What do gun nuts, Cambodia fanatics and Fritz Brogan’s enemies all have in common?

They’re Voice readers, of course.

Last week our gun editorial brought in all the expected protest letters from Second Amenment supporters across the country. Scott W., of Phoenix, Arizona wrote “Please, give us all a break and stop making idiotic comments like - ‘While it’s unclear what impact gun control has had on District crime over the years, what the sense in allowing more guns on the streets?’”

The Fritz Brogan cover story, too, provoked all manner of letters taking issue with our front-page-characterization of Brogan as “Joe Hoya” himself. One letter writer even threatened to expose some pretty steamy allegations about Brogan’s character. We’ll see if it makes it into print on Thursday.

The biggest surprise, however, came in a link in an e-mail sent to us by someone claiming the not so-self-effacing title of “Lord Playboy.” His Lordship pointed us to a discussion board of four pages of threads where all types of message board geeks spent the last week attacking Kent Elliot’s piece on Cambodia (”A $350 Problem”, March 15, 2007). These guys are really serious about everything from “dirty” backpackers to the assumed honesty of every bell boy in Cambodia. To see what these boring people spend their time doing, check this link out.
Posted by Chris Stanton, Editor-in-Chief

Did anyone else find it a little strange that Ray Danieli, the assistant director of off-campus life, was out in Red Square last Friday handing out ping-pong balls in Red Square with the Run for Rigby people?

The set of pakaged balls, custom colored to fit with the coming St. Patrick’s Day weekend, came with a reminder to sign up for the April 14 “Rigby Ball” and April 15 “Run 4 Rigby.” The message included an encouragement to “Enjoy these pong balls.”

Clearly the balls were supported and paid for by the Run for Rigby organization. However, Danieli’s presence in Red Square was an indication that the school tacitly supports appealing to students’ love for beer pong (beirut) in order to promote safety. It’s a definite compromise of ideals since the student code of conduct very clearly states that drinking games are not okay: “Of particular concern are alcohol-related drinking games. Because they are designed to encourage the excessive consumption of alcohol, they run contrary to and undermine the University’s promotion of the responsible use of alcohol. Alcohol-related drinking games shall be deemed an aggravating factor.”

The funny thing is, Danieli’s colleague (they share a tiny office), Director of Off-Campus Life Charles VanSant is the man responsible for lecturing and punishing off-campus students who party so hard that they burn the University’s bridges with the neighbors.

Way to go guys, for encouraging binge drinking and precision on the ping-pong table!

Posted by Chris Stanton, Editor-in-Chief

It started small—just a noise, like rain in the heating ducts. Then it turned into a leak, then a cascade. Dubbed “Copley Flood ‘07″ by John Tincoff (SFS ‘09), the abundance of water that burst into the fifth floor of Copley and poured through a light fixture and the elevator shaft down to the fourth floor created shock, confusion and a few displaced residents.

(more…)

Students voted on the Student Association’s proposed “Accountability and Reform Amendment” today, and quirks in the electoral procedure abounded.

Supporters of the amendment, including author and Student Association Deputy Chief of Staff Matt Stoller (COL ’08), spent election day in Red Square handing out t-shirts and encouraging passing students to vote on a nearby laptop. This might ring a few bells for those who remember last year’s presidential election debacle, in which candidates Khalil Hibri (SFS ’07) and Geoff Greene (SFS ’07) were disqualified for campaigning on Election Day and encouraging students to vote on a nearby laptop.

“That raised a few eyebrows in the administration,” Eden Schiffmann (COL ’08), Student Association Chief of Staff, said. But he said that nobody outside of the Student Association seemed to be concerned.

And although the vote doesn’t appear to be exactly by the book, Twister Murchison (SFS ’08), President of the Student Association, said that this was simply because there is no book when it comes to referendums. The rules referring to the procedure for taking referenda are remarkably brief for a document as complicated as the Student Association bylaws.

With the procedure for referenda so open, Schiffman said that extensive dialogue took place between the Student Association and the Election Commission in order to make sure that everything was done in an acceptable manner. Eventually the decision was made to follow the format of presidential elections, which by extension would seem to make campaigning on voting day illegal.

The logic, Schiffman said, did not extend that far. He said that without an actual competitor in the vote, there was no one to offend with voting day campaigning.

The amendment was also attached to a survey on the keg ban, which Stoller said probably boosted voter participation.

In fact, activists spent most energy encouraging students to vote on the keg ban survey rather than on the amendment, even going so far as to include a keg full of root beer in the middle of Red Square. The tag line for attracting potential voters was not, “Have you voted on the Accountability and Reform Amendment?” but “Did you vote on the keg ban yet?”

Schiffman said that there were probably some people who voted only for the keg ban and ignored the amendment, but he said that this was probably countered by the fact that some students probably voted on the amendment and ignored the keg ban. He smiled as he added, “I have to say that.”

Posted by John Lawless, Staff Writer

According to the awkwardly translated Bahrain News Agency, the Crown Prince of Bahrain visited campus on Wednesday and met with University President John J. DeGioia. The Bahrainis report that Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa was looking in on the many Bahraini students at Georgetown and weighing the possibility of expanding post-graduate scholarships.

We got a tip that His Royal Highness had an 8:00 reservation for dinner at Morton’s and promptly dispatched a pair of paparazzi to grab a picture of the Prince with his reported team of nine body guards. The Prince was more clever, however, and snuck around into a back alley to enter through the restaurant’s kitchen.

University spokesperson Erik Smulson never got back to us to explain what the prince was doing on campus. What’s up with all these shadowy visits by Middle Eastern leaders, anyway?

Posted by Chris Stanton, News Editor

I never thought I’d say this, but check out this month’s issue of The Georgetown Federalist, the University’s conservative publication. Despite Editor J.P. Medved’s direct shot at the Voice in his “From the Editor” column, the issue does have a very worthwile piece by junior Alexander Bozmoski on why conservatives should be united against climate change (no link to this one–they don’t have a web site).

Bozmoski argues that the true conservative stands against drastic change of any kind. The tradition of Edmund Burke stresses the fact that we should pass onto our children the same great civilization that we have been fortunate enough to grow up in. God knows that global warming threatens all the progress that human society has made in the last 200 years.

The fact that this argument has hardly been voiced at all by any member of the GOP indicates that today’s Republicans are more interested in the immediate needs of big business than in a truly “conservative” stewardship of our society.

Posted by Chris Stanton, News Editor

The Washington City Paper’s Loose Lips column this week published a sweet photo of Washington’s former mayor Marion Barry sporting a trademark brimmed hat in what appears to be his own little patch of Ward 8.

Despite Barry’s dapper appearance, the column goes on to note that the seventy-year-old fixture
of Washington politics is quickly fading as a significant force in the city’s Democratic party. As the columnist notes: “His [Barry’s] public pat-on-the-back will do little to bring voters out for his chosen candidate. There is no Barry machine to get busloads of senior citizens rolling to the polls for Fenty or Cropp. The once-powerful operator has now been relegated to the role of symbolic political helper.”

It seems that city council Chair Linda Cropp was banking on Barry’s endorsement in the mayor’s race. Her staff is peppered with former Barry appointees and her own husband was once an aide to the crack mayor.

Now, however, Barry is leaning toward the favorite in the race: Ward 4 Councilmember Adrian Fenty. We’ll see what favors Fenty throws in turn toward Ward 8 if he is selected to be the Democratic contender (and hence the de facto mayor in this Democractic city) in the Sept. 12 primary.

Posted by Chris Stanton, News Editor