Voices

Voices is the Op-Ed and personal essay section of The Georgetown Voice. It features the real narratives of diverse students from nearly every corner on campus, seeking to tell some of the incredibly important and yet oft-unheard stories that affect life in and out of Georgetown.

Voices

A hegemony of gluttonous ignorance

As America kicks into the new millennium with war, contradictions that have lurked beneath the surface of our society emerge everywhere, including Georgetown University. The author James T. Farrell wrote that “America is so vast that almost everything said about it is likely to be true, and the opposite is probably equally true.

By the March 27, 2003

Voices

We have a diverse student body … and toilets

When I was 16 years old, I read a profile in Rolling Stone about a pair of hotel management students on the “seven-year plan” at Florida State University. Written right after FSU had first been named the number-one party school in the nation, the journalist followed the students around their daily life, focusing especially on party scenes.

By the March 27, 2003

Voices

Nous accusons

No president has ever been quoted advising the American people to “Scream loudly and swing a big stick at everyone.” The recent methods of protest by many Americans, including Washington-area students, however, make the phrase more than applicable. The original quote by Theodore Roosevelt is “Speak softly, and carry a big stick.

By the March 20, 2003

Voices

Hit me dealer one more time

Out of the sun-eaten cotton fields of Mississippi, they rise like beacons of good tiding from the desolation that flanks them. At least an hour from the urban oasis of Memphis and past numerous billboards harkening their splendor, these self-sustaining complexes breathe life into both the agricultural lands that are their nearest neighbors and the myriad visitors that flock to their call every day.

By the March 20, 2003

Voices

A Sarajevo story

We stood at the Sarajevo bus depot, Mike and I, squinting into the sunlight that filtered down past the snowy hills through the tissue of smog that wrapped the city like a package. We were pretty pleased with ourselves for having gotten the Bosnia entry stamp in our passports, but we weren’t really certain what to do next.

By the March 20, 2003

Voices

Losing the right to be indifferent

Walking around campus after President George W. Bush’s speech on Monday night, I could hear people whispering and talking to each other. “Maybe we shouldn’t go to class tomorrow in protest.” “I blame Congress for giving him a carte blanche.” “We can’t let France dictate our national policy.

By the March 20, 2003

Voices

Come fly away with me

I am sitting in the Sbarro at the Miami International Airport. With six hours to kill before my connecting flight, I’m wondering what to do. I begin to concentrate on the couple next to me playing rummy. The husband-I assume they are married-is frustrated because he is losing.

By the March 20, 2003

Voices

?Donde est?n mis pantalones? Costa Rica!

Most of y’all are getting ready for Spring Break. You’re excited, I know. Girls, that bikini’s definitely gonna be sexy. I know you’ve been working hard in Yates so your bum looks cute for the frat boys. And Eduardo, your Speedo will look fabulous down in Brazil, trust me.

By the March 6, 2003

Voices

New York City, my Jerusalem

I stepped out of the bus into cold rain in Chinatown, New York City at 11 p.m. Friday night. It had already been a long night—six hours on a bus that had more rows of seats crammed into it than it was supposed to. All I wanted to do was get on the Q train, sit down in a place where I could move my legs, walk the six blocks to my row house in Brooklyn and get some sleep.

By the March 6, 2003

Voices

Home for the holidays

I have always looked on a bit surprised as those around me triumphantly declare that they are going home over a given weekend. I have never really felt comfortable at home—odd, given that home is supposed to be subjectively defined as where one is most comfortable, safe, familiar.

By the March 6, 2003

Voices

What would Jesus do?

Millions of dollars have been made from selling T-shirts, wristbands and bumper stickers inscribed with the letters “WWJD” short for “What Would Jesus Do?” A recent ad campaign aimed at curbing the use of gas-guzzling SUVs implied that Jesus would drive a more fuel-efficient vehicle out of his love for the environment and rhetorically asked, “What would Jesus drive?” Since the American public and marketing firms have poured millions of dollars into the idea of what Jesus would do, it is sensible to explore this question when we stand at the precipice of a major war led by a self-proclaimed Christian whose outbursts of evangelicalism are more frequent than Bob Dole’s erections.

By the March 6, 2003

Voices

Playing though the pain

I rotate writing this personal column with a senior in the college, Peter Hamby. He is my closest friend at Georgetown. Last spring, his brother Patrick died in a car accident. Peter’s never written a column about what happened. That’s because what he has to say is too overwhelming to fit into half a page.

By the February 27, 2003

Voices

They will like us when we win

Recently I have found myself arguing with my parents about the situation in Iraq. They believe that the Bush Administration is being too aggressive, and that France, Germany and Russia are taking the right approach. As a result, I find myself leaning toward supporting war solely out of spite.

By the February 27, 2003

Voices

Finding myself, between the sheets

Back in one of my high school English classes we read the great American novel, The Great Gatsby. Gatsby isn’t just any book to Manhasset, the town I grew up in. The novel takes place on our shore and surrounding locations. Seventy-eight years after its publication, the social mores of the novel survive.

By the February 27, 2003

Voices

Track 03–The Scientist

Snow means real life is paralyzed; the only way to spend a day pent up inside your house, because you can’t open your front door, is doing nothing at all. I watched Empire Records, and it was phenomenal. I’d forgotten how much I love AC/DC and Coyote Shivers, the flannel shirts and long greasy hair.

By the February 27, 2003

Voices

I kid you not

This past weekend, as I was standing behind my apartment and staring up at the trees that laid bare by the winter’s cold, I came to an important understanding about my life: I cannot have children. This sudden awareness of my procreational limitations was not an epiphany gained from watching the neighborhood squirrels.

By the February 20, 2003

Voices

My new weather control device is unstoppable

My new weather-control device is unstoppable. After years of top-secret research and development and months of focus-group testing on Kurdish tribesmen, I have tasted the succulent nectar of world domination just days before your President begins dropping bombs on my swimming pools.

By the February 20, 2003

Voices

How to fulfill a service requirement

You could easily waste a week questioning the merit of mandatory community service. While this may satisfy some deep philosophical need, it is a waste of time. The nuns will not back down. You might as well get it over with. First and most importantly: Get a friend in on it, preferably one with a good sense of humor.

By the February 20, 2003

Voices

I hate ‘Kumbaya’

I got a letter in the mail the other day. Usually, seeing my name on an envelope is like my birthday and Halloween all in one, but reading this particular letter was punishing, mean, even degrading. I, after all, was the one who had written it. When I wrote that letter, Father Pat promised me two things.

By the February 20, 2003

Voices

Earth-shattering epiphany

Who would have thought that a single color could be so loaded? Sure, plenty of colors mean something, make instant connections in your mind, but those tend to be cursory. Green, blue and yellow may mean something, but they don’t make a statement about you.

By the February 20, 2003