AT THE CROSSROADS

VOICE
the georgetown
0
ARAMARK WORKERS
CONCLUDE NEGOTIATIONS
PAGE 4
HOYAS FALL TO
ORANGE IN OVERTIME
PAGE 6
PINA JUMPS
TO LIFE
PAGE 11
Georgetown University’s Weekly Newsmagazine Since 1969  February 9, 2012  Volume 46, Issue 5  georgetownvoice.com
AT
THE
CROSSROADS
2 the georgetown voice
february 9, 2012
comments of the week
Foxdog
By Nico Dodd
“I really should have thought to work funnel
cakes in there somewhere. Dang.”
—”GUSA Roundup: You know what happens when you accede...”
“He was far and away the best speaker I’ve seen in Gaston.”
— “Georgian president’s talk in Gaston showcases reforms”
“This is actually mildly
intriguing”
—”New South 3 without a chaplain after incident
Wednesday night”
“wowww that needs to be blingeed”
—“Postgame Roundup: Georgetown 58, UConn 44”
Talk Back
blog.georgetownvoice.com || georgetownvoice.com
classifieds
Rentals for 1-6 people near Georgetown University campus. Prime
West Village locations. Properties currently available: 3215 O Street
and 1681 35th Street. Now accepting deposits for 2012-13. Details at
HoyaHousing.com or Facebook “Georgetown Rentals.”
Offered by Charles Sullivan, Re/Max Metropolitan Realty.
301-526-7894 (cell) or 301-947-6500 (main office).
nicododd.com
Voice Crossword “Georgetown Groups ” by Tyler Pierce
1
2
3
11
4
6
7
13
12
15
5
20
23
21
24
25
30
38
36
39
28
44
45
46
37
40
42
47
54
27
33
35
41
53
26
31
32
34
10
18
17
19
29
9
14
16
22
8
55
56
43
48
49
51
52
57
58
61
62
64
65
59
50
60
63
66
Across
expanded its repertoire to
1. Certain tech labs
include everything from
4. Urine group
to Michael Jackson,
57. Georgetown
10. One with a green Motown
38. Comprehend
Pub offerings
who just7.wanted
to sing
gem above his or her est. 2000
39. Cheer at a pep rally
18. Poppy
and have11.a Willingly,
good time,for Chaucer
head
42.product
Genesis preceder
est. 1995
13. Coxswain call 12. Cholesterol and19. Is next
43.toRapscallions
61. Super
betiting at atriglyceride
14.Bowl
It’s weighed
weigh
20. Elect44. "___ 5"
group
16. Sugar amt.
station
22. Latch45. Orange and black
62. Confederate
solidiergroup
17. who
Froshhas
abuser, 23. “Bold!”
15. Georgetown
bird“Amazing!” “A riot
63. Going rate?
sometimes
46. "The ___ and the
64. Like fancy wine
18. Slugger Mel
Damage Done," Neil
65. Snatch
21. Pizzeria order
Young hit
on stage!” This is how
audiences have described
this Georgetown group, est.
2008
29. Sushi stuffer
30. Secret stash
31. Wedding accessory
32. To it we shall return
33. Like a nose in the winter
34. Georgetown group that
has opened for Chingy and
the Black Eyed Peas, est. 1988
38. Bitch and complain
40. Wiped
41. Bring in
42. Famous hobbit
44. It comes after Sun
47. Georgetown group whose
concerts consist of high-quality
vocal performance,
entertainment, and energy sure
to please audiences of all ages,
est. 1946
49. Loud blast
51. 60’s do
52. Eagle’s digs
53. Kind of drive
57. Georgetown group who
just wanted to sing and
have a good time, est. 1995
61. Super Bowl betting group
62. Confederate soldier
63. Going rate?
64. Like fancy wine
65. Snatch
66. Born as
Down
1. ___-Lorraine
2. Doable
3. “___ Healing,” Gaye song
4. Champ
5. Age
6. Female bleater
7. Cleopatra’s bane
8. Hula hoop?
9. Ostrich relative
10. One with a green gem above
his or her head
12. Cholesterol and triglyceride
16. Sugar amt.
17. Frosh abuser, sometimes
18. Slugger Mel
21. Pizzeria order
23. Dough
24. Performable
25. Lab egg
26. Paradigm
27. Tonic partner
answers at georgetownvoice.com
28. Foxy?
30. Stanley, for example
32. 18 Across room
33. Balderdash
34. Raced
35. This, Latin
36. Beaks
37. Confucian path
38. Comprehend
39. Cheer at a pep rally
42. Genesis preceder
43. Rapscallions
44. “___ 5”
45. Orange and black bird
46. “The ___ and the Damage
Done,” Neil Young hit
48. Pensive syllable
49. Rhino, for example
50. Not right
53. Balancing pro
54. The Bounty Hunter
55. Wade opponent
56. Getting on in years
58. Ashes holder
59. Potpie morsel
60. Abate
Are you a logophile?
Share your love of words and help us write crosswords.
Email [email protected]
editorial
georgetownvoice.com
VOICE
the georgetown
Volume 46.5
February 9, 2012
Editor-in-Chief: Sean Quigley
Managing Editor: Leigh Finnegan
Blog Editor: Jackson Perry
News Editor: Vanya Mehta
Sports Editor: Kevin Joseph
Feature Editor: Rachel Calvert
Cover Editor: Richa Goyal
Leisure Editor: Heather Regen
Voices Editor: Connor Jones
Photo Editor: Lucia He
Design Editor: Juia Kwon, Kathleen Soriano-Taylor
Projects Editor: Rob Sapunor
Crossword Editor: Tyler Pierce
Assistant Blog Editors: Ryan Bellmore, John Sapunor
Assistant News Editors: Soo Chae, Morgan Manger
Assistant Sports Editor: Abby Sherburne
Assistant Leisure Editors: Mary Borowiec,
Julia Lloyd-George, Kirill Makarenko
Assistant Photo Editors: Julian De La Paz,
Abby Greene
Assistant Design Editors: Amanda Dominguez, Madhuri
Vairapandi
Contributing Editors: Geoffrey Bible, Nico Dodd,
Tim Shine
Staff Writers:
Geoffrey Bible, Mary Cass, Patricia Cipollitti, Will Collins, Jane
Conroy, Emma Forster, Daniel Kellner, Kelsey McCullough, Eileen
McFarland, Matt Pacana, Adam Rosenfeld, Jake Schindler, Melissa
Sullivan, Fatima Toskomur
Staff Photographers:
Sam Brothers, Helen Guo, Kirill Makarenko, Tim Markatos,
Jackson Perry
Copy Chief: Kim Tay
Copy Editors:
Keaton Hoffman, Tori Jovanovski, Claire McDaniel, Neil Sood
Editorial Board Chair: Gavin Bade
Editorial Board:
Tiffany Brown, Rachel Calvert, Nicolo Dona Dalle Rose, Leigh
Finnegan, Julia Jester, Cole Stangler, Julia Tanaka
Head of Business: Keaton Hoffman
Business Staff:
Sara Ainsworth, Zoe Disselkoen, Charmaine Ng, Aarohi Vora
The Georgetown Voice
The Georgetown Voice is published every Thursday.
This newspaper was made possible with the support of Campus
Progress, a project of the Center for American Progress, online
at CampusProgress.org. Campus Progress works to help young
people — advocates, activists, journalists, artists — make their
voices heard on issues that matter. Learn more at CampusProgress.org.
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: [email protected]
Advertising: [email protected]
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: Professor Natsu Onoda Power
Cover Design: Caroline Joyce
the georgetown voice 3
MAKE LOVE, NOT BABIES
Hoya women deserve their reproductive rights
Late last month, the Obama administration rolled out a new policy announced by
the Department of Health and Human Services which mandates that all employers,
regardless of religious affiliation, pay for
FDA-approved contraceptives through their
health insurance options, effective Aug. 1.
Since then, Catholic advocacy groups across
the country have promised to resist implementation of the policy. The issue is especially pertinent for students at Georgetown,
as the University’s commitment to its Jesuit
identity is so strong that it does not allow
contraceptives to be sold or provided anywhere on campus.
The University’s allegiance to antiquated ideologies has passed the point of
acceptability, and proves its negligence of
student health care needs. These policies
become worse when one considers that
they have actually proven counterproductive to several of the University’s own social justice and equality initiatives.
In 2010 a student coalition called Plan A:
Hoyas for Reproductive Justice responded
to these policies with protests and negotiations to pressure the administration towards
addressing provisions of sexual health, rape
response, and contraceptive services. Despite their efforts, these issues remain unaccounted for in Georgetown’s student health
insurance plan, and received no response
from the institution. Last week, the University’s flippant attitude towards student
demands for better health care provisions
became apparent once again, as Planned
Parenthood representatives tabling with
H*yas for Choice were asked to leave Red
Square when they could not provide student
IDs to University police. Curiously, no incidents have been reported in which recruiting representatives of consulting firms, Wall
Street banks, or buyback book services have
been forced to leave for the same reason.
Another strange example is in the Center for Social Justice’s After School Kids Pro-
gram, which aims to reduce recidivism rates
in D.C.’s disadvantaged youth communities.
Several teenagers in the program, who are often as young as 14, are pregnant, and some
have been victims of sexual abuse, but ASK
tutors are not allowed to discuss contraceptives with their students. This forced censorship of the program’s ability to discuss every
option is particularly negligent given that
HIV/AIDS rates in the District exceed those
of several sub-Saharan African nations.
The University’s tendency to sidestep
open dialogue concerning sexual health
and access to reproductive services has seriously hampered Georgetown’s ability to
support the health needs of women, particularly those who cannot otherwise afford
these services. Obama’s mandate will affect
Georgetown’s policies for the better, forcing
it to protect the health of its own students
and improving the effectiveness of the social
justice initiatives which it claims to be the
central facet of its Catholic identity.
SUPERSIZE SOMETHING ELSE
Study shows small schools a must for DCPS
Two weeks ago, an ongoing study tracking the performance of high school students
in New York City released its results, showing students who attend smaller schools are
more likely to graduate. According to the
study, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, there is a discrepancy of more
than eight percent in graduation rates between schools with fewer than 100 students
per grade and larger schools. This disparity is
consistent across races, socio-economic statuses, and eighth-grade reading and math scores.
While this small-school philosophy is reflected in many D.C. charter schools, which
emphasize smaller class sizes and low teacher/student ratios, this is not the case for the
D.C. Public Schools system. On the contrary,
DCPS has been moving in the opposite direction. One of ex-Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s reforms included shutting down 23 under-performing middle schools in 2008. The District’s
solution for the resulting lack of seats was to
replace the middle schools with expanded elementary institutions, forming mega-schools
that span pre-school to eighth grade.
Though Rhee’s efforts stemmed the flow
of students out of DCPS by expanding highperforming schools, this study indicates the
move likely impacts the quality of education.
Larger schools increase the likelihood struggling students will fall through the cracks. By
contrast, smaller schools provide better peer
and faculty support and, as a result, a generally more successful education for all students.
What’s more, Rhee’s justification of her
school consolidation policy was based largely
on standardized test scores, reflecting a nationwide practice of assessing teacher, principal,
student, and school performance. While these
scores are useful in specific areas, many education experts decry their use in measuring
overall school quality, for they overlook many
outside factors. Test scores in D.C. have also
come under special scrutiny lately through re-
ports of cheating scandals across the District.
In any case, graduation statistics are a more
holistic measure of school quality—especially
for struggling institutions—and they suggest
that DCPS should be looking for more and
smaller schools, not fewer bigger ones.
Fixing the schools in D.C. involves a massive financial committment. The solution
requires investing more in subpar schools,
maintaining the small-school atmosphere,
hiring more teachers, and improving each institution’s facilities and resources. This would
not only improve schooling, but counteract
student flight from poor to wealthy districts,
thus breaking a cycle that decreases funding
for underprivileged students. Instead, the
District has decided to sidestep effective reform and consolidate schools, a cheaper but
less effective way to approach the educational quality problem. This refusal is a travesty,
and reflects a wider, national trend of undervaluing the importance of education.
