Archive

Coming (kind of) soon: Bloomingdale’s

A three-story Bloomingdale’s department store will be opening at the Shops at Georgetown Park in August 2011, according to a Macy’s Inc. press release announced last week.

By Alisha Crovetto September 18, 2008

Townhouse Transformation

Georgetown University is turning the 1400 block of 36th street into a collection of Living and Learning communities called Magis Row. About 40 students attended an informational meeting about the new community on Tuesday.

By Will Sommer September 18, 2008

City on a Hill: D.C. and the Series of Tubes

After years of serving District residents with a truly subpar website, the Office of the Chief Technology Officer is nearing completion of an across-the-board overhall of the entire DC.gov portal. And while OCTO’s plans sound promising—the words “social networking” and “Web 2.0” came up a lot in an e-mail from OCTO’s spokesperson Annaya Smith, and her office seems to have gotten wind of a trendy little thing called Facebook—OCTO and the city need to proactively reach out to residents in order to make the new website the “virtual public square” OCTO wants it to be.

By Molly Redden September 18, 2008

Prof attempts Malaysian takeover

Malaysia has entered a period of political turmoil and transformation as Anwar Ibrahim, a former Georgetown professor, seeks to take control of the government. Ibrahim, who served as Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Malaysia in the 1990s, announced that he has secured the support of enough members of Parliament to remove the ruling National Coalition from power. If this transfer of support comes to fruition, Ibrahim will become the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

By Eric Pilch September 18, 2008

Features

The Murphy Code

It was a dark, rainy afternoon in Bamberg, Germany, but Fr. G. Ronald Murphy wasn’t about to let inclement weather thwart his quest. The Jesuit priest, a professor in Georgetown University’s German Department and scholar of medieval literature, was not looking for an obscure manuscript or a quiet refuge in which to spend his sabbatical. Rather, he was seeking the single object that has had the power to capture the imaginations of men and women for centuries, a relic which has inspired works of art ranging from the Arthurian legend and The Da Vinci Code to Indiana Jones and Monty Python. He was looking for the Holy Grail.

By Traviss Cassidy September 18, 2008

Voices

Law, order, and crappy coffee

As impassioned soliloquies ran through my head, my mother sought to bring me back to earth. She explained the mind-numbing boredom that accompanies jury duty of any duration. Worse, she explained that it is incredibly unlikely that I would ever be chosen for a jury because my father is a lawyer and I have an aunt and an uncle who are former members of the NYPD. No matter how reasoned her thinking, I dismissed everything mother dearest said, and began to prepare my remarks for the other members of the jury.

By Dan Newman September 11, 2008

Voices

How I almost became a saint

It was time for dinner with my parents, and I had something important to tell them.

“I’ve decided to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” I said. “The baptism will be on Saturday.”

By Traviss Cassidy September 11, 2008

Voices

The Dark Night: walking home alone

I hadn’t felt safe at night since the eighth grade, when I was taught to be afraid of the dark. The class was technically called self-defense, but it focused much more on fear than survival skills. Our co-ed gym class was divided for the month or so it took to teach us girls to cross the street, walk with our keys in hand, and not talk on the phone. Not to mention the Miss Congeniality-esque defense maneuvers that I would never, ever use. It became clear that the point of the class was to learn how to avoid dangerous situations, not to learn what to do if such a situation actually occured. It’s a valid point, and many of the pointers were useful for teenage girls growing up in a big city like Chicago. By the end of the unit, though, we were all convinced that we would get mugged if we took the El after dark, and God help us if we didn’t have a twenty in our wallets for the mugger.

By Allie Reiner September 11, 2008

A fan’s eye view of the first ever D.C. Cup

When Tropical Storm Hanna left the D.C. area this weekend, she did so in style. After a long, gray day filled with constant rain, the Sunday sky was blue and cloudless. There was nothing to impede the midday sun from lighting up Howard University’s Greene Stadium, where two of the area’s most storied schools met on the gridiron for the first time in history. The scenery, the history, and the blinding sun were so powerful that they threatened to obscure one of the day’s most important truths:

By Anthony Francavilla September 11, 2008

DC get’s a bowl game

At a press conference held yesterday, Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) and other D.C. officials announced the city’s newest sporting event: the EagleBank Bowl. The game is one of two new post-season college bowl games approved by the NCAA for 2008.

By Caroline Kuehn September 11, 2008

Roger’s back

When he bowed out to Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open, they attributed it to mononucleosis. When he lost to Rafael Nadal in three dismal sets at the French Open, they said he wasn’t the same anymore. When Nadal conquered him again on his own turf—the fabled lawns of Wimbledon—they said he was done. Washed up. A month ago, on the eve of the U.S. Open, Roger Federer relinquished his number one ranking to Nadal, and it looked as though the sun had set on his tennis empire.

By Walker Loetscher September 11, 2008

Sports Sermon: the EagleBank Bowl

In case you haven’t been paying attention to D.C. sports in the last few weeks, the hot topic in town is college football relevancy. This past weekend saw the first time in history that the District’s only two Division 1 programs, Howard and Georgetown, ever met on a football field. Yesterday morning, Mayor Adrian Fenty and a team of D.C. officials, including Councilmembers Jack Evans and Vincent Gray, officially announced the creation of the first ever college bowl game in the District: the EagleBank Bowl.

By Anthony Francavilla September 11, 2008

Fast Break: Men’s Soccer

The Georgetown men’s soccer team continued its early-season streak of shut out victories on Thursday afternoon, besting Stony Brook 1-0 on Kehoe Field.

By Jeff Bakkensen September 11, 2008

Editorials

Who you gonna call? SafeRides?

