News

What’s happening on campus and in D.C.



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G’town sees spike in crimes at Thanksgiving

A spate of crimes struck Georgetown in the period during and around Thanksgiving, with one student being held-up at gunpoint last week and robberies of a Copley suite and four Henle apartments over the past ten days.

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Web-based academic journal on Latin America debuts

Three former presidents and numerous business executives from Spain and Latin America gathered at Georgetown Tuesday for the launch of a virtual journal about business and globalization in Latin America. The Journal of Globalization, Competitiveness and Governability is the product of a partnership between the University and the world’s eighth-largest bank.

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Filming Afghanistan

A screening of a documentary about a young Afghan boy turned into a heated debate yesterday as the film’s director discussed the invasion of Afghanistan.

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Living with AIDS in Washington

Being an HIV-positive gay man in Venezuela “was like you had a scarlet letter on your forehead,” said Miguel Aguero (SCS ‘11) “The new generation, people under 20, didn’t live through the first cases and the paranoia and the fear. People would say, ‘You’re going to hell and this is your ticket.’”

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Liberating gender

“I don’t think many of us imagine Jane Hoya kissing other girls, unless it’s in a Joe Hoya fantasy,” former GU Pride President Shamisa Zvoma (MSB ‘08) said during the panel discussion “Deconstructing Jane and Joe Hoya: Gender at Georgetown,” on Tuesday.

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Saxa Politica: Secondhand smoke out

Whenever I leave Lauinger after laboring within its stuffy walls for hours, I look forward to the fresh air that should greet me as the sliding doors open. Instead, I have to cough my way out of the building due to the ever-present clusters of smokers.

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City on a Hill: Don’t drop the flag fee

When Mayor Adrian Fenty announced cabs would switch from the zone system to meters, D.C. residents rejoiced without considering the effect this change would have on taxi drivers. The Washington area’s disregard for taxi drivers was on display again when commuters complained about D.C.’s new $4 flag drop fee. Instead, passengers should recognize that the flag fee is necessary to help taxi drivers transition from the zone system to the meter system.

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Millions stolen from city tax department

Two city tax officials were arrested last Wednesday for allegedly stealing tens of millions of dollars in what law enforcement officials called the largest fraud in District of Columbia history. The full extent of the scam is not yet known, but it has already resulted in the resignation of four top officials in the Office of Tax and Revenue.

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Finding humanity in technology

In the weeks after Hurricane Katrina, a group of tech-savvy citizens created the Katrina People Finder, a website that helps family members of New Orleans residents locate their loved ones. The project suffered from mass input problems as millions of e-mails flowed into the server until an anonymous good samaritan corrected the problem.

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Diplomat talks Mideast

The United States Ambassador to the United Nations discussed instability in the Middle East as “the defining issue of our time” during a Wednesday speech in Gaston Hall.

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Breaking barriers in journalism

Raghida Dergham caught her break as a journalist in 1979 when she interviewed President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. Looking down at her after the interview, he told her she could not make it as a journalist.

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GU alcohol policy still a working group in progress

Two months after the University’s announcement of a new alcohol policy was met by uproar among students, the working group formed to address their concerns will meet for the first time today.

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Henle robberies blamed on broken door

Thieves broke into two Henle apartments early Wednesday morning, stealing three laptops and a wallet, according to students in the apartments.

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Taking back gender identity

“Will I get beaten up tonight for walking around on campus with a pink undershirt?” Associate Director of Student Programs and LGBTQ Community Resources Coordinator Bill McCoy asked as he grabbed his t-shirt for emphasis. As part of the “Gender Motivated Violence and Perspective” panel on Wednesday night, McCoy focused on how violence affects those who express gender in a non-traditional way, including transsexuals.

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Same-sex ed

District of Columbia public schools will teach lessons on sexual orientation and same-sex behavior in health education classes, according to new guidelines released two weeks ago by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE).

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Numero UN-o

The story is familiar to Georgetown students: the powerhouse team in the 80s slowly declined and was nearly forgotten as of a few years ago. A dramatic turnaround, however, has boosted the team to recent success.

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D.C. soccer stadium still up in the air

Seven companies submitted proposals to Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty’s office this Saturday seeking development rights to Poplar Point, a 110-acre bare stretch of land lying along the Anacostia River and, the city hoped, the future site of a new soccer stadium. The city opened the site to competition after negotiations between the city and MacFarlane & Partners, the principal owner of D.C. United, ended over the summer.

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All hands on the police dept.’s deck

Following fifteen homicides in the two-week period before Halloween, District of Columbia Police Chief Cathy Lanier declared last weekend the fourth “All Hands on Deck” weekend since June last Thursday. The initiative, which requires all patrol officers to work eight-hour shifts during a 48-hour period, has been met with criticism from officer labor representatives and skepticism from community members.

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Saxa Politica: Let students see more syllabi

Pre-registration—that time of year when, for once, we plan for more than a few hours in advance. In choosing courses, students look at course titles, then move onto course descriptions and syllabi, which offer the most information about a class. However, many syllabi are notably absent. Students must have a course syllabus available to them at pre-registration in order to choose classes correctly.

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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.