“COPS’ SOULS”
Police overreact in response to Occupiers
Early in the morning on Saturday, Feb.
4, United States Park Police—some in riot
gear, some in hazmat suits, some on horseback—raided the McPherson Square Occupy D.C. encampment and arrested eight
protesters. Although the purported reason
for the raid was to enforce a recent ruling
forbidding protesters from sleeping in the
park, the preparations and actions of the
police were both inappropriate and unwarranted, and were obvious attempts to intimidate those protesters acting within the
law into abandoning their efforts.
According to the new ruling, which went
into effect in late January, protesters are no
longer permitted to sleep in the park, and
their tents, which have become fixtures in
McPherson Square since the protest began
in October, are now only to be used while
awake as shelter. On Saturday, police acted
on orders to take down any tents that did
not meet the qualifications of “vigil tents,”
theoretically meaning those that contained
bedding or other evidence of encampment.
What the police did, however, did not follow
these guidelines—officers removed empty
tents, and disposed of whichever possessions
of the protesters that they deemed “trash.”
In removing “vigil tents” and non-banned
personal belongings, the police acted against
the ruling the National Park Service, cynically
going beyond their permission in attempt to
strong-arm the protesters out of their camp.
The officers’ display of force was almost
comically excessive, with peaceful protesters grossly outnumbered by officers armed
with riot gear and pepper spray. In bringing in hazmat suits, barricades, and horses,
the Park Police demonstrated either a complete unawareness of the protesters’ peaceful actions—unlikely given the amount of
publicity the movement has received—or a
clear intention to frighten the protesters and
characterize them as dangerous and unsanitary. Both these intentions are unfair to the
protesters, who have been largely compliant
with police orders, and the tactics represent
an utter waste of public resources. It seems
Mayor Vincent Gray and his police chiefs
wanted to do more than eject the protesters from the square. They instead looked
to break the momentum of the movement
through overt intimidation.
In the wake of Saturday’s raid, the National Park Service has vowed to “continue to
enforce” the no-encampment rule in the coming weeks. But if protesters remained after the
first round of enforcement, complete with its
unnecessary displays of force and extralegal
removal of belongings, then the Park Service
should reconsider the effectiveness of its overt,
unwarranted antagonism against the Occupiers. The all-too-zealous effort to return law
and order to the square only shows the fearsome tactics governments across the country
will use if their authority is challenged. If anything, these scare tactics should not break the
movement, but renew the vigor of protesters
to challenge the rule of the 1 percent.
news
4 the georgetown voice
february 9, 2012
Aramark, union reach contract agreement Dahlgren renovation plans released
by Rachel Calvert
After a year of protracted
negotiations, representatives of
the Georgetown Dining Services
union, Unite Here!, and University
food services provider Aramark
have agreed on a three-year contract. The settlement provides several of the union’s key demands,
including a 50-cent per-year pay
raise, a forty-hour work week,
year-round health insurance, and a
$200 signing bonus.
“This was a huge milestone, because this is as much a step forward
in the process of unionization as
the actual recognition of the union
was,” said Sam Geaney-Moore
(SFS ’12), a member of Georgetown
Solidarity, the student group that
helped begin the workers’ unionization efforts over a year ago.
Unite Here! members said the
negotiations were slow to get off the
ground, with health insurance proving a particularly contentious issue.
“It seemed to me like the company wasn’t trying to give us anything,” Tarshae Smith, a union member who works at Leo O’Donovan
Dining Hall, said. “With everything
we asked for in the beginning, they
wouldn’t meet us halfway. They just
said that the company didn’t have
any money.”
After half a year of protracted
negotiations, Aramark representa-
tives all but terminated negotiations
after a meeting in late December.
“The word they used was that we
were at an impasse,” said Smith.
“What they were going to give us
was what was on the table—there
would be no more discussion.”
Both parties left the negotiating table with no further plans
to meet. However, negotiations
promptly resumed after workers
and student organizers staged a
demonstration during the lunch
rush hour in Leo’s on Jan. 26.
Donte Crestwell, another Leo’s
worker, described the demonstration as “powerful.”
“It let them know that we were
still together, and things were going to have to change on campus,
and students were with us,” he
said. The demonstration coincided
with Aramark executives’ visit to
campus, and they were at Leo’s to
watch the workers chant, “What
do we want? A contract! When do
we want it? Now!”
According to Smith, after
months of silence, “that same day
that we came together in Leo’s,
that same day they called and
said they wanted to meet with the
committee.”
Smith and Crestwell said the
contract, which is pending ratification by union members, included most of the workers’ goals.
However, Smith said she hoped
for a more comprehensive contract when the parties convene in
three years to renegotiate.
Smith hoped to see a pension
plan and a better 401(k) option
in the new contract. “I look at it
like it’s our first house: it’s not our
dream home, but it’s a house,”
Smith said. Still, she said, “we
came a long way.”
Students protest with Leo’s workers to demand a better contract.
Jackson perry
by Connor Jones
On Wednesday, the committee for the renovation of
Dahlgren Chapel released
specific plans for the improvement of the building,
which include moving the
baptismal font close to the
opening of the church and
placing the tabernacle in better view of parishioners. The
project would make acoustic
and aesthetic improvements
to the chapel while responding to changes in ideas about
church design.
The Office of Mission and
Ministry formed the committee
last year after a piece of plaster
fell from the church’s ceiling,
indicating to that the building’s
foundation was less sturdy
than previously thought. After
a $6 million donation from the
Rooney Foundation, repairs to
the structure’s base started late
last year. In the process, the committee is seeking another $2 million from donations for internal
improvements to the sanctuary.
Principal architect Sean
Reilly presented the plan as
dependent on the amount of
money donated by alumni.
“The plan we’re going to
show you today represents ...
everything we’d like to do,
and the wish-list will be finetuned based on the results of
fundraising,” he said.
The chapel’s organ, which
is presently located at the
back of the seating area, will
be moved to either side of the
wall behind the altar, next to
the choir. The organ was donated 30 years ago, and has not
been well maintained. “Other
organs built by that builder in
the eighties have not lasted,”
Fr. Kevin O’Brien said. According to Reilly, moving the
organ will increase seating by
25 to 30 percent.
O’Brien responded to
concerns from members of
the choir that the tabernacle
and the organ would reduce
choir space. They assured the
members that, since the altar
would be moving forward,
the choir would still have sufficient space.
According to O’Brien, the
project’s timeline is still unclear. The project will start
once fundraising is met. According to University architect
Gina Bleck, the project will
presumably be done sometime in the spring of 2013.
The chapel will largely remain
open throughout renovations.
Seven candidates launch GUSA presidency campaigns
by Fatima Taskomur
The GUSA presidential campaign
kicked off this morning at midnight,
marking the start of a two-week
race. The 24-hour voting period will
start on Thursday, February 23, after
a presidential debate and weeks of
campaigning. There are seven tickets
vying for executive positions this year,
making the race one of the most closely contested in recent memory.
The candidates running for president and vice president come from
a variety of backgrounds, GUSA experiences, and class years. “It’s a lot
more crowded—there are a lot more
tickets,” Mike Meaney (SFS ’12),
current GUSA President, said. “Everyone’s a lot more experienced, so
there’s going to be a lot of interesting
platforms. People are trying to draw
distinctions among themselves in
ways we haven’t seen.”
The Nate Tisa (SFS’14)-Sheila
Walsh (COL’14) ticket, youngest of
the candidates, proposes a three-fold,
top-level reform. “It would have been
easier for us to endorse an older candidate…but none of the tickets we see
right now had a solid philosophy,”
Tisa said. “We didn’t agree with the
way they went about it....we had
strong ideas on our own.”
Walsh and Tisa see their youth
as a significant advantage. “We’re
younger, we know younger students,
and we also have the advantage of
longevity,” Tisa said. “The fact that
we’ve got a few years left on the Hilltop gives us the momentum to overcome the perennial problems of disunity that have plagued the student
body for so long.”
Other candidates emphasize
their years of experience with GUSA.
Colton Malkerson (COL’13), the
current FinApp chair, and Maggie
Cleary (COL’14), chair of GU College
Republicans, propose a platform
covering issues from club funding to
sustainability.
“Our ticket is the most experienced, we have the clearest record, our
platform is most relevant to students.
We don’t have to introduce ourselves
to University administrators, we don’t
need training. We can start implementing our campaign promises from the
first day,” Malkerson said.
Candidates are planning their
campaign strategies for the next two
weeks. “We plan on knocking on every single door on campus,” Lauren
Weber (COL’13) and John Morris
(COL’13) wrote an email. “[And] getting the word out through every type
of outlet, and engaging the student
body on a person-to-person basis as
much as possible.”
Murphy Kate Delaney (COL’13)
and Michael Appau (COL’13) plan
on a similar approach. “We want to
emphasize personal interaction,” Delaney said. “Our slogan is, ‘YOUR campaign for Georgetown.’ We want [the
students] to feel that they are really are
represented by what we’d like to do.”
Daniel LaMagna (COL’13) and
Markel Starks (COL’14) also see
a need for fewer administrative
changes and more detail-oriented
ones. “GUSA has done a lot of reform, and now we’d like to focus
on practical application,” LaMagna,
a GUSA senator, said. He wants
to help make University Facilities
more efficient, and possibly launch
a Georgetown Smartphone App
with school news, access to library
information, shuttle bus routes
courses, and other information.
The Tyler Sax (COL’13)-Michael
Crouch (MSB’13) ticket similarly desires a more technical side to the campaign. “We both come from technical
backgrounds, and I think that’s key
in an organization like GUSA, where
you have to reach out to so many people,” Crouch said. “You have to start
by engaging them online.”
Sax and Crouch also have a threepart platform, consisting of building ties across many of the student
groups on campus, inspiring innovation in the way they interact with the
community, and closing the loop.
“The idea is that we don’t have a
monopoly of good ideas; we need to
pull on the collective ideas of Georgetown. We try to get feedback; we want
to learn what is important [to the com-
munity] instead of us telling them
[what is important],” Crouch said.
The Clara Gustafson (SFS’13)-Vail
Kohnert-Yount (SFS’13) ticket emphasizes reinvigoration of academic life
and strengthening Georgetown’s commitment to its Jesuit values. “These
next few weeks may be stressful or
awkward, but it’s also a lot of fun. It’s
made me realize why I’m excited to
hopefully represent Georgetown on a
bigger scale and be able to advocate for
our students,” Kohnert-Yount said.
Meaney encouraged the general
student body to take the elections seriously. “I would encourage the students to not just vote for their friends,
not just vote for who is popular, not
just vote the most famous name,
but actually view it as a choice and
see whose platform they like, who
has a experience, who has a proven
record of execution and leadership,
who reaches out to them the most,
and who cares about their opinions.
Elections matter, elections have consequences. GUSA’s come a long way
and it’s not time to go backward.”
news
georgetownvoice.com
SGU holds executive board elections
by Matthew Weinnman
Wednesday night, voting for
the 11 positions—one for each
of 11 student group categories—
on the first executive board of
Georgetown’s Student Group
Union finished, with candidates
for nine of the spots running uncontested. The two contested
seats represented student political
and cultural groups.
The newly elected executive
board will meet at least once every 15 days, with a general body
meeting once a month, according
to Etian Paul (SFS ’12), co-chair of
the SGU steering committee. Any
student group leader can run to
represent that group’s category
on the board. Student groups are
each given one vote for candidates representing their category.
Georgetown’s Assistant Vice
President for Communications Stacy
Kerr said the administration is “eager
to engage with student leaders on the
issues and opportunities that emerge
from their conversation.”
