Archive

As I lay dying on the beach: The final ruminations of a seal

Hey you there, reading the newspaper! I’m in a bit of a tight and sharp situation. I’m down here in the grips of this freaking great white shark. Why is this happening to me? Aren’t the odds of getting eaten by a shark one in a million? I mean, yes, but I’m a seal. Sharks eat seals all the time, but I always thought it would be another seal. Now I’m about to become a simple statistic. This shark won’t even remember me in a day.

By the Voice Staff March 29, 2012

Piranha 3DD blows like a killer whale’s waterspout

Piranha 3DD sinks water-animal horror movies to a new low. And I’m not talking about Marianas Trench low. This movie just bites.

By the Voice Staff March 29, 2012

Hey, Discovery Channel! Pick a better animal, dammit

When I heard the Voice was publishing a shark-themed issue, I felt a sense of dread usually reserved for those dismal seven days of August programming on the Discovery Channel. I despise sharks, and I despise Shark Week. I’m not trying to be an obnoxious contrarian (if I were, I’d write about how and why I never read the Harry Potter books), and I’m not above enjoying even the most exploitative of animal-themed cable shows (which is surely Animal Planet’s Too Cute). But sharks just plain bore me, and they’re close to the bottom of my list of animals that deserve a week of programming. I don’t want sharks shoved down my throat any longer, unless they’re in the form of delicious shark fin soup.

By Jake Schindler March 29, 2012

Carrying On: Based on a true story

It’s a beautiful dawn on Martha’s Vineyard (a.k.a. Amity Island), where a young woman dashes into the sea for a swim at sunrise. She paddles peacefully through calm open water, with not a care in the world. This must be heaven, right?

By Daniel Kellner March 29, 2012

Stafford loan interest rate set to double by summer

Unless Congress acts before July 30, the interest rate for federally subsidized Stafford loans will increase from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, potentially increasing the debt load for over 6,000 Georgetown undergraduate and graduate students.

By Connor Jones March 29, 2012

Newt Gingrich speaks at Georgetown amid protests

A group of 22 students gathered on Healy lawn yesterday to protest former Speaker of the House and presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s lecture in Gaston Hall. The talk, entitled, “Giving Young Americans the Right to Choose a Personal Social Security Account,” was sponsored by Georgetown University College Republicans and the Lecture Fund. The Lecture Fund has invited all 2012 presidential candidates to speak at Georgetown, and Gingrich is the first candidate to have accepted the invitation, an interesting move in what seems to be the death rattles of Gingrich’s bid for the 2012 presidency.

By Tiare Dunlap March 29, 2012

GUSA executive establishes Georgetown Day committee

Since news of the lack of Georgetown Day planning hit campus last week, the GUSA executive has spearheaded an effort to salvage this year’s festivities and put the event on firm footing for the future.

By Matthew Weinmann March 29, 2012

Saxa Politica: Oppose the campus plan!

In a Feb. 9 D.C. Zoning Commission hearing, Zoning Commissioner Peter May picked up a stack of letters written by Georgetown neighborhood residents, read off some excerpts, and said that students were creating objectionable impacts in the neighborhood.And with that, the neighbors won in their opposition to the University’s 2010 Campus Plan. Georgetown now has to prove that it will reduce student impact before the plan can be approved.

By Ryan Bellmore March 29, 2012

Features

Shark Week 2012

Madhuri Vairapandi Julien Isaacs

By the Voice Staff March 29, 2012

Editorials

Sharks must unite to fight ocean pollution

On March 28, the South Pacific state of Tiburonia sent a delegation of research sharks to study North Pacific fish and shark communities. The purpose of the trip, according to research leader Gil Maneater, was to “investigate the health conditions in the North Pacific and hopefully come to some conclusion as to why North Pacific emigrants are mired with high levels of disease.” Their findings shocked and horrified them. A massive garbage patch consisting entirely of human debris, mostly plastic broken down into confetti-like pellets, has built up along the North Pacific Gyre current and, until now, been unknown to Tiburonia sharks. This giant quantity of minuscule plastic pieces, while not always visible to the naked shark eye, not only causes severely impaired vision for hunting but also makes native fish and shark populations sick as the pellets build up in their digestive tracts.

