10 13 2011

Georgetown University’s Weekly Newsmagazine Since 1969 w October 13, 2011 w Volume 45, Issue 8 w georgetownvoice.com

fall fashion 2011

VOICE

the georgetown

2 the georgetown voice

october 13, 2011

Voice Crossword “Gold Rush” by Scott Fligor

answers at georgetownvoice.com 5. “Lovely” Beatles girl 22. Old man 31. ___ Modern (London 24. De ___ (From the beginning) 6. Bruins great Bobby gallery) 7. Eagle org.

26. Stitched 32. Shark type 8. It’s occasionally spiked 27. Fall guy 37. Possible nickname for 9. Shake alternative 32. French Impressionist Scrooge 10. N.Y. engineering sch.

33. Oscar-winning Marisa 42. Needlefish 13. Lawyer’s charge 34. By way of 44. Big Ten “Fighting” team 14. Yalta leader initials 35. PC key 48. Afterthought addendum 16. Failed prospector’s 36. One of a hundred 49. Tic-tac-toe winner opportunity?

38. GERMS member 50. “Time ___ the essence” 18. Hunting advice?

39. Campground lttrs.

51. ___ Domini 23. Dazzle 40. Simple counters 52. “This ___ outrage” 24. “Anything you want” 41. Concur 54. New Haven students 25. Ajar 43. YouTube comedy 55. Novelist Harper and others 26. Athenian lawgiver 45. Fill 57. T.G.I.F. component 27. Grasped at items 46. Actor Chaney and others 58. Parisian assent 28. Spherical bacteria 47. Princely initials 60. Dr. Seuss’ “___ Ran the 29. Outrageous 48. WWI French soldier Zoo” 30. Actress Anouk 51. Hokkaido native 53. Sushi fish 56. Baseball has 9 59. Doctor, e.g.

61. In a minute 62. Yellowfin, e.g.

Female Little Yorkie. AKC Reg., sweet personality, loves 63. ___ gras attention and gives little puppy kisses. Current on shots and 64. Physicist’s vacation?

classifieds

Across 1. Prospector’s labor dispute?

10. Russo of “Major League” 11. Roger Moore and Sean Connery, e.g.

12. Sailor’s hook 15. Anxiously walked 17. Fell back from the pack 19. Amin of Uganda 20. Tiny bit 21. A.C. Milan rival

Down 1. Honeyed drink 2. Accidental 3. Born as 4. Discreet whisper

dewormings $550.

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editorial

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Volume 45.8 October 13, 2011 Editor-in-Chief: Tim Shine Managing Editor: Sean Quigley Blog Editor: Leigh Finnegan News Editor: Holly Tao Sports Editor: Daniel Kellner Feature Editor: Rachel Calvert Cover Editor: Iris Kim Leisure Editor: John Sapunor Voices Editor: Kate Imel Photo Editor: Max Blodgett Design Editor: Catherine Johnson Projects Editor: Rob Sapunor Crossword Editor: Scott Fligor Assistant Blog Editor: Ryan Bellmore Assistant News Editor: Neha Ghanshamdas Assistant Sports Editors: Abby Sherburne, Kevin Joseph Assistant Leisure Editors: Mary Borowiec, Heather Regen Assistant Photo Editors: Julianne Deno, Matthew Funk Assistant Design Editor: Kathleen Soriano-Taylor Contributing Editor: Nico Dodd

Staff Writers:

Nick Berti, Geoffrey Bible, Kara Brandeisky, Mary Cass, Emma Forster, Kirill Makarenko, Kelsey McCullough, Sadaf Qureshi, Adam Rosenfeld, Jake Schindler, Melissa Sullivan, Nick Thomas

Staff Photographers:

Sam Brothers, Richard De La Paz, Abby Greene, Lucia He, Kirill Makarenko, Tim Markatos, Jackson Perry

Copy Chief: Aodhan Beirne Copy Editors:

Claire McDaniel, Kim Tay

Editorial Board Chair: Jackson Perry Editorial Board:

Gavin Bade, Tiffany Brown, Rachel Calvert, Ethan Chess, Sean Quigley, Julia Tanaka, J. Galen Weber

Head of Business: Keaton Hoffman The Georgetown Voice

The Georgetown Voice is published every Thursday.

the georgetown voice 3

POWER TO THE PEOPLE

Occupy Wall St. movement at a crossroads Despite the initial disregard of national media outlets, the spreading Occupy Wall Street movement has managed to propel itself into the country’s political consciousness. The occupations are a reminder of the power that members of a democratic society possess beyond the ballot box – to add our voices to a political discourse that has become cluttered with useless rhetoric and endless politicking.

An important element of the group’s ability to grow has been its malleability.

It is a movement that has collected every drop of disgruntlement over the past few years, particularly as the economy continues to decline, and has become a flood – not so much an organized movement as an intense outburst of emotion.

As the movement spreads across the country and garners an increasing amount of media attention, it is under increasing pressure to better define its demands. Al-

though the movement’s lack of ideological cohesion has actually helped it grow, its long-term success will be determined by translating its myriad grievances into achievable political objectives.

Its lack of organization certainly does not detract from the legitimacy of the movement’s complaints, but the cacophony of discontent will harm the movement’s ability to pressure politicians to address specific issues. Occupy DC, though, has been the first to adopt specific political goals.

On Saturday, the group joined with antiwar protestors in an attempt to invade the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, protesting a special exhibit about drones and the use of drones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Occupy movement has given voice to a wide variety of leftist political opinions, challenging the Democratic Party in much the same way that the Tea Party challenged the Republican Party’s old-school

orthodoxy. It would be disheartening if the Occupy movement was subverted to the corporatist political goals of the national Democratic Party just as the Tea Party’s passion has been channeled into serving the corporate backers of today’s G.O.P. The Occupy movement itself has been a response to the outrageous level of corporate control of politics. Whatever political goals the movement aims to achieve, it must maintain its independence from traditional political forces to preserve its vitality.

Every Georgetown student who values his or her status as a citizen in a country which prides itself primarily on its democratic freedoms can now put those freedoms to use. At a school so focused on government and politics, this ought to remind us why we enter public service. It is an opportunity to reflect on the political system we have today, and to harness emotion into substantive change.

HOYAS OF THE ROUND TABLE

Follow-through necessary for new forum On Wednesday, new University Chief Operating Officer Christopher Augostini organized the first of what he has promised will be several “Hoya Roundtables,” forums designed to give students a chance to have a direct dialogue with the staff of various Georgetown departments, such as the Department of Public Safety and University Information Services.

The initiative raises hope for a more open relationship between the administration and the student body. The open exchange of ideas between students and administrators that happened Wednesday makes the potential of a forward-thinking event like this one clear.

The discussion, ranging from problems with Saxanet to Facilities’ spotty response to work orders, shed light on University processes and allowed students to voice their concerns. The conversation’s frankness was a startling contrast to the stilted

and abstruse mass emails that the University usually employs to communicate with students about services.

Although yesterday’s roundtable in Sellinger Lounge was fairly crowded, the ratio of University staff to students was roughly one-to-one. Considering that complaining about University services is Georgetown’s most popular intramural sport, it’s discouraging that more students didn’t participate in the event. The students who did show up demonstrated the usefulness of the initiative, as they offered many productive suggestions and critiques of University services.

The future usefulness of the roundtables is dependent on the participation of representatives from important departments like the University Registrar, the Center for Student Programs, and other departments that were not present at the first meeting. No department should be

above criticism.

The University should also make these roundtables a permanent fixture in the academic calendar, as they are the most obvious way for the administration to be aware of the concerns of the student body. While it often seems like the University doesn’t care about student input and that students don’t care about what the administration does, these roundtables are an opportunity to change that unhealthy dynamic.

Though the roundtable was a success, it is only a first step, and it will be meaningless if the University does not translate the results into action. The administration should describe how it plans to incorporate the various complaints and suggestions of students into each department’s long-term plans. The next few months will be a test of the University’s ability to be flexible and match its priorities to the desires of the student body.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’

This newspaper was made possible with the support of Campus Progress, a project of the Center for American Progress, online at CampusProgress.org. Campus Progress works to help young people — advocates, activists, journalists, artists — make their voices heard on issues that matter. Learn more at CampusProgress.org.

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by Silver Communications. All materials copyright the Georgetown Voice. All rights reserved.

On this week’s cover ... Fall Fashion 2011 Cover Photo: Iris Kim

States filling void on immigration policy The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act had little chance of passing when it was reintroduced in the Senate last May. The notion of allowing undocumented immigrants who had come to America as children and been accepted to college to remain in the country was frightening to the increasingly dominant far-right wing of the Republican Party, which then influenced the handful of moderates who originally supported the bill.

In the absence of federal policy, California’s leaders have admirably decided to act on their own. The state recently passed its own version of the Dream Act, which will allow undocumented immigrants to qualify for financial aid at state schools, a welcome step toward a more humane and realistic immigration policy.

The charged rhetoric that infects the immigration debate often prevents people from understanding the world undocumented im-

migrants live in. The bill that California has passed will certainly make the whole state stronger, but it will also improve the lives of young undocumented immigrants. These immigrants came to America as children and know no other home. There is no good reason to deny these dedicated students the financial aid they may need to afford higher education.

Opponents of California’s Dream Act argue that undocumented immigrants don’t pay the income taxes that legal citizens do, and shouldn’t benefit from taxpayer money when there is so little to spare. But this argument ignores both the fact that undocumented immigrants still pay other taxes and that a more educated public makes not only moral but also fiscal sense. Studies have shown that bills such as California’s will increase tax revenue and pay for themselves. The added productivity of educated workers outweighs the slight strain on government budgets.

