9 27 2012

VOICE the georgetown

0

CONSUMER ADVOCATES SUSPICIOUS OF GOCARD-PNC PARTNERSHIP PAGE 5

HOYAS BATTLE BEARS ON HOMECOMING WEEKEND PAGE 7

NO CONS TOTHE PERKS OF BEING

A WALLFLOWER

PAGE 11

Georgetown University’s Weekly Newsmagazine Since 1969 w September 27, 2012 w Volume 47, Issue 7 w georgetownvoice.com

IF YOU TEACH A MAN TO FISH...

2 the georgetown voice

september 27, 2012

georgetownvoice.com h t t p : / / btwitter.com/gtownvoice l o g . g e o r g e t o w n v o i c e . c o m

facebook.com/georgetownvoice

Voice Crossword “Bob Dylan Title” by Tyler Pierce

puzzle answers at georgetownvoice.com 30. Suffix with musket 31. Diminutive 32. Vietnam neighbor 36. Diva’s song 38. Oui’s opposite 39. Like an elm tree 40. Bucks 41. Defrosts, like a windshield 44. PC linkup 45. Second part of the Dylan title 48. Ass 51. One of a group including Mouth, Data, and Chunk 52. First-stringers 53. Kind of saxophone 54. In mime 58. Eat fancily 62. Tumult 63. No-no 64. Brain area 65. Cool, once 66. Hit bottom?

67. “Gross!”

ACROSS 1. Leo’s fruit which is never ripe 5. Trombone and tuba 10. Regents room 13. Canal of song 14. 4:1, e.g.

15. Hydrocarbon suffix 16. Creeper

17. Movement of a Roosevelt?

19. Shrek, e.g.

21. Jazz music staple 22. Slang for a certain im ported beer 25. Polished and wellgroomed, fr.

27. First half of a Bob Dylan title track the phrases in 17 and 54 across

DOWN 1. Energy 2. “Maid of Athens, ___we part”: Byron 3. Cause of inflation?

4. Rebel 5. French cheese 6. Fordham’s mascot 7. Chowed down 8. Canine command

9. Incursion 10. Political blogger and radio host Mark 11. Archaic, to anoint 12. Beauty and the Beast star 17. Pulitzer Prize category 18. Sock pattern 20. Smooth-talking 22. Lieu 23. “Voila!”

24. Bone-chilling 25. To stop blood flow from a wound 26. Eponymous physicist 28. The Muses, e.g.

29. Zeno, notably 33. Ballsy poker bet 34. Muscat native 35. The Playboy of the Western World author 37. Noah’s landfall 41. Family room 42. Top scout 43. Boogers 46. Pays back 47. Opposite of badly 48. Indian prince

49. Chopin work 50. The Boy Who Cried Wolf writer 53. In a frenzy 55. Doze 56. C.E.O.’s degree 57. H+, e.g.

59. Chit 60. The West Wing network 61. “A rat!”

ARE YOU A LOGOPHILE? Share your love of words and help us write crosswords.

E-mail crossword@georgetownvoice.com.

editorial

georgetownvoice.com

VOICE the georgetown

Volume 47.7 September 27, 2012 Editor-in-Chief: Leigh Finnegan Managing Editor: Keaton Hoffman Blog Editor: Vanya Mehta News Editor: Gavin Bade Sports Editor: Kevin Joseph Feature Editor: Connor Jones Cover Editor: Neha Ghanshamdas Leisure Editor: Mary Borowiec Voices Editor: Claire McDaniel Photo Editor: Lucia He Design Editors: Amanda Dominguez, Madhuri Vairapandi Projects Editors: Christie Geaney, Cannon Warren Puzzles Editor: Tyler Pierce Assistant Blog Editors: Morgan Manger, Jamie Niu Assistant News Editors: Julia Jester, Matt Weinmann Assistant Sports Editor: Steven Criss Assistant Leisure Editors: Will Collins, Julia Lloyd-George, Kirill Makarenko Assistant Photo Editors: Julian de la Paz, Matt Thees Assistant Design Editors: Lauren Ashley Panawa

Staff Writers:

Sara Ainsworth, Maitane Arana, Chris Almeida, Jane Conroy, Alex Lau, Kevin Levinsky, Shom Mazumder, Caitriona Pagni, Paul Quincy, Heather Regen, Melissa Sullivan, Fatima Taskomur, Ambika Tripathi

Staff Photographers:

Max Blodgett, Kirill Makarenko, Tim Markatos, Gavin Meng, Tess O’Connor, Larissa Ong, Andres Rengifo

Copy Chief: Tori Jovanovski Copy Editors:

Patricia Cipollitti, Kim Tay

Editorial Board Chair: Rachel Calvert Editorial Board:

Aisha Babalakin, Gavin Bade, Patricia Cipollitti, Nico Dona Dalle Rose, Keaton Hoffman, Julia Jester, Linnea Pittman, Cole Stangler

Head of Business: Aarohi Vora Business Staff: Sara Ainsworth, Zoe Disselkoen, Meghan Fitzpatrick, Charmaine Ng

The Georgetown Voice

The Georgetown Voice is published every Thursday.

This newspaper was made possible in part 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.

Mailing Address: Georgetown University The Georgetown Voice Box 571066 Washington, D.C. 20057

Office: Leavey Center Room 424 Georgetown University Washington, D.C. 20057

Email: editor@georgetownvoice.com Advertising: business@georgetownvoice.com Web Site: georgetownvoice.com The opinions expressed in the Georgetown Voice do not necessarily represent the views of the administration, faculty or students of Georgetown University, unless specifically stated. Unsigned editorials represent the views of the Editorial Board. Columns, advertisements, cartoons and opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or the General Board of the Georgetown Voice.

The University subscribes to the principle of responsible freedom of expression of its student editors. The Georgetown Voice is produced in the Georgetown Voice office and composed on Macintosh computers using the Adobe InDesign publishing system and is printed

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

On this week’s cover: “Anacostia River” Cover Design: Teddy Schaffer (COL ‘16)

the georgetown voice 3 POLLUTED PROMISES

Ward 8 needs better Anacostia remediation The Anacostia, otherwise known as D.C.’s “Forgotten River,” stands as testimony to the environmental decay caused by decades of unsustainable fishing practices, industrial dumping, uncontrolled development, and outright negligence.

In a 2011 study conducted by the Anacostia Watershed Society, the waterway fell short of government standards not only when it came to the current level of contamination in the river, but also in its efforts to improve water quality. “Basically the message this year is that we hit bottom, and are starting to climb back out,” AWS’s Julie Lawson told Washington City Paper .

This pollution is the number one contributor to the dead zones that now encompass almost one-third of the Chesapeake Bay. Indeed, that the Anacostia is an environmental calamity. However, that this grievously neglected river flows through the youngest and poorest sectors of the city belies a greater human rights crisis. For decades, the watershed area has

been polluted my more factories than any other ward in the District.

Ward 8, which contains much of the watershed area of the river, is one of the most economically depressed sections of the city.

Unemployment stands at nearly 20 percent, according to the Census Bureau. Meanwhile, in 2010, children make up one-third of the ward’s residents, and almost 40 percent of them were growing up in poverty.

In such a climate, many resort to subsistence fishing to supplement their diets. Others fish recreationally, but still feed their families with their catch. Needless to say, ingesting fish spawned in the putrid Anacostia waters is extremely unhealthy, especially to pregnant women and children. Studies carried out by the Anacostia Riverkeeper in conjunction with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services show that fish in the Anacostia river are contaminated with toxins such as arsenic, DDT, lead, and grease. Barring ingestion of contaminated fish

by Anacostia residents, the toxins still have a negative effect on the region; living adjacent to

such filth has disastrous consequences on the region’s aging infrastructure.

Over the past few years, the District has begun to introduce new measures to restore the watershed area. The bag tax, for example, funnels money to the AWS, which has made progress in stabilizing dissolved oxygen levels in the water, normalizing chlorophyll levels, controlling runoff, and decreasing the flow of toxin leaks into the river. DC Water is also undergoing a massive infrastructure overhaul that will mitigate sewage flowing into the river from the area’s antiquated Combined Sewer Outflow system.

However, the catastrophe on the Anacostia demands even greater efforts. The D.C. government must increase funding toward remediation efforts and require green development along the river. Meanwhile, advocacy groups should keep the pressure on the city—through legal action, if necessary—to fulfill their duty to maintain a safe, clean environment, especially for the District’s poorest citizens.

A TASTE OF PLEASURE

Epicurean settlement a victory for workers After at least four employees sued Epicurean and Co. for unpaid overtime wages, the company has agreed to pay two of the workers’ back wages, as well as the requisite damages. Although workers should not have to challenge their employers in court to recoup unpaid wages, this case is a distinct victory for workers trying to secure their earned overtime pay.

This settlement marks a departure from Epicurean’s past intimidation tactics. The company was sued twice in 2010, over the same issue failure to pay the Fair Labor Standard Act approved wages for overtime.

These were both dropped after Epicurean threatened the workers’ employment and immigration statuses (Epicurean denies these allegations).

Despite the initial loss, the cases were reopened in July 2012. Three plaintiffs also filed a second case. This time around, a third worker joined the other two plaintiffs, although Epicurean denies that this worker has even

worked any overtime.

In the matter of the first two cases, Epicurean has called an “offer of judgment.”

This also includes the payment of $5,000 and $8,000 to the respective workers. The FLSA requires that employers repaying lost overtime wages also pay “liquidated damages” equal to the lost wages.

These damages serve to compensate workers for the hardships endured in the lawsuits—potential loss of employment and the possibility of being reported from immigration—as well as the real harm of having to live without those wages for the years the case was pending.

Wage workers are particularly vulnerable to employee intimidation during an economic downturn, when jobs are harder to come by.

It is not uncommon for employers to take advantage of workers’ relatively powerless positions, manipulating them into surrendering wages or benefits. And this case is especially striking because the workers’ demands were

simple wage complaints. Overtime is federally mandated, but based on worker testimony, the company apparently felt they could escape even their most basic obligations.

Given Epicurean’s behavior and the stress of having to sue for back wages, the workers deserve this extra compensation. Hopefully these damages, although a far cry from hefty punitive damages, will deter Epicurean from intimidating workers in the future.

Epicurean’s admission of guilt is also a small moral victory, though it has no legal bearing on the settlement.

Although in monetary terms this settlement is little more than a slap on Epicurean’s wrist, it is heartening to see workers overcome concerted intimidation schemes to challenge their employer’s flagrant disregard for the law: They took on a legally more powerful party even without the protection of a union.

This victory confirms the need for wage safeguards—and the need for even more stringent protections of workers’ rights.

DEAL WITH THE DEVIL

Contract reform will increase D.C. corruption Last week, Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) told the Washington Times that he plans to propose a bill that would revoke City Councils right to review all city contracts.

Evans said this bill will diminish the pay-toplay nature of District politics by removing the councilmembers’ incentive to choose contracts that serve their own economic interests.

However, in stripping the Council of its right to review, the bill will give the Mayor sole authority over which companies are awarded contracts. This will only increase corruption in the District by concentrating power in the hands of one office.

Having the council review contracts was first proposed in the 1990s, as a reaction to increasing mistrust of D.C. mayors. The plan was realized under the financial control board mandated by Congress at that time.

This proposal comes on the heels of a contentious lottery contract-awarding process that became a corrpution scandal. The D.C.

inspector general was looking into the award process, but earlier this year concluded that there was insufficient evidence to implicate any D.C. officials.

Now, a former contracting officer with the CFO’s office is suing the District for wrongful termination, claiming he was fired for resisting the politicization of the lottery-contract award process.

With this scandal still in the minds of District citizens, the environment would seem ripe for an anti-corruption argument.

Evans claimed the bill came out of his fellow councilmembers’ lack of due diligence.

“It’s supposed to serve as a check and a balance on the mayor and it doesn’t, because I would say 90 to 95 percent of the contracts we sign off on, people don’t even read ‘em,” Evans told the Washington Times.

Although Mayor Vincent Gray has not commented on the proposal, it stands to rea-

son that he will approve of any bill that collapses obstacles to his office’s power.

On the subject of whether Gray would endorse the bill, Evans told the Times, “If I were Mayor, I would.”

This quip gets at another major issue with this bill: Evans is expected to run for Mayor in the near future. His apparent interest in occupying the office makes this bill seem like a ploy to bolster his future power.

The way to diminish corruption in local politics is not to further concentrate power— especially when it comes to contracts, which present a prime opportunity for cronyism and corporate influence of politics. Rather, the Council should continue with its broader ethics overhaul, which also includes a measure called Initiative 70, which aims to ban direct campaign contributions from corporations.

The Council should seek to reform the politicization of city contracts, but this is the wrong way to go about reform.

news

4 the georgetown voice

september 27, 2012

Watchdogs concerned about PNC-GOCard partnership

by Laura Kurek Georgetown University and PNC Bank have partnered this year, enabling the Georgetown One Card to be linked to a PNC bank account.

Though on the surface the move has been touted as a convenience for GOCard holders, consumer advocates have begun to draw attention to the deceptive practices of banks on university campuses.

