The Georgetown Voice, September 9, 2010

VOICE the georgetown

PAGE 5

WATCH OUT: FOOTBALL WINS ITS FIRST GAME PAGE 7

MEXICAN BADASS PAGE 11

Georgetown University’s Weekly Newsmagazine Since 1969  September 9, 2010  Volume 43, Issue 4  georgetownvoice.com

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em

•L •zo iqu n o af ing r Li ce fic ns e re ing r bo es str t i la rho ric ctio w od tio n s po ns s lic y

0

TEA BAGGERS FAIL TO EXCITE GU CONSERVATIVES

2 the georgetown voice

september 9, 2010

comments of the week “Nothing that MPD or this young woman would have or could have done in the course of her everyday activities would have successfully prevented this crime from occurring. Perhaps the Voice should save it’s indignation for actual policy problems.”

—Jon, “Blaming the victim is not good police work”

“Can gays get married at Dalhgren chapel? That’d have been an interesting angle to explore.”

—Stuart, “I now pronounce you Joe and Jane”

“Get rid of football. $1.5M can be used for much more important things. The idea that we could end up spending MORE on football when there is so much that doesn’t happen at Georgetown because of financial constraints is ludicrous.”

—Steve, “Financial Woes and On-Field Lows”

“God, the actions of the audience members are just embarrassing.

Couldn’t ask something substantive, and THEN ask for a hug at least?

Embarrassing.”

—GC,“Bradley Cooper speaks in Gaston, campus population swoons”

Talk Back

@GtownVoice

winning their Congrats to Georgetown Football for season opener over Davidson!

September 6, 2010 3:21:08 PM EDT

Bradley Cooper speaks in Gaston, campus population swoons September 3, 2010 3:08:45 PM EDT

RIP Summer 2010 // Welco me back to Georgetown, ever ybody!

September 1, 2010 9:48:0

2 AM EDT

Get the latest as it happens

Follow us at www.twitter.com/GtownVoice

blog.georgetownvoice.com || georgetownvoice.com

Voice Crossword “Beatlemania’” by Mary Cass

ACROSS 1. In the company of 6. “___” fever (be hot) 10. There’s no I in it 14. Forty-___

15. List-ending (abbr.)

16. Mozart’s “___ Kleine Nachtmusik” 17. A day no idiots were born on 19. Latin lambs 20. It’s ___-brainer

answers at georgetownvoice.com 21. Munch on 22. Loathe 23. Connecticut Ivy 24. “___ the crack of dawn” 25. Long time spent at the office?

31. ___ plume (alias) 32. Regina Spektor song, from 2006’s Begin to Hope 33. Central Point 35. Shares classes with Thurs., usually 36. Surrealist pioneer Max 38. Very small amount 39. Class for exchange students 40. Surgeon’s order 41. Person in a booth?

42. Calendar anomaly?

46. “___ day” like vitamins 47. Steak sauce 48. Franc replacers 50. Flat 51. Barnes and Noble, Inc.’s stock 54. Junk email or canned meat 55. Cheap address?

57. Kind of bag 58. “Shawty ___ burnin’ on the dance floor” 59. M*A*S*H setting 60. Chart positions of 17-, 25-, 42-, and 55- across 61. Advance, as in money 62. White heron

DOWN 1. Singer Marina 2. ___ Yu (M Street hotspot) 3. Works ___ many levels (succeeds) 4. Butterfly (or jellyfish) catcher 5. Pineapple explosive 6. Biblical crossing location 7. Great Salt Lake state 8. Opposite of yea 9. State that borders 58-down 10. Leaf holder 11. Musical quavers 12. The “A” in “A.D.” 13. Israel’s Golda 18. Gold pretzel brand 22. “Whoso diggeth ___ shall fall therein” Proverbs 23. Swimming pool unit of measure (abbr.)

24. The “U” in “I.C.U.” 25. Card game buy-in 26. Fox hit starring Hugh Laurie 27. Better

get wordy.

28. Gossip 29. Radical ‘60s group 30. Pupil 34. Call commands 36. Singer James 37. Gnarly 38. “___ you one!”

40. Ladies 41. “Castles in the sky” DJ 43. Garden creatures 44. Showed boredom 45. In the near future 48. This, in Madrid 49. Once ___ a time...

50. Sea bird 51. Bob ___, 2008 Libertarian candidate for president.

52. Midleg joint 53. Chair 55. Fruit-filled pastry 56. Chopped tree 58. State that borders 9-down

help us write crosswords. contact crossword@georgetownvoice.com

editorial

georgetownvoice.com

VOICE the georgetown

Volume 43.4 September 9, 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:

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

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

Office:

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

Newsroom: (202) 687-6780 Fax: (202) 687-6763 E-Mail: editor@georgetownvoice.com Advertising: business@georgetownvoice.com Web Site: georgetownvoice.com The opinions expressed in the Georgetown Voice do not necessarily represent the views of the administration, faculty or students of Georgetown University, unless specifically stated.

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

On this week’s cover ... Story of the Student Commissioner Cover Graphic: Holly Ormseth

the georgetown voice 3 JACK DeHOYA?

Where in the world is Jack DeGioia?

Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman holds regular, open office hours with undergraduates.

When he walks around campus, DePaul University President Brian Casey greets most of the students he passes by first name. But at Georgetown, it is extremely rare to see President John DeGioia unless he is giving a guest speaker on campus a brief and formulaic introduction.

At the President’s biannual meeting with campus journalists, DeGioia was asked about his management style and concerns that he is uninvolved with the student life. His response was illustrative of his misguided approach to student engagement.

“The hardest challenge in the job is the expectations of multiple constitu-

encies, particularly when the requirements for representing the University, both in a philanthropic context and a public way require a considerable amount of travel,” DeGioia explained.

“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 [the University faces].”

While DeGioia does face many, varied demands, ranging from fundraising to safety and security to maintaining the school’s strong academic reputation, he presents a false dichotomy between staying involved with the campus community and focusing his duties as President. Students have few, if any, opportunities to directly interact with him. This isolates DeGioia

from students—his primary constituency—and our needs.

With an annual compensation that topped $900,000 in fiscal year 2009, DeGioia should be held to an extremely high standard in all facets of his job.

As a starting point, DeGioia should work to demonstrate greater accessibility on campus by spending time publicly on campus each day he is in D.C. Holding office hours just once every month or two for a few hours would also go a long way toward exposing the President to the direct concerns of students.

It may not be reasonable to expect DeGioia to learn our names, but an opportunity to speak to the man in charge about the University we all love would be a welcome change.

WEEDING THE ROOFTOPS

Pushing campus toward green roofing

An environmentally friendly roofing method that is catching on across the nation should have Georgetown University thinking about using its many flat-topped roofs for more than parties and gravel. Green roofing, which retrofits existing roofs to support the growth of grasses and shrubs grown in sod over a waterproof membrane, carries with it serious environmental and financial benefits, making it well worth the University’s consideration.

Greening a roof allows it to act as an insulator, keeping a building’s temperature more constant and controlled, and, according to the District Department of the Environment, it can help cut energy costs by 20 percent. DDOE’s Green Roof Toolkit webpage also says that green systems can triple the life of a roof, prevent leaks, and purify the air, all while offering

more student recreation space and animal habitats. They also greatly reduce rainwater runoff from buildings, a crucial step, according to the DDOE, toward easing the stress on D.C.’s overburdened sewer systems. Green roofs require little maintenance, as rainwater is usually enough to support the plants. Eventually, installations end up paying for themselves in energy and maintenance savings, although the time in which they will do so depends on the size, location, and initial building efficiency, among other factors.

Roofs like these are already in use in the District. The main building at the U.S. Department of the Interior has just installed such a system, but upfront costs seem to intimidate wouldbe innovators. Kristin Ng (MSB ’11) of EcoAction explained that they have

not considered pushing the idea mostly due to commercial and logistical issues.

But the costs of installing a system are not as daunting as they may seem. D.C. offers a $5-per-foot rebate on any green roofing system that is 4,000 square feet or smaller. For larger buildings, the Anacostia Watershed Society offers a generous $7-per-foot rebate.

Installation of roof systems like these incur costs for both their construction and the expertise needed to build them, but given the long-term savings and government rebates, those costs are not unreasonably burdensome. Green roofing is a plausible way for Georgetown to show leadership in ecological issues and gain credibility as a forward-thinking institution. Campus groups should work with administration to make green roofing a reality at Georgetown.

MARATHON MAN

D.C. schools recieve much-needed cash

In late August, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced that the District, along with nine states, had won the second round of the Race to the Top grant competition, earning $75 million to invest in D.C.’s dismal public school system. This is a huge victory for the District’s struggling public school system, which badly needs the funds, and more proof that Fenty has capably managed education reform over the last four years.

The $75 million grant is exactly the amount that the District’s application sought—an impressive fact since the District finished last among 16 finalists last March in the first round of the grant competition. D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and DCPS deserve the credit for re-tooling the city’s application in the interim, laying out a clearer vision for science, technology, and math education, and ultimately improving the District’s standing in the final rankings.

Rhee said the money from the $4.35 billion program, which is part of last fall’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, would primarily go toward the further development of DCPS’s human capital—in other words, improving teacher training and performance—which many have credited as the key to progress in recent national assessments.

It is also encouraging that Rhee plans on hiring “data coaches” for several schools to help them better utilize data on school performance, one of the areas in which the District’s application was weak.

Though Rhee has already said she wants to give $6 million directly to a few low-performing schools, another portion of the money will go toward some of the District’s dozens of public charter schools, which often suffer from a lack of funding.

The grant victory obviously comes

at an opportune time for Fenty, who is facing a stiff challenge from D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray in the Democratic mayoral primary on Sept. 14.

Voters should consider the Race to the top win as another in a series of tangible education-related accomplishment Fenty has made in the last four years.

The announcement is also another justification for Rhee’s unpopular but successful tactics, including the IMPACT teacher evaluation system, which have met with opposition from the Washington Teachers’ Union.

Rhee and the rest of DCPS deserve credit for securing the full $75 million grant. That the money will go to improving teacher evaluations and charter schools should have a concrete impact on long-neglected students of the District. All in all, the win in Race to the Top is a win for Fenty, Rhee, and their vision for DCPS.

news

4 the georgetown voice

september 9, 2010

Jones and Savage vie for ANC seat Group for elderly to launch

by Mark Waterman For the first time since 2004, Georgetown’s Advisory Neighborhood Commission will see a competitive election. Jeffrey Jones and Michael Savage are both vying to be elected to the ANC 2E’s Single Member District 3 seat.

The area covered by SMD 3 stretches from the front gates of the University to Wisconsin Avenue and is bordered to the north and south by Volta and N Streets.

The seat was left vacant after incumbent Commissioner Bill Skelsey decided to step down.

Skelsey said he decided to leave the ANC due to increased time demands at home and with his job as an architect.

Savage is a tax attorney and has lived in Georgetown for more than seven years. His opponent, Jones works part-time as a pilot and also is involved with a business that provides green building materials for new construction.

Jones was encouraged by Skelsey to run after the commissioner decided that he would not return for another two-year term.

“I think he has a level head and he is a fair individual,” Skelsey said of Jones. “I think it’s a tremendous opportunity to serve the community. It’s just that this term

I would have less ability to [clear my schedule].”

Skelsey said he was not surprised that the vacancy on the ANC has attracted multiple candidates. This is a contentious time for Georgetown politics, especially for town-gown issues. The 2010 Campus Plan will soon be presented to the D.C. Office of Zoning amid increasing neighborhood opposition, and the Citizens Association of Georgetown is gathering signatures on a petition calling for Mayor Adrian Fenty and the Office of Zoning to help defeat the proposed plan. ANC meetings are often the battleground on which disagreements over the plan are hashed out.

The 2010 Campus Plan includes an increase of 2,400 graduate students, which has raised concerns among neighbors who are worried about noise and congestion.

Savage said that, in his opinion, his opponent Jones is more concerned with University issues while he is more concerned with other impending changes that will directly affect his district.