SGU is devoted to this conversation, and the union’s influence continues to grow. In the
past week, 14 more groups have
joined the SGU, bringing the total
number of member groups to 75.
Elections will take place every semester, and no term limits
are currently in place. According
to Paul, the next executive board
elections will take place in either
September or October.
According to Emma Green
(COL ‘12), part of the SGU steering committee, the organizations
started when student leaders
were campaigning to change
SAC’s fundraising guidelines.
However, the group denies allegations that it is merely a reaction
to antagonism between student
groups and SAC. Green said the
organization is not about “picking fights, it is about filling in this
void of communication.”
Still, Paul said the SGU is “not
going to shy away from challenging anything negatively affecting
student life.”
While acknowledging the
benefits of the CSP online program Hoyalink, Green mentioned that Hoyalink as an “internet forum is not enough to build
a network,” and would not advocate for student groups.
Green describes SGU as a
“paradigm shift” in student
bureaucracy. “It’s about taking people with expertise
and channeling that into facing issues that come up year
after year,” she said. “This is
a goal-driven and a goal-oriented organization.”
This is what bureaucracy looks like!
In the press conference for the
release of the 2012 Student Life
Report, the GUSA President Mike
Meaney (SFS ’12) and Vice President Greg Laverriere (COL ’12)
were asked when they thought
another large-scale, student-driven self-study should be executed.
They responded that the interval
between the 1999 and 2012 reports
was too long, and that they would
like to see another study in the next
few years. Although I agree that
three full turnovers of the undergraduate population is too long to
go without assessing student life, a
shorter interval is not the solution.
Rigorous self-study, similar to the
assessment taking place in these
reports, must be a constant and
evolving activity.
The model of regularly-timed,
large-scale studies works well for
large institutions with longevity.
For instance, the University’s decennial self-studies for reaccreditation are appropriate. This model,
however, isn’t the best fit for a
population with a four-year turnover rate. Furthermore, large-scale
studies are effective in two ways:
by articulating the current state
of affairs, and by offering well researched recommended courses of
action. In essence, these large-scale
studies are excellent for setting
mid-to-long-term goals.
But there is one function that
large-scale studies cannot serve in
a meaningful way: providing feedback. Currently, there is no mechanism for the short-to-mid-term
feedback and goal-setting in student life. Assuming that the study
is accurate, and that their recommendations were thoroughly considered, how will we know if and
to what extent the recommendations were effective after they were
carried out? We could wait until
the next self-study to be commissioned by another GUSA executive
of a completely different student
body (and then risk GUSA forget-
the georgetown voice 5
Pro-choice group provokes complaints
by Vanya Mehta
Last Thursday, two Planned
Parenthood representatives tabling
with H*yas for Choice in Red Square
were confronted by a University employee and asked to leave when they
could not provide identification as
students.
The group was offering free condoms and encouraging students to
sign thank-you cards to President
Obama in support of a new mandate
for contraceptive coverage in health
insurance provided by employers.
The incident occurred during a brief
period when no students were manning the table.
“Someone from the University
came up and told [the Planned Parenthood reps] that they had gotten
complaints that someone was promoting birth control on campus,”
H*yas for Choice president Ashley
Bradylyons (SFS ‘12) said. Realizing that they were not students, the
University official asked the Planned
Parenthood representatives to remain silent until the Georgetown
students returned.
Emily Jakobsen, the Planned
Parenthood rep for theG e o r g e town area present at Red Square, declined to comment on the incident.
It is unclear where the complaint
or the order to remove the representatives from campus came from. “No
one from DPS removed anyone from
ting about it), or we could create
a new, standing commission with
the responsibility of assessment.
Obviously, I think the latter solution is more effective.
“Continuous self-assessment”
might seem ambiguous, so allow
me to provide some specifics. The
report recommends that in order
to improve student groups’ access
saxa politica
by Ryan Bellmore
A bi-weekly column on
D.C. news and politics
to space, all space reservations be
compiled through one office with
one online portal. If this is implemented, and student groups can
book any space on campus through
OCAF’s website, it is unclear
whether student groups will have
a better experience with space, or
if it will just increase the number
of OCAF-related headaches. The
best way to tell is to establish criteria that measure student organizations’ satisfaction with space reser-
campus,” Stacy Kerr, Assistant Vice
President of Communications, wrote
in an email. “As an academic community committed to the free exchange of
ideas, Georgetown believes it is important that students, faculty, and staff are
able to engage in dialogue on important issues of the day.”
Bradylyons said H*yas for
Choice has been removed from the
Leavey Center by the Office of Campus Activity Facilities before. “We’re
used to getting negative feedback at
Georgetown,” she said.
The group says the tabling was
part of a larger effort to increase
awareness on the importance of the
new insurance policy, especially for
a Jesuit university like Georgetown.
According to Warrick, at least
300 people signed thank-you cards
by the end of the day.
The University’s response to
Obama’s new law is still undetermined. “The formal regulations for
this have not been issued yet, so
Georgetown cannot comment on
how we will react to this news.”
Warrick and Bradylyons are unsure of the impact the Obama law
will have on Georgetown’s health
insurance policy, though Warrick
doubts the University will move to
providing birth control on campus.
“I think people are starting to
realize what H*yas for Choice’s function is on campus—we’re not the
group that promotes unsafe sexual
practices,” she said. “We’re here to
raise awareness that there’s problems that our $54,000 a year tuition
doesnw’t cover…and I think our
little voice is helping to have things
be noticed.”
H*yas for Choice handed out chocolate birth control packs in Red Square.
vations, and then, after the change
has been implemented, assess the
criteria again to see if there was any
improvement. Having short-term
feedback like this is imperative,
especially if student organization
bureaucracy (GUSA, the funding
boards, and student organizations)
wants more autonomy.
I’m imagining this commission on assessment as a semiautonomous commission, like
the election commission, with the
responsibility to quantitatively
review and make recommendations for improving various nonacademic aspects of the Georgetown
experience,
including
student life, space, and student
bureaucracies. The senate would
be able to direct the commission
to look into given programs, and
the main emphasis would be the
collection of data to assist short to
mid-term decision making.
There are a couple of key
points necessary for this to work
out: first, it has to be semi-independent from the senate and the
JoHan cLarke
executive, so as to not be involved
in any GUSA power-mongering.
Second, the reviews and recommendations need to be analytical, rigorous, and quantitative,
so they can be taken seriously.
Third, all data should be made
public (unless it is sensitive, i.e.
health practices). And fourth,
the commission should have no
power to enforce anything—only
the power to review and recommend. The last point is to keep
the commission from becoming
another hurdle to student life. On
the other hand, if the senate or
SAC wants to use the data to improve itself, that would be fantastic. In fact, it would be more than
fantastic—it would be effective.
Now, whether or not people
on campus will do the right thing
with accurate information is another discussion.
Like Ryan’s bureaucratic master
plans? Petition for your own subcommitee at [email protected]
sports
6 the georgetown voice
february 9, 2012
Georgetown falters in overtime at Carrier Dome
by Tim Shine
The Georgetown men’s basketball team (18-5, 8-4 Big East)
gave the second-best team in the
country all they could handle on
Wednesday night. But Syracuse
handled the Hoyas in the post
when it counted, and that was all
that mattered.
In a game that saw 18 lead
changes and no margin greater
than six points, overtime seemed
inevitable. The Orange (24-1, 11-1
Big East) ultimately prevailed in
the extra period, 64-61.
The Hoyas proved that they
more than belonged on the court
with the Orange, dominating the
boards and mostly neutralizing
Syracuse’s vaunted fast break.
However, the Orange’s interior
defense, led by Brazilian 7-footer
Fab Melo, denied the Hoyas the
easy buckets they needed to win.
Georgetown’s failure down
low was glaring on the stat sheet.
Freshman big man Mikael Hopkins saw 19 minutes, his most yet
in conference play, and was 1-for8 from the field. Senior center
Henry Sims had an even worse
night, going 1-for-12 from the
field while struggling to stay on
the court with foul trouble.
“He missed a bunch of layups,” head coach John Thompson III said of Sims. “The ball just
wouldn’t go in. He was getting
the ball in pretty good position,
right under the basket, right under the rim. I have to go back and
look at the tape and debate and
argue whether he was bumped
or when he wasn’t bumped, but
at the end of the day, he got it
right there and the ball didn’t go
in. It happens sometimes.”
Melo, the Orange’s sophomore center, wasn’t always
causing the Hoyas’ misses down
low, but it often felt that way.
The big man played 39 minutes
and posted 11 points, seven rebounds, and six blocks.
“He’s just a big force down
low,” freshman forward Otto
Porter said. “He’s big—he can
cover up a lot of space.”
Other than their performance under their basket, the
Hoyas were as good as they
could have hoped to be. Even if
they couldn’t finish, they moved
the ball effectively against Syracuse’s 2-3 zone defense, and
they took control on the boards,
outrebounding the Orange 5235. The team even managed to
weather a seven-minute stretch
where its two seniors, Sims and
Jason Clark, sat on the bench
with foul trouble.
Porter led the Hoyas on the
glass, grabbing 13 rebounds to
go along with his team-high 14
points. Junior forward Hollis
Thompson also had a doubledouble with 10 points and 10
boards.
“This is a disaster game as
far as I’m concerned,” Syracuse
head coach Jim Boeheim said.
“I’m very disappointed, at this
stage of the year, to get beat like
that on the boards. You can miss
shots—that’s part of the game—
but you’ve got to find a way to
rebound the ball better.”
While the Orange were hopeless on the boards, senior forward
Kris Joseph compensated for his
teammates’ deficiencies by simply
putting the ball in the basket. The
D.C. native torched the Hoyas for
29 points on 9-for-20 shooting, including 6-for-11 three-pointers.
“Kris bailed us out,” Boeheim
said. “He made some shots for
us. Nobody else really looked
comfortable shooting the ball.”
Georgetown left Joseph wide
open numerous times on the perimeter. He eventually punished
JACKSON PERRY
Nate Lubick, Jason Clark, and the Hoyas fought hard on Wednesday night.
them, making four of his last
five threes, including the game
winner with 29 seconds left in
overtime.
That still left the Hoyas with
plenty of time to tie the game.
Their last possession went awry
from the start, however, when
Thompson was not allowed to
check into the game coming out
of a Hoyas timeout after not
making it to the scorers’ table before the buzzer.
“I shouldn’t comment on
Hollis not getting in,” Thompson III said after the game.
Without the sharpshooting
junior, Thompson III said the
plan was for Clark to work off a
screen at the top of the key. But
the Syracuse defense never allowed that play to develop, forcing Clark to dribble around the
perimeter where he was eventually tied up by Orange guard
Scoop Jardine, leading to a turn-
over with five seconds to go.
The Hoyas were left heartbroken while the 27,820 fans in
attendance celebrated Boeheim’s
880th career win.
“It’s always fun to come
up here and play in this atmosphere,” Clark said. “You do
want to get a win for the last
time you’re playing a team, so
that’s heartbreaking. But we’ve
just got to move on and take it
one game at a time.”
the Sports Sermon
“I don’t know if he likes me.” -Eli Manning on his relationship with Tom Brady
make his teammates better. Next
thing NFL fans knew, Manning
heaved it into the end zone to
Plaxico Burress to beat the undefeated New England Patriots in
arguably the most shocking Super
Bowl in league history.
And so, with his second Super Bowl and subsequent MVP
award under his belt, the question isn’t whether Eli is better than
his brother Peyton, or even better
than Tom Brady. The answer to
those question remains a resounding and unequivocal no. The real
question should be how long we,
as fans, should wait to judge a
quarterback’s legacy.