In May 2012, the United States Public Interest Research Group released a 40-page report discussing partnerships between banks and universities through campus debit cards. In some cases, universities receive substantial throwbacks from banks, while students, typically new to the banking system, are susceptible to high fees, including those from overdraft protection and ATM transaction.

For example, Higher One, a leading financial company working in conjunction with 520 campuses, takes advantage of customers new to the banking system by charging obscure hidden fees. According to the U.S. PIRG report, the company derives 80 percent of its profits

from “interchange fees, ATM fees, non-sufficient funds fees, and other banking services fees.”

Investigation of PNC’s debit card program reveals it to be far from the worst culprit. Unaffiliated with Higher One, PNC does not charge inactivity fees nor does it allow the distribution of financial aid through the GOCard, a practice that has been abused by other banks through the manipulation of ATM locations that charge students to retrieve their financial aid. Additionally, “there is no fee for a returning user to switch their existing GOCard to the new GOCard that is compatible with PNC,” said Stacy Kerr, Assistant Vice President of Communications at Georgetown.

The PNC student debit card aims at the banking process to benefit college students. For example, students have access to PNC Virtual Wallet, an online service designed to aid students with money management.

“Benefits for the community and students include free workshops, on topics such as Budget 101 and ID theft, as well as the

PNC Virtual Wallet, with tools such as Parent Alerts and Calendar for payment scheduling, which is more intuitive than a ledger,” said Fred Solomon, Vice President of Corporate Communications for PNC. While such endeavors seem noble, Rich Williams, a consumer advocate and co-author of the U.S. PIRG report on campus debit cards, believes the initiatives aren’t as altruistic as they appear.

“Banks trip over themselves to offer financial management classes on campus for brand recognition anyway,” Williams wrote in an email, “particularly at a school like Georgetown where graduates will both make more money and use banks services in the future at higher rates.”

One benefit that may have deceptive effects is the overdraft protection policy. When selecting a debit card, the decision to have overdraft protection should be carefully considered. By opting into overdraft protection, account holders allow transactions to be processed even when checking account balances enter the red.

Epicurean settles one employee lawsuit

by Lucia He On Sept. 13, judges were supposed to reach an agreement on one of the three lawsuits filed against Epicurean and Co. by workers due to unpaid overtime wages. The hearing, which dealt with one of the complaints filed in 2010, was postponed until further notice.

However, two weeks ago, a settlement was reached with regards to the 2012 lawsuit involving plaintiffs Oscar Martnez, Bonifacio Ayala, and Carmen Mejia.

On Sept. 12, Vigor Restaurant, the owner of Epicurean, filed an Offer of Judgment to former employees Martinez and Ayala. This judgment was entered in an amount totaling $14,250, inclusive of liquidated damages and unpaid wages.

Liquidated damages, in contrast with punitive damages, are fixed by statute. The Fair Labor Standards Act specifies that employees are entitled to an amount of liquidated damages equal to the unpaid wages.

“Although the plaintiffs’ calculations show that they were entitled to more than Epicurean

offered, our clients felt that the amount offered and accepted was a fair compromise, given the risks inherent in any litigation,” wrote Darin Dalmat, one of the workers’ attorneys, in an email to the Voice.

Former employees Martinez and Ayala received a compensation of $8,900 and $5,350 respectively. However, the offer does not cover the claims of the third worker, Mejia.

“The parties are currently engaged in settlement discussions regarding her claims, so I cannot comment on those discussions at this time,” wrote Dalmat.

In spite of this progress, the workers will not receive their compensations right away.

“The Court will have an opportunity to review the fairness and reasonableness of this offer and acceptance before the claims of those two workers are fully resolved,” explained Dalmat.

Offering a judgment implies that Epicurean and Co. accepts the guilt of having violated the Fair Labor Standards Act. According to the FLSA, any employee working for more than 40 hours a week should be paid

“one and one-half times the regular rate at which he is employed.”

Dalmat also addressed allegations from one of Martinez’s coworkers reported in the Voice on Sept. 13. At that time, Epicurean employee Elizabeth Reyes said she had “seen [Martinez] come into work drunk on numerous occasions.”

Dalmat said management never brought up the allegations during litigation, and that they would have been immaterial to the case anyway.

“The management is entitled to say ‘Hey you are too drunk to work, go home’. They operate the discipline of employees,” he said.

Kimberly Jandrain, attorney for Epicurean manager Chang Wook Chon, declined to comment on the case. In a previous interview with the Voice, Jandrain said that “At least one, and possibly more of the employees, did not work any overtime hours.”

Settlements on the other two cases are still under discussion. “We hope that it [the hearing] will be in October and if not October early November,” Dalmat said.

However, the feature comes at a steep price.

Opting in lets you overdraft on everyday purchases, which otherwise is not allowed by law. PNC has especially high fees for this overdraft protection, charging $36 for enabling transactions for accounts with deficits of over five dollars, which is six dollars above the national average. If you purchase a sandwich for six dollars and your balance is at zero, overdraft protection allows the purchase, with a $36 fee. Your sandwich just cost you $42.

“It is very alarming how PNC charges overdrafts,” wrote Williams. “It is actively recruiting students to opt into overdraft protection, which is a dirty tactic banks use to make consumers overdraft more.”

PNC boasts of its courtesy overdraft fee waiver for the student debit card. If a student overdrafts in the first 12 months with the account, the first offense is pardoned, encouraging students to opt into overdraft protection.

The second overdraft fee is $25.

On the benefits of the system, Kerr said that “PNC has an alert

service where you set up texts to yourself so that when your account goes below a certain amount, a value which you select, PNC notifies you.”

Although the first waived overdraft fee is a benefit, “half of young adults who overdraft each year do so on average seven times, so this benefit is insignificant compared to the harm of the overdraft fees themselves,” Williams wrote. Additionally, an overdrawn PNC account faces a continuous overdraft charge of seven dollars per day.

With so many students unfamiliar with banking practices, PNC’s practice of overdraft protection is liable to catch some unawares.

Williams and other consumer watchdogs such as the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau encourage college students to explore multiple banking options around campus before making a selection. But despite concerns from its critics, PNC’s student debit card system has not received complaints from the University thus far, and, according to Kerr, “We’re certainly not getting complaints from students.”

Kirchner fields Hoya questions

Stephania Sferra

President of Argentina Cristina Fernández de Kirchner visited Georgetown on Wednesday, addressing a capacity audience in Copley Formal Lounge and answering student questions. In one of her responses, the president had some choice words for the International Monetary Fund.

“The IMF seems to be taking it out on Argentina,” she said. “We are the bad student. We said no to each and every one of the restrictions they tried to impose on us. We have nothing against the IMF in the ideological field, but the issue of the IMF is that it led to the worst tragedy in Argentina.”

—Gavin Bade

news

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice 5

TEDx brings celebrities and dissidents together on campus

by Jeffrey Lin At TEDx this year, Georgetown students can finally realize their dreams of learning what power is.

TEDx (Technology, Entertainment, and Design with the ‘x’ denoting an independent event) Georgetown, a part of the larger TED organization, is an event where various speakers will come to Georgetown on Sept. 28 from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. to speak about power and its various forms. Launched by Richard Saul Warman and Harry Marks in 1984, TEDx events focus on the concept of “ideas worth spreading.”

The planning for TEDx began during the spring semester of 2012, but the exact shape of the event was not formed until the TEDx team obtained some speakers.

“When we started looking for our speakers, we really didn’t have necessarily a set idea in mind of exactly who we wanted to bring when we started the whole process,” said James Sharp (MSB ’15), the chair of TEDx Georgetown. “It really kind of grew as we managed to nail speakers down, so we started off with the theme Power 2020.”

The theme of TEDx Georgetown, however, evolved as the TEDx

team decided on the speakers in the event. “We were specifically looking at people’s fields in the year 2020, but then we kind of thought of people who were trying to work on something not specific to one professional field; for example, Col. Gadson, the first person ever to command a battalion in the U.S. Army with prosthetic legs,” said Sharp.

“We don’t really want him to talk about how the army is going to look in 2020, so we changed the theme to just ‘Power.’ Gadson can talk about the power of inspiration in his life or the power of rhetoric.”

The TEDx event this year will include a variety of speakers including hip hop artist No Malice, Time Magazine’s Editor-at-Large Bobby Ghosh, violinist Tai Murray, and Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng.

The TEDx team was able to obtain such prestigious speakers using the brand of TEDx. “The process of getting people to speak is hard in general. The upside to TED is you have this great brand, which is why we applied for the license. People want to give a TED talk,” said Sharp.

“The downside is that we can’t pay them anything, we can’t lure people with any kind of cash incentive.”

Attending Georgetown also

Technological disconnects

We’ve all seen the signs on vending machines scattered across campus and felt the tinge of frustration and hopelessness. “Out of order,” reads the black box hammered onto an otherwise sleek dispenser. While the uncertainty of being able to purchase Coke at machines in the Leavey Center or in shadowy corners of the campus does not necessarily condemn the GOCard Office, the prevalence of frequently nonfunctional equipment points to a deeper issue with Auxiliary Business Services, GOCard’s parent institution.

For the most part, the technological mishaps can be attributed to bad communication.

Auxiliary Services, which serves more as an aggregator of campus institutions than an actual governing body, acts as a middleman between member offices and the outside parties that contribute to said offices.

Information on problems with the GOCard readers, for instance, travels from the GOCard Office to Auxiliary services to Blackboard technicians. Feedback does not nec-

essarily make its way back, however; GOCard Office staff members live in ignorance of the status of their complaint.

Logic would dictate the necessity of an employee traveling to the hardware installation in question to verify the technicians’ response, or at the very least requesting a follow-up, but such steps seem to have eluded the staff.

A two-step notification process does not always yield efficient results, even with a built-in system of feedback. Auxiliary Services, which changed the price of soda bottles in vending machines from $1.25 to $1.50 over the summer, failed to notify the GOCard Office.

Buying Coke products with a GOCard became impossible for much of this semester, since the readers took only $1.25 from a card.

Thankfully, this problem has recently been resolved.

Technological ineptitude runs rampant outside of bureaucracy the as well. The concept of websites appears to be particularly troublesome for Auxiliary Services.

Frequent inability to log into

provides unique opportunities for the TEDx team to obtain and meet speakers. “If you’re going to be realistic about this, you want to use the resources you have at Georgetown here,” Sharp said.

One resource for the organizers has been Georgetown’s extensive alumni network. “Col. Gadson is actually an alumnus of the Georgetown University Law Center,” Sharp said. “It’s all about finding people who do have contacts. I was put in touch with someone who runs a think tank here, and he was willing to help us bring in other speakers.”

Students will have the opportunity to listen to an amazing variety of speakers from a Chinese dissident to a world-renowned violinist and also interact with these extraordinary people. “I’m hoping this is going to be an event where students leave their laptops at home. This is an opportunity to not only see these people talk but also to mix and interact with them,” said Sharp. “Our speakers are going to stay for this event and they’re going to be in the crowds during the intervals and afterwards.

People will get the chance to meet these people and ask questions.”

Hoyas seem to be buying in.

Students began to reserve tickets the deposit page of the GOCard site, especially using Safari, demonstrates the University’s detachment from post-Cold War era innovation. In an attempt to ameliorate the login errors and looping script, the GOCard Office suggests abandoning progress altogether and using Internet Explorer.

The portion of the Auxiliary Services website devoted to the Main Campus Bookstore, too, reveals a peculiar attachment to the good old days.

Saxa politica

by Kirill Makarenko

A bi-weekly column on campus politics and policy “New this year is an Apple Authorized Campus Store, offering Apple notebooks for purchase,” reads the description. The Campus Store has been open since 2009.

Such foibles, though inefficient, and easily avoidable, could be excused, if these incidents were sufficiently isolated. Unfortunately for Georgetown, general ignorance of technology is omnipresent.

Facilities exhibits the most cases of unnecessarily broken

just seconds after the registration went live. “We put the tickets live at 8 p.m. 10 seconds after I put it up, one person bought it, and in eleven seconds three people bought it.

In the first 10 minutes we sold 220 tickets, and in the end we sold 854,” said Marcus Stromeyer (SFS’15), the webmaster for the Georgetown TEDx group.

Although seating will be limited at the event, Sharp emphasized that students who could not originally obtain a seat will still have a chance to attend a TEDx session.

“We’re expecting there to be some free seats as the day progresses

because people will slip out, so if people are interested they can come and queue outside and take up some of the free seats. People shouldn’t be discouraged if they don’t get a ticket because there’ll definitely be space.”

Sharp believes TEDx is an event each Georgetown student should attend because it truly inspires unique ideas and showcases diverse perspectives.

“The mantra for TEDx is about ideas worth spreading. In that vein, it’s really about putting on a really cool event, getting some really cool speakers on campus, and having an interesting day for everyone.”

COUrteSY teDX GeOrGetOWn

Prof. Michael Nelson addresses TEDx Georgetown on March 23, 2011. equipment. Elevators allied with inefficient communication, for instance, have typically proven to be the most worthy adversaries for repairmen. Leavey Center elevators, which are fairly representative of the vertical travel situation on campus, frequently malfunction, trapping terrified freshmen and occasional disillusioned Center for Student Programs employees.

