With everyone’s favorite amateur photog soliciting ANC support, a bi-decennial liquor license moratorium discussion, a Late Night Shots founder pushing for greater leeway for his new restaurant, and a debate about the relative merits of pizza and crepes as drunk food, May’s ANC meeting was about as exciting as they come.
Stalker Becomes Stalkee?DrunkenGeorgetownStudents.com founder Stephen R. Brown made an appearance yesterday’s meeting, donning a Canadian Tuxedo and asking the ANC to make a statement against students threatening residents. Brown claimed he has been stalked and threatened by students because of his website. Burleith Citizens Association President Lenore Rubino chimed in her support, saying that she knows of other residents who have been threatened and intimidated by students.
The ANC did not make an official motion on the issue, but they did do some speechifying against harassment. ANC Chair Ron Lewis declared, “We abhor threats to our residents” and encouraged Brown to work with the Metropolitan Police Department to address the issue. Lt. John Hedgcock said he was aware of one incident of threatening behavior towards Brown and that MPD is “actively investigating” it.
Crêpe Amour: The Next Philly P? When campus media was looking to anoint the heir to Philly P, they largely leftout Crêpe Amour, the new M Street creperie. But the ANC has their suspicions about the restaurant, which is petitioning to extend its operating hours. The restaurant went into yesterday’s meeting hoping to secure permission to operate 24 hours a day. But the ANC, still healing its Philly P-induced wounds, was not having it.
“We’ve been through such incredible brain damage right around the corner,” Commissioner Bill Skelsey said. “What’s the difference between crepes and pizza?”
Crêpe Amour’s representative tried to back away from the 24-hour request, floating a 2 a.m. closing time instead, and the ANC’s Student Representative Aaron Golds testified that drunk college students actually are not equally fond of crepes and jumbo slices, but in the end the ANC agreed that further meetings would be necessary to hammer out an agreement.
After the jump, read about the exciting world of Voluntary Agreements and liquor license moratoriums!
There’s an easy solution to this problem: Knepper needs to have more sex!
Since his article came out I’ve had sex probably three dozen times, and never did I have to get an official statement of “Intimacy accepted upon previously agreed bounds; you may proceed” before “moving my lips any lower on the other person’s body,” or any other of the many acts I’ve performed.
Washingtonian magazine is now running their Best & Worst survey. As far as I can tell, the online version only lets you input the Best (http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/15341.html), but if you get the print version of the magazine, the mail-in ballot (no postage necessary) lets you input some Worsts as well, including…”Local villain/villainess”
I will be filling mine out soon and entering Madame Altemus as the local villainess. Fellow Hoyas, I encourage you to do the same. Purchase a copy of Washingtonian – or, if feeling particularly Tammany Hall-ish, go to Whole Foods and remove all the ballots (between pages 24 and 25) from the magazines – and send in your ballot ASAP!
When D.C. Councilmember and alum David Catania (I-At Large, SFS ’90, LAW ’94) gave a speech at Georgetown in March of last year, he talked about same-sex marriage as an “undying civil rights” issue that he hoped to make progress on. What a difference a year makes: Yesterday, Catania was back on campus, discussing the successful same-sex marriage legalization bill he sponsored and the role race and religion played in the fight for marriage equality in the District.
The panel discussion—which also featured Cathy Renna, a media relations expert who specializes on LGBT topics, Richard Sincere (SFS ’81), the president of Gays and Lesbians for Liberty, Michael Crawford, the communications director of Freedom to Marry, and Joseph Palacios, a Georgetown professor and priest who has been vocally supportive of same-sex marriage—focused on how D.C.’s marriage equality movement found success by actively engaging minorities and people of faith.
Catania opened the discussion by emphasizing how D.C.’s civil rights legacy and the high amount of attention local religious groups pay to equality issues made the city well-suited to support same-sex marriage legalization. Over 200 religious leaders joined the D.C. Clergy United for Marriage Equality alliance and, according to Catania, more clergy members testified for the same-sex marriage bill than against it.
“We’re just not a fertile ground for intolerance,” Catania said.
For Renna, involving religious people in the District’s same-sex marriage movement was particularly important because it challenges the perception that marriage equality is a “God versus Gay” issue.
“What happened in D.C. was incredible,” Renna said. “This community proved that that’s a false dichotomy.”
While the kids at JHU assumed Hitler would be outraged by the cancellation of classes, the Georgetown version—created by Vox‘s favorite Tweeter, King Georgetown—takes the meme a different direction, showing the Fuhrer’s response to Provost James O’Donnell’s decision to hold classes on President’s Day:
If we learned anything about the GUSA Senate this Monday night it’s that they have a USPS-like devotion to braving the elements. As the rest of the school buckled down for our second-consecutive snow day, the Senate reaffirmed that neither snow nor gloom of night would interfere with its commitment to legislating.
