9 15 2011

VOICE the georgetown

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ARAMARK WORKERS CELEBRATE UNION PROGRESS PAGE 4

FOOTBALL CONTINUES UNBEATEN START PAGE 6

DRIVE’S DRIVE ’S DIRECTING DOMINATES PAGE 10

Georgetown University’s Weekly Newsmagazine Since 1969  September 15, 2011  Volume 45, Issue 4  georgetownvoice.com

STRIKING THE BALANCE

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september 15, 2011

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correction In “The world changed: Georgetown after 9/11” Tara Allison told the Voice she went to the “business center” on the morning of 9/11. She was describing the Career Education Center.

In “Crunkcakes: Baking with booze,” the author was mistaken about the flavor of cupcake he tasted. It was a Dirty Pillow, not a Buttery Nipple.

Voice Crossword “All The News That’s Fit To Print” by Scott Fligor

Across 1. More secure 6. Triple it, and you have a WWII film

10. Sales slip: abbr.

14. Wipe out 15. Israeli airline 16. Obama’s birthplace 17. Journal

19. IV 20. Indoor lacrosse org.

21. Pitch 22. Channel swimmer Gertrude 24. Story 25. Sheikdom of song 26. Wanted word 29. Times 32. Difference between lunar and solar year 33. Condescend 35. One of the Bobbsey Twins 36. Misplaced 37. ____ Park 38. Theater award 39. “___ bin ein Berliner” 40. When doubled, what a rat does 41. Capital of Tibet 42. “Razzle Dazzle” musical 44. Like John Wilkes Booth 45. Double it for Wayne Gretzky’s number 46. Passable 47. Cue 49. Gillette razor 50. Madame ___of South Vietnam 53. Carry 54. See 29-across 57. Quark’s place 58. Tennis edge

answers at georgetownvoice.com 59. Chess brigade 60. Frog genus 61. Actress Long, and others 62. Ann ___, Mich.

Down 1. Stitched 2. Asia’s ___ Sea 3. Autumn 4. Immigrant course 5. Computer action 6. Curt 7. Cheers 8. “Norma ___” 9. Hyde, to Jekyll 10. Passed on the trail 11. It fits in overhead compartments 12. Dr. ___ 13. UK Employment reg.

18. Related 23. Beginning 24. Diplomatic discretion

25. Dye-yielding shrubs 26. Holdover 27. Notable period 28. Post 30. Grow 31. Work, with the hands 33. Tests 34. Chicago to Toronto dir.

37. Explorer Ferdinand 38. “It can’t be!”

40. Peter Pan’s dog 41. Garfield’s favorite food 43. Concession locale 44. Drivers may lean on it 46. Musial and Lee 47. Main act 48. Small amount 49. Marco Polo interest 50. Workers’ rights grp.

51. Türkoğlu of basketball 52. CCCP, more commonly 55. “___ et amo” 56. Poetic always

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

E-mail crossword@georgetownvoice.com

editorial

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VOICE the georgetown

Volume 45.4 September 15, 2011 Editor-in-Chief: Tim Shine Managing Editor: Sean Quigley Blog Editor: Leigh Finnegan News Editor: Holly Tao Sports Editor: Daniel Kellner Feature Editor: Kara Brandeisky Cover Editor: Iris Kim Leisure Editor: John Sapunor Voices Editor: Kate Imel Photo Editor: Max Blodgett Design Editors: Michelle Pliskin, Catherine Johnson Projects Editor: Rob Sapunor Crossword Editor: Scott Fligor Assistant Blog Editor: Ryan Bellmore Assistant News Editor: Neha Ghanshamdas Assistant Sports Editors: Abby Sherburne, Kevin Joseph Assistant Leisure Editors: Mary Borowiec, Heather Regen Assistant Photo Editors: Julianne Deno, Matthew Funk Assistant Design Editor: Kathleen Soriano-Taylor Contributing Editor: Nico Dodd

Staff Writers:

Nick Berti, Geoffrey Bible, Rachel Calvert, Mary Cass, Emma Forster, Kelsey McCullough, Sadaf Qureshi, Adam Rosenfeld, Melissa Sullivan, Nick Thomas

Staff Photographers:

Sam Brothers, Jackson Perry

Copy Chief: Aodhan Beirne Copy Editors:

Claire McDaniel, Kim Tay

Editorial Board Chair: Jackson Perry Editorial Board:

Gavin Bade, Rachel Calvert, Ethan Chess, Sean Quigley, J. Galen Weber

Head of Business: Keaton Hoffman The Georgetown Voice

The Georgetown Voice is published every Thursday.

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DIGGING A HOLE TO CHINA

Concerns unaddressed in China relationships The brawl that marred the Georgetown men’s basketball team’s friendly game with the Chinese Basketball Association’s Bayi Rockets drew headlines across the world.

But the trip was only the latest and most visible aspect of Georgetown’s ongoing effort to increase its presence in China, an effort that has seen the school establish strong ties with Chinese institutions which threaten to compromise the University’s Catholic values and liberal traditions.

While most of the University’s relationships in China are with universities to foster study abroad opportunities and faculty exchanges, Georgetown has spent considerable resources on partnerships with two important organs of the undemocratic, oppressive central government: the State Administration for Religious Affairs, which often restricts the activity of Christian groups in China, and the Central Party School, which trains senior Chinese Communist Party officials.

The school’s relationship with the Central Party School has affected the academic freedom of at least one Georgetown professor. School of Foreign Service professor James Millward was blocked from obtaining a Chinese visa until 2007 because the Chinese believed he supported Xinjiang’s independence from China. The University blatantly prioritized its amicable relationship with the school over the academic freedom of one of its professors, regardless of protestations to the contrary.

More worrisome than the fact that the University is catering to institutions whose values are contrary to our own is that the decision to engage with these institutions was made nearly unilaterally by senior Georgetown administrators. The sidelining of Victor Cha, the director of Asian Studies center and a former National Security Council member, in the decision-making process is a particularly egregious example of this insular attitude.

Since department budgets are shrinking seemingly regardless of student interest, the University must also reconsider what value these relationships offer in this time of financial difficulty. Last summer, the Asian Studies budget was cut 47 percent because of a reduction in government funding, forcing the center to make massive cuts to its programs. Students do not benefit from the relationships with the SARA and Central Party School, while Asian Studies is one of the most popular certificate programs in the SFS and will be launching a new Master’s program next year.

Because Georgetown bases much of its reputation and ideals on being an international university, engagement in China is a necessity. That fact must not drive the University away from its own identity and academic priorities, which are even more important parts of Georgetown’s unique character.

FAILURE TO LAUNCH

Georgetown doesn’t need another Epicurean For several months, the Endowment Commission has been in a dialogue with Georgetown’s administration about investing the Student Activities Fee Endowment in a reincarnation of the famous Healy Pub. Despite the fact that the proposal is the product of broad-based student collaboration and extensive dialogue, the University has largely ignored the student body’s request for a student space in Healy and has yet to specify why the project would be truly infeasible.

The Endowment Commission, composed of a cross section of student leaders, spent weeks last semester vetting extensively researched proposals from students. However, University President John DeGioia has yet to meet with any students about the commission’s recommendations. The administration has instead refused to compromise at various stages of

the negotiations, as the proposal has taken on different forms, ranging from a student lounge, to a restaurant, to a restaurant with the capacity to serve alcohol. Vice President of Student Affairs Todd Olson, the University’s liaison with the commission, tacitly acknowledged the dearth of student space on campus and offered the New South Student Center as consolation.

This space, which is part of the 2010 Campus Plan, would include a restaurant. Olson has told student leaders the restaurant could have the capacity to serve alcohol.

But we don’t need another on-campus restaurant like Epicurean. This solution does little to address the spirit of the Healy Pub proposal—a gathering space infused with tradition that gives student leaders a fulfilling sense of ownership.

The Healy Pub would make better use of the University’s most iconic building

and give students a convenient, appealing place to work and socialize.

Olson and DeGioia seem less concerned with addressing students’ constructively expressed concerns than with pushing ahead with their own projects, which often do little more than pay lip service to students’ wishes. The whole affair is emblematic of the administration’s dysfunctional relationship with the student body. While DeGioia travels the world, a lack of leadership emerges on the hilltop. The student body has put forth collaborative, concrete proposals to address real problems on campus. Now would be the optimal time for the DeGioia administration to treat us like worthy members of the campus community and engage in an active, productive dialogue with the students who are, after all, the heart of the University.

LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH

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

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On this week’s cover ... Georgetown in China Cover Design: Iris Kim

‘Skins owner Snyder drops farcical lawsuit In February, Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder filed a lawsuit against sportswriter Dave McKenna and the Washington City Paper for an article titled “The Cranky Redskin’s Guide to Dan Snyder,” claiming the piece was libelous and anti-Semitic. At the time, the Voice praised City Paper’s undaunted attitude in response to Snyder’s threats and encouraged our readers to support the legal defense fund that the paper had set up online. The lawsuit, widely mocked since its inception, was finally abandoned on Saturday. The end of the case is not only a triumph in the name of journalistic integrity, but also stands as a testament to the enduring strength of the First Amendment’s promise of free speech and freedom of the press.

Snyder’s case was based on his own deliberate misreading of the article’s content (he later admitted he had never

actually read the article). There were no factual inaccuracies in the article, and the image that Snyder claimed was anti-Semitic was merely a photo of him featuring a jokey drawn-on mustache and horns, the way a cheeky student might deface a photo of a resented teacher. When Snyder and his lawyers decided to drop the case, City Paper editor Michael Schaffer said, “[Snyder’s lawyers] could have saved everyone a great deal of hassle. . . by actually focusing on the content of the story instead of engaging in months of expensive bullying.”

The case boiled down to a powerful figure’s transparent attempt to undermine the constitutional rights of a journalist in an effort to save face after an embarrassing expose. The arrogance that sometimes accompanies wealth does not get more blatant than letting your legal opponent know you’re rich enough to run them

dry, as the Redskins’ general counsel did in a letter to the City Paper’s parent company shortly before the case was officially filed. Also repugnant was Snyder’s use of the phrase “hate crime” in an attempt to evoke public sympathy for the sake of a thin-skinned multi-billionaire. It was a complete distortion of the situation to bolster an unfounded and fatuous case.

This case was yet another manifestation of Snyder’s notorious inability to handle any sort of criticism. While it is unfortunate that wealth allows some Americans to hire lawyers to defend their egos and waste our time, it is reassuring to know that money cannot overturn the rights afforded to each American by law.

It would be wiser for Snyder to spend more time managing his often hapless Redskins—the team can hardly afford an owner more interested in maintaining his pride than his team’s competitiveness.

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september 15, 2011

Aramark is “union strong,” negotiations underway

by Sankalp Gowda On Tuesday night, the Kalmonovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor hosted “We Are One Georgetown,” a victory event celebrating campus food service provider Aramark’s employees’ successful unionization efforts. The first stage of negotiations between the union, called Unite Here, and Aramark, one of the largest food service providers in the United States, began over the summer and will continue into the fall, with union workers hoping to come away with a new contract that emphasizes fair wages and affordable health care.

