Voices

Gone and forgotten

Jon Sarasuak kontatzen dizkio Andoni Egan?ari Ixil-en artean bizitako batzuk Zozoak Beleari liburuan. In all likelihood, you do not recognize this language. If you do, you are one of twelve speakers of Itz? left in the world today. The Guatemalan language of Itz? is one of four hundred and seventeen languages classified as nearly extinct.

By the Voice Staff September 4, 2003

Voices

Celebrating the return of irony

After Sept. 11 2001, one pundit claimed that the stark presentation of good (courageous firefighters) versus evil (you know who), and its rude reminder of that seemingly forgotten but rather grave matter of “life and death”, brought to America “the end of the age of irony.

By the Voice Staff September 4, 2003

Voices

Style versus substance

You’re a little hungry. What’s the first thing you think of? New South, but that was last year. This year’s first-years will never have to experience our spectacular old dining hall with its one-way-in, one-way-out door, long lines and dirty, sticky floors.

By the Voice Staff September 4, 2003

Voices

More trite senior nostalgia

VOICES by IAN BOURLAND The rhetoric of official university statements, student-group campaigns and mass e-mails has always tended to ring hollow for me, as my eyes glide uncomprehending past assurances of the strength of our traditions and bonds as an intellectual and interpersonal community.

By the Voice Staff September 4, 2003

Editorials

A badly needed facility

Georgetown University is in the process of becoming a very different place. The recently completed Southwest Quadrangle is only one part of a larger University expansion plan, one which will eventually give the campus such badly needed facilities as a performing arts center and an on-campus basketball arena.

By the Voice Staff September 4, 2003

Voices

The inherent merit of ideas

Consider the word respect. Respect conjures an acceptance of ideas and concepts, of allowing each to share an idea. Likewise, respect entails constructive criticism, even going so far as to (gasp!) say that another’s idea may be wrong. Tolerating respect does not change the veracity of the idea; it merely puts forth another’s opinion of it.

By the Voice Staff August 28, 2003

Voices

I pus Saxa Gray

VOICES BY SCOTT MATTHEWS People still don’t believe you when you tell them you go to Georgetown? Maybe it’s the overalls and debilitating overbite, you hick. But anyway, the following list is a steady stream of nourishing conformity that new Hoya pups thirsty for acceptance can suckle (literally) straight from the teat of wisdom that is me.

By the Voice Staff August 28, 2003

Voices

Punish me

I used to get in trouble in sixth grade. All of the time. Unfortunately, I didn’t get an interesting reputation for it. I wasn’t the class clown, or one of the girls who got caught trying to sneak a bottle of cooking wine into the Halloween dance, or even the kid that nobody really paid attention to until they were stuck doing a group project with him and he promptly blew off doing his part.

By the Voice Staff August 28, 2003

Editorials

A responsible alcohol policy

The current University alcohol policy fails to accomplish its stated goal of ensuring “the most responsible approach for the use of alcohol.” The policy does not afford a reasonable amount of trust to students, resulting in a confrontational relationship between students and the University administration.

By the Voice Staff August 28, 2003

Editorials

Advocating for students

In July, Todd Olson became interim Vice President of Student Affairs after Juan Gonzales stepped down to take a position at Arizona State University. Olson brings a fair amount of experience to the job; he served as Associate Vice President for Student Affairs for Gonzales, and has had a great deal of interaction with student leaders.

By the Voice Staff August 28, 2003

Editorials

Progress at MPD

Last week, the District’s transgender community suffered a rash of violent crime that left two transgender persons dead and one in the hospital.

On Aug. 16, Bella Evangelista was shot dead by a man who had solicited her for oral sex and later discovered she was transgender.

By the Voice Staff August 28, 2003

Editorials

A tasteless commencement

The commencement speaker at Georgetown’s college graduation ceremony this May was Cardinal Francis Arinze, a well-known Nigerian prelate who has been mentioned as a possible successor to Pope John Paul II. Suggested as a speaker by College Dean Jane Dammen McAuliffe, the Cardinal was expected to discuss interreligious dialogue (he has a great deal of experience with Muslim-Christian relations).

By the Voice Staff August 21, 2003

Editorials

Too many buses

When Georgetown University sold the Medical Center to MedStar in 2000 to avoid further financial losses, part of their agreement addressed traffic and parking issues. It was agreed that by 2002, MedStar would control almost 2,800 of the 4,080 on-campus parking spaces allowed by zoning laws—800 more than the hospital could use previously.

By the Voice Staff August 21, 2003

Editorials

Nice quads

After many months of construction, the Southwest Quadrangle project is complete. Students have been moving in, and the building should be filled to capacity by this time next week, mostly with sophomores surly for having been denied a shot at a Village A rooftop.

By the Voice Staff August 21, 2003

Voices

Stoking the engines of hate

VOICES BY REV. EDWARD J. INGEBRETSEN, A.C.C. I write this as a priest. It may be that the homosexual is, as Vatican documents repeat, “inordinately disordered.” But what is rarely noted is the surely disordered, even pathological, reaction to the mere presence of the homosexual in Church contexts. In the words of the old curse, dogs bark and people run screaming from the street when the homosexual voice is heard.

By the Voice Staff August 21, 2003

Voices

The she that isn’t me

When summer comes along, temperatures and hormone levels rise and clothing and inhibitions are minimal, which causes a temporary cease-fire in the battle between the sexes. Like many girls, I met a guy this summer, a singer/songwriter who spent his summer living in Manhattan trying to “break into the music business.

By the Voice Staff August 21, 2003

Voices

Let’s hope it’s genetic

Every summer, my family, including my aunt, uncle and two cousins go on vacation for a week in August. While there are usually eight travelers in all, my mom and my aunt, affectionately called “the Pearson twins,” in honor of their maiden name, run the trip with an iron fist.

By the Voice Staff August 21, 2003

Voices

Discouraging lunacy

In 1973, New York University professor Oscar Newman published a book called Defensible Space, in which he analyzed the spatial layout of a number of housing projects, mostly in New York City, and compared their designs with their crime rates and their level of safety as perceived by residents.

By the Voice Staff August 21, 2003

Editorials

In compliance, at last

On Monday, April 14, the D.C. Zoning Commission finally gave preliminary approval of the construction of the University’s new MBNA Performing Arts Center, ending a semester-long fight between the University and local residents’ groups. The Commission’s decision should be applauded for allowing Georgetown to better serve its students and community, if not for its tardiness.

By the Voice Staff April 24, 2003