I always thought that going to college would be a positive thing for my development.  Not so fast, says the New York Times.  A piece today titled “College Students Behaving Badly” suggests that the very opposite may be true.

During adolescence, the prospect of attending college was positive. The researchers found that college-bound youth were less likely to be involved in criminal activity and substance use during adolescence than kids who weren’t headed for college.

But college attendance triggered some surprising changes. When male students enrolled in four-year universities, levels of drinking, property theft and unstructured socializing with friends increased and surpassed rates for their less-educated male peers.

Unstructured socializing? When did the Times decide to go all anthropologist-y when talking about college students? That is hardly ever a good idea. And what does that even mean?

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The NBA has some charming pictures of Big Roy and the Indiana Pacers’ other new recruits. The set starts out bland (Roy with a basketball! Roy with a basketball next to a teammate!), but evolves into a set of glamor shots, with captions like “Roy Hibbert means business” and “Brandon Rush lightens the mood”.

Check out the jump for Roy wondering who is the fairest one of all.

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You might remember Munir Jawed (SFS ‘08) for losing the 2007 GUSA election along with running mate Enoch Bevel (COL ‘08). You might also remember him from Enoch’s hat (above), a veritable appendage that appeared in all their campaign material. The hat was so big that a year later, while I was telling a story about Munir, the person I was talking to didn’t know who he was until I mentioned the hat.

That’s all in the past, though, because Munir has finally stepped out of the hat’s shadow. He’s been awarded a Fulbright fellowship to do research about independence and oil in Baku, Azerbaijan. Good on him.

Rock Creek Park has been described as the dividing line between white and black DC, even though gentrification has made that description less accurate. It doesn’t have to stand for something so sad, though. As a Marylander just proved, Rock Creek Park can also be about natural, domestic marijuana.

Police arrested Isiah Johnson, 19, in Chevy Chase yesterday after police saw him growing 10 marijuana plants in a remote section of the park. The farm was discovered after a park employee tracking a box turtle happened upon it. Stop snitching, reptiles!

Staff writer Chelsea Paige spent last semester in Russia. Far from Georgetown, she still managed to run into a DC export: weaponized sadness.

Spending 70 years behind the Iron Curtain is like being frozen in carbonite: once you get out, you’re shocked to realize that your friends on the other side are wildly successful (or Jedis) and you’re still a ne’er-do-weller with a debt to an obese gangster.

Russia’s Han Solos, shocked by leaving commie-freeze, have been embracing the fruits of their new, pseudo-capitalist life a little overzealously. Moscow oil tycoons make a little cash and suddenly the city looks like a version of Vegas built by 12-year-olds. This isn’t going over well with the government, who have grown even more paranoid about outside influences.

The latest threat? Those clearly “suicidal” emo kids, who have taken to their new lifestyle with vigor. The genre, born in DC as “emotional hard-core rock”, constitutes no less than an “emotional and spiritual crisis” in Russia, according to the government.

The “suicide” label also comes from the government, so you shouldn’t be surprised that Russian legislators wants harsher regulation of emo sites and a ban on people dressed emo from entering government buildings and school. Some schools have gotten a little more descriptive:

In November, the Novgorod regional education department issued a letter to all schools in the region with a description of emo culture, saying the “dream of every [emo] is to die in a warm bath from the blood of cutting their wrists.”

This crackdown would seem par for the course for President Medvedev and his cronies, except that we’re talking about a country that produced an artist who threatened to stab himself to death at St. Basil’s Cathedral if Stalin destroyed it.

Clearly, this is the most emo, melodramatic country in the world. Babyshkas should be cutting themselves in the street to the tune of Elliott Smith and while crying! What I would pay to see Putin paint his nails black.

Flickr photo by dbarronoss used under a Creative Commons license

Local gossip sites can’t get enough of these “hottest fill-in-the-blank” contests. The Hill just published its annual rundown of the 50 Most Beautiful People on Capitol Hill, and incoming first-year law student Laura Swett made the list.