Following such incidents, elevators routinely stand on the first floor, helplessly opening and closing their doors, unable to shake off the caution tape and the “Out of Order” signs.

Even when functioning normally, in the full ironic sense of the word, Leavey elevators are estimated to be the third greatest waste of time for students, after attending classes and waiting in line at Georgetown Cupcake.

In the more extreme case of the modern Hariri Building—with its still-functioning elevators—technical issues still affect students’ experiences. Printers frequently malfunction, leading to excruciating lines in the most high-traffic areas of the building. The MSB Technology Center’s conversations with

Xerox rival those of the GOCard office and Auxiliary Services; the most recent case forced a printer to be shut down for two weeks.

In spite of such issues, Regents Hall offers a glimmer of hope for the dearth of attention given to not only technology, but also to mundane systems like air conditioning units and elevators on campus. A marvel of engineering, the new science center hosts most ventilation tubes, plumbing, and wiring in a channel running up the middle of the building, greatly increasing the energy and material flow efficiency of the structure.

Regents, at least in its idealized marketing program, represents what Georgetown could become with less bureaucratic involvement in issues of technology and fewer instances of avoidable carelessness sprinkled across campus offices.

Until these attitudes toward technology are altered at a fundamental level with optimal efficiency in mind, the generations to come will be stuck on the first floor, unable to open the broken automatic door.

Show Kirill your Ayo Technology at kmakarenko@georgetownvoice.com

sports

6 the georgetown voice

september 27, 2012

Women’s soccer on scintillating Big East run

by Chris Castano Anyone who has ever played a competitive sport in a league knows how difficult it can be to play game after game. Regardless of skill level, a team can be on its game one day, and fatigued and jaded the next. Sometimes, it just comes down to momentum.

Thankfully, momentum is just what the Georgetown women’s soccer team has on its side.

The Hoyas swept their first four games in conference play, leaving them with an unprecedented 4-0-0 record so far against Big East opponents.

When asked whether he was expecting the team to do so well, Head Coach Dave Nolan replied, “To be honest? No. I really didn’t have any expectations for this team because we’re such a young team. I wasn’t sure what we were capable of because we have as many as eight first-time players.”

The women began their conference play with a home clash against Seton Hall on Sept. 14.

The Hoyas had just come off of a 6-0 loss to No. 5 Stanford the weekend prior, and were looking to bounce back against the Pirates.

Rather than bounce, the Hoyas flew back to their winning ways with an 8-0 victory. Sophomore midfielder Daphne Corboz recorded a stunning first hat trick of her Georgetown career.

When they met No. 16-ranked Rutgers two days after the Seton Hall game, the Hoyas would only further stamp their dominance on a tough Big East schedule. The 1-0 score line does not look nearly as impressive, but they controlled every aspect of the game just as well.

Georgetown led the Big East conference in points and goals going into their game against a UConn team which was just trailing them in both categories.

What looked to be an intimidating game on paper would eventually be settled by three firsthalf goals coming from the likes of junior forward Katilin Brenn and Corboz. A second-half strike on behalf of junior forward Colleen Dinn would see the game out. The game would finish 4-0, and the Hoyas would preserve their unbeaten conference streak.

Momentum was still on Georgetown’s side, as Brenn then scored the solitary goal in a tough third-conference game against Providence College.

Brenn would be in the right place at the right time as Providence goalkeeper Jessica Goudreault spilled a goal-bound shot. All Brenn had to do was deposit the ball into the net, and the Hoyas were on their way.

The win against Providence brought the Hoyas’ Big East record to 4-0-0, and their overall record to 10-1-1. This is the fastest in the history of the women’s soccer program that the team has reached 10 wins. The win also marks the first time in Hoya history that a women’s soccer team has recorded four wins in its first four Big East games.

Since (and during) the completion of such an impressive feat, a number of Georgetown players have received conference recognition. A day after the game against Providence, junior center defender Emily Menges was named the Big East Conference Defensive Player of the Week.

Nolan spoke highly of Menges when he said, “Hand on heart, I think Emily is the best defend-

ANDRES RENGIFO

Kaitlin Brenn has scored some clutch goals for Georgetown this season.

er in our conference, and it was good to finally see her get some accolades in the morning.”

Brenn was also recognized for her contributions to the team’s impressive record, as she then made the conference’s weekly honor roll.

The shutout at Providence also means the Hoyas are the only squad in the entire Big East Con-

ference yet to give up a goal in conference play. In fact, the Hoyas have only given up just nine goals over the course of the season, six of which came against Stanford.

The women’s soccer team has looked impressive in the last few games it has played at home.

Besides a commanding back line that has provided eight shutouts this season, the Hoyas are also in

possession of an intelligent midfield that is not afraid to push forward and attack. Only 10 games into the season, the team has already racked up an impressive 31 goals.

Georgetown will look to continue its scintillating form at their next away match against Pittsburgh on Sept. 30 and Cincinnati on Oct. 5.

the Sports Sermon “When I look at Warren Sapp, I can’t go to him and talk about finances because he filed for bankruptcy. I can’t go to him and talk about my marriage because he filed for divorce.” - Brandon Marshall pany as well, seeing as they come across as a loyal endorser, one that stands behind its athletes. But it’s a product of the times. The shoemaker has one other feature NBA athlete—some guy named Dwight Howard—but we haven’t heard a peep out of his affiliation with the company in quite some time.

That’s for good reason, as the sensitive superstar completely mutilated his love affair with Orlando in Humphries/Kardashian proportions. What’s more, he ruined his national image as a humble, affable superstar by whining and lying his way out of Orlando.

Those are irreconcilable steps that Adidas can’t, by any means, fix on their own.

Still, as history has shown, players have the ability to re-

Again, this time, Nike did damage control. They humanEndorsement deals—they ized LeBron after the dust had have been the crux of NBA player settled a bit. He was still the popularity for over 20 years, since most hated athlete in the world, the inception of the Air Jordan but the shoe giant took an apolobrand. Throughout his career, Migetic approach to his ads. LeBron chael Jordan was a model of exwas the Nike moneymaker; they cellence for athletes; winner, role could not afford to have that go model, and entrepreneur. Nike by the wayside. pushed these obvious admirable Two years later, James is an qualities but also humanized JorNBA champion and his brand dan. After all, to optimize sales on is once again the most popular the Air Jordan, it had to tug on the brand in the Nike lineup, right average American’s heartstrings. up with Bryant. Again, winning Nike masterfully approached cured all—removed the choke the campaign, highlighted by a moniker from LeBron and comsomber commercial where Jordan pleted his reentrance into the most said, “I’ve failed over and over popular players in the league. and over again in my life, and that Of course, with all of these is why I succeed.” players, Bryant and James espeFast-forward almost two cially, the drop in popularity was decades, to when because of poor Pete Rose Central Adidas launched a judgment. Bryant similar campaign should have been Da bettin’ line this week. The series, more judicious in Dookies Margin Hoyas which features the that Colorado hotel (underdogs) (duh!)

Bulls’ Derrick Rose, (favorites) room in 2003, while shows the former James should have AFC South Upsets NBA MVP recovermade his decision Texans ing from a devastatLockout Same Old... in less dramatic and NHL ing ACL surgery. entitled fashion.

A’s & O’s Rookie MVP Angels It puts Rose in the But Jordan set context of Chicago and the city’s bound from even the most dire the trend for humanizing athletes. gloomy outlook once its superstar public relations mishaps. Kobe Image repairing extends to other went crumbling to the ground.

Bryant lost the vast majority of his sports, as well. Ray Lewis remains But it stands in stark contrast endorsement deals in 2003 when an UnderArmour staple despite to Rose and how he was perceived he was accused of sexual assault. being accused of murdering a early on in his career. A shady re- Though the charges were later man a little over a decade ago. cruitment from John Calipari, a dropped, Bryant’s popularity hit Success on the field seems to be a reported fake SAT score, and an an all-time low and he became cure-all in our sports society. early-career perception that he simply unmarketable for Nike Is it a good thing? Probably wasn’t good for anything except and his other endorsers—until not—young children could grow scoring. he started winning again, that is. up rooting for these superior Winning changed all of that That didn’t happen for another athletes and accepting all of their for Rose. It made him relevant three years, but once Bryant start- shady practices on the side as acin one of the biggest basketball ed going deep into the playoffs, ceptable. But that’s just one permarkets in the nation and put all the popularity soared once more. spective. Nike and Adidas invest of the controversies to the side.

It’s a similar ascent to LeBron hundreds of millions into playHis endorsement with Adidas en- James’s. While he wasn’t commit- ers like James and Rose; clearly hanced the popularity that win- ted of a crime, Cleveland’s reaction they want to milk these athletes ning started. to his departure for South Beach in for all the revenue they’re worth.

Now, while he’s out of the 2010 certainly gave off that impres- Whether the manner they portray spotlight, Adidas is standing by sion. Cavaliers fans burned James these athletes in that pursuit is achim and keeping him relevant. Of jerseys, disowning and vilifying curate, therefore, is a moot point. course, this is good for the com- their former hometown hero.

It’s all about the money.

by Kevin Joseph

sports

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice 7

Caris and Distazo shine for Hoyas Homecoming game awaits

by Chris Almeida After a weekend of competition at the Princeton Farnsworth Invitational and the Mary Washington Tournament, the Hoya tennis programs returned to the Hilltop to host the Georgetown Classic, an individual tournament played on the tennis courts outside McDonough.

This tournament consisted of both men’s and women’s competitions and invited schools from the D.C. area, including George Washington University and University of Maryland, Baltimore College.

After settling into competition last week, both teams experienced success in the home tournament.

On the men’s side, Georgetown had three of the four remaining competitors in the semifinals of both the singles and doubles tournaments.

After a loss in the first round of the main draw, sophomore Alex Tropiano rebounded to win the consolation bracket without losing a game. Tropiano also reached the final of the doubles tournament

with sophomore Daniel Khanin, who reached the semifinals of the singles draw before losing to teammate, sophomore Shane Korber.

“I think we had a lot of guys step up,” said senior captain Charlie Caris of his team’s success. “One of our guys, Danny Khanin, was down 5-0 in the third and he won seven straight games to win. I think all across the board we had good performances.”

The weekend was especially big for Caris, who was in top form as he won both the singles tournament, beating Korber in the final, and the doubles tournament with junior partner Casey Distaso. “I would attribute it to the last month of practice,” Caris said of his performance in the tournament. “Everybody has been showing up to practice on time. We’ve been doing the runs, we’ve been doing the lifts, and I guess I just felt that I had the team behind me and that I had something to fight for more so than I had in the past. I felt a little bit more pride. I really wanted to represent Georgetown.”

Vicky Sekely’s health is key for the Hoyas going forward.

LUCIA HE

Argentina hates the refs, too

While I was very excited to study abroad in Argentina, I was apprehensive about missing out on American sports--specifically, I was petrified of missing the Sunday football games. My father taught me at a young age to root for the New York Giants (and thus hate the Eagles), and I’ve been hooked ever since, either watching the weekend games live or using ESPN GameCast while I begrudgingly do homework in Lau. My concerns were viable before I arrived here, but luck has me living in an apartment that is exactly one block away from Casabar, one of the few American sports bars in the city. The hidden entrance to this place makes it appear to be quiet and relaxed, and on the weekdays, it is. On Sundays, however, it transforms, with the help of the crazed Americans that

always go to support their teams.

A few Argentines come every Sunday as well, sometimes with their American friends and sometimes voluntarily. This intrigued me, as American football can be difficult to follow, and they informed me they became hooked after being introduced to it by a friend from the States. All of them self-taught the rules of the game, which shocked me, and some of them even have their own fantasy football teams.

While everyone gets into the classic sports bar arguments, all consisting of reasons why their team/quarterback/defensive line is the best and why yours is awful, there one thing that bonds us together: how terrible the replacement referees have been.

Since the NFL referee lockout, there have been numerous bad calls by the replacement refer-

On the women’s side, sophomore Sophie Panarese reached the final of the singles draw before falling to Leah Pascarella from George Washington 7-6, 6-1. The team of junior Kelly Comolli and Liz Hamlin reached the final of the doubles tournament before falling to Mimi Hamling and Lana Robins from George Washington.

“We overall had a good weekend, unfortunately I wasn’t able to play because I’ve been struggling with an injury, but others did extremely well,” said senior captain Vicky Sekely of the weekend’s performance. “We had girls in the singles final, the doubles final, and the back draw, so we overall had a great weekend. We have a lot of off-time before ITA’s so we’re just focusing on making practice like a match so we can get the competition going.”

Next weekend, the men will head to the Margaux Powers Tournament in Providence, R.I., while the women will have the weekend off. Both teams will go to Intercollegiate Tennis Association Regionals from Oct. 18-23, the women at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg and the men at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, before a three month break from competition. After ITA Regionals, the Hoya tennis program looks to move their individual success into the team season, which begins in February.

