safety chief. Gruber has been nationally recognized for his proficiency in emergency management and communication on college campuses, an accolade that can only benefit Georgetown. Erik Smulson, Vice President of Public Affairs, expressed his confidence and hope for the new DPS chief, and he’s not the only one—students can only hope that the new chief can change DPS’s skewed priorities.

According to its website, “DPS works closely with the Metropolitan Police Department and District of Columbia Fire Department to prevent and deter crime on campus and in the surrounding communities and respond quickly to incidents that may arise.”

Despite this declaration, DPS spends a significant amount of its time and energy monitoring parties and and busting those involving underage drinking or marijuana use.

While student safety is important, focusing

campus police efforts so heavily on breaking up rowdy parties doesn’t help prevent sexual assault and robberies—two issues of which students are constantly reminded by the influx of Public Safety Alert emails in our inboxes. Last September’s crime statistics included 42 incidences of theft, burglary, sexual assaults and threats, and alcohol and drug violations. Of these crimes, alcohol and drug violations are the least threatening to student safety.

Last spring, after a number of sexual assault incidences were reported within a short time span, DPS sent a dubious email suggesting that to prevent sexual assaults, women should simply refrain from walking alone at night. Rather than patrolling streets looking for college partiers, DPS should focus its energy on ensuring that all of its officers are trained to adequately respond to sexual assaults. According to Justice Department statistics, fewer than five percent of completed or attempted rapes of college women are reported to law

enforcement—far below the still-horrifying national average of 40 percent. Considering that one in four women are assaulted during their undergraduate career at Georgetown, this low reporting rate is appalling at best.

As enforcers of the student code of conduct, Department of Public Safety should devote resources to investigating sexual assault allegations and preventing further assaults.

The 2010 Campus Plan filings make it clear that snuffing out off-campus parties is a priority for the administration, as a way to placate neighbors who groan about raucous late-night events. However, DPS policing should be in service of students, not the University.

Georgetown is a college campus. Naturally, there will be partying and underage drinking. But thefts and sexual assaults should not be commonplace. We, the student body, urge Gruber to reevaluate the priorities of DPS in recent years, and work more toward protecting students’ safety.

D.C. UNITED

Corporate donation petition overly scrutinized The D.C. Board of Elections is throwing out almost one-third of the signatures collected by the D.C. Committee to Restore Public Trust in favor of a ballot initiative that, if passed, would ban corporate donations in D.C. elections. The Board should reconsider its onerous standards for what constitutes a valid signature­—these requirements unnecessarily impede direct democracy and, in this case, could shut down one of the most worthwhile initiatives being considered in the District.

When the Committee to Restore Public Trust submitted 30,000 signatures, the Board of Elections threw out roughly 9,000 of them, citing illegibility, duplicate signatures, missing addresses, or mismatched addresses. This left the group 1,726 signatures short of the 13,298-signature threshold to put the initiative on the ballot in November.

The D.C. Committee to Restore Public Trust, the group spearheading the initiative, believes that the board made critical errors in its assessment of the signatures, counting 24,500 legitimate signatures by its own esti-

mates. “Our review finds that Initiative 70 clearly qualified for the ballot, and we expect the court will agree,” said Bryan Weaver, a former ANC commissioner who is leading the campaign.

In the case of mismatched signatures— people who listed addresses that do not correspond to their voter registrations—the Board of Elections is applying overly specific standards to qualifying signatures. As Weaver put it, “There’s definitely an element of voter intent.”

“There are 3,100 people in the District who wanted this but moved or put down the wrong address,” he told the Washington Post.

“These people are in the system, they’re registered voters, but their addresses are different from what’s on file.”

Following the landmark 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the national trend has been to liberalize corporate campaign contributions. If passed, this ballot initiative would be a small step towards reversing this trend.

While the legal future of Initiative 70 is in limbo, the positive impact it would have on the D.C. political scene is unquestionable.

Currently, corporations in the District are treated the same as citizens and are allowed to contribute directly to campaigns with an $8,500 total cap per election.

Considering the relative size of D.C. political campaigns, even a small amount of corporate money by national standards can significantly disrupt a local election. In the 2010 mayoral race, only $7 million was raised between the two leading candidates, Adrian Fenty and Vincent Gray. In elections of that scale, every dollar of corporate financing can unfairly tip the scales in one candidate’s favor—to the disadvantage of D.C. residents who don’t sit on corporate boards.

As the city remains embroiled in a scandal surrounding Mayor Vincent Gray’s campaign finances, eliminating corporate contributions is an easy way to both restore public confidence in the political process and to ensure that D.C. remains a functioning democracy.

“I” IS FOR INEQUALITY

Public schools more deserving of city funding

It’s back to school time in the District, and that means charter school advocates are again clamoring for more money.

As they see it, charters are relegated to a second-class status because they receive less funding than public schools even as their enrollment continues to swell. On the surface, they seem to have a point. Charter enrollment has grown tenfold since 2001 and they now serve 41 percent of students in the District.

But the hoax that charters offer a solution to the woes of public education is just that. Charter schools require a student’s family to opt-in. You must make the effort to get the paperwork, enter the admissions lotteries, find transportation etc. On the other hand, the traditional public school is the default option—where kids are sent if they or their parents take no action at all.

This means many of the most at-risk children—with busy or neglectful parents, for

instance—end up at these schools. When a traditional public school is functional, it provides quality education for everyone.

When a charter is the only good option, some of the most disadvantaged children are put in a dead-end situation by no fault of their own.

It makes much more sense to give financial and legislative support to the default option—traditional public schools— rather than the one that requires high parental involvement and a big dose of luck in the admissions lottery to enroll.

We should not expect young students to pull themselves out of a bad school and into a charter, and we should not require that a child be born with involved parents to receive a quality education. If we are truly the land of opportunity, we must provide exemplary schooling to everyone, and traditional public institutions are the only answer.

The charter movement clearly has some success stories, but at its base the upwelling of support for them is a cop-out, an admittance we consider our traditional public schools beyond repair and don’t care to fix them. In the District and across the country, we face a clear choice: We can either pawn off our children’s education to vaguely altruistic corporations who will treat our schools as businesses and deliver education on the cheap, or truly commit ourselves to building and financing a public education system that works for all. What we need today is a paradigm shift in education reform. Supporting and improving our traditional public schools must be the first priority for lawmakers if they value giving every child the shot at a good education, and that means the D.C. government must not divert more scarce funds to the inherently unequal model of charter schooling.

news

4 the georgetown voice

august 24, 2012

New DPS Chief focuses on community engagement

by Matthew Weinmann Since July 30, there’s been a new top cop on the beat at Georgetown. Jay Gruber was selected as the new DPS Chief at the end of last year, after spending 25 years in campus safety at the University of Maryland. He says he is here to integrate and communicate with the entire Georgetown community and mount an assault on property crime around campus.

such as informational systems, records, homeland security, and emergency preparedness.

Before leaving the University of Maryland, Gruber worked for six months at the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a part of the Police Executive Fellowship Program. In the program, he trained campus safety departments to look out for what the FBI calls “tripwires”—behaviors and traits that might indicate a potential terror-

Matthew Weinmann

Jay Gruber, the new head of the Georgetown Department of Public Safety Gruber began at the bottom at UMD, working from the police academy up through the ranks, serving as the Assistant Chief of Police and Assistant Director of Public Safety during his final 10 years. In that final role he managed the technology services bureau, which covered areas

ist. His energy and enthusiasm are evident, even when he says he has been at work since 6 a.m.

Gruber says that his first priority here at Georgetown is to learn, and points to his experience as an asset in understanding his new community. “I know the landscape, but the map here is very dif-

ferent,” he said in an interview. “I need to understand all the dynamics and relationships on campus and within the department before I would make any changes. I need to know how a system works.”

To that end, the new chief has been meeting with members of the ANC to discuss the campus plan and its implementation.

“I’ve been here three and a half weeks,” said Gruber, “so I’m trying to absorb all that.”

But while the new chief says he is on the lookout for potential areas of improvement, he doesn’t want to shake things up unnecessarily. “I’m not a person who makes changes just to make change,” he said.

Improving the efficiency of Georgetown’s safety systems is one of those areas where Gruber sees room for growth. “Georgetown has a real nice foundation for a lot of their safety and infrastructure,” he said. He believes that the GOCard office does a good job, along with the lock shop and DPS, but that more integration can streamline processes.

“I think there would be economies of scale by taking those functions and taking a look at how they can be integrated better,” Gruber said, either “under one roof, or under one system of management.”

Gruber’s last job at the University of Maryland did not involve much day-to-day contact with students, but in his new job he thinks that will change.

“It is important for me to

keep the community involved,” Gruber said. “Over the course of the next few weeks and the next month Stacy Kerr and I will be working together to find the best venue to get information out.”

In an email, Kerr added that giving Gruber time to become acquainted with Georgetown before beginning to communicate with students “gives us the benefit of having these communications be authentic and insightful, which will make them the most effective to the wider community.”

Gruber acknowledges the need to emphasize property crime, especially that involving laptops. He wants to reduce theft by educating the student body, working with the bookstore to provide students with locking devices, and using DPS to find those who are here to commit crime.

“Everybody on campus has to take a stake in the security of campus,” Gruber said. “We’re counting on you guys to be our eyes and ears.”

But while he wants to protect students’ belongings, Gruber says the first priority is always guarding their health and wellness by preventing crimes like sexual assault and armed robbery. “On a college campus there is zero tolerance for crime, there is a less-thanzero tolerance for crimes against persons,” Gruber said.

When it comes to policing and breaking up student parties, the new chief says it’s sometimes necessary, but “we

don’t like doing that, we would rather be doing other things.”

