Archive

TEDx brings innovation to the Hilltop

On Wednesday, members of the Georgetown community gathered in Lohrfink Auditorium to hear “ideas worth spreading” at the TEDx Georgetown conference.

By Jeffrey Niedermaier March 24, 2011

Editorials

Bringing newspapers to campus worth the cost

When the Collegiate Readership Program was abruptly canceled this past September, Georgetown lost a valuable program. It was heartening to see the newspapers return a few weeks ago. The readership program also returned with some much-needed reforms that will help lower the program’s cost and ensure that more undergraduates have access to the papers. At an initial cost of $6,500 per semester, the price tag for the initiative is large, but it is easily one of the wisest purchases the Georgetown University Student Association has made.

By the Editorial Board March 24, 2011

Saxa Politica: Let students decide funding

Next week, the Georgetown University Student Association will vote in the student activities fee budget, concluding a months-long process that determines how to dole out $800,000 in club funding. Under the present model, GUSA is the only body with power over the budget, and GUSA senators ultimately make subjective decisions as to what constitutes an important contribution to student life.

By John Flanagan March 24, 2011

Hoyas disappoint again in NCAA Tournament

It was a case of postseason déjà vu for the Hoyas on Friday night, as they fell victim to a sharpshooting underdog in their opening NCAA Tournament game for the second year in a row. Virginia Commonwealth outplayed Georgetown from the opening tip, en route to a 74-56 victory.

By Tim Shine March 19, 2011

The kids aren’t all right

I’ll come right out and say it: Children repulse me. They frighten me. They make me anxious. Babies all look the same, and they are all ugly. Toddlers are praised for doing ordinary things like speaking and waving. Children have a comment and a question about everything. And adolescents—if YouTube sensation Rebecca Black has taught us anything—are totally self-absorbed and completely lacking in any sense of shame. Each stage of development brings with it new things to annoy me.

By Julie Patterson March 17, 2011

A Hoya’s future depends on Congress renewing Pell Grants

Everyone spends a lot of their life waiting, but most of the time we spend in limbo is pretty trivial. Sure, no one enjoys the hassle of being patient, but what we’re waiting for rarely determines our future. I face the exception now. I am waiting for a decision that may decide everything in my near future. On the brink of financial disaster, I’m enduring a wait that makes me unbearably anxious and often sick to my stomach. My future, my senior year at Georgetown, is on the line.

By Kelsey Hendricks March 17, 2011

Students must step in to reduce Georgetown’s footprint

Georgetown students are well-informed and resourceful, and often uphold the University’s values of service, community, and global engagement. Environmentalism, however, is not one of the more widely discussed global issues on campus. Perhaps out of convenience, most students don’t see sustainability as especially important. Yet as Georgetown students, who typically place a high premium on international issues we must make the effort to prioritize environmentalism.

By Madeline Collins March 17, 2011

Rounding the bases in an Australian league of their own

As spring training comes to a close, I’m beginning to feel baseball in the air. I’m just counting down the hours until Opening Day. However, my wait hasn’t been as long as most Americans. While the last whiff of baseball most got was the World Series in October, I found myself wrapped up in the world of Australian baseball through December.

By Rob Sapunor March 17, 2011

GU changing the game in sports management

While there is certainly no substitute for having an automatic jump shot, lightning-quick ball-handling skills, or being 6-foot-10, when it comes to landing a fantastic job in the sports world, Georgetown’s Sports Industry Management program still makes the Hilltop a great place to be for graduate students interested in a career in sports.

By Adam Rosenfeld March 17, 2011

The Sports Sermon: Madness taking over

I’m exhausted. It’s not because I’ve been pulling late nights at Lau to study for my midterm or because I’m worrying about all the projects that will start piling up in the coming weeks. It’s because I’ve been looking over a one-page document for the last three days trying to crack the code.

By Nick Berti March 17, 2011

Hoyas get Wright before Big Dance

The Georgetown Hoyas know one thing for certain about the NCAA Tournament: Chris Wright, will be back, and at full strength, too. The senior point guard returned to practice on Monday after missing a little more than two weeks with a broken left hand and will play without limitation in the tournament.

By Tim Shine March 17, 2011

Women are dancing too

For the second straight year and only the third time in the program’s history, the Georgetown women’s basketball team is going to the Big Dance. On Monday night, at the selection party in the Faculty Club, the Hoyas (22-10, 9-7 Big East) learned that they had received the No. 5 seed.

By Nick Thomas March 17, 2011

Backdoor Cuts: Hope you like soccer

When the Packers hoisted the Vince Lombardi trophy in Dallas last month, a bittersweet air surrounded the celebrations. A strange anxiousness filled the hearts and minds of football fans around the country. Because of the impending expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the Super Bowl may have been the last NFL game for a long time.