The real issues of immigration policy cannot be resolved by the states—the federal government must act. Without one national policy, states are forced to enact their own measures, which yields wildly diverse results, from more lenient states like California to states favoring harsher treatment of undocumented immigrants like Arizona. Only the federal government is capable of producing a comprehensive immigrant education policy that requires immigrants to pay taxes in addition to being guaranteed the educational opportunities that will make them more productive members of American society.

The current two-class system of citizens and undocumented immigrants is unjust and needs to end. California’s Dream Act takes a small step towards giving undocumented immigrants equal opportunity. But until Washington decides to act, a truly humane and fair immigration system will remain just a dream.

news

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october 13, 2011

Graduate applicants increase, contrast national numbers

by Eileen McFarland Despite national downward trends, Georgetown graduate schools increased enrollment by 3.3 percent from 2009 to 2010, rising from 9,059 students to 9,358, according to statistics from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. National graduate school enrollment decreased by 1.1 percent during the same period, according to a report from The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Admissions representatives attributed the national trend to various factors, particularly the stillfragile state of the U.S. economy.

But reports from various graduate programs at Georgetown indicate that while some programs are seeing a decrease in applications, these same programs report an increase in applicant quality.

“While our application numbers have decreased, the strength [and] quality of our applicant pool has increased,” assistant dean of full-time MBA admissions Kelly Wilson wrote in an email.

The Graduate Management Admissions Council’s 2011 Appli-

cation Trend Survey reported that 67 percent of full-time MBA programs experienced a decrease in number of applications. Wilson attributed the drop in applications to the extended economic downturn.

“If the global economy continues to falter, I expect that we will continue to see a downward or flattening trend at best in application volume,” Wilson wrote.

Meanwhile, Georgetown Law Center application numbers remained volatile, rising by 10 percent in 2010 to an all-time high of 12,500, but dropping by 19 percent in 2011. This year’s numbers are in line with national law school applications, which dropped 12 percent in 2011.

“Applications to almost every top law school, for the entering class of 2011, dropped 15 to 25 percent,” Andrew Cornblatt, Dean of Admissions at the Law Center, said.

He attributed part of the decrease in applications to “an economy that creeped the tiniest bit better, so a few more jobs were out there for … college seniors and people who have been out a year or two.”

He gave two more reasons for

the decrease in applications, citing “the incredible focus on the cost of law school education and how much money people would have to borrow to invest in” a law education. “I think that helped to dissuade some fence sitters about whether or not to apply to law school,” he said.

Another worry for potential applicants is the difficulty of the schoolwork at Georgetown, as well as increasingly-slim prospects of graduate job placement.

“The publicity [concerning] the difficulty for all law schools, not just Georgetown, in terms of jobs, placing their graduates in jobs [affects admissions],” Cornblatt said.

“I think you add all three things together resulting in many fewer applicants.”

The weeding out of less dedicated law school applicants might explain why Georgetown Law, like the MBA program, saw an increase in applicant quality. Though applications decreased, the mean applicant GPA and LSAT score increased. According to Cornblatt, this rise in quality is rare after a drop in applications.

Though the application numbers are a drop-off from 2010’s historic high, this year’s applications are still relatively high.

“Down 19 percent at Georgetown sounds like an oh my gosh moment, but the truth is the number of applications we had last year, 10,000, is the sixth or seventh highest we’ve ever had at Georgetown,” Cornblatt said.

Unlike the MBA program and the Law Center, Georgetown’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences saw an increase in applications. James Schaefer, the Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, used the distinctiveness of Georgetown’s graduate school programs to explain the continuing high number of applicants.

“Just as with the undergrad program, a fair number come because they want to be the next Bill Clinton, that sort of thing,” he said.

“The fact that we are here attracts a lot of students from abroad—the closeness to the seats of power, all the ancillary agencies and technologies that support that.”

Georgetown may have defied the trend of an enrollment decrease

on the whole due to its private status, according to Schaefer. As a private institution, Georgetown is immune to the state budget cuts that have forced public universities to increase tuition and lower research funding.

Schaefer warned, however, that Georgetown’s location and ongoing issues with the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission will affect its graduate student enrollment. ANC’s new university enrollment cap would count graduate students as well as undergraduate students. He said that opening another campus elsewhere in the city could be necessary for enrollment to continue to increase.

“We are locked into a certain amount of head counts in practical terms, and we want the headcounts to be productive as possible,” Schaefer said. “There is a question of [whether] there will be a preference for full-time graduate school students.”

Deans from the School of Foreign Service did not respond to requests for statistics on MSFS enrollment.

the RJC this year,” said Ed Gilhool, the associate director of the Office of Residence Life.

The RJC has also decided to hold case hearings on Mondays, rather than have the council meetings spread throughout the week.

“We have looked at the efficiency of structures that were in place in years past [so that the RJC] can hear more cases this year,” Gilhool said.

Still, having a case referred to the RJC does not mean that there is a better chance that a student will be found innocent or that the punishment will be less severe.

“A lot of people think the RJC will give them easier sanctions, which oftentimes is not the case,” Michael Barclay (COL ’12), the chair of the Steering Committee in charge of reforming the RJC the past spring, said.

“The students have the power to choose what sanctions they want to give and often give harder sentences.”

While the punishments may be different, the verdict is often the same. Both the RJC and Hall Directors must follow the Student Code of Conduct in deciding whether a student is

guilty or not and doling out punishments.

The Student Code of Conduct says that a student can be found guilty as long as “it is more likely than not” that he or she committed the offense. Some see this slight burden of proof as the chief problem with discipline at Georgetown and believe that RJC will still be ineffective as long as this standard is in place.

“Fact is, the way the code of student conduct is written doesn’t provide for an increased opportunity of fairness if judged by peers instead of adults,” James Pickens (COL ’12), co-chair of GUSA’s Student Advocacy Office, said.

“With a standard like that, the determinations aren’t going to vary that much.”

David Freenock, a current RJC member, also noted a problem with the “more likely than not” portion of the Student Code of Conduct in opinions pieces he wrote for the Voice last fall.

“The ‘more likely than not’ standard, provides very little space for a presumption of innocence,” Freenock wrote (“Silencing a mute: RJC ends, student rights stay the same,” Oct. 7, 2010). “If there is a 51 percent

chance that you violated the Student Code of Conduct, you are guilty. You can forget about the 49 percent chance that you didn’t do anything wrong.”

Freenock did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Barclay admitted that while the RJC is still “a work in pro-

cess,” the changes made were a step in the right direction.

“The more students that are involved in the disciplinary process the better it will be,” Pickens said. “The RJC is too closed. By increasing student involvement, transparency will increase, and students will feel more comfortable going through the process.”

RJC reformed, students have concerns about Conduct Code

by Morgan Manger After a yearlong absence, the Residential Judicial Council, a student-staffed disciplinary body, is up and running again with numerous structural changes aimed to increase the number of cases RJC sees and make the body a more integral part of student conduct proceedings at Georgetown.

The RJC was originally created to give students more of a voice in the University disciplinary process. Its new iteration aims to do that by allowing students with disciplinary violations to apply for their cases to be heard by the RJC instead of cases being referred to the RJC by the Office of Residential Life.

The new RJC also figures to have more stability by holding elections for yearlong RJC positions, instead of having members simply volunteer for weekly meetings to hear individual cases.

Engineers of the change hope that this will make the RJC more representative of students and more present on campus.

“These changes have allowed for more student engagement in the RJC and certainly an opportunity for more cases to go before

Last spring the Steering Committee worked on restructuring the RJC.

max blodgett

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the georgetown voice 5

New COO leads discussion between students, administrators lars” on GOCards and two-sided printing costs.

The roundtable series is the brainchild—and biggest move so far— of Christopher Augostini, the University’s new Chief Operating Officer.

“The intent is for me to understand the issues and for us to try our best to have as many students [as possible] participating in these roundtables,” he said. “We will have them as often as students find them valuable.”

As Georgetown’s new COO, Augostini’s responsibilities range from future campus developments to technology to overseeing the University’s financial office. He said he sees the roundtables as an essential component of his plans for the future, since they allow him to be more in touch with students and their concerns.

“We’re here all the time,” he said.

“I just need to understand what the issues are and either solve the issue or respond that these are the reasons why we can’t do it.”

Alongside the weekly roundtable discussions, Michael Wang (MSB ’07), the special assistant to the chief finacial officer, piloted the creation of a new online forum powered by Google’s moderator application for

students to express their grievances.

The forum is divided into five topics: housing, facilities, technology, safety, and food. Each section allows students to post short questions or ideas, and other students can vote these posts up or down.

“We were hoping to get the issues and concerns that are most important and relevant to student,” Wang said. “It’ll be obvious because students will be voting it up, and once we hear that, those will be the things that we know to address… that require a response.”

Since yesterday, more than 30 students have posted questions and over 430 have voted questions up or down. The topics varied from lack of student space on campus to difficulties with summer housing. At the roundtables on Wednesday, Wang also posted a poll for what students will like to see presented at the next roundtable, including a number to text with responses.

Beyond the roundtables, Augostini envisions student involvement in administrative decisions constant and evolving. He said that he sees no end to the dialogue, and expects the adminis-

Keep D.C. occupied

gree in the District is unemployed.

For those lucky enough to be employed, they have seen their wages and benefits trimmed.