Two Georgetown students were robbed while walking home alone late at night this past week—one was held up at gunpoint, and the other was suffocated. While city dwellers have to accept certain risks, including the possibility of muggings and worse crimes, these two incidents had one disturbing aspect in common: the victims were within the limits of the Department of Public Safety’s SafeRides service, which was designed to prevent exactly these kinds of attacks from occurring.

By the Editorial Board September 11, 2008

Editorials

Georgetown becomes totally RAD

Potential attackers, muggers, and ne’er-do-wells, beware: the women of Georgetown are about to take matters into their own hands. Last week, Director of Public Safety Jeffrey Van Slyke announced that, beginning this semester, Georgetown will offer classes in Rape Aggression Defense Systems (RADS) to interested female students. RADS, the preeminent self-defense program in the country, has been taught to over 300,000 women since the organization was founded in 1989 and is offered at schools across the country, as well as at nearby universities such as Catholic University, George Mason, and Johns Hopkins. Female students at Georgetown should take advantage of RADS classes offered at Georgetown as a means of protecting themselves against potential threats and taking control of their personal safety.

By the Editorial Board September 11, 2008

Editorials

7” of rain and barely a wet vac in sight

When it rains, it pours. And when Tropical Storm Hanna finally hit the District of Columbia late into the night last Friday, Georgetown, along with the rest of the District, got drenched. Hanna’s seven inches of rain cut off roads, broadened the muddy Potomac, and flooded the apartments and townhouses of unlucky Georgetown students. According to University Spokesperson Julie Green-Bataille, Facilities prepared for the storm as it slowly made its way up the coast toward the Hilltop, gathering sandbags, pumps, wet vacuum, plastic sheeting, and tarps, and putting extra staff on duty on Saturday. Unfortunately, their preparations proved no match for Hanna, leaving many students to fend for themselves as they waited for ultimately unsatisfactory assistance. The next time it’s faced with a storm of Hanna’s magnitude—a rare occurrence, but a dangerous once nonetheless—Georgetown should do more to protect itself and its students from the fallout.

By the Editorial Board September 11, 2008

Page 13 Cartoons

Give me liberty or give me death?

The poverty-stricken masses of Cairo are fed-up with an oppressive government that doesn’t care, a supposedly “grand America” that supports this negligent regime, and a city that doesn’t offer so much as clean air. “Religious” leaders seeking power use the compelling context of Islam to attract these people and to convert them into devotees. These figures augment their status in relation to the government and obtain a personal following. They promise a sanitized political system and a chance for people to have greater ownership over their own lives. Social services, like the hot meal that government welfare rarely provides, entice the average person to keep coming for more.

By Mark Lerner September 11, 2008

A side of this, a side of that

With its bright cerulean walls and lemon trim, Glover Park’s Surfside is an oasis in a desert of gray concrete buildings. Which is fitting, because the month-old Surfside is attempting to pass as a transplant straight from the West Coast. While the decorating scheme (complete with colorful chalk boards, a butcher-block counter, rooftop seating, and a mural of the beach) looks like it was lifted from the boardwalk, the food is far from sandy hot dogs and cherry slushie.

By Vivian Chen September 11, 2008

Frustrated by faith, a labor of love

Two women holding hands, deep in prayer, their faces digitally blurred, star in the opening scene of A Jihad for Love. Filmmaker Parvez Sharma’s documentary gives these and other gay and lesbian Muslims a chance to tell their stories, though a majority of their faces remain covered out of fear for themselves and their families. This gripping film takes place in twelve different countries and nine different languages. From drag queens in North India to a young Egyptian refugee in France, the stories are all different, but none can avoid the grief and frustration that arises from the conflict between sexual orientation and religion.

By Alexa Defazio September 11, 2008

Critical Voices: Okkervil River, “The Stand Ins”

Will Sheff of Okkervil River has nearly perfected the pop song. His melodies, which underlie the strength of his heartfelt crooning voice, are immediately noticeable on The Stand Ins, the sequel to 2007’s acclaimed The Stage Names, which was originally planned to be a double album. While still displaying Sheff’s distaste for pop culture, The Stand Ins also deals with the ideas of both conceit and faltering love in great detail, while simultaneously orchestrating memorable moments of pop bliss.

By James McGrory September 11, 2008

Critical Voices: Brian Wilson, “That Lucky Old Sun”

It’s fitting that Wilson is now mixing the style he perfected with the group’s early lyrical themes. His latest release, That Lucky Old Sun, features lush symphonics, another well-developed song cycle, and a nostalgic view on Wilson’s long-time home of California.

By Matthew Collins September 11, 2008

Water Polo? Seriously?

The Georgetown gallery scene doesn’t always get the attention it deserves, but gems are ready and waiting to be unearthed for those industrious enough to pick up a few brochures. But first, a brief lesson in jock culture: because the bodies of water polo players are submerged in water, the helmets players wear serve the same identifying function as jerseys do in other sports. John Trevino, a D.C. based artist and Howard University professor, has taken this idea and run with it in “What Comes Next,” an exhibit of portrait photography at District Fine Arts (DFA) on Wisconsin Avenue. The portraits, photos of black men and women in cartoon water polo helmets, ultimately fall short of their aim to “examine dreams and memory created as the residual of human interaction.”

By Katherine Norton September 11, 2008

By any means necessary

In case you didn’t know, the Internet is a remarkable source for learning about music and finding that music for free. While many collectors are in the habit of finding full albums to add to their libraries, casual downloaders are often in search of single songs.

By Justin Hunter Scott September 11, 2008