Opinion

Thoughts from the Georgetown community.

Voices

The roaring bears of Brooklyn

As a National Park Ranger last summer, I was often asked what to do if a bear came into the campsite. This might be a standard question for most park rangers, but I wasn’t surrounded by Yellowstone’s erupting geysers or the rocky majesty of the Grand Canyon, but by weedy fields dotted with occasional clumps of pine trees at Gateway National Recreation Area. The park is Brooklyn’s largest national park, located on the southern tip of the borough. I follow the news pretty closely, but the frequency of the bear question left me wondering whether there was a rash of bear attacks sweeping New York that I hadn’t heard about.

By March 1, 2007

Voices

The rhetorical war against Iran

It has been over five years since George W. Bush’s State of the Union address in which he proclaimed that an “axis of evil” that included the countries of Iraq, Iran and North Korea “threaten the peace of the world.” Bush made it clear that he is willing to take action against such “evil” when he invaded Iraq in 2003, and now there is much discussion about what should be done with Iran and its ambition to obtain nuclear technology. Currently, Americans are being led to believe that Iran is a serious threat to their security (and Israel’s), yet this idea is simply false and based on misquotations and exaggerations.

By March 1, 2007

Voices

Carrying on: One man plays with his Wii

Back in middle school there was always one kid on the baseball team with gangly legs too long for his body and ears too big for his head: that athletic disaster that you didn’t want to see come up to bat, even though you knew that everybody gets to play in Little League. Remember how that kid didn’t really want to get up to bat either? I was that kid, and I excelled more in the field of videogames than on a physical field.

By March 1, 2007

Editorials

Step 1: Give students a box

Though we’re well into the “future,” it still feels like campus mail is stuck in the days of the Pony Express.

By the March 1, 2007

Editorials

Don’t make Hoyas’ home nicer

Looking to fund $50 million in renovations to the Verizon Center without opening up his checkbook, Washington Wizards owner Abe Pollin did what any sensible man would do: he turned to the D.C. Council.

By the March 1, 2007

Voices

The woes of Western Sahara

In the vast expanse of the Algerian desert, a hundred thousand refugees from the Western Sahara languish because of Moroccan imperialism. Exiled from their homeland 31 years ago, they wait while the international community averts its eyes from their travesty. As human rights abuses increase inside occupied Western Sahara and a food shortage in the Algerian camps becomes critical, the Western Saharan people need self-determination more than ever before.

By February 22, 2007

Voices

Blue glitter and black Sharpie

I never knew what to write in people’s yearbooks in high school. I wasn’t eloquent enough to state my feelings plainly and I was afraid of the alternatives: overly-sentimental messages that made me cringe or vapid goodbyes that made me question the strength of my friendships. But when my friends always finished their messages in my yearbook and could only wait for so long, I’d scribble something along the lines of “Remember the night we…” or “I could not have asked for a better roommate” and hand the bulky yearbook back, feeling fake.

By February 22, 2007

Voices

To the North and back again

No one is born looking and acting like a Georgetown student. Regardless of where you come from, you have to lose a bit of your identity in order to assimilate to life here. After a few weeks here you realize that your collar has crept up and you’re talking like your new friends from New Jersey.

By February 22, 2007

Voices

Carrying on: A glimmer of red-carpet glamor

I love the Oscars. I love the predictions, the ballots and the “May I have the envelope, please?” I love seeing who brought his mother—Clint Eastwood—and who brought his terribly young, terribly attractive date—Ian McKellen. For one night only, I love Joan Rivers. Every year, I am in front of the television when the countdown begins and the only one still excited when the Best Picture is named four hours later.

By February 22, 2007

Editorials

Homeless get no snow days

Roughly one percent of all residents in the District of Columbia are homeless, the highest per capita rate in the country.

By the February 22, 2007

Editorials

Unfreeze District’s blood supply

Last Wednesday’s whiteout had more serious effects than keeping a few professors from getting to work. The D.C.-Baltimore area may be wet with winter weather but its blood supply is significantly dried out.

By the February 22, 2007

Editorials

Three inches too much for D.C.

We learned this week that there is no better solution to icy roads than warm weather. It’s a shame we had to wait for it.

By the February 22, 2007

Voices

Carrying on: A desperate woman knocks

My dad and I had just sat down to a spaghetti dinner when the pounding on the door began. It was furious and incessant, as if someone were trying to knock the door down. My dad hurriedly shuffled to the door and opened it a crack. A screaming woman forced her arm through the opening and the rest of her body followed. Someone, she said, was trying to kill her. Running over, I caught a glimpse of the snowy moonlit expanse outside the front door. There, wild, noble-looking and gray, stood a Siberian Husky. The door slammed shut, and my dad twisted the deadbolt into place.

By February 15, 2007

Voices

Monologues counterproductive

I would like to thank Jessica Bachman (“Censure for a Censor”) for raising important questions about my not funding subsidies for tickets to the Vagina Monologues in my role as Faculty in Residence for the Culture and Performance Living and Learning Community (CPLLC). I would also like to thank her for writing a balanced article, even though the editorial staff of the Voice cut out most of her quotes of my substantive arguments. (I’ve seen the original form of her piece, and it is much better and fairer than what the Voice published.) I would, nonetheless, like to respectfully disagree with Ms. Bachman’s opinion that my conscientious decision not to subsidize tickets to the Vagina Monologues was religious discrimination against the students who wanted to see it. My current policy is to personally match the price of each ticket purchased by a CPLLC member with a donation to My Sister’s Place, the charity that the Monologues support. I feel that this is a reasonable compromise between either subsidizing the tickets or not subsidizing them.

By February 15, 2007

Editorials

Planting a new SEED

Imagine being in a lecture class of 100 people, in which five or six come down with a disease. Normally they would be rushed off to treatment, and steps would be taken to ensure the safety of the rest of the students, right?

By the February 15, 2007

Editorials

A green, clean, energy-saving campus

Going green is a grassroots movement. Just as our nation’s leaders have been reluctant to change, universities have other priorities, like raising money and attracting top professors.

By the February 15, 2007

Editorials

Student loans, sleaze and subsidies

Hitting all of the usual sweet spots—defense, Medicare, Social Security—President Bush’s latest budget also takes a small but important step towards fixing a problem inhibiting fair student lending: private lending companies.

By the February 15, 2007

Voices

You say tomato, I say you’re wrong

“Can I get a glass of water?”

“I’m sorry, a glass of what?”

“Water.”

“No, you said ‘wooder’. In the rest of the country, we pronounce it wa-ter.”

By February 15, 2007

Voices

From D.C. to a dung hut

If you had predicted freshman year over dinner at Leo’s that I would join the Peace Corps, I would have laughed till ginger ale shot out my nose. Then I would tell you about a trip my family took to Kenya when I was seven. I ate gazelle, chased baboons, and enjoyed myself thoroughly. But, visiting a Masai village, my brother pointed at the walls of the dung huts and told me just what dung was. Shit? I was in the Business School freshman year, and though I didn’t know what I wanted to do after, my plans in no way included a dung hut in Africa.

By February 15, 2007

Editorials

GU needs more diversity

Pearls and freshly fallen snow aren’t the only overwhelmingly white features of the Georgetown campus; the student body here on the hilltop remains true to its tradition of a prevailing Caucasian majority.

By the February 8, 2007