“I think that my focus is a little different from his,” said Savage. “I think that I am of a slightly different opinion on the 10 year plan than he is. … I think

the big thing that is happening in our district is the [repaving] of O and P Streets.”

Savage said that his major concern with the 2010 Campus Plan, rather than noisy student parties or the conversion of family homes into student housing, is the increased traffic in the neighborhood and the upkeep of homes that are rented to students.

“With living in the community comes some responsibility and [students] need to be respectful of that,” he said.

Although he did not discuss any details of the plan, Savage said that its current state “needs improvement.”

Jones also shied away from discussing concrete aspects of the plan.

“Let me just say, it’s very much a work in progess, and I don’t want to say anything that could inflame either side at this point,” Jones said.

Asked what issues he would focus on as a commissioner, Jones said that he would hope to maintain a good relationship with city officials. He also said zoning issues and home additions would be part of his main focus.

As for the current state of town-gown relations, Jones simply said that he “would like to see [them] improve.”

by Thaddeus Bell “Traditionally, relatives took care of relatives,” said Sharon Lockwood, the primary organizer of Georgetown Village.

“Our motto is ‘neighbors helping neighbors.’”

Georgetown Village, an agein-place cooperative, is slated to launch in 2011, and aims to ease the burden of costly professional assistance for elderly residents facing chronic health problems or mobility issues.

This plan is part of the recent nationwide growth in age-inplace cooperatives, which allow older residents to remain in their own houses instead of moving into retirement communities or nursing homes. Members pay a fee to have access to the range of services facilitated by their local organization, and the organizations’ cooperative nature helps neighborhoods foster a greater sense of community.

Georgetown Village plans to social activities for members and facilitate the provision of care for those who are physically impaired.

Members would have access to a database of contractors, doctors, and other professionals.

The Village will also negotiate

discounts at local businesses on behalf of its members.

The Village is currently in a planning and fundraising stage.

The planners, led by Lockwood, have been hosting a series of meetings with residents throughout the summer, and will continue to do so throughout the fall.

According to Hazel Denton, a Georgetown resident and a member of the Georgetown Village advisory board, the Georgetown Village idea has been well received among residents, even attracting a younger-than-expected clientele.

“Most people [were] over 60, but there were certainly some in their 40s and 50s,” Denton said of prospective members.

Two weeks ago, Georgetown Village secured office space in St. John’s Episcopal Church, where they will be hosting a fundraising concert on Oct. 17.

The organization intends to begin service at some point in 2011, but Lockwood stressed that the schedule for opening is based on collecting enough money to cover operating expenses.

Besides renting office space, Georgetown Village will also hire an executive director, who will be the organization’s only paid employee.

Ex-Colombian President Uribe’s arrival to SFS sparks protests

by Cole Stangler On Wednesday afternoon, Georgetown students, faculty, and local human rights activists gathered in Red Square to protest the hiring of former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe.

Georgetown hired Uribe this summer as a Distinguished Scholar in the Practice of Global Leadership in the School of Foreign Service. The group said that Uribe, who will begin teaching classes this week, had a poor human rights record while he was president of Colombia and is

unfit to teach at Georgetown.

“On what basis was this man appointed to Georgetown?” Mark Lance, director of Georgetown’s Peace Studies Program, asked the group of about fifty protestors and onlookers. “He’s not a scholar of anything. … This is a man who shows contempt for the very idea of human rights work.”

Nico Udu-gama, a member of the D.C.-based School of the Americas Watch who was at the protest, said there were numerous humans rights abuses during Uribe’s eightyear presidency, including the dis-

Jackson Perry

Protesters gathered in Red Square to publicize Uribe’s human rights abuses.

placement of roughly three million citizens, and the deaths of union leaders and journalists. His group had intended for the rally to coincide directly with Uribe’s arrival on campus, but he said that the University refused to disclose the details of Uribe’s arrival.

Few Georgetown undergraduates were present in Red Square on Wednesday, but SOA Watch member Laura Gonzalez was handing out flyers and trying to sign up students who passed by for email lists.

Some passers-by, however, said that they thought the protestors were misrepresenting Uribe’s legacy as president and underestimating his potential value as a professor.

“We’re very fortunate to have him,” Andrea Pradilla (MSFS ‘11) said. “The majority of people are very excited and looking forward to welcoming him here.”

“There’s a lot to be learned [from Uribe],” Robert Wood, a first-year graduate student in the Center for Latin American Studies, said. “No

matter which Latin American president, from any political position, there’s still a lot to be learned.”

The coalition of protesters plan to hold similar protests on Thursday morning at Uribe’s first class in the Car Barn and that afternoon at the Mortara Center during the lecture he will give there. They will continue to hold protests for the remainder of the semester, they said, while the former Colombian President teaches two two-week blocks of classes.

One protester, Monica Gonzalez (MSFS ’11) said that the coalition has discussed offering alternative classes and organizing film showings.

“As long as we have supporters and as long as he has classes, we’ll continue,” she said.

Several protestors said that Uribe’s human rights record puts him at odds with the University’s Jesuit identity and dedication to social justice.

Gonzalez noted that last November, the University had commemorated the 1992 assassination of six Jesuit activists working in oppo-

sition to the U.S.-backed El Salvador regime. For activists like Gonzalez, the University is sending mixed messages about its commitment to human rights.

“I feel very strongly about the matter. Uribe is a killer,” David Bow, a professor of anthropology and development at George Washington University, said. “I think Georgetown should be embarrassed. I hope students can organize, make a lot of noise and bring attention to the authorities.”

Julie Green Bataille from the Office of Communications said that Uribe’s experience in dealing with difficult issues will allow SFS students to gain a better understanding of international affairs.

“Georgetown is not endorsing the political views or government policies enacted by an individual, but realizing the value in allowing a world leader’s experience to be part of campus dialogue,” Bataille wrote.

School of Foreign Service Dean Carol Lancaster declined to comment about the protest.

news

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice 5

GU conservatives shun activism, Tea Party town Divest!’s dramatic march to President John DeGioia’s office in April are just two examples—conservative students at Georgetown tend to avoid direct action in favor of dialogue and discussion.

“I think that a lot of conservative strategy here is to stay above the fray. Take the high ground,” said Preston Mui (COL ’13), the president of Hoyas for Liberty and managing editor of the libertarian-minded Federalist. “We’re not gonna be the people who have demonstrations—although we can sometimes. It’s mostly bringing in speakers and educating people about the idea of liberty.”

Collan Rosier (COL ‘11), a member of the Georgetown University College Republicans, explained that quieter action can be more effective.

“A lot of conservative groups think more good can be done by engaging more directly in the political process, by lobbying your congressperson or by getting involved yourself, working in a campaign, than say, chaining yourself to the statue of John Carroll during GAAP weekend,” he said.

In general, the Tea Party movement’s populist rage has failed to appeal to many conservative activists on campus. One explanation is that some of the more radical elements of the Tea Party make it difficult for Georgetown students to embrace the movement.

Mui said that many George-

town conservatives want to avoid being associated with the Tea Party because others have negative views of their politics which are usually understood to be extreme and erroneous such as the belief that President Obama is Muslim. James Pickens (COL ‘12), a self-described conservative and the former web editor for the Federalist, felt that many figures in the Tea Party, including Glenn Beck, are too polarizing for Georgetown students, who he felt tend to look for more intellectual, ideas-based movements and leaders.

Brittany Blizzard (COL ’12), said that during her tenure as president of Georgetown Republican Women, she hopes to avoid more partisan and extreme elements of the Republican party and focus on issues that could appeal to a broad range of the young Republican women on campus.

“Definitely something that I’m looking to move towards this year is being more moderate, not for the sake of hiding conservatism, but for the sake of getting more people engaged in whatever events we do put on,” Blizzard said.

The bottom line may be that the kind of political activism one finds at a university will usually be different than political action you would find elsewhere. As Kevin Preskenis (COL ‘12), the chief of staff of the Georgetown University College Republicans, said, the tone of debate will al-

No more snow days for D.C.

now, D.C. genuinely lacks the ability to clear its streets with its small, decrepit fleet of snow plows.

Emails leaked from the District Department of Transportation last February indicated that over 60 of the District’s plows, approximately 25 percent of the fleet, were not functional for much of the February storms due to lack of replacement parts.

by J. Galen Weber & Cole Stangler As the November midterm elections approach, the general consensus in Washington is that conservatives, buttressed by the popularity of the Tea Party movement, have the energy and momentum to make major gains in the House and Senate this year. In August, thousands of people showed up in to attend Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and opinion polls and rallies held across the country reveal widespread discontent with the Democratic Party and President Barack Obama.

But even though conservatism at Georgetown has increased its campus presence within the past year—official recognition was granted last year for two new conservative groups, Hoyas for Liberty and Georgetown University Republican Women—conservatives at Georgetown, and the disparate clubs and organizations that represent them, have not adopted the populist energy, tone, and activist tendencies of the Tea Party movement.

Unlike some of the more progressive groups at Georgetown, whose members are seemingly unabashed in their willingness to demonstrate and hold rallies—last year’s Plan A Hoyas for Reproductive Justice protest, in which several members chained themselves to the statue of John Carroll, and George-

Anyone who was in D.C. last February has memories of a carefree week filled with snowball fights, hot chocolate and an unexpected break from class. But that week, which you may fondly remember as “snowpocalypse,” also brought with it impassable roads, transportation failures, and the closure of the local and federal governments. While winter may seem far away, it’s worth considering the cost of catastrophic snowstorms on the D.C. metropolitan area, because it is only a matter of time before bad weather returns.

According to John Berry, Director of the Office of Personnel Management, approximately $100 million dollars are lost each day the D.C.-based federal government is closed. Fortunately, since about 30 percent of federal workers tele-

commuted during last year’s major storm, which shut down the federal government for four and a half days, only about $71 million dollars were lost per day. However, many critically important public servants were not able to work through private Internet connections because of national security concerns, and telecommuting could not and cannot truly replace the collaborative environment of an office for days at a time.

D.C. should invest in snow removal equipment or seek out federal assistance to pay for the machines that would allow the city to function at a basic level when storms like last year’s hit. It’s not uncommon to hear those who hail from Minneapolis, Boston, or Chicago joke that D.C. residents are just wimps when snow is on the ground. But right

city on a Hill

by Eric Pilch

A bi-weekly column on city news and politics Storms like the blizzards that paralyzed D.C. in February 2010 and December 2009 don’t hit the city often, but that doesn’t necessarily make investing in snow equipment a financial mistake. When he informally explored the topic earlier this year, We Love D.C. blogger Samer Farha found that keeping

Jackson Perry

College Republicans kicked off the year Wednesday night with their first meeting. ways be different on an elite college campus than at a rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

It is possible that Georgetown’s lack of activism is due to the nature of the issues that Georgetown conservatives care about. Fiscal issues, which are getting the most attention from conservatives on campus, are less likely to move students to engage in high-profile protests than the issues that groups like H*yas for Choice campaign for.

“You’re not going to get anyone up in a tizzy about how the debt is out of control, or how the next generation is going to afford our entitlement,” said Joe Knowles (COL ‘13), the campus affairs director for the College Republicans.

Because there is no University policy that conservative groups can rally around or protest against that relate to the increasing government Metro tracks clear involved equipment that is actually very cost-effective. Using the cost of the Chicago Transit Authority fleet of snow-capable subway trains as a measuring guide, Farha estimated that the cost of equiping the D.C. Metro with a similar train system would cost around $10 million. That’s a good deal less than the $100 million the federal government loses in each day it is closed.

Not only is the investment in snow removal equipment financially sensible, it’s also politically smart for those in charge. In the aftermath of the last February’s storm, the Clarus research group found that 64 percent of D.C. residents thought Fenty did “only a fair” or a “poor” job handling the response. This was also the same month that Fenty’s disapproval finally surpassed his approval rating among D.C. residents. With Fenty currently projected to lose

deficit or the passage of the health care bill, they tend to approach the ideas they care about academically.

