Opinion

Thoughts from the Georgetown community.

Editorials

GU holds its first Women’s Week

Feminist author and blogger Jessica Valenti wanted to know what words came to Georgetown students’ minds when they heard the word “feminism.” The responses from the predominantly female audience included words such as “angry” and “bra-burning.”

“Most young women are feminists, have feminist values, but are too freaked out to use the word,” Valenti said.

By March 27, 2008

Voices

Looking past the smoke and mirrors

Contemporary airlines have done everything they can to convince squirrelly passengers that riding in their jolly contraptions is virtually the same as traveling in a car. Southwest Airlines, with its uniformly perky staff, brightly colored planes and incessant “ding!”-ing has become an industry leader, largely thanks to the company’s ability to make truculent travelers feel at ease. Nevertheless, on March 6th, the F.A.A. levied a record-breaking $10.2 million fine on the airline for its failure to ground planes that had not been properly inspected and certified as up to code. And no khaki-clad, coddling flight attendant or cute cobalt-blue plane could change that.

By March 27, 2008

Page 13 Cartoons

Lying her way to the highest office in the land

When did misspeaking become synonymous with lying? When Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) suggested that she merely misspoke about coming under sniper fire in Bosnia, her statement was not an error in recollection, it was a lie. It is only one of many lies put forward by the junior Senator from New York as she desperately scrambles to save her nearly mathematically impossible campaign for the Democratic nomination.

By March 27, 2008

Voices

Promoting abstinence while screwing students

“For a while, I honestly wondered whether it was worth using a condom at all,” a friend told me when I asked her—a well-grounded, intelligent girl what she thought about her four years of abstinence-only sexual education at our high school.

By March 27, 2008

Page 13 Cartoons

Helping Haiti to help itself

The poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere is merely a few hundred miles from the tip of Florida. What was once France’s richest colony and the first Caribbean island to gain its independence is now a country where people lack the basic amenities of the 20th century—running water, electricity and plumbing. Haiti is an incredibly beautiful island, but it has been afflicted and bankrupted for decades by despotism and conflict.

By March 27, 2008

Editorials

How to repair our national lawn

Although the National Mall is home to memorials to our nation’s Founding Fathers, it is treated like Washington’s ugly stepchild. The facilities are neglected and dirt patches grow faster than grass. As the front yard of the nation’s capital, the Mall deserves better than its current disgraceful state.

By the March 13, 2008

Editorials

Bill leaves D.C.’s workers ailing

Last week, Washington became the second city in the country to force businesses to provide paid sick leave to their employees. While the Council should be commended for following San Francisco’s lead and protecting the city’s working poor, it should reverse the pro-business amendments that dramatically reduce the legislation’s effectiveness.

By the March 13, 2008

Editorials

Hard time has come for reform

Prison, meant to be a punishing interlude before a return to society, has become a way of life for too many Americans. The Pew Center on the States released a report last month that found the United States imprisons more people than any other country in the world, with one in every 99.1 adults an inmate in a federal or state prison.

By the March 13, 2008

Voices

Rebuilding New Orleans

My last few spring breaks have consisted of lounging around, drinking heavily and doing a lot of nothing. I was sick of it, so last week I chose to mix it up and head down to New Orleans with GU’s Habitat for Humanity group. The 24 of us were excited to get down to business and build some houses when we arrived.

By March 13, 2008

Page 13 Cartoons

The El Salvador Experience

What I heard at dinner on the first night of spring break was hard to believe. A group of seven other Georgetown students, two leaders from Campus Ministry and I spent the break in El Salvador as part of the “Magis Immersion and Justice Program,” and to kick off our trip we went to a small restaurant with our guide and bus driver. I was practicing my Spanish and chatting with our driver, Santos, about how much I was looking forward to the week. It was Santos’ response that took me by surprise. Rather than returning my excitement or laughing along with me, he became very solemn and told me this would be one of the most important weeks of my life. He told me that our group would be learning and seeing so much during our time there that our lives would be changed afterward. I found Santos’ statement touching, but couldn’t help but think he was being a little dramatic. I knew I would be exposed to different lifestyles and challenges during the trip, but it seemed unlikely that one week could change my life.

By March 13, 2008

Voices

Time to live up to Catholic justice

An institution has got to live by a code. That goes for Georgetown, too, and its Jesuit ideals.

By March 13, 2008

Voices

Blogging your way to the rich and popular table

In the space of a year and a half, I have managed to further the independence movement of a small African country. Am I staging a die-in in Red Square? No, I’m doing something that actually achieves results: blogging.

By March 13, 2008

Editorials

Time to run off voting system

After deciding which Student Association tickets to vote for from the plethora of candidates, actually casting the vote should have been the easy part. But when Georgetown students logged on to vote last Thursday, they were greeted with a ballot that managed to be an online analogue to GUSA itself: confusing and tedious. Voting was so flawed that GUSA will hold a run-off between the top four tickets because the GUSA Senate refused to certify the results. It’s time to ditch the multiple-choice ballot and instant-runoff voting.

By the February 28, 2008

Editorials

GUSA: Out with old, in with new

Ben Shaw (COL ’08) took office last February promising to bring the student body free national newspapers, extend the add-drop period and represent the student body to the University administration. As Shaw’s term ends, two of those goals have been fulfilled.

By the February 28, 2008

Editorials

Clinton shouldn’t fake comeback

One year ago, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) seemed poised to win the Democratic presidential nomination in more of a plebiscite than an election.

By the February 28, 2008

Editorials

NEWS HIT

Free national newspapers are finally set to arrive on campus the Monday after spring break, almost a month after Student Association President Ben Shaw (COL ’08) promised the papers would be here.

By February 28, 2008

Voices

A dose of reality and disillusionment

If I had to pinpoint the problem with the United States government, my answer would be simple. Me.

By February 28, 2008

Voices

Trying to translate the US political system to German

In the month that I’ve been working in Germany before my semester begins, I’ve learned plenty: what a plus sign in a phone number means, how to say instantaneous [augenblicklich] and to buy groceries on Saturday, since everything is closed on Sunday.

By February 28, 2008

Voices

Roadtrip: Seeing America right

Everyone our age remembers (and maybe even occasionally watches) the 90s classic “The Sandlot.” It had all the elements of a cinematic triumph: the backdrop of 1960s America, James Earl Jones and baseball. Plus, you had to admire Squint’s cajones when he made out with va-va-voom lifeguard Wendy Peffercorn after fake-drowning. The movie brimmed with great moments, but the 4th of July scene is by far the best in the movie, a perfect pictorial encapsulation of summer-time bliss, in which the whole squad gazes in wonderment at fireworks splayed across the sky as Ray Charles’ bluesy rendition of “America the Beautiful” swells in the background. The only thing that could have made the scene more quintessentially “American summer” is if all the boys, inspired by patriotic pyrotechnics, had decided to hop in a Chevy and drive off down the highway to where the setting sun meets the waving sea of wheat.

By February 28, 2008

Voices

Attacking American Unreason

You’re dumb. It’s a message you can hardly avoid lately, unless you’re doing the very thing that’s making you dumb: not reading. Georgetown’s already told you so, in the form of a 72-page Intellectual Life Report that says you study less, drink more, and “earn” good grades more easily than your historical counterparts did. Your degree, it seems, will be a testament to an intellectual odyssey through a University in a “crisis stage.”

By February 28, 2008