Until the recession hit, real incomes for everyone except the very rich had not risen in almost 20 years, and the downturn had disastrous impacts on this group.

A new study from Sentier Research by two former census bureau officials shows that real income during the recession fell an average of 3.2 percent. Between June 2009 and

by Vanya Mehta On Wednesday, students and University leaders met at the first of what will be a series of “Hoya Roundtable” meetings in Sellinger Lounge.

Around 20 students were in attendance, while over 30 administrators were present at the roundtable.

Department heads from the Department of Safety, Auxiliary Services, Student Housing, Facilities, and University Information Services, as well as department sub-heads and committee members came to address student concerns and explain their ideas for the future of their respective departments.

Before the roundtable sessions, a leader from each department briefly presented the projects their departments are working on. An hour-long question and answer session gave students the opportunity to pose concerns to each department leader.

After the question and answer session, there were roundtable breakout sessions to allow students and University leaders to have follow-up conversations.

Concerns raised by students included issues with using “flex dol-

If there’s one thing the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy D.C. protestors have achieved, it is shaking up the establishment. House Minority Leader Eric Cantor denounced them as “mobs” that pit Americans against Americans. President Obama’s thoughts were a bit more understanding. He said the protestors are “giving voice to a more broad-based frustration.”

Reactions on Georgetown’s campus are just as varied. I’ve heard from students who planned to head up to New York or Freedom Plaza last weekend to take part, as well as those who derided the protests as irrational and anti-American.

But it is one thing to react and another to understand the motivations of the protestors. This is especially difficult with this movement. The groups involved in each individual march and in each city have distinctive demands and motivations.The labor union marchers in New York are out there for different reasons than the young, unemployed college graduates.

Nevertheless, there are certain similarities within the groups, especially those in the District

occupying Freedom Plaza and McPherson Square.

New York activists have been more concerned with the bank bailouts, executive bonuses, and financial sector regulation. Here the protestors are focusing more on how these companies get their way—their powerful and wellfinanced lobbying and campaign finance efforts.

Participants show up to the rallies with monocles and champagne glasses, asking politicians if they’d attend one of their fundraisers.

One picture in the Washington Post showed a man carrying an American flag with each of the stars replaced by a corporate logo.

This sort of good-governance protest is a novel occurrence. Few outside of progressive political elites were talking about this issue before the rallies began.

Issues of taxation and economic opportunity are also obviously central to the protests nationwide. But here in D.C. they take on an enhanced meaning. According to a report from the Brookings Institution released last Wednesday, about one in three young adults with a four-year college de-

City on a Hill

by Gavin Bade

A bi-weekly column on D.C. news and politics June 2011—after the recession was officially over—it dipped a further 6.7 percent.

These young protestors look at their declining economic situation and do not see a government that puts them high on the priority list. They see tax cut extensions for the rich while they are asked to contribute more to their retirement, cuts in education funding for their children while businesses get tax exemptions, two costly wars still raging despite broad support for ending them, and a Republican

tration to give reasons and concrete responses.

“I want it to be continuous because I don’t want someone to say you only listened once or twice and then you went away, “Augostini said.

“I think we have to be more accessible to understanding what the issues are and be held accountable to respond.”

At Wednesday’s roundtable, Augostini reiterated the need for future communication.

“This Hoya Roundtable is the first of many. Whether there are 75 students or ten, we’re going to continue

this dialogue to the extent that you as students find valuable,” he said.

Ultimately, he said, the motivation for starting the roundtables comes back to Georgetown’s intellectual heritage.

“You come to Georgetown because a group of us provide services to students, because the faculty are here, the location, the Jesuit identity,” Augostini said. “There has been a real culture of service here and we have to enhance that…measure our ability to ensure that the work that we’re doing is done better and more effectively every single day.”

RICHaRd de la PaZ

Administrators answer questions about printing costs and GoCards. party hell-bent on relieving the top earners in this economy of any pain involved in austerity measures.

Add to that the frustration over new records in corporate political fundraising made possible by the Citizens United case and the fact that these young D.C. professionals know more about the patronage relationships that exist between corporations and government than the average American—is it really surprising that they take this opportunity to protest?

But just who are they trying to reach? Many observers like Van Jones, Obama’s former “green jobs czar” who has become one of the impromptu protest leaders in D.C., claim the demonstrations are a leftleaning version of the Tea Party.

In some sense, they are correct.

The Tea Party first arrived on the scene to pressure the politicians on the right side of the spectrum, and the Occupy activists look to do the same on the left.

They’re plenty angry at congressional conservatives, but they are acting in reaction to the Democratic Party, not the Tea Party. These are the politicians who they expect to voice their interests but have repeatedly let the middle class down in debates over the Bush tax cuts,

the debt ceiling increase, and needed increases in infrastructure and education spending.

If there’s one thing progressive politicians can be sure of it is that the demands of this group will not go away. Leaders of Occupy D.C. have announced that they plan to stay as long as it takes for their voices to be heard, even though their permit with the National Park Service expired Sunday.

The next step for the protestors, though, is to appeal to a wider audience, specifically the unorganized poor. Right now, many civil rights and social justice leaders are unsure whether a protest made up of mostly young unemployed professionals, career activists, and labor unions has room for the interests of the unaffiliated lower classes.

If organizers of the Occupy movement can turn out the struggling residents of places like Southeast D.C. and avoid being simply another affluent youth movement, they will cease to be a band of protestors. They will be a broad-based political coalition—and this is perhaps the only way they can hope to create change.

Give Gavin something to protest about at gbade@georgetownvoice.com

sports

6 the georgetown voice

october 13, 2011

Gomez looks golden in goal for surging Hoyas

by Abby Sherburne Relying on athletes fresh out of high school is a major gamble for programs looking to compete right away. The college level is a whole new world, especially when it comes to a top Division I conference like the Big East.

Luckily for the Georgetown men’s soccer team, their gamble on freshman goalkeeper Tomas Gomez has paid off.

The Missouri native has proven that he’s no typical rookie, but his success did not come without early struggles.

“The first day I was terrible,” Gomez said. “I just got used to it.”

Gomez has already been tested like a seasoned keeper. With 42 saves this season, he’s faced penalty kicks, double overtimes, and arguably the most difficult thing to cope with – losing.

Last Friday’s loss to West Virginia was decided by just one goal. Gomez attempted to make the save and lost it off of his gloves, only to see the rebound retrieved for a decisive second effort.

Head coach Brian Wiese was forgiving, saying that it’s all part of the game.

“You’re playing on the road, and fans are right behind you yelling, calling your mom names,” Wiese said. “You have to be able to handle that. I think he’s handled it really well.”

As far as pressure goes, Gomez has handled it like a veteran, allowing just six goals this

season. His .875 save percentage has earned the admiration of his coach.

“I would be drinking, you know, if it was my situation,” Wiese said. “I’d be under the table.

It would make me nervous.”

Gomez has been a rock in crucial situations for the Hoyas this season. At Michigan State in front of over 1,000 fans, he came up with a clutch save on a penalty kick. Wiese credits the penalty save for the win.

His immediate success should not come as a surprise. At Webster Groves High School, Gomez set a new standard between the posts, earning goaltender of the year honors in Missouri after tallying eight clean sheets in his senior year.

“In high school, not a lot of people played competitively,” Gomez said. “Then in college, everyone, obviously, is playing Division I. The shots are a lot harder, the game plays a lot faster.”

Wiese knew he needed a goalkeeper coming into this season and Gomez looked like a complete player on his recruiting trips.

“He’s one of those kids, you look at him and say, ‘Well, he’s got all the tools,’” he said. “He kicks well, he’s got great presence, he organizes well, his shot stopping is good, he’s got a good frame to him, he looks like he’s a good leader ....you run through the little checklist and it’s all there.”

ABBY GREENE

Gomez has been a sensation in his inaugural season for the Hoyas.

Even with the laundry list of skills, the unknown is frightening. Decision making in goal is an especially hard thing to measure, so even with all the tools, Gomez had a lot to prove.

“It’s like a fine wine,” Wiese said. “You’re supposed to get good with age. In general, the older you get, the better you get

at goalkeeping. You always have these question marks about what a young goalie’s going to be like coming in.”

But Gomez’s composure has him looking like a player beyond his years.

“He doesn’t look like a freshman out there,” Wiese said. “People don’t believe he’s a freshman,

when you play opposing teams and opposing coaches. I think that’s a great compliment for him.”

As a result, Wiese has no doubts about his goalie’s capabilities and future prospects.

“I legitimately think he’s one of the best goalies around,” he said. “I wouldn’t trade him for anybody.”

the Sports Sermon “Sometimes you just need a rally beer.” – White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski discussing his preferred in-game beverage rare chance as Georgetown basketball fans for celebration, rather than stress and disappointment. If only for a moment, we can forget about our lost rivalry with Syracuse or how many times we will have to play East Carolina next year and simply be pumped that basketball is back.

Sure, the tradition has gone a bit stale, especially considering the shocking tournament performances by the Hoyas over the past few years. Last year ’s seniors graduated with one NCAA tournament victory. This year, senior captain Jason Clark is facing the frightening prospect of leaving the Hilltop with none.

is going to step onto that court and play. Given the sporting There has hardly been climate these days, that’s rea more draining succession freshing in and of itself. of offseasons in my time as Besides, this season is a sports fan than in 2011. landmark one for the Big East.

