Hope College officials say since Friday, more than 400 staff and students have come down with symptoms of the nasty flu that has been knocking down people like bowling pins.
Campus buildings are being sanitized, the dining hall is serving take-out in disposable containers, and victims of the virus are complaining together in a Facebook group. Sound familiar? Worse, the school has only 3,200 students–that’s about 1/8th of their student body!
Apparently Red Square is not the only place where people can combine chalk and free speech rights. Georgetown now has its own 9-11 conspiracy theorist, and he or she has taken to the brick walls of the tunnel under New North.
Hopefully the theorist will hide in the darkness of this tunnel instead of finding 9-11 Truth Movement members to “educate” us and expose government lies as we stroll through Red Square.
Gmail hold-outs have another reason to switch: now, Gmail isn’t just an email service–it’s a sober best friend, too. Google is instituting a program called Mail Goggles which will check your sobriety before you send an email by forcing you to solve simple math problems in one minute.
“When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you’re really sure you want to send that late night Friday email…By default, Mail Goggles is only active late night on the weekend as that is the time you’re most likely to need it…Hopefully Mail Goggles will prevent many of you out there from sending messages you wish you hadn’t.”
So now go come back inebriated from the Tombs at 3 AM and take comfort in the fact that you will not accidentally send an email to that guy you just met about how the vile comments written about him on Juicy Campus are an understatement.
For assistants, what else? It’s been four weeks since school started, and Jack DeGioia still has no “special assistant.” His search must be going so poorly that he’s resorted to placing an ad on craigslist, the classiest of classified sites. What makes this assistant so special, you ask?
The Special Assistant will have the opportunity to work closely with the Chief of Staff and Scheduler for the President. Duties include: advance work; assembling, assimilating and analyzing briefing materials; and making travel arrangements. This position is responsible for driving the President to and from local events and meetings. In addition they will give day-to-day support to the President as well as other duties and special projects as assigned. This is a term position lasting one year with the option to extend.
Georgetown encourages you to apply. The ad doesn’t say so, but they’ll probably even throw in a chauffeur cap!
Who needs to go to Israel when Georgetown has its own version of the Western Wall at the Starbucks on 3122 M St. NW? You don’t even have to pray at this one.
One day while I was sipping my iced tea, I noticed a piece of folded paper hidden in the crevasses of the brick wall. Being my nosy self, I had to dig it out and learn what was so important that it had to be placed in a Starbucks wall. To my surprise, I found a pleasant quote from Bright Eye’s “Method Acting.” My friend and I searched the cracks for more notes and found a few more from the same literary soul.
My friend and I thought this was a pretty brilliant find, so we decided we wanted to write our own notes and start a trend. With my friend’s paper and a pen from the Starbucks lady in hand, we got to work and left two notes of our own.
Now we want you to go explore the wall and leave your own words of wisdom. Remember that it is not forbidden to take out and read other people’s notes.
The riverfront pathway in Georgetown is a great place for bikers – unless you are a pedestrian. The other day I had planned on taking a leisurely walk along the Potomac from Georgetown University to the Kennedy Center. Bikers changed my walk from a leisurely stroll to a live-action Frogger.I did not always notice the bikers headed my way, but luckily my reflexes were fast enough to allow me to make a mad dash out of the way when I was told to “watch out!” An elderly woman watching the boats go by or a child-toting parent may not be so fortunate if they were to get caught in this situation.
Some cities have separate paths for bikers and pedestrians in their parks. Now that the SmartBike program is adding to biker traffic in DC (and text messaging and emailing are taking our eyes off the road), separate paths may be an idea to consider. Or at least tell the bikers to bling up their bike with a bell.
Photo from Flickr user wallyg used under a Creative Commons license
Vox Populi is the staff blog of the Georgetown Voice, Georgetown University's preeminent newsmagazine since 1969. The opinions expressed in Vox Populi are those of their authors unless specifically stated.
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