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.

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

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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

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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

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Alaska: neither lipstick, nor pitbulls, nor Sarah Palin

The meaning of my Alaskan identity changed on a Friday afternoon last semester in Walsh 392. That day, John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential nominee. In a matter of mere hours, strangers and friends alike stopped asking me about frigid temperatures and polar bears, and began inquiring about my opinion of Sarah Palin.

By January 15, 2009

Voices

Fleeting impressions from the souls of Marrakesh

Street performers in every city, great and small, charm the penniless and the penny-plenty, the foreign and the familiar, the old and the young alike, in a shameless effort to earn a few dollars.

By January 15, 2009

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Mumbai bombs felt 8,000 miles away

Never was I more certain of how powerless the innocent are during acts of terrorism until, from thousands of miles away, I saw my own city under fire.

By December 4, 2008

Voices

Tears, vomit, strippers and love in the New South jungle

As a sophomore I learned that being a Resident Assistant in New South is a lot like sipping the bitter nectar of new parenthood: vomit cakes the bathrooms and hallways most weekends, screams rebound unflaggingly ‘til dawn’s first light, and torrents of tears make Justin Timberlake’s “River” seem like a tributary.

By December 4, 2008

Voices

A Plebeian Guilt Complex

Susan B. Anthony once said, “If all the rich and all of the church people should send their children to the public schools, they would feel bound to concentrate their money on improving these schools until they met the highest ideals.” Much like the famous suffragette, I used to be a public school diehard who believed that no thinking person could in good conscience attend or send his or her children to a private school, while pretending to care about the quality of public education.

By December 4, 2008

Voices

This Georgetown Life: Cold-weather holidays

Babar’s No Good, Very Bad Day Virtually every kid has one stuffed animal that equals, in importance, at least 80 percent of a human sibling. For my little sister, it... Read more

By the December 4, 2008

Voices

1, 2, 3: it’s not as easy as A, B, C…

When I say I am bad at math, I don't mean bad in the modest Georgetown "I didn't get a 5 on the AP subject test" sense. I mean bad as in sometimes I find myself wondering how many quarters are in an hour, before I remember that quarters go into dollars and minutes go into hours. It's difficult to explain that you're late for class because you confused cents with minutes.

By November 20, 2008

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Proposition 8 allowed hate to dominate

On November 4, Proposition 8 amended the California state constitution to define marriage as something solely between a man and a woman. Hate, intolerance, and willful ignorance wrote discrimination into... Read more

By November 20, 2008