“My main objective for the next week is just to maintain the same level of tennis and have the same level of intensity,” Caris said. “I would extend that as a team goal as well. I think everyone put on a good show, we had three of the four semifinalists in the singles and the doubles so I would just say if we can continue the success from this weekend, I think we’ll be in good shape.” ees. When I was procrastinating, I looked up where some of these men previously worked to get their qualifications, and quite a few have been fired from supervising some college conferences, such as the Pac-12. Even worse, some were denied from reffing the Lingerie Football League.

Sporty Spice

by Melissa Sullivan

a rotating column on sports I admit that I surely am no professional, but I was shocked when I saw Wayne Elliot, the ref for the Packers vs. Seahawks game, point in the wrong direction to assign a penalty to Green Bay and help Seattle win.

I feel slightly bad for the new officials—they came into a bad situation and are ridiculed by

by Joe Pollicino After a momentous 21-20 win against Princeton (0-2) in their first ever nationally televised game, the Georgetown football team (3-1, 0-0 Patriot League) rolls into this Saturday’s Homecoming game against the Brown Bears (1-1), looking to build off their early season success.

“Friday night’s win against Princeton was huge for our program,” said Head Coach Kevin Kelly after the win. “Still, there is a lot of work to do tol be the team we know we can be.”

After the emotional and thrilling victory, the Hoyas will focus all their energy on the Bears, their most formidable opponent so far. In their previous two games, Brown defeated one of Georgetown’s Jesuit rivals Holy Cross 24-21, and lost to Ivy League power Harvard 31-45.

“Brown will probably be the best team we have played to date,” said Coach Kelly.

“Brown is a contender in the Ivy League each year, so we are expecting quite a challenge for Homecoming.”

It is unclear who will be under center for the Hoyas, as senior quarterback Isaiah Kempf is still day-to-day and Aaron Aiken’s status is unknown after he suffered an ankle injury early in the game against Princeton.

However, if neither one plays, the Hoyas know they have a more-than-capable replacement in sophomore Stephen Skon, who led the Hoyas on

fans, players, and coaches—and maybe the person that should be held more accountable is Commissioner Roger Goodell for allowing these people to make important “game-time” decisions.

Soccer has also had its fair share of bad referees. One man at Casabar, who was making fun of the new American football officials, told me the story of the Argentina-England quarterfinal in the FIFA World Cup of 1986.

Although he was young when this World Cup occurred, he recounted what he claimed as “the best worst call in sports history,” as it was in Argentina’s favor and enabled them to continue playing and ultimately win the tournament. At the beginning of the second half, when the score was 0-0, Argentine forward Diego Maradona accidentally scored a goal with his hands, and the refs did not call against it; not only did

their game-winning 15-play, 72-yard drive in the final minutes against Princeton.

Whoever plays quarterback for the Hoyas will definitely have the chance to put a lot of points on the board, as coming into this week Brown has the nation’s 92nd ranked total defense and the 111th ranked passing defense.

On the offensive side of the ball, the Bears are led by senior quarterback Patrick Donnelly, who has completed 63.5 percent of his passes with five touchdowns heading into Saturday’s matchup with the Hoyas. Donnelly’s primary receiving options are senior wide receivers Tellef Lundeval and Jonah Fay. Lundeval is more of a possession receiver and Fay will be a deep threat, as he has averages 18 yards per catch. Senior running back Spiro Theodhosi leads the Brown rushing attack.

An interesting matchup to watch this Saturday will be between Theodhosi and Georgetown senior linebacker Rob McCabe. The Hoyas, led

by McCabe, have the 19th-best run defense in the country, while Theodhosi has averaged over 100 yards per game on the ground this year. If the Hoyas can stop the run and make Brown one-dimensional on offense, they will have a great chance to win the game.

“We’re looking forward to seeing everyone on campus this weekend for homecoming.” said Coach Kelly. “It should be a great atmosphere once again at Multi-Sport Field.”

he score the first goal illegally, but also this mistake gave Argentina a 2-1 win over the English.

The 1986 Argentina soccer team was full of talent and could very well have won the World Cup without this call, but this “Hand of God” play really changed the pace of this specific match.

Initially I was not sure how to react to this story: this man was making fun of horrible referees and bad calls and then informs me about the handball that was made in Argentina’s favor. It made me realize that worse calls have been made in sports, that I should enjoy the temporary humor these replacement refs have provided me (unless it’s against the Giants), and continue hoping that Goodell and the previous NFL referees come to an agreement soon.

Make bad decisions with Melissa at msullivan@georgetownvoice.com

feature

8 the georgetown voice

september 27, 2012

toxic relationship ECOLOGICAL INJUSTICE ON THE ANACOSTIA “See that fish there. Back in the early ‘60s or ‘70s, you didn’t see catfish like that.”

John Swan pulls his hook out of the mouth of what he estimates to be a 20-pound catfish. For now, it flops around on the grass. “A few years ago you could come down here and stay all day—catfish will bite anything— but you couldn’t hardly catch anything.”

Swan has been fishing from the bank of the Anacostia River for 49 years. He said he’s watched the river become clearer—and the fish become healthier—ever since the 1990s.

“There weren’t many fish in here. It was too polluted,” he said. “There wasn’t enough oxygen in the water. And the fish you caught, they were sick.”

According to Julie Lawson, Communications and Campaigns Manager at the Anacostia Watershed Society, the river’s quality degraded sharply in the postWorld War II era. She referenced an unfinished concrete structure jutting off of the Kingman Island, begun in the 1930s, that was originally intended as a water gate to create a lake during high tide. “To me, that indicates that D.C. residents thought it was viable to have a swimming beach

on the Anacostia,” she said, “whereas now, that’s shocking.”

The river became progressively more polluted in subsequent decades, until a new wave of development along the waterfront— and the erection of the Nationals stadium a bit farther afield—spurred awareness beyond a small group of community activists.

Ironically, the Anacostia’s struggle with sediment pollution, which blocks out light, strangling the growth of vegetation and fish, was brought about by the first big wave of development about 100 years ago, when concrete began to edge out the natural landscape that kept the storm water at bay.

“The Anacostia Waterfront Initiative [a development project administered by the District government] was a big turning point,” said Lawson. This was an indication that key players outside the community were starting to pay attention to the state of the Anacostia.

Mike Bolinder, of the Anacostia Riverkeeper Society, said residents are skeptical about the benefits of this development spurt; after all, outside investment is often a harbinger of gentrification and the attendant rent and cost of living spikes. But as far as the Anacostia is concerned, with development came private stakeholders with an interest in beautifying the visibly polluted river. As Lawson put it, “You’re not going to buy a million-dollar condo overlooking a cesspool.”

Even though Anacostia fish populations, like orange carp and dark green bass, may have regained some of their vibrancy, Swan said there is also a growing awareness among his fellow fishermen of the river’s toxicity. “These fish are big and strong,” he said, looking back at the fish still flopping its tail against the grass. “But you can’t eat them—cancer.”

According to Swan, public awareness about the extent of the river’s pollution has discouraged watershed residents from con-

Trash from urban streets runs into the Anacostia during thunderstorms.

TESS O’CONNOR

suming fish they catch there. Specifically, he said people have taken note of media coverage of the dangers of consuming toxic fish.

However, local studies indicate that Anacostia fish feed a significant portion of the watershed population. Anacostia Riverkeeper, a local advocacy organization, recently conducted a five-year study examining anglers’ habits and reasons for fishing in the river.

“We thought it would be mainly homeless guys fishing because they need the protein,” said Bolinder. In fact, their study suggests that there are 1,000 to 3,000 men who fish regularly, with about 17,000 people total consuming the fish. “It’s a community that loves sharing.”

The study indicated that while many people do fish as a way to inject cheap protein into their diets—Wards 7 and 8 are rife with food deserts, and fish are an expensive commodity—this is by no means a primary motivation for all fishers. The Riverkeeper’s Society indicated that very few fishers are facing a fish-or-starve ultimatum. The vast majority fish as part of a community tradition that spans generations or as a way to get exercise and enjoy the fresh air.

The direct effects of consuming Anacostia fish have not been extensively studied, partly because widespread public awareness of the Anacostia is relatively recent, and partly because toxicology studies are expensive to execute.

The Environmental Protection Agency has codified the types and amounts of fish that can be safely consumed. They warn against eating any amount of catfish, carp, or eel, but condone half a pound per month of largemouth bass and half a pound per week of sunfish.

According to Bolinder, anglers often use these public health guidelines to justify whatever their consumption habits might be. “They look at this document and think, ‘I can eat some fish.’” explained Bolinder.

“It’s the absolute opposite of the intended advisories.”

Furthermore, these measurements are not specific enough to accommodate for the differences in men, women, and children’s bodies. Women of childbearing age and children themselves are much more acutely affected by the mercury buildup in fish.

This advisory, established by the D.C. Department of Health, applies District-wide to rivers of varying degrees of pollution.

“What we need to be saying is, ‘Don’t eat the fish. Period,’” said Lawson.

But even that direct message might be difficult for the DOH to disseminate. The advisory is typically printed on fishing licenses, but not all people who fish have one. Many others cannot even read, either in English or Spanish. According to Lawson, the text-based signage posted along the river that refers fishermen to the DDOE website has been ineffective.

Despite Swan’s testimony that pollution awareness has altered watershed residents’ behavior, the Anacostia Riverkeeper’s study

also indicated some residents’ uncertainty surrounding government claims that Anacostia fish are toxic at all. “They think, ‘I’ve been eating these fish for years and I’ve never gotten sick.’ But the sick they’re thinking about is food poisoning,” said Bolinder. “They’re not thinking about cancer. Those dots aren’t quite connected within the community.”

Even among fishermen who are aware of the attendant health risks, sharing is still an

TESS O’CONNOR

feature

georgetownvoice.com The Benning Road Pepco facility was the subject of neighborhood concern back in the 1970s, when an ex-military resident named George Gurley administered a public health study in the surrounding neighborhoods. His study found elevated levels of asthma, bronchitis, and cancer.

This study has never been replicated, but the EPA has extensively documented the connection between sulfur dioxide emitted from power plants and these types of negative respiratory side effects.

Last year, the decommissioned Pepco compound was almost designated one of the EPA’s “high-priority” sites, which would have qualified it to be taken over by the federal government as a Superfund site. The District government bid to take responsibility of the site, largely for fear of the stigmatization that is thought to accom-

TESS O’CONNOR

Anglers recognize the Anacostia’s pollution.

Heavy metals are trapped in the riverbed.

integral part of the experience. Said Lawson, “They feel a sense of satisfaction that they’ve helped their fellow man even if they know how dirty the river is.”

For those fishing out of necessity, the prospect of a distant, immediately unobservable illness presents a difficult calculation.

“You’re asking people to set aside their hunger today to protect their health 20 years from now or protect the health of a potential child.”

The Riverkeeper’s study also suggested quite a bit of skepticism about the DOH guidelines. “It’s a community that’s been lied to and a community that’s faced the brunt of damaging policy.”

The portion of the Anacostia watershed area that runs through Wards 7 and 8 has historically served as the city’s industrial dumping ground: PEPCO’s coal-burning Benning Road facility, the Kenilworth landfill, and Washington Navy Yard all have facilities in the watershed area.

All of this background pollution can make it difficult to isolate the effects of eating toxic fish as a public health hazard. Furthermore, it’s all part of the same web of pollution, with the river reflecting industrial activity on the shoreline.

pany a Superfund label—these are some of the most egregiously polluted sites in the country. Some advocacy organizations, like the Anacostia Riverkeeper, testified that the District government lacked the resources to adequately remediate the site.

Navy Yard, just off the Anacostia bank, has been directly implicated in polluting the river. In 1996, the Anacostia Watershed Society sued Navy Yard under the Clean Water Act for contaminating the river with polychlorinated biphenyl, or PCB. The suit resulted in an $18 million cleanup. Navy Yard was declared a Superfund site in 1998.

Passed in 1972, the Clean Water Act required that no new pollution be added to any body of water after 1985. “We’re doing pretty good at no new pollution, especially with point-source pollution,” said Bolinder.

“It’s all measurable. There’s great enforcement mechanisms in place.”

The case against Navy Yard succeeded because the AWS was able to identify them as a polluter and target them for damages.

The greater legal challenge is reversing what Rebecca Hammer, a lawyer at Natural Resource Defense Council, calls “legacy pollution.” The industrial sites along the river spilled chemicals into the water

for decades until any legal protections were implemented. Now, authorities find it hard to tell who caused what damage, and how much.

The heavy metals and toxins trapped in the riverbed will continue to affect the health of the fish population even after the sources of the pollution have stopped operating. A National Fish and Wildlife study found that two-thirds of the bullhead catfish in the Anacostia have cancerous sores.

When it comes to cleaning up historical pollution, policies and programs are sometimes slow to get off the ground. For Brent Bolin, Director of Advocacy at the AWS, this sluggishness might indicate the low priority level placed on lower-income communities.