Even though many students choose not to identify directly with the Tea Party and their more active political demonstrations, some still believe that the group deserved support. Knowles felt that the Tea Party has been good for Republicans in general, while Preskenis noted the group had brought a good deal of energy to conservative causes. Rosier attended Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally and felt that, in many ways, the Tea Party has been misrepresented.

“There is a tendency to disregard them as a fringe movement and I don’t think that’s fair,” Rosier said. “It represents a very real concern among people and it can’t be disregarded.” the upcoming mayoral primary to challenger Vincent Gray, it’s hard not to see Fenty’s lackluster response to the storm as a crucial political mistake.

With the advent of global warming and the increased unpredictability of weather patterns, we should consider this past winter a warning about the future. This incidence of freak weather could be just the tip of the iceberg. D.C. must take a look at its miserable track record of snow response and invest in newer, better equipment.

If the city can’t do that on its own, its leaders should seek federal help to keep the government running during major storms. Otherwise we may be back to those Blackboard chat-room classes in the notso-distant future.

Want to chat with Eric in the notso-distant future? Email him at epilch@georgetownvoice.com

sports

6 the georgetown voice

september 9, 2010

Soccer opens season with a pair of big wins

by Adam Rosenfeld After just one week of school, the Georgetown men’s soccer team faced the first of what will be many tests this season in a pair of games against stellar opponents. Fortunately for the Hoyas, they passed with flying colors.

The squad opened the 2010 season last Friday afternoon at home against the Northeastern Huskies.

“Everything you’ve done in preseason goes out the window,” head coach Brian Wiese said. “We were playing a great Northeastern team and we didn’t really know what to expect from the guys.”

But one thing became immediately apparent the moment the Huskies stepped on to the field: They were in Georgetown country, and the fans were going to be vocal all game long. This was due in no small part to the new student section added behind the eastern goal, putting the over 400 raucous Hoya students on the field, just steps from the players.

“That was the best part about the game by far,” junior forward Uche Onyeador said. “It was awesome to have so many students there.”

The Hoyas controlled the game early, creating small opportunities for themselves every few minutes while keeping the Huskies in check, but the first half ended in a scoreless draw.

Georgetown regrouped at the half and came out with tons of energy and organization. In the 66th minute, the Georgetown skill finally broke the Northeastern defense as senior forward Jose Calchao scored the first goal.

Although the Hoyas defense stood strong all game, the heat appeared to wear on both teams, leading to a Husky chance in the 84th minute. Northeastern capitalized on the opportunity, as Ricardo McDonald kicked in the equalizer.

Regulation ended with both teams deadlocked at 1-1.

After the first overtime period ended in a draw, it looked like the Hoyas might start the season with a tie. However, Wiese never stopped actively coaching, liberally subbing players in and out of the game throughout the overtime period.

In the 108th minute, the recently subbed-in Onyeador streaked down the left side and received the ball from freshman Steve Neumann.

Onyeador took a touch, and then unleashed an absolute firecracker off the far post and into the goal, giving Georgetown the win.

“It was a crushing blow when they scored so late in the game,” Onyeador said. “Luckily I came on, got my chance, and was able to finish.”

On paper, the Hoyas’ next opponent offered a tougher challenge.

Ranked 24th nationally, the Michigan State Spartans entered Sunday’s game at North Kehoe fresh off an impressive win at the University of Maryland.

“We came into Sunday a lot more relaxed,” Wiese said. “After getting that first win, we knew a bit more about ourselves and how we wanted to play.”

Apart from a near goal

by MSU in the early minutes, Georgetown was the dominant team, opening up the scoring sheet with a goal from Onyeador, the only goal of the first half.

MAX BLODGETT

This is Georgetown! The Spartans can’t handle the relentless Hoya attack.

Whereas in the past the Hoyas might have been inclined to give up the next goal and let the Spartans back into the game, this year’s squad slammed the door shut with an inspired second half performance.

Sophomore Andy Reimer scored the Hoyas’ second goal after two quick touches and a laser from the top of the box past the outstretched Spartan keeper in the 53rd minute.

The Hoyas added two more goals in the half from freshmen

Steve Neumann and Gabe Padilla as the game ended in a convincing 4-0 Hoya victory.

Although happy to be off to a good start, Wiese was quick to put the weekend into perspective.

“It’s not like we can hang up a big sign saying ‘Mission Accomplished’, and then do nothing,” Wiese said. “All it is, is a good start. … We have 15 more games to go.”

The weekend not only gave the Hoyas two victories, but also a

pair of Big East honors. Onyeador was named Big East offensive player of the week, while senior Matthew Brutto was named Big East goalkeeper of the week.

The Hoyas will travel to New Mexico for this weekend’s TLC Plumbing, Heating & Cooling Lobo Invitational. Georgetown opens the tournament against an extremely tough University of New Mexico team, which is playing at home with over 4,000 fans expected to attend. Game time is scheduled for Friday at 9 p.m. EST.

The Sports Sermon “[Tupac Shakur] always wanted me to smoke weed with him, and I never did it. I wish I did.

That’s my biggest regret.” — Mike Tyson

Another important detail is that Bush was only 18 when these illicit activities began.

On the night of Feb. 7, 2010, When you are young and every Reggie Bush stood on the field of adult around you is pushing you the Sun Life Stadium in Miami a to do something, chances are you Super Bowl champion. His New will do it if the adult seems smart Orleans Saints had just won the and persuasive. This is not an game in one of the greatest comeexcuse to receive illegal benefits, backs this country has ever seen, but once again, it is important to claiming victory less than five realize that the people around years after Hurricane Katrina Bush should take the lion’s share devastated the team’s city—and of the blame. he had been around through it all.

Every year, the Heisman TroNot only was he basking in his phy goes to the best player in colchampionship glory, he had girllege football. In the year Bush refriend Kim Kardashian celebratceived the trophy, he was judged ing with him, and that is what we to be the best player on the field call being on top of the world. by the trust. None It’s funny how Pete Rose Central of the improper fast things change.

Da bettin’ line benefits he received On June 10, the were responsible for NCAA announced Dookies Margin Hoyas his stellar perforthe results of its (underdogs) (duh!) (favorites) mance on the field. lengthy investigaVikings You could argue that tion of the UniverCrocs Saints sity of Southern BCS Blue Balls he should lose it for Boise St. a lack of integrity, California, an invesSammi KO JWoww but then again O.J. tigation which Bush Simpson hasn’t lost his Heisman these punishments? was right in the middle of. The yet. Simpson hasn’t been accused The fact is that rules are rules, NCAA found Bush and his famof breaking any rules while at and according to the NCAA reily to be guilty of accepting cash, USC, but by the logic that is seemport, he and his family broke hotel stays, and other gifts from ingly behind the decision to take them. It is illegal for any student sports marketing agents. Bush’s back Bush’s trophy, shouldn’t the athlete or their family to accept step-father, LaMar Griffin, also Heisman Trust be demanding its cash or gifts. But before anyone wanted to start a marketing trophy back from someone who decries Bush as a lying, cheating, firm with these sports markethas been convicted of robbery and insensitive person, it is necers with Reggie as their premier and kidnapping and may have essary for us to look deeper into client. The implications from the murdered his wife? the problem. First, it is imporreport are very serious, as the With the possible revocation tant to realize that LaMar Griffin NCAA banned 30 scholarships of his Heisman and the damage committed and was responsible from USC over the next three done to Bush’s legacy, it seems for most of the infractions. But years and forced the school to there is a new mountain for since Bush is the talent, the one vacate all wins during the 2005 him to climb, but this time that in the spotlight, he receives all of season, including the school’s mountain is off the field. the negative attention.

2005 Orange Bowl victory.

by Nick Berti

USC was hurt by these punishments, and Bush has been hit hard as well. His image has been tainted and USC has cut off all ties with him, insisting that he return its copy of his Heisman Trophy (each winner receives two). The other Heisman trophy belongs to Bush, but it may not stay in his hands for long. Yahoo reported on Tuesday that the Heisman Trophy Trust, the private organization that presents the trophy, plans to strip Bush of his award. If they do so, it will be the first time in the 75-year history of the award that it will be revoked.

Do Bush’s actions warrant

sports

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice 7

Hoyas beat Davidson to end streak Despite the long hours the players and coaches put in, it is still difficult to win when the University spends less money on the program than every other Patriot League team.

“It’s a lot of hard work, so I’m happy for the players, especially guys that have been here,” Kelly said.“A lot of people talk about how they haven’t won football here, how they’re losers, and it’s nice to see their hard work pay off.”

As the team readies itself to face Patriot League foe Lafayette this coming Saturday, they are looking to build off a win, for the first time in a long while.

“I think the keys to moving forward are combining our momentum from a strong start with an acknowledgment of the areas in which we can improve, and carry those two things into our week two preparations and a strong showing at Lafayette,” Darby said.

While the prestige of the Georgetown football program certainly pales in comparison to the tradition of Hoya hoops, one thing the football program can say with pride is that they have more wins against Davidson since 2008 than the basketball team does. The gridiron Hoyas certainly haven’t captured the hearts of the student population, but maybe they can create a little buzz for themselves with some more wins. After all, America loves an underdog.

Hoyas lost on the recruiting trail

Rutgers. Before working for Georgetown, Cox taught in the D.C. area and had strong ties to D.C. Assault, where he was an assistant coach. D.C. Assault is an elite AAU program that is focused on developing youth basketball players in the Washington Metropolitan area. It also happened to be the program

All things must come to an end, and for the Georgetown football team, that is a good thing.

Over the weekend, the Hoyas snapped a 12-game losing streak that dated all the way back to Nov. 2008, defeating Davidson College 20-10 in their Saturday season opener. With this victory, the Hoyas have already surpassed their win total from last season.

After averaging only 9.6 points per game last year, Georgetown’s offense kicked off the season with a bang. Junior quarterback Scott Darby led the Hoyas’ retooled offense, throwing for 130 yards and a touchdown. He also ran for 66 yards and a touchdown.

The offense has taken flight under the command of newly appointed Offensive Coordinator David Patenaude.

“I think the addition of coach Patenaude has benefited the offense. … Each player now has a better understanding of his responsibility,” Darby said. “Schematically, when guys are running around with a solid idea of what they need to do individually, the offense as a whole flourishes.”

Not to be outdone, the defense stood tall, allowing only 10 points and forcing two Davidson turnovers.

Senior Georgetown linebacker Patrick O’Donnell intercepted a pass by Davidson quarterback Matt Heavener toward the end of

Some believe that the early bird catches the worm. Others believe that the best is yet to come. For the Georgetown men’s basketball team, the latter had better be true.

On Tuesday afternoon, Chane Behanan, a 6-foot-7-inch power forward ranked 32nd overall on the ESPNU Top 100, committed to Rick Pitino’s Louisville Cardinals, becoming the fourth player in their recruiting class and their third ESPNU Top 100 recruit for the Class of 2011.

Other Big East powerhouses, like Villanova and Syracuse, are not far behind. Villanova has four commitments already, including two top-100 players.

Syracuse has three commitments, including two top-20 re-

cruits, Michael Carter-Williams and Rakeem Christmas. Even more importantly, Christmas is said to have strongly considered the Hoyas before signing with the fucking Orange.

While other Big East teams haven’t drawn in the excellent classes that Louisville, Syracuse, and Villanova already have, they have made some progress. West Virginia has two commitments and Pittsburgh has four.

The Hoyas have a total of— gulp—zero commitments so far for the Class of 2011.

Adding insult to injury, the Hoyas lost a commitment from the Class of 2012 in Jordan Goodman when assistant coach David Cox left Georgetown in the offseason to go to

Backdoor Cuts

by Tom Bosco

a rotating column on sports that Goodman and many other talented athletes played for.

Even worse, the Hoyas will be losing key graduates Chris Wright, Austin Freeman, and Julian Vaughn after this season. With the exception of Jason Clark, the projected 2011-2012 roster is full of question marks.

