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Voices

Carrying On

Spaniards have a phrase for people who don’t know how to cook: Ni puede freír un huevo. (he can’t even fry an egg). This is what my host mom, Concha, told me about my lack of skill in the culinary arts. Yet only a few weeks later, she wanted me to cook a family delicacy.

Editorials

A B- in sustainability doesn’t cut it

Georgetown has reason be proud, but for a school marked by overachievers, there is still plenty of room for improvement.

Editorials

$10 million well spent on D.C. students

President John DeGioia should be commended for his recent success in landing the Institute for College Preparation (ICP) a cool $10 million grant from the Meyers Foundation.

Editorials

Doing our part for Iraqi refugees

While the government and all educational institutions must do their part, Georgetown—where Iraq war planners like former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith and former CIA director George Tenet, have come to roost—owes a larger debt than most.

Sports

Sweet November for GU soccer

The Georgetown men’s soccer team is back in the playoffs after winning two matches in a row and four of five.

Sports

The Sports Sermon

We all know that U.S.-China relations are a tricky aspect of our nation’s foreign policy, which is why the Bush administration is rolling out the big guns for its latest efforts at diplomacy: Cal Ripken is taking a swing at things in Beijing (pun intended).

Sports

What Rocks

Senior Melissa Grelli had an historic performance this past Saturday at the Big East Championship in Louisville, Ky.

Sports

Road work

Marathoners are a different type of athlete, driven to take on a 26.2 mile run just for that inexplicable runner’s high.

Sports

Switch Hitting: a weekly take on sports

Rather than accept the mounting specter of a multi-sport New England dynasty, sanity requires that I retreat to the comfort of my own imaginary sports Valhalla.

Sports

XC makes waves in KY

A few days of rain left the ground at the E.P. Tom Sawyer State Park in Louisville, KY, a bit wet Saturday, but the flat course at the Big East Cross Country Championships provided few challenges for Georgetown’s runners, with senior Melissa Grelli’s first place finish providing the highlight of the weekend.

Leisure

Fabulation nothing short of fabulous

For about an hour after “Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine” (it makes sense in the context of one of the play’s best moments, but damned if I’m actually going to write it out each time), I walked around in a kind of shocked appreciation, the stupor of being in the presence of something fleetingly, unevenly true. The production, under Isiah Wooden’s direction, has some problems, but the moments that work do so beautifully.

Leisure

Gone Baby Gone finds success

I went into Ben Affleck’s directorial debut Gone Baby Gone hoping that it wouldn’t be too terrible. I left the theater doubting everything I knew about the man.

Leisure

Gangster tears shit up

Already being hailed as the black Godfather and the Harlem Scarface, many critics have essentially taken for granted that American Gangster must be judged against the classics of its genre. I was less sure that it couldn’t be judged on its own merits, though, and I feared that stacking it up against The Godfather and other greats would inevitably make it seem disappointing in comparison. Surprisingly, despite its length and its failure to truly innovate, it holds its own among the heavyweights of the gangster film canon and is a contender for the best movie of 2007.

Leisure

Critical Voices: Jay-Z, American Gangster

Jay-Z has come out of retirement for a second time with American Gangster, an album inspired by the movie of the same name. And unlike on Kingdom Come, he has something to say this time. In fact, this is the first set of songs in which returns to his roots. By revisiting his life on the streets over a set of heavy, moody beats, American Gangster is Jay-Z’s grittiest album since his debut.

Leisure

Goes Down Easy: A Bi-Weekly Column on Drinking

Lotus Lounge, a newish nightclub downtown, recently invited me to check out a new promotion, “Choose the POTUS at Lotus.” The club has come up with a signature cocktail for every presidential candidate, ranging from the banal—a brown drink for recent drop-out Senator Sam Brownback, Tanqueray for Representative Tom Tancredo—to the weirdly inspired—Representative Dennis Kucinich’s drink is peach-flavored to commemorate the perennial candidate’s desire to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney.

News

Calif. fires hit home for Hoyas

Mackenzie Williams (COL ’09) received a call from her mother, asking her what mementos she would want saved if the family was forced to evacuate. A San Diego resident of ten years, Williams is one of many Georgetown students whose families and hometowns have been affected by the wildfires throughout southern California last week.

News

Immigrants spark debate

The District of Columbia City Council recently passed a resolution condemning Virginia’s Prince William and Loudoun Counties for their harsh policies on illegal immigrants. The deep division among local jurisdictions is emblematic of how the larger issue of immigration is addressed in communities around the country.

News

Ten million dollar grant boosts ICP

Charlene McKenzie has a story for every student in the pictures on her office wall. Pointing to a picture of an African-American girl kayaking down a river during an Institute for College Preparation trip, the program’s director, McKenzie said, “We almost had to turn around and go back on that trip. The poor girl was hyperventilating and couldn’t calm down, yelling that she could never get on a plane. 95 percent or more of the children we work with have never been on a plane, have never even left D.C.”

News

G’town students court the Supremes

Though not wearing costumes, the 17 Georgetown students huddled around the GUTS bus stop in front of Leo’s at 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday had woken up early for a special Halloween treat: a private meeting with Associate Justice Stephen Breyer.

News

Nobel writer gets GU degree

Georgetown University awarded Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk an honorary degree before a full Gaston Hall on Monday. Pamuk became the first Turk ever to win any Nobel Prize when he won for Literature in 2006.

News

Bookalicious

A group of Georgetown students rapped their way to first place and $1500 in a music video competition sponsored by a children’s book charity.

News

Influential diplomats at GU

Diplomats gone wild

News

City on a Hill: Safe as (fire)houses

The District was reminded of the dangers of firefighting Monday when four firefighters were injured in a rowhouse fire. That makes a recent report by Washington's Office of the Inspector General even more disheartening. According to the report, firefighters aren't even safe in their firehouses.

Features

“I have a better story”

Two weeks before Baghdad fell to U.S. Forces on April 9, 2003, Sari Khalil (COL ‘10) heard the American troops arriving. His house was on the western side of the city, smack in the middle of three Iraqi National Guard camps. One of them, Um-Almaank—just four miles from his house—contained not only a camp but also a mosque.

“We could hear the sound of the bombs coming closer, until it was our turn,” Khalil said. “[Um-Almaank] was so heavily bombed [the first] night, that we all knew we were going to die that day. You would hear the aircrafts coming real close; they were so close and so low that you could hear the sound of the missile leaving the plane … and then you would see this quick flash … and within half a second you would hear this huge sound … the whole house was like, broken windows. It was really scary.”

Khalil, his three younger brothers and his parents did survive that night, the “lightest night of the seven nights,” and escaped to spend the last two weeks almost 20 miles away at his grandfather’s house before the Iraqi troops surrendered.