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Editorials

Repeal and replace arbitrary noise ordinance

When the D.C. City Council passed the now infamous amendments to the District’s disorderly conduct law, the changes were meant to clarify what one subcommittee had called a “vague and ambiguous” statute. But the new measure only creates more confusion and questions by greatly increasing penalties and police discretion in noise violations. College students can be especially vulnerable to the vagaries of law enforcement, and it is essential that student leaders and University officials press the D.C. Council to revise the amendment.

News

Job prospects on the rise for future grads

Even though the job market is recovering slowly, the Georgetown University Career Education Center will be busy this month. Director Mike Schaub is confident that this year will be successful for job and internship applicants, pointing out positive trends in data culled from the class of 2010.

Editorials

GUSA presidential candidates should think big

The two-year administration of Georgetown University Student Association President Calen Angert (MSB‘11) and Jason Kluger (MSB’11) is coming to a close, and soon a new slate of candidates will vie to replace them. In the past, GUSA presidential candidates have drawn up long lists of promises, ranging from Zipcars for students to more silverware in Leo’s. Such initiatives may sound nice, but it is time to recognize that the GUSA president needs to take the lead on some of the major issues on campus.

News

News Hit: DMT suspects to plead guilty Fri.

John Perrone and Charles Smith are expected to plead guilty in D.C. District Court this Friday to charges related to the DMT lab found in Smith’s Harbin doorm room last semester, according to filed court documents.

News

City on a Hill: Is the noise law anti-student?

“Unfair and unconstitutional.” “We live in America, not the mid-20th century U.S.S.R.” “I believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and this law infringes on all of my inalienable rights.”

Editorials

Dan Snyder v. City Paper: One jerk’s crusade

The National Football League is the most popular professional sport in America, drawing the interest (and money) of millions of fans who live and die with the success of their favorite teams. This passion causes players, coaches, general managers, and even owners to become some of the most scrutinized public figures in America, a role for which they are compensated greatly. By suing the Washington City Paper over a series of critical articles, Daniel Snyder has shown that he is incapable of handling the criticism he is rightly subject to as owner of the Washington Redskins.

Sports

Hoyas withstand Brooks’ barrage, hold off Providence

It’s not often that a player scores 43 points in a college basketball game and can’t lead his team to victory. It’s also not common for a team with an 18-point second half lead to have a chance to lose the game on the final possession. The latter was the case for Georgetown, but fortunately for the Hoyas they managed to stop Providence’s Marshon Brooks the one time they needed to.

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Voices

Messages provide necessary link to home

My dad got a Droid for Christmas last year. I guess it was about time—he’s been toting around a five-pound Nokia since 1997—but it still kind of perplexes me that my 66-year-old father has a cooler phone than I do. I spent Christmas morning envying the sexagenarian as he sat next to the tree fandangling away on his touch screen.

Voices

Phones are damaging English

Having grown up with instant messaging and texting, I don’t bat an eye at slang as diverse as “irlol” (or “in real life laugh out loud”) and “iucmd” (my friend Matt’s favorite, meaning “if you catch my drift”). Yet I was shocked a few weeks ago when my dad sent me a text message for the first time. It read “miss yu, yu have pro status as spanish tutor lv dad.” I had helped my 14-year-old brother Sam study for a Spanish exam over Christmas break, and it was nice to be informed he did well. However, I was more interested in those dropped vowels. I love my dad, but I don’t consider him to be the most culturally adept person. He uses email, but I’ve always found his communication there to be very precise. As recently as a few months ago my brother was still showing him how to open the text messages he had received, so I wasn’t prepared for his sudden embrace of text slang.

Voices

Declining music sales require industry adaptation

You may or may not remember the band Cake, best known for a pair of novelty hits at the end of the ‘90s. But apparently someone does. The group’s latest album, Showroom of Compassion—released ten years after their last charting single (“Short Skirt, Long Jacket” got to 124 on the top 200) and 13 years since anyone thought they were relevant—hit number one on the Billboard charts last week. It was far from an impressive accomplishment, however: at just 44,000 units sold, Cake’s sixth album was the lowest-selling number one since the advent of SoundScan in 1991.

Voices

Qatar student discovers treasures in Moroccan medina

Morocco, If you were a person, you would be one with multiple personalities. In the past two months, I have discovered your ethnic richness, multi-linguistic culture, and different moods. You can be the hottest person in the world and at times, the coldest, conservative, liberal and sometimes in-between. Most importantly, you have, in your own charming way, allowed me to explore your various characteristics in a series of epic adventures.

Sports

Collars come off for Jesuits’ annual grudge match

The Society of Jesus has a diverse and colorful history, and for the past 10 years the students of Georgetown University have organized Jesuit Heritage Week in order to celebrate and make visible the school’s Jesuit character. While all of the week’s events are meaningful, one gathering is far more important and consequential than the rest.

