Opinion

Thoughts from the Georgetown community.

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.

By the September 5, 2002

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.

By the September 5, 2002

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.

By the September 5, 2002

Editorials

Did you get that memo?

Twenty-four Metro police officers have been suspended as part of an ongoing internal investigation into a slew of offensive e-mails sent between squad car computers in 1999 and 2000. Executive Assistant Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer was quoted in The Washington Post as saying that the messages included comments such as ”’Let’s go punch this person,’ or, ‘Let’s go stop this person’ based on their race or gender or sexual orientation,” and that many others included vulgar or sexual banter.

By the August 29, 2002

Voices

Letter from the Editor

It is a classic trap that we all fall into: Working hard on day-to-day tasks, with our vision steered toward the future, we forget why we are doing what we are doing. We remember the past only casually, having noted our successes and our failures, what has worked and what hasn’t.

By the August 29, 2002

Voices

Holly: Best in show

Sometime before my brother and I were born, my parents made a pact that our family would never have a pet. They were too much trouble, my parents reasoned, and kids never took care of them even if they promised that they would. It always seemed so out of the question that I never pushed the issue.

By the August 29, 2002

Voices

A healthy portion of denial … on the side

As much as I would like to think that I’m not a fan of sappy movies, I am. Granted, my dad usually finds in me a willing movie-buddy when a new action film comes out, but I’d just as soon watch a Meg Ryan chick flick (well, maybe not Kate and Leopold). So imagine my glee this summer when I learned that my friend had never seen When Harry Met Sally.

By the August 29, 2002

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.

By the August 29, 2002

Voices

Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?

It was three o’clock in the morning, and after having spent hours conversing in French and sipping French wine with other students, my words in French were leaving my mouth in much the same fashion that boulders leave mountains. That’s when I decided it was time to go to bed.

By the August 29, 2002

Editorials

Deputizing the media

At the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, a bomb exploded, killing one and injuring more than 100. A hero was quickly made?a security guard who quickly led people away from the suspicious backpack containing the bomb, preventing further injury and death, was hailed and interviewed on several television networks.

By the August 29, 2002

Voices

Youth is wasted on me

To an objective onlooker, it would seem that I am turning into an old man. Don’t get me wrong, my wardrobe, in response to nearly eight weeks of indentured servitude in the foreign policy community, resembles that of a misguided eighth grader/rave hooligan (I don’t know which is worse).

By the August 22, 2002

Voices

For your entertainment

“You have to promise me that you won’t get six more earrings, an eyebrow ring or anything like that,” the store manager of the f.y.e. chain music store at my local mall said as she was about to hire me for the summer. “Sure,” I said smiling, picturing Ozzy Osbourne’s gratuitously tattooed forearms.

By the August 22, 2002

Voices

Misleading the American public

Cut to an an 18-year-old girl with a pale complexion. She says, “I helped kill a judge.” Cut to a young dark-skinned girl aged no more than 15. She states: “I help blow up buildings.” Cut to yet another girl who looks about 20 years old. Very proudly and without any sign of remorse, she says, “My life, my body.

By the August 22, 2002

Voices

An American renaissance

In light of the War on Terrorism and growing socio-political cynicism, it’s time for our nation to embark on a cultural and political renaissance to recapture the rich tapestry of human creativity within American society. The noble quest to elevate the public’s understanding and appreciation of its particular heritage is not novel.

By the August 22, 2002

Editorials

Gimme a U, gimme an I …

To most incoming first-years, the shiny new iMac computers in Sellinger lounge and on the lower floors of ICC represent one of the many novelties of university life. They inspire a vision of grandeur: They are part of an institution on the cutting edge of technology that constantly provides up-to-date means for carrying out a quest for knowledge.

By the August 22, 2002

Editorials

Asking to be written off

To the majority of Americans, talk of Washington, D.C. politics conjures one name?Marion Barry?and that name represents almost comical levels of corruption and mismanagement, overshadowing sometimes-great accomplishments. These days, Barry has for the most part left public life in the city he ran for nearly two decades, but events this summer proved his specter remains in the worst ways.

By the August 22, 2002

Editorials

Uproar in North Carolina

The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill was sued this summer for assigning 4,200 incoming first-years and transfers a book on the Koran as part of its First Year Book program, where students write an essay about a text and participate in a group discussion.

By the August 22, 2002

Voices

Lions and tigers and lesbians, oh my!

For our fall vacation, which South Africans refer to as simply “vac,” two friends and I went to Kruger National Park in the northeastern part of the country, right next to Mozambique. I never thought I would go on anything called a “vac,” let alone be able to tell people so nonchalantly that I was “right next to Mozambique,” as if it were the same as saying “right next to Burger King” or “right next to that bald man in sweat pants.

By the April 25, 2002

Voices

Worth a thousand words?

Somewhere in the bowels of my parents’ basement squats a large, plastic Tupperware-esque tub. It isn’t labeled; so if my parents ever make good on their threat to donate all their unclaimed junk to the Purple Heart, some stranger is going to become the proud owner of the collected memories of my life since age 12.

By the April 25, 2002

Voices

Dead rock stars

So, the corpse of Layne Staley, former lead singer of Alice in Chains, was discovered decomposing in his bathroom. I’m pissed off. Not because I harbor some sort of deep nostalgia towards the grunge scene, but because of my tortured love tetrahedron with Alice in Chains and the brothers McMillan.

By the April 25, 2002