After joining Unite Here last March, Aramark employees at Georgetown have already worked with Unite Here to facilitate the re-hiring of wrongfully terminated workers and to enact a system of seniority that allows for more days off.

Cathy Anderson, a food service worker for 36 years and a Georgetown employee for 29 years, said that the unionization movement is a source of strength and unity for Leo’s workers.

“You know the saying, we’re Army strong? Well, we’re union strong,” she said.

Anderson said she has already begun to see changes in the way employees are treated.

“We really got tired of being treated like we were nothing,” she said. “We came together and started standing up for one another.”

Andrew Lindquist, director of Leo’s food services, was unwilling to comment on the specifics of the negotiations, but wrote in an email that both sides “continue to bargain in good faith and hope to reach an agreement soon.”

Sam Geaney-Moore (SFS ’12), a senior member of the Georgetown Solidarity Committee, was instrumental in getting the unionization effort off the ground.

“One of my biggest hopes through this entire process was building more relationships between workers and students,” Geaney-Moore said. “Workers are an essential part of our Georgetown community, and you know, this event is a great symbol … of being a part of a community.”

The Kalmanovitz Initiative, a Georgetown-run research institution that studies labor and economic equality in America, hosted the panel as part of its year-long focus on the future of collective bargaining in the United States.

Joseph McCartin, the institute’s executive director, was enthusiastic about Tuesday’s panel, claiming that the collaborative efforts helped cement victory for the workers despite the numerous attacks on collective bargaining nationwide.

“We thought the best way to start [this year’s events] is to begin at home and look at events close to home,” he said.

Also represented on the panel were the Georgetown College Democrats, whose president, Vail Kohnert-Yount (SFS ’13), was involved in the movement’s initial stages. Kohnert-Yount said that the College Democrats’ involvement was not based on political ideology.

“As members of this community, we just felt that it was the right thing to do,” she said. “There’s a lot of justice to be sought in our own community, and all members should be valued. Just see how strong we can be when we band together in a coalition like this.”

Dr. Michael Kazin, a professor in Georgetown’s History Department, believes that while the movement toward unionization may not have been welcomed elsewhere, it was the social con-

text of Georgetown that made it all possible. A student activist in the 1960s, Kazin was one of the first professors to support the Leo’s workers.

“I think it was very important that the movement involved the whole community and not just the workers,” he said. “When labor has been on a downward spiral for 30 or 40 years, I think it’s going to take a mighty effort to revive it again. … I think that it was very impressive how they organized,

making connections between students, faculty members and individual workers off campus.”

As negotiations progress through the school year, the prevailing attitude seems to be one of gratefulness on behalf of both students and workers.

“I give thanks to God for all the help we received from alumni, professors, students, Jesuits, for all the support from everybody,” Don Felipe Ortiz, a Leo’s dishwasher, said.

Arianne Kaldewey

Aramark workers thank GU students, faculty, and alums for union success.

GU adjusts to changes for Catholic Mass

by Patricia Cipollitti

helen guo

Parishioners may get tongue-tied when Mass gets closer to its Latin roots.

After nearly four decades, the Roman Missal, the book that contains the rites and prayers that Catholic priests use in celebrating Mass, is undergoing significant change. According to Jim Wickman, the director of music and liturgy at Georgetown, Georgetown Campus Ministry will be working on making the transition to this new Missal smooth for Georgetown University parishioners.

Beginning in October, parishioners at all masses in Dahlgren Chapel will start learning the revisions in the songs. The official date of full implementation of the new Missal is November 27, the first Sunday of Advent and the beginning of the new liturgical year.

These changes will mainly consist of subtle alterations in prayers and songs as well as the addition of 17 saints to the U.S. calendar.

Wickman said many people are guilty of robotic responses during Mass, and these changes have the potential to be a wake-up call for parishioners.

“I think the change will give us an opportunity to renew the way we look at the Mass [and] deepen our understanding and faith,” Wickman said.

The changes will be noticeable for parishioners. For example, instead of saying “one in being with the father” during the Nicene Creed, mass-goers will say “consubstantial with the Father” instead.

However, the changes are more reactionary than revolutionary.

Wickman said the changes are actually a return to the Mass’s Latin roots. After the Second Vatican Council, held from 1962 to 1965, the Missal was changed dramatically to be more accessible to laypeople. Instead of being said in Latin, the Mass would be said in local languages.

The translation principle used

by U.S. bishops to translate the Latin Mass for this edition was called “dynamic equivalence,” which focused on translating the sense of the meaning of the prayers.

The magnitude of the Latin vernacular change caused subsequent Popes, including Pope John Paul II, to call for a revi-

sion of these translations to local languages. The third edition of the Roman Missal in Latin itself is not undergoing significant alterations. But since U.S. bishops have decided to use the principle of “formal equivalence” in an attempt to bring the English Missal as close as possible to the Latin version, the English edition will see significant changes. The hope is to bring the current vernacular mass closer to the tradition of the historical Latin one.

Though English Mass is going to change significantly, the changes in other languages will be smaller, Wickman said. For example, English parishioners will respond to their priest’s “The Lord be with you” with “And with your spirit,” instead of the traditional “And also with you.” This reflects the current Spanish response, which is “Y con tu espíritu,” a more literal translation of the Latin response “Et cum spiritu tuo.”

Though the transition will not be easy, Wickman hopes that these changes will be educational for Catholic students at Georgetown.

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the georgetown voice 5

More GU entrepreneurs: the prepster and the social networker early October. She has been invited to write for the USA Today blog and MSNBC’s website.

Carlos Cheung (MSB ’13), another undergraduate entrepreneur, is balancing his own technology start-up, called Mindful, with his role as the “Campus CEO” of another company called Zaarly.

Still in its “alpha” phase, Mindful is designed to help people build better relationships.

“Usually when you pass by people, you just say, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ But this applet basically… facilitates better relationships with people they know and builds relationships with people they don’t know,” Cheung said. He said that the company will be operational next year at the earliest.

To gain some guidance with his own start-up, Cheung began an unpaid internship with Zaarly, which allows users to post how much they would be willing to pay for everything from books to help with errands. Other users can complete the tasks or sell the items directly to the poster.

Cheung runs the expansion of Zaarly on the Georgetown

campus and makes sure that the website accommodates what students actually want.

“We’re trying to bring about an entrepreneurial startup feeling to Georgetown,” he said. “It’s like a give back kind of thing.”

Studying at the MSB gives students the opportunity to network and puts them in the mindset of starting their own companies, Heitlinger said.

Both Cheung and Heitlinger have hectic schedules balancing their companies and their classes.

“I have this eye twitch, I lie in bed and things start rolling in my head,” Heitlinger said. “I have these emails I have to send, I have to call this person tomorrow, someone needs this by Wednesday. … Sometimes I would sit for nine hours straight and not move, and literally forget to eat.”

Cheung agreed that being an entrepreneur definitely creates a hectic schedule.

“I follow my calendar like it’s my Bible,” Cheung said. “I usually set days where I’m doing Zaarly, and when I’m [working on my own company], and when I’m doing homework.”

Teach a man to fish

for participants in the construction industry and has created a strong work ethic among other members. “This group understood what was at stake at the beginning of the program,” said Reggie Sanders, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s office.

“They banded together to make it to the next stage.” Construction work through the recordsetting heat of this summer is anything but easy, but Sanders attributes the high morale to the chance that participants are able

by Sasha Jay and Elaine Ding Over the past few years, the McDonough School of Business has seen a surge in student entrepreneurship initiatives, ranging from technology start-ups to bloggers and potential magazine CEOs. Some companies, like Sweetgreen and LivingSocial, have seen success after their founders graduated from Georgetown, but several current undergraduate entrepreneurs have found a way to mix business success with academic responsibilities.

Carly Heitlinger (MSB ’12) started blogging as a joke during Christmas break of her freshman year. Her blog, The College Prepster, has since grown into an internet brand with its own Tumblr, Twitter page, and website domain. Heitlinger publishes articles with style and fashion advice on “preppy” clothing. Heitlinger said the site garners an average of 38,000 hits a week.

In addition her daily blog, Heitlinger has published a book, a newsletter, and is collaborating with two other girls to launch a web magazine, Sweet Lemon, in

On Tuesday, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that there are now more Americans living in poverty than in any time since collection of the statistic began 52 years ago. This problem is especially pronounced in D.C., where the poverty rate is 17.6 percent, which is 2.5 percent higher than the national average. In response to this problem, Mayor Vincent Gray’s office has begun Sweat Equity, a new and unprecedented effort that takes homeless families on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program and puts them to work renovating the District’s vacant buildings and apartments. When the work is done, the participant’s family can move into the residence with two years of city-subsidized rent.

Only in a pilot stage this year, Sweat Equity has put 12 heads of needy families—both male and female—to work renovating two six-unit buildings in Southeast D.C. As the

Washington Post described it, the program is “a hammer, not a handout.”

Expectations for both employers and participants are strict. Contractors must employ members of the program for at least 20 hours a week for 70 percent of the construction project.

Employees must be paid a wage of over $12.50 an hour. In turn, participants learn to read blueprints and other skills of the construction industry, as well as essential lessons of professionalism and accountability. They must pass drug tests, show up on time, and work just as hard as their colleagues. They are treated like normal employees, something essential for many participants who have been out of regular work for extended periods of time.

Although the two construction sites are only about halfway to completion, early results are encouraging. Sweat Equity work has already resulted in two permanent job placements

City on a hill

by Gavin Bade

A bi-weekly column on D.C. news and politics to move into their renovated homes. “It’s a chance to bring their families together,” he said.

It is not clear yet whether the costs of Sweat Equity outweigh those of keeping the families on the welfare rolls, but the positive aspects of the program should outweigh monetary issues. The most compelling element is the effect it is sure to have on the children of these 12 families. They will get to see

MATT FunK

Hectic schedules and eye-twitches are common symptoms for entrepreneurs.

Both Cheung and Heitlinger encouraged students interested in starting companies to reach out to them, or to other MSB students who have had startups.

“People are going to tell you that you’re crazy,” Heitlinger their parents do real work instead of relying on handouts.

As one participant said to the Washington Post, “I get to show [my son] what a man should be doing—working. I get to show him firsthand.”

Even more important, these children will have the opportunity to grow up in stable homes instead of homeless shelters or spare rooms of relatives. Surely it is easier to memorize multiplication tables in one’s own home than to do it in a shelter.

These are the kinds of things most kids never have to worry about, but they are absolutely essential when promoting equal opportunity.

Because of cutbacks in TANF earlier this year, these children’s families would have likely been forced off the welfare rolls and into societal obscurity. This is where the rubber hits the road in terms of social justice legislation with the next generations, and Sweat Equity gets it just right.