But there is still time for the

What Rocks

the first quarter. The interception resulted in a great field position for the offense, who took advantage of the Wildcats’ error. On the ensuing possession, Darby would cap off a two-play 41-yard quick strike, with a touchdown scamper from 3 yards out to give the Hoyas an early 7-0 lead.

The Hoyas never looked back, going on to notch a welldeserved road victory. Head coach Kevin Kelly underlined the importance of the fast start, which gave the Hoyas the momentum and confidence they needed to win the game.

“We started out real well. …

[We] did a nice job with some defensive stops and ran the football well,” Kelly said. “I was pleased with the way we handled the success of the game and adversity.”

The success on the field can be attributed to the morale in the locker room. With a lot of upperclassmen on the field, the team’s leadership has become stronger.

“There has always been good chemistry within the team but now everyone seems to be buying into what we are all trying to accomplish,” O’Donnell said. “Nick Parrish and Dan Semler are two great captains who everyone from the freshmen to seniors all can look to when we need a little extra push in practice and in games.”

While it is just one win in the standings, the victory certainly goes a long way to provide some relief for this embattled team.

by Joe Calafiore

Camille Trujillo

Courtesy SPORTS INFO

The undefeated Georgetown women’s soccer team has stormed out of the gate this season, thanks in no small part to its stifling defense. But it is the Hoya offense, fronted by leading goal scorer Camille Trujillo, that is responsible for the team’s wide margins of victory.

“Camille’s a handful,” head coach Dave Nolan said. “She’s got great pace, she’s strong, she’s brave. She’s a smart player.”

Opponents have certainly had their hands full with the junior forward. Trujillo has found the back of the net six times in six games this season.

During Monday afternoon’s 2-1 overtime win over Fairfield, Trujillo was shut out by the Stags’ defense. But she was hardly a nonfactor, getting off

team to make an impact on the recruiting trail. The Hoyas still are in the running for six ESPNU Top 100 recruits, three guards and three forwards.

The guards are the cream of the potential crop. Rodney Hood, Quinn Cook, and Ky Madden are all top 50 recruits. With the eventual departure of Georgetown’s backcourt staples Wright and Freeman next year, reloading the guard class will be essential for future Hoyas success.

The Hoyas are also recruiting forwards Sam Thompson, Mikael Hopkins, and Angelo Chol. This group of big men, while talented, looks less likely to become Hoyas than the guard group. Chol is going to Kansas’ Midnight Madness on Oct. 15 and Hopkins hasn’t locked in a date yet for his visit to Georgetown.

six shots, including three on goal. Meanwhile, Fairfield had only four shots as a team.

After the game, Trujillo didn’t care that the Stags somehow denied her again and again. “[I was] a little unlucky, but I just keep doing what I’m doing and eventually it’ll fall,” she said. “If not, I’ll create opportunities for my other teammates, and we’ll hopefully get some in.”

In Trujillo’s eyes, she is just one small cog in a dominant Hoya machine. But her coach knows she’s really its engine.

“Camille’s a great player,” Nolan said. “She’s just such a shy, unassuming kid [and] I don’t think she realizes how good she is.”

—Tim Shine

More names are sure to come up in conversation until the Hoyas fill as many scholarships as they want to for next year. But as the time goes on, more and more recruits will already be signed. If the Hoyas don’t move quickly, basic probability says that it will be harder and harder to put together a class that could rival those of Louisville, Syracuse, or Villanova.

Now, I do not doubt head coach John Thompson III’s ability to do just that. But I’m just going to use a Yogi Berraism to warn the Hoyas that they better move quickly—it gets late early out there.

Help Tom Bosco prank Rakeem Christmas at tbosco@georgetownvoice.com

feature

8 the georgetown voice

september 9, 2010

feature

georgetownvoice.com

Campaigning for Georgetown The students who won us a voice in local politics

by Kara Brandeisky On Nov. 2, 2010, Jake Sticka (COL ’13) will run, unopposed, for a two-year term on Georgetown’s Advisory Neighborhood Commission. To get on the ballot, Sticka needed 25 signatures of people registered to vote in his Single Member District. Most of his signatures were from faculty, administrators and Jesuits. Only two were from students.

That’s a far cry from the thousand-plus students who registered to vote in the 1996 ANC election.

Then, a student-sponsored voter registration drive arranged for buses that drove students to a polling place in Glover Park, where they waited in long lines to cast their votes.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Georgetown resident Lenore Jacobs said in the Nov. 7, 1996 issue of the Voice. “The fact that all these kids came out to the polls was just tremendous.”

They had all gone to the polls to support two of their own: Rebecca Sinderbrand (SFS ‘98) and James Fogarty (COL ‘98), who were challenging permanent neighborhood residents for seats on the ANC for the first time. Sinderbrand and Fogarty were running to represent Burlieth and West Georgetown, respectively.

The ANC was pursuing a range of anti-student measures and was unwilling to work with University officials on many issues. Some neighbors attempted to keep students out of the political process with what many people considered to be voter intimidation tactics.

The result was a surge of political participation on the part of students that the University hasn’t seen since. The election of 1996 set the precedent for Georgetown students serving as elected local officials and changed town-gown relations for years to come. The victory gave students a voice in local politics that is largely taken for granted today.

Since D.C. is not a state, its government structure includes an

experimentation in hyper-local politics: the advisory neighborhood commission. There are 37 ANCs spread throughout the District, each representing a different neighborhood. The current Georgetown ANC has seven commissioners who represent smaller Single-Member Districts within the Georgetown ANC’s boundaries. The commissioners

In the summer of 1996, the City Council passed a bill eliminating reciprocity parking permits, which had allowed students to park in the District without registering their cars. The new legislation requiring students to register their cars only affected students living within the Georgetown ANC and the Foggy Bottom ANC, the Georgetown ANC was also con-

istration drive behind Sinderbrand and Fogarty’s run, hit a roadblock in early September.

Flyers appeared on campus warning students that in order to vote in the District, they would need to pay District income taxes and get a District driver’s license. The flyers also told students that they would lose their reciprocal parking stickers and

ANC2E

Slicing up the neighborhood: the ANC divides Georgetown into seven single member districts for representation. pass resolutions on a range of neighborhood issues, from historical home improvement projects to University construction plans for the next decade. A provision in D.C. Code requires District agencies to give ANC recommendations “great weight” when making final decisions, meaning ANCs have great sway over every District agency from the Alcohol Beverage Control to the Board of Zoning Adjustment.

sidering a zoning overlay that would cap the number of unrelated renters who could live in a given house at three.

So a group of students got together and decided: if you can’t beat them, join them. Sinderbrand and Fogarty filed to run for office.

Campaign Georgetown, the student-organized voter reg-

possibly forfeit scholarships from their home states.

A Voice reporter learned from an employee at the M Street Staples who had made the fliers: an ANC commissioner named Westy Byrd.

Byrd said in a recent interview that she was responding to a letter to the editor in a student newspaper that had encouraged students to register to vote.

“I distributed a flyer saying

if you register to vote, realize you’re a resident and you’re going to have to pay taxes here,” Byrd said. “It was proved in the legal proceedings, all of the things I said in the flyer happened to be true. I had a First Amendment right.”

Confused students went to Rock the Vote and Campaign Georgetown to find out the truth. Campaign Georgetown leader Dan Leistikow (COL ’98) told students in a Sept. 12, 1996 Voice article that the flyers contained misinformation. Income taxes are based on place of work.

While it was unlikely students would lose scholarships, the University promised to make up for any financial burden of registering to vote.

“It looked like voter intimidation to me,” Linda Greenan, then Assistant to the President for Community Relations, said.

The Voice reported that 12 days before the election, the chairman of the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics sent Westy Byrd a letter informing her the board would investigate whether her activities constituted voter intimidation.

Meanwhile, Byrd’s fliers had the opposite effect of what she had intended. Campaign Georgetown took off.

“We had a very serious, organized operation, on campus and off,” Campaign Georgetown leader Chad Griffin (SFS ‘97) said.

Griffin said Campaign Georgetown leaders treated the ANC race like a professional campaign. Griffin and other students wrote position papers, posted campaign signs on and off campus, arranged shuttle buses to the polls, employed poll watchers, and tracked the registrants to make sure they voted.

Over 1,000 Georgetown students changed their registration from their home states to the District.

But when students showed up at the polls, they met more resistance. Poll watcher John

JACKSON PERRY

Golden Boy: Aaron Golds (COL ‘11) has represented students for the past two years.

Ruggini (SFS ’99) said in a Nov. 7, 1996 Voice article that almost every student who showed up to vote in a contested district was challenged to prove his or her voter registration.

“There was a group of community residents who were prepared with challenges,” Greenan said. “They began to challenge each student as they came in.”

Byrd said they were concerned that not all the students voting were District residents.

“When you challenge someone’s vote, it doesn’t mean they can’t vote,” Byrd said. “When you have this mass of student votes, it’s very difficult to ascertain whether each person who’s voting is a resident.”

Nonetheless, Fogarty defeated the prior ANC Chair, Georgetown resident Beverly Jost, 401 votes to 162 votes, and Sinderbrand defeated incumbent Commissioner Patricia Scolaro by just a handful of votes after a contested recount.

In late November, Scolaro, Jost, and Byrd, believing that many student voters did not meet the standard of residency, filed a lawsuit against the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics, asking that Fogarty and Sinderbrand’s elections be overturned.

Attorney Dan Bromberg took the students’ case on a pro bono basis.

“A slower, more deliberate process is necessary to becoming a resident,” Jost told the Voice on Dec. 5, 1996. “This would be beneficial to both students and other members of the community, assuring that those who vote care.”

The criteria for determining residency, though, are vague.

According to D.C. Code, “qualified electors” are U.S. citizens, at least 18 years old, who reside in the District of Columbia and who do “not claim voting residence or the right to vote in any state or territory.” As a result,

college students had been regularly switching their voting registrations to their college homes in order to vote in local elections since the 1970s.

The lawsuit lasted until late 2002, long after Sinderbrand and Fogarty had graduated.

The courts ruled on the side of the students. While the Board of Elections and Ethics referred Byrd to the U.S. Attorney’s Office on voter intimidation charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute.

Meanwhile, Sinderbrand and Fogarty did what they were elected to do—they served on the ANC. They were sworn in even as the lawsuits continued.

“We’re commissioners,” Sinderbrand told the Voice on Feb. 6, 1996. “That’s the way we’re going to act. We’re not thinking about the court case. It doesn’t affect how were are going to act on a day-to-day basis.”

Though the law denying Georgetown students reciprocal parking passes is still in place, in March 1998, the Zoning Commission sided with the University and Georgetown University Student Association and rejected the zoning overlay, despite support from most of the ANC. Griffin said that having students on the commission “opened up a wonderful dialogue” between students, neighbors and University administrators.

Bromberg said that even during the legal battle, he found the students to be “very intelligent and very impressive people.”

“I thought the students acted honorably,” Bromberg said.

“They always kept their eyes on the important, higher values…I enjoyed working with them.”

At the most recent ANC meeting on August 30, 2010, cur-

rent student commissioner Aaron Golds (COL ‘11) was one of the youngest people in the room by about 20 years. The crowd of about 50 attendees, mostly older professionals in business attire, filtered in and out as their issues came up on the agenda. ANC Chairman Ron Lewis, a balding man with thick round glasses, stood at the podium and told the crowd that even though the agenda was a little long—four pages—he would make sure the process was still “fair and efficient.” The meeting lasted four and a half hours.

Today, Golds is the only student on the commission. Ever since the ANC was redistricted after the 2000 Census, there has been only one student commissioner at a time. Golds’s Single Member District is oddly shaped, with Copley, Darnall, Henle, Harbin, LXR, Nevils, and some townhouses lying in other districts.

When the ANC had two student commissioners, Georgetown students were able to negotiate with the other commissioners on their own terms. When there’s only one, that one student is more responsible for representing student and University opinion as a whole, and there’s less competition for the seat.

When Griffin heard about the redistricting that has happened since he left, he said he was disappointed. He hopes students will run in other Single Member Districts as well, he said.

