The Georgetown Voice, September 2, 2010

VOICE the georgetown

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MPD MISREPRESENTS SUNDAY’S SEXUAL ASSULT PAGE 4

WOMENS SOCCER ON FIRE AFTER VILLANOVA WIN PAGE 6

HOYAS GETTING HITCHED PAGE 10

Georgetown University’s Weekly Newsmagazine Since 1969 w September 2, 2010 w Volume 43, Issue 3 w georgetownvoice.com

Football VARSITY BLUES

2 the georgetown voice

september 2, 2010

Haven’t you heard?

comments of the week Good God, is there anything that residents don’t fear will create too much noise?

It’s a fucking bike stand, not a dreaded pizza retailer.

—Tim, “ANC Wrap-up: Choosing those pesky Bikeshare locations” “There has been much improvement physically, skill wise and mentally… We all know, IT’S ALWAYS BASKETBALL SEASON on the Hilltop!”

—Kent, “Hoyas attend summer school”

“The Voice Staff needs to put much more thought into their “Best place to hide during the zombie apocalypse. The Tombs has several street entrances, access through F. Scotts, the bakery, and 1789 [...] The blood

Catch the Hilltop’s latest on

Vox Populi

of this potential zombie attack is on the hands of the

Voice Staff for making such a ridiculous suggestion.”

—Chibblers, “The best of Georgetown”

Talk Back

blog.georgetownvoice.com || georgetownvoice.com

correction In the August 27 issue, the Voice reported in “Hoyas attend summer school at McDonough” that Aaron Bowen is from the D.C. area. Bowen is originally from Jacksonville, Florida, and spent his senior year of high school in North Carolina. The Voice regrets this error.

G e o r g e t o w n ’s B l o g O f R e c o r d S i n c e 1969 blog.georgetownvoice.com

Voice Crossword “Java Fix’” by Mary Cass

ACROSS 1. Some Prosecuters (abbr.)

5. Pointed (like a gun) 10. Actress Gardner and others 14. Golfer Ballesteros 15. Game Show consonants 16. Gospel Singer Winans

17. A Yankee in Italy 19. Napolean Dynamite’s favorite animal 20. Amazonian fish 21. Night flight 22. Triple liqueur 23. It makes dough rise 24. World Cup sport 28. Put down

answers at georgetownvoice.com 29. Fed. bureau of bomb-sniffing dogs 32. “My ___” (host’s offer) 33. LPs 34. Spoken 35. Indian princess 36. Sounds of pleasure 37. Get up 38. Memo heading (abbr.)

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

57. In the area 58. Parisian ponds?

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

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

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

10. Stomach fillers 11. Meat-free 12. Card game ___-deucy 13. Bone dry 18. Enlarged area on a map 19. Head 21. Georgetown science building 23. Big Boat 24. Classy violin (abbr.)

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

45. The Jacksons had 5 46. Cut, as in sheep’s wool 47. City destroyed by the Battle of Normandy 48. Of Montreal single “___ in the Summertime” 49. Old Russian letters 50. Home of the Saints 51. Simba’s Uncle 52. Dull pain 53. A bug or an elitest acronym 55. Debtor’s note 57. 550, in Roma

DOWN 1. Immediately (abbr.)

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

get wordy.

help us write crosswords. contact crossword@georgetownvoice.com

editorial

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VOICE the georgetown

Volume 43.3 September 2, 2010 Editor-in-Chief: Juliana Brint Managing Editor: Molly Redden Editor-at-Large: Tim Shine Director of Technology: Alexander Pon Blog Editor: Chris Heller News Editor: Cole Stangler Sports Editor: Nick Berti Feature Editor: Sean Quigley Cover Editor: Holly Ormseth Leisure Editor: Brendan Baumgardner Voices Editor: Keaton Hoffman Photo Editor: Jackson Perry Design Editors: Megan Berard, Ishita Kohli Literary Editor: James McGrory Crossword Editor: Mary Cass Assistant Blog Editors: Geoffrey Bible, Julie Patterson Assistant News Editors: Emma Forster, Holly Tao Assistant Cover Editor: Marc Fichera Assistant Leisure Editors: Nico Dodd, Leigh Finnegan Assistant Photo Editors: Matthew Funk, Hilary Nakasone

Associate Editor: Iris Kim Staff Writers:

Cyrus Bordbar, Tom Bosco, Kara Brandeisky, Matthew Collins, Kate Imel, Satinder Kaur, Scott Munro, Rob Sapunor, Keenan Timko, Imani Tate, Tim Wagner, J. Galen Weber

Staff Photographers:

Max Blodgett, Lexie Herman, Helen Burton

Staff Designers:

Richa Goyal, Dara Morano, Marc Patterson

Copy Chief: Matt Kerwin Editorial Board Chair: Hunter Kaplan Editorial Board:

Kara Brandeisky, Jackson Perry, Eric Pilch, Sean Quigley, Molly Redden

Head of Business: Eric Pilch The Georgetown Voice

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

the georgetown voice 3

MPD + DPS = FOOT + MOUTH

Blaming the victim is not good police work Early last Sunday morning a woman was raped in her home in Burleith. The crime itself is horrifying. Unfortunately, the misleading responses issued by both Georgetown and the Metropolitan Police Department are seriously dismaying and raise questions about how both organizations treat sexual assault.

Although the crime—which involved the suspect breaking into the house by removing a window air-conditioning unit— was virtually unpreventable, comments from both the univeristy and MPD focused on how potential victims should prevent crimes by locking their doors and taking other cautionary measures.

The careless attitude of MPD officers, and the overly vague University Public Safety Alert that failed to accurately reflect the seriousness of the crime, reflect an unacceptabe culture of accepting sexual assaults in the Georgetown community. as inevitable.

In an article in the Tuesday edition of The Hoya, MPD Lieutenant John Hedgecock called Sunday’s rape “a preventable crime,” and held up the crime as a reminder for students to lock their doors and walk in groups. For the same article, DPS Associate Director Joseph Smith recited a similar “safety lecture,” reminding students to “lock your doors and windows; walk to and from campus in groups.” While these statements are mostly unproductive in their own right, when read in the context of the actual events of Sunday morning they border on negligently misleading.

The police report of the crime, obtained by the Voice on Wednesday, reveals that the victim was in no way responsible for the suspect’s ability to enter her home. Far from quietly slipping through an unlocked door as Smith and Hedgecock’s comments suggested he did, the suspect removed an air conditioning unit from the victim’s front window, and

climbed through the opening. No amount of locked doors and group walking could have prevented this crime. At best, MPD Lieutenant Hedgecock issued these statements before becoming fully aware of the facts of the case; at worst he has placed the blame for this terrible crime with its victim—in which case his reaction was an ugly example of the kneejerk victim-blaming that often accompanies sexual violence.

The first response for those charged with the protection of the Georgetown community should never be to blame the victims of violent crimes. Blame falls squarely and fully with the burglar, the mugger, and the rapist.

By making statements that inaccurately portray this incident as the result of inattention on the part of the victim, MPD and DPS are promoting an irresponsibly careless attitude toward student safety in general and toward sexual crimes in particular.

IT’S BIKE WEEK!

SmartBike expands, DDOT spins it wheels

Over the next two weeks, the District of Columbia Department of Transportation will extend and rebrand SmartBike, the local bike sharing pilot program, by adding 110 stations and 1,100 bikes across the District and in Arlington, Va. Dubbed “Capital Bikeshare,” the new program may improve bike sharing’s visibility in neighborhoods previously not served by SmartBike stations. It will do little, however, to combat the larger problems of traffic and congestion plaguing D.C. For a city expecting to accommodate 1,000,000 commuters by 2030, 1,100 bikes can do little to alter public behavior or significantly reduce the strain on D.C’s public transportation system. If SmartBike was successful enough to justify an expansion of the program, DDOT must make a large enough investment to make an actual impact on city’s commuting culture.

For Georgetown students, faculty, and staff in particular, Capital Bikeshare

could be a practical option for avoiding the recently lengthened Dupont Circle GUTS bus route. Georgetown’s Advisory Neighborhood Commission grudgingly voted Tuesday to approve three bike sharing stations in Georgetown, including a location at Prospect and 36th Streets, near the entrance to the Car Barn.

Though these locations are ideal for impromptu Metro-accessible convenience, with less than a dozen bikes at each location, students most likely will not be able to rely on this service for their day-to-day commutes. However, with stations at nearly every Metro stop, bike sharing is a cheap and practical alternative to owning and maintaining your own bike for quick trips around the city.

With the second-highest rate of transit commuters in the country, D.C. badly needs to upgrade its entire public transportation system. By adding bike shar-

ing stations in popular Maryland and Virginia suburbs, and building safer bike lanes and trails, DDOT could convince thousands of drivers to switch to Capital Bikeshare and Metro for their daily commutes. Because of its low $50 annual fee, bike sharing could be also be an option for many of the hundreds of thousands of D.C.-area residents who cannot afford a car. Only with increased investment and a massive expansion of bike sharing locations and inventory can DDOT hope to build a community of alternative commuters and reduce the strain on its already overburdened transit system.

Capital Bikeshare’s proposed expansion certainly improves the existing program but it does too little to ameliorate D.C.’s transportation problems. DDOT’s current investment is only a single step towards creating a more accessible public transportation systems.

TEST OF FAITH

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Unsigned editorials represent the views of the Editorial Board. Columns, advertisements, cartoons and opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or the General Board of the Georgetown Voice. The University subscribes to the principle of responsible freedom of expression of its student editors. The Georgetown Voice is produced in the Georgetown Voice office and composed on Macintosh computers using the Adobe InDesign publishing system and is printed by Silver Communications. All materials copyright the Georgetown Voice. All rights reserved.

On this week’s cover ... Varsity Blues Cover Graphic: Holly Ormseth

Catholics for Equality deserves GU’s pride Georgetown University has a long history of being at the forefront of progressive Catholicism. In January 2010, Joseph Palacios, a Georgetown professor and openly gay priest, continued this tradition by helping to found Catholics for Equality, a group dedicated to “empowering pro-equality Catholics to put [their] faith into ethical and effective political action on behalf of the LGBT community and their families.”

Although Catholics for Equality has recently come under fire from conservative Catholic groups, who have called it “outright rebellion” and a “dissident organization,” the group is still something to be proud of as a part of Georgetown’s progressive Catholic heritage.

Drawing on the “rich tradition of Catholic social justice teachings” to support full equality for the LGBT community in the U.S., the group was originally created to oppose Archbishop

of Washington Donald Wuerl’s threat to shut down Catholic Charities in the weeks before D.C. passed laws allowing for marriage equality. Providing a critical service to the progressive Catholic community in the United States, the group has publicly challenged the Church to live up to its long tradition of social justice.

“Essentially our goal is to reach the ‘moveable middle’ of very fair-minded Catholics to support their LGBT family members, friends, co-workers, and fellow citizens to legally achieve the same freedoms and rights as all Americans,” Palacios explained in an email.

Facing predictably strong criticism from a variety of right-wing Catholic groups, Catholics for Equality has nevertheless continued to stick to its principles.

The Cardinal Newman Society, for example, accused the group of carrying out a “mutiny” against the U.S. Bishops and

Catholic doctrine.The Cardinal Newman Society fails to recognize that in choosing to make the lifelong monogamous commitment of marriage, lesbian and gay couples are carrying out the best values of Catholicism.

This fall, Catholics for Equality will be holding a forum at Georgetown and launching a Junior Fellows program for college students nationwide. Junior Fellows at Georgetown would assist with research, writing, and web-development and work for upcoming state campaigns where LGBT freedoms and rights will be on the ballot.