First, the NFL couldn’t It may be our last chance to figure out what to do with juice the Orange and tame the its fortune, and nearly risked Panthers, and South Florida canceling the season after remains the only major blemowners and players spent ish in a basketball conference months debating how to fatotherwise overflowing with ten each others’ pockets. Yes, history and expectations. the season survived, but it Plus, who knows what sort came at a price of months of of monstrosity the Big East speculation and doubt, which will be in another 12 months? weighed on any devoted fan.

Consider this season one last Next, the NBA owners hurrah for college basketball and players failed to agree traditionalists. on a new labor agreement, Despite our perceived which has already cost the weaknesses, the same addictleague its first two weeks of ing mixture of elation and games. Meanwhile, some of devastation will converge in the league’s best each game, as in Pete Rose Central players are headany season, until ing overseas to the very end when Da bettin’ line keep their paysomeone (else) is Dookies Margin checks coming, isocutting down the Hoyas lating them from (favorites) nets. These emo(underdogs) (duh!) the owners and tions make being Season bringing them fara fan such an inScumbag Stern ther away from a toxicating experiTheo 1908 NL potential deal. At ence (along with Hecklers Hot dog shield any pre-game acTiger this rate, it would be stunning if we see any Recent history is not the tivities fans might participate NBA basketball in 2011 or only thing working against to enhance their intensity).

2012. us. This team is perhaps the So as pessimism seems to If the implosion of profes- weakest and youngest in the dominate sentiments towards sional sports wasn’t enough John Thompson III era, de- Georgetown basketball at the to dry up whatever remaining spite a solid crop of recruits moment, its time for us—the enthusiasm you had for the and the return of several key fans—to inject some positivfuture of your favorite teams, players. Most experts rate ity. This season may have the surely NCAA conference re- the Hoyas no higher than a looks of a rebuilding year, alignment took your paranoia bubble team, so if they are to but given the recent changes to a new level. As our proud cease their persistent egg-lay- around college basketball, little private school struggles ing, it will be an uphill battle. it could be our best team for to find its niche in an everI don’t want to spread any some time. changing college sports envi- false hope. This isn’t an “anyConversely, our young, ronment, we are left to won- thing can happen” speech or an explosive squad is too untestder what lies ahead for our attempt to rally you all to buy ed to write off so early. It only historic yet vulnerable bas- season tickets. No, we aren’t takes four successive victoketball program. the juggernaut of years past ries to reach the Final Four, so Tomorrow, however, Mid- and yes, it appears only darker maybe anything can happen night Madness offers us the days are ahead, but our team after all.

by Daniel Kellner

sports

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Football rolls, returns to D.C.

by Kevin Joseph For the first time in over a month, the Georgetown football team will get to sleep in their own beds on a Friday night. But their long stretch of away games has still yet to end, as the team faces cross-town rival Howard.

Officially labeled the D.C. Mayor’s Cup after an attempt by the mayor’s office in 2008 to instigate an intra-city football rivalry between the two schools, the event has been rekindled after the teams did not meet in 2010.

This year, the Bison will face a drastically different team from the winless group they faced in 2009. The Hoyas are coming off a 24-10 victory against Wagner, a game that saw the defense firing on all cylinders. Middle linebacker Rob McCabe led the

Hoyas with 14 tackles on the game and currently leads the Patriot League with 68.

“We had a good defensive effort,” McCabe said. “It was probably our most complete effort on defense.”

The junior shied away from credit for the team’s effort, instead deferring to the defensive line’s strong front. Led by senior end Andrew Schaetzke, the D-line has made life easy for the linebackers. In addition to Schaetzke’s superstar presence, McCabe praised senior Dan Lenihan and freshman Jordan Richardson for their impressive play so far.

“Dan and Jordan have been playing out of their minds,” he said. “They make it easy for us to run around and make plays.”

Head coach Kevin Kelly appreciated his team’s effort, but

LUCIA HE

Robert McCabe is one of many leaders on the hard-hitting Hoya defense.

A sports fan’s circle of life After the Yankees crushed the Tigers last week to tie the American League Divisional Series at two games apiece, my friends and I bought tickets to game five in New York on the spur of the moment.

As seniors, we didn’t care if we were going to miss a class or two. We thought was going to be one of those things where we would look back in 10 years and say, “that was one of the greatest decisions we ever made.”

Walking into Yankee Stadium that chilly fall night was one of the coolest feelings I’ve had in a long time as a sports fan.

Three hours later, my friends and I were slouched over in our

seats, having just witnessed the brutal and humiliating destruction of the 2011 Yankees. It felt like it was over before it started.

We sat on a bus four hours each way to witness a bitter defeat.

That’s the life of a dedicated sports fan. Any die-hard will agree that sports provide the highest of highs and lowest of lows, emotionally.

Nothing is worse than the gutpunching feeling of watching your team’s season end.

Sadly, this happens a lot more than seeing your team win the ultimate prize, which is the only way a season can end in a positive way. While everyone competes to win, almost everyone loses.

also took note of the battle Wagner gave as the Hoyas didn’t have much breathing room until a Nick Campanella touchdown late in the first half. Even then, it remained a one-touchdown deficit until quarterback Isaiah Kempf iced the contest with a 71-yard touchdown pass to junior Max Waizenegger.

After the score, senior safety David Quintero came up with an interception to end the ensuing Wagner drive.

“It was a very hard-fought football game,” Kelly said. “I have to tip my cap to Wagner. It was seven points [between us] there for a long time. I’m really happy with our defense – they bent a little bit, but didn’t break and then made a real big play there at the end.”

With the Hoyas high on confidence and their return to Multi-Sport Field for the Homecoming game approaching next week, the threat of a “trap game” is certainly a danger. But Kelly’s week-by-week mentality should have the team prepared for a battle on Saturday, especially considering the comforts of staying close to home.

“These non-conference games are still very important,” McCabe said. “This Howard game is an inner-city rivalry, so we try to draw on different things like that for non-league games for motivation.”

Being back in Washington with Homecoming a week away should be plenty of motivation for McCabe and the rest of the Hoyas. If not, they can look back at 2009’s disappointing loss for inspiration. Kickoff is set for Saturday at 1 p.m. at Howard’s Greene Stadium.

Yet, there are no moral victories for a real fan. It is always painful when your team doesn’t win the last game of the season. In baseball, 29 out of 30 times you will have that feeling. It’s even worse in the NFL. So why do people keep following their teams if they’re

Double Teamed

by Nick Berti

a rotating column on sports constantly being let down?

One reason is hope. Just ask any Cubs fan what their favorite phrase is. “There’s always next year,” they’ll say with a half-frown.

Fortunately, the pain we feel from the “death” of our

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Golf struggles to keep par

by Kary Jablonski Heading into this past weekend’s Bearcat Invitational Tournament, Georgetown men’s golf coach Tommy Hunter was cautiously optimistic about his team’s prospects, but the Hoyas managed a fifth place finish despite a talented field of 15 teams. An overall score of 289 in their final round brought the team within 13 strokes of tournament champion Austin Peay.

“Anytime we travel to the Midwest we will compete against a number of experienced and talented golf teams,” Hunter wrote in an email. “We knew going in we had to play well in order to gain a respectable finish.”

Senior captain Brian Dorfman (-3) caught fire on his final 18 holes to catapult the Hoyas to their second best finish of the season. After 54 holes, Dorfman was three under par for the day, tied with Cincinnati’s David Tepe atop the leader board of 79 golfers.

“Brian made a spectacular par on the first sudden death hole and walked away with his third career win,” Hunter wrote.

Dorfman was not the only Hoya to make big shots when it mattered. Freshman Greg Podufal (+10) shot a one-under 70 and senior Taylor Hall (+12) shot three birdies in a row, helping the Hoyas climb from ninth place to fifth on the final day of play.

After this weekend’s exciting finish, Hunter’s squad looks forward to hosting next week’s Georgetown Intercol-

team’s season is numbed by the other sports and other teams that we follow. When one team gets us down, another rises to the occasion, allowing our fandom to continuously renew itself.

The day after the Yankees were eliminated from the postseason, the New York Rangers kicked off the NHL season in Sweden. As my hopes for the Yankees died, the Rangers were my sports fan’s ‘rebirth.’

It is a process I have endured many times over the years. I was still reeling from what had happened the previous night, but now I had a new reason to look up.

Even though the calendar said October, fall had just become winter for me. The NHL season was underway and the

legiate at the Members Club at Four Streams in Beallsville, Maryland.

“The momentum from this last round will hopefully remain with us and carry us through,” Hunter wrote.

The women’s squad competed against 19 other teams at the Lady Pirate Intercollegiate, hosted by East Carolina University this past Monday and Tuesday. Despite the Hoyas’ last-place showing, finishing a distant 62 strokes behind tournament champion Maryland, head coach Katie Brophy took several positives away from this weekend.

“We hit more fairways than we have, we had more birdies than we’ve had all season,” she said.

Senior captain Eunae Jo led the way for the Hoyas, shooting a 229 (+13) to finish tied for 41st place. She also posted one of the highlights of the event with her first hole-in-one as a Hoya.

Brophy remains optimistic about the remainder of the Hoyas’ fall season despite their less-than-imposing performance this week. The team has already achieved three top-ten overall finishes this year, and with an assortment of talented young golfers like Alice Choi and Isabelle Galantino, the squad should only improve going forward.

“Youth is definitely one of our advantages,” Brophy said.

“Alice and Isabelle are two of our best golfers and they will be for the next few years.”

Players from the team could not be reached for comment.

Rangers have a great chance to go all the way. It’s rare for the overlap to happen so perfectly, but every once in a while it will.

So it might seem like the odds are stacked against us as sports fans, but in reality there is never a true end. There’s no break in the calendar. Unless you only like basketball and hockey, there is always a team to attach your hope to.