Today, almost any team
choosing between Manning and
Eli, meanwhile, was thrust
into the spotlight for the Giants in
When New York Giants
the post-Kerry Collins era, replacGeneral Manager Jerry Reese let
ing the franchise’s stopgap in Kurt
Steve Smith and Kevin Boss walk
Warner after he went down with a
away in free agency this offseason
number of concussions. Since that
and cut Rich Seubert and Shaun
time, Manning has started every
O’Hara, both stalwarts on the
game behind center for Big Blue.
offensive line, Giants fans were
He did, however, experience his
ready to declare the season dead
share of growing pains, certainly
and gone before the first snap. So,
on a larger scale with respect to
too, were the experts, who widely
performing under the New York
predicted a third or even lastspotlight. The Jets’ Mark Sanchez
place finish for Big Blue.
suffers from that scrutiny today,
They just forgot about one Elias he was thrust into the starter
sha Nelson Manning. Who could
role during his second NFL game.
blame them? In his seventh seaJust three seasons in, Gang Green
son as an NFL quarterback, Manfans are clamoring for his removning threw 25 interceptions as the
al. And while Sanchez is no ManGiants failed to make the playoffs
ning, he remains a talented quarfor a second straight
terback who still
Pete Rose Central
season. Though all
needs time to learn
Da bettin’ line
hope was seemingly
the intricacies and
lost, a few writers
preparation methDookies
Margin
Hoyas
came out with hope
ods of the game.
(underdogs)
(duh!)
for the Giants before (favorites)
Eli is not afraid to
the 2011 campaign
admit that he learns
Gisele
Looking cute a great deal every
kicked off, with KC B. Jacobs
Billups
Joyner noting that Lin-sanity
season,
apparent
Achilles
“Eli Manning wasn’t
in
his
preparations
Bradying
Mechanics
Tebowing
nearly as bad as his
and
additionally
2010 numbers suggest.”
his draft-day trade partner Philip with his brother’s other-worldly,
As an unabashed Big Blue fan, Rivers, who side-armed his way almost robotic levels of studying.
I took solace in infrequent positive to 20 interceptions in 2011, would
Peyton, as another example,
opinions, though the team’s simi- ride with Eli. For some, though, took quite some time to establish
lar circumstances in 2007 certainly that late-game mettle wasn’t ap- himself before starting his run of
had me excited about 2011. Keep parent before 2007, or even before four MVP awards. Brees, meanin mind that during that season, this Super Bowl. San Diego was while, was considered damaged
New York was hit with the loss held in notoriety for mismanag- goods after a shoulder injury endof tight end Jeremy Shockey to ing quarterback Ryan Leaf, con- ed his tenure in San Diego. Indiainjury and the retirement of the sidered one of the biggest busts in napolis exercised patience with
franchise’s most prolific running NFL history. Much of the reason Manning and New Orleans rolled
back, Tiki Barber.
Eli refused to play for the Char- the dice on Brees – both worked
That 2007 season was a com- gers is because of the horror sto- out historically well, leading their
plete shocker, especially because ries Peyton conveyed about Leaf’s teams to Super Bowl victories.
Eli did not exactly impress dur- NFL upbringing.
Thus, as the NFL’s focus shifts
ing the regular season, with 23
But, for their handling of Leaf, from Eli Manning to his brother
touchdowns compared to an out- the team certainly eased Rivers’ and the Andrew Luck situation,
rageous 20 interceptions. But, as transition by allowing him to fans should be cognizant of what
former General Manager Ernie learn under Drew Brees for two recent history shows. Very few
Accorsi noted when he scouted seasons. The NFL’s best quarter- quarterbacks are elite, but even if
Manning during his days at back, Aaron Rodgers, learned in a they are, it may take two Super
Ole Miss, the quarterback had a similar manner under Brett Favre Bowl rings for everyone else to
“magic” about him, an ability to for three seasons.
take notice.
by Kevin Joseph
sports
georgetownvoice.com
the georgetown voice 7
Baseball opens against Charleston Soccer fills freshman class
by Steven Criss
After a subpar finish in the
Big East last year, the Georgetown baseball team will open
its new season at Charleston
Southern for a three-game series beginning next Friday. During the offseason, many players joined summer teams and
participated in a short fall season in attempts to address last
year ’s weaknesses.
Coach Pete Wilk is targeting the pitching staff as a major
area for improvement. With an
ERA more than two runs higher
than the league average in 2011,
Georgetown looks to significantly bring that number down
to secure more victories in close
games. The Hoyas lost 10 games
last season by only one or two
runs, making lowering ERA and
total unearned runs a priority.
Wilk is sticking with the same
foundation he has used for years,
implementing minor tweaks in
the team’s effort to develop stronger pitching. He believes this season’s team has the right mentality
to make his strategy work.
“I do think there is enough
competition within, I do think
there is enough leadership,” he
said. “I do think there is enough
experience to understand that
that’s what this team is going to
have to do to win.”
Team hitting also remains
a prevalent area in need of improvement. Wilk does not rely
solely on batting average to determine the team’s line up, but
instead uses a system that takes
into account quality and productive at-bats. This alternative
system assesses players on how
well they execute with runners
in scoring position, work to get
on base, and put good swings on
the ball.
“We’re grading kids’ at-bats.
We call them positive at-bats, to
GEORGETOWN SPORTS INFORMATION
Justin Leeson leads the Hoyas’ outfield in 2012.
No moral victories for Hoyas
It would be easy to look at
the Hoyas’ overtime loss to Syracuse last night as a moral victory.
Georgetown found a way to make
the No. 2 Orange look pedestrian, and the team was just a few
missed layups away from winning. Not to mention they happened to do all this while playing
in front of 27,820 orange-clad fans
in the Carrier Dome.
But it would be insulting
to the Hoyas to call this game a
moral victory. Because after 45
minutes of play Wednesday night,
Georgetown proved that there are
no such things as moral victories
this season.
Whether it was warranted or
not, the Hoyas had been labeled
as overachievers—a young, unheralded team that exceeded all
expectations, but hadn’t quite
proved it belonged in the top tier
of contenders. It hasn’t helped the
Hoyas that some of their marquee
wins from earlier in the season
(Alabama, Memphis, Louisville)
have been devalued by their opponents’ subsequent decline. In
the current polls, the highestranked team that Georgetown has
beaten is No. 18 Marquette.
Last night’s game didn’t
change that. What it did show,
however, was that Georgetown
could play with a full-strength
Syracuse for 40 minutes, which is
more than any other team in the
country outside of Notre Dame
can say. Any team that can do that
can’t settle for moral victories—
because it should be winning
against every team it plays.
The Hoyas were dominant in
some ways against the Orange
(winning rebounds 52 to 35), but
perhaps the most impressive
thing Georgetown did was play
without Henry Sims and Jason
Clark. Both seniors picked up
their third fouls in the first minute
contribute to a team victory,”
Wilk said. “On-base percentage, moving runners, scoring
runners, those things and that
adds up to a clearer picture of a
lineup in my opinion than just
batting average.”
Pitch selection when at the
plate will also be key to success
in the Big East. Not only were
the Hoyas behind the average
in walks last year, but the squad
also chased more third strikes
than the league average.
With games every week for
the next three months, the players are ready to get going, and
hope to make some noise in the
Big East. Junior outfielder Justin
Leeson claims that the team has
the right mindset in all areas of
the game, and thinks the larger
challenges in their out-of-conference schedule will only better
prepare them for Big East play.
“Our
out-of-conference
schedule is tougher than in
the past, and I think we have
a chance to surprise some people,” he said.
Wilk has a positive outlook
for this year’s team and its ability to contend with the league’s
better schools. He is confident
that with a solid set of position
players that deserve to be on the
field each day, Georgetown can
make a more successful run than
it has in the past.
“I expect us to compete for
nine innings of every game,” he
said. “I want our guys to end
their day exhausted from competing, and I think if we can do
that on a consistent basis we’re
going to have a good club.”
of the second half, and were soon
sitting on the bench. Meanwhile,
the Orange were going on an 8-0
run to turn a two-point Georgetown halftime lead into a fourpoint deficit.
Enter Georgetown’s four
freshmen. Playing alongside Hollis Thompson, they scored every
point on a 6-0 run to take back the
lead. Save for one Nate Lubick of-
Double Teamed
by Tim Shine
a rotating column on sports
fensive possession, the freshmen
stayed on the court as a unit for
close to eight minutes, holding
their own against Syracuse’s best.
Before the game, Coach John
Thompson III said Syracuse’s
strength lies in their quality
depth—not only can they play 10
different people, but there’s little
to no drop off with any of them.
The way Georgetown’s freshmen
by Melissa Sullivan
Facing the graduation of
three of its star seniors, the
Georgetown men’s soccer program has added six new players for next year’s fall season,
a recruiting class ranked sixthbest in the nation.
The squad is looking to add
fresh talent after ending last
season with a 10-5-4 record (43-1 Big East), and the six players who have signed National
Letters of Intent—Brandon Allen, Keegan Rosenberry, Cole
Seller, Melvin Snoh, Josh Turnley, and David Witkoff—are all
gifted athletes who have been
nationally recognized for their
skill on the field.
Allen scored a total of 118
goals during his high school career at St. Joseph High School in
Old Bridge, N.J. Liberian-born
Snoh started his games over
his four years at Malvern Prep
High School in Coatesville, Pa.,
and captained his club team,
Penn Fusion. Turnley scored
101 goals over his career at Beaver Area High School, where
he was also recognized as the
NSCAA Pennsylvania State
Player of the Year.
Georgetown Head Coach
Brian Wiese is content with the
recruiting efforts, but he says
that the process is not over.
“We still have more players we want to be adding to it,”
he said. “That being said, it’s a
very exciting group of players.
We got the guys to come to
Georgetown that we wanted.
held their own is confirmation
that they’ve continued to develop
as players. After showing flashes
in the beginning of the season, the
newcomers can play just as well
as anybody else. That’s going to
frustrate a lot of teams—including
Syracuse.
After Syracuse walked away
with the 64-61 overtime victory,
Orange head coach Jim Boeheim
spent the first three minutes of
his postgame press conference
explaining what a “disaster” this
game was for his team. It felt like
Boeheim would have said the
same thing no matter how the
game had ended—he thought his
team was playing terrible basketball. In many ways, he was right;
his team was playing some of
their worst basketball of the season. But the Orange’s inability to
rebound, their failure to get out
on the fast break, and their difficulty scoring didn’t occur in a
vacuum. Georgetown had a hand
in it.
It’s an exciting time for the
program and I’m excited for
these men to come visit and
start contributing to Georgetown soccer.”
This influx of talent
might mean that the returning Georgetown soccer players will have varying playing
time, but Wiese sees this as a
positive for the program.
“For every position on
the field, we want someone
to play,” he said. “We want
guys to be pushing for playing time. It also helps protect
against injuries…so I think
this group of guys is going to
do all of those things.”
Wiese recognizes the profound capacity that these players have to offer. “From a needs
point of view and from a quality of kid…and impact player,
it will be six guys that have the
ability to play as freshmen,” he
said. “This group of guys [has]
a potential to play…and that’s
exciting for us.”
The coach also feels that
one commitment can have a
domino effect of sorts, as today’s recruiting involves high
schoolers who know each other going into the process.
“There’s a certain amount
of momentum that can be
built upon a recruiting class,”
Wiese said. “Soccer is a small
world. When all of these players know each other, they get
excited when they know when
players go somewhere they’re
interested. This group of six
players is a solid group.”
In fact, Thompson could
have gone on a similar rant in his
press conference. He didn’t, but
it wouldn’t surprise me if he had
done it in the locker room. For
all they did well, the Hoyas were
abysmal under the basket on offense (Henry Sims and Mikael
Hopkins were a combined 2-for20 from the field). They turned the
ball over 15 times, leading to 20
Syracuse points. Kris Joseph was
constantly left open beyond the
arc, including his game-winner.
