Opinion

Thoughts from the Georgetown community.

Voices

Pizza, sex and Santa Claus

Being a student guard isn’t all about fast women and loose cars like so many people think it is. It takes a lot more to be one of Georgetown’s elite, as the following excerpts from the diary of a retired guard proves: 8:15 p.m.-Arrive for my 8 p.m. shift right on time, try not to acknowledge the angry glares from the previous guard as he packs up his science fiction novels and coloring books.

By the October 9, 2003

Editorials

More unnecessary rules

For the past two weekends, Residence Life has limited residents of University townhouses to no more than four registered parties per weekend night. According to Dmitry Vovchuk, hall director for Alumni Square and University townhouses, the new cap is intended to limit weekend activity to a “legitimate number of parties” in order to address concerns over trash, noise and excess foot traffic.

By the October 2, 2003

Editorials

The power to improve

Power outages, whether storm-induced or not, inconvenience thousands of people, take time and labor to fix, and paralyze economic activity. The utility industry wants to get power back on as much as their customers want them to-no power means no billing for power.

By the October 2, 2003

Voices

The blunt end of the hurricane

When the lights went out, I was sitting on my couch, watching a Harrison Ford movie. In retrospect, I wish I had been up on the Village A rooftops catching Isabel full in the face. Instead, after a muddy round of tackle football, I retreated indoors, possibly due to my roommates’ infectious paranoia in the face of Mother Nature.

By the October 2, 2003

Voices

Life as a washed up celebrity look-alike

VOICES BY SCOTT CONROY I notice her gaze out of the corner of my eye. She’s hovering above me, as I sit at a table in Darnall, where I’m enjoying a meal with a friend. I make eye contact, and she flashes me a coy smile. Shooting a quick glance behind her shoulder, she receives a wave from her friend, indicating that she should go through with it.

By the October 2, 2003

Voices

Memo: How to ‘act’ sober

Last Saturday, inundated with so much work, I decided to stay in and read. Unfortunately, I happened to witness the remnants of someone else’s night on the town when I went downstairs. As I stepped into the elevator, however, I realized that someone had broken about three-fourths of the elevator lights in the brand new elevator.

By the October 2, 2003

Voices

Letters to the Editor

“Creative expression is ageless”

I enjoyed spending time with reporters Chris Norton and Mary Katherine Stump during last weekend’s Georgetown Independent Film Festival-an annual venue celebrating creativity, originality and uninhibited personal expression.

By the October 2, 2003

Editorials

Tailgating without tailgates

The annual Homecoming tailgate is going to look a lot different this year. The event has been moved from Lot T next to the Leavey Center to the McDonough Gymnasium parking lot, and no cars will be admitted to the tailgate area because of a lack of available space.

By the October 2, 2003

Voices

Last days of summer

The anthropologist Arjun Appadurai suggests in his analysis of the age of globalization that we can trace the international flow of identities and culture by following a particular good or idea. We can note each permutation and appropriation of that idea as a unique glimpse into the lives of global consumers.

By the September 25, 2003

Voices

A culinary renaissance

My personal and highly arbitrary definition of art is that it is something that brings the viewer or participant a little closer to the sacred that resides within the artist. When art was the subject of countless philosophers’ attentions, it was relegated to four basic spheres: visual, auditory, performative, and rhetorical.

By the September 25, 2003

Voices

Oh, Isabel

VOICES BY VANESSA MACHIR Let me explain something. I do not strip. I do not get naked. Unless nudity is an intrinsic requirement of a situation, the clothes stay on at all times. Not during the most aggressive heat strokes or my most embarrassingly drunken moments have I ever felt the urge to disrobe.

By the September 25, 2003

Voices

Letters to the Editor

I was disappointed to see Dave Stroup’s column on vouchers (“Vouching for D.C.,”News, Sept. 18) that amounted not only to a thinly veiled attack on school choice.

By September 25, 2003

Editorials

Ready for Isabel

Empirical evidence has now demonstrated that, like werewolves in a full moon, Georgetown students go insane during hurricanes. On Thursday night, in the thick of Isabel, students were doing things that they probably need to do more often-mud wrestling on the front lawn, bonging beers in the driving wind on Village A’s rooftops accompanied by chants of “IS-A-BEL! IS-A-BEL!”, making out in the rain, and generally rocking like a hurricane.

By the September 25, 2003

Editorials

When bedfellows unite

The Knights of Columbus, and AFIRMS are about as dissimilar as any two campus groups at Georgetown. The first is a longstanding pro-life Catholic fraternity, the second a group of mostly female students committed to changing the University’s policies regarding sexual assault.

By the September 25, 2003

Editorials

Father Pat: You’ll be missed

Ask a first-year student to name a Jesuit priest at Georgetown, and “Father Pat” will most likely be their response. What’s really surprising is that he could probably name them as well. Rev. Patrick Conroy, S.J. has been well known during his years at Georgetown as a Jesuit who knows students, and the students will miss him when he leaves for Jesuit High School in Oregon in December.

By the September 25, 2003

Editorials

Men’s soccer yet to get on the ball

The Hoyas dropped another Big East contest Sunday, losing 2-1 to No. 8 Notre Dame at Alumni Field in South Bend, Ind. The Hoyas drop to 3-4-2 overall and 1-3-0 in the Big East.

Notre Dame was first to get on the scoreboard when senior forward Justin Detter scored on a perfect cross from fellow senior-midfielder Chad Riley and senior-midfielder Kevin Richards in the 28th minute.

By the September 25, 2003

Voices

My man wears a gorilla suit

VOICES BY ANNE GLIDDEN Each week, one of my favorite activities is to read the “I Saw You” section of the Washington City Paper. Admittedly, it’s a rather dorky way to celebrate the passing of yet another week, but I do enjoy ordering my overpriced Evil Empire from Uncommon Grounds and cozying up with the City Paper.

By the September 18, 2003

Voices

Fear mongering is my anti-drug

Like most first-years coming to Georgetown, I had a difficult time adjusting to college life. I was nervous about making new friends and being in a different environment. I was beset by problems and self-doubt; my parents had just been brutally murdered and, worst of all, I was fat.

By the September 18, 2003

Voices

The great Bengali monsoon wedding

There is a scene in Mira Nair’s film, Monsoon Wedding, where the bridegroom asks his fianc?, handpicked by his parents, about the odd similarity between an arranged marriage and a “love match?” “Well, how much more risky can this arranged marriage thing be from meeting one night in a noisy and smoky bar and hooking up?” he asks.

By the September 18, 2003

Voices

Letter to the Editor

I want to congratulate Rob Anderson and Mike DeBonis on their centerfold article on the Southwest Quadrangle (“Our campus, our space,” Cover, Sept. 11). It is well written and shows considerable knowledge of architecture. And I laughed out loud when I read, “If God is in the architectural details, Georgetown lost its faith long ago.

By the September 18, 2003