As for student activists and protesters, Gruber says they need not be concerned with him, but rather the administration. “A university environment is a place that espouses free speech, and we support that 100 percent,” Gruber said. “It is not public safety’s role to say ‘you can’t do that.’” If there is a disruption at an event, Gruber will be looking for direction from a University official.

“If a student unfurled a banner on Healy, I’m not sending people up there to arrest them or cut it down. I’m going to wait for a University official,” he said.

Overall, Gruber wants to continue improving his department and increasing community engagement by having officers go out and the community come in. He’s already reached out to GUSA President Clara Gustafson (SFS ’13).

“He met with me in his first week” Gustafson said, “which makes me very excited.”

But Gruber says he wants to do more, such as engaging members of the community in meetings and bringing in cultural, LGBT, and women’s groups to talk about the services that DPS can offer.

“I think when you educate the officers about the resources on campus they can be more effective,” he said. “So...I want to continue the professionalism of the department and increase community engagement. Those are two big things for me.”

CAG installs neighborhood cameras Regents Hall is ready

by Julia Jester The Citizens Association of Georgetown (CAG) announced earlier this week that it will be installing security cameras in the Georgetown residential area. The project, spearheaded

by CAG President Jennifer Altemus, will begin with installing three security cameras for a test period, after which, the CAG board has authorized the installation of six to seven additional cameras. In a letter to the neighborhood, Altemus writes: Dear Neighbors, In response to serious and widespread community concerns about public safety, the Citizens Association of Georgetown has broadened its Public Safety Program. It has taken a while to come together but

this week we are installing security cameras in various locations throughout the residential community. We hope that the presence of these cameras will act as a deterrent to crime and assist the Metropolitan Police Department with criminal investigations.

The increase in security cameras was prompted by intense public concern for residents’ safety after a man was assaulted and robbed on T Street in the early hours of the morning on Aug. 15.

The CAG is encouraging blocks that are not covered by the program to purchase their own cameras and connect them to the CAG, which will then manage them. Diane Colasanto, member of the Committee of Public Safety, released a mes-

sage explaining how the system works. First, it is not actively monitored, but rather stores images for a predetermined time period before deleting them.

Additionally, there is a set of rules in place regarding who is allowed to view the stored images and under which circumstances they can be viewed.

It is still not known whether the Citizens Association of Georgetown will use the images to pursue instances of public intoxication and other similar offenses, as they did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Primarily, however, thesystem is intended to prevent violent crime and robberies and to help Metro police solve criminal investigations within the neighborhood.

Kirill Makarenko

The construction of Regents Hall is nearly complete and professors are continuing the process of moving lab equipment into the new structure. The hall is wholly dedicated to the sciences, and the structure mostly contains laboratories, split evenly between teaching and research labs. Although Regents currently holds few research capacities over Reiss, the infrastructure of the building allows for expansion. The building opens to the general public on Monday.­— Connor Jones

news

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice 5

Tensions begin to rise between ANC student candidates

by Gavin Bade This November, Georgetown students will have the opportunity to elect two representatives to the Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) for the first time.

Peter Prindiville (SFS ‘14) and Craig Cassey Jr. (COL ‘15) have announced their intention to replace Jake Sticka (COL ‘13). Sticka currently occupies the only student seat on the panel responsible for neighborhood governance and working with the University to implement the 2010 Campus Plan passed last year. The two aspirants share a common goal of standing up for students in a system domi-

lUCia he

ANC Candidate Craig Cassey Jr.

nated by the neighbors, but that doesn’t mean they are seeing completely eye to eye in the election.

One major source of tension between the candidates comes from campaign strategy. To qualify for the November ballot, potential candidates needed to collect 25 signatures from residents in their district between July 9 and Aug. 8. Prindiville picked up his papers the first day they were available and turned them in four days later, making him the second candidate in the entire District to do so. Cassey, by contrast, never collected the required number of signatures. He now plans to run a write-in campaign. His failure to get his name on the ballot did not sit well with Prindiville. When asked what he thought of Cassey, Prindiville said, “I don’t think it’s really appropriate for me to say. What I would say is that he missed the deadline to submit his petition statements.”

For his part, Cassey says he worked extensively with the Georgetown College Democrats and D.C. Students Speak to register students to vote in the District.

However, “One thing I did not focus on in particular,” he said, “was registering students who would be here in the summer. In hindsight I think it is important to have registered voters who will be on campus in the summer for when the petition process occurs.” Cassey also pointed to difficulties with registration for students, saying “Although I got close to the amount of petitions needed to

The high price of ignorance

Never before has the United States occupied a sovereign country for as extended a period of time as it has Afghanistan. That’s quite a record for a country with an imperialist tradition as rich as our own. And yet, a war has perhaps never received such scant attention in an election cycle as Afghanistan does today.

In 2004, the Iraq War was the defining characteristic of the campaign between the sitting President and his Democratic challenger.

And just four years ago, the current occupant of the White House leveraged intense popular opposition to the Iraq War to catapult himself to the nation’s highest office. Of course, the last American military action on a scale similar to Iraq, the war in Vietnam, was the subject of intense political and media scrutiny during the presidential campaigns of 1968 and 1972.

But with the current Commander-in-Chief having beefed up the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, and the Republican Party at a loss to outflank his aggressive strategy, there seems to be a general consensus that the U.S. is there to stay.

Whether or not the U.S. will actually stick to the planned exit of NATO forces in 2014 just isn’t up for debate this election season. This flies in the face of public opinion: Polls show a strong majority of Americans are opposed to the war and want to speed up the withdrawal date. A growing group even thinks the United States shouldn’t have intervened in the first place.

But even if the political class is willing to disregard public opinion, it’s upsetting that the war hasn’t even entered the fiscal austerity discussion that dominates in Washington. If the Republican Party’s rhetoric on “balancing the

be put on the ballot, a lot of students had not updated their ballots to their current locations... In the future I’d like to make it easier for people to, first off, change their registration to their current address.”

That reasoning didn’t hold water for Prindiville. “I picked up my petitions the first day they were available,” he said. “I had consistent contact with students, faculty members, chaplins-in-residence who lived within my district starting two months before the petition period. I made Freedom of Information request to get voter rolls.

I was ready...The argument that there aren’t students on campus has some validity, but I would just point to my case and say not only did I do it, but I did it in four days.”

Prindiville also pointed to the Jesuit Residence, which is in Cassey’s district, as a place where he could have collected more signatures. But Cassey said that location posed its own problems. “There were Jesuits who were abroad,” he said. “There were Jesuits who were here and who signed my petition—happily so...

And there were some who were not registered to vote in D.C. ... I just simply can’t say why. But I can say that in terms of the Jesuits who were interested they all supported the idea of more students on the ANC.” While qualms over the ballot petitions probably won’t have much impact on how either candidate would govern, their policy proposals are a point of contestation as well. budget” were to be taken in good faith—which it shouldn’t be— then it would be focused intensely on the fiscal waste of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan. An estimate from the Congressional Budget Office put the cost of the war at $443 billion from 2001 to 2011.

And yet for all of the GOP’s mouth-foaming obsession with the national debt or its ideological

Union Jack

by Cole Stangler

A bi-weekly column on national politics and policy leader-cum-vice presidential nominee’s dreams of bludgeoning what remains of our nation’s social safety net, most Republicans remain blind to the cost of the war. The more than 80,000 troops currently stationed in Afghanistan jack up the debt much faster than, say, food stamps or child care services —both programs that the GOP has voted to slash. To be sure, the Dem-

lUCia he

ANC Candidate Peter Prindiville hopes to bring a policy wonk attitude to the ANC. The two men align on many of the big issues, such as their opinions of the campus plan and a desire to increase student involvement in the ANC, but Prindiville has amassed a long list of specific plans and goals, while Cassey has yet to go public with detailed proposals. This concerns Prindiville. When asked if he would write in Cassey if he lived in his district, Prindiville balked. “I don’t think I could say at this point,” he said. “I haven’t seen enough policy related statements to really make an informed decision... And it is about policy in the end. It’s about what you think and what you want to see done.” He went on to say that it would be “great” if another candidate surfaced in Cassey’s district, saying it has been too long since there was a contested ANC election.

“I will make public my opinions on policies in place, and the policies I hope to see put in place in the fuocrats are just as complicit. While they may be slightly more open to cutting military spending than their Republican counterparts, they’ve mostly embraced the war in Afghanistan, gladly preferring to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and the needy rather than look “weak on terrorism”— the ultimate sin in contemporary American politics.

When the war does come up on the campaign trail, its treatment is embarrassingly vague, as the war journalist David Wood recently noted. But beyond not acknowledging popular frustration with the war, neither presidential candidate has even bothered to spell out a substantive plan over the next five years to the American or Afghan public. Instead, Obama and Romney prefer cheap rhetoric and soundbites, like promising to make sure Afghanistan doesn’t become a “safe haven for terrorists.” Be prepared to hear

ture,” Cassey said in response. He also downplayed the importance of policy at this point in the race.

“A position like this is multidimensional and it warrants more than just a focus on policy,” he said.

“Yes, a focus on policy partially is important. Being able though to maintain relationships with other individuals outside in the community is also important to this role.”

Either way, when asked if he knew enough at this point to deserve election Cassey remained confident. “To be elected, yes. Will I be learning more in the future to continue to do more than a simply adequate job? Certainly. Being on the ANC board isn’t just about knowing things now. It’s about content, that information... And so I will say I am still in the process of gathering all the information that I can and I will not stop doing that, and that’s part of the job.” that line surface again and again in presidential debates if Afghanistan does come up.

In his later years, the recently deceased polemicist Gore Vidal was sometimes criticized for going overboard in his long-winded, mostly over dramatic comparisons of the decline of the United States to the fall of Rome. As it turns out, that empire also bankrupted itself with foreign military excursions ignored by political elites back home as its civil and political institutions crumbled. That, of course, was another time completely. But with the current bipartisan consensus about the course this war so blatantly defying public opinion and political logic and fiscal responsibility -- not to mention blocking any substantive discussion -- it’s hard to say that Vidal wasn’t onto something.

