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Day: February 8, 2007


Leisure

Giving to get some

What do you call that girl you make out with on the weekend but whose hand you have yet to hold in public? More than friend or less than girlfriend, the correct sociological label is irrelevant—this Valentine’s Day only one tag matters: gift-recipient.

Leisure

Critical Voices: Bloc Party, A Weekend in the City, Wichita

LOVES IT

Despite what detractors may say, “Hunting for Witches” is hardly the sole highlight of A Weekend in the City, Bloc Party’s lastest release.

Leisure

Critical Voices II: Bloc Party, A Weekend in the City, Wichita

HATES IT

The British music mag NME called Bloc Party “uncategorisable.” While that isn’t a real word, the point was clear when the magazine used it to describe the band’s debut, Silent Alarm. Though it didn’t necessarily deserve that label, the group distinguished itself from the pack of poppy post-punk peers with lead singer Kele Okereke’s heartfelt lyrics and sometimes overly emotive vocals.

Leisure

Say ‘bonjour’ to good taste!

Dapper French gentlemen clad in smoking jackets, their cigars sending smoke spirals up to the ceiling. Portraits of deceased royalty hanging demurely on the walls behind velvet drapes. An aging poodle curled up by the fire. The only thing needed to complete our scene is that Gallically-accented post-consumption treat: the digestif.

Voices

Censure for a censor

Believe it or not, there is a group of Georgetown students who would rather spend their Friday nights baking bread from scratch or watching King Richard III at the Shakespeare Theater than competing in beer-pong tournaments. These students live on the Culture and Performance Living and Learning Community (CPLLC), a unique outlet for creative Hoyas. But when the CPLLC refused to subsidize its members’ tickets to the University-sponsored production of Eve Ensler’s the Vagina Monologues, I was confronted with the sad reality that even Georgetown’s more progressive institutions are unable to escape censorship and discrimination.

Sports

Trash Talking

This goes out to all you Hoya fans who can’t stand that classic fight song of ours. Sure, you’ll take your love of Blue and Gray to the grave, but that age-old tune just doesn’t have the sauce to get you pumped during the last two minutes of a Big East basketball game.

Voices

Chillin’ with my faux Jew ‘fro

I hate yarmulkes. They mess up my hair. And because they cover up the spot on your head where men typically begin balding, I used to think that they make you go bald.

Voices

Blackwater in hot water in Iraq

Most people have not heard of Blackwater USA, a “professional military company” located in the countryside of North Carolina, where the landscape is dotted with tanks, helicopters and firing ranges. Today it, along with Haliburton, is one of the largest private contracting firms operating in Iraq. Hired by the U.S. Department of Defense, its employees play a vital role in military operations, fulfilling positions ranging from bodyguards to mechanics. Oversight of these contractors, however, is severely limited. Not part of the military chain of command, and outside governmental disciplinary procedures, their presence in the combat zone can be extremely disruptive.