Golds said that while he was initially concerned that the other commissioners would only see him as “that student that we’re required to have here,” he found they treat him as a full commissioner.

“Certainly, I’m one of seven,” Golds said. “There are times they’re not going to include me because they know I’m not on their side, but overall it’s been a very good, professional relationship.”

The issue that has defined Golds’ term is the 2010 Campus Plan, a blueprint of all the University’s construction plans for the next decade. The Zoning Commission must approve the plan before the University can begin any of the projects, and the ANC can recommend to the Zoning Commission whether the commission should approve the plan or not.

Neighborhood groups have fought the plan at every step.

They are upset that the plan includes a provision for increased graduate enrollment without building any new on-campus undergraduate housing, and the University has held countless meetings with residents since Golds began his term in 2008.

“It’s a lot of talking,” Golds said. “It’s trying to understand

the georgetown voice 9 what their concerns are and respond to their concerns in the least confrontational way possible.”

ANC Commissioner Tom Birch said Golds provides the commission with an important perspective, and he does so respectfully.

“He gives us his reasons and arguments for why he thinks that position is a valid one,” Birch said. “I’ve never thought that he held back. He’s always been very forthright.”

There has been at least one student commissioner on the ANC every year since 1996. The trouble is finding someone who is willing to serve.

Being a commissioner means attending monthly meetings for two years, so students who run for ANC must decide to run in their freshmen year, spend all their summers in D.C., and forgo the opportunity to study abroad.

“By the end, I was the only person willing to do it,” Golds said. “It’s an important enough position that someone has to do it, and I could recognize that right away.”

Sticka, who is running to replace Golds, said while the 2010 Campus Plan and safety initiatives affect student life, but neighbors are no longer using zoning initiatives to try and push students out of off-campus housing.

“If they did, I think students would react in a similar kind of way [to how they reacted in 1996],” Sticka said. “At the same time, I wish they would kind of react in general.”

Looking ahead, Golds predicted that Sticka’s term would also be defined by the battle over the campus plan. Unfortunately for Sticka, the plan has already largely been finalized. Golds also said neighbor relations get particularly bad every decade as a new campus plan comes up for debate.

“Once we get into the new plan, the neighbors feel it’s their chance to try to get more from

the University,” Golds said. “So they buckle down and become less willing to work with the University…Now is the chance for them to get their voice heard for the next decade.”

At the same time, Greenan, now Associate Vice President for External Relations, said that since students joined the commission, University-neighbor relations have improved immensely. Greenan has worked for the University’s community relations since 1994, and said that when she first started, “it was really difficult to even have a civil conversation with ANC commissioners.” With student involvement and new ANC leadership, Greenan said the two sides are better able to negotiate their issues.

“When Rebecca and James took their seats on the ANC, it really shifted the way people looked at the University and the way in which the community came to interact with the University,” she said. “They were really the perfect ones to inaugurate that. They didn’t come with the view they were going to tear it down, but with the view they were going to be part of the ANC.” Birch was ANC Chair when the neighbors’ lawsuit against Sinderbrand and Fogarty finally came to an end. A Voice editorial in January 2003 reported that Birch said he looked forward to a more constructive relationship with the students and University officials.

In a recent interview, Birch said he thinks the relationship between the ANC and the University has definitely improved in recent years. He said he also has thought very highly of all the student ANC commissioners he has known.

“I was always sorry to see the student commissioner leave after two years,” Birch said. “But then we got another good one.”

VOICE ARCHIVES

Flash from the Past: Rebecca Sinderbrand (SFS ‘98) waits for the 1996 election results.

leisure

10 the georgetown voice

september 9, 2010

The nerd herd swarms for indie comics

This Saturday is the start of the Small Press Expo, one of the largest exhibitions devoted to independent comics and graphic novels on the East Coast. Jeff Alexander, the expo’s executive director, gave us an insider’s tour of his own personal Fortress of Solitude. Interview conducted by Nico Dodd.

How is the Small Press Expo different from other larger comic conventions? Like say, Baltimore Comic-Con? The difference between us and Baltimore Comic-Con is that we don’t have any of the mainstream publishers like DC or Marvel, and we also do not have any retailers.

So basically it is just over 300 small press publishers and independent creators that are exhibiting. That’s the focus of the show. I know [Baltimore Comic-Con organizer] Marc Nathan has made a policy where he does not have any of the TV stars or the wrestlers because he only wants to focus on comics.

But for the artists exhibiting at his

show, they have to compete with the dealers and the gamers and at SPX. We do not have that.

How would you describe the festival to someone who is unfamiliar with indie comics and thinks of comics only in terms of Superman or Batman? What titles would you suggest to them?

Oh, that’s always a tough one. I always try to approach it from the standpoint of the independent comics that have been made into movies so they have an instant reference, things like From Hell, Road to Perdition, Surrogates on and on. These are the [types of] comics that we do. We do have some people who do the super-hero comics, but the majority of them are slice-of-life or autobiographical comics.

Why do you show in the Washington D.C. area?

Well, the expo was started in 1994 by local comic shop own-

ers. They were reading all these indie books and thought they were really cool but they were being overshadowed by mainstream books. They wanted to create a venue where they could

Are there any guests you’re particularly excited about?

There are so many guests who I’ve seen over the years that I’m glad to see coming back, like

colors to tell the story. Nothing is lost, whereas when most people try the minimalist approach it usually feels like there’s something off. Keith Knight is coming in.

He’s an editorial cartoonist who’s exhibited at the show. He usually comes like every two years. His web comic, the K Chronicles, is one that I read regularly.

What would you say is the biggest attractions to the Expo?

Mike Lynch Cartoons

No matter how much you want to, NEVER call an inker a tracer. introduce people to independent comics, so they set up a show locally to highlight the independent creators and small-press publishers. They did it in D.C. simply because this is where all of their shops were located.

Metaphrog coming in from Scotland. They do a really sweet alt pages book. We have James Sturm coming in whose most recent book is Market Day. It’s another one where I’m really just jealous of his minimalist style and his use of

The series regularly brings toptier talent, and they aren’t just there to entertain—often, the artists will take the time to explain the cultural context of the work they are presenting, making presentations that are as edifying as they are entertaining.

And you don’t have to be a future composer to get something out of the event, either.

“We try and keep in mind the entire student body at Georgetown,” program director Anthony DelDonna said. “We try to go beyond the immediate core audience of people within the [music] major … to appeal to the University at large.”

However, it is unclear whether or not this effort to engage the student body is really working.

Go to any Friday Music Series event and you’ll find twice as many adult attendees who come from the surrounding neighborhood as students. Many of the students who do attend are probably there to fulfill a course requirement, which hardly qualifies as active engagement.

There are a number of possible reasons for the low student attendance. The time of

day, 1:15 p.m., conflicts with class schedules and is generally inconvenient for students with internships and jobs. (Plus, everybody knows that asking a business school student to get up before 2 p.m. on a Friday is hopeless.)

There may also be an issue of advertisement. While professors in the music department inform their classes of upcoming events, and there is modest flyering around campus, if you ask most students about Friday Music you will get a lot of blank stares.

DelDonna hopes that this year’s programming will appeal to a greater number of students.

“You have to keep in mind that Friday afternoon we’re competing with a lot of different things happening on campus,” he said. “I think that we’ve certainly established a presence at the University and we’re continuing to build our audience. I think this year’s program is one of the most diverse.”

To be sure, the programming this year does provide a lot of different styles to sample. Some of the highlights include virtuoso

This year we’re doing our first annual animation showcase, which is a juried selection of independent animators. That’s a program that’s going to be running three times on Saturday and three times on Sunday. The people who come to see the showcase on Saturday will be given the opportunity to vote for their favorites, for the audience choice award.

The Small Press Expo begins this Saturday, Sept. 11 at 11 a.m. and continues Sunday, Sept. 12 at noon. Tickets are $10 for one day and $15 for both.

TGIF: The Friday Music Series makes its return

by Brendan Baumgardner There was more music to hear on campus than Third Eye Blind last semester, yet some of the most talented acts came and went unnoticed by much of the student body. There were classical Brazilian guitarists and representatives of the Washington National Orchestra, Grammy-winning horn combos and Obama-approved gospel choirs.

And, unlike T-Pain and Coolio and the slew of other lackluster artists who have graced the McDonough Gymnasium in the past few years, all of these shows were entirely free.

Next Friday will see the return of the Friday Music Series.

Designed to bring a wide range of artists from both D.C. and abroad to Georgetown, Friday Music is probably the most consistent musical event on campus.

Sing us a song, you’re the piano lady. Sing us a song this Friday.

Jue Chen

violinist Riad Abdel-Gawad’s Egyptian-inspired violin improvisations, Francesc de Paula Soler’s classic Spanish guitar, and the swinging sounds of Joe Falero & D.C. Latin Jazz All Stars.

For those more interested in the nitty-gritty details of music history, this year’s inaugural concert is a particular treat. Done in collaboration with Lauinger Library, professor Rufus Jones will be presenting the Kemper Road String Quartet’s interpretations of the works of American composer William Grant Still. In addition to the concert, there will be an exhibit of original manuscripts and documents from Still’s lifetime on display in the fifth floor of Lauinger.

School is stressful, and everyone knows how Georgetown students like to unwind at the end of the week—by knocking back a few too many at Rhino or playing flip cup in Village A. But before you go out grinding to Lady Gaga this semester, why not take some time to relax with some world-renowned musicians? They put on a hell of a show and, if nothing else, it won’t cost you a thing.

georgetownvoice.com

“you’re an inanimate fucking object!”—in Bruges

Danny Trejo: Mexican badass C O N C E R T

by Brendan Baumgardner In 1982, First Blood made its debut, the first of a parade of Rambo films that have become synonymous with gratuitous violence in our pop-culture lexicon. But do you know how many people were killed in First Blood? Just one. Do you know how many people are killed in the newest hyper-violent outing by Robert Rodriguez, Machete? Thirteen people are killed— before the opening credits rolled.

Now, to be fair, there are some assumptions at work here.

The low body count in First Blood accepts that all the cops who Rambo beats and maims during the course of the film survive. The baker’s dozen of bodies dropped in the opening sequence of Machete comes from my own unscientific tally, and assumes that everybody that falls down stays down. Maybe that’s an unfair assumption.

Maybe in Machete’s universe, triage throat replacements and recapitations are standard operating procedure. Who knows?

I bring this up to illustrate a problem with these big budget exploitation films that have been so popular this summer. The ‘70’s exploitation films and ‘80’s action flicks they pay tribute to were enjoyable for their earnestness.

They took their ridiculous action sequences seriously. Movies like Machete, Piranha 3D, and The Expendables, on the other hand, are all either tongue-in-cheek or hyper-aware of the genre they are playing to. It’s like the kid who tries way to hard to be cool to the point where it’s repulsive.

They’re cinema hipsters.

Machete falls into this toocool-for-school camp. It tries to be the blood and guts gorefest and the legitimate action film and the social commentary, but never devotes enough time to any aspect to make it worthwhile. And with all this baggage, Machete lags. Piranha 3D was a more successful flick because it eschewed all the

THURSDAY 9/9 The Charlatans UK with Sherlock’s Daughter Black Cat, 8 p.m., $20 Tobacco with Junk Culture and Dreamend DC9, 8:30 p.m., $12 Fucked Up with Cloud Nothings and Give Rock & Roll Hotel, 8 p.m., $12 FRIDAY 9/10 Iced Earth with Sons of Liberty 9:30 Club, 8 p.m., $18 Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin with Telekinesis, Exit Clov Black Cat, 9 p.m., $12 SATURDAY 9/11 Watermelon with Haakon’s Fault, The Silver Liners, Ramzy Suleiman Rock and Roll Hotel, 9 p.m., $10 The Bouncing Souls with Defiance Ohio, The Great Explainer Black Cat, 9 p.m., $18

Obama’s off-the-rack Burberry suits style him a man of the people, and his clean-cut Hartmarx suits are a welcome change to the Bush administration’s pricey, blah suits from Chicago suit manufacturer Oxxford Clothes.