In 2005, the DDOE and the EPA administered a toxicity study of the Washington Gas coal gasification facility, which sits virtually on top of the country’s oldest African American boathouse, the Seafarer Club. After a joint study by the DDOE and the EPA indicating the facility’s toxic effects went unacknowledged for six years, the Anacostia Riverkeeper and the AWS filed suit, saying they thought the plant constituted an immediate danger to public health.

Meanwhile, the EPA had reached out to the DDOE to ask why these sites were languishing, unremediated, for so many years.

A cleanup plan was not drafted until 2011.

“When you ask why it took an extra five to seven years, you begin to wonder,” Bolin said.

The sources of the heavy metals and other toxins are not mysterious: they can be traced to the factories sitting at the banks of the Anacostia, or to the ineffectively sealed landfill that is now Kenilworth Park, which constantly secretes heavy metals, PCBs, and PAHs into the groundwater.

The biggest problem facing the Anacostia River, though, is inadequate infrastructure that cannot accommodate heavy rainfall.

“For the most part, the biggest threat to the Anacostia is stormwater runoff, which is, in itself, ... a lot of pollution,” said Rebecca Hammer, an attorney at the Natural Resource Defense Council.

When rainwater flows into the Anacostia across the yards, streets, and parking lots, it carries with it fertilizer, heavy

the georgetown voice 9

metals from tailpipes, pesticides, pet waste—all of these go straight into the slow-moving river. In the absence of a natural landscape that absorbs water, this is a problem any urban waterway, but that is exacerbated by the proximity of industrial facilities and an improperly sealed dump.

The Anacostia watershed area is also outfitted with antiquated combined sewer outflows, which are also present in Georgetown. This system uses one pipe for both sewage and rainwater, periodically funneling to a water treatment plant. The system overflows in heavy storms, flushing the untreated sewage into the Anacostia.

According to Hammer, the Anacostia’s issues with sediment pollution can be traced back to the first riverside development. Unprecedented volumes of water dragged sediment into the river, and years later, this sediment came to trap the PCB’s and PAH’s emitted by the PEPCO factory— legacy pollution.

DC Water is currently undergoing a massive, federally-mandated infrastructure renovation, building giant vats to collect combined sewage during heavy rainfalls and pump out the excess.

To mitigate the amount of rainwater rushing into the river, the EPA just established new permit requirements for development along the river. All new and redeveloped facilities (parking lots, buildings, or whatever else) over 5,00 square feet have to include a way to trap rainwater on site.

For 90 percent of storms, these properties will have zero runoff, and they can either dispose of or repurpose the rainwater.

Although there are other remediation projects going on, such as the D.C. bag tax which helps fund projects like environmental education and green roof initiatives, the CSO is among the most ambitious, costly undertakings. According to Hammer, these two programs will most drastically improve the water quality in the Anacostia.

TESS O’CONNOR

Remediation efforts have been hampered by the idea that the Anacostia is a “forgotten river.”

“I’m constantly telling people, ‘Don’t call it a forgotten river,’” said Lawson, referring to the long time reputation of the Anacostia. The nickname came from a place of environmentalism, used by people who lamented that the rest of the city had seemingly forgotten the river as it became more and more polluted.

One of Lawson’s priorities for raising awareness is to shift public conception of the Anacostia from a polluted wasteland “over there,” to a place where people can kayak and even fish recreationally. “We don’t want to put orange tape around the river.”

Bolinder agreed that interaction with the river is one of the surest ways to bolster conservation advocacy—and a major venue is fishing.

“We know that encouraging fishing at all also encourages consumption,” said Bolinder.

Bolin described the peculiar task of promoting recreation on a river that is also the focus of extensive remediation efforts as a “schizophrenic problem.”

“It’s a hard philosophical question,” said Bolinder. “How do you replace protein in the diet in a community that loves to share. ...How do you preserve that dignity and that feature of a culture without exposing them to cancer?”

Still standing on the CSO next to his rod and reel, John Swan reflects on industrial cleanup initiatives that he’s seen implemented in the area. “As long as they clean it up, it’ll be good. Because it’s a lot of fun down here for everyone,” he said. “If they cleaned it up, you’d have better fish. Maybe one day you’d be able to eat them. Maybe one day you’ll be able to swim in it. Just clean it up.”

Swimming, fishing, canoeing—all of these are ostensibly guaranteed by the Clean Water Act. But this river has been neglected, or “forgotten,” for years, with minimal enforcement of the regulations that do exist.

For Lawson, the river’s history is wrapped up in the racial and socioeconomic scheme of the District. “The river has long been seen by upper socioeconomic levels as just over there, that’s where we dump our waste,” she said. “But for the African Americans who live there, they learned to swim there because the pools were segregated. People who are alive today were baptized there, and they’re disappointed that their children can’t swim there.”

Additional reporting by Emilia Brahm

leisure

10 the georgetown voice

september 27, 2012

Pig Iron Theater Company partners with Georgetown

by Julia Lloyd-George It’s not often that an experimental play touting a mix of Thoreau and reflection on Japanese natural disasters comes to Georgetown’s campus, but one has arrived--an autobiographical piece by avant-garde Japanese playwright Toshiki Okada, Zero Cost House is the product of a collaboration between Georgetown and acclaimed Pig Iron Theater Company. With the company coming to campus straight from the play’s premiere at the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, the Davis Performing Arts Center will be host to a weekend of actors doing everything from wearing rabbit costumes to playing the ukulele as they ponder Okada’s evolving attitude toward Walden in the context of Japan’s recent environmental disasters.

Widely known in international theater circles yet likely unheard of at Georgetown, the Philadelphia-based Pig Iron Theater Company has been praised by the New York Times as “one of the few groups successfully taking theater in new directions” and the Village Voice as “a prodigious talent and discipline.” Having toured a

lez’hur ledger

by Gavin Bade

If you just glanced at the ads for the 2012 Thelonious Monk International Drums Competition you might have thought it was going to be just another jazz show at the Kennedy Center— buttoned up and impersonal, but still a straightforward show and contest.

At least that’s what I thought. Turns out it was anything but. The finals of the Monk competition, which feature the top young players on a different instrument each year, are really just the Thelonious Monk Institute’s excuse to throw a ritzy, high-society awards show. The two and a half hour long program wasn’t just the drums competition, but also a salute to “women, music and diplomacy.”

Naturally, it was a convoluted evening, but the Monk Institute pulled out all the stops to make sure you wouldn’t notice.

The event began, appropriately, with the competition finals. A judging panel including legends Jimmy Cobb, Brian Blade, Terri

litany of international performance venues in Europe and South America, the company has achieved a truly global reputation.

After showing performances at the Wooly Mammoth Theater and partnering with Georgetown in several workshops, Pig Iron reached out to Georgetown over the summer to bring Zero Cost House to the Davis stage. Though Artistic Director Prof. Derek Goldman was originally reluctant to take on a new production so late, he and the rest of the theater faculty were eager to host a piece from such an acclaimed performance group.

“A lot of our faculty have been influenced and inspired by their work,” he enthused before adding, “it’s always fresh, surprising, fun, strange, and hip.” If anything, Pig Iron’s guest performance is certainly a fantastic opportunity to bring experimental theater to a campus not typically known for a strong presence in the arts.

The collaboration with Pig Iron is also part of the Theater and Performance Studies Program’s greater effort to feature plays that reach outside the campus bubble.

According to Goldman, the program endeavors to bring to campus a guest theater production that “captures something true to the curricular approach while being in tandem with the themes of the greater production season.”

The international nature of this Japanese play is also in keeping with the Georgetown theater program’s recent global outreach, says Goldman. Through a campus convention over the summer called the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, artists and policymakers came together to discuss “how performance engages international politics on all kinds of levels.”

The cross-cultural aspects of Zero Cost House are certainly a major part of its attraction on a campus known for its international backbone, as Goldman emphasized the importance of producing plays that is “both cutting-edge and politically engaged, activating the community both artistically and in a manner that inspires social change.”

Furthermore, Pig Iron seeks to directly activate students through their performances. In a workshop boasting the subtle title of “The Or-

the pew center for arts & Heritage

People think mid life crises mean buying a convertible, but we started a band. dinary and Extraordinary,” Pig Iron company members will work with students in the Theater and Performance Studies Program to explore how everyday experiences and objects can be, according to Goldman, “elevated into something really beautiful and surreal.” In a press release from the theater program, the workshop is described as inviting students to “turn the spotlight on the awkwardness, beauty, subtle hierarchies, and missed connections that create the fabric of our daily lives.” Simply having the chance to work with recognized stage actors in a series of dramatic exercises is

surely an exciting opportunity for theater students.

Since Pig Iron will be at Georgetown for only one weekend, it has a short time to make a serious impression on students and the rest of the campus community. Goldman showed great confidence in its ability to both entertain and inspire, observing that Zero Cost House is “not just entertainment for entertainment’s sake but truly demonstrates how theater engages a wider discourse in culture.” With such international acclaim and success behind it, one can only hope the company will live up to the hype.

Women, diplomacy, and all that jazz at Kennedy

Lyne Carrington, and Ben Riley sat riveted as the three finalists spilled their rhythmic guts on the stage.

Then the drummers left and the contest was forgotten for about two hours during the celebration of women and jazz. A truly celestial cast of hosts including Herbie Hancock, Helen Mirren, and Tipper Gore moderated dedications to all the female jazz giants. Their star power was combated only by the musicians: Wayne Shorter, Jimmy Heath, Nneena Freelon, Randy Brecker, and many more playing the works of Mary Lou Williams, Ella Fitzgerald, Anita O’Day, and beyond.

Then, the Monk Institute honored former Secretary of State and Georgetown professor Madeleine Albright for her support of their cause and her promotion of jazz around the world (apparently, she used to take dignitaries to jazz clubs to promote goodwill). Herbie Hancock and Chris Botti played duet in her honor, and then Aretha Franklin (fucking Aretha Franklin) popped

out to sing for her. Only after that were the results reported.

It was like sitting at the jazz Grammys, only there was just one award and actual musicians performed.

If it all sounds like a jazzhead’s wet dream, that’s because it should have been. But, the award ceremony format was a constant annoyance. Put simply, with a lineup akin to assembling the living members of the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame waiting in the wings, you didn’t care if it was Dame Mirren or some corporate sponsor hack droning on between performances.

You just wanted them to get off the goddamn stage so you could hear “Lover Come Back To Me.” And as great as the gala was, all the pageantry overshadowed what was most important—the drum contest. The Monk Competition doesn’t just deliver prestige. The winner gets a recording contract, $25,000, and is hailed as the second coming of their instrument.

With the chance of a big break on the line, the finalists didn’t disappoint. First up was

Justin Brown, a smiling, afroed Californian. He laid down a steady, New Orleans style beat on the snare accentuated with thundering rolls and fills, and his frantic solos echoing the great Art Blakey were nothing if not captivating. He was maybe a bit too earnest though, and by the end he was so active and excited that it sounded like he was propelling a big band instead of a quartet.

Colin Stranahan was a different case entirely—white, bearded, and short with chunky black glasses. His complex, syncopated latin grooves and ambitious, adventurous solos tickled the brain as much as they raised the heart rate and reminded you about why you liked post-bop in the first place.

But it was all over when Jamison Ross stepped on the bandstand. If you didn’t think he was going to win when he sauntered out to the throne grinning like he knew a dirty secret about everyone in the audience, you figured it out by the time he pulled out a tambourine halfway through his

first piece and made the quartet sound like a Mardi Gras parade.

He took far less solo space than the other two, but only under him did the quartet sound like they’d played together before.

Jamison simply walked out and sat down right in the pocket— that magical musical space where all musicians swing as one and the clocks syncopate the seconds they tick.

He never tried anything too far out, and nothing out of the jazz “tradition.” He just swung, forceful and elegant at the same time, like there was no contest at all and he just had the other guys over for a jam.

There are only a few times in your life when you get to witness a star being born. But, Ross managed to steal the show from the distractions, from all the corporate bullshit, the elitism inherent in the Kennedy Center, even the legends he shared a stage with. I get the feeling that when I tell my kids about this show, I won’t say I saw Nnnena Freelon (who I’d marry right this second) or even Aretha Franklin. I’ll say I saw Jamison Ross.

georgetownvoice.com

“reality pill, Margie! it was never you he liked, it was the car!” — Zenon: girl of the 21st century

the georgetown voice 11

Growing pains become pleasures in Chobsky’s Perks

by Mary Borowiec The transition from book to the big screen is one widely feared by authors and audiences, as movies almost universally fail to live up to their printed predecessors. Proving the exception to this rule, The Perks of Being a Wallflower shines in the film adaptation of this coming-of-age tale, bringing heart and a star-studded cast together to capture the emotional roller coaster that is growing up.

The successful adaptation of Perks is due in large part to the atypical position of Stephen Chobsky, who served as director, screenplay writer, and author, as well as inspiration for the story’s central character, Charlie. In a question-andanswer session about the film, Chobsky explained the decision to direct his own work. “It was so personal, I couldn’t just sell it to Hollywood.”

