Editorials

Bill leaves D.C.’s workers ailing

Last week, Washington became the second city in the country to force businesses to provide paid sick leave to their employees. While the Council should be commended for following San Francisco’s lead and protecting the city’s working poor, it should reverse the pro-business amendments that dramatically reduce the legislation’s effectiveness.

By the Editorial Board March 13, 2008

Editorials

Hard time has come for reform

Prison, meant to be a punishing interlude before a return to society, has become a way of life for too many Americans. The Pew Center on the States released a report last month that found the United States imprisons more people than any other country in the world, with one in every 99.1 adults an inmate in a federal or state prison.

By the Editorial Board March 13, 2008

Voices

Blogging your way to the rich and popular table

In the space of a year and a half, I have managed to further the independence movement of a small African country. Am I staging a die-in in Red Square? No, I’m doing something that actually achieves results: blogging.

By Will Sommer March 13, 2008

Sports

Hoyas win big at home against the Blue Hens

Georgetown’s 12th-ranked Men’s Lacrosse team beat the Blue Hens of Delaware University 18-10 in its fourth game of the season yesterday. The Hoyas, who suffered a tough double overtime loss to Syracuse this past Sunday, got back on the winning track against the 7th ranked Blue Hens (5-0). The win was the Hoyas’ first against a ranked opponent in three tries. Delaware, which made a surprise run to the Final Four last season on the heels of junior face-off specialist Alex Smith, dropped to 3-1 against ranked opponents after knocking off UMBC, Rutgers and Albany.

By Corey Sherman March 13, 2008

Sports

What Rocks

With the score tied at 52 and one minute to play, the Hoyas had at least one possession left to try to take the lead and let their top-ranked defense do the rest. But with 40 seconds left, on their first drive downcourt, sophomore guard DaJuan Summers took an open shot that went straight down the center of the cylinder, catapulting the Hoyas to their first back-to-back regular season Big East Championships in their 101-year history.

By Joseph Richman March 13, 2008

Sports

The Sports Sermon

When it comes down to it, the players are the people on the court making the decisions when the seconds are running down. But it is one man’s plays, advice and training that channels the players’ talents into hardcore skill.

By Liz Kuebler March 13, 2008

Sports

Outside looking in

When Georgetown kicks off its Big East Tournament run and takes the floor at Madison Square Garden this afternoon, there will be one nagging, unspoken thought in the minds of Hoya fans everywhere: If only Octavius Spann’s mohawk were still around to laud during televised timeouts…

By Phil Perry March 13, 2008

Sports

Welcome to the Major League:

In a cross-town pairing relocated nearly a thousand miles to the south, Georgetown played an exhibition game against the Washington Nationals at Space Coast Park in Viera, Fla. The Hoyas lost the contest 15-0 in the first action of Spring Training for the Nationals, who compete in Florida’s Grapefruit League. And while it may have been a walk in the park for the likes of Dmitri Young, Ronnie Belliard, Austin Kearns and Ryan Zimmerman, it was an important litmus test for a Georgetown team poised to make great strides in 2008. The game was the Hoyas’ first taste of baseball’s highest level since 1901, when they last competed against a major league franchise.

By Tom Philipps March 13, 2008

Sports

Taming the Wildcats

The Big East Tournament, like any other bracket-based affair, is designed to give the top seed the easiest road to victory—a right that team has presumably earned throughout the season. This might have been difficult to stomach for Hoya fans when the conference tournament bracket was finalized earlier this week. Top-seeded Georgetown (25-4, 15-3 BE) would face the winner of the 8/9 game between the Syracuse Orange (19-13, 9-9 BE) and the Villanova Wildcats (20-11, 9-9 BE). Both teams step up their game against longtime conference rival Georgetown, and the Orange had already defeated the Hoyas at the Carrier Dome earlier in the season.

By Anthony Francavilla March 13, 2008

Leisure

Boys and death in a City of Men

In an early scene from Brazilian director Paulo Morelli’s City of Men, best friends Ace and Laranjinha pester Laranjinha’s grandmother for clues about his absent father. The grandmother scoffs at the questions, asking them what good could come from a father who abandons his own child. Ace (Douglas Silva) and Laranjinha (Darlen Cunha) exchange a terrified look, run out the door and scramble through the favela shouting the name of Ace’s young son, Clayton (played by twins Vinícius and Vítor Oliveira), who has been dropped off with acquaintances somewhere in the slum. His father has no idea where he could be.

Ace and Laranjinha’s frantic quest to find Clayton reflects the film’s central themes of fatherhood and maturity. City of Men is based on the TV series that was inspired by Fernando Meirelles’ 2002 film City of God. City of Men shares with that movie its setting in a favela of Rio de Janeiro, an area of violent gang crime; the characters differ, although some of the actors return. While City of God made gang wars the centerpiece of the film, though, City of Men accepts them as a part of life in the slum and focuses on what Morelli sees as the root of the problem: absentee fathers.

By Sara Carothers March 13, 2008