A year after GUSA Prez Ben Shaw and Veep Matt Appenfeller pledged to get free newspapers on campus and a month after the planned date for their Georgetown debut, the papers have finally arrived on campus. Sleek tan distribution boxes are now set up in Alumni Square and Red Square (and, supposedly outside Leo’s and in Leavey, though I haven’t seen these ones yet). Just slide in your GoCard, pull down the door and help yourself to as many New York Times, Washington Posts and USA Todays as your little heart desires.

The papers have come in the nick of time for Shaw, who told the Voice in January, “If the newspapers aren’t here by the third week of February, anyone who wants a Washington Post can come find me and I will buy it for them.” Nevertheless, props are in order for GUSA for finally accomplishing something substantive (and the Corp and, lest we forget, InterHall feat. Caitin Chen). I’ve got to say though, having free papers on campus isn’t as great as I thought it would be. I’ve become so accustomed to getting my news online that when I snagged a NY Times on Monday, it felt unweildly and a little bulky (and, unlike the constantly updated Times website, was missing any mention of prostitutes, New York governors or potentially unsafe sexual acts).

Though the program is run by USA Today, it seems like that’s the last paper people want to grab (see photo). (Maybe Obama was just trying to be nice when he called USA Today a “respectable paper”?) Judging from what I’ve seen, people also seem to prefer the Times above the Post.

The million dollar question, though, is whether or not the deal includes the Sunday Times. I’m guessing it doesn’t—this would be too good (and expensive) to be true—but until Sunday rolls around, I’m going to keep my fingers crossed anyway.

Photo by Sam Sweeney, Blog Editor

Big East Tourney, here we come. Be sure to check out Tony Francavilla’s great recap of Georgetown’s victory yesterday here.

Photos by Nicole Bush, Staff Photographer

EXIF Photo by Sam Sweeney, Blog Editor

• Think that Iranian dissident group Mujahedin-e-Kalq should lose its classification as a terrorist group to make it easier to overthrown the Iranian government? You’re not alone, Will Sommer reports in his insightful profile of Ray Tanter, Georgeetown professor/Iranian “terrorist” group advocate/amateur tennis player.
• GUSA screwed up big time with this year’s election fiasco and the Editorial Board isn’t pleased. They also take a look back at the accomplishments of the Shaw/Appenfeller administration.
• Speaking of which, News has the scoop on when we’ll (finally) be getting those free newspapers promised so long ago.
• In the Voices section, Mike Stewart takes on Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason, in which she “calls out our nation’s population not only for its lack of general education, but also for its arrogant disdain for everything ‘elite.’” (My money’s on Mike.)
• It’s almost time to say goodbye to departing DPS Director Darryl Harrison. But first, Tim Fernholz sat down with Harrison to chat about his departure, the state of security at Georgetown and what his successor should know.
• Sara Carothers takes us inside the newest exhibit at the Hirshhorn, “The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality, and Moving Image; Part I: Dreams.”
• It’s not the NFL, but it’ll do. Georgetown quarterback Matt Bassuener and wide receiver Brent Craft are heading off to the AFL2, the minor-league version of the Arena Football League, Phil Perry reports.

I am exhausted from midterms so I’m going to sleep now to be ready for my 2:45 a.m. flight on Saturday morning. Have a nice spring break everyone, and see you in a week or so.

It looks like Wilco may finally be ready to settle down—for now, at least. The latest incarnation of the band has been together for over three years and with Sky Blue Sky last year, Wilco decided to forgo their constant experimentation in favor of a straightforward though enjoyable folk/rock record. On Tuesday night at the 9:30 Club, Wilco’s comfort with their current situation shone through. Jeff Tweedy and Co., dressed in black button-downs (Tweedy added a tan cowboy hat to the ensemble), hit all the right notes as they made their way through the better part of Sky Blue Sky, along with twenty songs from older albums.

Tweedy calmly jigged about on stage, even during upbeat numbers as Nels Cline wildly wielded his guitar, looking like a man who has nothing to prove. When an audience member handed him a fake Grammy statue during a break between songs, his first reaction was to bite it (”making sure it’s not food,” he said). “Thanks for the Grammy,” he added. “We already decided we didn’t want one.” (Tweedy should have said “another one”; A Ghost is Born, released in 2005, won two Grammys.)

