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Voices

First Amendment: freedom of business?

“Away in a sweatshop where no one can see, the immigrant seamstresses work constantly. Conditions are awful, the pay is absurd—the boss he will fire them if they say a word.” Our voices harmonized and we moved onto our second song: “God bless you wealthy men, good news I have to tell: The market’s up, you’re making more each time you buy and sell.

Voices

What do I know?

French has two verbs for “to know,” each with a different connotation. One verb means “to know” in the sense of knowing a fact. The other means the sense of “being familiar with.” In English, we have one verb and are left to find ways to distinguish between its shades of meaning.

Voices

Adventures in Legoland

In the classic screwball farce Airplane, Ted Striker has a drinking problem. Specifically, he has a problem getting the drink to his mouth. Similarly, I have a gambling problem. Don’t worry, mom and dad. I’m not going broke. The bets rarely rise higher than a $4 Vittles sandwich, maybe once in a while I bet lunch at the Tombs.

Voices

thenightisortahadwitgod

Mommy told me to go into my cold room where the windows never close and simply concentrate on the inside of my eyelids with my hands slapped together. She told me to close my eyes as hard as I could so tears can gather in a tight place in my eyes. She told me to wait until the tears dripped at gaining speeds on my clasped hands just from my deep concentration.

Features

The Top Tens

The Top Ten Films of 2002

Repetition was the theme in many of 2002’s films, with few original ideas surfacing amidst the numerous studio remakes of past hits (Insomnia, Ring, Solaris), a slew of crappy sequels to films that were crappy to begin with (Analyze That, Harry Potter) and too many insightful and touching four hour musicals about exploitive British colonialism in 19th century India (Lagaan, Extreme Ops).

Editorials

3,000 sheets to the wind

A war is being waged on the Georgetown campus, a war for the hearts and minds of students, a war over, well, war. In the weeks before a Thanksgiving cease-fire the action intensified with new rounds of flyers fired off daily by Georgetown Peace Action and the College Republicans.

Editorials

One asinine law

The Supreme Court’s docket for the coming term will include a case that deals with two gay men convicted of sodomy in Texas. You may be surprised to learn that sodomy, generally defined as oral or anal sex between adults, is still illegal in 15 states. The Supreme Court ruled 16 years ago that states had a right to regulate “public morals” and upheld sodomy laws.

Editorials

This sanction is a sham

Two weeks ago, the parents of David Shick, a Georgetown student killed during an alcohol-fueled fight behind Lauinger Library in Feb. 2000, released the results of the University’s disciplinary hearing concerning his death. The “respondent,” the University adjudication system’s equivalent of a defendant, was found responsible, and was ordered to write a ten-page reflection paper and to serve a conditional suspension.

Features

The Blind Man Dance

Take me down, Take me down. Oh won’t you please take me home. The silence in the whorehouse makes itself present again and so I quietly sing aloud. I mimic Axl Rose’s scratch that is repeating in my head, a mental hiccup from earlier when we had entered dark European bars in search of girls who would not understand that we are unimpressive.

Features

Burn

They’re torching bums in Brooklyn. That’s what I hear anyway, I haven’t seen it myself. It’s too dangerous to take the subway even if you pay the men at the turnstile for protection, and cabs are no better now that the gangs have started firing on them.

Features

I Go Walking After Midnight

At the moment he knows three things. He knows his watch reads 3:08 a.m., he knows he’s walking, and he knows it’s cold. Jesus it’s cold. That’s for sure. Nothing could be as certain as that right now …

He knows of lots of other stuff. He knows of his name, for example.

Leisure

Interpol: Not strokes

Perhaps the best thing about the whole Strokes/New York underground music “revival” is that it has brought a bunch of bands that are a whole damn lot better than the Strokes into the mainstream. Although those guys think they’re cool with that scraggly-haired thrift-store alcoholic image they stole from CBGB circa.