Georgetown must stand by Palacios and Catholics for Equality, and use its unique voice as a world-class institution with a progressive Catholic heritage to advocate a move toward full marriage equality across the nation.

news

4 the georgetown voice

september 2, 2010

Davis Center café construction stalled

by Holly Tao Although The Corp has said that it is not planning to start any construction on a café located in the Davis Performing Arts Center lobby for at least six months, faculty members working in the Davis Center and members of The Corp have denied that plans to build a café have been cancelled.

Representatives from both The Corp and those from the Davis Center expressed optimism

about establishing the café in the future, but said that substantive developments for the proposed café have been postponed under the current Corp leadership of CEO Brad Glasser (COL ’11).

Glasser said that it is currently not in The Corp’s best interests to actively pursue the café.

“Our philosophy has always been to make sure that our current services are in the best working status before creating new venues,” Glasser said.

“This is not to say that future

JACKSON PERRY

The wait continues: Plans for Davis Center Corp café on hold.

Corp leaders will not reengage in this project. We really enjoy working with the Department of Performing Arts … and there is a lot of passion from both sides [for this project].”

Glasser said that since plans for the café begun two years ago, the project has run into many problems.

“It is very easy to underestimate just how many people are involved and how much work is involved for a project of this scope,” Glasser said. “Trying to get this the attention it deserves is really difficult to do.”

The idea of building a café in the Davis Center has been in the works for several years, and the Davis Center had talked to other local vendors about building a café before agreeing to work with The Corp two years ago.

Along with a changing campus landscape in terms of food venues, the economic downturn has been a major factor in derailing plans to build the café. The Corp had previously pushed back planned opening dates for the café from early 2010 to fall 2010.

This year, existing Corp facilities will be undergoing both external and internal renovations, which will include increasing food selections available in Vital Vittles, replacing flooring in existing locations, and expanding hours of operation.

Derek Goldman, the artistic director of the Davis Center and an associate professor of Theater and Performance Studies, still expressed optimism about the plan in spite of its cancellation.

“I know both the folks from The Corp and all of us at the Davis Center were completely surprised by [Tuesday]’s article in The Hoya which mistakenly indicated that the project has been scrapped,” Goldman wrote in an email. “We are working with our friends at The Corp on a statement that clarifies the current status of the project for everyone’s benefit.”

Goldman also added that any eventual plans for the café might not be identical to those reported earlier in the student press.

Goldman said some of the earlier coverage of The Corp

café may have been overstated, specifically mentioning that full meals being served at the café would be unlikely at this point. Instead, the Davis Center is looking to keep the project simple and straightforward, but distinctive.

“Our investment is less in the scale or the magnitude in what’s being served, and that can grow and change as it opens, but more so to provide that space for students and to have the right atmosphere,” Goldman said.

“We and the Davis Center certainly hope it will go forward … I thought it was still possible in a smaller incarnation,” Maya Roth, assistant professor in the Department of Performing Arts, wrote in an email.

Details on the specifics of what the new Corp café will offer are currently not available.

The Corp and representatives at the Davis Center are still regularly meeting with an architect to maintain working relations, but no designs or drawings for the new café have been made at this point.

has been pretty careful over the years regarding our investment portfolio.

Report had to do with an increased endowment or do you see other factors as important?

Voice: Considering that we have someofthemostexpensiveon-campus housing costs of U.S. universities, are you concerned about the decrepit state of a lot of that housing?

DeGioia: I wish I could say that it had to do with our endowment. …

The real reason was the weight given to the perspective of high school counselors. High school counselors ranked Georgetown sixth. … The positions of high school counselors and where they recommend students to go should be given a lot of attention. This year that was given more attention and that explains why we moved up in the rankings. We’re very pleased about it—we think that’s important to do and we’re honored we’ve gotten that increase.

… The hardest challenge in the job is the expectations of multiple constituencies, particularly when the requirements for representing the University requires a considerable amount of travel.

I would describe my leadership style as one in which I try to subordinate myself to the core problems. … If I had a choice, I’d be spending limitless amounts of time engaged in the day to day life of the community, but that wouldn’t be addressing the significant issues that you’ve asked me about. … If I had a choice it would be a little bit different—I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to do more as we work through some of these problems that we face.

On the record with Georgetown President John DeGioia On Wednesday evening, President John DeGioia sat down for his biannual interview with representatives of the student press. Interview conducted and transcribed by Emma Forster.

Voice: In January 2010, you said, in reference to ongoing discussion about the 2010 Campus Plan, that “it’s always a very difficult balancing act to try to recognize and understand the needs of the community with what it will take for us to be able to be successful in our mission.” Do you think the dialogue with neighbors has deteriorated since that time? How will the University respond to further challenges from neighbors?

DeGioia: We’re engaged in very serious conversations with the leaders of our neighborhoods and we’re going to continue those in the weeks ahead. Over the course of these last few years we’ve done some really important things to strengthen the support of our students in the community and … address the needs of the neighbors in the community.

We have tried to … strengthen the overall framework for safety—you can see the reimbursable detail with MPD that we’ve added to the mix.

It is a challenge. We’re not unique.

The issues of the relationship of the University and its surrounding

community are a challenge for all urban institutions. We recognize this is a balancing act between the needs for our community and our students as well as the legitimate concerns of our neighbors.

Voice: Last spring, when representatives from Georgetown, Divest! met with members of the Investment Office, Chief Investment Officer Larry Kochard told them that there is no ethical oversight of the investments made by fund managers.

This might appear to conflict with Georgetown’s core Jesuit identity.

Is there in fact no system in place to ensure the University’s investments are socially responsible? And if not, should there be?

DeGioia: I believe there is. I’m not certain what Larry might have been referring to in that conversation. … Over the course of the years we’ve been pretty careful about reviewing our investment portfolio from a socially responsible perspective.

We have an investment committee of our board, which is essentially responsible for our investment decisions. That’s pretty routine, so I’m not certain what you would be referring to regarding the quote that you read to me from Larry, but I will say that I think the University

DeGioia: We have been through a rather expensive renovation of some of our facilities—that doesn’t mean that we are done. We’ve done more capital expense in this decade than any decade in our history. … We were working with a nearly 45-yearold science building—that had a high priority for us. We had a business school located in six different locations—that was a priority for us.

We needed to build new residence halls—that was a priority for us. …

The challenge for us is that we ranked 21st [in the U.S. News and World Report but]—our endowment is ranked 68th. There’s not a lot of margin for error.…We recognize that some of our residence halls need to move up on the priority list and that’s where we’re going to spend our time next. … We really have to be very careful and very precise about the choices that we’re making.

Voice: Do you still think the shift up in the U.S. News and World

Voice: How would you describe your management style as the president of a major University?

Some people have criticized your lack of direct involvement with students as other colleges and universities—so why do you think that your approach is more effective?

DeGioia: It always pains me when I’m described that way because I do believe that I spend a lot of time engaged in the student community. … I taught my first class of the semester this morning.

I was pretty available all weekend.

JACKSON PERRY

news

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Bikeshare is coming to Georgetown

by Mark Waterman Capital Bikeshare, a program sponsored by the District Department of Transportation and Arlington County that offers short-term bike rentals, is slated to begin construction on 100 new stations next week.

Three new stations will be located in the Georgetown area, including a location at Prospect and 36th Streets, in front of the Car Barn.

After the installation is completed, Capital Bikeshare will be the largest bike-sharing network in the country with 110 stations. It will require members to pay an annual membership fee in addition to usage fees based on the length of time for which they use the bikes. The stations, which are fully automated, will also allow nonmembers to check out a bike if they purchase a one-day membership.

Georgetown will have two other stations in addition to the Car Barn location, one will be situated a block south of M Street at the C&O Canal and another near the British School at Wisconsin and 34th Streets.

The lack of a station on or immediately next to campus has aroused residents’ fears of increased noise at the proposed stops. The Georgetown Advisory Neighborhood Commission voted 6 to 1 against the location at the Car Barn in its monthly meeting last Monday, but its non-binding resolution will not stop construction of the station.

DDOT Spokesman Chris Holben said that Capital Bikeshare is still in the process of reaching an agreement with the University for an on-campus station.

Holbert and his colleagues thought that it would be difficult to place a station at the most obvious location, the front gates.

“We found that there wasn’t the space for [a station],” he said, noting that stations typically measure 6-by-40 feet.

Vice President of University Facilities and Student Housing Karen Frank said that Holben had been in contact with her as plans for new stations progressed and that the University has expressed interest in working with Capital Bikeshare.

“Capital Bikeshare determined the placement of the stations,” Frank wrote in an email. “Their initial round of installations are intended to be as accessible to the

COURTESY CAPITAL BIKESHARE

Bike stations in Georgetown ready to begin construction next week

GUSA needs perspectives

At the Voice, we have a saying about Georgetown University Student Association presidential elections: “The most articulate bro always wins.”

GUSA suffers from a number of image problems in the University community, but the most glaring of these is its apparent lack of diversity. With 20 Georgetown alumni in the United States Congress, it’s no surprise that GUSA attracts a number of polished, slightly pretentious, white, male government majors who see GUSA as a kind of audition for the major leagues. Parliamentary procedure lends itself to grandstanding, and the loudest members of the “bro caucus” are the ones who most frequently make headlines.

But the most visible senators don’t necessarily represent the entire body. As former speaker Adam Talbot (COL ‘11) pointed out, six out of the 25 senators in last year’s

community as possible, with particular adjacency to the campus.”

Holben said that a future station on campus is still a possibility and that Capital Bikeshare is interested in forming a relationship with the University.

Frank also said that the University will be distributing information about the program in an attempt to promote use of the current system. Representatives from Capital Bikeshare were also on campus promoting the system during this week’s New Student Orientation.

Holben said that DDOT hopes this expansion—consisting of 100 stations and 1,100 bikes—will be only the first wave of installations of new bike-share stations.

“We just applied for a stimulus grant. If we win it we will be able to put in 100 more stations,” Holden said. “I know our director is very interested in expanding.”

Senate were women, compared to four out of the 35 senators in the 2008 Senate. Last year’s Senate also had more ethnic diversity than the year before, and there were no votes along racial lines.

It’s also important that GUSA senators advocate for a diversity of student passions. Through the GUSA Fund, GUSA helped pay for an eclectic mix of student interests, from a ballroom dancing competition to a Hate-Free Georgetown initiative against prejudice and intolerance.

But there is still progress to be made, and this year is pivotal. With last year’s highly contentious passage of club funding reform, the seven senators on the Finance and Appropriations Committee now control over $300,000 in student activity fees.

Last year, the Finance and Appropriations Committee consisted of seven white, male GUSA loyalists who voted in near lockstep.

Since the advisory boards that used

to approve the allocation of student activity fees have been stripped of their votes, it is crucial that representation in the Finance and Appropriations Committee include a wide range of student perspectives and interests this year.

Furthermore, the full Senate is underutilized in its role as a liaison to the administration. After the Plan

Saxa Politica

by Kara Brandeisky A bi-weekly column on campus news and politics

A: Hoyas for Reproductive Justice protests last year, in which students chained themselves to the John Carroll statue demanding access to contraceptives, the HPV vaccine and rape kits, Talbot lamented the fact that Plan A campaigners never came to GUSA with their concerns.

“I thought it was unfortunate that we hadn’t yet demonstrated we could provide that kind of service,” Talbot said in a recent interview.

the georgetown voice 5

Sexual assault misrepresented

by Kara Brandeisky Last Sunday morning, an unidentified man raped a woman sleeping in Burleith after removing an air conditioning unit from a window in her house and climbing through the window, according to a Metropolitan Police Department incident report obtained by the Voice on Wednesday night.

The suspect is still at large.

The report states that the victim “awoke to [the suspect] having vaginal intercourse with her” and that the suspect fled after she yelled, “Get off of me.” The report also says that her home was secured with a deadbolt.