Well, maybe not if you live in Cleveland–there isn’t any hope there.

There is only so long a fan can complain about their team’s elimination. Every death means new life.

Find out why the Yankees suck at nberti@georgetownvoice. com

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fashion

october 13, 2011

free fallin’ Let’s face it, after September, Washington gets cold and rainy.

It can be really easy to fall into the habit of bundling up without thinking about what you’re putting on. Colorful wool, patterned tights, and thoughtful layering can look great and stave off drizzle to boot. As we segue from fall to winter, rest assured these looks are impervious to the cold.

Outfits that are put together help shake up the Fall style slump – jeans, t-shirt, scarf, repeat. Resist looking drab in vintage style patterns with rich colors and cozy cuts.

On Kelsey: sweater, shorts and hat

by Urban Outfitters, sportcoat by J.Crew.

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fashion

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On Katy: dress by Urban Outfitters, blazer by Anthropologie.

On Kelsey: boots by Steve Madden.

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fashion

october 13, 2011

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fashion

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On Jed: sweater by Rugby, apron by Anthropologie.

On Kelsey, left: sweater, skirt and shoes

by Madewell.

On Kelsey, right: dress by Anthropologie.

date night?

12 the georgetown voice

fashion

october 13, 2011 On Katy: shirt by Alexa Chung for Madewell, skirt by J.Crew, shoes

by Coach.

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the dream team:

Nico Dodd (COL ‘12)

Iris Kim (COL ‘12)

Models

Kelsey Bostrom (COL ‘12) Katy Donahue (COL ‘14) Jed Feiman (COL ‘12)

Kelsey McCullough (COL ‘12)

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Festival shows one act can rule them all

by Heather Regen A musical number set on a flaming oil rig and a sober reflection on the Egyptian revolution, united on the same stage on the same evening? That’s this year’s Donn B. Murphy One Acts Festival. The festival’s two productions, Peaches and Freon and #Courage, are an unusual combination, but together they show off the strength of original student work at Georgetown.

Witnessing a contest for lyric writing overrun by awful submissions prompted Ryan Dull (COL ’12) and Michael Franch (SFS ’12) to write the musical Peaches and Freon.

A seemingly nonsensical production about two awful playwrights, Peaches makes comedy out of the unfortunate reality that “sometimes musical theater isn’t written by the masters of the craft,” Dull said. “If the play is successful, then it demonstrates that there’s value in the production of bad art, so it can be comfortably bad.”

The musical takes place in the fictional Old Freon Factory Theatre—luckily cleared by the EPA after a benzene spill—where the

awful playwrights critique their most infamous musical numbers for a crowd of narcoleptics. Though their intended audience begins to fall asleep, the musical number “German Men Screaming,” which features a lederhosen-clad singer

Goddard films as Doctor Who. “Sometimes our love is like a star, hot and dying/ Sometimes our love is like Michael Bay—not even trying,” goes one song.

Attempting to emulate Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are

max blodgett

After Curly was injured in a Smart Car pile up, the Stooges replaced him with Shirley. alongside actors presumably portraying Einstein and Hitler, certainly wakes the crowd up.

Peaches’s humor stems not only from its ridiculousness, but also from a keen mockery of theater and popular culture, equally apt to reference

Dead, the two playwrights highlight another of Macbeth’s underdeveloped characters—the Birnam forest—in a musical number called “Stationary Trees.” For a plotline so absurd andcharacters so terrible at their jobs, the music in Peaches defies the farce.

novelist Joann Sfar, Gainsbourg contains various characters and incidents that give it something of a comic book feel. In addition to the man from the poster, Gainsbourg’s gueule, French for “mug,” is a prominent character throughout the film. The superhumanly tall and lean figure, with creepily long fingers and a crescent-shaped nose, is an obvious personification of Gainsbourg’s darker side, and it follows him around throughout the film, engaging in conversation with him and offering terrible advice.

Although it may seem a tad strange in a movie about a musician, the surreal characters have a clear place in the film, which chronicles not only Gainsbourg’s career and personal life, but also the inner workings of his tortured, creative mind. Sfar’s brilliant cinematography allows for the adult Gainsbourg (Eric Elmosnino) to interact seamlessly with his mug, even once allowing it to carry him above the Paris skyline to return to the home of a lover. Why the mug can fly or how the musician actually wound up returning to

the house is up for debate, but it is clear that in his head, the act was beyond his control. And the audience gets a stunning view of Sfar’s reimagining of Paris at night, complete with asymmetrical roofs and a sky straight out of a Van Gogh.

Much of the film revolves around Gainsbourg’s various tumultuous, high-profile relationships and the way each affects the trajectory of his career. The most prominent—and the one the film treats best—is that with Brigitte Bardot, played by Laetitia Casta.

The role presents Casta with the challenge of portraying a still-living icon whose appearance, voice, and mannerisms are still sharply engrained in public memory. But she takes up the task remarkably well, and her Bardot is both sexy and human, while her on-screen chemistry with Elmosnino is captivating.

Being a film about a musician, especially one as famous and with such a diverse catalog as Gainsbourg, Sfar’s biggest obligation as a director was to do justice to his subject with the film’s score.

“The music itself is complex— it’s much better than music you would expect for a show about bad music,” Franch said. “Why choose between enjoying a show and its music and laughing at the actors?”

The second production, #Courage, a play about the Arab Spring, provides a sober contrast. Producer Liz Robbins (MSB ’14) said she hopes audiences “experience the full spectrum of theater” through Mask and Bauble’s festival, and the two productions certainly allow for such an experience.

Written and directed by Swedian Lie (COL ’13), #Courage explores the ambiguity of the role of social networks in the Middle Eastern and North African revolutions. It challenges the academic debate surrounding social media and revolutions by focusing on the youth who were on the ground demonstrating.

Through an integration of technology into the set, with a projector painting tweets and Facebook pictures behind the actors, #Courage forces its audience to see social media as a serious

force. Georgetown students read out tweets like “GERMed by a Jesuit #JesusLovesMe,” and are startled by the break in their vapidity when a new tweet comes in: “Choking on tear gas. Can’t breathe #Jan25 #Egypt.”

Gunshots and police brutality paint the reality of the revolutions, while a scene of two academics boxing—based on a series of articles from Foreign Affairs—show how removed the debates over social media have become. If #Courage tells us anything, it’s that Facebook and Twitter are useless without their users.

“As a Georgetown student, politics is never away from you,” said Lie. “A play like this is perfect for the Georgetown community.”

Peaches and Freon and #Courage don’t fit together at first sight, but together they provide a satisfying experience.

“Transitioning between the two productions, the audience hits an emotional left turn,” Dull said. “The two certainly don’t cohere, but they speak to the different aspects of what theater aims to do, what theater can do.”

This proves Gainsbourg’s greatest success. From beginning to end, music is a centerpiece and unifying thread for the film, from young Lucien’s encountering Nazis singing the French national anthem, to his earliest performances of other artists’ work in Paris piano bars, to his own pop compositions and later forays into Jamaican reggae. The actors perform Gainsbourg’s most renowned hits, including the controversial, sexual “Je T’Aime Moi

Non Plus,” in context within the film, but each would stand on its own as a successful cover version.

If a film can take its audience through an emotional train-wreck of a life, complete with lost love affairs, addiction, and obvious mental anguish, and still make its audience leave the theater cheerily whistling the ironically upbeat “Je Bois (Intoxicated Man),” it has to be remarkable. And Gainsbourg is just that.

Gainsbourg is the trip of a lifetime

by Leigh Finnegan Toward the beginning of Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life, the biopic’s subject, little Lucien Ginsberg, later to become the prolific and infamous singer/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, is bopping down the streets of Nazi-occupied Paris. The Jewish son of Russian parents, Lucien is surrounded by frightening posters of antiSemitic propaganda, featuring a large-headed, caricatured Jewish man with insulting French slurs written across the bottom. As Lucien walks by, the figure in the poster springs to life and climbs out of the portrait—a jarring moment for the audience, but not for Lucien. The figure, a Tim Burtonesque, short-legged cartoon strolling the real-life Parisian streets, interacts with the boy, who does nothing to hint that this is outside of an everyday occurrence.

This kind of odd surrealism permeates Gainsbourg, which won acclaim at this year’s Cesar and Tribeca Film Festivals and is being released in D.C. on October 14. Directed by famed graphic

The only pianist capable of turning down this beauty? Schroeder.

IMDB

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“Who throws a shoe? Honestly!” —austin Powers

What’s up with this Thing? M Street treats

by Henry Thaler Walking into the screening for The Thing, a prequel to the beloved 1983 John Carpenter film, you’d expect to witness a crowd-pleasing scary movie with terrifying special effects.

But The Thing ends up just as generic as its title.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead stars as a scientist who is asked, seemingly out of the blue, to drop everything she’s doing and go on a mysterious expedition to Antarctica to dig up some mysterious discovery. Now, I would assume that the decision to just pack up and go halfway across the world would not be taken lightly, but Winstead makes the decision in about 10 seconds.

No explanation. No buildup.

It’s like the film is telling us, “Listen, I know this seems stupid, but the faster she agrees to go, the sooner we can get to the

alien goregasm that you all want to see anyway, so just deal.”

Once she gets to the Arctic base camp, she has to coexist with some Norwegian explorers, American pilots, and the blonde guy from Fired Up, all of whom contribute little to the story. They soon find out that they are excavating the remains of a crashed space ship and the frozen remains of an alien.