Want to go to war with Cole?

Email him at cstangler@georgetownvoice.com

sports

6 the georgetown voice

august 24, 2012

Corboz leads 2-0 Hoyas into JMU Invitational

by Keith Levinsky Georgetown women’s soccer (2-0) opened the 2012 season last weekend with victories over George Washington and University of Delaware. On Friday, the Hoyas downed the Colonials 2-0 at North Kehoe, and then traveled to Newark, DL, on Sunday and defeated the Blue Hens 2-0.

Against GW, the Hoyas controlled play in the first half but had some difficulty finding the back of the net, firing 11 unsuccessful shots in the opening half.

Junior forward Colleen Dinn registered three of those shots, while sophomore midfielder Daphne Corboz registered two. GW goalkeeper Nicole Fasano saved all of the attempts, except for one of Corboz’s that banged off the crossbar. It wasn’t until the 56th minute, though, that the Hoyas took the lead. Corboz crossed the ball into the box to sophomore forward Jessica Clinton. Clinton controlled the ball and passed it to Dinn, who knocked it inside the far post of the goal.

Only nine minutes later the Blue and Gray increased its advantage, with Dinn assisting the goal this time. The junior forward sent a cross to freshman midfielder Marina Paul, who aimed a one-time shot past Fasano. The Hoyas controlled possession for much of the game and dominated the shot tally, 18-5, and the corner total, 14-0.

Georgetown defenders senior Claire Magliola and juniors Emily Menges and Mary Kroening allowed the Colonials only a few scoring opportunities. When the final whistle blew, Georgetown had its first win of the year, 2-0.

“We handled GW as well as we have ever handled them,” said head coach Dave Nolan.

“It’s always a big game for them on their schedule and it’s never an easy battle.”

Georgetown did not wait nearly as long to take the lead against Delaware on Sunday. In the 13th minute, Corboz ripped a shot from just outside of the box that beat Delaware goalkeeper Jessica Levy.

“I thought we did a good job against [Delaware], because they put on the pressure early on and we didn’t crack,” Nolan said. “In the second half, we became more comfortable.”

The Hoyas had to protect their lead at the start of the second half, as the Blue Hens had three chances on goal, two of which were saved by sophomore goalkeeper Emma Newins. Georgetown quickly responded, with a goal in the 68th minute to take a 2-0 lead. Corboz played the ball to junior forward Kaitlin Brenn, who was 15 yards away from goal. Brenn spun and slotted the ball past Levy for the decisive goal.

The Hoyas barely out-shot the Blue Hens 8-7, and both teams gained four corners. Newins recorded three saves while Corboz tallied a goal and an assist.

“Daphne is a very special talent,” Nolan said. “She is probably the purest soccer player we have ever had in regards to understanding the game.”

The Blue and Gray will look to stay undefeated this weekend at the James Madison Invitational. The Hoyas kick-off the tournament on Friday night against host James Madison, and will end on Friday when they take on Hofstra.

MATT THEES

Mary Kroening anchors a strong defensive unit for Coach Dave Nolan.

“[JMU and Hofstra] are probably thinking, as many teams are, that this is the year to

get Georgetown,” Nolan said.

“People are expecting us to be down, but I think that we are

going to surprise a lot of people.

I don’t think we are as down as people hope.”

The Sports Sermon

“[Ryan] goes out on one-night stands. He’s not able to give fully to a relationship because he’s always on the go.” -Ike Lochte on her son, Ryan giate level, especially on the Hilltop. The Georgetown program has been fortunate with big men – Back in January, Fox Sports a list that includes Patrick Ewing, ran a slideshow on what they Alonzo Mourning, and most redeemed to be the worst contract cently, Greg Monroe. Head coach on each NBA team. While some John Thompson III realizes playof their conclusions are arguable, ers like Monroe don’t grow on by my count, 19 of those contracts trees, though. With that in mind, belonged to big men – players his recruiting has indeed moved that can play center or power forto a model similar to Riley’s. ward, but nothing more.

“We knew a few years ago In today’s NBA, height is at we wanted bigger and longer,” a premium. When free agency Thompson told Jon Rothstein. started this summer, Indiana cen“As a coach, you get caught up in ter and former Hoya Roy Hibbert how you want to play. I know for was the first to receive a major me personally, I want to play with offer, as Portland offered him a guys who are really long and not maximum four-year, $58 million classified as a specific position.” contract. Now, in Hibbert’s case, Logic like Thompson’s and numbers alone do not paint a Riley’s really starts to tap into comprehensive picture. Though what could make this iteration consistently trending upward, of the Hoyas successful. So what Hibbert hasn’t averaged a double if sophomore Otto double in his entire Porter is lanky? His four-year career.

Pete Rose Central preternatural reAnd that’s where Da bettin’ line bounding ability is a big man’s statistical Margin Dookies Hoyas second to none on value can be thrown (duh!) (underdogs) the roster, reflected out the window. The (favorites) in his team-high 6.8 rest of the league recOcho Cinco NFL future rebounds per game ognized Hibbert’s Honey Badger Kyrie Irving Unibrow and making him impact on games, Anthony Davis Sanchez Tebow God ideal for Georgenaming him to his town’s offense. Simfirst All-Star game ilarly, sophomore Greg Whitments during the Heat’s chamlast season. In the playoffs, even tington may have the height of pionship run, seven-footers like superhuman LeBron James hesia power forward, but why not Joel Anthony did not see the tated before driving on Hibbert. utilize his lockdown abilities on floor. Instead, versatile players The former Georgetown star, dedefense at shooting guard? like James spread the floor, nulspite a limited statistical impact, is One has to keep in mind that lifying the archaic model still a defensive monster and, conseThompson’s model is still in its present with some rosters. quently, one of the five best ceninfantile stages. Porter and WhitAs athleticism becomes a ters in the league. tington are the only evident exgreater component of basketball, But that logic is also what gets amples of the position-less model; both at the professional and colteams into trouble – general manjunior Nate Lubick, for instance, legiate level, we will see more of agers drool over height and throw won’t be tasked with guarding Riley’s model. The U.S. Men’s money whenever such a rare coma smaller player or handling the Olympic team just came back modity comes to pass. Instances ball anytime soon. from London after winning the like Hibbert’s, where the center deBut, as Riley, James, and same way. James and Carmelo velops and improves consistently, the Heat proved this past Anthony played significant are rare, making the center gamble season, the model is feasible minutes at center for the team. a franchise-crippler at times. and, with the right personFor both teams, it was a necesSimply put, there are not too nel, can be wildly successful. sary step, as well as a reflection many great centers out there.

Thompson was ahead of the of the dearth of big men on their And thus, if a team is incapable curve too – but with Miami respective rosters. of acquiring one of those elite as the model, position-less With basketball moving in seven-footers, why bother overbasketball just got a lot more this direction, it is refreshing to see paying for a mediocre version? prominent. the model flow over to the colleThat thinking worked just fine

by Kevin Joseph

for Pat Riley and the Miami Heat, who just won their first NBA Championship in June.

Riley, the Heat’s team president and one of the pioneers of this model, advocates for “position-less basketball.” “The game today is different than it was five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago,” Riley told the Sun Sentinel.

“It’s sort of a position-less game.

We don’t talk about point guards anymore, two guards or shooting guards or power forwards. As a matter of fact, when the word ‘power forward’ comes out, I want to eat some oatmeal.”

Of course, that position-less model becomes significantly more successful with James, a mammoth small forward capable of playing all five positions, at the forefront. In critical mo-

sports

Soccer set to open versus UVA

by Steven Criss The Georgetown men’s soccer team returned to the field midway through August to take on Old Dominion University and Villanova University in two preseason exhibition games. Each match yielded victories for the Hoyas, in which the team scored three goals per game. Old Dominion only managed to score once on the Georgetown defense, while three different members of the offense sent shots past the keeper. The team then shut out Villanova, with two goals scored by two different Hoya players and the third put in by Villanova’s own defense.

The strong five-goal offensive performance is a promising sign going into the start of the season today against the University of Virginia. Although these games were only exhibition matches, the

MAX BLODGETT

Steve Neumann leads the Hoyas.

goal-scoring potential shown by the forwards points to a more successful start than last year in terms of offense. During the 2011 season, the Hoyas were held to two goals or fewer in their first six games, with wins in only three. Keeping up their current pace would mean a much stronger start to the season.

The defensive half made quite a showing, only allowing a single goal in the two matches. Leading the Georgetown defense is senior Jimmy Nealis, who was not only named to the All Big East preseason team, but was honored as the Preseason Co-Defender of the Year. Nealis has been starting on the squad’s defensive back for three years now and was a major asset in last year’s seven shutouts.

Also receiving preseason honors were junior forward Steve Neumann and senior midfielder Ian Christianson. Both were named to the All Big East preseason team, and not for the first time; Neumann has been named to the team once before and Christianson twice before.

These two players were Georgetown’s top scorers last season, with Neumann holding 11 goals and Christianson with six. Each of them will also be captains of this year’s team. In addition to these accomplishments, Neumann was selected as part of the MAC Hermann Trophy Watch List.

The men’s team will be returning numerous key players

Nats misguided on Strasburg Most people know that D.C. has a Major League Baseball team, but much fewer know that that team is poised to make the playoffs for the first time in its sevenyear history. As of Thursday, the Washington Nationals are in first place by six games in the NL East, a division in which the Nationals have been perennial cellar dwellers since their inception. Despite all of this exciting news, it would probably be smart for Nationals faithfuls to temper their expectations just a tad, because the team is about to shut down star pitcher Stephen Strasburg for the rest of the season. According to manager Davey Johnson, the shutdown will result in Strasburg likely missing two to three starts in addition to the entire playoffs.