According to the report, the suspect is a white, brown-haired man of medium build. MPD Lieutenant John Hedgecock also told neighbors at Monday’s Advisory Neighborhood Commission meeting that the suspect is in his mid-20s.

The campus community learned about the assault on Sunday night from a campuswide Public Safety Alert email.

Both MPD and Department of Public Safety officials made comments about the incident that suggested that the suspect entered the victim’s home without having to use force.

“This was a preventable crime.”

Hedgecock said in Tuesday’s edi-

If GUSA were perceived as representative of a broader range of the student body—starting with, say, more female students—perhaps the protesters would have thought to approach GUSA for help.

For students who want to run for GUSA, getting a seat on the Senate is generally not difficult. Many seats are uncontested, and in some districts no one runs. The problem is that too many talented leaders self-select out.

Kiran Gandhi (COL ’11) ran for GUSA as a freshman in New South. She told me proudly that she beat five other boys for the seat.

But while she enjoyed her time on GUSA, she said that she became disillusioned when those GUSA stereotypes seemed to hold true.

She was one of only a few girls in the Senate. When the Senate discussed the Student Commission for Unity during her sophomore year, she was frustrated that the debate split along racial lines. The next year, Gandhi left GUSA to study

tion of The Hoya. “Students have to lock their doors and protect themselves by staying in groups.”

“Don’t make it easy. Don’t be so trusting. Lock your doors, stay in groups. When you have house parties, don’t leave the doors open all night long,” Hedgecock told ANC meeting attendees, according to the Georgetown Dish.

Hedgecock did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Wednesday night. DPS Associate Director Joseph Smith also did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Wednesday night.

While MPD Second District Commander Matthew Klein also declined to address Hedgecock’s comments, he said that MPD notified the community about the sexual assault a few hours after it happened. Klein wrote in an email that MPD typically does not specify the level of the sexual assault when it alerts the community to crimes.

At the ANC meeting, Hedgecock told residents that MPD would be altering patrols in response to the assault. He said MPD was also pursuing other initiatives, but he could not give details because he did not want to give information about MPD tactics to criminals.

—Additional reporting by Chris Heller

abroad and pursue her interest in the city’s music scene.

“A lot of the [other senators] didn’t understand the need for [the SCU], nor did they make an effort to see a need for it,” Gandhi said. “I didn’t like working at a body that wasn’t interested in something I valued as really important.”

As Gandhi pointed out, it’s natural for people to gravitate towards other people who share their perspective. But talented leaders who opt out of GUSA do us all a disservice. Without a wider range of representation—and senators who speak up without grandstanding— GUSA will never be a healthy, functioning body. Fortunately, democracy allows periodic opportunities for reinvention. So if you go to the GUSA booth at SAC fair and think to yourself, “I don’t belong here”— run for Senate. We need you.

Want some real perspective?

Email Kara at kbrandeisky@george townvoice.com

sports

6 the georgetown voice

september 2, 2010

Explosive attack keeps lady Hoyas undefeated

by Tom Bosco Most students walking to classes this week would say that even though it’s the start of the fall semester, it doesn’t feel as though fall has really begun.

The summer heat is still blazing, and no one knows that better than the Georgetown women’s soccer team.

Yesterday, the team was playing in what Head Coach Dave Nolan called, “extremely hot temperatures,” in Villanova, Pa. as they took on the Wildcats in their first Big East regular season game.

Following two goals from junior forward Camille Trujillo, the Hoyas beat rival Villanova 3-1 to improve to 4-0-0, 1-0-0 (Big East).

The first games of the season are vital, especially for the team to get off to a good start, but Big East games seem a little bigger.

“It always is [intense],” Nolan said. “The returning players know conference games have a little edge to them.”

That includes Trujillo. Her two-goal game was the second in the young season, after she scored two goals in the Hoyas’ season-opening 9-0 win over American.

In its game against Villanova, the Hoyas scored all their goals in the first half. Trujillo scored in the 18th minute, but Villanova tied the game four minutes later. Only five minutes after the Villanova equalizer, Trujillo added her second goal on an assist from junior midfielder Ingrid Wells. Freshman

Kaitlin Brenn then added some breathing room with a goal on a throw-in from junior Sam Baker.

The Hoyas have been a prolific scoring team early on this season, averaging 5.0 goals per game so far, and Nolan only expects that trend to continue.

“We’re an explosive team,” he said. “The system we play is designed to put our best attack on the fields at the same time.”

Nolan, though, thought the team could have scored more goals in the second half, but the combination of Villanova’s play and the heat kept the Hoyas scoreless in the second half.

“You have to give Villanova credit,” Nolan said. “They put us on our back foot.”

Even though the season is still young, it seems the chemistry on the team is already fully developed. When the squad is at full strength, the Hoyas have a sixth sense for finding their teammates on the field.

“I think we’re really good,” Trujillo said. “We know where everyone is going to be and we know when to make our runs.”

One key to the Hoyas’ 4-0 run early in the season has been the use of its freshmen. Three freshmen started against Villanova, and one of them, Brenn, scored the third goal. Brenn’s fellow freshman teammates Kailey Blain, Mary Kroening, and Alexa St. Martin have made key impacts early on in their collegiate careers.

Still, Nolan explained that the quick pace of Big East play was quicker than the Hoyas’ early season opponents, and it

The Hoyas hope their offense can keep torching nets.

JACKSON PERRY

took some time for the young guns to become acquainted with the speed of the game.

Helping the Hoyas even more have been the goalkeeping skills of senior Jackie DesJardin. DesJardin had a 292 minute scoreless streak until the 22 minute mark of the Villanova game. The Hoyas’ career leader in shutouts, DesJardin has an impressive 16 shutouts in 34 starts.

Even though DesJardin let up her first goal of the season, Nolan explained that with more help from her defenders, DesJardin could have pitched another shutout.

“I’m disappointed,” Nolan said. “She made a great save, and on the rebound, a girl was there to kick it in. If her defenders were there, they could have helped her.”

The Hoyas need DesJardin

to play at her best all season because their schedule is tough, with games against storied Rutgers, Notre Dame, and Santa Clara programs.

Still, even in the dog days of summer, the Hoyas seem to have come out at an explosive offensive pace thanks to fresh legs and an outstanding goaltender. It doesn’t look like they’re going to be cooled off anytime soon.

the Sports Sermon “I will be taking the Minute Men rifle and firing as they do when the PATS score.”

— Chad Ochocinco planning new a touchdown celebration

hype that night, striking out an astonishing 14 batters, the second most in a debut. Strasburg continued to dominate afterward, posting a 2.91 ERA while striking out 92 hitters in only 68 innings pitched, an average of just under eight per start.

Then, on Aug. 21, almost a year to the day since he signed with the Nationals, Strasburg felt something wrong in his arm after a pitch. Six days later, the terrible news was announced: Strasburg would need Tommy John surgery. News that you need this surgery, from which it

the ranks because of his high strikeout rate and pitching velocThe ability to strike a batter ity. The 22-year-old Chapman is out is the most powerful skill a still very raw and needs to harpitcher who wants to dominate ness his control to excel at the next the major leagues can possess. level, but he has the talent and Throughout the storied history potential to join the elite list of of professional baseball, many pitchers who became legendary pitchers have succeeded, but for striking out hitters. Like Strasonly a handful have been the suburg, the key to Chapman’s game preme talents of their respective is his blazing fastball, which sets eras. Walter Johnson, Tom Seaver, up the rest of his pitches and inNolan Ryan, and Roger Clemens timidates hitters. make up part of the exclusive list, Last Friday, in a minor league and for the most part, these rare game, one of Chapman’s pitches players only come around every was clocked at a shocking 105 decade or so. So it is surprising to mph, leaving even the most jaded learn that this year, scouts speechless. two pitchers have On Tuesday, ChapPete Rose Central come along with the man made his maDa bettin’ line skill set to potenjor league debut tially join that list. for the Reds, who Dookies Margin Hoyas Each throws as hard will use him as a (underdogs) (duh!) (favorites) as any human being reliever for the rehas ever thrown a maining month of Davidson Revenge Hoyas baseball, but one has the season. While Shaq Raekwon Bieber received much hype Strasburg’s first Marlins Clothes-Line start seemed like it Morgan in doing so, while the other has flown unaired on every TV in der the radar. takes 12 to 18 months to recover, the nation, Chapman’s drew negOn Aug. 17, 2009, the Wash- is the worst thing a pitcher can ligible attention, especially when ington Nationals made Stephen hear from a doctor. compared to the Washington Strasburg the highest paid draft But sometimes when one Phenom. Maybe it is the smaller pick in Major League Baseball door closes, another one opens. market, or the fact that Chapman history. Strasburg started to atNot even five months after is only a reliever for now, but it is tract the attention of baseball Strasburg signed his contract with hard to believe that a pitcher who scouts during his sophomore year the Nationals, Cuban pitcher Ar- was recently clocked at 105 mph of college at San Diego State Uni- oldis Chapman agreed to a deal did not receive any substantial versity, and when he took the hill with the Cincinnati Reds. Chap- national coverage. Maybe that is after spending just two months man had defected from Cuba the better for the Reds, and for Chapin the minor leagues, the media previous July by walking out of man. It is possible that Strashad already been hyping his pre- a hotel in the Netherlands where burg’s injury was at least partially miere performance for weeks. the Cuban National Team had caused by all of the hype, which Every national sports news out- been staying for a world tourna- could have made him overexert let swarmed Nationals Park for ment. The news of his impending himself. Maybe the baseball gods his debut against the Pirates, an free agency created a stir within are telling us something—there unprecedented occurence since the MLB, but it only caught the can’t be two pitchers with so Nationals-Pirates games usually attention of the most die-hard much talent around at once. Only struggle to draw more attendance baseball fans. time will tell us if these pitchthan a local little league game at Chapman, like Strasburg, ers will be the best of an era or Volta Park. started his career in the minor just amazing talents that never Strasburg lived up to the leagues, but quickly rose through reached their full potential.

by Nick Berti

sports

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice 7

Soccer opens with new look Hoyas start off slow

by Adam Rosenfeld When fans arrive at Kehoe Field this Friday for the first game of the men’s soccer season, one change will immediately be apparent. The raucous Hoya student section will be situated directly behind the eastern goal instead of the front row of midfield.

“We always get excited to play schools like Maryland and UConn because they have huge student sections that are in your face,” senior forward Jose Colchao said.

“So we’re hoping to get a really exciting atmosphere out of this new student section.”

At the Tuesday night pep rally, head coach Brian Wiese wasn’t shy about his hopes for the new atmosphere, and he revealed that

he wanted to create an uncomfortable experience for any team that comes to the Hilltop to play his squad.

The first team to experience the effects of this change will be the Northeastern Huskies, who look to be a serious challenge for the Hoyas in their first regular season game. Although they were picked to finish fourth in the Colonial Athletic Association, Northeastern is riding a wave of confidence from their strong finish at the end of the 2009 season. After putting together an impressive conference record, the Huskies reached the finals of the CAA tournament before falling to U.N.C. Wilmington.

“They’re going to be very tough and very organized,” Wiese said. “We’re going to have to

JACKSON PERRY

Jose Colchao isn’t afraid, he’ll make opponents afraid of him—and his elbows

Just win, baby Last Thursday, at the end of the second practice of a two-a-day, Georgetown football Head Coach Kevin Kelly was not happy.

From the periphery of MultiSport Field, bystanders could hear Kelly tell his players in no uncertain terms (and with a few obscenities) that what he just saw in practice was unacceptable.

“In the past this might have been one we called a good practice,” senior co-captain Nick Parrish said afterwards. “But we’re kind of setting the bar a lot higher this year.”

