Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY) paid tribute to the civil rights legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King and spoke about President Bush’s final State of the Union Address in the ICC auditorium tonight.

Following an introduction by visibly nervous Hoya guard Jessie Sapp, Rangel praised the accomplishments of the Civil Rights movement. He cited the diversity of the Democratic presidential front runners and the growth of the Congressional Black Caucus as evidence of America’s progress towards equality.

Rangel wasn’t as pleased with Bush’s policies, calling them antithetical to King’s vision. Drawing parallels to King’s opposition to the Vietnam War, Rangel attacked the Iraq War and the conduct of the administration as regressive and detrimental to American ideals and interests.

Rangel also addressed the current stimulus package. He claimed that the bill was a poor fix for the supply-side economic policy of the past several years. To conclude his speech, Rangel exhorted the audience to continue on the path of the Civil Rights generation and work for change, concluding that “where the country goes remains in your hands.”

Rangel took a few brief questions, including one from a man advocating a 20% value-added tax (Rangel dismissed the man, asking for a serious question) and one from an intern from his Ways and Means office (Rangel told the audience to direct all remaining questions to the intern), before hurrying out of the auditorium to attend the State of the Union address across town.

—John Cooke

Photo by Vivian Chen, Contributing Editor 

That’s what New Yorker reporter George Packer would have you think. He uses the experience of our own Barbara Feinman Todd, Associate Dean of Georgetown’s brand-new graduate journalism program and the reason Georgetown even has what anemic undergraduate offerings do exist, to explain how Senator Hillary Clinton has a “habit of undermining herself, when the worst might have been averted by a little candor and grace—a tendency that has reappeared in the past few weeks.”

Feinman Todd, before and while at Georgetown, worked as a freelance journalist and particularly as a ghostwriter, and her most famous job was working with the then-first lady to write “It Takes A Village.” Clinton didn’t thank her in the book’s acknowledgments, causing a minor scandal at the time, but Packer’s sources, apparently editors at Simon & Schuster, claim that Feinman Todd really did a bad job and didn’t deserve the credit. I e-mailed Feinman Todd, who declined to comment specifically due to a confidentiality agreement, except to say that she believed the piece to be inacccurate. I’m waiting to hear back from Packer about the story, but in the meantime you can read the relevant excerpt after the jump and judge for yourself.

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Gary Shteyngart, author of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook and Absurdistan, is going to be speaking on campus Thursday night at 6:30 in Riggs Library. Forget the way-overrated Jonathan Safran Foer — for over-the-top self-referential Eastern European Jewish wit with just the right amount of poignancy, Shteyngart’s your guy, and he’s sure to be a hit in conversation with Georgetown’s own Jacques Berlinerblau, director of the Program for Jewish Civilization.

Update:  RSVP and further information is available here.

Photo courtesy Flickr user mezzoblue

—Anna Bank, Managing Editor

Canadian reggae band Bedouin Soundclash stopped by D.C. Sunday night, playing a solid set in spite of a slew of technical problems, featuring songs from their first two albums, their most recent album Street Gospels, and a gorgeous cover of the Clash’s Rudie Can’t Fail. British rockers Beat Union opened, followed by Westbound Train, a Boston-based ska band.

Bedouin Soundclash’s full set list:

Burn
Living in Jungles
Saint Andrew’s
Rude Boy
Criminal
Bells of 59
Jeb Rand
Nico
Gyasi
Money Worries
Rudie Can’t Fail
Walls Fall Down
Shadow of a Man
12:59 Lullaby
When the Night Feels my Song
Shelter (Encore)
Nothing to Say (Encore)

Photos by Sam Sweeney, Blog Editor