The arguments for an innings limit are clear. After hav-

ing Tommy John surgery in late 2010, Strasburg needs to be protected from overuse. Many scouts have stated that Strasburg’s aggressive pitching motion puts him at serious risk for injury, which is something that would obviously make the Nationals cautious, as they are counting on Strasburg to remain one of the faces of the franchise.

There are numerous stories of young phenom pitchers who have thrown out their arms before they reached their prime; the Nationals are trying to keep Strasburg from becoming one of those burnouts as best they can.

With such a talented young team (the sixth youngest in MLB), the Nationals have reason to believe that they’ll be serious contenders in future years, but only if that future includes Strasburg.

from the 2011 season, including nine starters, one of whom is sophomore goalkeeper Tomas Gomez. Gomez put on a solid season last year as a freshman, and with a spring and summer of training under his belt should be dependable once again for the Hoyas. Although the schedule includes many talented opponents, the team’s prior experience will allow them to fight for a chance at a Big East title.

In the preseason rankings poll, Georgetown is projected to finish third in the Blue Division.

This is an improvement upon last year’s projection, in which the team was expected to finish fourth. As of now, the team has been focusing on their forthcoming match against the University of Virginia on Friday evening.

UVA received votes in the NCAA preseason ranking while Georgetown did not, meaning it is not a team that should be taken lightly.

With a recruiting class that is said to rival past years in skill and ability, the returners will have a competitive group to work with and improve alongside. All top five scorers from last year are back for this 2012 season, improving the Hoyas’ chances for a Big East title this year. The out-of-conference play will also contribute to the team’s building and development throughout the season, and give it an opportunity to better compete within the Big East.

Still, despite all of these arguments, the Nationals are making a mistake by shutting down Strasburg. Baseball is an unpredictable game, and no team is ever guaranteed success. Even the big spenders sometimes struggle; two of the league’s top three teams with regard to payroll - the Red Sox and the Phillies - are having terrible years, With

Unsportsmanlike Conduct

by Alex Lau a bi-weekly column about sports even these heavy spenders tending to be unpredictable, it’s tough for a team with an average-sized payroll, such as the Nationals, to say with full confidence that they will contend for a title in the future.

So, maybe the Nationals are finally looking to become big spenders. One really smart way to do that is to attract lots of fans,

the georgetown voice 7

Coach Kevin Warne

What Rocks

georgetownvoice.com

Last week, Kevin Warne was named head coach of Georgetown lacrosse. He replaces the legendary Dave Urick, who led the program to 223 wins and 12 top-ten year-end rankings in his 23 years in command. Warne comes from an assistant coaching position at University of Maryland, where he won 25 games in two years and helped the team to the NCAA National Championship game in both 2011 and 2012. Both years, the Terrapins finished the season ranked second in the nation.

Warne has also been on the coaching staff at Harvard, UMBC, and the University of Delaware as an assistant coach, where he built a reputation for being one of the best defensive-minded staff members in collegiate lacrosse. While at Harvard, Warne helped the team reach a No. 11 ranking and led the defense to the

something the Nationals have failed to do before this year. But if I was a fan of the Nationals and my team was in first place in the division, I certainly would not want that team sitting the man that played a big part in putting them on top. Come playoff time, pitchers tend to play a big role; a team that’s able to put an ace out on the mound twice in a fivegame series has a huge advantage. And if the Nationals do not want to use Strasburg that much, then just having him make one start is good enough.

And even if the innings limit is a good idea, why didn’t the Nationals have Strasburg skip some starts to save him for the playoffs?

It’s not as if this team recently went on a magical run; they’ve been leading their division for a while now. Why didn’t the team have Strasburg rest against bad teams or take him out of a few

third-lowest goals allowed per game in 2009. Warne was also named one of the top assistant coaches by ESPN before the 2010 season. That season, Harvard was able to defeat Princeton for the first time in 20 years.

“I’m really excited to name Kevin Warne as head coach for our men’s lacrosse program,” Georgetown University Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Lee Reed said in a statement.

“Kevin’s commitment to student-athlete welfare and his passion for the game makes him the perfect person to take over our lacrosse program at this time.”

“He is considered to be one of the top young assistants in the country and he has a terrific track record of success as an assistant coach, including appearances in the last two national championship games,” said Reed. “We welcome Kevin to the Hoya family and look forward to working with him to build on the great tradition and success of Georgetown lacrosse.”

Warne becomes the 12th head coach of the men’s lacrosse program in the past 50 years. He inherits a young team that finished 7-6 last season.

-Chris Almeida Photo by Georgetown Sports Information

games a little earlier, saving him for when it really mattered? Shutting down Strasburg is bad for everyone involved with the Nationals. Strasburg will come to think of himself as fragile, which will not be good for his self-confidence.

Team morale will also go down, as teammates will see the franchise babying one of the young stars and could come to resent both management and Strasburg. Then there’s the obvious problem that without Strasburg, the team would suffer, and that suffering could turn a real contender into a welcome mat for other teams to walk over as they made their way into the next round of the playoffs. The Nationals management has the best intentions in mind for Strasburg and the team, but is trying to achieve those goals the wrong way.

Talk to Alex about the shutdown at alau@georgetownvoice.com

8 the georgetown voice

With over 2,000 students hailing from 132 countries, Georgetown prides itself on its international student body. Thanks to the variety of opportunities Georgetown offers to overseas students, it is common for them to start thinking of the Hilltop as their home. “Through academics, the student community, and the staff, the University is able to build this community and integrate international students well,” said Quintin Eusebio (MSB ’13), who came to Georgetown from the Philippines.

And integrate they do. Watching Christopher Stromeyer (SFS ’14) walking over to class with his distinguishable European scarf-over-a-blazer-andV-neck-shirt look, one would picture him strolling along the Seine rather than going over to Leo’s. At the same time, he’s far from an outsider: “I have assimilated so many things from American culture.

I love going to American football games. I’ve grown used to using the word ‘soccer,’ and I even say ‘y’all.’”

However hard it may seem at first to get used to the American way of life, the transition to college brings the same joys to international students as it does to Americans. “You just have to open up and embrace the culture,” Eusebio said. “In the end, with its pros and cons, we all fall in love with Georgetown.”

—Lucia He

feature

august 24, 2012

On a campus where joining student activities can seem more difficult than getting into college itself, the Georgetown theater community boasts of its openness.

“The theater community is super inclusive, we welcome everyone regardless of experience or ability,” said Brendan Quinn (COL ‘14), a theater and psychology major.

That is not to say there is any lack of talent or dedication among these budding stars. Rather, according to Quinn, “it’s a shared commitment and passion to the arts” that makes Georgetown’s studentand department-run productions shine.

Take, Jack Cassou (COL ’15), who got into theater at Georgetown after watching one of his close friends perform in the fall. A bit of envy after seeing the show followed up with a random email to a student director, and a talented stage manager was born.

While encouraged to try his hand at center stage, Jack remained adamant about his choice of behind-the-scenes work. “I’m not creative at all. I can’t be anything but me.

I stage-manage. I got into it because of that first show I saw, but I stayed with it because I love the community.”

True to form, Georgetown’s theater community is as diverse as the five co-curricular groups that comprise it. “The only thing that unites us is that were expressive,” Cassau said. “And, oh yeah, we love theater.”

—Mary Borowiec

Although few freshmen expect Georgetown to foster a hip-hop culture when they first arrive, Groove Theory has always been a crowd-pleaser among students. The student-run dance team embraces all different styles of hip-hop dancers—former gymnasts, ballerinas, cheerleaders, and amateurs combine to create the unique, kickass dance group that is Groove Theory. Aylin Unsal (COL ’13), who has been a member of the team since her freshman year, described the team as “one huge melting pot, almost a microcosm of Georgetown.”

A blend of numerous nationalities, races, and personalities, Groove Theory is entertaining both on and off the stage. “Everybody’s personalities are one of the best parts of the team but can be a major distraction at times during practice,” Unsal said.

“But honestly, I think it’s the personalities of the team that keep me and everybody else on the team wanting to practice, open-minded, creative, and basically a family.”

On how they avoid trouble, Unsal said, “Groove Theory has definitely had its share of issues in terms of getting in ‘trouble’. Let’s just say that booty shakin’ and rap music don’t always jive well with some of the faculty on campus. Nonetheless, because we’re busy either choreographing, practicing, or performing (and maybe going to class and Lau on the occasion), we don’t really have that much time to get ourselves in any big trouble.”

—Julia Jester Georgetown may have made the cut as one of the 10 most hipster schools last year (The Voice is obviously responsible), but the hilltop can still be a tough place for those truly committed to the counterculture. Sydney Browning (COL ‘15) can attest: “It’s like when you’re out on the front lawn hangin’ out and slacklining with your friends and then and then you see the tour go by and you hear them say, ‘And this exhibit is the hippie children. Don’t get too close,’” she says.

Slacklining aside, one look at Browning and her unshaven legs, curly bob and giant round glasses would probably persuade you to label her as a flower child. She it’s her aversion to the razor that draws the most attention.

“I don’t shave my armpits or my legs... and everyone always asks what I’m trying to say by doing that, like what’s my statement... And I don’t know how to respond. It’s just something that I do.

It’s like ‘why do you wear glasses and not contacts? Why are you wearing that shirt today?’”

While she laments that campus culture forces her and her fellow granola-crunchers into a “highly specialized niche”, Browning says the ostracization can often be a good thing. In fact, she says it’s great not to be a part of the mainstream at Georgetown.

“It’s all sunshine and happiness and it’s nice to get away and not be a part of the preppy people.”