Though Chobsky’s connection to the story could have crippled the adaptation, his ability to distance himself from the story in the 10 years he took between writing the novel and the screenplay came together seamlessly in this production, which he described

as “the greatest artist experience of [his] life.”

Fiercely personal but universal in its depiction of growing up, Perks captures its audience with Charlie’s moving but winsome tale of fitting in and finding himself during his first year of high school. Framed through a series of letters to an unnamed but supportive source, who is addressed simply as “Dear friend,” Perks maintains a strong first-person narrative, impressively staying true to the book’s perspective.

Perks begins as Charlie (Logan Lerman) enters his freshman year, both trying to move beyond a bad place and to survive the 1,800 days of high school. Identi-

iMDB

If you had Hermione working magic on your shoulder, you’d be smug, too.

‘I just have a lot of feelings.’

Dear Emlyn, I have a freshman who is in love with me. Is it ethical for me to make him take my laundry to the dry cleaner’s?

Kisses, Jackie “Launderin’” DeGioia Dear DeGioia, That it’s unethical to hold a gun to anybody’s head and demand that he or she do all of your laundry is pretty much a given. Unfortunately. I’ve tried it, and I felt absolutely terrible about myself afterwards. However, if your freshman is offering such services, I say full speed ahead. Who’s it gonna hurt? In fact, this could be a golden opportunity for you. If he’s hopelessly in love and willing to run your errands, why not keep this freshman around under the pretense of platonic friendship? Really skirt the line between “being friendly” and “taking advantage of him.”

Let him do your laundry and

fying as a “wallflower” because he watches life from the sidelines, Charlie soon falls in with a group of outliers, led by step-siblings, Sam (Emma Watson) and Patrick (Ezra Miller). Together they draw him out from his precarious position witnessing life go by and into their inner ring, where he learns to “participate,” even if that means trying everything from pot brownies to performing in the “Rocky Horror Picture Show.” This theme, which carries throughout the movie, leads to one of the most warming scenes of the film, where standing on the outskirts of the gym at homecoming, Charlie head bops his way to the center of the dance floor to join Sam and Patrick

bring you Sweetgreen and stand in line for your GUGS burger—just make sure to follow up with a polite thank you and something like, “Wow, you’re such a good friend!” to make sure that things don’t go any further. If you really think about it, you’re teaching this freshman not to trust people so easily, which is a valuable lesson! Gosh, you are so nice and thoughtful. He should be grateful!

Dear Emlyn, As a sophomore back on the Hilltop, I’ve got to start considering my study abroad plans, meaning if and when I’m going to do it. I know which country I want to study abroad in, the only problem is that I love Georgetown so much, and I love my friends even more. Do I study abroad at all? And if so, how do I decide between fall, spring, or maybe summer?

Thanks, International Love

Dear Love, I’m having the same issue!

As much as I complain about Leo’s and Georgetown’s uneven sidewalks, I really do love the Hilltop and I think it’d be pretty sad to miss out on a semester with my friends.

Still, study abroad is a great opportunity and I think you’ll be happy you took the chance to do it, so go ahead and take the plunge. Maybe convince/

You’ve got issues

by Emlyn Crenshaw a bi-weekly advice column bribe/force a friend or two to go with you? Also keep in mind that you’ll make new friends when you study abroad, assuming that you’re a generally likeable person who showers regularly. My cousin and his wife met on a UNC study abroad trip to Thailand, so maybe there’s hope for you, too! Maybe.

As for when to go, I’d say either summer or fall. Go in the

as they comically perform a dance routine to “Come on Eileen.”

As Charlie is quickly subsumed into this group of misfits, led by the beautiful but troubled Sam, who doesn’t think she deserves to be loved, and class-clown Patrick, who struggles with a boyfriend who won’t admit his sexuality, Perks might seem on par with an ABC Family original movie overflowing with every adolescent issue imaginable—an opinion only compounded by Charlie’s ultimate revelation of being sexually abused.

Yet, in overcoming this propensity for melodrama, Lerman, Watson, and Miller astound with incredible performances that bring both innocence and intensity to their characters in a way that makes their every struggle and triumph come alive. As a result, this trifecta of actors undoubtedly succeeds in recalling the singular struggle that is growing up while simultaneously making the audience root for their every success.

An honest role that encompasses the entire high school experience from the mundane to the extraordinary, Lerman’s portrayal of Charlie impresses not only for its candidness but also for its range as Charlie navigates school dances, parties,

summer, pay an arm and a leg, and you don’t miss any of the Georgetown action. Or just go in the fall, because everyone knows spring at Georgetown is better anyway. Can you imagine being overseas on Georgetown Day? It pains me to think of such things.

Dear Emlyn, My roommate and I started out as friends this year. We texted a bit over the summer. I thought he was an okay guy, but once we both got here I’ve been running into problems. He considers me to be his best friend, but I don’t like spending time with him in the least. I find him petty and annoying. What’s worse, he doesn’t like any of the people I’ve grown to be friends with, and takes it as a personal insult if I ever choose to hang out with them over him.

So I’d like to just ditch him and hang out with other people, but he would be all alone and hate me for it. What do I do? I shouldn’t be stuck to this kid, should I? Sincerely, Detached in Darnall

an LSD trip, his first kiss—with a girl and boy—all culminating in a sweeping breakdown that lands him in a mental hospital. Alongside Watson and Miller’s leading roles, an eclectic cast of minor characters, from Charlie’s parents (Dylan McDermott and Kate Walsh), to his sister’s boyfriend, Ponytail Derek (Nicholas Braun), to his English teacher (Paul Rudd) make Perks a collection of comical but identifiable lifetime moments.

A stellar soundtrack brings these scenes to life as Chobsky succeeds in capturing “a timeless nostalgia,” which is, for him, what makes this coming of age story stand the test of time. This feeling is best captured in bookend scenes where first Sam, and then Charlie stand in the back of Patrick’s pickup truck as he speeds through the tunnel at night, the city lights sparkling around them. It is this instance, as Charlie explains in his last letter, “This one moment when you know you are not a sad story. You are alive. And you stand up and see the lights on the buildings and everything that makes you wonder and you are listening to that one song on that drive with the people you love most in the world and in this moment, I swear, we are infinite.”

Dear Detached, You should never be “stuck” with anyone. Spending time with people that you don’t want to be spending time with is so pointless—you’re a hot commodity, honey, so don’t waste your time. I know it sucks to feel like you’re letting your roommate down, but you have absolutely no obligation to be close friends with him (unless you guys have a really strange roommate contract).

Think of it from his perspective. It must suck just as much to have a best friend that only hangs out with you because he feels forced to. Start to gradually give him more and more space: spend time out of the room, meet up with other friends even if your roommate gets upset at first, get involved in other things on campus, etc.

That will give him a chance to make some legitimate friends, and at the same time you’ll get sweet, sweet freedom.

Buy a self-help guide for $29.95 at ecrenshaw@georgetownvoice.com

leisure

12 the georgetown voice

september 27, 2012

C r i t i c a l V o i ces

Mumford and Sons, Babel, Isand Records Following three years of tours, Mumford & Sons is at last set to release its sophomore album. In a method contrary to popular practice, the English folk band has been road-testing material for the latest album, Babel, to perfect an already well-recognized sound. Though it is familiar, the resulting cacophony of acoustic instruments and front man Marcus Mumford’s rough, agonized vocals grows exhausting.

The title track launches the LP with bouncing guitar chords and Country Marshall’s banjo riffs backing Mumford’s angst. These ingredients, while allowing the vocals and the banjo to occasionally eclipse the guitar, continue through “Whispers in the Dark” and the lead single “I Will Wait.”

A predictable formula quickly emerges: each track begins with a somewhat subdued introduction that leads into a crescendo continuing until an often abrupt banjo-fueled end.

Even the slower songs that allow Mumford to showcase his lyrics conform to this pattern.

While the absence of bright and overpowering guitars on such tracks as “Ghosts That We Knew” and “Not With Haste” is a fortunate change of pace, Marshall’s picking style does not allow the listener to relax; both songs inevitably return to the full instrumental fervor emblematic of Babel.

Themes that have seeped into the lyrics after years spent on the road begin the process of salvaging the album, a process that is unfortunately cut short. The more personal angle of “Hopeless Wanderer,” for instance, allows the track to stand out from an otherwise predictable repertoire.

The song begins with a pleasant piano intro until the chorus sets off rampaging strumming and an unexpected but not unwelcome rotation of rhythms.

These breaks from the structured remainder of the album snap the listener to attention as the instrumental virtuosity of the group becomes clear amidst

It’s time to holla for challah

This summer, I found myself between an aisle of pan-Asian foods and shelves of Tex-Mex trying to recount the story of Passover to a salesclerk at Safeway. I needed matzo for breakfast, because I refuse to eat cereal as the most important meal of the day, and I know how to whip up matzo brei in less than 10 minutes.

Matzo brei is essentially Jewish French toast—you break up the unleavened bread, soak it in hot water, drain it, and fry it with eggs. My nana taught me how to make the breakfast food when I was little, and she would serve it to my cousins and me even when it wasn’t Passover. From scratch, it’s easier to make than pancakes, and when I’m short for time and still want a hot breakfast, matzo brei is a nice alternative to scrambled eggs.

I didn’t explain all this to the Safeway salesclerk this summer, but I did ask him where the matzo was, and I received a blank stare in return. After stumbling though various descriptions—“Matzo is like a big, flat cracker with burnt dents in it”—he realized what I was talking about and pointed me in the direction of the ethnic food isles. When we couldn’t find any matzo, he apologized and told me Safeway only stocks it during Passover.

Despite the occasional setback in my quest for ingredients, I’ve done an oddly large amount of Jewish cooking in college. As a Cashew (the unofficial term for us Catholic Jews), I celebrate Christmas and Easter back home with my mom’s side of the family. But Jewish holidays seem to happen every other week, and with George-

the 52-minute wave of debased vibrating strings.

Individual tracks are not problematic; Mumford & Sons truly has perfected a unique style. It is the album as a whole that makes listening an arduous chore. Babel can become enjoyable, provided that the listener takes substantial tea breaks between each track.

Voice’s Choices: “Lover’s Eyes,” “Hopeless Wanderer” —Kirill Makarenko

Lupe Fiasco, Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1, Mom+Pop Records Lupe Fiasco has come a long way since his pop-rap days of “Touch the Sky” and “Superstar.”

With a shift in focus towards social consciousness—and a new hairdo making him look like an town’s calendar, we’re usually on campus for the celebrations.

While I don’t go to temple or even Georgetown’s Shabbat, a group of us Cashews (and quarter-Jews, and non-Jews who just like Jewish cooking) get together every once and a while to celebrate the holidays.

Since freshman year, I’ve been

plate of the Union

by Heather Regen

a bi-weekly column about food invited to impromptu Seders where the Manischewitz is usually swapped out for Franzia.

That first year, I showed up to a Village A apartment filled with the delicious smell of matzo ball soup. Packed on chairs and couches, people were about to dig into their haroset when I asked where the Haggadahs were. Another Cashew realized we needed the books to read our

older Chief Keefe—Mr. Fiasco has become a more aggressive and sophisticated hip-hop artist.

This new style and attitude was first displayed in his mix tape Friend of the People, released last Thanksgiving. Friend was heavily criticized in a review on Pitchfork for being “sour, half-assed, and defensive,” and for failing to use “viable rap beats.” With his new album, Food and Liquor 2: The Great American Rap Album, all eyes were on Lupe to see if he addressed these faults.

The answer is an unequivocal “yes,” as Lupe rebounds on this album full of musically innovative and lyrically provocative tracks.

The tone of the album is set as Lupe uses every verse as a powerful political statement, emerging as a well-informed, passionate protestor instead of a rabble-rouser shouting out curses to the “Man” as he did in Friend.

On Food and Liquor 2, Lupe discusses a wide range of social and political issues, and does so with wit and eloquence. For instance, the track “Bitch Bad” talks about the prevalent usage of the word “bitch” in rap and casual conversation, which Lupe hopes to end. In “Lamborghini Angels,” Lupe argues that today’s culture way through the Passover meal, and we ran to Lau to see if the Woodstock Theological Library would lend us one for the night.

Last year, a Christian friend who attended our little Seder in Nevils expressed that he was uncomfortable with the unorthodoxy of it all. Who were we to host the dinner celebration four days late and read the Passover story from an iPad Haggadah app?

If unorthodoxy is a sin, though, then my family’s actual Seders are guilty as well. We skip whole chunks of the Haggadah’s prayers so we can get to the meal and crazy cousins knock over furniture as they race around the house trying to find the afikoman. It matters less that traditions are followed to a tee, and more that they bring us together.

So when I had my roommate grab apples from Leo’s for Rosh Hashanah last week, I didn’t

embraces and admires materialism. Lastly, “Ital (Roses)” warns hip-hop fans not to idolize the shallow “nonsense” that most rappers brag about.

The instrumentals behind the tracks are laid-back yet exciting hip-hop beats, which enable Lupe to connect with both himself and his audience. In “Around My Way (Freedom Ain’t Free),” he uses a sample instrumental produced by Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth called “T.R.O.Y.” It’s a jazzy beat that allows for Lupe’s message to stay energized throughout the track without overwhelming his listeners.