Unfortunately, the program is much too small. There are certainly more than 12 families in

said. “If they tell you that your idea is dumb, it’s probably really telling you that you’re doing something right. Learn to take criticism and read into it.

When people start talking about it, whether or not it’s positive, it’s a good thing.” the District who could use the type of help Sweat Equity provides, and many of them and their children will face the same insecure fate that the participants narrowly avoided.

Still, there are reasons for hope. This program shows that government can and does have a positive impact on citizens’ lives when applied properly.

With the broken value system of quasi-libertarian Republicans spreading throughout the nation, this point cannot be hammered home enough.

The Mayor’s office says it is too early for an evaluation of Sweat Equity, but a decision on whether the program will continue or expand will be made in the next six months. No matter what happens, governments of all levels across the nation should stand up and take notice. The Gray administration is proving that government is in fact often the answer to economic problems. Other communities should follow suit.

Hammer it out with Gavin at gbade@georgetownvoice.com

sports

6 the georgetown voice

september 15, 2011

Hoyas win thriller, prep for long road stint

by Kevin Joseph The Georgetown Hoyas (20, 1-0 Patriot League) will be taking their quest for a Patriot League title on the road for the next five weeks. But in their last home game until mid-October, the Hoyas gave fans a thriller, coming back in the last minutes to defeat conference rival Lafayette 14-13.

After falling behind 3-0 to the Leopards in the first quarter, Georgetown came back with 26 seconds left in the first half to seize the lead on a 19-yard touchdown pass from junior quarterback Isaiah Kempf to junior receiver Max Waizenegger.

After a Lafayette field goal and touchdown, Georgetown was behind late in the second half 13-7, but Waizenegger pulled in another touchdown, allowing senior kicker Brett Weiss to hammer home the extra point for the lead with around six minutes remaining.

Aside from Waizenegger’s big night, the Hoya defense sent a statement to the rest of the league, holding the Leopards off the board after taking their fourth quarter lead. Senior defensive end Andrew Schaetzke secured victory for the Hoyas, forcing a fumble before recording a sack to clinch victory. Schaetzke ended up with 10 tackles on the evening, including three for a loss and 1.5 sacks.

For head coach Kevin Kelly, the Schaetzke superlatives keep coming. He expanded his statement last season that the defensive end was the best defensive player in the Patriot League.

“He’s by far the best player in the league—he can absolutely dominate a football game,” Kelly said.

On Saturday, Georgetown faces Yale in New Haven, Conn., in a perennial battle that breeds stiff competition. The match-up marks the start of a five-game road trip that concludes with the local rivalry game against Howard on October 15. Kelly said he isn’t worried about the lengthy trip away from Multi-Sport Field and has his team focused on redeeming themselves against the Bulldogs.

“This is how we look at the road—the field’s still 100 yards long and 53 1/3 yards wide,” Kelly said. “We just take it one game at a time and don’t look at it as four or five road games in a row.”

Last season, the Hoyas lost to Yale 40-35 in New Haven after a last-minute Bulldog drive to prevent a 3-0 start to the Hoyas’ 2010 campaign. Junior cornerback and New Haven native Jeremy Moore was a major catalyst for the Hoyas in his hometown, returning a kickoff for a touchdown in that game.

Moore’s return game has supplemented his lockdown second-

LUCIA HE

Isaiah Kempf continued to move the ball effectively, throwing for two TDs.

ary play, making an impact on both sides of the ball. He hopes to excel yet again in front of friends and family this weekend.

“I grew up watching games in the Yale Bowl since I was eight,” the junior said. “I passed by the Bowl every day on my way to school. I used to think to myself, ‘these players are big,’ and now I’m on the same field playing against them. It’s a surreal experience.”

As for stopping Yale, Kelly thinks the team has learned a great deal from last season and are preparing themselves for the stiff test ahead. The Lafayette win demonstrates a notable improvement from a season ago— the defense cut the Leopards’ total yards from last season in half.

“We made a lot of mental errors in the game last year,” Moore said. “We are older now and more in tune with our scheme.”

Strategy aside, the Hoyas are simply eager to redeem themselves against Yale, determined to extend their winning streak instead of reverting to last season’s disappointments.

“We are hungry,” Moore said. “These seniors have been through too much in the past couple of years for us not to capitalize on the talent that we having flying around on Saturdays.”

the Sports Sermon “Start drinking early. It’s a 4:15 game, they’ll have a lot of time to get lubed up, come out here and cheer for the home team.” - Tom Brady rallying the fans for Sunday’s game what it is, have no right to know about the issues at stake. We have no right to hear about the league thinks or what different owners have to say. Not even Michael fucking Jordan has the authority to speak his mind.

To make matters worse, just a day after the NBA launched this missile at its greatest legend, the owners and players union left another New York meeting without having made any progress towards ending the lockout – again. So in case the fine didn’t properly send the message, let me be more clear: we aren’t going to hear

Furthermore, this sort of public commentary on the isNBA commissioner David sue should be encouraged, not Stern has officially completed condemned. Instead of posting his transformation from global some half-wit response in 140 visionary to dictator. Almost a characters or less on Twitter, Jormonth after harmlessly discussdan spoke his mind to a respected ing revenue sharing and mentionnews source, in a country where ing the name of the Milwaukee the NBA has been growing in Bucks Australian center Andrew popularity as their national sportBogut in an interview with Ausing heroes break into the league. tralian daily The Herald Sun, the The Australians must be perNBA fined Michael Jordan the plexed by the quintessentially ludicrous sum of $100,000.

American boardroom squabbling I won’t shed any tears for that threatens to destroy our basMJ’s wallet – he’ll splash that ketball league. much cash on the big blind in VeWhile I understand that gas. Nor has Jordan proven himthere are important legal issues self to be a particularthat must remain ly amiable guy in his under wraps, prePete Rose Central retirement, making venting qualified Da bettin’ line his allies these days individuals from few and far between. articulating the isDookies Margin Hoyas Nevertheless, this is sues of the lock(underdogs) (duh!) (favorites) a matter of principle. out to the public Michael, I’m here to Rays Heimlich Maneuver completely disreSox defend you.

Chair Umpire Tower Defenses spects us as fans of Serena Not only is this the game. Jordan Georgia Dome (Un)leashed did not reveal any Vick fine outrageous in its amount, but more details of negotiaimportantly, it was levied under from the league anytime soon. tions, nor did he fire any pointed completely tyrannical reasoning.

So where we do we go from attacks at specific individuals.

The NBA currently has a policy here? The aftermath of the NFL He simply explained his posithat allows it to fine owners up lockout offers some optimism tion to a curious audience, trying to $1 million for publicly men- for a solution, as that league to convey the complex dynamics tioning the lockout or any cur- overcame major obstacles at of the lockout to an entire nation rent NBA players. Jordan’s role as the negotiating table to start the of basketball fans. majority owner of the Charlotte season on time and with treThis week has been perhaps Bobcats means he is subjected to mendous excitement. the most debilitating in terms these strict regulations.

Unfortunately, the NBA’s of salvaging the NBA season.

Perhaps Jordan, immortal ce- problem is fundamentally differ- While the return of football lebrity that he is, had a big target ent. While the NFL was arguing may offer some consolation for on his back all along. Someone over how to distribute its astro- the time being, it looks almost of lesser stature (read: basically nomical profits, the NBA is losing guaranteed that the league’s anyone else in the world) would money, fast.

November 1 tip-off will only probably not have been hit so This gives us all the more be happening on the Xbox. Our hard by Stern’s financial hammer. reason to question Stern’s actions best hope for now is that Stern This punishment was meant to and motives. As majority owner will take MJ’s money and put it send a message to the basketball of a small-market team, Jordan towards buying a EuroLeague community, but what kind of is perfectly within reason to talk TV contract, because otherwise, message? about the necessity of revenue it doesn’t look like we’ll be seeIn Stern’s mind, fans, the peo- sharing for the subsistence of his ing any professional basketball ple who truly make this league franchise. in the near future.

by Daniel Kellner

sports

georgetownvoice.com

Volleyball grounded early the team is going to maximize its potential on the court.

“Being a senior, I know the team looks up to both myself and Ashley because we have the most experience on the team,” Rezin said. “Any advice we give…is always in the best interest of the team and our success.”

journey through this last nonconference tournament and Big The Georgetown’s women’s East play.” volleyball team has started out Even in their defeats this the season with mixed results, season, the Hoyas know there dropping to 4-5 after a tough are positives to take away. The five-set loss to George Washing0-3 score line against Cal is perton in the final game of the D.C. haps misleading given GeorgeChallenge yesterday afternoon. town’s strong effort in the third The Hoyas will rue their set. The Golden Bears missed chances against breezed by the Hoyas the Colonials, having 25-14 in the first two sets surged to a two sets to before battling to 25-18 in one lead in the match. the clinching set.

The team has strug“We had nothing to gled initially with a challose by playing great Hoya lenging non-conference volleyball,” Williams said. schedule, including a “After the match was over, I matchup against No. 1 was happy that we competCalifornia last week, in ed well in set three but diswhich the Hoyas were appointed that it took three taken apart in three sets sets for us to get going.” by the undefeated nationEven with a rocky start al title frontrunners. to the season, the Hoyas It is not just the difhave maintained high ficult non-conference aspirations, setting their schedule that has created sights on postseason play. early obstacles for the “My expectations for Hoyas this season, head the future are to make the coach Arlisa Williams Big East Tournament,” admitted that the deRezin said. “I fully beparture of three seniors lieve this goal is attainleaders from last year ’s able… we have a very talsquad has also contribented group of players.” uted to the inconsistent Their tough early start this year. schedule will go a long “I believe the biggest way toward preparing impact is the loss of exthe Hoyas for conference perience that our seniors play, where they will have provided,” Williams said. to prove themselves again Courtesy SPORTS INFORMATION “But the athleticism and MacKenzie Simpson is one of several promising freshman. against talented opposigame savvy of our freshtion. A top-half finish is esmen as well as the overall develDespite sweeping roster sential if Georgetown is to proopment of our players and lead- changes, Williams noted that long its season. Williams knows ership of our current seniors the start of this season is compa- her team has gained valuable make the transition a relatively rable to that of fall 2010. experience for the future. smooth one.”

“Our record is about the “The start of this season has Senior libero Tory Rezin also same at this point,” she said. “I prepared us for every obstacle recognizes the need for her and think the bumps that we are hit- that we will face along the way,” senior setter Ashley Malone to ting, if we learn from them, will she said. “As we move forward, emerge as leaders this year if allow us to have a really fun I expect great things.”

by Melissa Sullivan

Wild weekend in unlocked NFL Nothing has been normal in the NFL since Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers claimed the Super Bowl crown last February. In a summer when ESPN’s legal analyst, Roger Cossack got more air time than Ron Jaworski, teams missed out on critical time preparing for the upcoming season. Yet after the lockout was finally settled, all seemed right in the universe.