In short, the Hoyas didn’t play
their best basketball, but they still
found a way to nearly beat what
may be the best team in the country. From the faces and words of
Thompson and his players after
the game, they didn’t take any
pride in that. And that’s because
they already knew what that
game showed everyone else—
there is no ceiling for this team.
Share your orange-juicing techniques at [email protected]
feature
8 the georgetown voice
february 9, 2012
THE POWER OF NATSU
COMPELS YOU
Gravitating toward Georgetown’s
most spontaneous theater professor
BY JULIA TANAKA
On the set of her new production, Astro Boy and the God
of Comics, creator and director
Natsu Onoda Power is full of
abounding energy, tempered
by disciplined focus.
Watching silently as the
script unfolds before her,
Power intermittently gets onstage and goes through the
movements herself.
“Can you tap dance?” she
asks across the stage, as props
are moved, chairs scrape, and
the projector flickers between
slides.
“Some,” the actor replies.
“Great! We’ll have to fit
that in somehow,” she says
enthusiastically, then sits
back at her desk to scribble
down a note.
The stage is small and
rough, with low lighting, an
exposed brick-and-pipes wall,
and a concrete floor littered
with the organized chaos of
a production. In the midst of
laughter and the occasional
missed line, there is a quieter
process taking shape. Onoda
Power’s collaborative style
dominates the scene.
Power joined the Georgetown theater department in
2005 as an assistant profes-
sor, and has contributed to
the program in various ways
since then, including a highly
acclaimed adaptation of The
Omnivore’s Dilemma this past
summer, for which she served
as director.
Her background includes
a mixture of performance art
and traditional studio art,
with a Ph.D in Performance
Studies from Northwestern
University and a certificate in
Technical Design and Production from the Yale School of
Drama among her many credentials.
Her technical skill is evident in both her productions
and in her teaching. “She
would teach us how to watercolor…[along with] all these
great technical skills,” Lorrie
Damerau (COL ‘13), a physics
and theater double major, said
about Onoda Power’s set design class.
Swedian Lie (COL ’13),
a studio art and theater major, said that her call to bring
painting skills to an audition
is one of the things that initially attracted him towards
Onoda Power ’s work. “I
thought, ‘This is interesting. I
really want to meet this per-
son.’ And from that point on
I’ve just been following her,”
he said.
Theater and Performing
Arts Department Program
Director Maya Roth says
Onoda Power has managed
to garner quite a following.
She attributes much of Onoda
Power ’s appeal to her “collaborative spirit.”
“It’s her charisma, and
she’s gifted, she’s brilliant,”
Roth said. “The students who
repeatedly work with her—
there’s this creativity and visual awareness.”
Looking at her productions, creativity and visual
awareness are two qualities
that Onoda Power clearly harnesses in abundance, not only
in more concrete forms such
as set design, but also in terms
of her creative process. She is
known for using projections
and manipulating the stage
space to integrate the audience into the show.
For The Omnivore’s Dilemma, adapted from Michael
Pollan’s book about the food
industry, she created small
exhibitions throughout the
theater as part of the performance.
Astro Boy—adapted from
the popular manga series—
employs similar stylistic elements. The set functions as
a backdrop for the striking
centerpiece: a screen of white
paper onto which actors trace
projected images and draw
their own backgrounds to
help shape the story.
Around the muted gray
side panels, there are clear
white lines reminiscent of
robot parts, quietly adding
another layer of immersion
in the story for the audience.
This type of subtle symbolism and humor is something
that Onoda Power is fond
of, as Hunter Styles, (COL
’08), who now works at the
Studio Theater, recalls from
his experience working with
Onoda Power as an undergraduate.
“This is a small thing, but
the wallpaper on the set for
Kafka’s Metamorphoses…the
bedroom where Gregor Samsa
changes into an insect…had a
really lovely, intricate…handpainted wallpaper in the room
with a fleur-de-lis pattern, but
when you looked closely at the
wallpaper, some of the fleurde-lis were actually scarabs.”
Styles said Onoda Power’s
sense of humor is often palpable in her work. “Natsu
gets inherently that humor is
a great way to bring an audience together,” he said. “So
even with pieces that touch
on grave subjects…humor
turns out to be a great way to
bring people into that… And
it’s like salt on your food—it’s
very different from the source
material but it brings out the
flavor of the original.”
Onoda Power ’s work is
full of adaptations— last
summer ’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Foucalt’s Madness in Civilization, and most
recently Astro Boy. Unlike her
previous works—which are
direct adaptations—this final
production weaves together
the story of the comic’s creator with the story of the
character Astro Boy.
Adapting nonfiction into
an exciting stage play may
seem like a daunting task
fraught with mistranslations.
However, Onoda Power’s process fluidly translates works
from the page to the stage.
“I don’t think I ever sit
around like, ‘Oh, how am I going to adapt this?’” she says.
feature
georgetownvoice.com
“For instance, reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, I really loved
the book, and it sort of presented itself to me…it kind of unfolds. You get an image or two,
and then you have to fit the rest
of it in.”
Astro Boy and the God of
Comics, the basis of her current
production, played an influential role in the formation of her
career. “I actually wanted to
be a cartoonist,” Onoda Power
said. “I loved Osamu Tezuka’s
[the creator of Astro Boy] work
as a child…[Astro Boy] has really permeated the Japanese
culture.”
Her adaptation is cognizant
of the work’s influence on its
vast readership’s career paths.
“When you talk to [Japanese]
scientists, and ask why they
wanted to become scientists,
they say ‘Oh, I wanted to make
Astro Boy,’” she said. “I think
it’s important and interesting
to tell a story of Astro Boy in
that context.”
Onoda Power’s students
have said that her talent for
conveying messages to the
audience makes her high art
concepts deeply accessible. “I
think high school students,
even, can understand immediately what she’s after,” Jeremy
Guyton (COL ’12) said. Guyton
worked with Onoda Power on
his senior thesis, The BI(G) Life:
Ambiguous Attractions, among
other works.
“The audience becomes
fascinated with what they’re
seeing, because nine-to-ten it’s
not something they’ve seen before,” Production Manager and
Associate Producer for Georgetown theater Ted Parker said.
“And the way she does that, it
encourages you to think about
what she’s doing.”
Onoda Power ’s colleagues
and students hesitate to pin
a certain aesthetic on her. “I
can’t think of anything that
[her performances] really
have in common,” Roth said.
“A lot of projections, a lot of
presenting things off of what
you expect. Her work is so
varied.”
In fact, one of the hallmarks
of Onoda Power ’s style is originality. “She really pushes the
boundary…it’s not just people
talking onstage,” Lie said.
“You know the expression
‘think outside the box’? She
doesn’t know that there is a
box,” Parker said.
When she considers her
approach to a production, she
doesn’t often bring scripts, but
rather comes equipped with
large ideas to be filled out by
her actors. It all goes back to the
process of relaying the important aspects of the production to
the audience. “She thinks about
what she wants to do, and then
she figures out a way to do
that,” Parker explained.
Her teaching style fosters
an interdisciplinary approach
to theatre. “Our majors who
have been double majors with
studio art—Natsu is their locus,” Roth said. “What she’s
doing aesthetically is very
distinctive in the program.
What she’s doing philosophically is very in company with
the program.”
“
to work with the skill sets of
the team she has in order to
bring a special flavor to each
performance.
Teamwork is most apparent is in her teaching. Both
former and current students
laud her encouraging creative process.
“She’s one
of those professors…you
respect them so much, and
are inspired to do your best
“What’s really unique about
Georgetown’s theater program
is that it draws students from
all different areas of study,”
she said. “You get students
from many different departments, and they bring their interests with them.”
She describes her interaction with these students
as a collaborative process.
“We have psychology majors
who are adapting psychology
texts into performance, and
things like that. That really
inspires me. It’s kind of like
getting to know different areas through them.”
She gets this
creativity out of you that you
didn’t even know you had.
-Lorrie Damerau
Her directing and designing
go hand in hand when it comes
to creating pieces of art. “Basically, being a designer makes
you a better director, being a
director makes you a better designer,” Parker said. “It’s just
the more understanding you
have of the different disciplines
involved, the more likely you’ll
be better at your job.”
Onoda Power herself said
that she finds her students’
penchant for interdisciplinary
study particularly engaging.
the georgetown voice 9
”
Once she is exposed to an
area of study, Onoda Power
tends to become engrossed in
the project. As she put it, “I get
into these obsessive phases.”
“Last year I was really obsessed with Victorian thrillers—I read like fifty of them in
a year,” she said. “I think whatever project I’m working on,
that’s what I gravitate to. When
I work on a project it kind of
consumes my life…I stumble
upon [topics for projects] more
often than I have projects.”
FREER + SACKLER FILMS
In keeping with her trend
of absorbing facets of her
work, Onoda Power says that
Georgetown’s focus on social
justice has discernibly influenced her own interests. “Students are really interested in
activist theater and theater for
social change, which is really
great to see,” she said. “And
that’s an area that’s definitely
grown in me since I came to
Georgetown.”
She recounts a story of a
high school student she encountered while conducting
workshops in D.C. as part of
a class with Georgetown students. Reading the short plays
of an aspiring playwright, she
was overcome with emotion.
“I started crying,” she said.
“The scenes were moving, but
also just the fact that they were
these handwritten little notes.
All she does in her free time is
to write these plays that may
never get perused.”
She was moved not just by
the content of the plays, but
also the writer ’s potential.
“And I had a moment like if
somebody just…gave her a
computer—taught her how to
edit them and put them into
a coherent one-act format—
could this be her life?”
On an empathetic note, she
added, “I’m really fortunate
that something I chose to do
in my life has actually become
my occupation.”
Her colleagues describe
her as collaborative, openminded, and resourceful—able
work,” Damerau said, pointing to how unpredictability characterizes her teaching
style. “She gets this creativity out of you that you didn’t
even know you had.”
Both Styles and Damerau
recounted exercises in class
that pushed the limits of their
creativity. “We created our
own one-page panel…we were
given five or six images, certain lines of text, and we had
to make a story out of it,”
Styles said.
Guyton echoed this sentiment, perhaps recalling their
collaboration on his senior thesis. “She has this really great
way of posing options without
saying, ‘This would be better,’”
he said. “I would come in with
my ideas and my stories, and
then we’d talk about them…
she definitely allows it to be my
material and my words and my
stories, but she tweaks it a bit,
but in ways that come organically from me and from how I
function.”
Observing from the sidelines of the set of Astro Boy,
which opens Feb. 15 at Studio
Theater, it becomes clear that
her easygoing, collaborative
style pervades the practical
side of her work. But students
say that’s one of her greatest
assets as a professor as well.
As Styles put it, “She will allow you to be creative on your
own terms.”
ALL PHOTOS BY CAROLINE JOYCE
leisure
10 the georgetown voice
february 9, 2012
Denzel brings down the Safe House
by Will Collins
Even when chased by big
men with big guns and big cars,
Denzel Washington keeps his
cool. The actor characteristically
brings depth to Daniel Espinosa’s Safe House, the director’s
first English-language blockbuster. Starring Ryan Reynolds
as a new-to-the-game CIA safe
house monitor, and Washington
as a rogue agent who ends up
under Reynolds’ surveillance,
the film sets itself up for sufficiently clever dialogue and often compelling dynamics. By refusing to stick to one genre, Safe
House proves a through-and-
through action film with the
taste of a thriller and the insight
of movies that would otherwise
hold themselves to a higher artistic standard.
Reynolds plays Matt Weston,
a low-rung CIA employee stationed as a safe house “housekeeper” in Johannesburg, South
Africa. Resigned to taking
phone calls from his higherups, Weston hardly stands a
chance at re-locating to join his
love interest in France. Around
the same time, and also in Johannesburg, Denzel’s character
Tobin Frost is shown, calm and
collected, making a deal with a
rather shady-looking politician.
