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

Discovering Egypt through amoebic dysentery

My efforts to live like a local certainly did reap cultural dividends, just not the kind I expected. A few days later, I started feeling sick and developed a 104-degree fever. Before I could say, “pyramid,” I was on my way to Mustashfa as-Salaam (Hospital Peace), about to acquire far more insights into the Egyptian health care system than I ever wanted to know.

By February 19, 2009

Voices

An uncomfortable waltz with Bashir

The Israeli film Waltz with Bashir is up for Best Foreign Film, and betting either for or against it would leave me feeling uneasy.

By February 19, 2009

Voices

Hope rings hollow in Obama’s first weeks

In his inaugural address, President Obama said, “We have chosen hope over fear; unity of purpose over conflict and discord.” In Obama’s first few weeks in office, I have not seen much in the way of hope, and I certainly have not seen any unity of purpose—on Capitol Hill or in the rest of the country.

By February 19, 2009

Page 13 Cartoons

Obama’s integrity will ensure his success

The economy is in the pits, social and political conflicts are brewing around the world, and, judging by the paltry number of Republican votes for the stimulus package, bipartisanship in Washington is apparently dead. So why should Americans still be excited about Barack Obama and his administration of hope and change?

By February 19, 2009

Voices

This Georgetown Life: Awkward Luvin’: The Valentine’s Day Edition

Voice staffers share their most awkward encounters with love, in a Valentine Day's Edition of This Georgetown Life.

By the February 12, 2009

Voices

The ANC: G-town’s own bastion of hyper-democracy

Washington, D.C. touts its 37 ANCs as advisory boards whose opinions on traffic, parking, zoning, liquor licenses, and police presence must be given “great weight” by District agencies. But this doesn’t even begin to explain the phenomenon of the ANC.

By February 12, 2009

Voices

Just because it’s real doesn’t mean it’s not terrifying

When I get bored, I slip into a sort of steady state of mind, my own personal state of nature. Oddly, that condition has come to involve watching a lot of horror movies. It isn’t that I particularly prefer slashers or monster romps to romantic comedy or drama. It’s more force of habit than conscious choice.

By February 12, 2009

Voices

A message for President Obama: go green, baby, go green

Newly appointed Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele won’t push his party in a new direction. This is the man who coined the phrase “Drill, baby, drill,” so often attributed to Sarah Palin, and whose acceptance speech lacked any real substance.

By February 12, 2009

Page 13 Cartoons

Relieve the suffering of the Palestinian people

As members of “Georgetown for Gaza,” greeting our friends and professors on campus with “Happy New Year” after winter break seemed bitterly paradoxical.

By February 5, 2009

Voices

The world must understand Israel’s motives

In the aftermath of the recent Israeli operation in Gaza, much of the world has an opinion, but few care to understand why Israel was forced to go to war in the first place.

By February 5, 2009

Voices

Grown-ups can play games, too

One of my favorite psychological concepts to misuse in everyday life is the idea of “parallel play.” When children are very young—say, one or two years old—they aren’t entirely capable of playing with each other, and will instead play their own individual games, side by side.

By February 5, 2009

Page 13 Cartoons

D.C. vs. Chi-town: vying for Obama’s affection

Early in my freshman year, my friends and I concocted a game called, “Fun Facts about my Hometown.” What began as an innocuous exchange of trivia about our home states and individual points of origin soon transformed into a heated competition, renamed “Whose Hometown Is Best?” Naturally, an important facet of this more confrontational stage was tearing down one another’s places of residence. (We repeatedly introduced our Maryland friend as having crabs.)

By February 5, 2009

Voices

40 years of 11:15 p.m. Mass

In June of 1968 I finished studies in France and arrived at Georgetown to begin teaching theology. Bill Clinton had graduated from the University earlier that month.

By January 29, 2009

Voices

Give me liberty, but don’t let me vote on a ballot initiative

The ballot initiative process is just too much unfettered democracy.

By January 29, 2009

Voices

Marriage is not the bogeyman

My younger brother wishes he could have an arranged marriage.

By January 29, 2009

Page 13 Cartoons

The greatest campus publications you aren’t reading

When was the last time you read a campus journal, or even considered reading one? Probably not recently.

By January 22, 2009

Voices

America: the sum of her ideals, not her leaders

In preparation for the new administration, read the Constitution and Declaration of Independence again carefully, and keep those documents in mind as you follow the events of the next four years.

By January 22, 2009

Voices

Jazz on the road less traveled

The northern New England jazz scene is eerily, icily quiet, but Adric Rosen has spent the past two and a half years trying to liven it up.

By January 22, 2009

Voices

I don’t want to grind, so let’s party like it’s 1929

How do you initiate dancing with another individual? If you’re a guy, you most likely place yourself strategically behind a girl and pull her posterior region into your crotch.

By January 22, 2009

Voices

If you like everyone … do you like anyone?

Is being judgmental really what’s wrong this country? I’m actually proud of being judgmental—though, perhaps “discerning” is a better word.

By January 15, 2009