It’s probably not necessary for Parrish to say the bar is higher; after last season’s winless campaign, there was no direction to go but up.

Obviously the team was trying to

win last season, but as they prepare for their first game against Davidson on Saturday, Georgetown’s leaders admit that this year, there’s a new attitude.

In fact, the Hoyas’ determination is so palpable, it convinced me they’ll win a game. Or maybe two.

While writing this week’s feature on the state of the football team, I came to understand many of the numerous obstacles blocking Georgetown’s path to success.

Things need to change on an institutional level before Georgetown can ever become a serious, consistent contender.

I haven’t been converted into a true believer yet. Parrish said the team’s goal is to win the Patriot League; I can’t see that happening. But I would love to be proven wrong.

Parrish and fellow captain Dan Semler have the right enthusiasm

work hard to break them down throughout the game.”

The Hoyas have certainly put in work during the preseason that should translate into a successful opening weekend. Besides their hard work, being away from their home field has possibly improved their mental toughness.

After games against George Mason, Maryland, and D.C. United, which were all on the road, Wiese is expecting his veteran team to play extremely well in the opener.

“We’re playing at home and expecting a good performance,” Wiese said. “That being said, it’s a season opener, so everyone has the same record going into the game.”

After the game on Friday, Georgetown’s season continues on Sunday against Michigan State.

The Spartans will be a tough test for the Hoyas, especially early in the season as they have been picked by many to be favorites of the impressive Big 10 conference.

But the Hoyas need not be intimidated by any opponent this year as Wiese is fielding one of the most experienced rosters to grace the Hilltop. Featuring 11 seniors and a host of seasoned underclassmen, Georgetown has an excess of leadership in every position on the field.

“Last year, we would look to one or two guys in clutch moments,” Colchao said. “This year, we have leaders all over the field who can carry the team.”

A win on Friday would not only be nice for the team’s record, but would also help set the tone for the new season. Experience the new student section and cheer on the Hoyas this Friday at 4 p.m. on Kehoe Field. Don’t forget your vuvuzela.

and optimism about the upcoming season. They’re not foolish—they know they’re underdogs—but they’re confident in a way that belies last season’s outcome.

It’s easy to root for the underdog Hoya squad, but my belief that Georgetown will actually get to celebrate a football victory, or

Backdoor Cuts

by Tim Shine

a rotating column on sports two this year is based more on reason than hope.

For one, the competition is easier this time around. Georgetown trades the likes of Richmond and Old Dominion (combined 2009 records: 20-4) for Davidson and Sacred Heart (combined 2009 records: 5-15). Sure the Patriot League is

by Nick Berti After a disappointing end to last season, the Georgetown women’s volleyball team came to campus ready for a fresh start and a chance to improve.

After going 4-10 in conference play down the stretch last season, the Hoyas are still trying to find their way this year, going 1-3 thus far.

Back-to-back losses to George Washington and George Mason were not the most ideal way to start the season. After the underwhelming start, the Hoyas beat a tough American University team, but followed by dropping a disappointing match to Towson on Tuesday after almost coming back from a deficit. The squad fought off four match points before finally falling in the fourth set.

For now, Georgetown can attribute the slow start to growing pains and shaky confidence, but they must fix their problems soon if they want to be relevant in the Big East. Their schedule might help them—the usually rugged Big East is a little easier this year as eight of the matches will be held on the Hilltop.

“Our travel schedule is going to be a little bit easier and hopefully we can do some work to get some fans in the stands because it is always easier to play in a friendly environment,” Head Coach Arlisa Williams said.

To be successful, the Hoyas will have to rely on junior captain and libero Tory

the same as ever, but when you’re working up from zero wins, every small improvement counts.

Not only are the competitors getting worse, the Hoyas seem to be getting better. There are 13 starters back from last year’s squad, and while some may question the value of 13 players from a winless team, this past season’s basketball team showed how a year’s experience can improve a team (and if the football team craps out in its first playoff game, the season will have been a resounding success).

The coaching staff is set up to take advantage of the experience too. Kelly brought in Dave Patenaude to run his offense and implement a system that will take better advantage of the players on Georgetown’s roster.

“This year we’re just schemed up right,” Semler said. “We’re go-

Rezin for leadership.

“I’m definitely not afraid to yell,” Rezin said. “I’m a big vocal leader on the court considering I have to play defense, so that’s the biggest talker on the court.”

Rezin had 16 digs against Towson. As the team’s libero, Rezin stays on the court and does not rotate like her teammates.

To find success, Williams stressed that the younger players need to learn from team leaders, especially early on in the season, because they cannot prepare for opponents by simply watching video.

“For early games, it’s really about the Hoyas doing what we do well. We run a fast offense, play great defense, and terminate balls at a high level,” Williams said. “If we can do those things, we’re fine, regardless of whether we’ve seen video tape of our opponent or not.”

The fifth-year coach is confident that the Hoyas will put their problems behind them by learning from their mistakes, understanding what they are doing wrong, and fixing their problems, especially after all the hard work they put in during the off-season.

“We had double sessions, we played volleyball all day,” Rezin said. “We worked hard, we left a lot of sweat on the ground, a lot of bruises, blood and if anything that helped us bond more as a team.”

Georgetown will find out if their efforts will pay dividends when the team travels to College Park on Friday to play in the Maryland Invitational.

ing to change each week to week.

You’re going to see us doing something different on offense.

Depending on how they’re going to defend us we’re going to attack them differently. It’s going to be a higher level of offense that you’re seeing.”

Collectively, the whole team is on the same page. They have been since last December, by getting together earlier than ever before to start planning for this season.

“You can either fall apart or come together, and we came together,” Semler said. “I can’t wait for everybody to see the record at the end of this year.”

Sure, maybe it’ll only be 3-8.

But after last year, I’d have to call that a success.

Help Tim win his first of anything at tshine@georgetownvoice.com

feature

8 the georgetown voice

september 2, 2010

financial woes and on-field lows by tim shine

On a brisk Saturday afternoon last November, the members of Georgetown’s football team walked off Multi-Sport Field defeated. They were defeated by account of the scoreboard, of course, having just suffered a 41-14 drubbing at the hands of Fordham, but their defeat also went deeper, as the Hoyas left the field for the eleventh and final time without having won a single contest.

The 2009 season was objectively the worst year in over a century of Georgetown football.

The Hoyas’ 0-11 record marked

the only winless campaign the school has experienced since 1887. There was rarely even a glimmer of hope for the team; only two of its games were decided by less than a touchdown.

Worse, last season was no aberration. Head Coach Kevin Kelly, now entering his fifth year at Georgetown, is 5-38 in four seasons. The 14 seniors on the current roster have won three games in their college careers.

Since joining the Patriot League in 2001, Georgetown is 23-75 overall and an even more abysmal 6-49 in conference play.

MATT FUNK

Coaching them up: Kevin Kelly has to lead his team back from a winless season.

But the blame can’t be placed solely on this current group of players. In fact, the Hoyas’ pitiful on-field performance can be largely blamed on a single factor: money.

The simple fact is that Georgetown doesn’t allot as much funding to football as its competitors. As the lowestspending university in the seven-team Patriot League, Georgetown finds itself at a disadvantage in attracting recruits and improving its players once they are on campus.

According to data submitted to the Department of Education under the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act, in the 2008 season (the most recent year for which data is available), Georgetown’s football expenses totaled just $1.5 million for the academic year, easily the lowest in the Patriot League. The league average was over $3.5 million, and Bucknell, the second-lowest spender, allotted nearly twice as much as Georgetown.

“We don’t have quite the resource base of our peers, but we’re in a very good league for Georgetown to be in,” University President John J. DeGioia said last January. “We like the schools we play with, we like the schools that are in our conference, we like the fact that we’re able to bring Ivy League schools into our schedule and I think we’re just going to stay at it, work hard at it, and try to ensure that we’re in a place we can be more competitive and be able to provide that better of an experience for all of our team.”

Without expanding its resource base, though, it’s hard to imagine how DeGioia hopes to make the football program more competitive—or just competitive, period. But the Hoyas were a team on the rise just a decade ago. After returning to Division

I in 1993, Georgetown ended the ‘90s finishing on top of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference for three consecutive years.

However, the other MAAC schools’ programs began to decline, leading to many cancelling football entirely and the league dropping the sport following the 2007 season. So Georgetown accepted an invitation to enter the Patriot League, joining some of the premier non-scholarship football programs in Division I-AA (now called the Football Championship Subdivision).

Patriot League schools, like those in the MAAC and the Ivy League, are only able to grant need-based financial aid to their football players, so Georgetown players cannot receive any financial support to attend school based on their athletic ability.

But that could soon change.

Last year, Patriot League member Fordham announced that it would begin offering athletic scholarships to its football players in order to increase the quality of its program. As a result, the Patriot League has made Fordham ineligible for the conference title and all its games against Patriot League opponents will not count for league standings.

Fordham’s move has forced the Patriot League’s hand. Without Fordham, the league would only have six members, the minimum number required for an automatic berth in the FCS playoffs. It would only take one more team making a similar move to seriously jeopardize the future of Patriot League football.

Unsurprisingly, Patriot League Executive Director Carolyn Schlie Femovich announced that the member schools’ presidents would vote on football scholarships before the end of December—a vote that could have serious ramifications for the future of Georgetown football.

“Nobody seems to have a handle on which way it’s going to go,” Frank Tavani, head coach of fellow Patriot League member Lafayette said. “It seems to be split down the middle.”

A vote for football scholarships could force Georgetown to confront its meager investment in its team. For the time being, Kelly says he can’t worry about the future. The Hoyas have more immediate problems to attend to.

“It’s at a higher level right now and the president is going to make those decisions,” Kelly said. “I have no idea which way it’s going to go…Right now my job and our players’ job is to have success on the field.”

Still, no matter how much success Georgetown has on the field this season, the decision in December could be the most important indicator of the health of Georgetown football for years to come. And while the ultimate ruling is anyone’s guess, already votes are being anticipated and predicted.

“I don’t think it’s any secret about the teams who are kind of voting no, and who’s voting yes, and who’s on the fence,” Tavani said.

Fordham obviously falls in the “yes” camp, likely along with big spending, high prestige programs such as Lehigh.

Georgetown, however, based on preseason media reports and financial logic, seems likeliest to vote against scholarships.

Without question, scholarship players would improve Georgetown’s on-field performance. Kelly readily admits that the lack of merit aid has cost the school recruits.

But the University is likely to balk at the prospect of adding the cost of scholarships—a full slate of 60 scholarships would cost around $3 million. The Patriot League would not necessarily commit to such a large schol-

feature

georgetownvoice.com arship program, but if its fellow members choose to move toward merit aid, Georgetown would have to make a decision: to seriously increase its commitment to football, or possibly look to play football elsewhere.

In either case, as long as the University’s financial commitment to football remains a question, the program seems likely to suffer. It’s a situation Tavani, the Lafayette coach, experienced when he took over the faltering Patriot League program in 1999.

Before Tavani’s hiring, Lafayette had suffered through seven consecutive losing seasons. After some early struggles, Tavani turned the program around, winning three straight Patriot League titles from 2004 to 2006 and subsequently posting three consecutive winning seasons.

Tavani said there was a simple recipe for his success.

“The three ways you turn around a program are recruit, recruit, recruit,” he said. “And that takes money.”

Of course, it all comes back to funding. But Georgetown’s tight purse strings don’t necessarily preclude football success.

As Tavani found, there’s another way football programs can get money.

“My overall budget hasn’t changed that much,” he said.

“Where we’ve gone gangbusters is with our Friends of Football group.”

According to Tavani, Friends of Football, Lafayette’s booster group, brings in nearly as much annually his operating budget.

