Opinion

Thoughts from the Georgetown community.



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.

Editorials

DPS, spread your wings

The D.C. City Council is scheduled to vote next week on a bill that would allow extended cooperation between campus police and the Washington Metropolitan Police force. The bill would potentially allow the Department of Public Safety to extend its patrol to areas outside of campus that are heavily populated by students, such as Burleith and West Georgetown.

Editorials

Unfriendly borders

Exactly one year after the attacks of Sept. 11, the federal government has inaugurated a new, more stringent system for screening immigrants at some ports of entry to the United States. Immigration agents must now fingerprint and photograph foreigners who fit certain criteria for potential terrorist activity, criteria that the Justice Department refuses to disclose.

Voices

Letter to the Editor

Last week’s editorial on the upcoming World Bank/IMF protests, (“Wanted: Police protection,” Sept. 5), while supporting the easily defendable sentiment that safety is important and that everyone should feel secure, nevertheless completely misses the essential issues, relying upon the faulty premise that spending more money to provide more police officers and more riot gear is the best way to ensure safety and security for the city.

Voices

GUSA’s flawed tribute

If you walked around campus yesterday, you would have undoubtedly noticed many commemorations in remembrance of the tragedy of Sept. 11. In all, 3,025 people were murdered on that day, representing 82 countries. What you would have missed while walking through Red Square, however, were the flags of 68 nations who lost citizens.

Voices

The benefits of a full-on homestay

I was supposed to leave for England later this month in order to begin a year abroad at St. Peter’s College, Oxford. Yes, I was mere weeks away from gowns, tea, cake, cloudy weather and all of the other attendant debauchery of the U.K. experience when I made my decision to cast it all aside in favor of other pursuits, the first of which is a few weeks abroad at a little place called my parents’ house in Denver.

Editorials

Where are we GOing?

The promise of the Georgetown One Card was enough to make all Georgetown students salivate. Finally, there would no longer be a need to carry a separate laundry card, printing card and ID card, to get a stick-on barcode to check out books from the library, and to use a University ID number, which happened to be most people’s social security number, for Munch Money purchases.

Editorials

Wanted: police protection

On Sept. 25, thousands of protesters are expected to flock to the District to protest the latest round of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings. In the past the city has responded admirably, providing enough police officers to create a safe environment without being threatening or constricting.

Editorials

This joke is played out

Poverty and homelessness are a major problem in the District. According to the D.C.-area non-profit group Help the Homeless, as of 1999 almost one-fifth of the city’s population lived in poverty. Nearly one-quarter of the city’s renters could not afford a one-bedroom apartment.

Voices

Oh my god! We’re seniors!

Oh my god you guys, I can’t BELIEVE we’re seniors! This is going to be the best year of our lives, I swear. You’re all, like, my best friends, and there’s seriously no one I’d rather have fun with. And there’s so much fun to be had! I mean, senior disorientation is coming up.

Voices

Letter to the Editor

Ben’s Chili Bowl: A Taste of the Real Washington?

Upon reading your year-opening spread on leisure in D.C. (“New in Town?” Aug. 22), I became a bit disenchanted. Although eye-opening and consistent in format, many of the paragraphs written about local venues were written from an angle often less taken.

Voices

She works hard for the money

Have you ever had a real job? I mean, an honest-to-goodness clock-in-clock-out here’s-your-company-polo-shirt job? I don’t think you have. I’m disappointed in you. I was hard-pressed to put my finger on it at first. We all look pretty similar. Yet still, I found some subtle difference between myself and most of the people I knew back in the day?high school?and my new companions.

Voices

Requiem for The Madness

The infectious strain of Nicely Nicely Johnson’s solo from Guys and Dolls wafts haphazardly about the dusty attic of my addled thoughts. Driving nine hours straight. I cough uncontrollably for 15 seconds, gasping for breath and frantically searching my pockets for my inhaler.

Editorials

A poor first impression

It’s 7 p.m. You’re meeting your friends for dinner and you need cash for a cab. You go to Leavey to use the Georgetown University Alumni and Student Federal Credit Union’s Automated Teller Machine, but it is down. You run to New South, but that ATM is not working either.