Unfortunately for our Leader of the Free World, the world of fashion is anything but egalitarian. John F. Kennedy was the last president to push this nation’s fashion sense forward when he brought two-buttoned suits to the Oval Office, influencing workers in lesser offices everywhere. I don’t think Obama is destined for such a breakthrough, particularly if his stylesense is so lax out of the office.

If Obama wants to save himself from the international leaders’ version of “What Were They Thinking?” he should take the example of a more dapper European statesman, such as Italian

CALENDAR SUNDAY 9/12 Surfer Blood with The Drums and The Young Friends 9:30 Club, 7 p.m., $15 Bear in Heaven with The Hundred in the Hands of Oberhofer Rock and Roll Hotel, 8 p.m., $12 Jesse Malin & the St. Marks Social With Moneybrother DC9, 8 p.m., $14 MONDAY 9/13 Of Montreal with Janelle Monae 9:30 Club, 7 p.m., $25 NOMO with Black & Tan Fantasy Band DC9, 8:30 p.m., $14 TUESDAY 9/14 Screaming Females with The Gift Black Cat, 9 p.m., $8 WEDNESDAY 9/15 Ludo with The Graduate 9:30 Club, 6:30 p.m., $15

iMDB

Indecent Exposure: you’re doing it wrong

The many styles of leadership

Does the suit make the man, or does the man make the suit?

When it comes to our world leaders, I’d like to think that they’re the ones making their clothes look good, but too often a statesman in the wrong ensemble leaves constituents holding their noses on both sides of the isle.

Take President Barack Obama. Despite his inclusion on Vanity Fair’s International Best Dressed List, I fail to believe that the Commander in Chief has a commanding wardrobe. Exhibit one: clunky white sneakers and ragged tucked-in Polos on bike rides with his daughters. Exhibit two: mandals and a loose-fitted linen shirt for every casual occasion. And the final nail in the coffin: those dad jeans he put on when he threw out the first pitch of the 2009 MLB All-Star Game.

In our president’s defense,

nonessentials, like plot and characterization, and instead focused on making a bloody screwball comedy. It’s sad to say, but where Machete tried and failed, Piranha 3D succeeded because it didn’t even try.

That’s not to say there weren’t moments of mindless bliss. There’s something so right in seeing Danny Trejo gripping a knife, and hearing Robert De Niro dust off his good-ol’-boy Cape Fear accent is a treat. Still, I hope that after this summer ends, Hollywood will get over its current infatuation with bloodshed. Even at their best, these flicks are nothing more than a flashes in the pan.

the georgetown voice 11

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Say what you will about his criminal dealings, the man’s wardrobe looks straight from the pages of Italian Vogue. If I had to guess, I’d wager that Berlusconi picks out his suits from the ultra-luxury men’s clothing line Ermenegildo Zegna, headquartered in his hometown of Milan. With his suits’ crisp cor-

suffer for Fashion

by Keenan Sheridan Timko a bi-weekly column about fashion ners, pristine hems, and colorful shirts, ties, and silk pocket squares (always coordinating and never clashing) Berlusconi doesn’t just exhibit his full-on love affair with fine clothing, he flaunts it. So if his illegal political tactics wind up getting him into trouble, you can bet he’ll accessorize the hell out of his prison uniform.

Unfortunately, not all of the world’s less-than-stellar statesmen have the saving grace of an excellent fashion sense. Dear Leader Kim Jong Il would make any first-year at Parsons cringe with his beige jumpsuits and platform shoes. I suspect this may be calculated, however. That pushed-up hair coupled with a pair of thick, plastic-framed glasses may be a vital component completing the I’m-a-crazy-dictator-sodon’t-mess-with-me look he’s going for.

Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadenejad’s tan leisure suit look don’t fare any better on the world stage than it would on the catwalk. They’re too informal for diplomatic settings, and the tailoring is baggy and awkward. But while the suit may not grab your attention, it’s hard to overlook the fact that the Iranian President never wears a tie. Though it may seem like a

striking decision in this neck of the woods, in Iran it is actually the norm. Just as certain rebellious haircuts are prohibited, tie wearing is also banned by Tehran, which cites neckties as a symbol of the oppressive West.

While it may come off as casual to the uninitiated, Ahmadenejad’s bare neck doubles as a political statement, which is more than I can say about most diplomats’ fashion choices.

At the end of the day, politicians face more pressing issues than picking out the right pressed shirts. But having the representative of your country put his or her best foot forward goes a long way to send a message about the respect he or she has for fellow leaders. It’s especially nice if that foot isn’t wearing a Croc.

Embrace democracy! Vote for what Keenan should wear at ktimko@georgetownvoice.com

leisure

12 the georgetown voice

september 9, 2010

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

Helmet, Seeing Eye Dog, Work Song Helmet is a band that has always broken the rules. When it formed in 1989 in New York City, Helmet was heavy and dissonant enough to win the fickle approval of the metal and post-hardcore scene, yet melodic enough to fit in with Seattle’s grunge rockers.

Though Helmet’s most prominent lineup broke up in 1999, front man Paige Hamilton reformed the band in 2004 with a completely new roster. The current incarnation’s newest release, Seeing Eye Dog, stays true to the sound that made Helmet a hit. Unfortunately, it does little to move the band forward.

Helmet’s early work drew acclaim because of the unique instrumental work. They were among the first to use drop-D guitar tuning, a technique which helped many contemporary bands, such as Soundgarden,

Alice in Chains, and Quicksand, achieve the famous heavy Seattle grunge sound. Their jarring stopand-start riffs were complimented

by Hamilton’s gravelly vocals. On Seeing Eye Dog, Helmet uses this time-tested formula to create an album that works, but is far from their best.

Tracks like “LA Water” and “White City” utilize the classic over-fuzzed droning guitars that made Helmet famous. Unfortunately, the recipe is almost tasteless at this point. The songs lack focus, and are much more spacey than their predecesors, verging on psychedelic. Perhaps the most interesting song on the record is a cover of The Beatles’ “And Your Bird Can Sing” from Revolver.

Although it’s refreshing to hear Helmet step out of their comfort zone, it’s unfortunate that they’re only willing to make great creative leaps with covers and not in their original material. However, since Seeing Eye Dog is only a brisk ten tracks that never drag, it’s still a listenable album.

Helmet’s sound is very much a time and a place. It’s difficult to transpose that sound into a modern studio setting, and achieve a result that is still both musically interesting and culturally relevant.

The raw energy and power of Helmet’s Meantime is missing on Seeing Eye Dog, instead replaced by

Stranger than “faction”

Glenn Beck is a man of many talents. He draws millions of people to their radios every day.

He gets millions more to tune into his Fox News show. And he wrote a terrible, terrible novel.

“Wait a minute. Glenn Beck ... wrote a novel?”

Oh yes, dear reader, he did.

Beck’s The Overton Window hit the stands this July and immediately jumped to the top of the New York Times Bestseller List.

Its plot is nothing special.

Arthur Gardner, the public relations mastermind responsible for Che Guevara T-shirts and the Pet Rock fad, decides to set off an atomic bomb and overthrow the U.S. government. And how does he set it all in motion? Progressivism.

You know, basic thriller fare.

What stands out about the

novel isn’t its strained paranoia or conspiratorial plot twists. It’s how well Beck was able to adapt his peculiar brand of political commentary to fiction. Amazingly, he and his cadre of ghostwriters manage to cram hours of radio and television rants into a tidy, 336-page book. The Overton Window isn’t really about a far-reaching, nefarious plot to overthrow American’s freedoms and values.

And for Beck’s sake, let’s hope it’s not meant to be a snappy thriller novel, because it fails ... miserably.

No, The Overton Window is meant to print money. Lots of it.

In that respect, Beck has picked a genre that will go a long way toward helping him capture his audience’s attention at the bookstore. The book is the political equivalent of a dime-store paperback; it’s cheap, it plays to

Pro Tools-filtered feedback that somehow feels cheapened. Helmet was best left broken up 1999.

As Kurt Cobain wrote, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.”

Voice’s Choices: “And Your Bird Can Sing,” “White City,” “LA Water” —Matthew Decker

Screaming Females, Castle Talk, Don Giovanni What do you get when you put a charismatic female singer in front of a three-piece punk outfit that sounds like the bastard child of the Pixies and Blondie? The Yeah Yeah Yeahs? Well, sure. But also the New Brunswick, N.J.-based Screaming Females, a DIY band that will release its fourth album, Castle Talk, on the Don Giovanni label next week. raw desires, and it gives its audience exactly what they want.

Midway through the plot, for example, Gardner’s odious plot to undermine American values is revealed on a PowerPoint presentation. Slide after slide describes how public education reform will “de-emphasize the individual,” how additional voters’ rights will

Literary tools

by Chris Heller

a bi-weekly column about literature “expand malleable voter bases.”

The end of America is simple, clean, and obvious.

In a perverted way, it’s perfect.

Beck says that The Overton Window is fact-based fiction, or, in his words, “faction.” He even includes a 30-page afterword that cites various unemployment fig-

It is easy to fall into the trap of equating the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Screaming Females, two similar indie punk groups, but it’s not an entirely inaccurate comparison.

Both bands use similar vocal manipulation and heavy bass lines to create a unique lo-fi sound. Both are from the Tri-State area. And both groups rock very, very hard.

But where they differ is in their respective style of punk. While the Yeah Yeah Yeahs produce a more danceable, refined sound, Screaming Females are skuzzier, like a traditional punk band. That’s not to say that Castle Talk isn’t a danceable album, it just lends itself to the kind of dancing that should occur at house shows where kids chant along with lead singer Marissa Paternoster’s crooning anthems.

As a whole, Castle Talk is a pretty accessible punk album.

Most tracks feature Paternoster’s signature thrash-heavy guitar riffs. Check out the album opener “Laura and Marty” for a perfect example this distortion-heavy shredding. Though the song initially sounds like a My Bloody Valentine track, it evolves into a more mature, almost polished sound.

It’s as if the opening track serves to indicate the band’s transformation into something more than just Jersey basement rockers.

Lead single “I Don’t Mind It” is the album’s standout track. The ures, disaster scenarios, and the economics of financial bailouts.

In a genre defined as “completely fictional books with plots rooted in fact,” Beck created an ideal environment for his oft-used method of fear mongering.

This is when I should probably write a pointed, witty joke about how Beck’s entire persona is “faction.” Or maybe chuckle to myself about the portmanteau itself. While it’s tempting, I can’t do either. Dude’s got a good scam going.

By turning himself into a wildly popular brand, Beck can slap his name onto almost anything, and then watch as the cash rolls in. Look no further than the cover of The Overton Window— Beck’s name overshadows not only the title, but also the Statue of Liberty. It may be standard practice for mass-produced paperbacks, but Beck isn’t James

guitars are cleaner, departing from their usual lo-fi fuzz for a more pop-punk sound reminiscent of We Are Scientists. King Mike’s characteristically heavy bass lines are softer and bouncier, to a fun effect.

Paternoster’s playing and songwriting are also superb on this album, particularly “Ghost Solo”.

She has terrific range and on this record; she both leads a revolt with her anthem-like lyrics and sings us softly to sleep. Her guitar riffs are so doused in fuzz that you wonder if the album was actually recorded in a basement, which adds a sense of charm to her intricate solos, although those same solos can get a bit repetitive when they appear on every track.

All that being said, Screaming Females’ newfound maturity and cleaner sound do not detract from their aggressive indie-punk roots—the attitude remains. At the same time, tracks like “Fall Asleep” and “I Don’t Mind It” may put the Screaming Females on the same path as indie outfits The Gaslight Anthem and Titus Andronicus, evolving from a popular-in-New-Jersey band to a band that is simply popular.

Voice’s Choices: “Laura and Marty,” “Normal,” “I Don’t Mind It” —Akshay Bhatia Patterson or John Grisham. His novel exists by virtue of his fame, not the other way around.