The comparable organization at Georgetown is the Gridiron Club, which, according to the University athletic department website, raised $267,848 from 259 donors in the 2007-2008 academic year. If Tavani is correct

in claiming near parity between Lafayette’s donations and operating budget, the Gridiron Club’s intake represents a fraction of Lafayette’s Friends of Football’s. The Gridiron Club declined to comment for this article.

“It’s the lifeblood of your program,” Kelly said of the booster organization. “It helps supplement your budget, number one. Our Gridiron Club also helps our players in terms of jobs. And we have a mentoring program that is something that people don’t see on a Saturday afternoon, but it helps our players post-grad. We have a parents group that also supplements our budget.”

The Gridiron Club seems devoted to providing the best to Georgetown’s football players both on and off the field, but increasing donations are clearly as important to fielding a winning team as an increased University budget. However, there may only be so much the members of the club can do—alumni dollars are not likely to be flowing freely after a winless season.

The lack of cash is certainly apparent in Georgetown football’s subpar facilities.

Multi-Sport Field, where the Hoyas play home games, has been waylaid by lack of funding and delays. Improvements have inched along, and last year saw the installation of new lighting, but Georgetown and its opponents still have to use the nearby facilities in Southwest Quad for game day locker rooms.

But that’s only the beginning of Georgetown’s facility issues. Perhaps more pressing than a glamorous stadium is the need for improved training facilities, not just for football but for all sports.

the georgetown voice 9

MATT FUNK

Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t win: The Hoyas are united on the field, but struggle to overcome institutional obstacles.

“Our training room, weight training room, locker rooms, and team rooms are not sufficient for a department of our size and caliber,” Interim Athletic Director Daniel Porterfield wrote in an open letter last fall.

New Athletic Director Lee Reed echoed Porterfield during his introductory press conference in April, calling a new training facility “critical,” but the facility seems no closer to construction than it was a year ago.

The facilities issues do little to help Georgetown win cutthroat recruiting battles in the Patriot League. With a limited pool of qualified athletes who can play without scholarships, the league members, as well as those of the Ivy League, often go head to head. But in spite of those disadvantages, Georgetown still has enough strengths that it is hardly stuck with the dregs of the recruiting pool.

“Coach Kelly is out there ev-

MATT FUNK

Success is a stretch: Georgetown’s financial limitations means the Hoyas have to work extra hard for a little victory.

erywhere, you’re always running into him,” Tavani said. “It’s very competitive and you lose people.

We’ve lost top quality kids that we really wanted to Georgetown all the years I’ve been head coach.”

Still, recruiting at Georgetown has unique difficulties.

Besides having to overcome the barriers of the facilities and the team’s recent performance, Kelly and his staff also have to deal with other restrictions.

Kelly and his staff are beholden to an academic index, which demands certain academic qualifications from his recruits. Kelly said Georgetown’s standards exceed the rest of the Patriot League, leaving him in a sort of recruiting no man’s land.

Georgetown finds itself pinched between the rest of the Patriot League, who can accept athletes with weaker academic profiles, and the Ivy League teams, who can offer greater prestige and often better need-based financial aid.

The margin for error in recruiting is miniscule.

If Georgetown and the Patriot League move to scholarships, part of the recruiting problem is surely alleviated. But Georgetown will likely fight against scholarships, and even if it were to begin offering merit aid, it would hardly be a panacea. It will be tough work to instill a winning culture on the heels of an 0-11 season.

To his and his players’ credit, Kelly and the team have not stood idle since last season.

Kelly shuffled his staff, moving around his position coaches on the offensive side and bringing in new offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude to implement a new attack.

“Offense is just a completely different thing [this year],” senior offensive lineman and cocaptain Dan Semler said. “The coaches’ personalities dictate

a lot about how the team runs.

And [Patenaude] is just a real tough guy.”

Meanwhile, the hiring of Patenaude has allowed Kelly to return his focus to the defense, even overseeing the instruction of the linebackers.

“He’s coaching a position now,” Parrish said. “He’s a lot more hands-on now with the defense. I think it’s enabled him to be a lot more free as well to let guys go out there and fly around.”

Georgetown will certainly have a chip on its shoulder this season, but while they’re ready to show off a new and improved squad, the Hoyas were still picked to finish last in the Patriot League in a poll of league coaches.

There is no easy cure for Georgetown football’s ills. In the end, it comes down to unwavering commitment from everyone involved. The University has to back the program with its full financial and administrative support. The coaches have to always keep working, whether on the field, in the film room, or on the recruiting trail.

Fans and alumni need to show up and pay up. The players need to go hard on every play in games and in practice.

For those who have watched the Hoyas flounder in recent years, that may seem impossible.

But just over a decade ago in Easton, people were expressing the same doubts to Frank Tavani.

“This was a huge undertaking when I took over in ’99, how we were going to get this thing pointed in a different direction,” he said. “But there had to be commitment by obviously the school and obviously the alumni as well.”

Come December, Georgetown—not to mention its league—will be at a crossroads.

The coming season is the time to find out who is truly committed.

leisure

10 the georgetown voice

september 2, 2010

I now pronounce you Joe and Jane

by Brendan Baumgardner In Oct. 2005, Elizabeth Grimm (GRD ’10) and Jacques Arsenault (COL ’01, GRD ’07) were married in Dahlgren Chapel. It was a beautiful, intimate ceremony with friends and family, followed by a reception in Copely Formal Lounge. As the night wore on, a group of uninvited guests joined the party. It included a pair of gorillas and a ninja turtle.

What else would you expect on Halloween weekend at Georgetown?

You may have heard an iffy statistic that 50, or 70, or even 90 percent of Georgetown students meet their spouses on campus, but there is little evidence to support this claim—it is likely a hyperbole, cooked up during NSO to titillate freshmen with the promise of companionship.

The cynics among us may sneer, but the fact is that plenty of students do find love on campus.

And when they decide to make it official (through marriage, not Facebook), many turn to Georgetown’s beacon of matrimonial

Jackson Perry

If Dahlgren is the heart of campus, does that make Leo’s the small intestine?

bliss: Dahlgren Chapel.

Completed in 1891, the chapel was funded by John and Emily Dahlgren as a memorial to their deceased infant son, Joseph. It is the ninth oldest building on campus, and the first to be financed with private funds and given a non-Jesuit name. Though born of tragedy, Dahlgren’s simple yet elegant architecture and prime location in Healy Court has made it one of the most celebrated religious spaces on campus. It is this understanding of the space that has encouraged so many Hoyas to marry there.

As a corollary to the Hoya-cest factoid, there is another misconception that the chapel’s wedding wait list is obscenely long—multiple years long. This is another exaggeration, said Dr. Elizabeth Grimm Arsenault, as she’s now known.

“We found the process to be wonderfully handled. We were engaged in October 2004 and had no problem reserving the chapel for our wedding in October 2005,” Arsenault wrote in an email.

So, college Casanovas can relax. For Hoyas who have an eye on a fellow student but don’t plan

on popping the question just yet, there is no need to put money down now. There’s no harm in planning ahead, though. That’s exactly what Kevin Mahoney (MSB ’06) did, a few weeks before proposing to now-fiancée Ashley Darcy (NHS ’06). Having heard the urban legend that there was a long line for reservations, Mahoney called ahead to ask about available dates, and was surprised at the number of options. Not too much later, the two were engaged and now are anxiously awaiting their big day in April.

The same romantic catalysts had a hand in bringing these couples together: Georgetown basketball and evening Mass. The Arsenaults, who still live in D.C. and have season tickets, make a yearly trip to see the Hoyas play in the Big East tournament. Mahoney and Darcy never dated in college, but found each other again while working for alumni committees and going to games.

“We reunited through Georgetown basketball,” Mahoney said As for Mass, Jacques Arsenault sang in the choir for the 8:30 p.m. Mass (since moved to 7:30

p.m.), which made returning for his wedding all the more special.

A few years later Darcy was coordinating the 8 p.m. mass, and developed a spiritual relationship with Dahlgren.

“It felt like it would be most appropriate for me to complete the sacrament of marriage in the place where I feel the most Catholic,” Darcy said.

This, however, calls attention to the major restricting factor of marrying at Dahlgren. Even though the excessively long wait list may be a rumor, there’s no getting around the fact that one of the engaged parties must be Roman Catholic. Georgetown allows marriage services for all other religious persuasions in St. William’s Chapel in Copely Hall.

If marriage is a symbolic act designed to demonstrate a couple’s love, a Hoya marriage at Dahlgren is extra special.

It represents shared experience and years of growth. Put simply, located at the heart of Georgetown, Dahlgren Chapel is the ideal location for those who want to keep Georgetown in their hearts.

How Gandhi got her groove back

by Nico Dodd The music on Rhythm & Culture’s new compilation, The Sound of Rhythm and Culture, would be hard to locate in a big box record store like Best Buy or Wal-Mart. Would you look under Electronic or World? It is difficult to find a broad enough term that characterizes all of the tracks, which draw from innumerable cultures and genres. Kiran Gandhi (COL ’11), the label manager for Rhythm & Culture, prefers to call it a brew.

“The idea is to represent sounds from around the world,” Gandhi said. “To make people both dance and then also to make chill-out tunes. The goal is to makes each song serve both of those purposes.”

Rhythm & Culture is a fledgling record label started by DJs Thomas Blondet and Farid Nouri. It features the D.C.based electronic group Second Sky, as well as DJ and string musician Zeb and others. The label hopes to capture the energy of

the early ‘90s D.C. music scene, when pioneers like Nouri regularly threw underground warehouse parties and house shows.

Though she was still watching Power Rangers back home in New York in the early ‘90s, Gandhi has heard enough stories from her Rhythm and Culture cohorts to know how different those times were.

“The cops used to crack down a lot less,” she explained.

To the rest of the Rhythm & Culture crew, Gandhi is considered the “international beatmaker.” She first got involved with Rhythm & Culture when she was a live percussionist for The Underground Soul Solution, a weekly DJ set curated by Nouri that showcases the international sounds of the label. In addition to Gandhi, drummers come in from the Malcolm X drum circle to participate. Ghandi’s enthusiasm helped her stand out, and this summer she was offered a job coordinating the label’s public relations.

All of the artists on Rhythm

& Culture are D.C.-based, and they promote a style of music that is unique to the District’s “multicultural soundscape.”

As for who they work with, the label is not particularly restrictive. Rather than encouraging a particular sound, their goal is simply to encourage their artists to make whatever kind of music moves them. “No one else from D.C. is doing this,” Gandhi said.

Rhythm & Culture’s most recent release is surprisingly consistent, featuring five different artists and a handful of guests.

There is also an alluring quality to the message of the compilation: its 14 tracks are meant to take the listener “around the world,” sometimes to multiple nations simultaneously. One song pairs an Iraqi oub with Jamaican dubtones. Sitars, dub beats, and Balkan horns are all also present.

Rhythm & Culture isn’t the first group to attempt this kind of musical diversity. Tracks such as these may sound familiar to anyone who’s heard Thievery Cor-

John shore photography

Even with all the international instruments, they could use more cowbell. poration or Balkan Beat Box. Be warned that this album does not have any rockers or club bangers, though, and will be more appealing the listener with a truly curious ear. But the music’s versatility is true, and it is amazing to hear an intensely local organization achieve such a versatile sound.

“If you blast the music really loud you can dance to it,” Gan-

dhi said. “If you play it softly in your car you can chill out.”

Second Sky is playing at The Yards Park Sept. 10. Eighteenth Street Lounge is having a record release party for The Sound of Rhythm and Culture on Sept. 16, and The Underground Soul Solution plays at the Eighteenth Street Lounge every Sunday.