Yes, players were rushed into preseason games and forced to bury their heads in playbooks.

But a season was on the horizon, fantasy football was back, and the greatest American Sunday tradition was saved.

But, when the last two Super Bowl champions met to kick off

the 2011 season and Week One concluded on Monday night, the NFL still wasn’t back to normal.

Teams combined to throw for 7,842 net passing yards, the most ever in one week. And that was with Peyton Manning sitting on the sidelines for the first time in his 14-year career.

There were eight combined kickoff and punt returns for touchdowns, the most in league history. This is all the more remarkable considering the league moved kickoffs up to the 35 yard line, in an attempt to decrease the number of returns.

Most experts called for lower scoring games, expecting offenses to be out of sync, thanks to missed practices in the short-

ened off-season. Nothing could be farther from reality.

It would be easy to point to veteran quarterbacks for the offensive explosion in the opening week, as Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees each threw for at least three touchdowns and 300 yards. They’ve had time to devel-

Double Teamed

by Nick Berti

a rotating column on sports op chemistry with their team, and don’t need the off-season workouts as much as less established players. But, out of nowhere, Panther rookie quarterback Cam Newton threw for an NFL-debut record 400 yards in his first game, while much maligned veterans Chad Henne and Rex Grossman had nice performances in their openers.

the georgetown voice 7

Soccer back on track

by Abby Sherburne With its third straight win, the Georgetown women’s soccer team continued its revival from a brief early season swoon. After Friday’s 2-0 triumph over James Madison and Sunday’s 1-0 win against St. Francis, the Hoyas stand at an impressive 6-2 and are in prime position to begin conference play.

While they may be content with their record thus far, the team’s recent difficulty to capitalize on scoring opportunities has been problematic, as the Hoyas were unable to score until the 82nd minute in Sunday’s contest.

The team hasn’t been slow to find the net for lack of chances, having out-shot opponents by an astounding 49 to 8 over the weekend.

Senior midfielders Ingrid Wells and Kelly D’Ambrisi, as well as sophomore defender Emily Menges, were among those pressing the St. Francis goal.

Head coach Dave Nolan and Wells both agree that there were many missed chances to score.

“It was unfortunate that we did not finish as many opportunities as we had against St. Francis,” Wells said, “but sometimes that happens and we have to move on.”

Unfortunately for Georgetown, “sometimes” has become a common recurrence in the first half of matches, resulting in some uneasy finishes. The Hoyas had more con-

Granted, Week 1 is probably the most over-analyzed time in the NFL season. Fans and experts are already making judgments based on just one week of action.

Many of the players who are riding the praises of excellent performances, may drift into oblivion by Week 4. Just ask Mike Bell, who rushed for 143 yards in the Saints’ 2009 season opener.

There’s no way to know what the future holds. No guru can predict if this is the Lions year or whether Chad Henne is in for a Drew Brees-esque transformation. There will be new faces and teams that surface and surprise people, as in every year.

The game probably isn’t changing. Defenses will catch on eventually and special teams will learn how to control returners under the new rules. That could

vincing wins at the beginning of the season, scoring early in the match. Since the loss against national title challengers Stanford, the women have only scored once in the first half.

Nolan has been quick to downplay the Hoyas’ inconsistent finishing. He’s more impressed that the women are finding these scoring opportunities in the first place.

“I feel we played well creating those chances,” he said.

“It’s just unfortunate that we didn’t get much luck in connecting those chances.”

Defensively, senior goalkeeper Elizabeth Hanna has been a major boost to the squad this year, after the tough loss of last year’s goaltender Jackie DesJardin.

Hanna has already made 18 saves this season, giving the Hoyas confidence in their shot-stopper.

This upcoming weekend marks a turning point in the season, as the women begin Big East play with matchups against Seton Hall and Rutgers. Wells and the rest of the squad are gearing up for what is sure to be an exciting stretch of games.

“We need to focus on playing well as a team and making the most of every Big East game,” the senior said.

The Hoyas look to change their scoring fortunes this weekend, gearing up for Seton Hall on Friday, before a home confrontation with Rutgers on North Kehoe Field at 12:00p.m. this Sunday.

take some time though. And until that happens, normalcy will be absent from the gridiron.

That will bother the purists who don’t enjoy seeing receivers constantly running away from defensive backs and quarterbacks throwing deep with reckless abandon. But for most of us who enjoy the non-stop action, it was nice to see an offensive outburst after such a trying summer for fans. Not that the NFL isn’t always enjoyable, but last week seemed more fun than usual. Maybe its because Demaurice Smith beat us down with too many legal terms this off season, or it could be the football gods rewarding us for our patience. Whatever it was, let’s hope the normalcy doesn’t return anytime soon.

Get jacked up by Nick at nberti@ georgetownvoice.com

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8 the georgetown voice

september 15, 2011

A GLOBAL UNIVERSITY Georgetown’s deepening relationship with the Chinese Communist Party

by Jackson Perry he day after an August exhibition game between the Georgetown men’s basketball team and the Bayi Rockets of the Chinese Basketball Association ended in a brawl, University President John DeGioia spoke at a reception for the team at the American Consulate in Shanghai. While stunning photos and videos of the fight raced across the Internet and were shown throughout the day on American television, state-controlled media in China largely ignored the fracas. What had begun as basketball diplomacy became a test of Georgetown’s efforts in China.

President DeGioia’s remarks had to address not only the moment, but also the University’s entire mission.

Of the University’s many relationships with countries around the world, none has expanded more in recent years than its partnership with China.

Since 2004, the number of agreements between Georgetown and Chinese institutions has grown to 27, second only to its connections in the United Kingdom.

These agreements range from study abroad opportunities for undergraduates to joint research programs for faculty to executive leadership programs for Chinese government bureaucrats.

Demand has kept pace with supply. The number of undergraduate students studying abroad in China has increased five-fold in as many years. Faculty exchanges, virtually nonexistent before 2004, have become commonplace. There is no doubt that Georgetown students and scholars are in China to stay. But at what cost?

Alongside the connections between Georgetown and Chinese universities in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Harbin, and Xiamen, the University has established partnerships with the State Administration for Religious Affairs and the Central Party School, two government institutions of critical importance. SARA oversees—and of-

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ten restricts—the activity of religious groups in China, while the Central Party School trains the elite of the Chinese Communist Party in government affairs.

Professor Victor Cha, the director of Georgetown’s Asian Studies program and the former head of Asian Affairs for the National Security Council, described the two institutions as “two of the most orthodox agencies of the Chinese state apparatus.”

While many American universities have established connections with China in recent years, Georgetown’s relationships with SARA and the Central Party School are unique. Because of the oppressive nature and policies of these institutions, it is difficult for the University to avoid moral questions over these relationships.

“As a university community committed to our Catholic and Jesuit identity, Georgetown has a distinctive challenge,” DeGioia said in Shanghai. “We need to do our part to expand our understanding of globalization—to move beyond strictly financial and market terms—and to ensure that we harness these forces for the betterment of human kind.” ecause of the atheist character of the Chinese state and the long history of foreign missionary work in China, the Chinese Communist Party’s policy toward Chinese religious communities has ranged from wary concern to active suppression. As the department of the Chinese government that handles religious issues, SARA administers exchanges between religious organizations within China and their counterparts abroad, and establishes policies that affect the practice of religion in China. For example, in 2007, the government proclaimed Buddhist reincarnation without government approval to be illegal. This policy, condemned by the Dalai Lama, is an attempt to install a Chinese Buddhist leadership that pays obeisance to Beijing.

SARA’s policies toward Chinese Roman Catholicism—which have similar goals to the state’s policies concerning Buddhism— have been a flashpoint in the relationship between the People’s Republic of China and the Vatican. Although the practice of religion has become more widespread and tolerated in China since the beginning of the country’s economic liberalization, every important aspect of religious life, from the appointment of leadership to the construction of churches, requires the approval of SARA. “One of the principles of China’s governance of religion is that religious communities must be organized on a national level,” Professor Thomas Banchoff, the director of Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, said.

Today, Chinese Catholics who remain loyal to the Vatican

forced to attend the ceremonies.

A Vatican-linked news agency said one of the bishops was taken from his house sobbing before a ceremony in July. The Chinese government denied these allegations.

In 2008, Georgetown established a partnership with SARA’s Center for Religious Studies to hold conferences between Georgetown faculty and Chinese religious authorities. At the signing of the agreement with SARA Minister Ye Xiaowen in Riggs Library, President DeGioia drew a comparison between Georgetown’s representation of the Catholic faith and SARA’s representation of Chinese cultural values. “How we engage in our increasingly interconnected world very much depends on our traditions and values,” DeGioia said.

“For SARA and Georgetown, these are the millennia-old values that are inherent in Chinese

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Courtesy GU SPORTS INFORMATION

Basketball diplomacy take two: Georgetown reconciles with the Bayi Rockets. are pressured to switch their allegiance to the state-founded Catholic Patriotic Association.

The Vatican and China are frequently in wars of words over the appointment of bishops, which the Chinese government considers its prerogative. Three times in the last year, the Communist Party has appointed bishops over the objections of the Vatican. The Economist relayed reports that several Chinese bishops were

culture and Catholicism. Each of us will be bringing these values to our partnership—and in the process—learning from each other and about each other as we preserve and share our most important and intrinsic values.”

The University expanded its relationship with SARA this summer when the Berkley Center organized a tour of several American cities for Chinese civil servants to study the relationship

between religious and governmental organizations. As director of the center, Banchoff believed that the program was successful and envisions that similar programs will exist in the future.

As Georgetown’s relationship has deepened with the Chinese government institution most often at loggerheads with the Vatican, Georgetown administrators have not been concerned about the possibility of tension with Church policy.

“They obviously know what we’re doing, and they’re oftentimes involved in our dialogues,” said Fr. Dennis McNamara, a sociology professor and Special Assistant to President DeGioia for China Affairs. “We are never incongruent with the Vatican.

Our relationship with Rome … is absolute.”

Banchoff said that the University’s relationship with an institution that often represses Chinese Catholics does not undermine Georgetown’s own deeply held ideals.

“To engage in dialogue with them is in no way to relativize or undermine our own convictions about what’s important and just in political life,” Banchoff said.

Such dialogue, he continued, is “important to advance understanding on both sides, to sharpen our appreciation of where we differ and manage our relationship more effectively.” he Central Party School trains Communist Party civil servants for high-level government positions—Jeff Anderson, the director of Georgetown’s BMW Center for German and European Studies and a participant in two of Georgetown’s conferences with the Central Party School, described it as “the finishing school for the top party elite.”

It is also the Communist Party’s “primary think tank for generating new ideas and policies concerning political and ideological reform,” according to David Shambaugh, an expert on Chinese politics at George Washington University.

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georgetownvoice.com “I’d be hard-pressed to call what goes on there anything other than a kind of indoctrination,” Anderson said.