Despite making what would seem to be the greatest discovery in the history mankind, there is little awe or terror in the eyes of the characters. The actors are firm in their commitment to maintaining their stern, Scandinavian dispositions.

Once the obligatory five seconds of sweeping orchestral music is pumped in to simulate anxiety, the alien creature is brought back to life, escapes, and goes on a kill-fest. Rinse and repeat for an hour, and by

Imdb

Not pictured: chestnuts roasting on an open fire and a puddle of Jack Frost.

Typing under the influence

We all know how it feels. You’re sitting down in front of your computer, about to start on the 15-page paper you have due in three days, when all of sudden you remember that there’s still half a bottle of whiskey in your freezer. Suddenly, you find yourself wrestling with the ultimate collegiate dilemma: to drink or not to drink?

The reasons to make yourself a late-night pick-me-up are initially compelling. “It’s college,” you think.

“This is the kind of person you’re supposed to be during college.”

Equally compelling (and unsubstantiated) are the popular rationalizations “That wine’s not going to drink itself any time soon,” “I could use the room in my freezer anyway,” or “It’s just one drink, I’ll barely even feel it.”

Of all of these (or any other argu-

ments your school-fried brain may shoot out) the last one might be the most compelling. For the seasoned drinker, one drink really wouldn’t do too much. But for those of us who are not on top of our game – or those of us who just don’t have the heart to stop at one drink – writing a paper with a glass in hand can turn a tedious process into something a little bit more adventurous. After all, it’s hard to be in a bad mood when you’re drinking.

As most people know, alcohol can often cause words to tumble out of the brain unexpectedly and with less thought than usual. While this can be a problem, it can also be an unexpected boon for papers.

The surge of creativity and outpouring of uninhibited thoughts can sometimes be exactly what you need

the end, it’s up to Winstead to beat the Thing to death using the flamethrower she somehow learned to use as a labbound scientist.

It’s tough to see a remake or a prequel without a comparing it to the original. John Carpenter ’s version of The Thing, though itself a remake, was truly terrifying. Without CGI, practical effects were used to create disgusting disintegrations and alien transformation sequences. While this version features some cool effects, most of the CGI loses the realism and creepiness of Carpenter ’s film.

This reboot also fails to deliver on Carpenter ’s themes of building paranoia among the survivors. Since the Thing can copy anyone’s identity, everyone is a suspect. But the new movie treats this as a peripheral theme, letting chaotic violence take center stage.

The Thing really doesn’t work as even normal popcorn fun. It’s too derivative and uninteresting, and the computer effects leave a lot to be desired.

Unfortunately, it’s another example of Hollywood studio execs trying vainly to recapture the appeal of a classic instead of producing something original. How many awful remakes have to happen before everyone realizes it’s best to leave good enough alone? to get over the daunting hurdle of a first draft and makes the thought of facing an empty white Word document a lot less painful. Alcohol inspires a certain level of confidence, which may help compensate for writer’s block. Furthermore, a drink makes a great companion and gen-

Whiskey business

by Mary Cass

a bi-weekly drinking column erally sounds like a slightly better alternative to spending the night alone with your books.

Alcohol and writers have always been connected, so looking to the great literary works for inspiration may also lead to the glass. From the creative to the more serious literary pursuits, classic authors have credited at least some

by Kirill Makarenko Save room for your stomach this weekend: it’s that time of the year again. The 18th annual Taste of Georgetown kicks off this Saturday at 11:00 a.m.

An amalgamation of over 30 of Georgetown’s finest restaurants, the event features more than 60 dishes, bringing to light the plethora of cultures and traditions surrounding the neighborhood.

Drop by the Wisconsin Avenue and M Street location to sample a taste (or ten) of the delicacies.

Entry to the event is free, but this is no free lunch. Each taste is $5, and five tickets can be bought for $20. The high prices of the respective restaurants present at the event, however, almost warrants the high ticket price. The event will feature nearly every Georgetown restaurant, from Baked and Wired to Chipotle to the Degrees Bistro at the Ritz-Carlton.

Alcoholic beverages of all

sorts will abound as well. The Washington City Paper Pavilion opens at 12:00 p.m., allowing anyone over 21 to enter into the magnificent world of wine, spirits, and craft beer tastings. One tasting ticket is $3, with the option of adding three more tastes for an extra $7.

These prices may seem on the ridiculous side for a foodtasting event, but rest assured: your money will go towards a good cause. The funds raised will go to the Georgetown Ministry Center to assist the organization in its goal of finding longterm solutions to the problems faced by the District’s homeless.

Last year, Taste of Georgetown raised over $38,000 for the GMC. So this Saturday, you can help the GMC collect even more money for a noble cause by doing what you would on any other sunny Saturday afternoon—eating overpriced food on M Street.

max blodgett

When the streets empty up like this, Joe Biden enjoys a nice joy ride.

portion of their creative process.

Hunter S. Thompson’s affinity for Wild Turkey bourbon made it into Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; Dorothy Parker had a literary love affair with the martini. And Jean-Paul Sartre and Charles Bukowski alike promoted drinking as a solution to writer’s block, to name just a few of the authors who could have made this list.

Of course, when writing about certain cultures, several great American authors have been heavily under the influence of that culture’s liquor of choice. It is hard to imagine Faulkner’s descriptive narrative of the deep South would have been as fulfilling if he had not been drinking substantial amounts of whiskey and bourbon, and F. Scott Fitzgerald has credited the success of his accounts of New York’s Roaring Twenties to the copious Gin Rickeys he was con-

suming at the time.

Still, writers must proceed with caution. A few drinks may seem like a great way to revitalize a tired brain, but too many will knock it out completely. Overimbibe and the words may bleed out faster than you can check them for errors.

So if your body is telling you that drinking while thinking is exactly what it needs, go for it – just be careful. While a few drinks may make it easier to process thoughts, too many will almost certainly cause more trouble than they’re worth.

And just to be on the safe side, follow the advice of Ernest Hemmingway (who swore by his mojitos): Write drunk, edit sober. And maybe leave the heavy drinking to the professionals.

Send Mary a drunken email at mcass@georgetownvoice.com

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october 13, 2011

C r i t i c a l V o i ces strumentation sounds like the band recorded while binging on rainbows and weed. If life’s getting harder for Real Estate, it hasn’t influenced their melodies.

“Easy” is one of the most pleasing songs on Days, making it an appropriate introduction to the LP. Later down the line “It’s Real” speeds up the tempo a notch, and its sweet harmonies and bright vocals find the band in their most natural element. Not that Days ever really strays from that element—eventually all that reverb mixes the songs into a homogenous, indistinct swirl. But that’s part of the appeal. It’s naptime beach music, the soundtrack to a siesta in a hammock.

While it’s hard for individual tracks to stick out, “Kinder Blumen,” an instrumental interlude, makes you wonder if Real Estate has ever considered going into the indie soundtrack industry. The rest all blends together before, as even Harold Camping could have predicted, album closer “All the Same” finishes Days off without a bang.

Days comes off as a continuous stream of mellow hodgepodge, but Real Estate knows nothing else. While a mix-up here and there would not have hurt, Days is unequivocally an atmospheric album, a conscious choice from a band that’s main draw is its

listenability—you won’t find yourself pushing the next button on any of these songs. But if you’re taping your eyelids open in your car at five in the morning, stick to some Zeppelin— Real Estate will not claim any responsibility if you wake up in a ditch with Days playing on your stereo.

A not-so-tempting Apple

these rumors were in regards to the appearance of the phone.

According to tech blog Gizmodo, the next-generation phone would be thinner, shorter, and wider. Other sites reported that the phone would be teardrop shaped, have a wider screen, and possibly no home button.

Some sites gathered enough insider information to report de-

Real Estate, Days, Domino Brooklyn-based Real Estate is due for some attention. After a pristine debut album, the group has made a smooth transition into its sophomore release, Days, solidifying Real Estate as one of the chillest, melodically pleasing bands around. Although it’s not a significant improvement from the first LP, Days’s fresh material possesses a lackadaisical charm that splits the difference between ‘60s surf-pop and modern indie.

Real Estate’s guitar work is spacy and shimmering, hovering over walking bass patterns in a way that gives their music a light, almost hypnotic quality.

The album kicks off with “Easy,” a nostalgic track pining for days when life wasn’t so hard. The subject has a twinge of melancholy, but the in-

Let’s talk iPhone. Apple fanatics waited to hear these words for 16 months since the debut of the iPhone 4. As if there were not already enough rumors surrounding the launch of what most people hoped to be the iPhone 5, the announcement that Apple would be hosting an event at its Cupertino campus to “talk iPhone” sparked a firestorm of speculation. Unheralded bloggers and world-renowned news sources alike all released their lists of what we should count on for the next-generation iPhone.

And with 66 percent (according to an August survey by RBC capital) of current iPhone owners planning to upgrade to the new model, sight-unseen, people were listening.

While there had been a steady stream of iPhone 5 rumors circulating since the iPhone 4 was released in June 2010, the rumor mill really revved up when re-

ports circulated that an Apple employee left a prototype phone at a Mexican restaurant in San Francisco. And then there was Al Gore, an Apple board member, who in a speech in South Africa last month referenced “the new iPhones coming out next month.”

For many, the slip-up confirmed what they already expected; Apple would be releasing not just one new-and-improved iPhone next month, but two iPhones. The first would be the long-awaited iPhone 5, while the second might be some sort of downgraded iPhone. This second-tier phone would possibly have a plastic screen, less storage, or pay-as-you-go capabilities.

