Opinion

Thoughts from the Georgetown community.



Voices

Flight of faith

There was a time in my life when I harbored serious disdain for those who catered to their own irrational fear of flying in airplanes. Indeed, what could be safer than an airplane? Trains derail, cars crash, pedestrians trip on curbs or get hit by said cars.

Voices

A broad at home

Every day can be a miracle, if only we let it. Of course, wallowing in self-pity and indulging our victim mentality, is so much easier, so much saucier. Who doesn’t want to deny the silver lining, the pleasant surprise that may lurk behind a failure? After all, embracing it could lead to a certain degree of happiness.

Voices

Confessions of a communications director

I’ll admit it: I was the one who suggested the classy-sounding titles. It was my feeling that the more seriously we took the Georgetown University Student Association campaign, the more important we could pretend it was. To avoid internal struggles, the candidate did not want to designate a “Campaign Manager.

Voices

Correction

The Georgetown Voice takes mistakes seriously. We will correct all mistakes of fact in our stories and publish appropriate clarifications as soon as possible. ? The Sept. 26 article “Protests may snarl downton D.C.,” incorrectly referred to the targets of last weekend’s protests.

Editorials

CSJ: Keep students in mind

In the spring of 2001, Kathleen Maas-Weigert was named director of Georgetown’s newly founded Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service. The Office of Volunteer and Public Service, which operates the majority of the University’s service programs, was placed under this new expansion.

Editorials

Funny how these policies turn up

Think that picture of a swimsuit-clad woman on your neighbor’s door is offensive? If you live in a University dorm, he has to take it down. Or so you might infer from the University’s Residence Hall policy, which according to Vice President for Student Affairs Juan Gonzalez, says, “The exterior doors of dorm rooms are considered communal space ? Material that is insulting or grossly offensive to other students that share or live in the same space is not permitted.

Editorials

Leave the McDonald’s alone

This weekend, an estimated 20,000 activists will descend upon the Washington area to demonstrate against meetings of the IMF and the World Bank. Like other protests in the last few years, these will be loosely organized gatherings of protesters ranging from union workers to anarchists.

Voices

A man for all seasons

I am a great man. I’m also really good looking. Fabulous, even. I have a variety of sports jerseys and a diverse music collection. I probably know more about basketball than you, and your favorite band definitely sucks as long as Rolling Stone says so. My eyebrows are quite defined, and I’ve been complimented on them a lot.

Voices

Letter to the Editor

I disagree with Gilbert Cruz’s article questioning the reputation of Seven Samurai (“Kurosawa classic hits AFI,” Sept. 12). Kurosawa’s masterpiece deserves every bit of praise it has received over the years and belongs at the top of the film canon for any student of the medium.

Voices

I gotta find peace of mind

I stand apart from my friends on the lawn of a concert venue during a Lauryn Hill show. I look through my glasses at Lauryn, sitting with her head wrapped. A spotlight focuses on her, her microphone and her guitar. An MTV logo floats behind her shoulder. She begins her song called “Mystery of Iniquity,” a guitar strikes and she croons, “It’s the mystery of iniquity ? “Said it’s the misery of iniquity ? “Said it’s the history of iniquity.

Voices

In love with Hearts

The Microsoft Hearts Network, or “Hearts,” while carelessly thrown into the Games folder with mere run-of-the-mill diversions, is a fine game deserving of occupying its very own folder. You may have passed over it for the lonely procrastinator’s favorite, Solitaire, the migraine-inducing Minesweeper, the not-without-its-charm Space Cadet Pinball or even for the tragically impoverished Freecell.

Voices

Exterminators of the world, unite!

I used to pride myself on thinking that I didn’t hate anything. Were there things that I strongly disliked? Of course. I could rattle off a somewhat excessive list of what I abhorred, detested and generally despised with little prompting. But I did not hate.

Editorials

Let’s get it online

The promise is as familiar as that of a milkshake machine at New South. For years Georgetown University Student Association candidates have been plastering the walls of our dorms with the pledge to create mandatory University-wide online syllabi for classes.

Editorials

Oops, they did it again

Ah, election season, when voters’ fancies once again decide the fate of the free world. Or, alternatively, when unusable machines and untrained poll workers threaten to wipe out 250 years of democratic progress, as was the case in the most recent Florida primaries.

Editorials

Do unto others …

On a January night in 1998, top-level Georgian diplomat Gueorgui Makharadze slammed his Ford Taurus into a line of cars waiting at a stoplight on Connecticut Avenue just blocks from Dupont Circle, killing a 16-year-old Maryland girl. Makharadze, who was driving drunk, initially claimed diplomatic immunity from arrest.

Voices

I’m sorry, something came up

This past weekend a group of friends and I went to see Swimfan at Union Station. As we were leaving the theater and entering the Metro station, we saw something fall in front of us, and it took me about 10 full seconds to realize that it was vomit. A guy in front of us was sprayed, looked up and shouted, “I can feel your pain, but Goddamn.

Voices

Barefoot and pregnant?

I am done with white girls and I am definitely done with cellulite. All I want these days is a nice down-to-earth Taiwanese girl who can make me traditional Taiwanese dinners. Is this asking for too much? I greet this question with a resounding no?I mean, packing lunches and cuisine with a more pan-Asian flavor is strictly optional (knowing how to cook up a mean dika misua may be a requisite but unagi-don or dolsot bibimbop is entirely up to her).

Voices

There would be other vines

You got a urinary tract infection when you were at school. You divulge the details to me over coffee, leaning in against the edge of the table, the two top buttons of your cardigan in view. You laugh out loud because it’s been so long since you’ve talked about piss.

Voices

Give this seat to a senior

“Compaq Presario … yup … 1275 … Celeron processor ? C-E-L-E-R-O-N. Yes, they still make those.” The hip technology that once made us the bees knees on campus now dates us as the older generation of students. Once beautiful computer desktops now look gray and boxy next to the smart-looking flat screen thingamajigs that the new students have purchased.

Editorials

It’s a campus, not a prison

In a misguided attempt to make campus safer, the University has attempted to increase security by implementing a 24-hour lock down policy at all dorms. This means that students’ GOCards only allow them access to the building in which they live. Last year’s policy stated that students with a valid Georgetown ID could enter any dorm between 8:30 a.