(Editor’s Note: From time to time when the Voice is not printing, we post opinion pieces written by Voice staffers on the blog. The following op-ed, in which soon-to-be-graduate Sam Sweeney examines Georgetown’s attitude toward its students, is the author’s opinion only and does not represent the views of the Voice or an endorsement of his opinion.)

Friday morning I stopped by the Leavey Program Room to register for Senior Week. I didn’t have much reason to—I’ll be in New York for my twin sister’s graduation during most of the events, but registration is free and comes with a t-shirt. And I never turn down a free t-shirt.

To receive a Senior Week bracelet, which admits you to a week’s worth of boozy events, you must show your Go-Card and state ID. On the registration table is a piece of paper that begins, “READ ALOUD,” and lists three points: (1) that the bracelet can’t be stretched, cut, or broken and is needed for admittance to all events; (2) that both IDs are needed for off-campus events with alcohol; (3) that seniors haven’t graduated yet and any violation of the student Code of Conduct, on or off campus, could affect our ability to graduate.

In order to get a bracelet, I was required to read the whole sheet aloud right there. “Why?” I asked. It’s the policy of the Center for Student Programs, I was told, and has been for a number of years.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. Being a student at Georgetown often means being subjected to such small indignities. And, of course, I did end up reading the statement aloud, slowly and deliberately, the CSP staffer hovering in front of me, ready to reward my obedience with a bright orange bracelet.

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Beer for everyone!

As a beer lover, you can’t do much better than the draft selection at Pizzeria Paradiso. From thick, creamy stouts to tangy IPAs to crisp, citrusy wheat beers, no matter what your preference is, Paradiso’s got you covered. The only downside? The price. At around six to nine dollars a glass, a few beers will set you back more than just a few bucks.

That’s why I love Paradiso’s happy hour, as do the hoards of people who crowd into Birreria Paradiso, the downstairs bar, every Tuesday and Wednesday night. All draft beers are half off, leaving you free to sample some of the finest brews that D.C. has to offer for the student-friendly price of $3-4 each. With a revolving menu of 16 different beers on tap and one on cask, Pizzeria’s happy hour is hard to beat in terms of quality, price, and variety.

On Wednesday night, I started out with the Dogfish Head Midas Touch, allegedly “based on the residue found on the drinking vessels in King Midas’ tomb.” Somewhere between a mead and a wine, this tart, somewhat fruity beverage was, if not right up my alley, at least a refreshing start.

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I’m almost at a loss for words for how to describe FINIS Magazine, the latest journalistic endeavor to emerge from Georgetown undergrads this summer (move over, Hoya Insider!). So, I’ll just let  FINIS founder Carlisle Alessandra Williams (COL ’10) do it for me.

“It’s a journal for people who, well, would read something whose title is in Latin,” Williams told the Peter J. Grace, the Georgetown University Examiner and, not incidentally, a writer for FINIS. “It’s a no-holds-barred reflection of our culture and lifestyles. The audience is definitely intellectually curious young twenty-somethings, who don’t take themselves too seriously.”

Uh-oh.

Fortunately for me, though, I took some Latin in college (if you’re wondering what “finis” means, I’ll give you a hint: it doesn’t mean beginning). Williams also states that the magazine was born out of her examination of the problems of print media and her attempt to find an “entirely different medium.”

As FINIS’s introduction states:

“As a response to the growing concern about the state of print journalism, this new publication seeks to develop an innovative approach to bringing creative writing, solid journalism, and introspective social commentary to the intellectually curious on the Internet.”

In other words: take note, dying print publications.

But enough dilly-dallying. When I finally checked out the site, I found everything you would expect from a publication which, in the words of Grace, “continues [the] quest for amusement for the young and idle rich.”

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Too pretty by half

Editor’s Note: This is the first post in a series we’ll be running in which we’ll review the happy hour offerings at Georgetown restaurants and bars.

If the happy hour at Bangkok Bistro sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is—at least as far as the drinks are concerned. At the door, Vox was told that the deal for $3 cocktails included the Bistro’s whole repetoire, from their $7.99 Mangorita (“A fresh mango with Sauza Tequila and Hiram Walker Mango Liquer blended to frozen perfection”) to the $8.99 Saketini (“Bombay Sapphire Gin mixed with Gekkeikan Sake, Bols Blue Curacao, and a lemon twist”) and all of the delicious, overpriced drinks in between.

Then, after sitting down, we were informed that the happy hour only covered their “20 o.z. Cocktails: the Fantastic,” and only non-blended drinks at that—so much for that Dirty Colada. And it only got worse from there.