—Gavin Bade

feature

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice 9

While all prospective Hoyas check college rankings to ensure an elite education, the students who make up Hoya Blue, Georgetown’s pep club, care just as much, if not more, about our performance on the court as our achievements in the classroom. Though it hasn’t yet been determined whether their blood is actually blue and gray, members of Hoya Blue have “Hoya Saxa” tattooed on their hearts and blue and gray covering their souls, and onesies, and wigs, and shot glasses, and pong tables--you get the picture.

For the match against Villanova, Mary Ellen Curran (COL ’13) covered herself in silver paint and Lady GaGa-esque eyelashes. “I was told I looked like Buzz Light Year, a scary tin man, and just plain freaking awesome—which I am,” Curran said. Such outbursts of spirit are not out of the norm.

Whether it’s getting up at 6 a.m. to get front row seats at the Verizon Center or pregaming in the rain for a women’s field hockey scrimmage, Hoya sports fanatics always exude school spirit. According to Adam Ramadan (SFS ’14) school spirit is “a rallying point, something that unites all of us at any point in time.” As Hoya Blue has figured out, nothing brings Hoyas together like a basketball game—except maybe a game of survivor flip cup.

—Keaton Hoffman

As besparkled Georgetown biddies roam the streets in a ritual known as “Thirsty Thursday,” a smaller, more noble group of students heads to Healy Hall to debate everything from Iran’s nuclear program to Shakespeare. These members of the Philodemic Society, known as Philodemicians, have carried out the motto “Eloquentiam Libertati Devinctam,” or “Eloquence in Defense of Liberty,” since 1830.

“In a way, Philodemic truly embodies the Georgetown message of cura personalis,” club president Andrew Marsh (COL ’13) said. “Since its inception, the Philodemic has strived to train and sharpen young minds so that when we graduate we’re impassioned to go out and make a mark on the world.”

The Philodemic’s weekly debates are not confined to their room in Healy, as members often continue the discussion over burgers and fries at Martin’s Tavern. While a love of debate and Western business attire brings the group together, “each member shapes the Philodemic with their own ideas, personalities, and talent,” Marsh remarked.

Though Philodemicians walking around campus in seersucker suits and full handlebar mustaches have given the Society a stodgy image in the past, debates like “Resolved: The bro, and not the hipster, represents the greatest threat to Western civilization” show off the society’s lighter side. Huzzah!

—Heather Regen

During new students’ first few days on campus, through the endless lectures about Jesuit values and cura personalis, the term “social justice” is thrown around a lot. Fortunately, at Georgetown, it’s more than a buzzword featured on orientation booklets.

The University’s emphasis on social justice draws students passionate about service, education, international support, and worker’s rights, and these interests are supported by the Center for Social Justice.

While Thomas Scharff (COL’12), came to Georgetown already interested in service, he said that the CSJ and the University’s student culture made service a more meaningful experience. “The energy and the commitment that people have to honoring human dignity and the way they model those values volunteering … it wouldn’t have been what it was without the direct link of all of us together working in the context of something larger,” Scharff said.

Other students lead non-profit organizations independent of the University. Alissa Orlando (SFS ’13) is the COO of the Hilltop Microfinance Initiative and started its Citizenship Fund program, providing money for citizenship applications. But even she emphasizes that she owes all of her accomplishments to her fellow students. “Even more than the institutional philosophies are the people,” Orlando said. “[I]f you’re at an institution such as Georgetown with a class of incredibly amazing and inspired individuals … it’s much easier to let that passion flourish.”

—Connor Jones

Georgetown recently garnered the distinction of second-most politically active university, and the Voice can only guess this refers to the aspiring politicians flocking from near and far to apply for “Hillternships.” Other hallmarks of the aspiring politician include a strong affiliation with College Democrats or College Republicans, and probably the biggest giveaway is an unhealthy concern for their image—and their security clearance.

The District’s hyperlocal governing body, the Advisory Neighborhood Commission, might seem a logical place for these folks to get some experience representing a constituency. But Jake Sticka (COL ’13), the sole student commissioner on Georgetown’s local ANC, says this experience will not be his foray into the national political scene, describing it as “discouraging for people who cling to their idealism.”

However, these past two years haven’t totally disillusioned Sticka. “I think local government does effect change sometimes,” he said. “I’m not as jaded about local politics as I am about the House of Representatives.”

In fact, Sticka says serving on the ANC has given him the gratifying opportunity to make sure that students are considered “on issues that will affect the University for years to come.”

The biggest downside? “I get a lot of calls from the Voice.”

—Rachel Calvert

leisure

10 the georgetown voice

august 24, 2012

YO! Sushi will take you, and your tastebuds, for a ride

by Leigh Finnegan If you’re stepping off a train at Union Station with an empty stomach and a light wallet, you’d be wise to avoid YO! Sushi. This isn’t because the food there is overpriced— it’s actually quite reasonable, with each dish sitting in a bowl brightly color-coded by price, and no single one costing more than $6. Rather, it’s because having fresh, colorful, tasty Japanese fare riding seductively on a conveyor belt across your field of vision might be a little more than your hungry willpower can handle.

The novelty of this setup, in which spots are equipped with ginger, soy sauce, wasabi, and a personal water faucet for the eaters, who grab bowls of food that circulate around a square-shaped bar, is part of what has made the YO! Sushi chain a U.K. institution. The restaurant in Union Station’s West Hall is the first in the U.S., with plans for another in D.C.’s Chinatown.

Staying consistent with the food-on-a-conveyor-belt kitsch,

the entire restaurant features retro-futuristic, distinctly Japanese décor that is delightful in its bizarreness. The neon walls match the traveling bowls, and the back wall features a busy, trippy mural depicting a clash of Japanese and D.C. culture, complete with cartoon panda heads being dropped by helicopters over the Capitol.

A screen in the middle shows small animated dolls and stuffed animals explaining how the restaurant works: Snatch whatever you want from the belt, order any drinks (including sake, cocktails, and red wine by the glass or bottle), hot dishes, and desserts from the staff, and at the end they’ll tally your tab. Unusual, but wonderfully simple.

The food, both on and off the conveyor belt, is as tasty as it is convenient. The menu boasts 42 varieties of sushi, including numerous vegetarian options, all of which are made fresh by the chefs who cook behind the bar before the eaters’ eyes—a comforting sight for those who fear that the same food sits on

the belt all day. Many rolls feature more than just typical sushi ingredients, with spices and vegetables complementing the fresh, melt-inyour-mouth raw fish.

Although the hot dishes, most of which cost between $4 and $5, are served in small bowls, the portions are deceptively big and filling, if occasionally disappointing; the vegetable yakisoba features a pleasing, tangy sauce, but the vegetable selection of largely red and yellow peppers adds little to the dish. Desserts vary from simple to unusual, and all of them delight—the miso chocolate mousse tastes nothing like miso, but the well-sized cube of cold, dense mousse with a cookie bottom is a perfect end to a meal, and rich without being too sweet.

Perhaps the best deal you’ll get at YO! Sushi is a $2.50 bowl of miso soup, which comes with unlimited refills. The attentive staff will take your bowl and refill it at a spaceage miso soup machine: a contraption resembling a coffee vending machine, with a button and spout, adorably emblazoned with the

phrase “miso hungry.” Although vending-machine soup may have its detractors, this flavorful dish, with perfectly soft cubes of tofu, will turn anyone into a believer.

For those who don’t like the conveyor-belt setup or want to dine and dash, YO! Sushi also of-

Jones, who co-wrote the film, here. The romantic comedy based on a male-female friendship smacks of When Harry Met Sally, though the tables are turned; instead of chronicling a friendship that leads to romance, Celeste and

conflict here, though the film generally avoids formulaic romcom plot structure—instead of outlining a progression of easily labeled relationship stages, it catalogs its central couple’s changing attitudes toward their separation.

women can’t maintain legitimate friendships, the film takes the path less followed by exploring how this type of relationship is affected by external events.

Rounding out the story’s sense of seamless humor is its

fers pre-made carry-out choices, which, although less fresh-tasting than the dine-in food, are still worth a try. For the weary traveler, those might prove a better option, but buyer beware—you can only resist the panda heads falling from the sky for so long.

Yo, what’d sushi order? Fish fillet! That shit cray.

Flickr

Celeste and Jesse make eternity sound rather appealing

by Julia Lloyd-George With any eternal vow, there comes the distinct possibility that “forever” may not have been quite as long as originally intended. For Celeste and Jesse, however, this depressing realization never rears its ugly head.

In the new movie Celeste and Jesse Forever, a couple separated after years of marriage defies social norms and their friends’ abilities of comprehension by staying best friends, and even roommates, through the breakup. While careerdriven Celeste (Rashida Jones) continues to live in the house they initially shared, slacker Jesse (Andy Samberg) takes up the studio next door to do his work as a freelance artist in between other, less noble activities. Though this dichotomy of ambition was the reason for their romantic separation (“the father of my children will own a car,” Celeste declares), it’s apparently not enough to keep them apart; the non-couple has incredibly appealing chemistry based on a shared silly sense of humor and a general ease which Jones and Samberg, actors known for their comic chops, pull off with flair.

It’s easy enough to spot the previous films that influenced

IMBD

“Hey Andy Samberg, which Instagram filter should we use for our cutesy wedding pic? Let’s post it on Tumblr!”

Jesse is about a pair of friends attempting to come to grips with the dissolution of their marriage. Whether their friendship can withstand the introduction of rival relationships and more serious plot turns is the point of

What sets the story apart from others of its genre, though it doesn’t veer too far off track, is its refreshing subject matter: a couple that is no longer in the throes of romance. Discounting the “bromance” philosophy that men and

cast of supporting characters, who present no danger of being dismissed as stock characters.

Frodo, a.k.a. Elijah Wood, steps out of Middle Earth to fill the role of Celeste’s gay boss, who provides helpful relationship advice,

while Emma Roberts comes in as a self-absorbed teen pop star.