Since May 2006, Georgetown and the Central Party School have held yearly conferences and “study tours” in the United States and China. According to McNamara, there are about six to eight people in each delegation, though when Georgetown professors go on “study tours” of China, two to three of them are usually already in China.

When China hosts the exchange, the Central Party School pays for it. When Georgetown hosts, Georgetown pays.

Although the dialogue has improved somewhat over time, both Anderson and Cha commented on the noticeable difference in the quality of scholarship put forth by Georgetown and the Central Party School.

“I wasn’t impressed at the time with the quality of the participants coming from the Central Party School,” Anderson remarked of the first conference he attended. “I just didn’t feel like there was a whole lot of dialogue going on. The paper that I commented on, it was like two ships passing in the night.”

Cha held no illusions about the academic component of the relationship with the Central Party School. “The substance of our meetings is fine,” he said. “It’s not outstanding, obviously, because it’s not a free exchange of ideas.” Smiling, Cha emphasized that Georgetown undergraduates do not study abroad at the Central Party School.

Even McNamara, who has been the enthusiastic point-person for the relationship with the Central Party School, admitted, “Our faculty are not meeting faculty with similar academic expertise.”

Though Anderson was not optimistic about the prospects of change within the Communist Party as a result of these meetings, he did speak positively of the study tours Georgetown offers to Chinese delegations. “They’re getting exposed to a broad range of viewpoints when they come here,” he said. “I think that’s a great service that Georgetown can perform.”

The relationship also sheds useful light on the inner workings of the Communist Party.

And even if the scholarship is not usually impressive, there are still opportunities for academic insights. Cha noted the indirect value the conferences offer. “Whatever the topic is, you pretty much know what they’re going to say,” Cha said.

“If you see something that devi-

ates from that, that’s interesting, that’s academically interesting.”

Considering the breadth of academic engagement with Chinese institutions, Cha emphasized that Georgetown’s association with the Central Party School cannot be evaluated without considering broader political dynamics.

“Everybody around the world who has been engaging with China is hopeful that this sort of exchange, though it can sometimes be uncomfortable, in the end is going to help to integrate China’s peaceful rise in the world,” he said.

The University is not under the illusion that engagement with the Central Party School

and an expert on the Chinese province of Xinjiang, who contributed to the scholarly text Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Frontier. In 2004, Millward was prevented from acquiring a visa to visit China because important figures in the Chinese government believed that 13 of the contributors to the text, including Millward, supported the notion of the province’s independence from China.

In a blog post for The China Post titled “Being Blacklisted

by China, And What Can Be Learned from It,” Millward described his dissatisfaction with Georgetown’s lukewarm support for his efforts to get a visa.

Millward, one of Georgetown’s

the georgetown voice 9 “Prof. Millward… acknowledges the support he has had from this and other Georgetown offices when trying to visit China… I will continue to support Georgetown and Chinese colleagues who seek to advance academic exchange. It is understandable if disagreements surface over specific tactics to take in pursuing this widely shared principle.”

In 2007, Millward was finally able to secure a visa to visit China after writing a letter to the Chinese ambassador that explained his predicament and made clear that he did not support the separation of Xinjiang from China. In 2008 and 2009, he was again denied visas. hile Georgetown’s relationships with SARA and the Central Party School have been maintained or even expanded, the budgets for regional studies programs, including the Center for Asian Studies, have been slashed significantly. Because the U.S. Department of Education was mandated to reduce funding to National Resource Centers, including Georgetown’s Asian Studies center, this summer its budget was cut by 47 percent.

Asian Studies was forced to make cuts across the board, including a reduction in course offerings and faculty research grants, while student fellowship funding is the only budget item that remains at previous levels. Cha, the director of the center, said, “Georgetown is not making up the difference, so we’re operating with half of what we had.” Cha kicked his dysfunctional eight-year-old printer to underline his point.

He was not optimistic about the possibility of government funding for NRCs returning to its former level.

Cha made clear that his program’s budget did not include the money spent on the Central Party School relationship. “If we did, we’d try to use it for something else,” he said.

Banchoff, McNamara, and Cha each indicated that important decisions about engagement in China are made at a very high level in the Georgetown administration. Neither McNamara nor Banchoff could recall how the ideas for the relationships with SARA or the Central Party School first emerged, but emphasized that the Office of the Provost’s International Initiatives team plays the most important role.

Robfogel, the team’s director, declined to talk about the Central Party School program, and denied having any direct involvement.

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The Central Party School delegation gathers at a reception in April. will change the governing ideology. “I think their approach is, ‘We’re not trying to change you, you don’t try to change us. But we want to understand you,’” McNamara said.

“Certainly we want to understand them.” he Chinese government’s repression of many freedoms is not a purely academic subject for American scholars who study China. In recent years, several prominent professors have been prevented from traveling to China because the Chinese government considered their viewpoints dangerous. Speaking to the Voice in 2008, Sam Robfogel, the Director of International Initiatives in the Office of the Provost, said, “If we ever felt that academic freedom in our program was suppressed in a way that didn’t allow us to be the Georgetown University that we wanted to be it would be a matter of concern.”

Although the University insisted it would defend the academic freedom of its professors, the unofficial blacklist included School of Foreign Service professor James Millward, a graduate of Harvard and Stanford

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foremost scholars on China, asked the University to place him on one of its delegation to the Central Party School. Millward wrote in the post, “I was told that any plan to draw on our Central Party School relationship was ‘a non-starter.’”

Cha regretted the circumstances of Millward’s banning.

“That’s the price everybody pays when they’re doing business in China, academic exchange or playing basketball,” he said. “There’s a price that you pay that where in form it may look like the same sort of exchange or transaction, but in substance it’s not.”

In his blog post, Millward was not optimistic for the future of American scholarship on China. “If institutions don’t support their own faculty, but allow visa refusals to occur and go on unchallenged for years, American academics may well gradually be placed in a situation akin to that of our Chinese colleagues: facing the Chinese state on our own, forced to consider the possible personal repercussions of everything we write,” Millward wrote.

In an email to the Voice earlier this month, Robfogel said,

“The decision of whether to engage with SARA or the Central Party School is a decision that’s made above my pay grade,” Cha said.

Cha and Anderson aren’t the only ones skeptical of the value that these relationships offer to Georgetown. “If Georgetown chooses to continue to invest considerable time and financial resources in these relationships with the Party School and SARA, we should make sure we are getting sufficient and the right sort of return from the investment,” Millward wrote in an email to the Voice. “Nor should we let concern over maintaining those political relationships hamper our other exchanges with China, or lead us to lose track of our primary academic goals of pedagogy and research.” lthough the basketball trip was the focus of his speech in Shanghai, DeGioia also referenced Georgetown’s relationship with SARA and the Central Party School, though not by name. “We provide, through our executive training engagements, an opportunity to share knowledge and experience with emerging leaders in China,” he said. “Our cooperative agreements with leading ministries of the government create opportunities both to define Georgetown’s unique identity as a global university, and to deepen our ties with a nation that rests at the center of our increasingly networked, globalized world.”

Cha does not dismiss the ethical questions inherent in a relationship with an undemocratic government. He recalled the reaction of the Central Party School delegation to a paper he presented in 2008 on the tension between the Olympic ideals of transparency and merit and China’s illiberal political system. “They hated it. They were upset. The head of their delegation was visibly upset,” Cha said. “Some people look at that and think, that’s exactly the sort of thing we should be talking with them about.”

Others argue that the intrinsic difficulties are no reason to give up on dialogue. “The opposite argument is, well, don’t do dialogue at all because they might possibly take something from us and use it in a negative way,” McNamara said. “Well my heavens, then we might as well close up shop! Once we need to interact with societies across the world, we have to take some risks in that sense.

But Georgetown’s been doing that for 200 years. This is what a great university does.”

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10 the georgetown voice

september 15, 2011

Drive blends the bloody and the beautiful

by Henry Thaler There’s a scene in Drive where Ryan Gosling and his love interest share a passionate, climactic kiss. Then Gosling ruthlessly proceeds to kick a thug’s skull in.

This combination of excessive violence and theatrical set-ups

gives Drive a gritty, gore-is-good charm. With quiet, tensionbuilding scenes interrupted by gut-wrenching violence, the film pays tribute to classic car-chasers like Bullitt while mixing in the satirical wit of Tarantino. Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn’s final product is a stylish, bold, and brutal film, filled to the brim

After killing the Michelin man, the murderer cooked his brains under the hood.

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with superb acting and beautiful cinematography.

The plot of Drive is straightforward, bordering on cliché.

Gosling plays a part-time stunt driver who, with the help of his boss (Bryan Cranston), makes a living on the side as a getaway driver. Long story short, he comes across a sack full of money in a heist gone wrong.

Unfortunately for the duo, the money belongs to two gangsters (Ron Perlman and, oddly enough, Albert Brooks). Now Gosling, whose character remains unnamed throughout the film, must protect himself, his next-door neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), and her son from the mobsters who vow to get their money back and eliminate anyone in their way.

While its plot may be simple, Drive is far from standard popcorn fare. Rather than bombard audiences with blaring sound effects and fast-paced, disorienting editing, Drive takes its time, opening with sweeping shots of nighttime

Los Angeles set to a New Wave soundtrack and an ‘80s-esque flamingo-pink font. By playing on previous stereotypes, Drive would appear to be uninspired on paper, but its precise directing and romantic lighting gives this movie a life of its own.

The violence in Drive is sparing yet brutal. When a character gets shot or stabbed, the wound is shown for only a half-second, but lingers for just enough time for the image to haunt viewers’ dreams. The sweat-inducing robberies and car chases only occur after a lot of build-up, and in the case of the former, the camera stays fixated on Gosling waiting behind the wheel, ignoring the interior of the pawn shop or warehouse being robbed. Believe it or not, the film derives as much excitement from Gosling glancing at his watch as it does from a hot pursuit through the Pacific Coast Highway.

While any director can make a movie with copious hardcore violence, retro music,

and slow-mo, Refn elevates Drive by getting a lot out of his actors. Mulligan is brilliant as a young mother in love with her son and her ex-con husband.

Yet the moment she sees Gosling, she has a new love in her life, an emotion she expresses not through expansive monologue but deep, dramatic facial expressions. Gosling once again proves that he is the best young actor working in Hollywood, communicating his character ’s hidden hurt and longing with little more than his eyes. Whether working on a car engine or evading the cops, he brings a quiet, human pensiveness to a performance that would normally be played with excessive macho bravado.

Drive is a must-see movie.

While it may not be for the weak of heart, its action sequences and superfluous gore will have audiences speeding home from the theater. And ever since O.J.’s incarceration, this country’s been in serious need of some epic car chases.

District of Pi: pizza and politics at their best

by Alex Rice By now, most of us have picked out our favorite spot for a dose of cheesy pizza goodness. Some of the less adventurous, such as my gastronomically uninclined roommate, frequently turn to boring chains like Pizza Hut or Domino’s. For pizza snobs, this type of behavior is unacceptable, so it comes as a relief to learn that our president’s taste is a little more sophisticated.

