Opinion

Thoughts from the Georgetown community.



Voices

Asking for a definition

Things couldn’t get much worse for the Catholic Church. In the past few years, a spate of scholarly books have taken the ecclesiastic hierarchy to task for its abominable treatment of European Jewry during the Holocaust; similar tomes have unraveled the manufactured mythology the Church used to quell critics past and present regarding its collaboration with Italian and German fascism.

Voices

Letter to the editor

I am writing this letter in response to the Mar. 21 article, “Finding a place in Asian-America” by Andrew Lin. In it, Lin derides the Asian-American youth scene in Los Angeles and describes his (unsuccessful) attempt to escape it by enrolling at Georgetown.

Editorials

How are we doing?

As part of the reaccreditation process by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, Georgetown last month released a self-study report that looks into various components of University life and offers over 100 specific recommendations for suggested improvement.

Editorials

Marijuana: Why not?

District of Columbia voters will have the chance to vote, perhaps as early as November, on the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes following a March 28 ruling by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan.

Sullivan overturned a federal law known as the Barr Amendment that forbade the District from placing the question on the ballot, decreeing that the Barr Amendment limited free speech and he judged that “the Constitution does not allow Congress to pre-clear acceptable viewpoints for public debate and expression.

Editorials

Crack kills

Show us an efficient super-criminal with civic aspirations, and we’ll show you a way to get this city running tight as a drum. Unfortunately, all anybody’s been able to show us is last week’s Metro section story in the Washington Post detailing former D.C.

Voices

Finding a place in Asian-America

I hail from the Los Angeles megalopolis, a region renowned for its Californian sunshine and super-sized East Asian population. While in high school, I used to detest this sad fact. No, I did not have yellow fever, and the Asian-American youth scene was rather despicable.

Voices

Ending on a positive note

Second semester senior stress? Is this actually happening? It’s always been ingrained into my head that second semester seniors and stress went together like Georgetown men’s basketball and the NCAA Tournament. Seniors told me last year that no one studies second semester, no one worries, no one stresses and everyone just kicks back with a beer or 10, ticking off the days until graduation.

Voices

Letter to the editor

If cities truly exist to “poison and mar their surrounding environment,” as they do according to Ian Bourland, then the question “Why rate a city?” in his diatribe “Philadelphia does not deserve to live” (March 14, 2002) quickly becomes all the more puzzling.

Editorials

A black and white issue

Georgetown has a reputation as an African-American-friendly school. Surveys in Black Enterprise, movies such as Boyz N’ the Hood and Georgetown’s stories basketball program have created the popular image of an institution that is open and welcoming to black students.

Editorials

Too much compromise

In a letter to the campus community released Tuesday, Vice President for Student Affairs Juan Gonzalez detailed his proposed compromise on the issue of a resource center for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. This compromise represents an important step forward for the University, but it raises questions about the administration’s decision-making process.

Voices

Kaap Stad

“Kaap Stad, brotha?” the toothless man in the window asks as the minibus slows down to the curb. “Yeah.” I hop in to the crowded taxi and fork over two-rand-fifty for the ride into town from Mowbray, my neighborhood. That’s less than 25 American cents. The vehicle is crowded, as they usually are.

Voices

Philadelphia does not deserve to live

I am one of the few, the proud transplants from the western United States to Georgetown. Upon my arrival two years ago, I was confronted with a host of perplexing new experiences: subways, stupid accents and, most amazingly, condensed travel time. The rapidity of, nay, the existence of interstate train travel allows one to traverse the Eastern Sea Board in the time it takes to drive to many of the respective state lines west of the Mississippi.

Editorials

The season’s over?

This past Sunday, the Georgetown Hoyas Men’s basketball team decided not to play in the National Invitation Tournament, ending its streak of 27 straight postseason appearances. Head Coach Craig Esherick said that his team initially accepted an offer but eventually declined because tournament officials could not guarantee them a home game at the MCI Center?which will host part of the NCAA Tournament?or an away game close to Washington, D.

Editorials

Changing the Church

A scandal has erupted among Catholic parishioners that has become a national disgrace. The Boston Globe reported Jan. 6 that the archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Bernard Law, had sheltered a pedophiliac priest rather than reporting him to the authorities. When Cardinal Law discovered that this priest had raped several boys, he simply sent him on sabbatical to Rome, the Globe reported.

Editorials

Knock Tyson out of D.C.

Sadly, the D.C. Boxing and Wrestling Commission voted unanimously at Tuesday’s public hearing to grant former world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson a license to fight in Washington, D.C., which may result in a June 8 bout between Tyson and current champion Lennox Lewis at the MCI Center.

Voices

On the comedy of a century

If I were to write a novel, it would definitely be set in the 19th century. Because, as I think we can all agree, the 19th century is the most hilarious century of them all. Of course, I wasn’t the first person to figure this out; popular culture today is replete with references to this age.

Voices

Letter to the editor

It’s rare that a single off-the-court decision can end two decades of consistency, undermine the legacy of recent players, send one of the school’s best players out on a sour note, alienate fans and harm the current players’ chance for future success. Skipping the NIT manages to accomplish it all.

Editorials

Equal-opportunity speech

Red Square, Georgetown’s designated free-speech zone, was the center of controversy Friday when two groups of Georgetown students staked out the area. One group chalked up Red Square and posted flyers reading, among other things, “There are Gay Hoyas, too” and “There are Lesbian Hoyas, too.

Editorials

Every career fair counts

Last Wednesday night, Vice President for Student Affairs Juan Gonzalez indefinitely postponed a progressive career fair that was scheduled to take place the following day in the Leavey Program Room. The Student Activities Commission-approved fair was organized by GU Pride and H*yas for Choice, a group not recognized by the University, and was to feature organizations such as Catholics for Free Choice, Amnesty International and Choice USA.

Editorials

Big Brother’s back again

In addition to those currently in use on M Street and Wisconsin Avenue, the Metropolitan Police Department has introduced even more security cameras across the city that threaten the rights of District residents. The new Joint Operations Command Center brings together video feeds from the newly-installed and the existing cameras to form the largest network of video surveillance cameras in the United States.