Director Lee Toland Krieger manages to draw out a surprisingly poignant performance from Samberg, the SNL star and “Lonely Island” singer we all know and love. Parks and Recreation actress Jones, on the other hand, is expectedly praiseworthy in the role she wrote for herself. Her incentive to do so can undoubtedly be traced to a dearth of such unconventional roles in films written by predominantly male writers.

Saying that Celeste and Jesse redefines gender relations in Hollywood may be going a little too far, but it certainly takes a step in that direction, as the film establishes itself as a rarity in its field. Beyond its uncommon subject matter, however, Celeste and Jesse has a consistently lighthearted comic overtone that keeps it feeling fresh. Peppered with moments of hilarity yet sincere in its tougher times, the story is so likable that it’s easy to forget that it can still be classified under that tired genre we call the romcom. The best thing that can be said is that it doesn’t try too hard, and that’s what makes it so irresistible.

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice 11

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” — Dirty Dancing

Barbara Kruger takes art to new heights at the Hirshhorn

by Mary Borowiec From the first step onto the escalator descending into the Hirshhorn Gallery’s famed rotunda, Barbara Kruger ’s newest exhibit, Belief + Doubt, nearly screams at visitors, but in a positive way, as if coaxing them to step back and take another look. With text beginning on the underside of the escalator, viewers are immediately thrown into Kruger ’s world, where “Belief + Doubt = Sanity,” with 12-foot questions and phrases covering the gallery from floor to ceiling in this wraparound installation.

Opening this week at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden for a three-year installation, Belief + Doubt draws in viewers with its loud, provocative, and unconventional gallery presentation, which unquestionably succeeds in Kruger ’s aim of using art to promote engagement.

On a wall in the gallery, Kruger cites “power, desire, money, and faith” as the exhibit’s central themes, with each phrase or question inspiring viewers to “stop, think, and sometimes even laugh.” Questions such as “Who speaks? Who is silent?

Who is heard?” contrast others

like “When was the last time you laughed?,” inspiring different reactions among visitors while simultaneously underscoring Kruger ’s reflection on power structures in our society.

resembles a glossy magazine.

Known for her use of the written word to challenge our popular consumer-driven culture, Kruger shows her creative use of irony by inverting the famil-

MArY BOrOWiEc

If all escalator users were required to think this much about their life philosophy, more people would use the stairs.

For Kruger, deconstructing the meaning of the words themselves is significant to her aim of transforming “reading into a dynamic, public activity,” as she explained in an interview with Richard Prince.

“Pictures and words seem to become the rallying points for certain assumptions.”

Make fetch happen this fall

As you begin to unpack your bags and settle back into the swing of things at the start of a new year, it is important not only to ready yourself for the upcoming semester, but also to find that star-studded look that will give you the confidence for any close-up. With the end of summer looming and the first day of fall on the brink, your look will transition from a bright, vibrant getup to a softer, darker look perfect for a cool, autumn day. But there’s no need to break the bank searching for that perfect runway look. Instead, take these “five essentials” as crucial items for your everyday wardrobe that will carry you from those hot summer days to cool autumn nights.

The first necessity is a classic blazer. One of the hottest trends for both men and women, spanning all seasons, is the

Playing on the multi-layered meaning of the text, the design and position of each phrase around the exhibition also incorporates the architecture of the space. For instance, the

classic menswear look. This über-trendy item is one of the most flexible articles of clothing, as you can dress it up or down for almost any occasion.

For men, the cardinal feature for the blazer is the fit. Your jacket should fit snug at the shoulders and contour your body to make a $200 blazer look like a million bucks. Further, don’t be afraid to pair your blazer with a colorful pocket square, as it will only add an extra je ne sais quoi to an already chic ensemble.

For women, use this traditional menswear item as a versatile anchor to any outfit.

Dress it up with dark washed jeans, a simple black clutch, and some bold bangles to create an elegant, ready-for-work look.

Or match the blazer with some plaid trousers, heels, and a hat for an edgy runway look.

The next necessity is a modern pair of pants. Over the

underside of the escalator ominously reads “Don’t look down on anyone.”

The impact of these simple but profound aphorisms and inquiries is further emboldened by the contrasting color scheme of black and red backgrounds with the white bold-faced text, which in a printed vinyl notably

iar glossy photo or glitzy headline into something thoughtprovoking.

This sense of irony carries over to the museum shop, which sells Hirshhorn paraphernalia alongside totes, mugs, and t-shirts with Kruger maxims, such as “You want it. You buy it.

You forget it.” One of her more

past year, colored pants have been an up-and-coming trend for both men and women, creating a fresh pop of color that is perfect for summer and fall.

Stay with the bright, pastel palette, such as lemon yellow for a playful combination or aquamarine for a more delicate pairing, and take it down a notch for the fall season with rhubarb, tangerine orange, or

No outfit (hopefully) is complete without a shirt. For both summer and fall, stripes are everything. Countless designers, such as Gucci, Paul Smith, and Michael Bastian, have used this perennial pattern on skinny ties, sweaters, tees, and button-downs. Pair a striped tee with a blazer and pocket square for a laid-back yet refined summer look, and switch the tee with a buttondown and sweater for the fall. Women should be on the lookout for the peplum trend, which has hit runways from Tokyo to Milan. The key to peplum this season is to add some zest to the outfit with accessories that blend floral geometrics with dark, fall-appropriate colors.

Bring everything back together by centering your outfit around a belt. Leave your pastel colored belts for the summer, but for fall stick to the three b’s: black, blue, and burgundy—

Haute Mess

by Julian de la Paz a bi-weekly column about fashion honey yellow pants for a more collegiate look.

For women, don’t be afraid to play with geometric prints for your pants, as they are currently some of the trendiest items on the runway. You can take the safe route by matching these geometric prints with neutrals, or be more daring by experimenting with other patterns.

famous prints, an image with text overlay that says, “I shop therefore I am,” sarcastically mocks customers considering a purchase. Almost as if Kruger is daring you to buy into our consumer culture, the installation also continues on the shop floor, tiled with checkered phrases like, “Crave it.” and “Hate it.” alongside watchful eyes, staring up at shop patrons.

In this way, Kruger ’s exhibit is an all-encompassing experience, with every component furthering Kruger ’s larger intention of “introducing doubt” in a society where certainty seems to be valued above all else. Kruger explains this idea on the Hirshhorn website, when discussing the meaning behind the exhibit’s title:“Belief is tricky because left to its own devices it can court a kind of surety, an unquestioning allegiance that fears doubt and destroys difference.”

Belief + Doubt can be unsettling in the way it takes hold of the viewer, its text forcefully assaulting its audience with unanswered questions touching the core of modern society. But through the installation, Kruger illustrates, if nothing else, the many reasons why we can’t stop asking questions.

three classic yet dramatic colors that are perfect for any fall day.

For women, studded and woven belts can turn an outfit from drab to totally fab.

Last but not least are the shoes. My personal favorite part of any outfit, shoes can either make or break a look. For the gentlemen, loafers should be a staple on your shopping list. Try pairing them with some chinos, rolled up just enough to expose the ankle, a trench, and a turtleneck underneath. For the ladies, break out your boots and sport them like there’s no tomorrow. Perfect with leggings and a frilly leather tote, boots are the ideal shoes for this upcoming season.

Use your creations to express yourself and your personality. Be brave, be bold, be beautiful, but above all, be you.

Send your classiest fall outfits to rdelapaz@georgetownvoice.com

leisure

12 the georgetown voice

august 24, 2012

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

Opossom, Electric Fire Records

Hawaii,

If you are a sucker for cutesy, Apple-product-commercial music, then Electric Hawaii, the new album from indie-pop outfit Opossom, will fit right into your oversized Beats headphones.

Slightly fuzzy vocals, hoppy bass-lines, catchy choruses, dreamy guitars, and a paintcan full of synth give Opossom a classically hip New York City sound—ironic, given that they hail from New Zealand. Though Opossom is the brainchild of Kody Nielson, formally of Mint Chicks, Electric Hawaii boasts a signature, perfected feel that sounds more like the amalgamation of several artistic minds.

“Blue Meanies,” the album’s first single, starts out much like

a 1960s French yé-yé track (think duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuhnuh, BATMAN!). It immediately recalls middle school memories of Peter Bjorn, holding on to that nostalgic sound even when the vocals kick in. The up-tempo style of this track is mirrored throughout the rest of the album, though it manifests itself in varied rhythms and instrumentation.

While album-opener “Girl,” retains the New York-underground sound, it taps into the recent lo-fi beachy style reinvigorated by bands like Best Coast and Smith Westerns and capitalizes on high-pitched Shins-style vocals.

The guitar-filled track “Cola Elixir” continues in this style.

Laid out lyrically much like an Animal Collective song, it begins out with a chant and soon breaks into a clever set of lyrics, “I broke your teacup in jealousy/ Pick up the pieces and kill me/ It’s hard to make up your mind/ It interferes with my mind,” that align with a wailing guitar riff. Though Opossom is largely vocal-based, “Cola Elixir” finishes up with a fast-paced drum and synth section that almost feels like an extended White Stripes solo.

TLC makes a Boo Boo

In 1972 the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, in conjunction with NASA, founded a television network with the goal of using TV, which has long been thought to distract the brain from useful function, as a means of education. The network was later named The Learning Channel, or, for short, TLC. Back then, the station was based on documentaries. And maybe, in a certain sense of the word, it still is—reality shows, which make up virtually all the channel’s current programming, are basically serialized documentaries. But the content that TLC broadcasts today teaches nothing to anyone, other than just how low a network can sink in attempt to attract viewers. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse than Strange Sex and Long Island Medium, well, here comes Honey Boo Boo.

Toddlers and Tiaras, the original show to feature six-year-old Honey Boo Boo Child, né Alana Thompson, already has a history of being morally reprehensible.