St. Louis-based District of Pi first grabbed the nation’s attention in 2008 when presidentelect Barack Obama claimed it was the best pizza he had ever eaten. Later, the president even brought the pizzeria’s owner over to D.C. to recreate his favorite dishes for his family and staff. Fortunately for Obama, long distance orders will no longer be necessary, as District of Pi recently opened a new location in D.C.’s Penn Quarter, just seven blocks away from the White House.

Upon stepping through the doors, it becomes clear that

District of Pi is not your average pizza joint. Pi boasts a spacious 5,000 square foot interior, complete with a 40-foot bar and an upstairs mezzanine level.

Exposed brick walls accented by mismatched chandeliers

Pi’s menu offers a wide variety of both thin crust and deep-dish options, as well as many “pre-pi” appetizer foods. Though not overly impressed by the bruschetta or “bada bing” salad, I still had

I took my first bite of the paperthin (yet somehow not at all floppy) dough, I was delighted.

The flavors complemented each other perfectly—it was one of the best thin crust pizzas I have ever eaten.

The three necessary elements of any civilization: pizza, beer, and irrational numbers. give the restaurant the feel of a trendy Brooklyn apartment.

It’s no wonder that this place has become a weekend hotspot for friends to grab a slice and a beer (especially since Pi brews its own).

high hopes for the main attraction. Our thin crust pizza was the “Central West End,” which was coated in a mixture of mozzarella and goat cheese, topped with cherry tomatoes, prosciutto, red onions, and arugula. As

Alex Rice

Our deep-dish pizza was the “South Side Classico,” which featured a base of mozzarella topped with sausage, mushrooms, peppers, and onions, all covered by Pi’s signature chunky tomato sauce. One bite

of this and I was in heaven. Unlike most other deep-dish pizzas, Pi’s cornmeal-based dough is sturdy and shaped, keeping its contents contained.

This makes for a fairly easy, no-mess meal (that is, if you don’t trip and drop the leftovers while running to catch the GUTS bus home, as my companion did).

Our last taste of the night was the deep-dish “apple pi,” which was a perfect combination of warm, crumbly crust mixed with sweet, tender apples and vanilla ice cream.

Don’t have time for a sit down lunch? District of Pi’s food truck, Pi On Wheels, offers quicker and cheaper access to its signature pizza dishes. The truck can usually be found in some of D.C.’s bustling hotspots, including Farragut Square, Union Station, and Franklin Square.

The final verdict? As long as you’re coming for the pizza and not the appetizers, you’ll be left satisfied. And who knows?

Maybe if you hang around long enough, you’ll even have a runin with the Commander-inChief.

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“Free cable is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” — The cable Guy

the georgetown voice 11

Houston, we have a soda A glimpse into middle America

by John Sapunor Leo J. O’Donovan Dining Hall has turned a new page.

While complaining about Leo’s is a Georgetown pastime, the cafeteria has finally struck a change that will last. And no, we’re not talking about vegetable-infused water. We’re talking about the Coca-Cola Freestyle, the high-tech soda-bot next to the ice cream station. Overnight (or at least over the summer), Leo’s has entered the space age.

According to the Freestyle’s website, it offers more than 100 varieties of beverages. While the differences may be as subtle as “Coke Zero with lemon” and “Coke Zero with cherry,” the machine also offers noncarbonated beverages such as Powerade and Hi-C, which can also be infused with a number of flavors. The most prominent feature of the machine is its touch screen, an easy to use menu that shows off the assortment of drinks and indicates the beverages that are currently unavailable. In other words, the days of watered-down root beer are a thing of the past.

So this robot can tell a customer if a drink isn’t available.

Big deal. But how do you test the horsepower of a machine like this? The real measure of the Freestyle’s power comes down to its potential to make

wacky, oddball drinks. Most of the sodas (Sprite, Fanta, Coke, and their “Diet” versions) feature the same varieties of flavor additions. Unfortunately, the machine cannot mix more than one flavor into a drink, so the customer’s creativity is capped (although an exception is Coke Zero Cherry Vanilla, available in supermarkets nationwide).

That said, flavor add-ins such as raspberry, strawberry, and peach give students a chance to make soda-flavor combinations that have been previously unavailable in stores.

While the Freestyle is limited by its inability to mix flavors, the logic to this restriction is understandable—after the thousandth student combined every flavor at once and discovered its inconsumable taste, the price of wasted soda would be a daunting figure. That said, isn’t the whole point of getting a machine like this to test its full potential?

What’s the point of buying a Ferrari if you’re never going to drive faster than 50 miles per hour?

While the installation of this powerhouse soda-maker may be a tad self-indulgent, it is nonetheless a step in the right direction. Its installation is one small step for Leo’s, and one giant leap for mankind. That is, until the Freestyle starts reading students’ lips. Then we’re in trouble.

Two sharks walk into a bar

“If you took a cab here, you don’t belong here.” So says one of what must be a million articles of graffiti on the bathroom wall at The Raven Grill, one of D.C.’s dive-iest bars. Although this quote nicely sums up the general atmosphere, it is difficult to describe exactly what makes a bar a dive. Like pornography, I know it when I see it. But there are a few generally accepted principles that all dive bars—or at least the good ones— have to follow.

First and foremost: cheap drinks. Unlike most other types of bars, dive bars will get you drunk for about as much as you would spend at the liquor store (or less).

The drinks are strong, and the cover charge is nonexistent.

If this were all there were to dive bars, you could expect them to be packed every night. But if

this is ever the case in a dive bar, it is only because most are tiny. Dive bars are associated with a slew of derogatory adjectives that are very often true: rough, disreputable, sleazy, poorly maintained, and last but not least, bathrooms that have seen their fair share of destruction.

There must be a reason why people keep coming back to these dives, though. Small and generally unappealing as they may seem to outsiders, dive bars are typically filled with regulars and locals. And not just any locals, either. Dive bars are notorious for their eccentric patrons—from young alcoholics to Brad Pitt’s character in Fight Club and everyone in between.

Aside from the cheap drinks and the relaxed atmosphere, the other striking quality of dive bars is their history. The well-worn feel of a good dive bar is difficult

by Olympia Filippeli In a small but compelling collection of large-scale landscape paintings, D.C.born artist Ben Ferry succeeds in capturing the essence of his travels to the American Midwest. His exhibit, Upper Middle, featured in the Walsh Building’s Spagnuolo Gallery is relatively small, including only ten paintings, but each of the works is brilliant. Ferry’s merit lies in his ability to transport the viewer from D.C.’s urban chaos to the forgotten worlds of America’s past.

While clearly inspired by Ferry’s Midwestern sojourn, at first glance the collection may appear rather disjointed and sporadic. However, after closer examination, the paintings’ chronological sequence becomes apparent. Beginning the journey in nature’s raw, primitive beauty, the viewer travels through time, eventually ending up in the world of the machine.

The first painting in the exhibit, titled “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” depicts an endless sea, evoking feelings of both awe and menace. The painting, “After the Harvest: North Dakota Wheat Field” further highlights Fer-

to describe and impossible to replicate (although many bars try), and is definitely an alluring factor.

The authenticity that comes with drinking in a bar that can claim years of being the neighborhood’s best-loved hole in the wall is unlike any other drinking experience.

Whiskey Business

by Mary Cass a bi-weekly drinking column For those who are primarily familiar with drinking in the Georgetown neighborhood, dive bars may seem like a foreign concept. Sure, Saloun is dive-y, and Rhino can have a bit of a dive vibe on certain nights (although that’s probably unintentional), but there is no burning evidence to suggest the presence of good dives in the District. However, dives are symbolic of a distinctly

ry’s mastery of the landscape, as he juxtaposes vast harvest fields with vibrant clouds to stir the viewer with the piece’s palpable sense of motion. Likewise, “The Event” depicts a series of cows in a valley, staring at the viewer in a suspicious fashion. The cows’ judging eyes give spectators the feeling that they may be interrupting these creatures’ daily routines.

The final painting of the collection, “Parts Yard,” is the perfect conclusion to Ferry’s sequence of works depicting sea, valley, animal, and machine. Portraying a rural farmland overturned with junkyard cars and auto parts, this work highlights Ferry’s oil technique and his ability to make understated details standout amidst a large-scale landscape piece.

In Ferry’s exhibit, the paintings come to life, popping out of the canvas in a way that invites a doubletake. In fact, the paintings are so intricate and imaginative that the “hands off” signs and the friendly reminders by guards to keep a distance from the artwork may actually be necessary.

While this exhibit takes place close to home in Georgetown’s own Spagnuo-

American nightlife, and as the nation’s capital, it only makes sense that D.C. lays claim to its fair share of good dives.

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of visiting what might be my new favorite dive bar in DC: Dan’s Cafe. Although Dan’s is located on the main strip in Adams Morgan, the only noticeable thing about the exterior is a decrepit sign and the fact that it looks like it might be closed. Inside, the bar is small, sparsely decorated, and without AC—but just wait until you order a drink.

The drinks at Dan’s are served in a manner unlike any other – in fact, “served” may actually be an overstatement here. The shots we ordered came served in a plastic squeezable ketchup bottle and were accompanied by a plastic bucket of ice and a handful of cups. If you haven’t had alcohol out of a squeezable ketchup bottle,

BeNFeRRY.cOM

Mad cow disease left no survivors

lo Gallery, Upper Middle does nothing if not reminds viewers that art can transport us to a world far from the front gates. Ferry provides the fuel for these travels, taking viewers on a personal ride to the landscapes of America that inspired these works.

While California and New Jersey may be competing for the most representation at Georgetown, Ferry shows that maybe the Midwest ought to be revisited, as the natural landscapes of Middle America possess an incredible beauty of their own.

Ben Ferry is not asking you to take a road trip through America’s national parks. Your duty? Walk a block off campus, observe his

try it. As soon as possible. Throw in the jukebox, the young crowd that fills the place on a weekend night, and the pool tables--which are covered with tarps and completely unusable as anything other than surfaces to put drinks on-and you’ve got a grade-A way to end your night. And of course, Dan’s is cheap.

Dive bars are definitely not for everyone, or for every occasion. But in most cases, you can’t beat these unique bars where you can blend in with true American eccentrics and imbibe with the area’s most authentic drinkers.

And if they happen to have plastic ketchup bottles filled with alcohol for you to squirt into your mouth, well, that’s just a plus.

Looking for some empty ketchup bottles? Email Mary at mcass@ georgetownvoice.com

leisure

12 the georgetown voice

september 15, 2011

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

Kasabian, lumbia

Velociraptor!,

Co-

After a two-year wait, English rockers Kasabian have released their fourth album, Velociraptor!, but contrary to the title, the album is an electronically-charged shift to contemporary music, not an homage to Jurassic Park. While showing off Kasabian’s trademark versatility, Velociraptor! maintains enough of the group’s pumping beats and straightforward guitar riffs to keep its older fan base on board for the ride.

