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News

Student ANC rep reverses vote

Georgetown’s student representative on the Advisory Neighborhood Commission reversed her vote on Tuesday night, deciding to oppose a measure she originally co-wrote which would have encouraged the University to extend its one-keg-per-party rule to off-campus residences. The resolution passed unanimously at a Commission meeting last week.

News

TBGD speaker loves the classics

Government Professor and keynote speaker Patrick Deneen criticized the University’s diversified curriculum at last Saturday’s second annual Take Back Georgetown Day, and proposed a return to a more classical curriculum, even as the History requirement changed the College’s general education requirements to include a more diverse range of courses.

News

Natsios describes on-going Sudanese crisis

The on-going Darfur crisis is no longer a genocide situation, according to U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Andrew Natsios. Natsios, a Professor in the School of Foreign Service, spoke on Wednesday in Gaston Hall.

News

Saxa Politica: Ms. President

One thing was guaranteed in Tuesday’s Student Association executive elections: the winners had to have Y chromosomes. None of this year’s four tickets featured a woman candidate, denying voters a varied slate and failing to represent the female half of the University’s population.

News

New history requirement

Georgetown College’s Curriculum Committee revised the general education history requirements last week to include a wider range of courses; starting next fall, students will now be able to use courses on Africa, Latin America and the Middle East to fulfill half of the requirement. The other course must come from the current options: European Civilization, History of the Atlantic or Pacific World or World History.

News

Public school enemy #1

Tensions ran high and personal insults flew freely at a D.C. City Council public hearing yesterday on Mayor Adrian Fenty’s proposed takeover of the District’s public school system.

News

Dean defends loans targeted by Cuomo

The New York Attorney General and two U.S. Senators are targeting potentially unethical relationships between private lending companies and student financial aid offices across the country, but Georgetown does not seem likely to be affected, Dean Patricia McWade of the Office of Student Financial Services said Tuesday.

Sports

Real athletes wear tutus

Despite visions of pink satin and perfumed tutus, the smell of stale sweat usually associated with wrestling mats and tavern regulars that assails you as you step into the New South Dance Studio is alarming. In the Georgetown University Dance Company, rows of lithe and leotarded dancers swaying to the strains of classical music seem to exist in an oasis of effortless and demure grace.

Voices

Carrying On: the secret of my happiness

Last weekend a friend of mine and I were throwing a pair of cowboy boots across the room at each other and a rogue shot knocked out my front tooth: about the worst possible thing that could happen in that situation. My friend begged my forgiveness with his head cradled in his hands, but I wasn’t concerned. I flashed him a broken grin and laughed, then pulled out the phone book and called a dentist. Problem solved. The lesson I learned from this was not to be more careful with my teeth, but that hockey players really don’t have it as bad as I’d thought.

Voices

Blackwater in hot water in Iraq

Most people have not heard of Blackwater USA, a “professional military company” located in the countryside of North Carolina, where the landscape is dotted with tanks, helicopters and firing ranges. Today it, along with Haliburton, is one of the largest private contracting firms operating in Iraq. Hired by the U.S. Department of Defense, its employees play a vital role in military operations, fulfilling positions ranging from bodyguards to mechanics. Oversight of these contractors, however, is severely limited. Not part of the military chain of command, and outside governmental disciplinary procedures, their presence in the combat zone can be extremely disruptive.

Voices

Chillin’ with my faux Jew ‘fro

I hate yarmulkes. They mess up my hair. And because they cover up the spot on your head where men typically begin balding, I used to think that they make you go bald.

Sports

Trash Talking

This goes out to all you Hoya fans who can’t stand that classic fight song of ours. Sure, you’ll take your love of Blue and Gray to the grave, but that age-old tune just doesn’t have the sauce to get you pumped during the last two minutes of a Big East basketball game.

Voices

Censure for a censor

Believe it or not, there is a group of Georgetown students who would rather spend their Friday nights baking bread from scratch or watching King Richard III at the Shakespeare Theater than competing in beer-pong tournaments. These students live on the Culture and Performance Living and Learning Community (CPLLC), a unique outlet for creative Hoyas. But when the CPLLC refused to subsidize its members’ tickets to the University-sponsored production of Eve Ensler’s the Vagina Monologues, I was confronted with the sad reality that even Georgetown’s more progressive institutions are unable to escape censorship and discrimination.

Leisure

Say ‘bonjour’ to good taste!