Leisure

Santarchy 101

This Saturday, Dec. 7, if you’re in the vicinity of the Georgetown Park Mall around 5 p.m., you might be in for a treat, as Santa Claus is scheduled to pay a visit. Actually, about 40 Santas should be around, but they won’t be handing out any sugar plums or candy canes.

Leisure

More art, less matter

While the shopping opportunities on Wisconsin Ave. and M St. are the best around, art galleries in Georgetown are somewhat sparse. You have to look a little harder in order to find some substance beneath the overpriced clothes and trendy restaraunts. The Addison/Ripley Georgetown gallery on the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Reservoir Road fits nicely into the void left by these other shops.

Leisure

Strokes finish too quickly, fail to satisfy

The Strokes’ concert last Tuesday was a safe bet for D.C. kids with a curfew: By 11:30 p.m. ushers were already yelling for the hangers-on to clear the building. After playing a 50-minute set with no encore, the Strokes had cleared D.A.R. Constitution Hall in record time.

Sports

The Sports Sermon

OK, ladies and gentlemen, let’s play Six Degrees of Sports Separation, Thanksgiving Edition. We’re taking suggestions from the audience. Anyone? Where should we start?

Yes, you there. The man with no penis. Yes, you in the Kansas sweatshirt.

“Can you talk about Kirk Hinrich?”

Ah, the elfish one himself.

Leisure

Solaris remade into a bad film

In a film where a brief shot of George Clooney’s ass is the warmest thing going, something must be awry. After doing a drug movie, a sex movie, a caper flick, even one with J. Lo, Steven Soderbergh has ventured into the realm of oblique Russian cinema with a remake of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris.

Sports

Stark naked

When guys are asked whom they would marry if given the choice, some go with swimsuit models like Heidi Klum or Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. Sports nuts have a predilection towards Russian “tennis player” Anna Kournikova. As for me, I’m a sports guy, and I’m in love with a blond haired, blue-eyed beauty, too.

Sports

Smith’s career a work in progress

In Mike Smith’s ideal world, he would run 200 miles every week. In reality, Georgetown men’s cross-country Head Coach Patrick Henner would make him take a day off.

“If [Henner] didn’t pull the reins I would run myself into oblivion,” said the senior All American.

Sports

Undefeated women trounce New Hampshire

On Wednesday, the Hoyas defeated New Hampshire 90-60 in McDonough Arena behind sophomore guard Mary Lisicky’s 21 points on 5-6 three-point shooting. Junior forward Rebekkah Brunson grabbed her 500th rebound for the Hoyas on the way to her third double-double of the season.

Sports

Men’s hoops start strong, first test tonight

Apparently, it takes 13 minutes to figure out what a Chanticleer is.

The Georgetown men’s basketball team struggled early against the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers Monday night at the MCI Center, leading only 25-21 with 7:30 left in the first half.

News

Theros calls for a post-war plan for Iraq

On Wednesday, Patrick Theros (SFS ‘63), former American Ambassador to Qatar, called upon the Bush administration to present an effective post-war plan before considering military action in Iraq.

Theros, an active member of the local Greek community, was brought to Georgetown by the Hellenic Club.

News

Walking out

In the words of Pope John Paul II, “[Labor] organizations … are an indispensable element of social life, especially in modern industrial societies.” In 1891, Pope Leo XIII released Revum Novarum, the first papal edict to focus on the rights of workers. Since then, the Catholic Church has supported the rights of workers to form unions or other associations to secure their rights to fair wages and working conditions, a specific application of the more general right to associate.

News

Area alert system introduced

Coordinators of the newly developed Pilot Project presented its text messaging emergency broadcast system to the Georgetown community, which would be used in community emergencies.

The Pilot Project, the first of its kind in Georgetown, is designed to quickly provide the community with information in the event of an emergency.

News

Medical Center avoids walk out

A walk out by Georgetown University Medical Center staff planned for Monday, Nov. 25 was averted when workers and management reached a last-minute agreement over contract disputes.

The negotiators reached a tentative two-and-a-half year contract agreement an hour before the planned walk-out, and on the following Wednesday, the workers agreed to ratify the temporary agreement.