Sports

The Sports Sermon: Back and better than ever

Georgetown has won five games in row. That means they’re back, right? Or do the Hoyas have to win six in row to officially be “back”? What if they were never gone? The team certainly wasn’t looking too good a couple of weeks ago.

Sports

Hoyas extend streak in clutch

Georgetown has shown this season that they can win games in every fashion, but the last two games have shown that they know how to win in the most important way. Monday night Georgetown defeated Louisville 62-59, which followed a 69-66 win at Villanova on Saturday.

Sports

Rodgers hits 1,000 in win

For the Georgetown women’s basketball team, sometimes one notable act isn’t enough. The No. 17 Hoyas (18-5, 6-3 Big East) came back from a fourteen-point deficit in the second half to beat the Louisville Cardinals (14-9, 5-4 Big East) 76-52.More impressive than the comeback was how they did it.

Sports

Backdoor Cuts: The Super Bowl? You bet

Over 100 million people will watch the Super Bowl this Sunday, but only a fraction of viewers will be Packers or Steelers fans. The audience is just too massive—the entire states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania won’t even account for one-fifth of the game’s viewership.

Leisure

Don’t miss the climax of The Vagina Monologues

Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues confronts audiences’ discomfort from its very first line: “I bet you’re worried.” As the play’s introduction points out, it “doesn’t matter how many times you say it, it never sounds like a word you want to say.” But past the shock of The Vagina Monologues’ frank language lies a well-crafted, emotionally gripping play, and one the actors, directors and producers of Georgetown’s rendition hope will bring to light women’s issues and sexuality on the Hilltop.

Leisure

Georgetown filmmakers shine at Sundance

Who says Georgetown doesn’t breed creativity? This past week at the Sundance Film Festival, the creative minds of Georgetown were well-represented, with five films whose directors, actors or producers that have graduated from the University competed in the world-famous film contest. And one of these movie, Another Earth, won big. Way big. Another Earth, directed by Mike Cahill (COL ’01) and starring fellow alum Brit Marling (COL ’05), is a sci-fi drama about the discovery of a duplicate Planet Earth in the solar system.

Leisure

If Caravaggio knew cardiology

While scientific advancement has led to solutions and cures that had previously seemed impossible, it has also bred confusion. In fact, very few average people can grasp the small, intricate details of how things actually work anymore. In the exhibition “What Was There To Be Seen,” on display now at the Ann Loeb Bronfman Gallery on 16th Street near DuPont, Kindra Crick and Carolyn Bernstein convey their personal fascinations and frustrations with the often cumbersome subject of biology.

Leisure

3D can’t save Sanctum

How does one of the world’s best-known directors follow up the most commercially successful film in cinematic history? For James Cameron, director of mega-blockbusters Avatar and Titanic, the answer is surprising. Taking a break from fantasy and iceberg-smashing romance, Cameron signed on as executive producer for Sanctum, the tale of a father and son on a life-threatening cave expedition.

Leisure

Critical Voices: Hercules and Love Affair, Blue Songs

Blue Songs, the new album by Hercules and Love Affair, is awful. I’m not going to mince words here: it’s brutal, terrible, miserable, abominable, abhorrent, and appalling. And it’s really a shame. The band’s 2008 debut was rightly praised as one of the best albums of the past decade. Mixing old school house and disco, the group brought a surprisingly fresh twist to DFA Records’s aging nü-disco shtick.

Leisure

Critical Voices: The Boxer Rebellion, The Cold Still

In today’s alternative music scene, too many indie groups have abandoned their original sound in favor of mass appeal. So when a band can deliver emotion that is both honest and unpretentious, and stays true to the successes of its past albums, it’s grounds for major commendation. London quartet The Boxer Rebellion achieves just that on The Cold Still, with unassuming but powerful lyrics and melodies, the band rises above the rest of the indie pack.

Leisure

Banger Management: It’s all about the Benjamins

Hip-hop has always been a regional art. Seminal groups such as Run DMC of Hollis, Queens and N.W.A. of Compton represented their neighborhoods with songs chronicling local troubles and lifestyles. But in the early 1990s, rap’s focus shifted and hip-hop crews began forming record labels to better promote their own music. All of a sudden, the West Coast had Suge Knight’s Death Row Records, which included the likes of Tupac and Snoop Dogg, while the East had Puffy’s Bad Boy label, which centered on Notorious B.I.G.

Leisure

Internet IRL: This is your brain on Tumblr

Studying can be difficult when your most important tool is also your biggest time waster. All of us are familiar with being holed up in the library, intent on doing homework, only to catch ourselves surfing the net. It is virtually impossible to stay focused with the giant bag of potato chips that is the World Wide Web at your disposal. Betcha can’t click just one.