True to the typical action
script, the monotony of the characters’ backstories suddenly
breaks into a lengthy, rambunctious chase. The camera jolts
from car to car as a mysterious
set of individuals surrounds
Frost on all sides but one, making
a U.S. consulate his only option
for escape. Once the consulate
workers realize who just showed
up at their door, Frost is shipped
to the nearest CIA safe house
where Matt Weston is, up until
that point, having yet another
uneventful day.
Just as a team of interrogators
arrives, the small break from action is interrupted yet again by
“Listen, Denzel, if you tell me to take my shirt off one more time, I’ll make you go to your room.”
IMDB
an ambush from the same heavily
armed men from the first chase.
Despite the film’s on-again-offagain action, Safe House’s intricate plotline sets up each chase
with care. Though it takes until
the credits to piece together who,
indeed, chases whom, the film
is fast-paced and witty enough
to hold even the most impatient
viewer’s attention up to the end.
Espinosa plays Reynolds and
Washington’s dynamic brilliantly, with dialogue more suited to
a serious drama. The relationship
between the two characters develops rather quickly, but Washington’s seasoned acting eases
the abruptness of the characters’
introduction. Both humor and
shock arise from the dialogue between the two, and Weston soon
regrets his parting words to his
supervisor: “How am I supposed
to get more experience by staring
at four walls all day?” Espinosa
reflects Weston and Frost’s opposing anxiety and calm in the
musical score, which fluctuates
from fast-paced to somber instrumentals. Behind this, a rough but
tasteful cinematography rounds
out the film’s mood.
A handful of scenes are stylistically crafted to reveal the
calm before the intermittent
storms of action. One scene depicts Reynolds walking away
from a bathroom, cleaned up,
intercut with shots of him
quickly changing clothes and
haphazardly splashing his face
with water. Mixed in are central
exchanges between Frost and
Weston, heavily reminiscent of
Silence of the Lambs dialogues
between the infamous Hannibal Lecter and fresh-out-of-thebox FBI agent Clarice Starling.
Backed by a strong script, it is
difficult to ascertain either’s
motives until the movie decides
to make the reveals.
Safe House is a heavily stylized, big-budget flick, often packing in the cleverness and action of
a Guy Ritchie film while retaining
the cool and composed reading of
a spy novel—even riding on the
dark overtones of a noir at times.
Both Reynolds and Washington
play their characters excellently,
outshining the rest of the cast.
While the dialogue goes down
smooth, the audience is faced
with a jolting aftertaste. Though
Frost addresses Weston when he
coolly comments, “I’m already in
your head,” he might as well be
speaking to the audience.
Weeping for the next generation of art
by Julia Lloyd-George
At first glance, the Contemporary Wing’s venue for its “Next
Generation” exhibit appears to be
a lone warehouse, surrounded by
a gritty combination of chain link
fences and forgotten furniture.
Boasting a compilation of work
by 12 upcoming artists selected
by the seasoned masters of the
Corcoran’s “30 Americans” collection, this offbeat setting was
clearly chosen with edgy content
in mind. The pairing of “Next
Gen” artists and chain link fences,
however, falls flat given the lack
of substance in the exhibit itself.
The drafty vastness of the
warehouse serves to accommodate an eclectic range of paintings, photography, sculpture,
and installation art. Arranged
in a haphazard manner, the collection finds its natural starting
point with the paintings of Jayson
Keeling. While Keeling’s general
theme of death is vague at best,
his love of glitter certainly rivals
Ke$ha’s. The use of this unconventional medium, however, is
hardly enough to merit the innovative label the gallery hopes to
place on his work.
Leaving the glitter behind, the
next artist under the spotlight is
Kira Lynn Harris, whose fascinating work with light installations
would create a stunning effect in
the right setting. However, it fails
to find an appropriate stage in
the form of this warehouse space,
which displays only her indistinctive pastel drawings that aimlessly seek to reorient perspective in
such a large, bare gallery.
The paintings of Caitlin
Cherry prove one of the exhibit’s highlights, fusing the traditional combination of oil and
canvas with unconventional installation art. While “The Fate
of the Rebel Flag” pairs a cartoonish maelstrom of color with
a cannon to convey a presumably patriotic message, the hu-
morously titled “Disney Movies
Taught Me to Cry” uses a similarly chaotic style as a distorted
throwback to childhood.
Another strength of the exhibit lies in Wyatt Gallery’s
photography collection, Haiti:
Tent Life. Fourteen photographs
document life after the disas-
trous earthquake, capturing
Haitians amid the debris of
their island while effectively
striking an unexpectedly optimistic chord. Among the unremarkable installation art pieces
of the exhibit, this collection
provides a refreshing window
to another world.
As an anthology of contemporary artwork, the exhibit fails
to achieve its goal of introducing
the art world’s future stars; while
it features some remarkable artwork, it is hardly a picture of innovation. If this is truly the “Next
Generation” of art, the future just
isn’t what it used to be.
“I decided to stock up on non-perishables. They say Snowpocalypse 2.0 is headed our way.”
Contemporary wing
georgetownvoice.com
“anyone know what this is? Class? it’s the Laffer Curve.” —Ferris Bueller’s Day off
Pina dances to life in 3D
by Lacey Henry
3D film seems an odd
choice of medium for a tribute to a choreographer. But
for director Wim Wender ’s
tribute to choreographer and
dancer Pina Bausch, this effect
proves a stunning, effective
tool. The ode to the late German choreographer features
exquisitely beautiful modern
dance numbers and the talent of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch dancers.
Both a celebration of Bausch’s
life and an experimentation
in 3D film, dance and cinema
enthusiasts alike are sure to
enjoy Wender ’s Pina.
Pina successfully captures Bausch’s unique talent
for expressing what she often
referred to as the “language”
of dance. It is a visual masterpiece that celebrates Bausch’s
exploratory, creative spirit,
as well as her genius as a
leading figure in modern
dance. The artist’s choreography is characterized by a
blend of soft, expressive flow
with unrestrained, visceral
body movement—as described by her own dancers,
a combination of “fragility
and strength.”
The dance numbers create
visually intriguing, emotional, and at some points bizarre
performances on screen. With
effective staging in environments ranging from street
corners to subway cars, each
piece tells a story and never
fails to surprise. The range of
dances leaves viewers reflecting on themes of love, pain,
sorrow, and passion, each
played out through Bausch’s
signature choreography.
One of the most striking
theatrical components of Pina
is Wender ’s use of 3D technology. Donning the 3D glasses
transports the viewer directly
into Bausch’s world of thematic modern dance, which
imitates the feeling of being
on stage and allows viewers
to engage with the pieces. As
a dancer ’s lone arm stretches out towards the viewer ’s
face, her body sinking to the
ground in lost love, the audience is struck by the emotions
of Bausch’s pieces.
Wender also deftly weaves
interviews with the company
into his documentary. True to
Bausch’s style of dance, these
interviews are unconventional. While their reflections in
German are dubbed into Eng-
America ain’t got talent
On Sunday night, American
TV viewers witnessed a clash of
titans, as NBC brought together
the best of the best in a test of
raw talent and unbridled passion. Oh yeah, and the Super
Bowl was great too.
Sunday’s season two premiere of reality singing show
The Voice garnered an impressive
37.6 million views and scored a
16.3 rating, NBC’s highest rating for any non-sports program
since the finale of Friends in 2004.
Though likely boosted by Blake
Shelton’s patriotic rendition of
“America the Beautiful” and Cee
Lo Green’s surprise cameo during the halftime show, The Voice’s
numbers speak to the success
of a franchise that has entered a
market already swarming with
formidable competition.
American Idol has been a cultural icon for over a decade, producing platinum selling artists
Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and Daughtry. And while
many claim that Idol has lost its
cultural relevance, Clarkson’s
stunning Super Bowl national
anthem, Katharine McPhee’s
starring role in the much-anticipated Smash, and Scotty McCreery’s recent chart-topping album
all suggest that the show is still
in touch with the American public (well, at least with the middle-aged, Middle American public). It’s simply hard to claim that
a show has run its course when
it still attracts more viewers than
any other show on television, as
Idol did just last week.
Not to be outdone by the generic talent shows flooding the airwaves, Simon Cowell introduced
his own British baby, X Factor, to
America this fall. While it failed
to meet Cowell’s personal aspirations, the show achieved modest
ratings and, most importantly, a
lish, the audience watches the
faces of the dancers—silent,
nostalgic, and introspective.
This approach emphasizes
the relationship that Bausch
had with her dancers, and the
sentimentality of how they
remember her after cancer
caused her unexpected death
in 2009.
Many of her dancers expressed a shared admiration
for Bausch’s creative vision
and ability to feel movement.
As one dancer remarks during an interview, “We became
paint to color her images.”
Others remembered the simple, if ambiguous, advice they
received from her: “Go on
searching,” she said. “Dance
for whatever you long for.”
Intertwining these candid interviews with numbers
choreographed by Bausch
herself, Pina crafts a full picture of the dancer ’s life. In
this, Wender delivers a stunning memorial to Bausch’s
pioneering style of modern
dance, complimented perfectly by the innovative use
of 3D. Her artistic legacy is
encapsulated in the film’s
ending quote by Bausch herself: “Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost.”
green light for season two. Despite
the bloodbath that saw host Steve
Jones and judges Paula Abdul and
Nicole Scherzinger file for unemployment benefits, X Factor shined
this weekend with a star-studded
Super Bowl Pepsi ad featuring season one winner Melanie Amaro.
Add The Sing-Off and America’s Got Talent to the mix, and the
trash talk
by Keaton Hoffman
a bi-weekly column about reality television
supply of reality singing competition soars to a level that’s overbearing at best—and nauseating at worst. Critics have rested
easy on the logic that the market
simply won’t support America’s
oversaturation of talent-seeking
programming. But the ratings
data seem to disagree. So what
gives? Americans like singing
competitions, but when is it too
much of a good thing?
the georgetown voice 11
Reviews, Haiku’d
Ghost Rider
With Nicolas Cage
In the leading role, this film
Will go down in flames.
This Means War
Watch as Witherspoon
Distracts viewers from a film
With a thoughtless plot.
Undefeated
What appears to be
Sarah Palin’s new movie
Is just a sports film.
Wanderlust
Who would not want to
See Paul Rudd and Aniston
Have sex in a lake?
Act of Valor
Navy SEALs kick ass
In another wave of films
Caused by Bin Laden.
Star Wars Episode 1: 3D
Now on the big screens:
The beloved Jar Jar Binks
In three dimensions.
—Kirill Makarenko
Look to the myriad of crime
dramas, the quirky success of
survival shows, or the neverending stream of reality housewife banter, and you realize that
programming, at least empirically, seems to favor formula. If
the show ain’t broke, don’t fix it,
and that seems to be the case for
reality singing competitions.
The music industry, on the
other hand, operates differently.
It is much more competitive, diverse, and saturated. Network
effects make chart-topping commercial success clump in a few
successful acts—just look to Katy
Perry, Adele, or Rihanna in 2011.
What’s more, demand is falling;
record sales have slumped due
largely to illicit file sharing and
the proliferation of free, though
limited, music services like Spotify and Pandora.
On the supply side of superstardom, Idol, The Voice, and
X Factor are generally better at
producing viewership than at
producing relevant, marketable
singers. Most of the Hollywoodmanufactured stars tend to
fade as soon as the results show
confetti falls. In general, talent
scouts like Cowell are losing their
relevance to the technological
advancements of the information age. It’s a result of sites like
Youtube and MySpace that talent
once deemed “undiscovered” is
often nothing more than “mediocre.” In the modern era, the Internet—not reality shows—ferrets
out music’s winners and losers.
The result of this musical
supply and demand imbalance
is that while a large amount of
successful singing competition
shows can exist, their promises
to produce pop stars will remain largely unfulfilled. Singing competitions may still top
the charts, but their winners inevitably fall flat.