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Freebie alert!  Starbucks is handing out free $5 gift cards and free drinks in Red Square today.   Great news for coffee drinkers, although probably a further sign of our impending doom to some.  $5 may not seem like much in terms of expensive frappuccinos, but it’s nothing to scoff at in these tough times.  Caffeine drinks aside, $5 will also get you 2 whole shares of AIG, 6 shares of Fannie Mae, or 80 shares of Washington Mutual.  The coffee’s probably a better investment, though.

Photo from Flickr user visualpanic used under a Creative Commons license.

If the crap bands won’t come to Georgetown, Georgetown must go to the crap bands.  So thinks the Georgetown Program Board, anyway.  Not content to simply waste money bringing sub-standard music to Georgetown (Coolio), GPB is branching out.  According to the Weekly Events email, GPB is subsidizing tickets to a Halloween show at George Mason’s Patriot Center featuring Panic! at the Disco, Dashboard Confessional, Plain White T’s, and the Cab.  “Tickets are retailing for over $50, but you can go with GPB for only $10 for GU students, $5 GPB Members and $15 off-campus students,” the email reads.

So GPB is spending around $40 per student to go see four (terrible) bands 20 miles away from campus?  Ridiculous.  Why does GPB subsidize Top 40 concerts out in NoVa while ignoring the countless shows here in D.C. that are twice as good and one third as cheap?  I can understand that not everyone dislikes bands like Panic! at the Disco, but GPB should at least provide alternatives for people who do.

Photo from Flickr user NRK P3 used under a Creative Commons license.

In the Voice this past week, the Editorial Board recommended that cyclists buy a u-lock to keep their bikes safe from theft. Simple enough, right? An item in the GW crime log reminds us of one piece of advice that we neglected to include in the ed: when using a bike lock, be sure to use it to, you know, lock up your bike (ellipsis mine, for comedic timing).

Theft 10/9/08 – Public property on campus – case closed
An individual secured the front tire of a bicycle to a lamppost and left. When the individual returned, the complainant told UPD the bike was missing except for [...] the front tire. No suspects or witnesses.

In another bit of GW crime log hilarity, we find out what happens when you gotta go.

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In August, the Executive Cabinet of GW’s Student Assocation went to a Nationals game together as part of a cabinet retreat. The GW Hatchet, fearless newspaper that it is, started poking around to see how the tickets were paid for, prompting this gem of an email to be sent to the entire cabinet (emphasis mine):

Guys,

Emily Cahn from the Hatchet is calling around looking to find out how retreat was paid for. You are to tell her the following and ONLY THE FOLLOWING:

You paid for your own food and tickets to all events. This includes Nationals, Redskins, Nooshi, Froggys, etc. Then try and throw in something about how you had to stop Vishal from paying himself and you insisted on paying.

This is very IMPORTANT and this email must remain CONFIDENTIAL. Anyone found leaking this email will have appropriate action pursued against them. Do not seek her out, but if she contacts you the above is what you are to say.

–
Greta Twombly
SA President Chief of Staff

Rule no. 1, Greta: you have to be a little more specific in your threats if you expect them to have any effect. Does “appropriate action” mean the leak won’t be allowed to sit at the SA Executive Cabinet lunch table for a week or are we talking death by public stoning?

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This is big for us.

Creative Loafing, the national chain of alt-weeklies which purchased the Chicago Reader and the Washington City Paper in July 2007, is filing for bankruptcy.  CP editor Erik Wemple announced the news on City Desk, the City Paper‘s news blog, this morning.

A corporate memo released this morning captured the rationale for the move: “The term ‘bankruptcy’ conjures up all kinds of images and demons but it is essentially a legal proceeding designed to give an over-leveraged company the time, process and a safe harbor for which to reorganize its finances. Chapter 11 was the natural place for the Company to go to accomplish an orderly reorganization of our finances.”

…

“This filing has little to do with the acquisition and everyone should feel very proud of what we’ve accomplished,” reads the company memo. “It hasn’t been easy but it has been successful. The assumptions we made have not turned out to be so successful. The print business has been under siege from all quarters with the exception of the one place that counts; audience.”

I’m not sure how the acquisition itself can be successful while the assumptions Creative Loafing made—presumably upon which the acquisition was based—were not.  I also don’t really buy the “print is dying” argument as a rationale for Creative Loafing’s troubles.  Even though print revenue has been declining, the City Paper and the Reader are still profitable newspapers, as they have been since the ’80′s.  Considering that web advertising now only makes up roughly 5% of the City Paper‘s overall revenue, it seems to me like Eason may have jumped the gun by switching to a “web-first” model so soon.

On the bright side, at least the editorial cuts mentioned in the Voice‘s feature on the City Paper last week are going to be put off for a while.