Critics who felt Sky Blue Sky lacked the innovation of earlier Wilco albums are right, but its simplicity showcases the sincerity of Tweedy’s songwriting. During “Side with the Seeds,” Tweedy looked as vulnerable and as his lyrics as he sang, “Well I’ll side with you … if you’ll side with me,” holding his hat to his heart and staring straight into the audience.

Not that he has to ask; Wilco has already built up a devoted following throughout the years that was in full force last night. The crowd requested obscure B-sides and sang along with older songs like “Summerteeth,” “War on War,” and “I Got You (At the End of the Century)”. Wilco’s popularity isn’t just confined to hardcore fans, either; they postponed their Feb. 29 show in Charleston, South Carolina to be able to perform on Saturday Night Live.

Wilco’s energy was present last night too, especially whenever one of Tweedy’s delicate songs would deconstruct into cacophonous turmoil, Cline’s riffs skidding over the noise of the band. But in some ways, the band was more toned down than usual. In previous shows in which that Wilco played “Misunderstood”, Tweedy would sing “I’d like to thank you all for nothing” and repeat “Nothing!” longer than seemed possible, the band stuck in a loop behind him. Last night, Tweedy chose a more hopeful refrain to pick up on: “We can make it better” from “Is That the Thanks I Get?” When the song ended, Tweedy made the political statement of the night, adding “The last section of that song is known as the Obama fight song.”

Wilco plays again tonight at the 9:30 Club. Good luck getting a ticket if you don’t already have one, though if you have a lot of spare cash lying around, this might be a good place to look.

You can check out Wilco’s almost complete setlist after the jump (it’s missing a few songs towards the end).

Read the rest of this entry »

As the above graph shows, it turns out there’s an incredibly strong correlation between how many members each GUSA ticket’s Facebook group has and how many first round votes they got. Not an incredibly surprising fact when you think about it; the factors that lead to a large Facebook following—popularity, working hard on your campaign, relentlessness—also help bring in the votes. I would make some statement about youth harnessing the power of the internet, but then I’d have to stop reading this blog in protest.

For those of you who’ve taken some kind of stat class, the value for their correlation is 0.968586 (the closer it is to one, the stronger the correlation). For those of you who haven’t taken any stat classes, consider yourself lucky.

You can see how a simple election can quickly become a muddled mess when you add in seven superfluous rounds of voting. For those unfamiliar with instant-runoff voting (IRV), if a single ticket doesn’t get a majority in the first round, the ticket with the lowest total is dropped and those votes are redistributed to the other candidates and so on. It was only in the eighth round that Cartier, fourth in the first round, finally prevailed.

Now, as Juliana Brint reported earlier, the top four candidates will have a run-off election. Karwacki, Hayes, Hawkins and Brown, we hardly knew ye.

Jesse Sapp had 16 points and Austin Freeman added 13 on Saturday against Cincinnati to put the Hoyas back on top of the Big East standings. ‘Nova took down UConn too, so if Pitt can manage a win over Louisville on Sunday, it’ll stay that way. (I wouldn’t count on it though—the game’s at Pitt, but the Panthers are coming off back-to-back loses to Marquette and Notre Dame.)

Photos by Nicole Bush, Staff Photographer

EXIF Photo by Lynn Kirshbaum, Photo Editor

• 9.0 points per game doesn’t come for free: in our cover this week, I look into what makes freshman Austin Freeman the player he is today.  (Short answer: hard work, selflessness and raw talent.  Long answer: read it here.)
• Congressman Frank Wolf has been causing quite a fuss over a $20 million donation from a Saudi prince to Georgetown, News reports.  The Editorial Board tells Wolf he’s barking up the wrong tree.
• The Hoyas face off against the Cincinnati Bearcats on Saturday at the Verizon Center.  Tony Francavilla tells you why you shouldn’t be worried.  (Hint: the main reason is 7′ 2″ and has a hook shot that can’t be contained.)
• Looking for something to do after the game on Saturday?  Black Comedy is playing at the Devine Studio Theatre (you can buy tickets here) and Ryan May Handy says it’s not half-bad.
• Molly Redden takes us across the ocean and around the world with letters from a friend of hers in Kenya.
• If you still haven’t made up your mind about which GUSA ticket to vote for, maybe our article on Tuesday’s debate will help you out.  (And then go here to vote.)

And that is all the news that’s fit to print.  Well, most of it anyway.