The meeting opened with a period of public comment on the bill. The three student who spoke all expressed opposition to the changes. Nick Calta (COL ’10), Chair of the Advisory Board for Club Sports, cautioned that the bill would create “the potential for really wide fluctuations in funding”; a representative from the Center for Social Justice decried the adversarial tone of the debate and urged senators to think about “what kind of leadership this legislation is promoting”; and former GUSA Senator and current GUSA Presidential Candidate Matt Wagner (SFS ’11) warned that it would be “a huge mistake” to pass the bill.
After a quick executive briefing—in which GUSA President Calen Angert (MSB ’11), when asked by a Senator about his stance, said he “fully endorsed” the bill—the act’s co-sponsors, Senators Nick Troiano (COL ’11, Village A: A-D) and Colton Malkerson (COL ’13, Harbin 2-5), gave their spiel about bill, explaining what exactly it would change and why they believe it is necessary.
Is Vox‘s extensive blog roll not quite satisfying your Georgetown blogosphere needs? Well Laura Sortwell (MSB ’10) and Jessica Lioon (MSB ’10) are looking out for you. Sortwell and Lioon are starting up a Georgetown “blog hub” that will aggregate content from blogs run by Georgetown students, alums, and faculty.
We want to create a forum in which Hoyas can share their ideas, show their expertise on trends and topics in the industry, facilitate discussion, seek new career opportunities, establish business contacts, develop knowledge resources, showcase their work, seek advice, and meet other alumni/students with similar interests.
According to Sortwell, the website–inspired by the Mashable model—is their independent study project (both are studying marketing). The idea came to her after she took an advertising class that focused on marketing and social media.
“There aren’t many schools doing anything like this,” Sortwell said. “It would be a one-stop place to stay in touch with Georgetown. We kind of want it to be a continuation of the intellectual but fun conversations you have at Georgetown.”
Sortwell and Lioon wouldn’t say how many bloggers have approached them about participating, but Sortwell did say they have “gotten an even better response than we expected.” The two are still looking for a good name for the site–they’ve considered names like “Hoya Network,” “Red Square” and “The Front Gates”—but they hope to have it up and running within a month.
At 11:40 a.m. on Saturday, January 23, 2010, a student reported to DPS that she was the victim of a robbery earlier the same morning in the 3600 Block of O Street. The complainant reported that at approximately 3:40 a.m. she was walking home alone along O Street adjacent to Alumni Square when the suspect pushed her up against a wall and demanded money.
The complainant gave the suspect $50 dollars in cash, and the suspect fled in an unknown direction. DPS responded to the complainant’s residence to take the report. The complainant declined to report the incident to MPD.
The student was not injured, and declined to report the crime to the Metropolitan Police Department
D.C. Councilmember and Georgetown alum David Catania (I-At Large)(SFS ’90, LAW ’94) made headlines in 2009 as the man behind the District’s same-sex marriage legalization bill. But Catania, whose third term will end this year, has been keeping mum on whether or not he’ll run for re-election in November, leading some local politics fans to wonder whether the marriage equality victory might be his swan song.
It looks like the speculation can finally come to an end, though: Catania has told “several close supporters” to assume he’ll be running, according to Washington City Paper. City Paper and D.C. Wirealso report that Catania will be making an official announcement in mid-January.
In addition to writing and championing the recently-passed same-sex marriage bill, Catania has spent much of his time on the Council working on health care and insurance issues. As of now there is only one challenger for Catania’s seat, Congress Heights minister and civic activist Anthony Motley.
Photo from Flickr user dbking, used under a Creative Commons license.
I’ll never let go, blog readers, I’ll never let go…
Well guys, it’s been quite the semester, but my time as Blog Editor is coming to an end. Vox will be in the very capable and experienced hands of Molly Redden, who many of you will remember as last spring’s Blog Editor.
Before I leave to go back to the print edition as Managing Editor, though, let’s look back at some of the good times we’ve had this semester:
Vox Populi is the staff blog of the Georgetown Voice, Georgetown University's weekly newsmagazine. Opinions expressed in posts are those of their author alone unless otherwise stated.
With everyone’s favorite amateur photog soliciting ANC support, a bi-decennial liquor license moratorium discussion, a Late Night Shots founder pushing for greater leeway for his new restaurant, and a debate about the relative merits of pizza and crepes as drunk food, May’s ANC meeting was about as exciting as they come. 
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