The Overton Window is unlike his other forays, such as his Christmas memoir or comedy tour—yes, comedy tour—because it purposefully blurs the line between the real world and his delusions. For his audience, Beck only created a make-believe genre for a make-believe world. So, it ultimately didn’t matter what The Overton Window was about. With the Glenn Beck seal of self-approval, it was a lock to top bestseller lists.

And until a public relationscrazed, pseudo-socialist villain rips the Constitution to shreds, Beck’s guaranteed to keep banking millions.

Do you miss YOUR America? Tell Chris about it at cheller@ georgetownvoice.com

fiction

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice 13

Mr. Saturday Night Fever

By Jared Watkins

Training “Hi, welcome to Frost Top! How are you doing today?”

“I’m doing fine, how about yourself?”

“I’m pretty good. What can I get for you today?”

“Mmm, how about that Peanut Butter Cup Perfection?”

“Okay, what size would you like? Like It, Love It, or Gotta Have It?” “Give me the…Love It, I guess.”

“Okay, would you like a waffle bowl or cone, or just the cup?”

“I’ll have a waffle bowl.”

“Plain or dipped in chocolate?”

“Dipped in chocolate.”

“Do you want plain chocolate, almonds, sprinkles, or coconut on that waffle?”

“Man, too many choices! Um, almonds.”

Take about 8 ounces of chocolate ice cream and a chocolate-and-almond-covered waffle bowl over to the marble slab. Throw into the ice cream one Reese’s peanut butter cup, a spoonful of peanut butter, and about an ounce of chocolate fudge (two figure eights).

Do the mixing (don’t mash it, the individual ingredients should be apparent), throw it into the waffle with a spoon and give it to the customer. Be sure to make some chit-chat with the customer all the while, talk about the weather, tell some jokes, see what their day was like (don’t worry about how boring their or your life is). Hit pound, your clerk number, pound, Love It Signature Dipped button, don’t forget to ask if they want any drinks—no?—then hit total.

“That’ll be $6.34 please, sir.”

He gives you a twenty, hit the twenty button and give him his change. He tips you one dollar to get you to sing. (Try not to remember that after the tips are divided up that you are singing for a quarter, like a street performer). Sing to the tune of the Oompa Loompa song from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory: Frost Top Ice Cream, isn’t it good?

Waffle cones and mix-ins, get some you should Eat it up and then get some more We’ll see you tomorrow at our front door He laughs and you say: “Thank you. Have a great day!”

“All right you do the same.”

Repeat. Remember, if there’s time to lean, there’s time to clean.

Manager Okay, so we’ve gotten through your basic training.

You’ve got your visor, your apron, nametag, khaki pants, and oh good look at that haircut. Now that’s respectable. Looks like you’re ready to get out there and start selling some ice cream. Remember, don’t eat any ice cream unless you use one of your tickets. Don’t eat it here unless you’re on break and definitely don’t eat anything when you’re behind the counter (the damn health code, you know). I don’t know if the owner has told you this yet, but it’s pretty special that you have this job. When they built this place, they placed bible verses underneath the wallpaper. And then Sheila once had a dream that she came into the store and saw Jesus behind the counter serving ice cream, so take that as you will. I’m not saying you’re like Jesus for working here, but just consider what that means. Treat every person with respect, even if they don’t deserve it. Even

if they treat you like their little monkey. If you ever encounter Mr. Saturday Night, be sure to treat him with extra care. He’s one of our best customers. Who’s Mr. Saturday Night? Don’t worry, you’ll know him once you’ve served him. He comes in every Saturday night and gets the same thing: a Gotta-Have-It size chocolate ice cream with peanuts, strawberries, peanut butter, and two Reese’s cups served in a to-go cup with no lid. And he always tips well, really well. Man, we were a little worried after the incident that he wouldn’t be coming back and he wasn’t for a while. But he started coming back about two weeks ago and we knew it was okay then. What incident? Well, I shouldn’t talk about it. You can ask someone else. I’ll just say it involved the guy you’re replacing and is the reason he no longer works here or lives outside of protective custody. Okay, has anyone shown you how to take a cake order yet?

Crew Member Yeah, I guess you could say I knew Kevin the best of anyone at this place. I don’t know, we were usually the only guys working so maybe he thought he could talk to me. What’d he say about Mr. Saturday Night?

Well, he was first like just curious about the guy always wondering why he came here every week, whether he was married, divorced, whether he went to church.

Then the questions just got more frequent, he started talking about the guy on weeknights, long after we had last seen him. He started making up these crazy-ass stories about Mr. Saturday Night: he used to be a serial killer and the ice cream helped him deal with that, he was divorced and the ice cream was the only thing he looked forward to, all this crazy shit. I didn’t work the night he followed Mr. Saturday Night home, but I heard about it. I worked with him the Friday night before and he was the worst I’d ever seen him. He talked the whole night about what he thought Mr. Saturday Night’s life was like. He said once that he was definitely going to find out, but I thought he was just going to ask the guy about his life, not follow him home. I don’t know what he found out about Mr. Saturday Night, but I hope it was worth it. I invited Kevin to my house once to play video games and he brought a poem for our English class with him that he wanted me to edit. It was about Mr. Saturday Night and it was pretty creepy. He just kept talking about how much he admired Mr. Saturday Night for finding joy in his routine or something like that. He left the poem at my house, you want to see it?

It’s pretty sad. When’s the next time we work together?

Yeah, I’ll bring it Monday.

From “Mr. Saturday Night” by Kevin Wilcox

Friday Night Shift Leader What happened with Mr. Saturday Night? Oh you don’t even want me to get into that. Kevin was fucking crazy…nutso. He was always talking about Mr. Saturday Night, always trying to ask us shit about him.

I was always like ‘Shit I don’t know anything about that guy. I don’t even know his name. He always just comes in here on Saturday nights and gets the same thing.

Why the fuck do you care so much about him, you have the hots for him or something?’ and then he’d get all quiet and go in the back and do dishes or something. He was always doing dishes or cleaning something when we didn’t have customers. We’d always be chilling in the back or messing around up here and he’d just be scrubbing away at something. I don’t think he liked the rest of us, or he was just shy or something. But he always wanted the Saturday night shift and I always happened to get that shift with him so I saw the shit go down. At some point he would always just started claiming Mr. Saturday Night and rush to the counter to serve him. If Mr. Saturday Night was served by somebody else, Kevin would get all mad the rest of the night and just be a little asshole. I didn’t think it was anything crazy, though. He was just real interested in Mr. Saturday Night. Then that one Saturday that Kevin specifically requested off. I thought that I was going to get a break from him for once. But then he came in at 5:00 like it was his shift. But he didn’t go to the back or get changed or anything. He just sat at a table and waited. Didn’t say hi to any of us working that night or anything. Just sat there and waited. Then Mr. Saturday Night came, got his usual, ate it, and left. And Kevin left right after him. And that’s all I saw.

My father goes to church on Saturday night.

Mr. Saturday Night comes to my place.

He comes.

I say hello.

The normal words.

Saturday Night Special comes to mind.

I see his eyes, He sees mine.

I mix it slowly Wanting to give every element Its place in the cream.

Some people mash it up, destroy everything.

I take care with him.

I ask him how his night goes.

I want to hear clues to his existence.

I want to hear the sadness.

I want to know a life more rote than mine.

But he smiles.

And he still smiles When I ring him up And undercharge him.

And he still smiles When he sits alone and enjoys.

I wish I could smile like that.

And I wish I could…

Monday Afternoon Shift Leader Hey, can you make four large strawberry milkshakes to go? What are you reading? Anyways, the milkshake guy called in again. And make sure those cups are as full as they can be, he said we shorted him last time.

He tips like there’s no tomorrow so don’t worry about wasting ice cream; just make sure those cups are full.

voices

14 the georgetown voice

september 9, 2010

Prevent sexual assault by blaming the perpetrator

by Kara Brandeisky “This was a preventable crime.

Students have to lock their doors and protect themselves by staying in groups.”

That was what Metropolitan Police Department Lieutenant John Hedgecock told The Hoya when asked about the sexual assault in Burleith on Aug. 29. Three days later, the Voice learned that the victim had locked her door—with a dead bolt. The attacker had broken into the victim’s home by removing her air conditioning unit and climbing through her window. Then he raped her while she was sleeping.

Students were disgusted with Hedgecock’s condescending and irrelevant advice. What could women possibly do to prevent this particular kind of crime? Refuse to live anywhere without central air conditioning? Sleep in groups?

Hire armed guards?

While Hedgecock’s words were particularly jarring, our society routinely blames sexual assault victims.

We question victims who were intoxicated at the time of their assault.

We question victims who were wearing “slutty” clothing. We question

victims who went somewhere alone with their attackers.

Rape is when one person makes the conscious choice to have sex with another independent person without their consent. “Implied consent”—the kind of “consent” that some claim a woman implies by going on a date, going back to a guy’s place after a party, getting drunk or wearing scanty clothing, is not consent. Consenting to one sexual act does not mean consenting to all sexual acts at all times under all circumstances.

It’s generally good advice to tell people of both sexes to remain aware of their surroundings and never drink enough to lose control.

But young women deserve to have the same freedoms and securities as their male counterparts. To say women must make specific choices to “avoid getting raped” removes the responsibility from the person with whom it belongs, the rapist.

Blaming the victim is, in part, a defense mechanism. We would rather not believe that we, our friends, or our sisters, could ever be victims of sexual assault. When Hedgecock dispenses useless advice like, “Don’t make it easy ... When you have house parties, don’t leave the doors open all

night long,” it’s almost comforting.

We’d rather believe that as long as we never get too drunk, never walk alone at night in sketchy areas, never go home with a creepy stranger, and always remember to lock our doors, we could never be victims of sexual assault ourselves.

In fact, one in four women will be a victim of attempted or actual sexual assault at some point in her life. Someone they know and trust will attack most of these women.

Wives, “good” girls, your mother, your friend, and your sister could all be victims. While I’m focusing on male-on-female assaults because society places a lot of blame on gendered women, there are also male and transgender sexual assault victims who are largely marginalized and silenced.

Victim blaming also has its roots in sexism—against men as well as women. As anyone who’s been to high school can attest, young men are hormone-driven. But when we write off predatory behavior as “boys will be boys” antics, we sell men short. Young men can be just as respectful and responsible as young women. Treating men as insatiable animals only insults the majority of men who have respect for women’s

basic human dignity, while forgiving the few who choose to treat women as objects.

I’ve heard many men express concern that they could have a night of what they thought was great consensual sex, only to wake up the next morning and find that the girl thinks she’s been raped. However, study after study that interviews men about their sexual experiences has found that only a very few date rape claims follow this narrative.

Instead, multiple studies have found that when asked questions like, “Have you ever had sexual intercourse with an adult when they didn’t want to?” a few men will admit they have—multiple times.

One study found that eight percent of responders were responsible for 95 percent of the sample’s rapes or attempted rapes. Only about 30 percent of the men admitted to using any kind of force, and none admitted to assaulting strangers. Instead, these undetected repeat offenders purposely target women they consider vulnerable, such as acquaintances and women who are already intoxicated. These are victims who probably wouldn’t report they’ve been assaulted, or whose accounts would be challenged should they

decide to report the crime.

When we make jokes about “The Cuddler” or suggest that girls who wear “slutty” clothing should expect sexual assault, we are telling any rapists or would-be rapists in our midst that we don’t take these crimes seriously. When we imply that victims are responsible for preventing their own assaults, we give perpetrators the green light to keep assaulting. When we blame victims, we indicate to perpetrators how they can assault without ever facing blame. We show them how to commit crimes that will probably never be reported or prosecuted.

Hedgecock’s words were a wake-up call for our community.

We have a collective responsibility to publicly condemn sexual assault in all its forms. As a campus, we need to demonstrate through our day-to-day words and actions that we reject victim blaming. That would provide greater protection against sexual assault than any deadbolt ever could.

Kara Brandeisky is a sophomore in the College. She thinks that MPD’s blame game puts Georgetown students at risk.