Dapper French gentlemen clad in smoking jackets, their cigars sending smoke spirals up to the ceiling. Portraits of deceased royalty hanging demurely on the walls behind velvet drapes. An aging poodle curled up by the fire. The only thing needed to complete our scene is that Gallically-accented post-consumption treat: the digestif.

Leisure

Critical Voices II: Bloc Party, A Weekend in the City, Wichita

HATES IT

The British music mag NME called Bloc Party “uncategorisable.” While that isn’t a real word, the point was clear when the magazine used it to describe the band’s debut, Silent Alarm. Though it didn’t necessarily deserve that label, the group distinguished itself from the pack of poppy post-punk peers with lead singer Kele Okereke’s heartfelt lyrics and sometimes overly emotive vocals.

Leisure

Critical Voices: Bloc Party, A Weekend in the City, Wichita

LOVES IT

Despite what detractors may say, “Hunting for Witches” is hardly the sole highlight of A Weekend in the City, Bloc Party’s lastest release.

Leisure

Giving to get some

What do you call that girl you make out with on the weekend but whose hand you have yet to hold in public? More than friend or less than girlfriend, the correct sociological label is irrelevant—this Valentine’s Day only one tag matters: gift-recipient.

Sports

Hoyas extend win streak to six

The Georgetown men’s basketball game against Louisville may have been considered an opening act to the following UNC/Duke match-up, but Roy Hibbert and Jeff Green did their best to make sure the nation took notice of their play with a big 73-65 win during ESPN’s Rivalry Week.

Leisure

Punk Love sticks it to the man

In D.C., politics are inescapable—even in music. But when the founding luminaries of Washington’s famously close-knit, activist music scene came together in Georgetown last Friday, it was to praise, not preach.

Sports

The Sports Sermon

College basketball has reached that point in the season when historic foes do battle for the invaluable prize of a year’s worth of bragging rights. Yes, it’s rivalry week. In the spirit of this week-long sports holiday, it is important to consider the art of the rivalry and its role—not just in sports, but in every day life.

Sports

Lady Hoyas let pivotal game slip

The Georgetown women’s basketball team was unable to capture a much-needed conference win on Tuesday night against the Pirates of Seton Hall. The Lady Hoyas’ stifling defense helped them snap a six game slide against conference rival Villanova on Saturday, but they could only match that defensive intensity for one half in Tuesday night’s 71-67 loss.

Leisure

Pole dancing: not just for strippers

My arms ache and I can already feel the bruises on my inner thighs as I try to crawl sexily on all fours. The music switches to “Fergalicious,” and that’s my cue to shimmy up the chrome pole. Holding on with my left hand, I move with the music, strut my stuff for a few beats and slowly turn a full body roll into the fireman spin.

Features

True Life: So You Want to be a Priest

The National Seminary of Catholic University, is a quiet gray building separated from the iconic dome of the National Basilica by the busy traffic of Michigan Avenue, which casts a flickering neon glow on a statue of the Virgin Mary on the front lawn. Inside, though, all is serene. A renovation in the 90s left the interior gleaming with tasteful iconography and soft light. Bulletin boards are sparse and symmetrical, with white flyers advertising sign-up for Solemn Holy Hour—a far cry from the frenetic visual overload of Red Square.

It is to this building that Dan Hill came after two years at Georgetown. Rather than graduate with the class of 2008, he chose to pursue a lengthy course of study, at the completion of which he will be ordained as a Diocesan priest. It’s an unusual—perhaps even a shocking—choice in today’s culture, as seminary display cases containing the photos of each graduating class attest. The 1953 class portrait showed 37 newly collared men; 2003 had just seven.

But the shrinking size of Catolic’s Theological College is hardly an anomaly. Nationwide, the number of priestly ordinations dropped from 994 in 1965 to 431 in 2006, even as the number of American Catholics jumped from 45.6 million to 64 million in the same time period. The current generation of American youth is markedly and actively religious, but poverty, chastity, and obedience simply aren’t lighting its collective fire. Even at Georgetown, where about half of the student body is Catholic, a life wholly committed to the Church isn’t an option most consider—the Career Center certainly doesn’t hold information sessions on the priesthood. Still, there exists a subculture, exceptional even within the most dedicated Catholic students, of a small number of students undegoing the process of discernment—that is, figuring out whether God has called you specifically to the clergy.