Opinion

Thoughts from the Georgetown community.

Editorials

Improving D.C.’s needle exchange

Five percent of the District’s population has HIV, according to a report released by Washington’s Department of Health, which also found that 13.2 percent of new HIV infections came from injected drugs. With infection rates so high, the city’s lack of support for needle exchange programs is dangerously negligent.

By the November 29, 2007

Editorials

Make Amtrak funding a priority

The federal government should increase Amtrak’s funding in order to give train travel, one of the safest, greenest forms of public transportation, the jolt it need

By the November 29, 2007

Editorials

Every vote counts (including yours)

It’s been a couple of years since P. Diddy told us to vote or die, but even without a death threat, it’s time for another stab at the democratic process. If you haven’t already obtained an absentee ballot for the upcoming presidential primaries, pick one up while you’re home for Thanksgiving break.

By the November 15, 2007

Editorials

Let WGTB run its own concerts

GPB should not have control over concerts, especially if groups like WGTB, which has a history of putting on solid shows, go through the trouble of booking the artists.

By the November 15, 2007

Editorials

Keep athletes safe by fixing Kehoe

A field that is unsafe for visiting varsity athletes is equally unsafe for Georgetown’s club and intramural athletes, and the University should not be this careless about student safety.

By the November 15, 2007

Voices

This man is living the dream, occasionally

After graduation, I moved to the big city with three friends from high school to play our own radical take on the music we grew up listening to together. Our band was called … let’s just say it starts with L and ends with Zeppelin. Fortunately, one of our members had spent some time touring with the Yardbirds while I was in school, so we were entering the game with a pretty high level of professionalism. Our debut album drew a little bit of noise from the press and the fans alike, we toured here and there, and before you could say “alcohol poisoning” it was all black magic and mud sharks. Then our drummer died in a pool of his own vomit.

By November 15, 2007

Voices

I wanna really, really, really, wanna zig-a-zig ha

My most enduring memory of elementary school is not learning how to read or memorizing multiplication tables, but rather my complete infatuation with the Spice Girls. Their first album, Spice, was the first CD I ever owned. Along with my two best friends, I spent most of second and third grades obsessing over the group.

By November 15, 2007

Voices

Hey baby, want to run a race?

Once D.C. turns cold, I bring my workout routine to Yates. What I have learned from my time spent there, though, is not the secret to great abs, but rather that Yates is a place of strange occurrences. If you have ever heard the barbaric cries from the varsity weight room or thought a man lying next to you on the mats was dead (is that just me?), you know what I’m talking about.

By November 15, 2007

Voices

Carrying On

Quinn’s criticism is extreme. While the war in Iraq may not be the topic of conversation every day of the week, Georgetown has not forgotten about it.

By November 15, 2007

Voices

Carrying On

The biggest disadvantage of being raised by my single father was having to eat his cooking. My father and I both viewed cooking as a mysterious, unfathomable process on par with raising a child from the dead or constructing a nuclear submarine using nothing but a hatchet. There was something vaguely suspicious about it, and we avoided it at all costs.

By November 8, 2007

Voices

Gyrating hunks, not courtside dunks

My friend didn’t have to work the Championship game and managed to obtain two floor seats. The significance of this game was lost on me. I made other plans. Instead of opting to watch ten tall, athletic men compete in a basketball game, we decided to watch 15 tall, athletic men strip, dance and gyrate like helicopter propellers. I picked my friend up from work and we stumbled out of Madison Square Garden and downtown to Club Avalon, home of the USA Hunk-o-Mania Show. (God bless America.)

By November 8, 2007

Voices

Never stop exploring

The thump of the chopper’s rotors is deep, felt more than heard. I look out the window and see swirls of snow flying away from the chopper’s side, down the 11,000 feet of mountain slope hanging beneath us. In the distance, the Grand Tetons reach up toward the sky. Next to me are my brothers, Cameron and Graylan, and my dad; like me, they’re helmeted, goggled and gloved, boots buckled tight against their feet, jackets zipped to the top. We look like the Tenth Mountain Division, but we’re not soldiers. We’re skiers.

By November 8, 2007

Editorials

Increase financial perks for filmmakers

The lack of sufficient economic incentives makes it financially unfeasible for most productions to film in D.C. for an extended period of time. The District should increase these incentives in order to give the local economy a boost and let lesser-known neighborhoods get their share of screen time.

By the November 8, 2007

Editorials

Keep the District’s gun ban alive

The Supreme Court should take Fenty’s case and uphold the constitutionality of the District’s gun ban.

By the November 8, 2007

Editorials

Don’t show GUSA the clubs’ money

GUSA already has significant control over student activities funding, including the final say, but it should not take over SAC’s job of allocating money among individual clubs.

By the November 8, 2007

Voices

No refuge for former child soldiers

Walking to the market, an eleven-year-old boy is arrested by the National Patriotic Front of Liberia. They ask him to join their army and to kill a captured Armed Forces of Liberia. When he refuses, they threaten his life, forcing him to comply. The boy spends the next few years on the front lines, being threatened at knifepoint to kill other men and children. Such was the norm in Liberia during the late eighties and early nineties.

By November 1, 2007

Voices

Learning how to run like a queen

Thousands lined 17th street waiting for the race to start. Maybe it was the dazzling amount of glitter, sequins and rhinestones in one place, or maybe it was a mixture of our amazement and envy, but the drag queens were statuesque and awe inspiring.

By November 1, 2007

Voices

Ever try to write 50,000 words in 30 days?

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. During NaNo, as insiders call it, participants challenge themselves to pen a 50,000 word novel in the thirty days of November. Winners are novelists. Losers, well—nothing ventured, nothing gained.

By November 1, 2007

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.

By November 1, 2007

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.

By the November 1, 2007