This type of production permeates the entire album: a beautiful combination of strings, brass, and bass.

The combined instrumentation and thematics make for a nice break from the entertaining, but shallow tracks by the larger hip hop studios G.O.O.D Music, Maybach Music Group, and Young Money. The up-tempo production and passionate lyricism will leave all those who have expected so much out of Lupe for the last several years finally feeling satisfied.

Voice’s Choices: “Strange Fruition (ft. Case Benjamin),” “Ital (Roses)” —Nicholas Maffei feel bad. Cut up and served with the last of the honey from our tea shelf, it was the thought that counted.

Celebrating any holiday out of a dorm kitchen is hard. For Thanksgiving last year, a few fellow Californians and I managed to cook an Andre-basted turkey out of a minuscule oven. Last week, the matzo balls I made soaked up almost all of the broth in the pot, but they were still delicious, and no one cared if seconds were served without soup.

Even dorm-inspired unorthodox meals are a reason to celebrate, so long as you’re not committing outright blasphemy—Safeway finally brought its matzo back this week in a large food display for Yom Kippur, a fasting holiday.

Place your matzo ball orders with Heather at hregen@georgetownvoice.com

page thirteen

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice 13

From Hilltoppers To Hoyas FOotball through the ages

1889

1st official game vs. UVA UVA says they won 32-0 we say we won 34-0

1970

after 19 years, Georgetown Football rejoins the NCAA

1929

Georgetown defeats NYU 14-0 infront of 50,000 @ Yankee Stadium

1997

Georgetown wins MAAC Championship

1940

Georgetown takes #11 ranking to the Rose Bowl vs. Mississippi state

2012

Georgetown wins Patriot league championship (fingers crossed!) — Matt Dever

voices

14 the georgetown voice

september 27, 2012

Venezuela goes to the polls with its future at stake

by Patricia Cipollitti This October, Venezuela will face an election that has potential to be a watershed in national history. For the first time in the 13 years that he has been in power, President Hugo Chavez is up against a real democratic threat in opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski, the young, energetic, and charismatic governor of the heavily populated state of Miranda.

Although regional elections are scheduled for December and those for the National Assembly, currently dominated by Chavez’s party, won’t be for another three years, the result of this election will determine my country’s future. Will Venezuela continue to be what is seen as a ‘bastion for the Left’ in Latin America, or will we go down an unknown capitalist path, one that is touted as democratic, secure, and free?

I hate to say it, but both futures look bleak. Belonging to the wealthier class, my family is always appalled at my attempts to balance their incessant diatribes against Chavez and his ‘commu-

nist’ project with justifications for the President’s socialist and redistributive policies. Nevertheless, it is difficult for an idealist like me to not view Venezuela as the socialist haven of justice, solidarity, and cooperation that many international observers see.

It’s obvious that meritocratic capitalism is unjust when the majority of a country’s population has been excluded from opportunities available only to the wealthier classes, when exorbitant levels of inequality are represented in lush Caracas country clubs set against a background of slum-straddled mountains.

Chavez was a force of change around the time he was elected by a population tired of the same old political elites, of the same old stagnant, self-serving system. Nobody can deny that the empowerment of formerly marginalized groups and the visible reductions in inequality haven’t been positive forces for the country.

Indeed, one of the advances for which I most congratulate Chavez is his empowerment of citizens, allowing them to participate in their own governance at the local level.

Redirecting funds from city and state coffers to these ‘communal councils’ has increased the agency of the individual to ameliorate the community according to the needs that they perceive. Abroad, he has also encouraged regional ties and has not been afraid to be polemic in providing a counterpoint to U.S. hegemony in Latin America.

However, taking a closer look at the effects of Chavez’s policies, one can’t help but to accept that the rosy view from the outside does not compare to the quotidian reality in Venezuela.

Take, for example, ‘Mision Barrio Adentro’. In theory, Barrio Adentro takes Cuban doctors to the heart of Venezuela’s slums, or ‘barrios,’ and provides free basic healthcare for its inhabitants in exchange for oil delivered to Cuba.

Widely touted abroad as one of Chavez’s most progressive policies, domestically it is one of his most questioned. Modules are on the edges of dangerous slums, they operate for only a couple hours a day, and the ‘expertise’ of Cuban doctors is not trusted by the very people who they are there to help.

My friend explained to me that she

preferred to pay a high premium to send her child to private clinics uptown rather than receive doubtful healthcare from doctors who, according to her, treat everything with an injection for dengue fever.

Local ‘Mercales’ are frequently out of stock of the subpar subsidized and fixed-price food products they are meant to sell, and the quality of education provided by the alternative Bolivarian Universities as part of ‘Mision Sucre’ is nowhere near the quality of traditional public universities. But worse than the lack of success of these social missions, or even the blatant government corruption, is Chavez’s complete failure to address the ever-worsening security situation in Venezuela.

So far in 2012, there have been 498 recorded kidnappings and last year, there were 19,336 recorded homicides in Venezuela. Tragically, this violence most negatively affects the poorer sectors of Venezuelan society. While wealthier Venezuelans retire from the dangerous streets in their electrified, gated towers, barrio dwellers can’t escape the violence gangs and drugs bring to their communi-

“fundamental right to bodily integrity” and that circumcision violates that right, effectively disallowing the practice of circumcision on minors.

The court’s ruling immediately incited vociferous backlash from Jewish and Muslim groups, which claim that the judge’s logic is an affront to religious minorities and makes it impossible for them to practice their faiths in Germany.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government in Berlin quickly responded to the ruling with assurances that the Bundestag would explicitly legislate circumcision for minors in a signal of state support for the religious freedoms for Jews and Muslims.

But confusion remains over how the ruling will be enforced. While the German Medical Association condemned the ruling, the German Association for Pediatric Surgery

agreed that circumcisions should not be performed on children for religious purposes. Such inconsistencies from medical professionals have left many doctors throughout Germany and even in neighboring Austria and Switzerland unwilling to perform circumcisions on children. Even the judiciary seems unsure of how to proceed--on Aug. 21, despite Merkel’s affirmations to ignore the law, Rabbi David Goldberg was criminally charged for performing a circumcision in Bavaria. To date, the matter has yet to be definitively settled.

The decision in Cologne, though restrictive for all people seeking to circumcise their own children, is especially burdensome for practicing Jews, who believe in circumcising boys on the eighth day of life. Put bluntly, German courts have outlawed the practice of Judaism in its current form. The judge’s decision abstracted religious considerations altogether, reasoning that if children are being circumcised without their consent, and if those circumcisions have the potential to harm children, parents should not be able to circumcise children. Any rebuttal will thus also have to ignore the obvious religious rationale for circumcision.

While the specifics of the case certainly involve bodily harm and the doctor involved ought to be tried for malpractice, circumcision is a by-and-large safe procedure that has been practiced for thousands of years around the world.

With regards to lost sexual pleasure, the harms of “male genital mutilation” are vastly overstated.

Wordplay links circumcision with the East African practice of female genital mutilation, in which the clitoris is severed to eliminate sexual pleasure for women. But this is more on par with castration than circumcision, which reduces some sensitivity but does little to hinder sexual enjoyment on the whole.

Of course, circumcision can cause harm. But so can driving a car, giving a child candy, or allowing your kid to skateboard. A U.S. study found that one out of every 77 neonatal deaths (defined as the first 28 days of life) can be at least tangentially linked to circumcision; eight times as many neonatal deaths are due to automobile accidents. Parents make thousands of decisions that affect the well-being of their children, so unless the potential for harm is deemed significant and direct by a medical body (such as smoking around children or not putting a child in a car seat), the liberty of parental choice should be upheld.

Some believe the medical nature of the circumcision ritual differentiates it from other “dangerous” choices like, say, buying your child a pet rottweiler. But parents make life-altering medical decisions for children which may be considered harmful all the time. For children born deaf, parents can choose to give their children cochlear implants, “curing” what some deaf advocates believe to be a genetic blessing. In cases of hermaphrodit-

ties. In addition, the dysfunctional prison system is extremely overcrowded and effectively controlled by drug-dealing prison gangs.

When I think of the upcoming elections, I am torn between the two candidates. Although Capriles is a much better choice than most of the other opposition candidates in terms of social justice, transparency, and democracy, I am wary of installing another exploitative neoliberal regime in Venezuela that would backtrack on all of the advances pushed by Chavez.

Democracy requires active, conscious, and responsible participation; we should not take lightly this right we have to vote.

As I continue to inform myself on the platforms and issues and eventually choose a candidate, I urge Venezuelans to step beyond their ideological paradigms and do the same.

Patricia Cipollitti is a sophomore in the SFS. Chavez might think Bush is the Devil, but Patricia thinks Leo’s definitely trumps that.

Forbidding no foreskin, anti-Semitism rears its ugly head

by Keaton Hoffman As Jews across the globe gather ed yesterday to celebrate Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, the Jewish faith still faced enormous prejudice and persecution. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly threatened to remove Israel from the face of the Earth, and many Islamic radicals, including Hamas co-founder Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, continue to deny the Holocaust.

But threats against Judaism do not exclusively emanate from the Middle East; the West is proving increasingly adversarial.

On June 26, 2012, a German regional appellate court in Cologne ruled in response to a botched circumcision of a four-year-old Muslim boy that all German children have a

And you thought the Student Health Center was bad.

MADHURI VAIRAPANDI

ism, parents are given the responsibility of choosing their child’s gender, which can result in psychosexual depression if they make the wrong choice. And a shocking number of parents still refuse to vaccinate their children against deadly diseases, citing religious requirements or unproven statistics linking vaccination to autism as reasons for abstaining.

If the German court system is attempting to bolster the rights of children vis-à-vis their parents, then circumcision seems like an odd and arbitrary place to start. The sad implication is that xenophobia and religious bigotry still cloud German mindsets more than 70 years after the Holocaust.

While secular state attacks on religious freedoms in Western Europe have thus far focused on public expressions of faith (the removal of yamulkes from public schools in France or the minaret ban on Swiss skylines) Germany’s current rule of law impedes on the most private of religious decisions. Until laws permitting child circumcision are pushed through at the national level, the ruling in Cologne can only be interpreted as another violent invasion into Jewish households by an overbearing and historically bigoted German state.

Keaton Hoffman is a senior in the SFS. He enjoys the occassional basil lemon ice cream, while giggling at the word “genital.”

voices

georgetownvoice.com

the georgetown voice

15

Supreme Court faces life-or-death human rights decision

by Catalina de la Sota On Monday, U.S. Supreme Court judges return to work, and the very first case they will debate promises to cause some bustle. At risk are the fate of human rights, infringement on state sovereignty, and the liabilities of multinational corporations as the world anxiously awaits the court’s decision on whether the Alien Tort Statute can be applied in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. (or Shell).

The ATS dates back to the first Congress of the United States and was intended to protect the vic-

tims of piracy. It stated that “the district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” Thus, the law granted some form of universal jurisdiction to the U.S. But the statute’s provisions are vague, which raises questions about the conditions of its application. The Oct. 1 decision will seek to clarify whether it applies to the Shell case.

In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., the Ogoni people of southeast Nigeria are suing Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and

AMANDA DOMINGUEZ

Does hellfire keep Shell warm, or do they need their gas for that?

A Rose by any other name

Charlie Rose is the man. In my hierarchy of pleasures, there’s food at the bottom, movies and music in the middle, then masturbation, and at the top—by quite the margin—Charlie Rose.

In case the name doesn’t ring a bell, Charlie Rose is the host of an eponymously titled show, a program featuring lengthy, indepth interviews with the talking heads of politics and culture.

But this is no ordinary interview show; to Charlie, the interview is a legitimate art form. From the peculiar way he phrases questions (to Tim Geithner: “Looking at the LIBOR crisis—was that a failure of what?”), to the tangential topics into which he effortlessly segues (asking British author Martin Amis how his “mid-Atlantic” worldview shapes his fiction), Charlie Rose is able to evoke authentic responses from otherwise shallow and circumambulating lawmakers and cultural figures.

Part of Charlie’s strength rests in his show’s conservative

format. The program has clung to its smooth jazz theme music, its austere set consisting of a table and a black backdrop, and the simple, question-response or statement-response interactions between the host and his guests.

Charlie’s neutral tone adds to the show’s appeal, as guests from all ideologies area able to come onto his show without clinging to stock excuses and defenses. Charlie is not out to put his guests on the spot, but rather to dig into their inner, authentic selves. Charlie Rose--and only Charlie Rose--can prove to America that the men pulling the strings in Washington are not all soulless egomaniacs.

I am a Charlie Rose addict.

But how does such an addiction begin? Are there gateway drugs into this Pandora’s box of interviews?

For this fanatic, it all began last summer, when I was tucked into a little two-room apartment in the Philippines. The days were hot, and the nights bred crime

Let the Voice be your voice. We accept opinions, letters to the editor, personal experiences, and creative writing that are exclusive to the Voice. Submissions do not express the opinion of the board of the Voice. The Voice reserves the right to edit submissions for accuracy, length, and clarity. To submit, email voices@georgetownvoice. com or come to the Voice office in Leavey 424.