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice 11

“I’m just a little bi-furious!”—scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Animal Aussies Look at this effing author

by Chris Heller Drugs, guns, and bank robberies abound in Animal Kingdom. But don’t expect an action film. Animal Kingdom, the debut film from director David Michôd, is a slowburning drama that just happens to involve action tropes.

After Josh Cody’s (James Frecheville) mother overdoses on heroin, he moves in with his criminally-minded Grandma Smurf (Jacki Weaver). You see, Ol’ Smurfy aids and abets her three sons and their friend, Barry (Joel Edgerton). They sell drugs. They kill cops. In another life, before we met them, they robbed banks.

And stuck in the middle of it all is J, as his family calls him. Big, dopey-looking, mouth-breathing J. Michôd paces the plot slow enough to bore lazier audiences. Don’t fall into the trap; you’ll miss some fantastic performances. Instead of flat-out telling us that Pope Cody is a fucking lunatic, actor Ben Mendelsohn has over an hour to build Pope’s psychosis from the ground up. Weaver also makes the most of the Animal Kingdom’s tempo; her smiles mask the

character’s calculating, brutal attitude, only hinting at what lies beneath.

Stripped down, however, Animal Kingdom is a film about Josh’s harsh introduction into adulthood. His ties to his family force him to abandon his girlfriend. Pressure from a Melbourne detective (Guy Pearce) turns his family against him. He becomes, as the film’s title suggests, an animal in a society without rules—he must fend for, and protect, himself.

Josh’s transformation stems in no small way from his lack of a father figure.

The film seems to be acutely aware of the Cody family’s deficiencies. In a series of psychological power plays, Pope attempts to convince his family members to confide in him, to make him its patriarch. He fails, then gradually unravels.

Animal Kingdom has moments of brilliance and others that disappoint. It will change the way you listen to Air Supply’s “All Out of Love,” but it will frustrate you with excessive voiceovers. It’s fantastic, except for when it’s not.

But, it’s all about working out where it fits. Just ask J.

Not your grandma’s vaccine

In 2006, young women around the country were bombarded by TV commercials, billboards, and glossy magazine ads urging them to be “one less”—as in one less woman to contract human papillomavirus. The method? Gardasil, a new vaccine manufactured by Merck. Many pre-teens, and almost all teens and collegeaged women have been recommended the vaccination by their pediatricians or gynecologists. Since most women would rather get three simple shots a few months apart than end up with HPV, it seems like a nobrainer. But with the $125-pershot price tag and the risk of serious side effects associated with the vaccine, it’s important for women to know exactly what they are getting.

The Gardasil vaccine, like any other vaccine, injects you with an extremely weak strain of the virus. The strain is benign, but it will still look a lot like the real thing to your body.

Exposure to this weak form of the virus—a few, ill-equipped, tired out, already-injured soldier cells—allows your body to get better at recognizing the virus’s troops, and gives it time to begin setting up its defenses.

This way, if the real, full-force form of the virus does manage to get you, the antibody army that your body manufactured will be standing ready to attack.

Building up your defenses is hard work, and can take its toll on your body. Headaches, fevers, pain, nausea, dizziness— which are the most common side effects of the Gardasil vaccine—

by Matt Collins Twenty-seven-year-old Brooklyn author Tao Lin has been labeled a “hipster author” since his first book, a collection of poetry, was published in 2006. This (let’s be honest, slightly derogatory) pigeonholing was not completely unwarranted: Lin is an outspoken proponent of vegetarianism, his novels frequently center on young characters living in an urban setting, and his writing style seems both bored and superficial. I mean, Christ, his last work was entitled Shoplifting from American Apparel and consisted largely of absurd Gchat conversations.

A young author playing to a demographic that likes its art obscure isn’t a bad idea by any means—something that probably isn’t lost on Lin, whose self-stylized hipster persona is so extreme it could perhaps be deliberate. But hipsterdom and the ambiguous “literary community” are not contiguous groups, and for this reason he’s had difficulty being taken seriously as a fiction writer. His latest novel, Richard Yates, which leaves behind the banality of his previous works in favor of something far weightier, should help change this.

The protagonist of Richard Yates is aspiring writer Haley Joel Osment, an autistic man in his mid-twenties. The novel’s action are not caused by the weakened HPV soldiers you were injected with, however. These side effects are caused by the stress associated with building a new antibody army from scratch. Some bodies have a harder time than others, and a few women who experi-

rub some Dirt on It

by Sadaf Qureshi

a bi-weekly column about health enced much more severe illness have ended up missing months of school after receiving their shots. Still, the Food and Drug Administration and the Center for Disease Control are standing by Gardasil, continuing to ensure consumers that it is safe and effective. And while it’s not a good idea to get vaccinated if your immune system is already low due to other factors, the ben-

revolves around his relationship with suburban high-schooler Dakota Fanning, whom Osment met over the Internet. Lin provides minimal exposition—how the two met, how Osment can afford a Wall Street apartment, what kind of writer Osment is, and why they share names with child stars are never explained. The story focuses instead on the couple’s relationship in the moment. This means there is still a generous helping of Gchat conversations, but this time around they actually matter.

They’re between characters we care about and they flesh them out as individuals, a far cry from the faceless exercises in boredom that characterized Lin’s earlier Gchat dialogue.

The conversations are still quite surreal, and Yates might be Lin’s strangest work to date. Lin’s cold, detached style—imagine an anti-

Is that... what the... oh God.

aMaZon

efits easily outweigh the risks.

Gardasil is not perfect. HPV comes in a variety of forms, and Gardasil does not protect against all of them. It does, however, tackle the major ones, and it handles the two strains that are responsible for 70 percent of cervical cancer, and another two strains that are known to lead to 90 percent of genital warts. It’s a preventative vaccine, so if you’ve already got HPV, Gardasil won’t be able to get rid of it. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get it, though—it still protects you from the types of HPV that your body has not yet been exposed to.

You won’t need to venture too far off campus to get vaccinated, but the experience will not be entirely hassle-free. The Student Health Center is not able to purchase the vaccine in advance for you. You will need

social Raymond Carver—formerly reflected the ennui of hipsterdom, but here, without any hipsters in sight, it comes off as alien. When combined with Osment’s autism and the conversations’ medium, it’s rarely clear how things should be interpreted. Early in the book the ambiguity is cute and funny, but when the tone becomes more serious the hazy sense of confusion becomes much more ominous.

Dakota Fanning, who turns out to be a troubled and self-destructive teenager, is responsible for most of the novel’s darker moments. Lin’s descriptions of her behavior are presented casually, but are quite intense and show that he has more in common with Bret Easton Ellis than a shared fascination with the superficial. And while Osment’s attempts to help Fanning come off as frighteningly controlling, Fanning clearly has the emotional upper hand in their romance, turning the book into a surprisingly rich rumination on power and control in relationships.

Lin’s newest novel deftly handles actual emotions. Not only does this undermine his detractors, it also shows that he has grown as a writer and sets him up to make the jump to the literary mainstream.

His self-promotion antics may rub some the wrong way, but if he keeps writing this well, there’s no doubt he’ll be showing up on “best authors under 40” lists very soon.

to schedule an initial appointment to get a prescription, take the prescription to a local pharmacy, pick up Gardasil from the pharmacy, and bring it back with you to a follow-up appointment during which a doctor will actually administer the shot to you.

This last bit may seem like an unnecessary bit of red tape, but don’t let it prevent you from getting the vaccine if you haven’t already. On top of being a pesky STI and health risk, HPV is the leading cause of cervical cancer. Are you really going to let a couple phone calls and a stroll to CVS prevent you from protecting yourself? Your body works hard for you, and it’s the least you can do to put in a little legwork to help it protect itself.

Show Sadaf where you got your injection at squreshi@georgetown voice.com

leisure

12 the georgetown voice

september 2, 2010

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

Hostage Calm, Hostage Calm, Run for Cover Records Most album releases live and die around the blogosphere buzz they generate, so when Hostage Calm missed their July release date this summer, things looked grim.

Now that their production issues have been resolved and their album is getting to see the light of day, it is becoming clear that Hostage Calm has released one of the best LPs in recent history.

In 2008, the band released Lens, a great melodic punk record.

Drawing from hardcore punk forefathers such as Gorilla Biscuits and D.C.’s own Dag Nasty, Hostage Calm developed a sound that is raw and sincere yet refined and smart. Though Lens did not see major success, the record did attract the attention of Boston’s Run For Cover Records, an independent label with major scene influence and an impressive roster of up-and-coming bands. With this latest LP, I doubt this band can or will go unnoticed for much longer.

Hostage Calm marks a shift in the band’s sound from melodic punk music to more accessible indie pop, and the result is refreshing. It is clear that the band spent more hours in the studio, as they experiment with new instrumentation and tonalities, reaching far beyond the spectrum of punk rock.

Hostage Calm’s diverse influences shine through on each track, too, as they pay respects to bands like The Smiths and The Cure. When the band applies their impressive musicianship to the punk rock paradigm, the result is explosive. On “Ballots/ Stones,” the band lays down an insatiable dance groove, while “Wither on the Vine” is a fullblown tango, blossoming into a lush Britpop chorus. “Victory Lap” has a more straightforward punk, four-on-the-floor sound with a ‘60s surf-rock vibe. The music is creatively composed and constantly evolving with each measure.

The vocals really set this record apart, and are layered into a golden wall of sound, drenched with Pet Sounds vibes. The lyrics are intellectual and honest, exploring with the vulnerability of adolescence without being cheesy. Singer Chris Martin croons on “Jerry Rumspringer,” “ I want to know where all the summers go/Do they pack up and leave when you turn 23?”

Still young themselves, Hostage Calm has already shown

Shut up, Ryan Seacrest

Georgetown, it’s time for a pop quiz. Take out a pen, eyes on your own paper—you know the drill. Your question is: Who won this year’s Emmy for Best Actor in a Comedy Series?

Too difficult? Ok, how about just name one of the nominees?

Any nominee in any category? Can you tell me who the host was?

No? Although this year’s Emmys were less than a week ago, the talented actors, actresses, and directors who were called up to the stage and received one of those weird, unnecessarily large gold statues, probably fulfilling a lifelong dream in the process, didn’t even get a week to revel

in fame or newfound public recognition. The crux of the problem is this: nobody actually watched the awards show.

And why would you? In recent years, awards shows have increasingly become bloated spectacles, tacking on excessive musical numbers and offering up ham-fisted segues between A-list celebrities as desperate attempts to hold a TV audience’s attention. The producers annually swear that this year, they’ll do their damndest to keep it under three hours, then they hustle the poor nerd who won “Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing” off the stage so that they can dedicate more camera time to Brad and Angie looking bored.

great maturity in their ability to shift their sound and experiment with new styles. So while the lyrics on Hostage Calm nail the identity crisis of growing up perfectly, the overall quality of the album proves that this is a band that has come into its own.

Voice’s Choices: “Ballots/ Stones,” “Wither on the Vine,” “Victory Lap” —Matthew Decker

Interpol, Interpol, ANTIRecords Interviews with members of Interpol preceding the release of their self-titled fourth studio effort may have caused some confusion about the album’s sound.

Frontman Paul Banks alluded to something grand and orchestral, while drummer Sam Fogarino saw the album as a reminiscent of their 2002, debut and fan favorite, Turn on The Bright Lights. Luckily, neither was very far off.

That’s why I didn’t bother watching the Emmys this year.

I looked up the winners the following morning, and YouTubed the acceptance speech given by Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad when he won Best

Warming glow

by Leigh Finnegan

a bi-weekly column about television Supporting Actor in a Drama.

(Watch that show and just try not to think he’s the most endearing meth dealer alive). I felt no need to sit through a marathon of musical numbers by the Glee cast or Jimmy Fallon trying to relive his SNL glory just so I could yell at the screen when Dexter didn’t win Best Drama.