Current iPhone owners, however, could care less about a downgraded version of their beloved smartphone. And once again, everything came back to the long-awaited iPhone 5.

Some of the most exciting of

Voice’s Choices: “Easy,” “It’s Real” —John Sapunor

Mayer Hawthorne, How Do You Do, Stones Throw Records After making an electric debut with 2009’s A Strange Arrangement, Mayer Hawthorne has been moving up in the world. From a collaboration with retro-rap duo The Cool Kids to a Snoop Dogg feature, his sophomore effort, How Do You Do, finds Hawthorne moving outward from

byte me

by Kelsey McCullough a bi-weekly column about technology tailed measurements for everything from the screen size to the width of the new phone.

And on October 4, we talked iPhone. But for many Apple fans and fanatics alike, it was a disappointing conversation. First, there was only one iPhone: a slightly upgraded iPhone 4 called the iPhone 4S. (I guess Al Gore really did just slur his words together when trying to say “the new iPhone IS coming out,” rath-

the purely soulful sound that dominated his debut into hip-hop, jazz, funk, and pop.

Hawthorne wastes no time reestablishing his Motown cred with the soulful groove of opener “Get to Know You.” It gets more adventurous from there. “A Long Time” finds him in a funky falsetto, and “Can’t Stop,” the Snoop Dogg track, is deeper and more menacing than anything he’s done previously. Not to suggest that Hawthorne has forgotten his roots—“The Walk” crackles and oozes out the vinyl spirit of inspirations Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye and features the most bumping bassline never released on Stax records.

The album aims for the same approximation of classic soul records that A Strange Arrangement did, but this time around it feels more like a modern update than a dedicated tribute. Contemporary rock, rap, and R&B influences abound, most likely a product of Hawthorne’s producer and DJ background. He played all the instruments on the album, and from tinkling piano backdrops to tasteful synths and drum programming, the depth of his musical influences and range is apparent.

All of which says nothing of the charm that makes any Mayer Hawer than letting big iPhone secrets slip). In addition, the iPhone 4S looks exactly like the iPhone 4.

For iPhone junkies hoping to impress their friends with the latest and greatest, there’s nothing more embarrassing than having it look exactly like their outdated phones.

The 4S is less a new phone athan an upgraded version of the iPhone 4, absent any radical changes. But in all fairness, the predictors did get something right. They accurately anticipated the 8-megapixel camera, voice recognition feature, longer battery life, faster processor, and global capabilities.

Yet after this long awaited announcement, the thrill seemed to be gone. The Twitterverse erupted in cries of disappointment.

Apple stock fell as much as five percent that day. But the iPhone 4S sold out, breaking previous pre-order records. Over one million orders were placed within the first 24 hours of its announcement. This increase could be at-

thorne song so pleasant to the ears.

His voice is sweet, syrupy soul layered over luscious horns and comfortably swinging drums. It’s baby- making music you can play for your mother.

The biggest criticism you can lob at How Do You Do is its lyrical inconsistency. One moment, Hawthorne is pining over lost love, the next, searching desperately for a nostrings-attached one-night stand.

All of it is about love, one way or another. Call him one-dimensional, but he’s just sticking to the tropes of the genres he’s covering.

Despite the straightforward songwriting, How Do You Do is an impressive follow-up for an artist who seemed like his shtick (rebooting vintage soul) might get stale after one album. But Hawthorne still croons with almost the same amount of passion as his idols, and his instincts as a producer are rocksolid. Play it in front of your crotchety old uncle and see if he doesn’t mistake “You Called Me” for something off of a Motown compilation from 1974.

Voice’s Choices: “Can’t Stop,” “The Walk” —Matt Pacana tributed, in part, to the fact that the iPhone 4S is being released on an additional network (Sprint) and in two additional countries, Australia and Canada, bringing the iPhone to previously untapped market. For people who couldn’t get an iPhone before, a slightly upgraded iPhone 4 is better than no iPhone at all.

With so many rumors flying around, the iPhone 4S could never live up to the hype. It was destined to disappoint. It is, however, still a step up from the iPhone 4, even if it is a step down from the oft-prophesized iPhone 5. Don’t fear, though. The speculation has already begun for the iPhone 5. Many people predict it will come out in mid to late 2012 with an entirely new design and 4G/LTE support. So until then, let the rumors begin. What else would iPhone addicts do without a new phone to fantasize about?

Trade iPhones with Kelsey at kmccullough@georgetownvoice. com

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the georgetown voice 17

i

Kid s Page Hey Kids!

Help Jack DeGioia get past the obstacles of students, bird bros, Jack the Bulldog, and SNAP to reach his Sloppy Joes late night snack. Make sure you get to the end before the Campus Plan ruling. Also seek out all the great Georgetown-themed words in our word search, now at a third grade reading level!

BULLDOG DINOJACK GEORGETOWN HECKLER JACK JTIII CPS TODDADACTYL HARBINMETHLAB

MSBSNAKES DPS GUGSHEARTATTACK HOLLIS JEBBIE LAU HOYAS JESUIT MADNESS

ILLUSTRATIONS BY JULIA KWON, NICO DODD, AND JOHN SAPUNOR

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18 the georgetown voice

october 13, 2011

Breast cancer research, overfunded and overexposed

by Connor Jones This Monday, I sat in a waiting room at Northside Women’s Center, anticipating news of my mother’s condition. Her double mastectomy was supposed to take five to seven hours, but the surgery was approaching hour eight. Luckily, we found out that the extra time was due to a delay, not a complication. She asked to see my sister and me only a few minutes after she woke up from the anesthesia.

Her face was weary and wet.

She hardly opened her eyes, though her hair, unaffected by the surgery, was familiar.

Still inquisitive, she made sure our dog Buddy was taken care of and that I had finished my history paper. When told how well she was doing, she responded, “How am I doing well? All I’m doing is sitting here!” which is true. I think we sometimes have a tendency to talk down to the sick.

Nevertheless, she was sick, and she’ll have more surgeries in the coming weeks. Worse, though, for the coming years, she will have to live in fear of the breast cancer recurring. But for now she is focused

on the ice chips that the nurses allow her and the morphine drip in her IV. I squeezed her hand goodbye, needing to make my flight back to Washington. I looked in the gift shop—nearly every item was bright pink or emblazoned with that ubiquitous ribbon. On the flight, too, special pink lemonade was offered with some percentage going toward the Komen Foundation, which supports breast cancer research. It happened to be Breast Cancer Awareness month.

Still, it doesn’t seem fair that a single type of cancer—breast cancer—should receive as much attention, research funding, and support as it does, when millions of people suffer from less prominent (but equally deadly) types of cancer. Last year alone, the Komen Foundation issued $300 million in research grants; in its 18 years, the Prostate Cancer Foundation—a cancer 10 percent more common than breast cancer—has raised only $450 million.

Admittedly, prostate cancer is less deadly, but the question remains: is this the fairest way to divide up resources?

According to the New York Times, in 2006 the National Cancer Institute awarded the most money per death to breast cancer, at $13,452. It is ahead of prostate ($11,298), colon ($4,566), pancreatic ($2,297), and lung cancer ($1,630). Pancreatic cancer, sadly, is among the deadliest cancers. Its combined 5-year survival rate is 6 percent, compared with 89 percent for breast cancer (according to The American Cancer Society).

Even outside cancer, epilepsy is as prevalent and kills as many people as breast cancer does.

Fifty thousand Americans a year die from epilepsy and accidents stemming from it, but Yoplait never sells yogurt with purple lids. KFC doesn’t offer purple epilepsy-research baskets. Delta Airlines does not offer special grape drinks for epilepsy. We think of cancer patients (except formerlysmoking lung cancer patients) as being blameless, the disease as cruel and random. Epilepsy has a sort of stigma, though. Logically, we know it’s random and the disease isn’t the victim’s fault. But as with all mental illness, somehow it seems like it’s not the same.

Even though my mom has been affected by breast cancer, I see no reason why other diseases are so overlooked. My mom could have just as easily developed ovarian cancer or pancreatic cancer. In such a case, why would there be no walks in her benefit?

No media campaigns, no special lemonade, no t-shirts.

I understand that all the donations that the Komen Foundation receives are theirs, but plastering the corporate world in pink has its own consequences. Watching a baseball game and seeing a pink hat, walking around the city and seeing people walking for the cure gives the false impression that the fight against breast cancer is quickly progressing, which is not the case. The focus on fundraising also detracts from the preventative nature of the fight against breast cancer. The corporate sponsorship gives the wrong impression, making people think, “Oh, if only those researchers had more money, then breast cancer could be cured.”

Then again, it’s hard to say that breast cancer research is too well funded. It would be fallacious to

say that if the breast cancer campaign were less successful, then other diseases would have more money to fundraise. Philanthropy is obviously not a zero-sum game.

Still, funding should be allocated along more equitable lines. A life lost to epilepsy is no different than a life lost to breast cancer.

Equity in funding does not matter to my mother. Over the next weeks, she’ll go through several more preventative and cosmetic surgeries, none of which I’ll be able to see her for. I thoroughly expect her to donate money to breast cancer research. After all, surely some advance made from breast cancer research in the past 30 years aided her today. But those personally unaffected by cancer ought to be more aware of what we give our money to. Just because the world is plastered in pink this month does not mean that there aren’t other deserving causes.

Connor Jones is a freshman in the College. He’ll be administering free mamograms this Friday in Red Square.