Make Keaton’s ears bleed at
[email protected]
leisure
12 the georgetown voice
february 9, 2012
C r i t i c a l V o i ces
Dierks Bentley, Home, Capitol
Records Nashville
Amid Dierks Bentley’s newest
tracks, the country star’s daughter
makes an unexpected yet heartwarming appearance on his latest album, Home. Taken from a
voicemail left by his three-year-old
daughter for her touring father, the
clip features her singing a verse of
“Thinking of You” along with an
acoustic guitar. Well known for his
party songs, Bentley’s inclusion of
his daughter in this album points
to a turn toward family life in the
artist’s career.
After releasing nearly a decade’s worth of albums carefully
crafted to fit the Nashville standard,
Dierks Bentley made a much-needed journey into the roots of country
music with his release of Up on the
Ridge. Instead of continuing in this
path, however, Bentley returns to
his heretofore successful yet formulaic structure in Home, which results
in a perfectly sound, if not incredibly innovative, album.
The first three tracks on the LP
are classic party-till-the-morninglight anthems, which differentiate themselves from the pack by
playing up Bentley’s personal
quirks and classic style. Bentley’s
characteristic lyrical humor shines
on “Am I the Only One,” which
also boasts a banjo-infused intro
that seems to have migrated from
his work on Up On The Ridge.
“5-1-5-0” also features a number
of unusually audible banjo and
pedal steel sections, which drive
the witty lyrics of the love song
forward at a rapid pace and offer
the listener a much-needed respite
from the over-distorted Telecaster
noise issuing from Nashville.
Along with a number of party
songs, Home features several ubiquitous slow love songs that Bentley
seems to have perfected over his career. “Thinking of You” is in many
ways the epitome of this type of music; the pedal steel and electric guitars follow each line of each verse,
emphasizing the unconditional love
flowing through the lyrics: “You’re
always the first and the last thing
on this heart of mine.” Juxtaposed
with his daughter’s clip, “Thinking
of You” shows that perhaps Home re-
Kindergarten commentary
“This scene is unbelievable
because my frustration about
this taxi cab does not understand where I want to go.”
These words were mangled
together by two-term governor
of California Arnold Schwarzenegger, who evolved from
iron-pumper into action star
before he started signing bills.
And, if more than 20 people had
watched the DVD commentary
of his film Total Recall before
his election bid, lines like this
one could have single-handedly
sabotaged his run for office. If
only the people of California had
known that they were casting
their ballots for a man wholly
incapable of making a routine
DVD commentary track.
DVD commentaries are a
treasure trove. They provide
an arena for directors and actors to give depth to seemingly
insignificant film details that
only hardcore fans could care
about, and the awareness of
this narrow viewership presents
commentators with a chance
to speak candidly to their fans.
Some filmmakers take the commentary very seriously, and try
to piece together what they can
remember from the creative
process, while other filmmakers
invite cast members to discuss
the film over drinks. The jovial
laughter and clinking glasses affirm to the audience that these
big-time actors are just like us—
they enjoy a drink and a laugh
as much as you or me.
And then there’s the enigmatic Total Recall commentary, with
Arnold Schwarzenegger and
Dutch director Paul Verhoeven.
Verhoeven, whose repertoire has
been accused of idealizing fascism (Starship Troopers), comes
fers less to Bentley’s musical journey,
and more to his personal one.
Dierks Bentley’s transformation
of his own experiences into inspirational lyrics proves that, despite its
lack of diversity in subject matter,
this album is the work of an artist at
the top of his game. Whether it is the
stay-single-and-stay-free attitude of
“Diamonds Make Babies,” the carefree nature of “Tip It On Back,” or
the heartbreak of “In My Head,” a
piece of Home will resonate with every listener.
Voice’s Choices: “Home,” “Diamonds Make Babies”
—Kirill Makarenko
The Fray, Scars & Stories, Epic
Records
Isaac Slade, the lead singer of
the Fray, claims that Scars & Sto-
across as some kind of mad scientist as he shuffles around philosophical tangents with five-minute explanations of the special
effects used to create a futuristic
fingernail-painting
sequence.
Fortunately for the presumably
sane audience (I know, I’m going
out on a limb calling a Total Recall commentary audience sane),
Box office, Baby!
by John Sapunor
a bi-weekly column about film
Schwarzenegger buffers the cerebral points Verhoeven grasps
at. “Ow. That hurt,” the Austrian
proclaims, as his crotch takes a
beating. On second thought, forget about Arnold’s purported
function as a buffer zone—he
only makes Verhoeven’s borderline insanity even more questionable. This commentary duo is a
match made in heaven.
ries, the group’s latest release, embodies a “more aggressive” lyrical approach to their music. This
might seem strange, given that
the group is known for its roots
in Christian rock. And while the
lyrics do sound more emotionally charged than those in albums
past, the band’s continued use
of piano as the lead instrument
diminishes the potential effect of
their newly powerful verses. In
spite of this loss of lyrical potential, this new album is the Fray’s
most successful LP to date.
Though the band’s members
had previously agreed to stray
from the righteous path of Christian
music after their 2005 debut How
to Save a Life, the influences of the
album have survived through the
years. “Here We Are,” for instance,
features an appeal to a higher
power: “I’m going back and forth
/ Show me where to begin.” But
the song switches its tone when the
band introduces darker lyrics; like a
number of the other songs on Scars,
it contains the repeated line, “lay
your body down.”
This theme of wandering to no
certain destination and an awareness of an inevitable end often relies on references to Europe and the
conflict of the Cold War for effect.
“Munich” and “Rainy Zurich,”
for example, deal with crumbling
What makes Schwarzenegger’s commentary so amusing
is his inept approach to the production of a commentary track.
The commentary usually exists
as a guide to explain what is
happening behind the camera,
or to emphasize less apparent
details on the screen. Instead,
the ex-Governator takes the
most obvious onscreen happenings and bluntly restates
them. “This is my job, I am a
construction worker,” he states.
He’s in construction worker
clothes, he’s wearing a construction hat, and he’s at a construction site. Arnold, we know
you’re a construction worker.
In fact, if you closed your eyes
from start to finish, you could
probably write a decent review
of the film using Arnold’s literal commentary alone. “Here
again, a totally different fight
scene. A very brutal, hands-on
fight scene,” he points out at
walls, emotional turmoil, and the
occasional hope of love in times
when “everything is black and
white and grey.” The more aggressive nature of Scars becomes especially clear in “1961,” a power ballad telling the story of two brothers
on opposing sides of a personified
Berlin Wall. An electric guitar,
which often renders the piano inaudible, does the most to differentiate this track from the rest of the
album. Since Slade’s signature use
of falsetto, while lending a unique
quality to his vocals that emphasizes the emotion in the lyrics, fails
to allow more powerful tracks like
“1961” to stand out from the slower ballads like “Be Still” without
changes in instrumentation.
The ideas expressed in Scars &
Stories are by no means new to the
Fray, but the added historical context and a more informed use of
instrumentation truly bring out the
best in the band’s traditional messages. Capitalizing on strengths
revealed in their two previous LPs,
the artists of The Fray have released
a more complete and unified album, even if it doesn’t live up to its
“aggressive” claim.
Voice’s Choices: “1961,” “48
to Go”
—Kirill Makarenko
what could only be described
as a brutal, hands-on, and totally different fight scene.
While Total Recall remains an
outlier in the world of DVD commentaries, it reminds us of the
existence and potential of this offthe-radar special feature. DVD
commentaries aren’t simply
tacked onto the disc—they serve
a purpose, and to many cinephiles, they provide an intimate
setting for fans to get to know
their idols. As an Arnold fan, I
still enjoy his films, but with the
added knowledge that the actor
is simply incapable of making intelligent commentary. Still, that’s
not the point. The point is, if Sylvester Stallone campaigns for
governor in your state, it would
be in your best interest to start
watching the Rocky commentaries. That’s right, all six of them.
Get to John’s choppa at [email protected]
georgetownvoice.com
page thirteen
the georgetown voice 13
HELP CATCH THE KILLER @ blog.georgetownvoice.com AND ON TWITTER @voicepage13
voices
14 the georgetown voice
february 9, 2012
Affirming the talking points on college brochures
by John Seymour
During my visits to Georgetown both before and after applying, as well as during NSO,
virtually every student speaker made a point to mention
how Georgetown had become
their home.
I didn’t buy it. The idea
sounded like a bullet point
tacked onto an informational
brochure minutes before printing by some frantic intern. The
college search process forced
me to examine the constant
praise, merited or not, that
schools heap upon themselves
in the hope of attracting a few
more students. With at least
a little cynicism, this sentiment of Georgetown as a “new
home” never came across to
me as truly genuine.
But I was not looking for
a new home in college, so my
suspicions mattered little. I
envisioned college as a waypoint, a transition between
two segments of life. College, to me, was a place to
find my own path and take in
new experiences before leaving the campus behind after
four years. As a prospective
student, Georgetown’s value
resided in the lessons I could
take from it and the opportunities it could present me. The
possibility of a school becoming a second home was simply
not a priority.
The relatively short time
I would be able spend at
Georgetown, or any other
college, also made searching
for a home within a college
seem counterproductive. My
own perspective on the definition of a “home” might be
a little warped, though, due
to my own good fortune regarding stability. The word
“home,”for me, conjures up
a series of static images: a
white house standing in the
Southern Maryland countryside with a red barn in the
front yard and woods behind
it, or my bedroom, a small,
comfortable space enclosed
by white walls plastered with
New York Mets and Legend
of Zelda posters. Although I
lived in a different house for
my first year of life, I have no
memory of it, and for all intents and purposes, that old,
creaking, and charmingly
imperfect house is the only
home I have ever known.
Since my only experience
of home is eighteen uninterrupted years in the same location, it follows that I could
not have expected any college to take on that role within four years broken up by
winter, spring, and summer
breaks—Georgetown simply
could not compete with the
house of which every detail
has been permanently etched
into my brain. This is no
slight against Georgetown; it
was an error in my own puerile conception of what a home
is, and one moment last semester fundamentally altered
my flawed view.
Last semester, soon after
my last final, I was packing my
bags and preparing to return
to Maryland, when a thought
entered my mind. “I’m oneeighth of my way through my
time at Georgetown.” This
idea stuck itself into my consciousness, refusing to exit my
mind for the rest of the day,
and the only feeling it brought
was sadness. Georgetown had
gradually, though much more
rapidly than I expected, grown
on me. Although the environment had never seemed completely foreign, my first few
weeks here had been marked
by restlessness. It was all
too easy to feel lost in the
crowd. My days lacked any
sense of routine. Each series
of events felt disjointed, almost as if I was sleepwalking
through them.
At some point though, I
woke up. A routine developed,
and the restlessness that permeated my early times here
gave way to excitement for
each new day. Those large
crowds that first made me feel
isolated instead began to bring
a sense of community. I started to carve out my own niche
in Georgetown’s broad landscape. Dahlgren Quad became
my preferred location when all
open green fields and a gentle
farmer to care for his herd. In
reality, the majority of food
animals are raised in unsanitary, claustrophobic, industrial
facilities with little or no access
to green pastures.
Every animal has its own
factory problems. Chickens’
beaks are cut off at an early age
so that they do not peck the
workers or each other. Pigs cannot turn around in their cages.
Cows are tightly packed together. All factory-farmed animals
are pumped full of hormones to
increase their weight as quickly
as possible, and antibiotics are
used in attempt to counteract
the unsanitary conditions involved in keeping a high density of animals in such a small
space. Consequently, every
time you consume meat, you
are consuming all of the antibiotics and hormones that the animal ingested as well. Because
animals kept alive longer expend more resources and therefore cost more money, there
is a trade-off between raising
healthy, well-treated animals
and raking in as much cash as
possible.