Interpol is the band’s most cohesive release since their debut, and while they’ve revoked certain stylistic elements of 2007’s godforsaken Our Love To Admire, they haven’t simply returned to what they know works. The 10 songs on this record display a sense of grandeur that they’ve never had before, as they experiment with piano riffs and hypnotic synth lines in addition to Banks’s trademark gothy drones.

Perhaps most impressive is their ability to blend a certain degree of pop sensibility into an album so reminiscent of Phantom of the Opera.

Given the strength of the album, it almost seems that Interpol released lead single “Barricade” to trick listeners into avoiding their new album. The song is choppy and repetitive, and has a chorus that does not invite singing along.

This weak link plays halfway through the record, after four of the band’s most shoegaze influenced tunes.

Album opener “Success” proves that while Interpol lacks the ominous crescendos of Turn on the Bright Lights, you shouldn’t quite write them off as the newest mainstream flop. The stark guitars create intricate atmospherics, and Banks’s falsettos are always welcome.

“Memory Serves” follows in a similar vein, and showcases the album’s prominent piano.

Sparse chord placement resounds throughout the number, ultimateThe worst part, though, was that when I tried to find out who the winners were after the show, the first link Google returned yielded a gigantic picture of Kim Kardashian. Apparently, my search for “Emmy winners” meant that I wanted the list of the best dressed for the night.

You know, the winners that were chosen before the ceremony even started, based on their capability to pay a stylist and a makeup artist, and then parade around in front of Ryan Seacrest among a Versace-clad herd of show ponies.

This gets at the heart of the problem. The Emmys, which ostensibly exist to celebrate the highest artistic achievements in the medium of television, has become a mean-spirited circle

ly helping bring the song to a climax and finish.

“Summer Well” and “Try it On” also rely heavily on the piano. In the former, the piano leads the song into a relentless, clashing melody of guitars and the album’s most singalong-worthy chorus. In the latter, guitar riffs are largely replaced with layered piano, creating an atypical, warming sound.

“All of the Ways” may be long-winded, but it redeems itself with an ominous tonality that sounds nothing short of apocalyptic, and in the closing track, “The Undoing,” indecision between the English and Spanish languages culminates in a claustrophobic hustle of nonsensical shouting and layered electronics.

Listeners will surely recognize that Interpol does not have the lasting appeal of Turn on the Bright Lights. But it should also teach us that the Interpol record everyone is waiting for will never come. The band has changed, and with the recent departure of bassist Carlos Dengler, we can’t expect them to ever return to their earlier stylings. Interpol marks the beginning of a new page for the band. We’re just lucky they didn’t stop with Our Love to Admire.

Voice’s Choices: Well,” “Try it On”

“Summer

—James McGrory jerk where the E! network vultures simultaneously fetishize and denigrate their reality-TV idols for appearances alone.

But as far as paying attention to the actual, talented winners, the ones the show is supposedly dedicated to recognizing?

They’ll get a speech and a statuette, but unless they exhibit some accidental nudity on the red carpet, don’t expect them to top the headlines the next morning.

The answer to the quiz, by the way, was Jim Parsons from Big Bang Theory. It’s a funny show, but I still think Larry David got robbed.

Invite Leigh to your next meanspirited circle jerk at lfinnegan@ georgetownvoice.com

fiction

georgetownvoice.com

Recent Bedroom

By Joseph Romano

was only because everyone had to play. I kept it hanging

on nothing but a single ice chip an hour. You thirst and

though because of Mom— “It’s nice, the uniform matches

hunger, beg the nurses for something, anything to put

your eyes”—she always used to go on about how pretty

in your mouth. You sneak bites at the cuticles on your

my eyes were, and how all the girls would love them when

fingers. They taste like the rivers of milk and honey God

I was older.

promised to Moses. Rivers that you read about in the

I submerge under the sheets, swaddling myself with my blankets. But I can’t close my eyes with that picture

I

the georgetown voice 13

staring at me. It’s a polaroid of the family leaning on my

Bible your mom left at your bedside. Rivers that you knew didn’t exist, but used to hope for anyway.

The girl that was in the hospital bed next to

walk into my room. It smells of the old sweaters that

bureau against the wall right below the Little League

mine, Madeline. So sick, her screams never stopped, as if

Grandma gave me when I was a kid, the ones that I only

photo. My sister is behind me holding the top of my

her shrieks were the loop on the last groove of some vinyl

wore when mom told me to because she’d yell at me if I

wheelchair. My mom has one arm around her, and her

record playing next to us. No one’s here to help us, to lift

didn’t. The mold in the air itches the back of my throat,

free hand on my exposed shoulder. I’m shirtless. The

the needle, both of us too weak to do it ourselves. Music,

that same feeling that I get when you know you’ll have

translucent grey crawls up from the linoleum hospital

my refuge, was ruined. But I didn’t blame her. It wasn’t

a cold in a few days. It comes from the melted wax from

floor and under my skin. I can’t stop staring at my arms,

her fault.

that old air freshener Mom put behind the night table

and legs, and concave stomach, and sunken in chest and

and against the radiator after I left home. She must have

cheeks. My skin stretches thin, about to rip, over the

the one there, smiling at me and not at the camera. That

known I wasn’t coming back for a while, and decided that

hollow bones it covers. I’m the closest thing to the undead

smile reminds me of the time before surgeries, before

if she ever had to come into my room she wanted to smell

you’ll ever see.

complications. When she and her friends would dress me

But thankfully my sister is not Madeline. She’s

honeysuckle. At least that’s what the label says: the smell

When I see that picture I remember a whole summer

up in this very room, in dresses, and we would play house

of cutting sprigs from the bush by the railroad ties, of the

of my life smudged and faded like chalk when your

together. We would always play right when the sun would

nectar of blooms in sugar water on the kitchen table—put

middle school teacher is too lazy to erase the blackboard

go down, when this golden light would shine on their

there by us. But the air freshener had long since gone

completely, or the haze that clouds your mind for weeks,

faces. Their skin feeling like smooth nylon, as their hands

stale.

after a three-day acid bender riding across the state of

brushed against my arms while they zippered me. In their

Georgia, in your dad’s stolen car.

eyes I could see myself smiling. We were sisters.

I flopped onto my old bed.

The same pictures are still hanging, framed, on

Looking at that picture, I remember how losing a

But sometimes, I would be too sick to play. I was

the wall opposite me. There’s the one of me as a baby, lying

whole summer sucks. How waking up from a two-week

always sick. After all the doctors’ visits, where I would beg

on my stomach on some department store photo studio

coma and not knowing where you are or why you’re there

my mom to take me home so I could play with my sister,

carpet. I’m drooling, but smiling, though my thin black

sucks. How it sucks being addicted to hydrocodone when

she would tell me I could throw a fit if I wanted. And I

hair lays matte with sweat across my forehead. There’s

you’re sixteen because of the pain just to keep your

wanted to. I wanted to badly. She even said I could curse

also one of me when I was a seven or eight hanging next to

heart beating, your lungs breathing. You last for a week

as much as I wanted. I would laugh instead. It was just

it. I’m in cleats, light blue socks, white baseball pants, a

plain silly, hearing that from a woman who was a lector

light blue shirt with “Marietta” ironed on in script across

at Holy Cross.

the front, and a light blue hat that says “Aboff’s Paint.”

I slowly lift myself off my bed, walk to my bureau

I’m holding a tiny aluminum bat, standing as a righty

and pocket the photo. It’s funny how the one Christmas

would, but with my left hand on top and right hand on

I’ve come home for the house is empty. What a shame

the bottom: all wrong. I never really played anyway. They

that I brought presents and everything, too.

just stuck me in the outfield for half the game, and that

voices

14 the georgetown voice

september 2, 2010

Polarization at Georgetown kindles political fire

by Michael Madoff The second week of my freshman year at Georgetown, I talked my roommate into attending a H*yas for Choice meeting. Not for political reasons, but, clever freshman that I was, so we could “meet girls who will remember to take their birth control.” At the meeting, I volunteered to be a “condom rep,” and upon returning to my room in Darnall, I attached a H*yas for Choice envelope full of condoms to my door. As a personal flourish, I placed a toy Alaskan husky halfway into the envelope, his blue eyes wide with Northern naïveté and his paws offering a Durex to passersbys.

The next morning, I found the little doggy slumped unhappily on the floor among the remains of the shredded manila envelope.

I was stunned. I grew up in a neighborhood just outside of Boston where most of the adults are Harvard employees and rallies

calling upon Congress to impeach Obama—for being too conservative—are routine. I could count the number of Republicans and practicing Christians I had met on one hand. To me, the thought that anyone might object to free condoms, especially those offered by adorable stuffed animals, was inconceivable.

After I got over the initial culture shock, I found the presence of conservative opposition at Georgetown new and invigorating. When, to my fascinated horror, a Confederate flag the size of a refrigerator was unfurled a few doors down, I retaliated in kind by turning a sign from a gay rights march into a pro-health care reform poster and placing it in the window of my room that faced the Georgetown University Hospital.

The media likes to tout the polarization of American political discourse in recent years. The people who watch Fox News and shop at Wal-mart, the narrative goes, live entirely separate from

the people who watch MSNBC and shop at Trader Joe’s. The overwhelming consensus among pundits is that this polarization is a negative phenomenon. However, at Georgetown these poles align for the better. Before coming to Georgetown, I would never have considered the possibility of going to a David Guetta concert with someone I had seen wearing a Glenn Beck shirt the day before.

I came to realize that I like being around people with whom I disagree. I relished having fiery, late-night debates in my common room about evolution, climate change, and immigration.

Taking the discussion to absurd extremes—“You can shoot my immigrant grandparents when I can euthanize yours to keep down Medicare costs”—was a cathartic pastime that was only possible in the private company of close friends with different viewpoints (and excessive booze). This astonishingly irreverent political proximity has taught me not to take

everything so seriously. Even if I think someone was being racist the night before, I might need to use their printer the next day, so I quickly decided that allowing political animosity to overflow into casual interactions was ludicrously impractical.

With every “pro-choice” or “Obama ’08” sticker ripped off my door, I became more passionate and inspired. I went to rallies for health care, immigration, and marriage equality. By my second semester at Georgetown I was a leader in the College Democrats and working on the Georgetown Progressive, a liberal blog affiliated with the College Democrats. But I probably would not have done any of these things without my conservative hall-mates there to embolden me.

The latest trend in punditry is to deride contemporary political discourse as too partisan, too polarized, and too bitter. On the contrary, I believe that America faces a problem of hypersensitivity. Although

I despise many of the things that birthers, Tea Party members, and other right-wingers contribute to the political scene, I admire how bluntly, simply, and directly they express their delusions.

I could have spent my freshman year holed up in my room, bitter and offended, but instead I chose to embrace the passion and opposition of my hall mates with a lighthearted disregard for the sensitivity of others. Wanting to maintain that thrill, I spent much of this summer writing obnoxiously partisan Facebook posts that probably offended people.

Now I’m excited to re-enter the fray with the midterm elections in full swing, where I can piss off all the wrong people and love every minute of it.

Michael Madoff is a sophomore in the SFS. He’d love to yell at you at four in the morning, so long as you bring the Jack Daniels.

The 27 levels of compatibility I’m not looking for

by Emma Forster The perfect man is out there.

He’s dating your best friend. Or maybe they hooked up at Thirds last March and now he’s off-limits. He’s your boyfriend’s much older brother. Or he’s engaged to your knockout of a sister. He’s the professor in your philosophy class. Or he’s a fictional character from a John Hughes movie. He’s not your boyfriend. Perfect guys are out there, but for whatever reason, you’ve never actually met one who’s perfect for you.

