Opinion

Thoughts from the Georgetown community.

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.

By the September 26, 2002

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.

By the September 26, 2002

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.

By the September 26, 2002

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.

By the September 26, 2002

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).

By the September 19, 2002

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.

By the September 19, 2002

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.

By the September 19, 2002

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.

By the September 19, 2002

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.

By the September 19, 2002

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.

By the September 19, 2002

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.

By the September 19, 2002

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.

By the September 12, 2002

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.

By the September 12, 2002

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.

By the September 12, 2002

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.

By the September 12, 2002

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.

By the September 12, 2002

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.

By the September 12, 2002

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.

By the September 5, 2002

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

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