Opinion

Thoughts from the Georgetown community.



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.

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.

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.

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.

Voices

Letter to the Editor

When I saw the pro-Palestine protest on Friday, April 12 around the John Carroll statue, I thought it was great. I was impressed that our campus, often quiet, even passive in comparison to other universities, was making a statement and that it wasn’t the same annoying GLBT charade for the third or fourth weekend in a row.

Voices

Correction

In “Look for the union label: Georgetown’s wage gap” from April 11, the Voice incorrectly referred to Cesar Buenaventura as Cesar Lopez.

Editorials

Credit trouble

By unanimously passing Student Activities Comission Chairman Matt Connolly’s (CAS ‘04) resolution to abandon the current SAC funding system in favor of a new and supposedly more efficient system, GUSA has voted in a potential disaster.

Currently, clubs are supposed to keep money they receive from SAC and money they raise independently in University accounts.

Editorials

Le Pen is not an option

Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the xenophobic Front National party, has placed second in the the first round of the French presidential election. This was a stunning blow to Socialists and a triumphal moment for the right-wing extremist who campaigned on an anti-immigration and anti-European Union platform.

Editorials

It’s hotter than hell in Yates

You step inside and hand your card over to the Yates Memorial Field House staff member. Then it hits you. The sweltering air overwhelms you. It’s damp. It’s humid. It’s as hot as hell. Maybe even hotter. It continues as you take your first step down the stairs, and sweat already starts beading on your forehead before you’ve even lifted a weight.

Voices

Sleep junkie

The alarm begins its discordant wake-up call. Snooze. I realize that I have a paper to finish. Snooze. It needs to be done before I go to class at noon. Snooze. I have already gotten eight hours of sleep. Snooze. 10 a.m. seems like a perfectly reasonable time to get out of bed.

Voices

What senior life means to me

Seniors typically write their final pieces about what it means to be graduating, what they’re most going to remember about college, how they’ve changed, what it feels like to be entering the real world, how they’ve learned from their friends and what they feel like using their $150,000 brains for after getting their diplomas.

Voices

In praise of carelessness

About a month ago I was celebrating my birthday in New York with some friends. It was 2 a.m., and I had drank too much. One friend and I left the group in search of another bar we thought was close by. Three laps around the West Village and 45 minutes later, we realized we were lost.

Editorials

A drinking solution?

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism released a report about the alcohol culture at U.S. colleges last week. The statistics show that 1,400 college students die each year from alcohol-related injuries and that 70,000 students are victims of alcohol-related sexual assault or date-rape each year.

Editorials

Not good enough

The Georgetown University Student Association has agreed to a trial run of the USA Today Readership program. Through the program, copies of USA Today, The New York Times and The Washington Post are now available to students for no charge in their Residence Hall Offices.

Editorials

The coup that wasn’t

Political opponents ousted Venezuelan President Hugo Ch?vez from power last Thursday. Ch?vez’ attempts to replace the executives of the state-owned oil monopoly, in conjunction with a series of labor strikes and protests, convinced an alliance of military and business leaders that he was unable to rule the country effectively.

Voices

Take me back to the coke orgy!

Well, seniors, we’re almost there! I can’t believe it’s been four years already! Can you? Why, it seems like only yesterday that I was standing in a stuffy and humid New South dorm room, shaking hands with a complete stranger with whom I was about to spend the next nine months.

Voices

In defense of John Walker Lindh

After the attacks of Sept. 11, the rhetoric used by American leaders would lead one to believe that those responsible were attacking freedom and democracy, liberty and justice, ideals theoretically intrinsic to an American ideology. The truth is that the terrorists were attacking reckless American hegemony and economic and cultural imperialism.

Editorials

Don’t wash my square

Red Square’s “free speech zone” designation has been an easy way to foster debate on campus. Give students the freedom to voice their views, and they will usually take care of the rest. But the system does require a few controls. Otherwise, Red Square’s various capacities as message-board, canvas, stage, stump, science-fair-project-presentation area, etc.

Editorials

Why can’t we stay?

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Although the good doctor was most certainly not referring to Georgetown students right to live in high-priced community housing, the point still stands.

The West Cloisters Homeowner’s Association voted Wednesday on a measure to prohibit more than three unrelated individuals from living in a Cloisters residence.

Editorials

The darker side

On March 28, D.C. Inspector General Charles Maddox released a 514-page report detailing a series of fundraising inproprieties in the office of Mayor Anthony Williams. According to the report, mayoral aides tapped the accounts of local nonprofits for events and programs that were often politically beneficial for Williams and vigorously solicited donations from organizations with a business interest in the District government.