If I’ve learned anything from 10 years of reading Cosmopolitan articles, it’s that there is a perfect man for me and that it’s my responsibility to seek him out. Seemingly everyone is talking about how we need that connection—from my mom to Jersey Shore’s Sammi to Carrie Bradshaw (who’s it going to be, Aiden or Big!?). Twelve months a year, the checkout aisle in the grocery store overflows with magazines whose cover articles tell stories about celebrities and civilians alike snaring that elusive “soul mate.” There must be some truth to the whole phenomenon. So where are you, Prince Charming-Forster?

Since I haven’t found him yet, I thought it might be time to reevaluate my approach to the issue.

For me, the perfect man reads the right kind of books and listens to the right kind of music. He tames the dance floor but sometimes pre-

fers staying in and massaging my feet. He takes care of things like buying coffee or health insurance.

He’s teaching himself Japanese but loves Dumb and Dumber. He cooks like Bobby Flay and looks like Jake Gyllenhaal, but is humble and cool and totally in love with me. It’s no wonder I’ve never met this guy.

Undaunted, I’ve liked and dated and been infatuated and had crushes. But as soon as the homme du jour so much as threatens to fail to live up to my ideal, I can’t help but abandon ship.

A major problem is how much emphasis we place on the quest for our soul mate, our perfect match.

The latest Jennifer Aniston endswith-a-kiss romcom, the innumerable commercials for online dating sites, and society in general are all guilty of promising me and every other eligible bachelor and bachelorette out that we can and will find true, formulaic love.

Mark Thompson, a psychologist and the mastermind behind Match.com, recently quit his job at the site and wrote the self-help book entitled Who Should You Have Sex With?: The Secrets to Great Sexual Chemistry. While his approach focuses on sex and chemistry, he spends a hefty portion of the book explaining why you’ll never find real love online.

In his August 2010 interview with Marie Claire magazine, Thompson said that he “hated the way we [at Match.com] overpromised and underdelivered. Our stud-

ies showed that the odds of meeting someone online and dating him more than a month are roughly one in 10. So it’s great that all those people on the TV commercials met their spouses, but they are the exceptions, not the rule. No computer

major dating web site admits that his site promotes unrealistic expectations, it’s not hard to see why we set the bar at an impossible level.

What makes that mindset truly strange is that it doesn’t apply to

A perfect man is smart, kind, and wears Vineyard Vines. can accurately predict whom you should be with. The function of the math will make vastly more false predictions than accurate ones.”

These online dating websites have boiled romance down to a science. Personally, I can’t think of a single love story that I would want to be part of that includes the word “algorithm.”

When even the man behind a

MARC FICHERA

the other important relationships in my life. I’m not on a quest to find the perfect friend. I don’t judge my friendships on how my friend’s every interest fits with my own.

I share many interests with my closest friends, but my best friends are often my complete opposites, and that’s what I like about them.

But for whatever reason—perhaps for fear of never finding “the one”

that we have been promised since exiting the womb—our society’s focus on soul mates has rendered it extremely difficult to feel that way about romantic connections.

Settling is not the answer. If you do, you’ll be unhappy and chances are, your partner will be, too. But in the same way we don’t only befriend totally compatible people, we shouldn’t be on the lookout for a guy or girl who is perfect. The best friend’s boyfriend, the dreamy professor—all of those “perfect” guys have their flaws, too. The grass on the other side always looks like George Clooney. It’s an adage we’ve all heard before, but we need to apply our knowledge that no one is perfect to our search for a mate, too.

On the subject of making friends, I’ve always been told that if I’m involved and doing what I’m interested in, friends will come to me. There might be a perfect man out there for me, but odds are I’m not going to find him by setting up an eHarmony account or vainly searching through Craigslist Missed Connections.

With an open mind, when I meet the perfect man, I think I’ll know.

So get off my back, Mom!

Emma Forster is a sophomore in the College. Though no guy is perfect, Emma thinks our Hoya-goneHollywood Bradley Cooper comes close.

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Power comes from within ... the Earth’s crust

by Hilary Nakasone I’m a believer in climate change, but I can see why skeptics are hesitant to embrace the science behind it and rush out to find clean energy sources. But climate change or no, one thing about the way we produce energy in the U.S. is certain: all of our major energy resources are non-renewable. Given the finite amounts of resources at our disposal—the big three being coal, natural gas, and oil—and the population growth that the U.S. is predicted to experience, it seems inevitable that increased demand for energy will threaten our security, development, and the economy, even if you don’t believe it will threaten our environment. “Where will we get our energy from in the

future?” is a question that should be on everyone’s mind.

Solar panels, wind turbines, and nuclear reactors: These are the typical alternative energy sources present in the average American’s lexicon. But a vast array of lesserknown technologies has the potential to provide significant amounts of emission-free, completely sustainable energy, too. This summer I traveled around the world researching one such technology, enhanced geothermal systems.

While it sounds fancy, the concept is very simple. If you drill down deep enough into the Earth’s crust, the temperature becomes incredibly hot. In places where reservoirs of fluid exist and are heated up by the surrounding rocks, traditional geothermal systems can pump this fluid up to the earth’s surface and use the

Hilary the scientist: Yes, she can stop global warming.

Courtesy HILARY NAKASONE

hot water and steam both for directuse heating and turning turbines for electricity generation. EGS uses the same concept, except without the pre-existing fluids. In EGS, a well is drilled and water is then used to expand fractures in the earth’s crust.

The water flows through these cracks and is heated up by the surrounding bedrock. Then the hot water and steam is intercepted by another well, and used directly or used to generate electricity.

Geothermal energy has huge potential worldwide. There are many numbers being thrown around, but an MIT-led study in 2007 estimates the potential U.S. output of geothermal energy is approximately 130,000 times greater than annual primary energy consumption. And unlike solar and wind, geothermal provides power 24 hours a day.

Okay, geothermal is great. Cool.

Why haven’t all of our energy problems been solved already? Industry experts, technical specialists, and policy makers say that, by nature, EGS is a high-risk, high-investment technology. The deep drilling (up to 10-km depths) involved increasing costs exponentially compared to traditional geothermal, which goes to maximum depths of two and a half miles. Limitations on modeling technology also make it difficult to determine the productivity of potential reservoirs, increasing the chances that geothermal projects will fail.

Bringing down a cult of personality

Ayn Rand loves egomaniacs.

Her two most famous works, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, extol ethical egoism; her political philosophy encourages everyone to act in their own self-interest.

Recently, Rand’s books and philosophy have experienced a rise in popularity, particularly among members of the Tea Party and opponents of the bank bailouts, government stimulus, and health care reform. Some right-wingers, including Glenn Beck, have represented Atlas Shrugged’s portrayal of a government that exerts total control over the economy, crushing innovation and eventually leading to a global economic collapse, as a picture of what would happen if Democrats achieve their policy goals.

Signs at Beck-inspired Tea Party protests sometimes bear references

to the hero of Atlas Shrugged, John Galt. A mythical figure throughout the book, Galt emerges when the nation is on the brink of disaster to champion a new society based on self-interest and the work of individuals. Rand presents him as a powerful figure standing for what is right against the power of a corrupt and aggrandizing state.

Rand’s ideology is a reaction against the overwhelming statist control of the economy that fascism and communism sought in 1920s and ‘30s Europe, the place and time of her upbringing. The America of today is a welfare state, to be sure, but far from the totalitarian state of Atlas Shrugged, Nazi Germany, or Soviet Russia.

John Galt is a fictional hero.

Nevertheless, this fact has not stopped Glenn Beck from attempt-

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ing to follow in his footsteps. Beck embodies the dark side of Rand’s egomaniacal heroes. The enlightened egoism we see in Galt’s defense of the free market markedly contrasts with the megalomania that Beck regularly displays. Since before President Barack Obama

Carrying On

by Jackson Perry A rotating column by Voice senior staffers

was elected, Beck has been using his television show’s chalkboards to draw shady connections between Marxist extremists and Obama, arguing that the President aims to destroy the America we know.

Abstractly, his opinions seem Galt-like, creating the image of one man in opposition to a predatory state. The notion that Obama is a Manchurian candidate for a leftist anti-business cabal is entertaining, and could easily fit into a Rand plot—but it is false. His attempts to link groups like the Tides Foun-

One of the most publicized concerns is the induced seismic activity that can result from hydro-fracturing, most notably in Basel, Switzerland, where it evoked enough negative press to shut down the project. Geothermal needs a strong marketing and public relations sector to ensure that energy generated has a market, that communities will allow for development and that tangible policy changes can occur.

The technology needed for geothermal is available, and becoming cheaper every year. The cost of drilling, however, has risen dramatically—as demand for fossil fuels increases, the demand for drill rigs increases—significantly affecting project costs. Drill rigs have become so expensive that companies in Australia, which has the most developed EGS industry next to the U.S., have stalled projects because they are unable to raise enough capital to qualify for the government funding available to EGS projects.

Still, hope remains for geothermal enthusiasts. In places like Iceland and the Philippines, geothermal energy has been proven to work, and work well. Geothermal energy in Iceland is so cheap that the government subsidizes families forced to heat their homes with oil due to lack of access to a geothermal resource, because oil actually costs more. In the Philippines, companies

dation, a progressive organization that supports various liberal think tanks, and terms like “social justice” to either Marxist or fascist attempts to take over America remind me more of Jim Jones, a cult leader who poisoned over 900 people in 1978, than of John Galt.

His part political rally, part religious revival on Saturday at the Lincoln Memorial was the latest, and the grandest, of his attempts to cloak himself in messianic imagery. The clergyman he awarded at the rally with the Medal of Faith compared him to Jesus Christ.

Beck said that the timing of the rally, which coincided with the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, was “divine providence.”

What is most troubling is his ability to hook the masses onto his ideas of the looming “dark,” which God has blessed Beck with the exclusive power to perceive and remedy. Fortunately for lovers of freedom, his claims that the government is planning a takeover of the private sector and that socialism is creeping toward the heart of America aren’t true. All that Obama has done is continue the economic stimulus packages and bank bail-

like the Energy Development Corporation have used geothermal energy as a means to bring development into rural communities, sponsoring education, livelihood, and health programs, and providing employment for local laborers.

Moving forward, both in developed and emerging countries, policy will play a key role in the success or failure of geothermal energy. If investors can be assured of a switch to a clean energy economy, and prices become more consistent, the industry could flourish. However, with all of the uncertainty surrounding the true cost of energy, it is difficult to attract enough capital to make a project viable.

As with most alternative energies, government involvement and funding is crucial during its infancy.

After learning about the potential benefits and costs of developing geothermal technology, I have become convinced that it will play a major role in our transition to a green society. Of course, it is not the end-all cure to our energy problems, but I believe that it is a necessary component of our future energy supply.

Hilary Nakasone is a junior in the SFS. While in Iceland, she learned, then forgot, the ridiculous name of the volcano that ruined everything.

outs that President George W. Bush approved and push through a health care reform package that doesn’t even include a public option. A John Galt is not needed.

Beck makes over $30 million a year from his radio and television shows, books, guest appearances, and his comedy tour (yes, he did a comedy tour). The free market economy that is supposedly in mortal danger seems to be working perfectly well for him. While he rakes in the dough with his divisive and petty rhetoric, concerns held by his listeners and viewers over the depressed economy become infused with often racially-motivated fears of Marxism, Islamic extremism, and fascism.

In a few years, when America has become a socialist-Marxistfascist state ruled by the New Black Panther Party, Beck will of course be silenced and imprisoned. Until then, we should just try to ignore him.

Jackson Perry is a junior in the College.

He knows what happenened when Atlas shrugged, but what will happen if Beck shrugs?

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