The 23 year-old Republican works for Georgetown law alum Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), who tried to stir up trouble last spring about a Saudi donation to Georgetown that was vetted three years ago (the Editorial Board told him off). Since Swett rolls with someone who ignores available information, here’s an out-of-context quote from her Hill profile:

“I use my office as guinea pigs,” she said.

Shocking. At least she’s single. DCeiver has more coverage of who’s sexy, who doesn’t merit a second look, and who’s delousing.

In case of emergency, hop the Blue Line. In a report on public transportation helping cities cope with catastrophes, the Transportation Research Board, whose members have clearly never tried to Metro their way to Rosslyn after a basketball game, recently commended (PDF) DC for its transit system, even while giving a wag of its finger to other cities:

[Urban Areas] having extensive and redundant rail networks with good system connectivity posses an important asset in an emergency evacuation, as was amply demonstrated in New York City and Washington, D.C., in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11th. Few UAs, however, have such extensive rail transit systems.”

The TRB says we’re most threatened by hurricanes, floods, and blizzards. They prescribe a healthy routine of tests and maintenance for urban transit systems, which is exactly what DC won’t get if toolshed Senator Tom Coburn keeps opposing Metro funding in the Tomnibus bill.

Via CTA Tattler

 When Aramark took over Leo’s cafeteria a year ago, they promised 6 “all-you-care-to-eat mini-restaurants” by the beginning of spring semester. They never appeared, and little changed in the dining hall.

Things are finally getting going, though, according to an email from Andrew Lindquist, Leo’s dining director:

[Leo’s changes] is nearing completion. It will now include a brick oven pizza station, marketplace, and diner. In addition, work was done on the upper level to provide more opportunity. I think you will enjoy the new design and features.

Of course, Lindquist might actually be fooling us into another year of treating wrap and breakfast fajita bars as major innovations. And “marketplace” sounds more like the current pile of fruit, bread, and donuts than a mini-restaurant.

Vital Vittles, Georgetown’s finest/only grocery store and sundries shop has provided students with necessities like Dunkaroos and Solo cups for decades. They also sell expensive sandwiches to high-strung doctors with stress-induced hair loss. Word on the street is that doctors and students both will have a new option this fall: wraps made by men and women who used to be homeless or imprisoned.

The wraps are made by Fresh Start Catering and Contract Food Service, an offshoot of the D.C. Central Kitchen, an non-profit corporation that provides culinary education to homeless and unemployed citizens of the District.

Bravo to the bleeding hearts over at the Corp. Sure, Panebella’s pita is to die for, but an overpriced snack does some good is even better. Guilt free = calorie free.

Update: Erin from the Central Kitchen corrected us–the sandwich makers aren’t homeless anymore. Others were in jail, and Erin describes them as “the biggest bunch of goofy, fun, hardworking felons I know.”

Imagine my delight at discovering that the Philodemic Society, Georgetown’s debating club, has its own blog. A skim of their constitution confirms that they’re basically Toastmasters with high self-regard–one of their officers is called the Amaneusis–but the real fun comes when Philodemic officers choose what topic they most want to discuss next semester: sex!

Specifically, safe sex. In interviews, Vice President Sarah Olsen and previously-mentioned Amaneusis Dustin Walker propose hot button debate topics that will look good on fliers (gays, weed), but they also both want to talk about condoms on campus, a boring topic that should draw absolutely no one.

I can already picture the discussion–spermicide as aborta facia, full openness to children, yawn. Everyone knows buying bulk at CVS is cheaper anyway. Still, I don’t blame the Philodemicians for grasping for sexy straws. An inside source in Philodemic told me that intra-Society coupling is discouraged and called, and this is serious, “Philodemincest”. With that avenue of working out sexual tension blocked, I can see why they want a sanctioned chance to talk dirty.