Although some people are transfixed by mothers spray-tanning and false-teething their kindergarten-age daughters, feeding them Pixie Stix in hope of winning a six-inch-high crown, there are plenty who are not amused.

Recently, pageant mother Lindsey Jackson was taken to court by her estranged husband, convicted felon Bill Verst, who accuses his wife of sexually exploiting their six-year-old daughter after she appeared on the show dressed as Dolly Parton, complete with a padded bra and underwear.

But the exploitative nature doesn’t apply to just the kids.

The show also heavily features the mothers of the dolled-up toddlers, most of whom are unattractive and uneducated with

Opossom’s musical influences are obvious in their album, and yet they managed to retain a style all their own.

Voice’s Choice: “Blue Meanies” —Will Collins

Alanis Morissette, Havoc and Bright Lights, Collective Sounds With visceral and poetic hits like “Ironic” and “You Oughta Know,” Alanis Morissette has long been known for her autobiographical, emotionally charged lyrics. Havoc and Bright Lights, the 38-year-old Canadian songstress’s eighth studio album, is no exception. The LP is packed with material that draws inspiration from her recent marriage to Mario Treadway, better known from his Boston rapping career as MC almost unintelligible southern accents. It’s this aspect of the program that made Here Comes Honey Boo Boo possible. Week after horrifying week, audiences laugh and leer at Alana’s rural Georgia family as they cook roadkill, deal with 15-year-old Chickadee’s pregnancy, and fulfill every backwoods stereotype you can possibly think of. The network even

idiot Box

by Leigh Finnegan a bi-weekly column about television condescendingly subtitles much of their dialogue, as if the viewer is watching a documentary on the rituals of some foreign, unassimilated tribe speaking an indigenous dialect.

The saddest part of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, though, is that few are as shocked or disgusted by its existence as they should be. That’s because TLC has been working its way to this level for a long time,

Souleye, and her experience with motherhood. But while the album explores new themes in the maturing singer’s life, Havoc is also retrospective, paying ample tribute to the her tumultuous rise to fame that began with 1995’s charttopping Jagged Little Pill.

From the first track, “Guardian,” Morissette proves that any subject is fair game on the album, as she croons about finding happiness in the wake of her broken engagement to Ryan Reynolds. This thank-you to those who helped her through an emotional roller coaster alternates between a distorted, electric guitar-driven chorus and softer, piano-backed verses which, when combined with Morissette’s effortless vocal transitions to match the instrumentation, relay a heartfelt message of loyalty and commitment.

Later tracks “Empathy” and “Til You” echo the album opener’s sentimentality, but tackle it from a poppier perspective. Simple piano chords and melodies powered by an electric drumbeat allow Morissette to showcase her signature mezzo-soprano vocals, which charge otherwise uninspiring lyrics with the same vibrant emotion.

Despite overflowing gratitude and joy, past pain also makes an broadcasting freak shows for the entertainment of its “normal” viewers. There’s My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and its cousin, My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding, which display a culture where teenagers get married in unbelievably gaudy ceremonies and everyone wears crop tops and booty shorts on a daily basis. Then there was The Virgin Diaries, where a couple shared their first kiss at the altar in a display that was nothing short of revolting (and begged the question: were all of our first kisses that awful?).

As much as TLC’s programming might give us the moral heebie-jeebies, it isn’t difficult to figure out why the network’s executives keep the crap coming.

These programs are remarkably cheap to produce—how much do you think the Honey Boo Boo clan demands per episode?

Rarely do the station’s shows reach the mega-freakshow success of, say, Jersey Shore, and so it never needs to worry about paying big salaries per episode. If just

appearance on Havoc. “I still have moments of PTSD,” Morissette told Niagara Falls Review regarding the unexpected and stressful popularity of Jagged Little Pill and the resulting world tour.

The scars of her self-prescribed trauma bare all in “Celebrity,” which chronicles the mesmerizing and destructive power of fame in a Lana Del Rey-esque vocal style that tackles sex, desire, and a manufactured image: “I am a tattooed sexy dancing monkey,” sings Morissette. The result is a hypnotic, synth-laced track that expertly conveys a feeling of powerlessness and despair as potent as the ecstasy winding through the aforementioned songs.

Havoc and Bright Lights “is my emotional, psychological, social, and philosophical commentary through song,” Morissette explained in a press release. A lesser artist would have uttered such words in vain, but Morissette’s command of emotion in both vocal and instrumental form guarantees her continued, yet sometimes “Ironic”, success.

Voice’s Choices: Down,” “Guardian”

“Woman

—Kirill Makarenko a small section of the population finds the antics entertaining, then the show will easily turn a profit and continue to stay on the air.

But despite the torrential amounts of offensive material that TLC broadcasts, perhaps the oddest part of the network is that it isn’t entirely homogenous.

Shows like Cake Boss, the Jersey rip-off of Food Network’s Ace of Cakes starring the lovable Buddy Valastro, and What Not to Wear, where the audience cringes at a woman’s horrible style but then roots for her to transform into a glamazon, are mildly entertaining and wholly innocuous, and have met large success. Unfortunately, despite the number of TV-show progeny that Say Yes to the Dress has spawned, TLC’s execs won’t let that carry the network—unless the next spinoff features child brides.

Send your Hoarders: Buried Alive audition tapes to lfinnegan@georgetownvoice.com

georgetownvoice.com

page thirteen

the georgetown voice 13

voices

14 the georgetown voice

august 24, 2012

Note to younger self: You won’t get it all figured out

by Sara Ainsworth I’ve spent the past week “orienting” several new international freshmen to Georgetown. As expected, I spent a lot of time reflecting on my freshman year and the things I wish that I had known at the time. I eventually sat down to write a letter to my brother, a freshman at Villanova, in hopes of helping him through his first year.

Instead, I ended up with a letter to my 18-year-old self: First and foremost, take a breath. The past couple days of International Pre-Orientation have been long and stressful, and New Student Orientation will be no different. Remember to do this every once in while, just take a moment to relax, as this coming year will be hectic and confusing.

This next year will be one of the most formative and important years of your life. You will major in personal growth.

The changes may seem subtle but as a whole will have a great impact. You will end this year a

very different person than you started, having learned from your various blunders and faux pas.

You will make more mistakes in the next year than you’ve made in the last 18 years of your life. Drunken nights will end in drunken mistakes.

Every day will bring awkward situations with new people. A decent amount of time will be spent scrutinizing each conversation. You will feel like a disaster in a sea of collected individuals, even though most freshmen feel the same way.

They too are nervously entering every social situation and attempting to appear nonchalant and composed. Stop taking yourself so seriously. When you realize that everything will eventually work out and that the minutiae are not worth your time, freshman year will become much more enjoyable.

It may feel like there is a lack of stability in your life due to the constant inundation of new people and strange social situations. The people you meet

in the next two weeks may not be the friends you have for the next four years, and that’s okay Just know that the people who stick may not be the ones you expect, but they will soon become your family. Don’t dwell on high school friends, because some things never change, no matter how long the distance is.

Those bonds and experiences are eternal.

Another source of insecurity will be experiencing being on your own in a foreign place. Living in Washington will take getting used to, but take this as an opportunity to discover the nation’s capital and its surrounding areas. Remember that Georgetown consists of students from all over the country and the world, and that a glimpse of home can be found in the most unsuspecting of places. All freshmen will be going through “cultural” adjustment, as no one is instantaneously familiar with life on a college campus and on the Hilltop. This is especially true when it comes to integrating

into Georgetown on an academic basis.

Of the incoming freshmen class, 95 percent were in the top 10 percent of their class. In the next four years, 90 percent will not be. There will be a learning curve. The fundamentals in subjects such as economics become foreign in a different system with different standards.

Your GPA and self-esteem may take a beating. Buck up; you will bounce back with renewed vigor and learn important lessons along the way. Lessons will be learned quickly: getting on your TA’s good side is paramount, office hours are the best way to truly grasp a concept, and Georgetown professors will go above and beyond to help you succeed. Put your head down and power through, and you will be rewarded.

Fundamentally, bear in mind that you are called freshmen for a reason. You are completely green, and no one expects you to have everything figured out. As Socrates said (just you wait for Political and

Social Thought), “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” Take this to heart and accept this as the one time in your life where you can do everything wrong and not be penalized. This is not to say that your actions won’t have consequences, but rather that there will be a leniency on the part of upperclassmen and professors that society will not offer you again until you begin using the senior citizens’ seats on the bus.

So enjoy this time, you won’t get it back. It’s all over in four short years, far too little time to spend over-analyzing. Realize that this is the hardest part of the next four years and that, as the popular phrase goes, “it gets better.” So get out of your head and your dorm room and enjoy all that Georgetown has to offer. You won’t regret it.

Sara Ainsworth is a junior in the SFS. Besides letters, she enjoys other antiquated customs such as chamber pots and corsets.

Where are the jobs? Ask the Republican legislatures

by Gavin Bade If you want to find the single biggest drag on job growth in the United States, don’t look to the president. Don’t look to Congress, or at least not directly. It’s the state legislatures that are killing jobs, and the worst of the worst are led

by Republicans.

What we’re talking about here is public sector jobs—teachers, policemen, firefighters, and the like. The Economic Policy Institute estimates we’ve lost at least 1.1 million of them since the recession ended in June 2009, and only six percent of the cuts have come from the federal government. As you could guess, the cuts have been deepest in Republican-controlled states, especially those cap-

tured by the GOP in 2010, such as Wisconsin and Ohio. Even if you are a Republican and don’t count government-funded jobs as actual employment, consider this: that same EPI study states that these losses have in turn cost the private sector more than 750,000 jobs.