Velociraptor! moves away from the banal rock-based sound that grounds Kasabian by injecting electronic elements to its tracks. Kicking off the album with a bang, opening track “Lets Roll Just Like We Used To” misleadingly begins with ominous and eerie tones, eventually transforming into a fuller, richer

rock sound by the time the chorus enters. “Days are Forgotten,” the album’s second track, is a throwback to classic Kasabian, featuring a heavy guitar riff and a driving drum beat. The vocals on “Days” could be straight out of “Clubfoot,” Kasabian’s biggest hit to date, but the song has a fresh quality that keeps the band, and the album, moving forward instead of lingering in past successes.

After these two tracks, the album takes a mellow turn with tracks such as “Goodbye Kiss” and “La Fee Verte,” during which the disc starts to develop a darker undertone. With a slower tempo, darker lyrics, and a haunting atmosphere, the track introduces the audience to an edgier side of the band.

On the second half of the album, upbeat tracks like “Velociraptor!” and “Re-wired” captivate the listener, contrasting the album’s first half with much tighter beats. The album’s namesake song is nothing special, though, and while the beat or lyrics may be catchier than the slower tracks in the album, it could have been written for a car commercial. Unlike the upbeat beginning of the album, Velociraptor! closes on a mellow note with the ethereal track “Neon Nights.” Featuring lingering vocals and repetitive electronic sounds, “Nights” creates an almost

Google Plus doesn’t add up I logged into my Google Plus account today for the first time since August 15, only to find that during the past month, I had missed absolutely nothing. During the time that my account went completely unused, there were four new posts in my “stream,” the Google Plus equivalent to the Facebook newsfeed.

A mere two months ago, people were scrambling to score an invite to what promised to be the second coming of social media. Heralded by techies all over the blogosphere as the “Facebook-killer,” Plus’s user count skyrocketed to 25 million in the first month. Yet since its launch, the average time spent on Google Plus each week has declined, along with the enthusiasm surrounding it. The demise of Google Plus

has less to do with Google and more to do with the fact that we may have finally reached our limit of social media.

With over 750 million people using Facebook and over 200 million users on Twitter, there isn’t exactly a large market of non-social media users for sites like Google Plus to tap into. And those who were lucky enough to obtain one of the coveted invites to Google Plus in the first month were the same group of people at the forefront of every other internet trend. These are the techies who comment on Engadget posts and have been building their profiles, photo collections, and friend lists for as long as seven years. These people joined Google Plus out of curiosity to see what the hype was all about. But if the

spiritual atmosphere, concluding the album with a satisfying, appropriately subtle tune.

Although it is not without its misses, Kasabian’s detailed compositions and ability to keep the listener’s attention provide Velociraptor! with a solid core. It may not be the best album to listen to before commencing hours of partying, but as a study partner or biking companion, Velociraptor! is as reliable as Kasabian’s earlier work.

Voice’s Choices: “Goodbye Kiss,” “Days are Forgotten”

—Leigh Trefny The Kooks, Junk of the Heart, Astralwerks Loyal fans of British indie darlings The Kooks will thoroughly

70 people in my circle are any indication of the general consensus, the majority of social media users couldn’t care less about Plus anymore.

Most importantly, though, people just do not have enough time to monitor yet another form of social media. Users spend an average of 30 minutes

Byte Me

by Kelsey McCullough a bi-weekly column about technology each day logged onto Facebook, a hefty load compared to the five minutes and 45 seconds the average user spends on Google Plus per week. We have moved beyond a time when our only social media outlet was Myspace, the home of mirror pictures and glitter font. Unless something completely revolutionary emerges,

appreciate their third album, Junk of the Heart, an album teeming with the upbeat, whimsical music that made their first two efforts hits. But where Junk succeeds in melodies, its cynical lyrics are an unwanted change to the group’s trademark buoyant subject matter.

Though the melodies are easily recognizable as The Kooks’ work, there are some notable stylistic changes. The band has continued to modernize its work by bringing elements of hard rock and techno to its core ’60s pop vibe. It’s hard to call The Kooks hard rock, though listeners will find a stronger beat and angrier tone in the tracks “Fuck the World Off” and “Mr. Nice Guy”—a deviation from more traditional, light-hearted Kooks’ tunes.

At the same time, Junk features tracks that introduce a slower and more mature tone to The Kooks’ repertoire. Where their previous efforts evoked no emotions darker than wistfulness or nostalgia, several moments of Junk suggest genuine melancholy. “Petulia” is the strongest example of this trend, but “Taking Pictures of You” and “Time Above the Earth” also come off as mellow and sorrowful.

people will stay with the social network they have already invested their time in. No matter how easy Google Plus’s privacy settings may be, it takes longer to rebuild your entire profile on Google Plus than it does to figure out Facebook’s privacy settings.

There is Facebook for friends, Twitter for news and interests, and LinkedIn for professional connections. The hope of Google Plus was in its ability to combine all of these outlets in one place, and then power them by the simplicity and effectiveness that comes with most Google applications.

Yet Google Plus only trumps Facebook in its privacy settings and cleaner design. At a certain point, people have to run out of things to share with all of their online friends among all of their forms of social media.

If you already follow the New

Despite these notable exceptions, the majority of the album retains The Kooks’ usual up-tempo pop sound. Lyrically, however, the band’s subject matter is startlingly consistent throughout Junk of the Heart—every single track features lead singer Luke Pritchard longing for the girl he has lost, is losing, or will imminently lose if he doesn’t stop whining.

The lyrics may be well written and even poetic at times, but many of the lines are so dramatic and drenched in self-pity that even more devoted fans may be polarized. Lines like “You’re happier than I,” “You were my only friend,” and the real stinger—“I can’t quite remember what life is about without you”—sound like they’re coming out of the brain of a creepily obsessive boyfriend.

Despite that annoying adjustment the album as a whole is another winner from The Kooks.

Junk is a success, but fans must accept that if they ever end up dating a Kook, they’ll have to deal with a pathetically clingy and whiny boyfriend, no matter how groovily retro-cool he might be.

Voice’s Choices: “Junk of the Heart (Happy),” “Eskimo Kiss”

York Times on Facebook and Twitter, what additional information could you learn from following their Google Plus account?

People have already perfected the balance between their current web profiles, so it’s unlikely that they’re ready to throw another site into the mix. There are only so many online profiles and personas that people can manage, and in an age when many people already feel that they spend too much time using social media, the general public is already filled with picky consumers.

Social media users like what they have, and if Google Plus is any indication, people aren’t willing to change just for a name brand imitation.

Fill up Kelsey’s newsfeed at kmccullough@georgetownvoice.com

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the georgetown voice 13

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Foxdog

NICO DODD

Jack DeGioia is a Dinosaur

Welcome to the Neighborhood

CANNON WARREN

MADDIE HOWARD

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14 the georgetown voice

september 15, 2011

Aramark panel brings Jesuit values back to the table

by Madeline Howard “Organizing has opened my eyes, has opened my kids’ eyes...to caring about people who don’t look like you,” Leo J. O’Donovan Dining Hall worker Tarshea Smith said, holding back tears. Smith, speaking at a celebratory panel discussion Tuesday about Aramark workers’ unionization victory last spring, expressed how the union and student organizers have affected her life and the lives of her two young sons.

The audience, comprising students, workers, faculty, and Georgetown community members, was held rapt by her story and the stories of other workers who spoke at the gathering.

“Something is happening,” Antonio Cely, another Leo’s worker, said. “We all together can take this so far.” As he said these words, my boyfriend and I, both student organizers on last year ’s campaign, shared a meaningful. We were reminded that all of those months of hard work and long meetings were for a real and human purpose.

Last year, a group of students and workers had an idea.

Workers in Leo’s and in the Leavey Center, all employed by dining services provider Aramark, had decided to unionize for better health care, higher pay, and job security. It was a big idea, and scary for everyone involved. But it was also an idea that seemed to resonate with Georgetown’s Jesuit ideals and Catholic values.

What does it mean to be men and women for others?

It means, I’ve found, that you don’t belong to yourself. You belong to your community. You are needed. Last year, these students and workers decided that they were going to need, and be needed in return. Every community is only as strong as we build it.

It’s difficult to express the way it felt to watch the student committee grow over the course of the semester, partly because it grew so quickly and partly because it was such an emotionally charged experience. These were all heavily involved students, taking time

and energy to breathe life into a tough and all-consuming project. There was nothing in it for them except for the joy of helping others and the feeling of working for something right. No one had anything to prove.

The student committee met weekly. We built a long-term strategy, mulling over whom to speak to and brainstorming how to build support for the union after it chose to go public. A major focus of the committee was connecting students with workers so that both could share stories and get to know each other. Guest speakers from the union and other supportive bodies came to train us and give us information about how the campaign was progressing. We slowly brought on new members and established allegiances across groups—the College Democrats, MeCHa, the NAACP, EcoAction. Our ranks grew to more than 50 students, all strong campus leaders, and all men and women for others. When the idea of a union was met with encourage-

ment from the University and minimal resistance from Aramark, all of the power and energy which had built up behind the student committee over the semester dissolved into relief and joy. But the work of the student committee didn’t end with the official recognition of the union. Students continue to be vital in supporting workers during contract negotiations, and it’s important that students remain involved and vigilant in all workers’ rights issues on campus.

Faculty involvement was also a large part of what the student committee focused on, speaking to faculty members one-on-one about where they stood and whether they’d like to help. Donte Crestwell, a Leo’s worker, spoke Tuesday about visiting Professor Maurice Jackson at his home, where he was surprised at how quickly the professor agreed to join.

Establishing connections like that strengthen the fabric of the Georgetown community and highlight that we are all interrelated.

tended a summer program at a local high school where I saw my first juggling show performed by two high school students. I went home that day, found three tennis balls, and spent the next few weeks teaching myself how to juggle. A year later, I found myself joining the Saint Ignatius High School Circus Company.

So proud of my ability to juggle three balls, I marched into the first meeting, expecting people to want to learn from me. When I arrived, however, I was taken aback.

In the school’s old gymnasium, people were throwing up object

after object, usually five or more at a time. They were spinning, making unique patterns, even passing the objects back and forth to each other. Soon enough, I was ready to take the next step with the club and start performing. The club itself performs over 100 times a year all over Cleveland. We performed everywhere—schools, church groups, nursing homes, and any other local festivities. As if I wasn’t hooked enough already, going to these shows pushed me over the edge. I got to travel all over the city, seeing places I had no idea existed, bringing joy to people by doing something I truly loved.

Performing became so much more than successfully completing difficult tricks. In fact, it was often the simplest tricks that gave me the most joy. The simple tricks allowed me the luxury of looking out into the crowd. I could see the excitement on the kids’ faces, the amazement on the adults’ faces, and even the “too-cool for this show” teenagers trying not to crack a smile after a corny joke was told.