Contemplation in action star: Ethics at Georgetown

by Jon Askonas Bradley Cooper’s (COL ’97) appearance at Georgetown was one of the liveliest and most popular on-campus speeches in recent memory. The A-list alum discussed topics ranging from college advice to underwear preferences. But one serious inquiry stood out from the otherwise light-hearted questionand-answer session. A student asked Cooper whether he felt his works redefined masculinity, citing roles of his that she thought diverged from normal male archetypes. Cooper and the audience laughed uneasily, as if she hadn’t asked a serious question. When it became obvious that she was serious, Cooper, in a roundabout way,

made it clear that he hadn’t thought much about the subject, although he admitted that he was indeed helping to redefine masculinity.

From Cooper’s answer, another question follows: if Georgetown graduates don’t think ethically about their work, what is the point of our Jesuit education?

In their Georgetown careers, most Hoyas take several classes related to ethical behavior to fulfill their philosophy and theology requirements. The University also emphasizes ethical thinking through programs like Pluralism in Action, and you can always catch a glimpse of our core values when they’re plastered on the outer wall of the ICC. Chaplains-in-residence and Jesuit professors can chal-

Bradley Cooper pretending to take a question seriously.

HILARY NAKASONE

lenge our conceptions of spirituality and encourage ethical thinking. These factors all give our Georgetown education its unique ethical dimension.

And yet, I’ve seen little evidence that we apply this thinking to our lives outside the classroom. There’s a better chance that ethics will come up in a discussion about foreign policy than in one about our everyday lives.

Even though students recognize how ethical thinking applies to law, literature, religion, and policy, they seem to disregard its application to their lives after college. In campus debates over our neighbors’ opposition to the 2010 Campus Plan, for example, I have yet to hear any students ask how we ought to treat our neighbors.

Is the way we currently behave toward them fair and respectful?

Is it becoming for students who are supposed to be women and men for others? A Georgetown student body that takes ethics seriously in its day-to-day life would behave very differently than how it does today.

Ethical thinking should also continue to influence us even after we leave Georgetown. Our alums go into almost every field imaginable, from accounting to zoology.

While some of these careers seem more tied to ethics than others, ev-

ery field requires ethical thinking and practice, as firms like Arthur Andersen and Goldman Sachs aptly demonstrate. As men and women for others, Georgetown graduates should be well-qualified to assess the consequences of their actions to themselves, others, and society, and to think objectively about how they practice their discipline. But if graduates do not incorporate Georgetown’s core values into their lives and careers after college, has the University succeeded in providing them with a liberal arts education?

Georgetown’s ability to successfully educate undergraduates in ethical thinking is absolutely crucial to its legitimacy as a Jesuit liberal arts university. Part of what students are paying for is growth that transcends commerce and arrives at the heart of what it means be human. This brings me to something else Cooper said. When asked about the value of a liberal arts education compared to other degrees in the field of entertainment, he provided an unexpected answer. He simply replied that a liberal arts education was not a detriment to working in Hollywood. While this is helpful knowledge, I had expected him to state reasons why a liberal arts education was especially useful in show business. After all, as an important cultural figure, it is benefi-

cial for Cooper to understand the underlying philosophy and history of the culture which he is shaping.

Taken together, Cooper’s answers suggest a serious failure on the part of the University.

It seems that students may not understand the meaning, and hence the value, of a liberal arts education and that they may have trouble translating the values that they discuss in class into actual practice. While the University uses a core curriculum, it does little to instruct students on the broader purpose of the liberal arts.

Many students find joy in discovering art, philosophy, or literature at Georgetown, but a true liberal arts education also results in a lifelong pursuit of truth, curiosity about the world, and practical wisdom. To accomplish this vital task, the University should seriously examine how practical living can be incorporated into courses as an integral part of the ethical education it offers. In the meantime, students should look for ways to apply what they have learned and contemplate their actions beyond the .

Jon Askonas is a sophomore in the SFS. He was just upset that Bradley Cooper wouldn’t let him join his wolf pack.

voices

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice

15

American public apathetic to Afghan War brutality

by Cole Stangler This October, the United States will enter its 10th consecutive year of war in Afghanistan. When you come to terms with what this reckless and increasingly desperate military adventure really means— especially considering the 50,000 troops still stationed in Iraq and the hundreds of American military bases abroad—it is reasonable to ask whether the United States is managing an empire. But more importantly, we should be asking ourselves why that question doesn’t seem to bother us.

How did war become so normal in Americans’ minds that President Barack Obama was able to declare with impunity that the invasion of Afghanistan was not a choice, but rather a moral necessity? The objective facts of being in a constant state of war are certainly frightening—the U.S. has spent over $1 trillion dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan together, and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians are dead in both countries—yet they have not led to much serious discussion about whether our empire is worth its strategic or human costs.

Instead, as White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs showed us, those who make up what he labeled “the professional left” are considered outlandish and downright ridicu-

lous for suggesting that perhaps, just maybe, we should consider slashing the Department of Defense budget to, say, a meager $500 billion.

Why has war become so normal that during the worst economic crisis in decades, we immediately looked to the public sphere for budget cuts, overlooking the fact that we spend more on our defense than does the rest of the world combined? Apparently, concern about wasteful government spending doesn’t apply to our bloated defense budget. Cutting military spending and withdrawing troops we have stationed abroad— whether they are in Afghanistan, Germany, Japan, or Korea—just is not on the table. How on earth did we reach this point?

Most of the mainstream American press is complacent about or plainly ignorant of the devastation our wars cause. Time’s recent cover story, “What happens if we leave Afghanistan?” was accompanied by the shocking image of a female teenager whose nose was removed by the Taliban, and bolstered the narrative that sees our invasion as one of moral obligation—never mind the thousands of innocent women and children who have been harmed by NATO-allied forces.

The facts on the ground are clear: our mission in Afghanistan cannot be completed as planned, and our presence is driving popular resistance. As the Pakistani

“Jai No” for this Hoya

I am a failed Indian. At least, that’s what another Indian girl clearly thought when she told me I was saying my own name wrong.

“No, no—it’s pronounced ‘Sath-inderr, not ‘Sat-in-dur.’ You have to soften the ‘t’ and roll the ‘r’ more,” she explained. There I was, a freshman sitting in my common room, seething with rage. Who the hell did she think she was, being that abbrasive when I had merely introduced myself out of politeness?

It is because of people like her that, for the third year in a row, I avoided the South Asian Society ‘s table at last Sunday’s Student Activities Commission Fair.

I have no evidence that the girl I met in the common room was even in the SAS, but I avoid it because I cannot help associating any South Asian group on campus with the

negativity I feel from people who let me know that I am not “Indian enough.” These feelings have been building up for 20 years now. I one day hope to travel to India and discover my roots on my own terms, but I am simply not ready yet. I also do not believe I should be pushed to do “South Asian” things or that others like me, people who feel more comfortable in America than their country of origin, should feel that pressure. When it comes to something as personal as identity, I think it is better to take your time so that, when you finally decide to take that first step to learn more about your heritage, it will come from the heart and not from an insincere effort to be a “true” South Asian, whatever that is.

Don’t get me wrong—I know my extreme aversion to the SAS

Let the Voice be your voice. We accept opinions, letters to the editor, personal experiences, and creative writing that are exclusive to the Voice. Submissions do not express the opinion of the board of the Voice. The Voice reserves the right to edit submissions for accuracy, length, and clarity. To submit, email voices@georgetownvoice.com or come to the Voice office in Leavey 413.

scholar and journalist Tariq Ali has noted, most remnants of the old Taliban regime were killed or fled to neighboring Pakistan in the early stages of the invasion. The current Taliban resistance is made up

Karzai’s infamously corrupt government is delusional.

It is shameful that the mainstream media has only just begun to reconsider its portrayal of the United States’ long-term military pres-

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

The U.S. opens an Afghan school in a building they bombed. How nice? of young, disillusioned Pashtuns who have been motivated to fight by our continued presence in their ancestral homeland.

Expecting the Afghan National Army—which is mostly made up of ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks who rely on NATO-trained translators to communicate in Pashtu—to somehow build lasting tribal alliances in the predominantly pro-Taliban regions at the opposite end of the country is wildly unrealistic. Expecting the Afghan population to somehow come to respect the authority of Hamid

ence abroad, after an ex-computer hacker, Bond-villain look-alike exposed the Afghanistan War Logs on Wikileaks this summer. That man, Julian Assange, acknowledged the role that traditional print media continues to serve in guiding public opinion when he released the War Logs to The Guardian, The New York Times, and Der Spiegel.

But most traditional journalists, even those from some of our most respected news outlets, could use some lessons in war reporting. Too many simply relay government re-

is absurd. It’s a pity, really, since the SAS actually has a lot to offer.

The group puts on Rangila, the immensly popular annual dance show, for example. It’s a beautiful event—or at least that is what I’ve heard. I wouldn’t know what it’s actually like because I have never seen or been a part of it.

Every first-generation immigrant experience is different,

Indian food with my hands, and I touch a book to my head as a sign of respect if I accidentally touch it with my foot (most South Asians will tell you that knowledge is sacred). If I am nervous or scared, I have a habit of privately saying “Waheguru,” the Sikh term for God. The contradictions hardly stop here; my identity is complex, just as all identities are. So, if you’re like me, before you join a cultural club, I hope you really stop and think about it: are you joining because you are genuinely interested or because you just sort of feel like it’s what you should do? If it is the latter, please do not join. Respect the complexity of your identity and recognize that being South Asian—or whatever you are—is not a mandate on who you should be.

For those of you who feel ostracized for your lack of cultural consistency, consider Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India. Nehru was a passionate advocate for an independent India and suspicious of what he deemed to be the “perpetually imperialistic West,” but he was also a Harrow- and Cambridge-edu-

Carrying On

by Satinder Kaur A rotating column by Voice senior staffers

and that can lead people who were born and raised in the U.S. to feel less American and more South Asian or, as in my case, feel more American and actually intimidated by the other part of their identity.

For example, as a toddler I started out speaking Punjabi, but I gradually abandoned it for English. I grew up a religious Sikh, but became an agnostic. I disliked my “more” Indian cousins and would retreat into myself whenever they came over. On the other hand, I eat

ports on suicide bombings, attend official press conferences, and embed themselves in American or British military units.

More in-depth, on-the-ground reporting is not going to be enough to undo our passive acceptance of the Afghanistan War, but chipping away at the myths that more troops necessarily means greater security for Afghans and Americans and that the U.S. has, according to some warped logic, a certain moral duty to continue the occupation might be a starting point.

Although they seem to be offlimits in most mainstream press circles, the raw details and sheer brutality of war deserve more coverage. Then, maybe, we can have a discussion about whether we need to spend almost $1 trillion a year on our national defense and military adventurism.

Here’s to hoping this country will soon realize that it’s people like Robert Gibbs—not those with reasonable and refreshingly human doubts about condoning a constant state of war—who, in his own words, truly “ought to be drug tested.”

Cole Stangler is a sophomore in the SFS. As a pacifist Wizards fan, he hates both war hawks and the Atlanta Hawks.

cated agnostic who was wary of intensely devout Hindus. Though he was widely beloved, he had his shares of critics for being something of an “English gentleman,” a term that has been used to describe him in various biographies.

So, the next time some overly enthusiastic South Asian makes you feel crappy, slam Nehru in their face. Yeah, I bet they didn’t see that coming—an Americanized Indian who knows more about Nehru than they do.

However you choose to confront those who criticize your cultural identity, remember that it is important to be patient with yourself and take your time to understand who you are. In the meantime though, it’s all right to continue neurotically shunning SAS and cringing with rage whenever you think of some girl you met as a freshman in your Village C West common room. Isn’t accepting who you are cathartic?

Satinder Kaur is a junior in the College. Bhangra may not be her thing, but she might let you play with her saap.

WRITERS PHOTOGRAPHERS DESIGNERS BUSINESS staffers web masters

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE WANTS YOU. OPEN HOUSE friday 9/10 leavey 413 6 p.m.

FREE PIZZA