On some level, state budget cuts are understandable. Whereas these governments only lost six percent of their revenues in the 2001 recession, they lost 17 percent between 2007 and 2009. But despite the slowdown, many conservatives have painted public sector unions as the culprits, saying they have forced governments to offer pay and benefit packages more lucrative than the private sector. The pay part of this argument is patently false. Compared to private

The only ones happy are the kids who forgot to do their homework.

Flickr

sector workers of similar educational attainment and experience, public employees make four percent less, according to the Center for Economic Policy and Research, and this wage penalty widens to 11 percent for high-income workers. It is true that some public sector pensions are better than those available in the private sector, but this is undoubtedly a positive. If not through direct wages, there needs to be some incentive to get the most qualified people to head for the classroom instead of the boardroom.

The conservative misinformation campaign over pensions neglects another important dimension about public sector compensation. 2007 Federal Reserve data shows that 90 percent of these post-retirement benefits are financed with equities, broadly defined. In other words, the main reason they’re struggling is the stock market crash caused by lax regulation of Wall Street, not the imagined greed of public unions.

But the GOP continues to leverage the problem caused by its laissezfaire policies against the teachers, policemen, and firefighters it considers societal parasites, and the corporate media has done precious little to uncover the real roots of the problem. Either way, the best way to alleviate these pension cost problems is to get the economy moving again so tax revenues rise, not by making already underpaid

employees shoulder higher costs for retirement and medical bills.

Simply reversing the public employment numbers would easily knock a percentage point from the unemployment rate. If we not only corrected for public job losses but also restored state and local public assistance programs cut since the recovery began, the economists at EPI reckon we’d be adding around 2.4 million jobs.

It wouldn’t be full recovery, to be sure, but it would make a huge difference for millions of Americans finally able to find work.

That’s where the blame falls on Congress. Obama’s stimulus package included some funding to alleviate state and local budget woes, but ultimately covered only about a third of the hole. The president has since called repeatedly for more relief funding, but we all know how that went down in Congress.

The frustrating part is that this shouldn’t be a contentious issue.

Even David Wessel of the Wall Street Journal and Zanny Minton Beddoes of The Economist— two very fiscally conservative news outlets—think reviving the public sector is a good idea. During a July 18th segment on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, both decried the cuts in state and local governments as the biggest drag on economic growth. They aren’t alone in their contempt for Republican “economics.” You’d

be hard pressed to find any reputable economist who supports the GOP economic platform of austerity for the masses and tax breaks for the rich.

If Congress was full of pragmatists, they’d write up a bill tomorrow for a new federal revenue sharing program with state and local governments. This is, of course, a pipe dream. But, while the legislative roadblock impedes actual recovery, it holds a valuable campaign opportunity for all progressives. If they highlight the egregious impact public sector unemployment has on the entire economy, they can expose Republicans and conservative Democrats as the real radicals, more concerned about the ideological purity of their anti-government positions than actually putting people back to work. Progressives can then present themselves as the moderate alternative — concerned about deficits in the long term but not willing to scuttle our economic recovery and abandon public services (which, ironically for the GOP, makes the deficit worse.)

That sort of pragmatic approach not only makes good policy; it can also win elections.

Gavin Bade is a junior in the SFS. If he loves the public sector so much, why then did he decide to go to a private college?

voices

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice

15

Pre-med devotee adjusts to life after organic chemistry

by Claire McDaniel This summer was the worst of my life. No one I know died, I didn’t contract the Black Death, and America kicked ass at the Olympics, but something far worse happened to me. To finish my pre-med courses, I had to take organic chemistry.

You hear about a lot about orgo as a pre-med kid. I, for one, came to dread it. After listening to horrifying stories from my older friends, I

thought taking orgo would lead directly to my imminent death and reincarnation as a zombie. Weeks passed, though, and I came to terms with the fact that it was just a class. Not too scary, not too nice; it was just normal.

Something else started to prey on my mind, and it downright terrifies me. Since the moment I stepped onto campus my first year, I’ve identified as pre-med. Science is my thing, and the nerdiness just called

This is not-so-secretly like porn for science majors.

Flickr

New South, old memories

Due to a slight Housing Office mix-up, when I arrived on campus for early move-in a few days ago I was informed that my apartment was not quite ready, and that I would be assigned a temporary room in New South for a few days until it was. I reacted to the news of being put back in my freshman dorm the way most upperclassmen would—I was less than thrilled, remembering all too well its dingy showers and long, echoing corridors, and expecting to be kept awake by enthusiastic new Hoyas exchanging stories from their pre-orientation programs. But I found myself a little less disdainful when I noticed my temporary room number, 243, or rather, when I noticed its similarity to my old New South room number,

423. In a rush of pre-senior year sentimentality I assigned a real cosmic significance to what was actually a pretty minor numerical coincidence, and decided that this was a sign from the housing gods that I ought to do some reflection on my years at Georgetown.

As I stood in the lobby, breathing in the familiar New South smell (something like cleaning products mixed with years of fruit punch-tinged vomit?), I ran through a montage of memorable moments from the past few years. There was the time that someone inexplicably stole a gun and shot a toilet at Midnight Madness.

There was the chaos ensuing from Snowpocalypse, when classes were cancelled for a week and a meager supply of

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

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

to me. It was one of the first ways I felt a part of something my freshman year, and I love it.

Pre-med is a club where high school is turned on its head. Being way into classes is cool, playing with deadly bacteria is mandatory, and making alcohol in lab is par for the course. It doesn’t get much better than that, but that all came to an end this summer.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m absolutely ecstatic that I survived the entire pre-med course load. No more frustration at physics late at night before a 5 a.m. deadline, no more hydrochloric acid eating holes in my clothes, and no more giant intro classes in Reiss 103.

By any objective standard, my life looks set to drastically improve. Yet, heading into this semester I feel like something important is missing.

I’ve always thought of premed as my crutch through these past two years. I’ve used it as a trump card for “who had the most work,” as an excuse for being tired, or even for why I didn’t feel like wearing anything other than sweats that one week during midterms.

But more than just as a diversionary tactic for other respon-

sibilities, being pre-med was the best way I made friends.

There’s nothing like going through a science-tinged hell together to make friendships, and being pre-med was how I settled into Georgetown at the onset of my freshman year. I transitioned from a nervous, nerdy high school student to a still-nerdy but newly confident, pre-med science major over the course of far too many late nights studying in Lau alongside my friends, disastrous labs, and early morning lectures.

Of course, very few people feel that way about their classes. Like I said, I’m a little nerdy. I think that the premise is the same for every kid who’s new to college, though. Some people ease into college life in NSO, make all their friends in the first five minutes, and are set, the lucky bastards. I was a little shy, a little out of my element, a little lost in a swirl of almost 1,800 new students. All it takes is finding a group of people who like what you like, are interested in what makes you tick, and friendships will just happen.

I’m halfway through college, but I feel like it’s NSO all

stale bagels was the only thing keeping Leo’s from shutting its doors. Georgetown had hosted countless speakers of global repute, and we had only offended a few of them.

More recently, we collectively cooed at the arrival of JJ, the cutest mascot-to-be we could ever have imagined.

A lot had happened in three years to Georgetown as a whole, but also specifically to me; I wondered how long it

membering to skip the one too-short step between New South’s ground and first floors.

Georgetown had presented me with innumerable opportunities, obstacles, quirks, and successes, but it wasn’t as though I could make a highlights reel of the events that had had the most profound impact on me. Because rather than dramatic, life-altering moments, sponsored by our biggest donors and touted in our admissions brochures, most of what Georgetown had really given me was a backdrop for the (admittedly, self-centered) task of figuring out who I am.

I don’t spend my days interacting with the secondmost politically active student body or the tenth-best study abroad office or with anything else that can get a ranking in a Princeton Review survey. Every experience, from freshman Convocation to the doldrums of sophomore winter to Georgetown Day junior year, has contributed to who I am as I enter my senior year. Innocuous common room conversation presented me with points of view I had never encountered. Academic successes and failures

Carrying On

by Tori Jovanovski A rotating column by Voice senior staffers

would take to list all the ways I had changed since freshman year. Though I had once been the poster child for undergraduate indecision (four different major and minor combinations have graced my transcript), I had finally figured out what subjects really motivated me.

My goals and values had become more clearly defined, my tastes had shifted, different people mattered most to me.

I headed up to the second floor, subconsciously re-

over again. I’m sailing alone into uncharted waters, but I’m more excited than nervously terrified. I’m sure that in my next two years here, there will be a plethora of late nights in Lau, that’s just a fact of being a student. But I’m also looking forward to find out what exists in a world outside of pre-med.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to run away from my nerdiness, far from it. I’m going to spend my next two years on the Hilltop bringing that nerdiness to everything I do.

I think that the camaraderie of being pre-med is something that should be experienced by more than just the denizens of Blommer Science Library.

While I might secretly register for science classes I don’t necessarily need to take, just to reminisce about that pre-med crutch, I’ve come to terms with letting go of at least part of my pre-med identity. Let’s be honest, it’s about damn time I left the library and got a social life.

Claire McDaniel is a junior in the College. She likes long walks on the beach, and thinks that E. coli just looks so cute under a scope. alike molded my work habits.

Tough days showed me that even new friends could love and support you as though they had known you since the fourth grade. Each day at Georgetown I had realized a little more what kinds of things mattered to me and what kind of person I wanted to be.

Even though I’m a senior, supposedly almost ready to enter the postgraduate world, I don’t have it all figured out, and I probably won’t any time soon. But I’m a little further along in the process than the girl who moved into New South three years ago, a few days shy of 18 years old. I’m grateful to Georgetown for having provided me with a safe space, but one that tested me as well. As I entered New South 243, greeted by the familiar long desks and beds lined up head-to-toe, I decided I could probably bear a few nights here.

Tori Jovanovski is a senior in the College. She might have changed a bit, but her fave perfume is still Eau de New South.