By Daniel Kellner March 17, 2011

Film festival provides good, green fun

In our generation, going green has gone from a hippie-centric fad to a full-blown industry. From celebrity-designed reusable totes to trendy organic food stores, it seems that “saving the planet” is, to some degree, on everyone’s mind. But beyond our Sigg water bottles, what do we really know about the problems facing the environment today? For those yearning to learn more, look no further than D.C.’s 19th annual Environmental Film Festival, which runs Mar. 15-27. With 150 events taking place in museums, libraries, theaters, and universities all over the District, the film festival invites viewers to step back and join in a “celebration of the natural world” that is both varied and thoroughly 2011-pertinent.

By Mary Borowiec March 17, 2011

Inside Tennessee’s Bedroom

After a long day of class or a stressful all-night cram session, the sight of your bed is a comfort and a relief, representing a haven of well-deserved rest. But to troubled playwright Tennessee Williams, his bed lost all symbolism of warmth, and came instead to embody loneliness, insomnia, and substance abuse. This unfortunate association is the subject of Service of My Desire, a 15-minute solo performance which runs this weekend in the Gonda Theater as part of The Glass Menagerie Project.

By Annalisa Quinn March 17, 2011

Get wired in Portrait Gallery with A New Language

History may have awarded John Hancock and Queen Elizabeth with fame for their bold and ornate signatures, but sculptor Alexander Calder deserves points for creativity—when signing his works, Calder brandished cold copper wire as elegantly as any calligrapher. In sculpting wire portraits of famous people, which lack any trace of a brush or a stone surface, Calder marked each of his wire sculptures with an inventive inscription. Woven behind an earlobe, under a chin or at the base of a neck, Calder looped wire to form his signature on each of his whimsical wire portraits.

By Heather Regen March 17, 2011

Critical Voices: The Strokes, Angles

After five years of silence, solo projects, and anticipation, The Strokes have reunited and reemerged with Angles, their first release since 2006’s First Impressions of Earth. During the interim, the band had become characterized by tensions between frontman Julian Casablancas and his bandmates, who accused him of being a creative tyrant. Angles was a joint attempt to mollify these tensions. It was the first of The Strokes’ albums to be composed collectively. But if you’re a superfan, don’t get too excited—Angles will disappoint anyone looking for more of the Strokes’s trademark electronic dance vibes.

By Paul Quincy March 17, 2011

Critical Voices: Travis Barker, Give the Drummer Some

It’s hard to think of Give the Drummer Some, the solo debut from Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker, as a product of the man who helped craft the sound of one of the most quintessential pop-punk bands of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Instead of Blink’s power chords and whiny vocals, the drummer’s solo effort is a rap-rock project, packed with A-list vocals and production—with the latter category including Barker’s own talent. While the album lacks consistency, it displays Barker at his best, showcasing his undeniably brilliant drumming skills while blending his own sound with the distinctive styles of his featured artists.

By Samuel Buckley March 17, 2011

Amuse-bouche: Green beer, black out

Between a boyfriend and boyfriend-wannabe is not a comfortable place to sit. But about two years ago, I had just that unfortunate experience. The former hailed from Beverly, Chicago, the last Irish stronghold of the Chicago South Side, the latter from Breezy Point, a Queens neighborhood so Paddy it may as well be Galway. And that was pretty much the meat of their conversation. “We’re 95 percent Irish,” my boyfriend said. “We’re 99 percent Irish.”

By Molly Redden March 17, 2011

Fade to Black: Lights, camera … action?

Last summer, Hollywood brought out its big guns for The Expendables, a hedonistic bullet-fest that claimed to be nothing but that. But the movie did have one sizable surprise: its cast of aged veterans— Schwarzenegger, Stallone, and Willis—felt oddly refreshing. The disheartening truth is that the classic action movie, with its dual-wielding protagonists, blond Russian enemies, and unforgiving muscles, is at a low point in its existence. Recently, studios have managed to churn out some movies in this dwindling genre, but superhero and comic book films have gotten a stranglehold on the good ol’-fashioned blockbusters in which the aforementioned California Governor thrived.

By Mark James March 17, 2011

Features

Building up the sciences: New facilites, new horizons

When Steven Singer was hired as a professor of biology in 1999, he was told that Georgetown would have a new science building within five years. Other professors hired earlier in the ‘90s were told the same thing.

By Juliana Brint March 17, 2011

Page 13 Cartoons

Fall – Part One

We all had fathers. We all had brothers. We all had sisters. Of course, we all had mothers. We all had cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents. Hell, we all had children, sons and daughters both. That’s the only thing you think of in the classroom. It’s all that’s in your head when you straighten your gig line, shine your shoes, adjust your hat so it’s just above your eyebrows.

By Jared Watkins March 17, 2011

GU’s tax-free status under fire

On Wednesday night, D.C. City Councilmember Mary Cheh (D - Ward 3) announced plans to introduce legislation that could effectively revoke the tax-exempt status of D.C. universities.

By Stephen Hylas March 17, 2011