By the Editorial Board March 29, 2012

Editorials

Shark finning necessitates mass uprising

On March 23, the marine residents of the small coral enclave of Pleasant Tides awoke to a scene of horror. Lonnie Leftfin, a local public school teacher and coach of the Pleasant Tides High School marine soccer team, lay finless and dying in the town square, parasitic eels approaching to finish off this once-revered shark. Since then, dozens of shark protests have sprung up in Pacific Rim communities from California to Korea. Although some take a more hard-line stance, the principal message of the demonstrations has been to call for a moratorium on the practice of finning. Despite sharks’ pleas, humans have turned a deaf ear to this tragedy, as they continue their destruction not only of the shark population, but of the very oceans they inhabit. The protesters’ message, therefore, does not go far enough. They should be demanding not only a permanent stop to finning, but a dramatic change in how humans treat the ocean, and should be ready and willing to overthrow their oppressors by force if their demands are not met.

By the Editorial Board March 29, 2012

Editorials

Sharks should hate humans, not each other

Environmental issues usually get the most coverage when humans focus on oceanic issues, but instances of social inequality persist at a level that the vast majority of Georgetown students would find abhorrent. Movies such as Jaws portray sharks as ruthless creatures incapable of self-control, which is the typical depiction of sharks in popular media. Finding Nemo depicts sharks as the bloodthirsty vampires of the sea, jumping into attack mode at the scent of the slightest drop of blood, but it also exposes a serious problem within the shark community—intra-species inequality.

By the Editorial Board March 29, 2012

Page 13 Cartoons

MEGASHARK VS. DINOJACK

By the Voice Staff March 29, 2012

Double Teamed: Hollis loss to pros expected

This column was supposed to be about which athlete owns the nickname “The Shark” (obviously, it’s former Ohio State basketball walk-on Mark Titus), but then Hollis Thompson declared for the NBA Draft on Tuesday, moving HoyaTalk to DEFCON 1 and officially kicking off the traditional early spring hand-wringing over the state of Georgetown’s roster.

By Tim Shine March 28, 2012

San Jose defies convention, push for playoffs

A year ago, the San Jose Sharks were riding high into the playoffs, clinching the Pacific Division for the sixth time and surfing a tidal wave of success into the Stanley Cup Playoffs. But after rolling through Los Angeles and eking out a seventh-game victory against Detroit, the Sharks went on to lose in the semifinals to Vancouver, ending another run for the highly touted Shark squad.

By Keaton Hoffman March 28, 2012

AFL dominated by Sharks

The Jacksonville Sharks are back to start the 25th season of Arena Football. Although they were only founded in 2010, the Sharks have risen to the spotlight quickly after winning last year’s AFL Championship. The menacing red and black look not only to win their third division championship in a row, but to once again capture the Arena Bowl title.

By Steven Criss March 28, 2012

SBL playoffs set after O’Connor’s game-winner

Down two points with a second consecutive berth to the Shark Basketball League playoffs on the line, North Indian Ocean Angel Sharks forward Carl O’Connor didn’t have time to think. He just knocked the ball toward the hoop with his broad pectoral fin, like he’d done in practice time and again. Swish.

By Sean Quigley March 28, 2012

Carrying On: Georgetown Day letdown

Earlier this week, The Hoya broke the news that Georgetown Day would be scaled back this year, due to a delay in planning caused by “a lack of student interest” this past fall. Of course, “lack of student interest” and “Georgetown Day” aren’t phrases you commonly find in the same sentence, and sure enough, Vox Populi editor Jackson Perry shed a little more light on what happened to Georgetown’s annual end of the year celebration in a blog post.

By Tim Shine March 22, 2012

Features

Spring Fashion 2012: Primary Colors

If vibrant patterns are fashion statements, then their absence can create an equally distinctive look. Solid-colored slacks, skirts, and tops can magnify the effect of your favorite hue from this season’s primary-colored palette—bright reds, deep greens, and Smurf blue. Life is too short for taupe, and browns and greens prove vague and uninspiring.

By Nico Dodd March 22, 2012

Scandals obscuring real issues: In defense of uncivil dialogue

After the controversy surrounding Mike Daisey’s fabricated stories in This American Life and the subsequent attacks by leading journalists from almost every major publication, I became keenly aware of both the average reader’s priorities and the nature of corporate media: the news cycle is, to put it bluntly, suicidal.

By Vanya Mehta March 22, 2012

A return to marathon running yields 26.2 miles of chafing

From the time I was a little kid, I had imagined myself triumphantly crossing the finish line of a marathon, with my hands clenched high over my head like Rocky—ideally with the Rocky theme playing. Last Saturday I had my opportunity to fulfil this dream, but unfortunately, as I crossed the finish line, I looked more like Rocky after he got the shit kicked out of him by Apollo Creed.

By Rob Sapunor March 22, 2012