Opinions expressed in the Voices section do not necessarily reflect the views of the General Board of the Voice.

Shell Transport and Trading Company over a series of alleged human rights abuses from the early ‘90s.

In 1993, in response to Ogoni protests against Shell’s presence in the region, the Nigerian government orchestrated raids on 27 villages, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 2,000 Ogoni and the displacement of up to 80,000. Esther Kiobel, the Nigerian plaintiff filing the lawsuit on behalf of herself, her late husband, and for the Ogoni people, alleges that Shell was complicit in those raids. She is relying on the ATS to sue the multinational in U.S. Courts.

At the beginning, the crux of the case for the plaintiffs lied in proving that a corporation, like an individual, can be held liable for human rights violations. However, the issue at the heart of the case now involves the interpretation of ATS--can a multinational company be sued in America for crimes committed against an indigenous Nigerian population?

If we try to examine ATS in light of its historical context, we find that the law originally applied to crimes taking place on the high seas; the act was passed precisely because it was impossible to sue pirates committing crimes in areas where there was no enforcer of justice. The law’s origi-

nal intention appears to favor Shell, which can fairly justify that ATS does not involve suing an “alien” for torts committed in a sovereign state where the rule of law presumably exists.

The point is certainly legitimate; common sense would say that the multinational should be sued in Nigeria’s court system, not in America’s. However, when justice is not guaranteed in a country, plaintiffs ought to have other means of reparation and remediation through due process. ATS offers one possible solution. Writing in The Huffington Post, Katie Redford warns that “if Shell gets its way, survivors of human rights abuses will lose one of their few means of seeking justice.”

But do we want to give the U.S. the tools to sue anyone anywhere for a violation of the “law of nations or a treaty of the United States”? Probably not. Such ability to try human rights cases across sovereign state bodies should rather res0ide in the hands of the International Criminal Court.

At the regional level, an institution guaranteeing that states are accountable to their citizens is necessary. This role should be assumed by the African Court on Human and People’s Rights but it has achieved very little so far. While

like Levi Johnston breeds babies.

The consequence of these conditions was a lot of time spent indoors, my computer being my only companion during such periods of immobilizing loneliness.

Computer games got old fast, and YouTube got old faster. Movies, a soft spot of mine, deserve to be seen on something larger than a puny 20-inch computer screen.

To fight this oppressive isolation, I turned to the last available option: television.

During a weekend visit to Hong Kong, I found myself sit-

Sitting on my disengaged ass and learning something too? The impossible had become possible.

Charlie was my knight in shining armor, deluding my lazy self into this epistemic web-quest.

The treasure trove that is charlierose.com offers thousands of interviews, some of which date back into the early 1990s. Some of these older gems include glimpses of young Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson, a discussion with the typically camera-shy David Foster Wallace, and a handful of interviews with the late literary legends John Updike and Norman Mailer. Luckily, Charlie does not limit his interviews to the creators of art and politics; some of his frequent guests include journalists Mark Halprin and David Ignatius, movie critic A.O. Scott, Shakespearian apologist Harold Bloom (whose impregnable conclusions are contrasted by his blatant disregard for outward appearance), and New York Times columnists Thomas Friedman, Paul Krugman, and David Brooks. The lowbrow is categorically absent from Charlie’s guests, so his fans can lie in bed at night knowing Justin Bieber and Rebecca Black will never enter the pantheon of Charlie Rose interviewees.

Although I’ve made my way through about half of the websites’ archived interviews, I still watch at least one hour of Charlie Rose a day, sometimes stretching

Carrying On

by John Sapunor A rotating column by Voice senior staffers

ting in front of the television sipping on a complimentary bottle of wine after a day spent roaming (alone) around Hong Kong Disneyland. Channel surfing from the comfort of my hotel bed, I stumbled upon Charlie Rose. I had never heard of the guy he was interviewing, but something told me that I, a college student, should recognize the name of the self-righteous pontificator with whom Charlie was deeply engaged. A few sips of wine later, and I began to realize, hey, maybe I can learn something from this show without eschewing laziness.

we hope and wait for better justice within states and at the regional African level, the ATS can be an alternative means of offering protection to victims of human rights.

But it is not a long term solution.

As to Monday’s Oral Argument, judges are not legislators, and it is ultimately up to Congress to decide on tort laws. But it is idealistic to assume Congress will be able to legislate a suitable replacement, which could prove disastrous for any hope of achieving justice on global human rights issues in U.S. courts.

So on Monday, the Supreme Court should uphold ATS, and the plaintiffs should be appropriately compensated. But this is a purely utilitarian calculation; the ATS is the “least-worse” alternative we have so far. A truly just means of remediation has yet to be conceived.

So we wait and hope. But while you do so, be sure to check the atmosphere at 1st St. N.E. on Oct. 1, I would bet on some twittering.

Catalina de la Sota is a junior exchange student. Unfortunately for us, the Nigerian Delta is less humid than a D.C. summer. into three or four hours in one sitting. Do I learn something? Yes. Is it as boring as it sounds? By no means. To watch an interview with Charlie Rose is to live an interview with Charlie Rose. My intellectual curiosity, subject to the enervating parameters of social interactions, is able to vicariously live through these esoteric discussions. I daydream about sitting at his table, nonchalantly beginning my responses with “Charlie, you see…”, and hoping, despite my embedded pessimism, to hear Charlie introduce his hour of television with my name.

Is this addiction really an addiction? Beyond all reasonable doubt, it is. Let me demonstrate.

This past Saturday, while dancing in a circle of beautiful Danish girls, I began to see apparitions of Charlie mirrored in the window behind the sea of blonde bobs.

It was decided: I needed my hit of the Rose. So I excused myself from the table and biked back to my downtown Copenhagen apartment. I got in bed, shut off the lights, and listened to Charlie list Salman Rushdie’s credentials while I nodded off into the world of dreams.

John Sapunor is a junior in the MSB. He also frequently daydreams about Anderson Cooper and those tight tshirts he wears.

50 shades of blue and gray Here’s the second installment of the Voice’s serial romance novel-cum-murder mystery, 50 Shades of Blue and Gray. The next chapter of this steamy thriller is all up to you — send your 1000 to 1500-word submission, under your real name or your fake one, to editor@georgetownvoice.com by Monday night at 10 p.m., and we’ll pick our favorite for next week’s back page.

“Brett, Brett!?” My voice quivered with panic as I ran to his side. “Oh my God, man, are you okay!?”

But I could tell that he wasn’t.

“Don’t touch him,” Corinne said. That’s when I realized I wasn’t alone, and that the girl of my dreams was suddenly caught up in my worst nightmare. I felt all kinds of emotions--fear, confusion, nausea, and, above all, guilt for dragging her into this mess.

“Okay,” I said with a deep sigh. Suddenly, the panic resurfaced: “I need to call the cops!”

“Definitely,” Corinne said. Then, taking my hand, she added, “But maybe you should look around first and see if anything is missing. Maybe it was a robbery? You should probably check before the police arrive and start asking questions.”

“Maybe you’re right.” My head was spinning; I couldn’t even remember my own name, let alone look through the apartment and see if anything was missing. “Thank God Corinne is here,” I thought to myself., “She’s so amazing.”

“I’m going to look around out in the living room,” she said. And with that she walked out, clutching her dress. Turning back towards my fallen roommate, all I could think about were the fun times we’d had and all the plans we had for this year. My heart sank at the thought of our Spring Break trip to Vegas. Hailing from Reno, Brett always made fun of my inability to comprehend blackjack and how easy it was to take my money when we played poker...

Pushing those thoughts aside, I combed through the room but found nothing out of place. What felt like an eternity was really only three or four minutes, but I couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Finally looking down at Brett one more time, I noticed a small piece of plastic in his outstretched hand.

I bent down to get a better look. It looked like a small charm from a bracelet, and had a very familiar shape. Breaking every rule of forensics I’d learned from my obsessive CSI marathons, I picked it up. Turning it over, I was surprised that the object in question was a small Hello Kitty head.

I’d always found Hello Kitty’s empty stare unsettling, and uncovering those cold soulless eyes in this grisly scene made her gaze that much worse. I carefully placed the charm back where I’d found it, and just stared at its lifeless eyes as it sat in Brett’s lifeless palm.

“Hey, Tony…” I jumped. Corinne’s voice echoing from the living room snapped me back into reality.

“What?” I asked. Seeing Corinne’s dress balled up on the couch surprised me as though I’d nothing to do with how it had gotten there. “You should put this on,” I said, holding it out to her and adding, “You look cold.”

“Thanks, you’re right. I’m just not thinking straight.” She took a step closer to me,

and broke into tears. “I’m just so scared!” she sobbed. Unable to see her so upset, I pulled her in tight and held her, trying to reassure myself as much as her. Then suddenly, she looked up at me with her shimmering eyes and pressed her lips against mine.

Confused by everything and still convinced that this was all just some drug-induced nightmare, I put up no resistance. She stepped further towards me and slipped her fingers inside the waistband of my jeans, and tugged me close to her. I gasped involuntarily at her sudden advance. Before I knew it, Corinne had undone the buttons and unzipped my jeans. Her fingers started wandering, tracing around my boxers. I found myself flexing my hips into her palm as I closed my eyes, relishing her touch. Before I knew it, we were on the couch; I’m completely under her spell.

I flexed my hips against her. “Yes. Right there,” she murmured. She ran her teeth along my chin, eased back, and continued--so slow, so sweet, so tender— her body pressing down on me. Then I took over and thrust my elbows and hands on either side of her face, pulling her towards me. We rhythmically continued.

She moaned, “Oh, Tony” as she let go. Not far behind her, our tempo increased and seconds later we both found our release.

When we were done, I didn’t quite know how to feel. Rage, sadness, guilt, and confusion were all welling inside me. “That was wrong,” I said. “Holy crap. This was bad.”

“I’m sorry, I just got carried away,” she replied.

“Me too. But oh my God, we can’t call the police now.

I’ve got his blood still on my hands and we just had sex with my dead roommate in the other room.” My gut dropped as I muttered it aloud.

“Ok, I live in Henle, too. I’m going to run back to my apartment, change clothes, and meet you there,” she replied.

clear, and from afar, I could hear Bon Jovi’s refrain, “…and you’re to blame; darling, you give love a bad name.” Focus retook me.

“Okay, that sounds good,” I said, and with that Corinne ran out. Collecting my thoughts, I splashed some cold water on my face and headed off towards Henle. Then I remember my fumbled handling of that fiendish feline in Brett’s palm. I quickly doubled back and marveled at the cold efficiency with which I carefully pick it up again, wiped it clean, and returned it to its special, cold, unfeeling spot. I shivered at these thoughts, breathed a shallow sigh of relief, and calmly left the apartment.

I quickly arrived at Henle, only to realize that I had left my GoCard back in Vil B. Fortunately, Corinne appeared behind me. “Hey, I just saw you walking over,” she said.

On the way to Henle, the world seemed mostly silent, sleepy even, as on a quiet Sunday morning when everyone is still asleep or in a lingering stupor; until on the outskirts of campus I heard the squeaking of an un-oiled wheel. Looking up, I saw the old homeless Wingo’s guy. None of us knew his name, but he was a bit of a campus fixture— celebrity even. He never spoke; just handed out coupons all over campus.

Seeing his oversized, soiled shirt; tattered, teal shorts; and mismatched, ratty neon-pink and aggressive yellow flip-flops added to my strange sense of calm, as though an old friend were nearby to tell me everything was going to be okay. He was pushing his cart, as usual, and, in the basket was an old radio—his prized possession—scanning through the stations. He hummed to himself as he passed me, but it was what he didn’t say that got me. From the cart, I could hear Johnny Cash saying, “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.” That lyric pushed Brett back into the forefront of my consciousness and sent goosebumps through my whole body. I moved quickly now to meet with Mike.

“You’re right,” she said, looking as dazed as I felt.

“Okay, I need to talk to Mike. His dad is a cop and maybe he can help. We’ve already waited too long to report this.”

“Where is he?” she asked.

“Henle 20.”

As I continued walking, almost at my destination, I reminded myself how lucky I was that Corinne was here to help me through this, but the strain of thought was interrupted by the radio again. The Wingo’s guy was walking in the same direction, and though I’d passed him long ago, or so I’d thought, the treble sound was still audible and vaguely

“Oh, great. Can you get us in? I forgot my GoCard.”

“No problem,” Corinne replied.

Finally, we entered the building and I ran up the stairs. I pounded on Mike’s door before I notice it’s already open. I threw open the door and ran inside. “Mike! Mike!”

I shouted. Corinne entered shortly thereafter. As we searched I entered Mike’s bedroom, where a new horror awaited me.

Looking up, I found Mike hanging above his bed, apparently strangled with his favorite Doctor Who scarf. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I noticed a note taped to his foot: Seeking the aid of your friend, Caused his untimely end, You were warned little dove, Know I do this for love, So alone in this you must fend “Oh shit.”

— Constantine Petallides