My experience peaked my senior year when I was the president of the club. That year I helped write and choreograph a 90-minute performance, which ultimately lead to our acceptance to the International Jugglers Association

Festival that summer. That summer the group traveled to Sparks, Nevada, where we competed on an international level for the first time ever. We performed three of our routines, and although we did not win, the experience was absolutely amazing. Later at the festival, I competed in the international joggling championships. Yes, it is what it sounds like—running and juggling at the same time.

I came away with several gold medals, giving me the right to say that I am an international joggling champion.

After that weeklong festival concluded, I looked back on my time with the club—after all, it was all over for me. I stood in front of an unassuming audience with a beet-red face, absolutely terrified, trying to not forget the script and trying not to drop anything. As a freshman, I hated public speaking and was one of the shy kids that liked to keep to himself. Four years and over a 100 shows later, public speaking isn’t nearly as terrifying, and I now look forward to busting out a few tricks in the middle of a crowd just to gain some attention and meet some new people. Because of the Circus Company and my juggling skills, being a freshman in college was not nearly as difficult as being a freshman in high school.

Vail Kohnert-Yount (SFS ‘13) and Joaquin Recinos (COL ‘12) were both student committee members present on the panel at the victory event on Tuesday, and both told the group that this campaign was one of the things that made them most proud to be Georgetown students. “This whole campaign started because of relationships,” Kohnert-Yount said, explaining that the strong friendships between workers and students is what motivated student action.

This was more than a victory for working people in a difficult time. It was also a personal victory for every person who spoke out across cultural lines and made a connection.

Watching students work towards something greater than themselves, I was proud to be at Georgetown, and proud to be a part of this community.

Madeline Howard is a senior in the College. She’s just hoping her efforts will lead to a chicken finger Tuesday and Thursday.

For student, juggling is more than just clowning around

by Tim Hark When I go to Yates, you typically won’t find me on the track, treadmills, bikes, or even pumping some iron. No, you will usually find me in one of the racquetball or squash courts—despite the fact that I don’t play either sport. You’ll see me throwing up circular discs continuously into the air, only to catch them and throw them right back up. You will see me juggling, and those rings are just one of the props you can find in my ragged and torn juggling bag.

When I was in 8th grade, I at-

Who doesn’t like pitching a tent at the circus?

FLICKR

Last year, I juggled at the SAC fair trying to create interest in a juggling club I wanted to start. I was able to draw some big crowds by juggling machetes and torches and even balancing a table on my chin, but I was unsuccessful in finding other jugglers on campus to help start a club. Nevertheless, more good came out of the experience. I managed to get a picture of myself in The Hoya and a few of the other clubs, such as the Hawaiian Club, took down my information and contacted me throughout the year to perform at their events.

Several people around campus even know me simply as “Juggles,” a nickname the club volleyball team gave me. So nowadays, you can find me at Yates or on the front lawn trying to keep my skills sharp, or maybe showing off at social events by balancing chairs on my face or juggling random objects people give me. Despite the struggles I have encountered starting a club, or run-ins I’ve had with DPS because of my machetes, I continue to perform and continue to love every second of it.

Tim Hark is a sophomore in the College. He is also an international jugsterbating champion, but he doesn’t like to brag.

voices

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the georgetown voice

15

Human trafficking jams America’s founding principles

by Asjed Hussain In the summer of 2009, I traveled with my family to the crown jewel of Arab entrepreneurship and advancement, the metropolitan emirate of Dubai.

Known for the sudden and explosive expansion of its tourism industry, Dubai has established itself as a prime vacation spot for world travelers within the last couple of decades. As a tourist myself, I was held in rapture by its glittering architecture and record-breaking monuments.

The lure of the city veiled my

eyes from the corruption of its creation, itself an expression of the failure of humanity to recognize and support the rights of its members.

Upon arriving home in the States, I decided to delve into the history of Dubai. After some research on this supposed “City of Wonders,” I realized that undercurrents of depravity had surrounded me as I walked among its skyscrapers and shopping centers. What I uncovered was that Dubai was essentially built by a slave class.

The multitudes of construction

The city of Dubai, a far cry from a red light on human trafficking.

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Fundamentalist fundamentals Michelle Bachmann. Republican presidential hopeful. Representative of Minnesota’s 6th congressional district. Federal tax lawyer.

Mother to 28 children, five of her own and 23 through the foster-care system. And—most importantly— evangelical Christian.

The term makes even the mildest liberal cringe in disdain. Critics of Bachmann and the entire Tea Party movement see evangelicals as bigoted, racist, homophobic, and xenophobic radicals who have hijacked America and seek to limit our freedoms and propagate hate. Growing up in an evangelical household, I can say that this hardly represents the majority of evangelicals.

The word evangelical comes from the Greek words “eu,” meaning “good,” and “angelion,” mean-

ing “message.” This “good news” as understood by the religious establishment is the exclusive revelation of the Bible, particularly the gospels, the first four books of the New Testament. Originally, the term “evangelical” applied to anyone who truly believed in the Biblical message that Jesus of Nazareth was in fact the messiah, the son of God. Beginning during the Protestant religious awakenings of the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe and North America, however, the term began to assume a new meaning. As liberalism and, as a reactionary result, fundamentalism, began to divide Protestant denominations and ideologies at the poles of the theological spectrum, the evangelical camp sought to find middle ground by emphasizing the commonalities of the Christian tradition.

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workers I had seen were part of a social stratum of trafficked humans, former residents of underdeveloped countries taken advantage of and abused by corporations looking to make a buck. Dubai’s acceptance and implicit approval of this practice marks it as an epicenter not of human excellence, but of vice and corruption.

I never really thought I would run into human trafficking again, or at least not for a while. Little did I know that I would not have to step outside the boundaries of my home country to encounter modern day slavery again. In a recent discussion about social justice with one of my friends (a circumstance which I have realized occurs frequently here at Georgetown), I was told about the ventures of my friend’s mother, a social worker working with a group of Indian trafficking victims. What really struck me was that this case did not occur in some underdeveloped, authoritarian country, but in our own nation, victims exploited by U.S. citizens. Apparently, this was not an extraordinary case; trafficking in this country is a major problem, albeit one that is incredibly under-vocalized.

Evangelicals are practicing Christians who seek to share their eschatological beliefs with others.

While it’s true that they are inherently activists, seeking to affect others’ spiritual beliefs, so are supporters of any ideology, such as feminism or socialism. Granted, religion is a personal choice, as is political affiliation or what you wear, but in our free society, no one will dispute that activism whose aim is to affect your personal choices is

Carrying On

by Keaton Hoffman A rotating column by Voice senior staffers

both appropriate and, to an extent, encouraged. Just ask Keith Olbermann, or Nike.

This is hardly radical. Unfortunately, modern connotations of the word “evangelical” imply just that.

The media portrays evangelicals as the crazies that protest the funerals of soldiers because of America’s growing tolerance of homosexuality. They’re the scientific skeptics that petition school boards to remove evolution and global warming from public education. They’re the lunatics who bomb abortion clinics and murder doctors who

We tend to think of slavery as a relic of the past, an antique element of social life that should provide for us, in retrospect, a greater understanding of the moral responsibilities we have as humans. After a brief reflection, we usually proceed to revel in the liberties we now have living in the United States. With the values our country upholds, and with a history already tainted by slavery, it is absurd to think about the blatant human rights violations that occur right under our noses.

How can a country with liberty at its foundation account for such atrocities within and outside its borders, committed by both government policy and government neglect? I may be accused of not giving the government enough slack, or adding to the already extensive list of troubles our country is facing.

But I don’t think our real issue is the enormity of the problems we face, but the way we face them. It’s time to straighten out our priorities by placing morality first and foremost in our decisions. What if our policies, instead of focusing on the perpetual struggle for power that defines Congressional activity, perform abortions. They’re also my parents and practically my entire high school.

As a child I didn’t know I was being raised in an evangelical household. I took rigid church attendance, weekly Bible studies, Christian summer camps, nightly devotionals, and the general ingraining of conservative ideology as the norm. In middle school, in order to avoid the complications of a secular education on my development, my parents sent me to a nondenominational Christian school. I adjusted well to the white-washed and wealthy pedigree of my pious peers, and made a good number of friends—I had been raised to fit in, I suppose. Sure, it bothered me that the school was openly homophobic (our student handbook forbid “coming out”). I was unnerved when our AP Biology professor refused to teach evolution, which was a major component of the AP test. And I was downright disgusted when our ethics teacher claimed that domestic violence was not a morally appropriate justification for divorce.

It wasn’t all bad. I witnessed students standing up for a kid being bullied for his sexuality. Families banded together around a female student who had an unplanned pregnancy after a less-than-celi-

were designed to protect human integrity?

When the United States was formed as a country for justice, it made great strides towards that central ideal. But there came a point where we seemed to have jumped the gun in thinking we achieved it. The quest for justice is really never-ending, and policies should continually be created with the intent to strive towards justice. The termination of slavery as a social institution was a huge step in the right direction; the emergence of human trafficking is the equivalent of walking backwards. Our neglect of this social issue, and countless others, suggests a disconnect between the current-day United States and the principles it was founded on. In order to be the country we are meant to be, we have to once again embrace the values of morality in our actions as well as words, so that each step taken will be with the right direction and intent: to achieve justice.

Asjed Hussain is a freshman in the SFS. Like the freshmen before him, he supports his own form of trafficking in the halls of Harbin. bate prom night. I give this praise not to justify or somehow negate the fundamentalist nature of my education. Hate is inexcusable, in all circumstances. But in the same way that terrorism is not the ideology that defines Islam, backwards thinking, bigotry, and hate are not representative of evangelicals as a whole, nor do they typify the evangelical experience.

As in any large demographic group, evangelicals share more differences than similarities. Sure, some evangelicals are racists. But others, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., are staunch supporters of racial equality. Some evangelicals are xenophobic, and others, like my parents, believe that immigrants from all countries and of all legal status are deserving of respect and protection under American law.

Evangelicalism means a lot of things to a lot of people, but when we use the term in a haphazard and pejorative way, casting broad generalizations across a religious group, that’s not called rationalism or liberalism. It’s called prejudice.

Keaton Hoffman is a junior in the SFS. He still thinks the big bang theory refers to the original sin.

D.C. Fall Preview

1. Greek Festival in Saints Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Church (September 16-18) 2. “Best of D.C. Shorts� screenings at the Atlas Performing Arts Center (September 17 & 18) 3. National Book Festival on the National Mall (September 24-25) 4. Taste of D.C. - A Washington D.C. Food Event (October 8-10) 5. Oktoberfest at Capitol City Brewing Company in Shirlington Village, Arlington, Virginia (October 8) 6. Taste of Georgetown - A Fall Food Festival in Washington, D.C. (October 15) 7. AIDS Walk 5K Run (October 29) 8. Fall Foliage in the National Arboretum (All of October) 9. Halloween Movies at the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland (October 23)

10. Georgetown Homecoming!

(October 22)