Voices

Spearhead with Mommy

“No thank you,” my mother said politely declining the joint a scrappy twenty-something stoner offered her. To some, it might seem bizarre to have complete strangers offer your parents drugs. By this point in the evening, though, nothing could faze me.

If someone had predicted this situation a mere week earlier, I would have bet my very life against them.

By the Voice Staff April 29, 2004

Voices

Enslaved by Zara

I see it. I am on a path toward it. Nothing will deter me now. With arms shaking under a load of acrylics and wool knits, I look straight ahead and imagine myself there-at the red and orange clothing rack across the room. The obstacles ahead present a challenge: meandering customers with wandering eyes, glancing at the shiny white walls in search of the perfect evening ensemble, a smart suit or a sales associate to assist them with their shopping needs.

By the Voice Staff April 29, 2004

Editorials

Kissinger shies from criticism

Last Friday, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger cancelled a lecture just hours before he was scheduled to arrive in Gaston Hall. In a letter sent to campus media, Ambassador Howard B. Shaffer, Deputy Director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, wrote that Kissinger cancelled after learning of a planned protest by GU Peace Action.

By the Voice Staff April 29, 2004

Editorials

Extortion not an option

Beginning in the fall of 2005, students hoping to study abroad will have to pay full Georgetown tuition. Currently, students pay the cost of their overseas program, plus a $3000 “administration fee” to Georgetown. Foreign universities, especially those in developing countries, are usually much cheaper, so students can end up paying very little for the semester or year overseas.

By the Voice Staff April 29, 2004

Editorials

Cicadas to invade, frighten

Members of the Class of 2004 may graduate amidst a million uninvited winged guests. According to a United States Department of Agriculture press release, “billions of large, noisy, winged, red-eyed insects,” 17-year cicadas, will fill the skies in mid-May, mating and dying out in mid-June, potentially “occupying large swaths of the eastern United States.

By the Voice Staff April 29, 2004

Voices

Sunshine boy goes to hell

Sounds of giggling and squealing are leaking through the hall as the couple next door play around with the vibrating, coin-operated bed. I’m sitting in my room at the Hotel 69 doing homework, automatically making me the biggest loser in the building. It doesn’t matter that everyone else in the building is porking an aging hooker, it still has to be more fun than memorizing characters from a textbook by the dim lamplight.

By the Voice Staff April 29, 2004

Editorials

A big step on a long road

Recently, University officials approved changes to Georgetown’s sexual assault policy that will become effective at the start of the 2004-05 academic year. Dr. Todd Olson, Vice President for Student Affairs, accepted the recommendations submitted by the Disciplinary Review Committee, which began a review of the policy after Advocates for Improved Response Methods to Sexual Assault (AFIRMS) released an analysis of the policy along with a series of proposals for reform in January 2003.

By the Voice Staff April 22, 2004

Editorials

Building a foundation

This week Jose Bowen, the Associate Professor and Director of Music, announced his departure from Georgetown University to take a position at Miami University of Ohio as the Dean of the School of Fine Arts. While we wish Bowen the greatest success at his new job, he will be greatly missed and his leaving is a disappointment for a university which is trying to expand its Fine Arts department.

By the Voice Staff April 22, 2004

Voices

Veggie nuts

Alex Johnston (SFS ‘07) plans on taking next year off to pursue an exciting career in the budding “nutraceutical industry.” Then he plans on retiring. “My parents made me promise that after I retire I’ll come back to my studies,” he says. But that doesn’t make it any easier for a budding millionaire to concentrate on school.

By the Voice Staff April 22, 2004

Voices

All the best cheerleaders get murdered

In 1991, a Mrs. Wanda Halloway was imprisoned for six months for plotting to kill Verna Heath, a prospective cheerleader, in an attempt to clear a spot for her own daughter on the cheerleading squad. This sordid tale has recently been adapted into a made-for-TV-movie.

By the Voice Staff April 22, 2004

Voices

Another pint for the expatriate

It was beautiful, really. Craning my neck to see past the crowd, I spotted my friend take hold of the two pints of Guinness from the bar and begin to weave his way through the throngs of the tipsy back to our table. He bumped into people, sure-it was impossible not to-but not even a drop of foam, let alone beer, skated down the sides of the glasses.

By the Voice Staff April 22, 2004

Editorials

Thompsons’ Tradition

We had the father. Now we have the son. If someone can round up a ghost, then the Georgetown men’s basketball team can finally hail itself as the Holy Trinity of college basketball.

John Thompson, III comes to Georgetown to try to succeed where his father excelled, but his father’s assistant couldn’t come through.

By the Voice Staff April 22, 2004

Voices

Read into this writing

I’m reading a book, and it’s a good book, but that’s just the problem. In the thick of the text, when plots and characters and language merge, and when scenes connect and stories layer, it all makes just too much sense. The details fit too well. The book crested into its crescendo, and I felt pressed to escape back into reality, back into my own head where questions are more common than manicured realities.

By the Voice Staff April 15, 2004

Voices

GOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!

Athletic traditionalists in America have decried the on-the-field antics of modern professional athletes, which they warn have trickled down to youth playing fields. They are nostalgic for the days when a player would just hand the ball back to the referee instead of working on his dance moves in the end zone.

By the Voice Staff April 15, 2004

Voices

Education is costly, sleep is priceless

Once again, the time has come to register for classes. Most people pretend that they choose their classes for their academic value, challenging topics, famous professors or utility. Others, like me, will admit that although these concepts linger in the back of their minds, in truth, their registration choices are largely driven by an innate laziness.

By the Voice Staff April 15, 2004

Editorials

Williams hits a foul deal

In the most recent ploy to lure the Montreal Expos to the District, Mayor Anthony Williams has promised Major League Baseball a stadium with a nearly $400 million price tag. However, it remains unclear where this money would come from. Williams has said that the city can fully finance the construction of the stadium, yet he has not shared the details with the D.

By the Voice Staff April 15, 2004

Editorials

A little respect please

The University of Maryland has recently taken disciplinary measures against three students with disruptive conduct for shouting during a February 29 speech at the Stamp Student Union by Lynne Cheney, the vice president’s wife. Two of the students, Chuck DeVoe and Ryan Grim, each shouted a question at Cheney-one about gay marriage, the other about reparations payments for slaves’ descendants-while the third student, Michael Cawdery, shouted an obscenity.

By the Voice Staff April 15, 2004

Voices

Georgetown’s colorful past

VOICES BY DONALD SHERMAN In the spring of 2000, students rallied in Red Square demanding that Georgetown University’s administration respond to racial discrimination and threats of violence on campus. The local news media interviewed student leaders and published stories highlighting these pockets of ignorance within our community and their effect on student life.

By the Voice Staff April 1, 2004

Voices

Here, child, finish your nothing!

It’s dark inside the room where I sit with the blinds drawn and the door locked, the only source of light a faint glow emanating from the tip of my cigarette. I’m naked, slumped in a chair with my shoulders hunched forward and squinting into the shadows around me, a half pot of cold coffee sitting next to me on the desk.

By the Voice Staff April 1, 2004