If this were not troubling
enough, animals are often
physically abused before and
after they reach the slaughterhouse. Before transportation, living animals are forced
to live in tight cages with the
decaying bodies of other dead
animals. After transportation,
the bolt gun used to kill animals like cows and pigs often
malfunctions, leaving animals
alive yet completely paralyzed.
They are conscious as their
skin is removed and up until
the point that they are cut into
pieces. This kind of treatment
does not take into account animal welfare, or even human
welfare. The ultimate goal of
factory farming is not to feed
as many people as possible,
but to make as much money
as possible, which is evident
in the inefficiency of factory
farms and the gross mismanagement of the large volumes
of animal waste produced.
It would seem as though
the ethos of factory farming
is based upon the idea that
animals cannot feel pain. This
is, obviously, a fundamentally
flawed conception. Like all
vertebrates, food animals have
nervous systems that respond
to pain in the same way that
human nervous systems do.
Similar to humans, animals
express their pain through facial expressions and shrieking.
Because animals can suffer just
like humans, it is completely
unjustifiable to condone the
kind of treatment that animals
receive throughout their lives
in factory farms and slaughterhouses nationwide. This is a very upsetting issue, and there is no reason for
it to become a permanent fixture in modern agriculture,
especially when there are such
easy measures that anybody
can take to act in the benefit of
those who cannot stand up for
themselves.
Instead of eating industrially-processed meat, eaters can choose to eat locally.
There are always restaurants
that serve locally-sourced
organic meat, which has not
been pumped full of antibiotics and hormones. Local farmer ’s markets not only provide
hormone-free meat but support the small family farms
that have been almost wiped
out by the giants of industrial
agriculture. This measure will
help make the lives of ani-
I needed was silence, and Lau,
much to my chagrin, became
my place of residence on many
Sunday nights after days of neglected homework. Over time,
simple experiences, like walking into Red Square and seeing it covered in chalk designs,
or taking a walk through the
neighborhood with no destination in mind, or staying up far
too late talking with a group of
friends, transformed my views
of Georgetown and of what a
home really is. What I view as
my home, I would say now,
should have little to do with
the amount of time that I spend
there. It is an important factor,
but it is not, as I had previously assumed, the most important. Instead, to be at home is
to be at peace, and, even after
just one semester here, I feel at
peace at Georgetown.
John Seymour is
a freshman in the
College. He only
has 30,562 hours
left of being an
undergraduate at
Georgetown.
Pain, mutilation, and abuse: All is not well on animal farm
by Viggy Parr
When most people dig into
a juicy steak or a pile of chicken fingers, they do not think
about their food’s journey
from farm to slaughterhouse to
plate. That’s probably for the
best; examining the conditions
and treatment of food animals
is a quick way to lose your appetite.
Before I became a vegetarian five years ago, I was just as
blind to the treatment of food
animals as anybody else. Many
meat-eaters, if they think about
their food before they eat it at
all, tend to idealize the environment in which the animal
was raised—they picture a
pastoral landscape with wide-
You’re a terrible person if you want to eat this.
WENDY PIERSALL
mals better, and support the
regional economy and to help
loosen factory farms’ hold on
agricultural policy and their
near-monopoly on the meat
industry.
Furthermore, to reduce the
number of animals brutally
slaughtered, consumers can
alter their diets. This doesn’t
mean everybody needs to become a vegan (although that
certainly wouldn’t be a bad
thing), but there are other, less
extreme measures that are still
helpful, like using the vegetarian station at Leo’s or resolving to go meatless a few days
a week. Making cruelty-free
choices is simple, easy, and has
far-reaching positive effects.
How we as humans treat
those below us defines who we
are as a species, and the brutality, cruelty, and violence with
which factory farm animals
are treated offends humanity itself. Farm animal rights
have nothing to do with how
good your filet mignon or your
pork loin is. Caring about the
treatment of animals involves
nothing more than the human
capacity for fairness, kindness,
and justice.
Viggy Parr is a
freshman in the
College. According to her, even
streetlamps and
Syracuse students
have rights.
voices
georgetownvoice.com
the georgetown voice
15
To remain relevant, Occupiers must do more than show up
by Sankalp Gowda
Saturday, Feb. 4, was a long day
when it came to public transportation. Between going to the basketball game at the Verizon center
and traveling to the Folger William
Shakespeare Library in the afternoon, I spent a solid few hours sitting on buses and metro trains.
And while these rides would
have been lengthy on a typical
day, Saturday’s trips were lengthened due to the numerous detours
the bus drivers needed to take to
avoid the commotion surrounding the Occupy D.C. protest in
McPherson Square. After blocking off a large number of the sur-
rounding streets, D.C. and National Parks Service police attempted
to enforce a ban on camping that
the Parks Service had invoked. Although they emphasized this was
not an eviction, the move brought
both sides even closer toward an
eventual confrontation.
As controversial as the politics
surrounding the protesters’ right
to stay are, what struck me most
was a phone call that I overheard.
During the call, a woman who had
just finished work spoke about
the delay we experienced and
the scene we saw as we drove by
McPherson Square.
The woman was neither upset
nor supportive, but she expressed
“Occupy all the streets!” Occupy K Street protestors last fall.
LUCIA HE
Who watches the watchmen?
The latest Internet-sharing
apocalypse has struck the procrastinating college student
in full force. Megaupload has
been driven to an early grave,
leaving many young adults
with withdrawal-like symptoms, driving them right into
the arms of cheaper, virus-ridden substitutes—vidxden.com,
fullonshows.com, firststoptv.
com, to name a few.
Though cut down in its
prime, and suffering a fate
similar to those of music-sharing sites Napster and Kazaa in
decades past, Megaupload did
not go down without a fight.
A larger force was in motion
to oppose the shutdown of the
site and the looming SOPA legislation—Anonymous.
A loosely organized coalition of activist computer
hackers, Anonymous took its
battle to the web, targeting
and shutting down the websites of the U.S. Justice Department, the FBI, and Universal
Music Group (among others)
in response to the seizure of
Megaupload. Though this was
not the first time Anonymous
has lashed out against anti-piracy laws, it represented what
it called the “single largest Internet attack in history.”
With the capabilities of technology and the web constantly
advancing, the Internet presents a simultaneous threat and
opportunity. The emergence of
Anonymous, generated within
the system as a means of taking
advantage of the opportunities
and checking the threats, comes
as no surprise. Vigilante justice
often appears where the justice
system falls short.
As part of “Operation Darknet” in 2011, Anonymous released the usernames and other
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.
curiosity about the protests. Now,
that caught my attention. I could
not help but notice that her uniform hardly seemed of the “one
percent.” No Brooks Brothers suit,
no designer shoes, just a plain,
navy blue shirt with her name embroidered on the front. Here was
a working-class woman, the very
kind that the Occupy movement
claims to represent, but she did not
know the Occupiers’ cause or purpose. This led me to wonder just
how effective Occupy has been in
its goal to represent the 99 percent,
and whether a different strategy
would have brought them more
influence.
As one of the last Occupy
movements to exist in the nation,
we have to admire the McPherson
protesters’ tenacity. But when does
resolve turn into stubbornness?
As the general public comes to
view the Occupiers as permanent
fixtures, the efficacy of the protest
slowly diminishes. If the message
hasn’t been spread to a woman
who likely rides the same bus past
the site on her daily ride to and
from work, it seems like their goal
of spreading awareness and representing the 99 percent has failed.
If the Occupiers are not careful, they will fade until they become another short-lived phase
details of 1,589 suspected pedophiles who frequented sites
connected to the child pornography trade. In a statement released shortly thereafter, Anonymous expressed its hope that
their efforts would be taken up
by the FBI, Interpol, and other
law enforcement agencies to
bring the suspected pedophiles
to justice. With the ability to
Carrying On
by Kate Imel
A rotating column by Voice senior staffers
hack into servers, Anonymous
has acted as a public defender
and as an aid to the justice system. Unfortunately, not all of
its efforts are as successful, or
as unobjectionable.
The group’s efforts last fall
to disband Mexico’s Zetas drug
cartel, allegedly spurred by
the kidnap of an Anonymous
member, went awry when the
group’s threat of releasing the
names of cartel members and
affiliates was met with promises of civilian death by the cartel. According to IberoAmerica, the faction of Anonymous
that initiated Operation Cartel,
“the cartel threatened to kill 10
of American history. Their presence stirred the media months
ago, but in the time since their
voice has weakened to a whisper.
Far from representing the interests of the disenfranchised, the
Occupy camps degenerated into
something much less attractive. As
Parks Service workers attempted
to check the site for camping violations, they wore yellow hazmat
suits due to the unsanitary conditions. There were even reports that
some of the more hard-line protesters had left bags of human feces scattered throughout the camp
as “presents” for the officials to
find. That kind of childishness is
hardly the picture of a movement
to be taken seriously.
Our generation grew up listening to stories about the civil
rights movement of the ‘60s, but
we never heard about the—admittedly boring—details regarding
the importance of organization
and message control. As a result,
the Occupy protestors harbor the
false impression that the only requirement of a protest is showing
up. Most people have no idea that
Rosa Parks was not just a tired
seamstress traveling home at the
end of a long day, but a long-term
member of the NAACP who had
years of experience with activ-
people for each name of a Zeta
supporter revealed.” Despite
its noble intentions, Anonymous’s “#OpCartel” placed
citizens in the line of fire instead of shielding them.
For many of us, Anonymous represents the vigilante
ideal presented in comic books
and popular films—the group
has even adopted Guy Fawkes
masks as a symbol for its anarchistic values and methods. But
with enough power to undermine the system, Anonymous’s
far-reaching influence sets a
dangerous precedent. If any
citizen can put on a mask or
hide behind a screen while enacting justice, that person takes
on an undeserved amount of
power and potential for harm.
Amonymous’s actions in Mexico could have potentially cost
the lives of dozens of civilians.
If the cartel had realized their
threat, it would be difficult to
hold the men behind the masks
accountable.
Justice exists as an idea,
and the justice system exists
as a progressive body aiming
always to reach our ideal of
justice. The system is subject
to scrutiny, error, and, most
importantly, it is subject to
public sentiment. The Mexican
government, which possessed
ism. Her decision was carefully
thought out and planned along
with her fellow local leaders. Following her arrest, a cleanly organized Montgomery bus boycott
established a concrete course of action that united a community and
eventually the nation.
This is what the Occupy
movement lacks—a coherent and
unified set of goals it would like
to meet in order to achieve greater
economic freedom. The movement did successfully bring the
issue to the American public’s attention for a brief period of time.
The movement, however, has
fizzled. Now almost completely
out of the limelight, their window
of opportunity is almost gone. If
the Occupy protesters truly wish
to be heard, they need to change
their tactics from passive protest
to actively searching for a compelling solution. Unless this happens,
the next few years will only leave
more people like the woman I
overheard on the bus asking, “Occupy? What’s that?”
Sankalp Gowda is
a freshman in the
SFS. He admittedly
did think that the
bags of feces were
hilarious when he
saw them.
thousands of emails listing individuals with ties to the Zeta
cartel that Anonymous hacked,
had reasons for not exposing
cartel members. It’s likely that
their reasoning was the same
that caused Anonymous to
retreat—the threat of civilian
death. Moreover, the Mexican government would have
answered publicly for these
deaths, while Anonymous as
a group would only suffer in
prestige as an organization behind the screens of the web.
Chris Landers of Baltimore City Paper once described
Anonymous as a group “in the
sense that a flock of birds is a
group ... at any given moment,
more birds could join, leave,
peel off in another direction
entirely.” Anonymous, despite
the valor and fervor behind
many of their operations, is an
ungoverned body constantly
on the brink of migration to another political hotbed. One can
only hope that these masked
vigilantes don’t lose sight of
true North.
Kate Imel is a senior in the College.
She would approve
of Anonymous if
they were muscular and started
wearing tights.
HAPPY VALENTINE’S
from the Voice