Occupy movement awakens Americans’ preoccupations

by Kate Stonehill I can still recall my confusion as I walked into the dingy Social Sciences building at the University of Buenos Aires one day last fall. Among the posters of Che Guevara and Karl Marx, the cigarette butts, and the multitude of students dressed in dark colors sprawled on the floor, a massive sign hung boldly at the entrance reading “tomada.”

The university was “tomada,” or “taken,” by the stu-

dents, who were protesting for better facilities and a new building and against what they perceived as a growing movement in Argentina toward the privatization of education. As a result, the school was shut down for 45 days.

While most Argentines regarded this routine striking as a nuisance that they had to deal with on at least an annual basis, I was fascinated by the activism I witnessed. The passion and awareness that the students displayed taking to the

If the guy with the handle bar mustache is occupying D.C., count me out.

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streets in the cold Buenos Aires winter to shout, scream, and dance, and the sheer dedication that they showed towards the future of their education were frankly inspiring.

When Argentines asked me if strikes like that happen at my university in the U.S., my answer was always a resounding “nunca!”—never. I usually followed that with a disparaging rant about the deficit of student activism in the U.S. Much of the American populace seems dormant in the face of two wars and the growing contingent of radical, anti-progressive right-wing politicians in Congress known as the Tea Party. I have no problem with the actual existence of the Tea Party—they have every right to organize themselves and implement policies—but where was the opposition? Sitting quietly on the sidelines, hoping for “change we can believe in” from Obama?

Now, though, the Occupy Wall Street movement has taken politics by storm, and I am happy about it. In a healthy democracy, there should be free public debate with a robust force of critics. There is clearly ample demand for this in the U.S. public. The Occu-

py movement has spread like wildfire, and according to Occupytogether.org, meetups for the movement are occuring in 1,418 cities.

This movement, like the strikes that occurred in Buenos Aires, involves a huge number of young people and a laundry list of demands. The protests have been dismissed by many commentators as nothing more than the product of bored and disaffected youth complaining about things they have no control over. It has also been labeled as the left wing’s version of the Tea Party. And it has provoked a hilarious response from some politicians, with Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich classifying the movement as “class warfare.”

I feel the same way about the Occupy movement as I did about the strikes I witnessed in Buenos Aires. That is, that the activism and reclaiming of the public sphere—in the sense that young people are making an effort to “occupy” social spaces in a productive way—is inspiring. Whatever one thinks of the protesters and their goals, their movement is based on activism rather than apathy.

If the end result of the Occupy movement is that dis-

cussions that were previously confined to exclusive intelligentsia dinner parties and college debate societies now take place in public, then it was worth it. The sheer magnitude of the movement demonstrates that it should be taken seriously, and that the multitudes of protesters who feel angry and powerless are ready to take action.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor ’s statement that the movement represents “growing mobs” that are concerned with “the pitting of Americans against Americans” is, quite frankly, ridiculous. We should not conceptualize protests as divisive acts.

Protests can be community-building, and can forge social ties and foster greater political inclusion. The Occupy movement should be allowed to question, criticize, and shout as much as it likes as long as it has as its mission the betterment of the lives of average Americans.

Kate Stonehill is a senior in the SFS. She’s currently occupying Lau with hundred of other students in protest of midterms.

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19

Out of power, Gaddafi leaves mixed legacy in Africa

by Michael Appau Recently, a friend asked me whether, as an African, I thought the ongoing revolution in Libya was good or bad for the continent. In my attempt to answer, I realized that, like many Africans outside of Libya, I harbored a little bit of sympathy for Muammar Gaddafi—not for his deposed regime or his domestic policies, but for his contributions to the development of the African continent as a whole, a part of his legacy that is largely overlooked in the West.

Gaddafi’s ouster has been met with fervent celebrations in Libya and the West. Domestically, Gaddafi was a tyrannical leader who repressed all forms of insubordination and would stop at no limits to ensure he got what he wanted, crushing political opposition and significantly increasing the role of the Libyan military throughout his reign. His Libya was brutally Machiavellian; he had to survive numerous assassination attempts and a bid by the French and British to reinstall the puppet regime of King Idrisu, whom Gaddafi ousted in 1969.

Forget Gaddafi, this kid just wants to get back to face painting.

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Dog days are over In a boy’s life, there are a number of rites of passage allowing him, in some sense, to become a man. There’s his high school graduation, his first car, and his 21st birthday, to name just a few. For me, however, each has come with great ceremony but no great sense of growth. I feared it might only be at my retirement party that I no longer felt like a little kid anymore. Until my dog died.

Ever since I argued with my fifth grade religion teacher, who claimed dogs had no souls and thus could not go to heaven, I’ve been preparing myself for the day my dog’s

life would end. Every time I went back to Georgetown after a break at home, I assured myself that if this was the final goodbye, it would be enough.

But all that preparation was still inadequate to deal with what feels like your childhood being ripped away from you like an old Band-Aid. I had Rocky since the fourth grade, and through everything since then, every accomplishment and every failure, he played the role of the painfully selfless companion to a tee, tying together a family and asking only for an occasional stomach scratch in return.

Without words, he taught

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Though wildly unpopular at home, Gaddafi managed to stabilize his political situation with his North African neighbors with money from Libya’s enormous oil revenues. This policy has spread Libyan oil money into countless infrastructure and development projects across Africa. Through state-controlled investment companies, Gaddafi has invested in telecommunications, real estate, textiles, food processing, and hospitals in Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, South Sudan, and many other countries.

Many of these ventures have been halted by the United Nations resolution that condemned Gaddafi and froze his assets, leaving Africans with mixed reactions to the entire affair. Kenya refused to seize any of Gaddafi’s assets in the country, while South Africa has frozen everything Gaddafirelated.

Gaddafi was a big proponent of African unity, granting special protection and asylum to non-Libyan minorities from all over the continent. He was also one of the largest contributors to the African Union, and he invested about $370 million in the African Development Bank, which funds projects all over the continent. Huge me how to be a friend and how to be compassionate—traits that define manhood—much more than a cake or diploma could. Without him, I’ll have to uphold his Mufasa-like lessons, despite my sadness in seeing his empty spot next to the couch.

Going home on break will never have the same appeal.

Carrying On

by Aodhan Beirne A rotating column by Voice senior staffers

Despite my parents’ best efforts, no one was ever quite as excited to see me home as Rocky, who, without fail, would barrel down the stairs at the sound of the front door and dance around me until I could put my bags down and kneel down with him.

My feeling of being home was always best epitomized by the sound of his 85-pound body hitting the ground with a “Hmph” when he had circled his spot on the rug enough and was ready to lie

question marks now surround the future of the bank’s investments and many of the African Union’s Gaddafi-funded undertakings.

Although NATO nominally joined the Libyan liberation efforts in order to prevent a possible genocidal war in Libya, many have questioned the real motives of its members in this campaign. Major members China, India, and Russia abstained from the incursion, leaving the U.S., U.K. and France to lead. Some critics cite the presence of oil, and specifically Britain’s desire to protect its oil interest, as the main reason for the American and British militarization of the area.

The rebel forces supported by NATO have also been questioned, with a London Telegraph article in March reporting that Al-Qaeda provided the Libyan rebels with financial assistance. Many of these same rebels spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan together fighting against U.S. troops.

Although there have been many ex-Gaddafi military and political actors joining the rebel cause, there is unease about how representative the new regime will be of the people, and in what way it will manage to down, as if he couldn’t be bothered to lie down slowly, or with any measure of grace.

Nothing is pulling me home strongly anymore. I can see my parents anywhere, and I can call them whenever I want. My brother has his own apartment, and my sister can visit me any weekend. It was always Rocky that excited me about breaks, because he was what was unique about being home, what I couldn’t get anywhere else.

Without that, going home isn’t what it used to be, and despite holding on to my childlike excitement for Christmas morning (which I probably will maintain throughout my retirement), I won’t be nearly as eager for winter break.

Not having Rocky home has made the prospect of graduation, fully moving out, and being an adult a lot less difficult to consider. And so, though he’s not there to nudge my hand when I momentarily stop petting him, he plays an essential role in helping me adjust to necessary changes, as he did when

balance the conflicting interest in the country.

The hope that this revolution will bring true democracy to the people of Libya, especially after years of suppression, is one that is celebrated all over the continent. There is the hope that the new leaders of Libya and all the North African countries will allow for a new era of basic freedoms and liberties, taking into consideration the foreign immigrants in Libya as well.

However, I can’t help but feel a sense of loss toward the downfall of one of the few remaining world leaders with a commitment to Pan-Africanism and a financial commitment to African development in all corners of the continent.

Gaddafi represented a dying breed of leaders who had the courage to stand up for the interest of Africa against the West. Democracy or no, that courage and commitment is what Africans all over the continent will miss when Gaddafi is finally gone for good.

Michael Appau is a junior in the SFS. Though he grew up in Ghana, he still felt the impact of Gaddafi’s Pan-Africanism.

I started high school, or applied to colleges, or left for Georgetown. His absence is doing now what his steady presence had always done in the past.

In his last feat of saintly selflessness, Rocky assured us in his own way that putting him down was the right thing to do. Though I would love to make him give me his paw one more time, I don’t think I’d bring him back if I could. I could not have asked for better a time or a better dog, and sad though it is to see him go, it’s something everyone must go through.

I consider myself lucky that his inevitable death came while I was a senior in college, when I needed to be able to surrender ties to my childhood home. Though it’s tough, it beats waiting until I can rent a car to consider myself an adult.

Aodhan Beirne is a senior in the College. He’s looking to steal Jack after graduation so he leaves Georgetown with a friend.

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