Gone the way of the dodo

Despite not actually accomplishing its titular goal, Take Back Georgetown Day, the College Republicans’ annual lecture-fest, will not be returning this year. That news comes from GUCR president Erika Barger (COL ‘10), who said in an email that the Republicans will focus their energies on individual events instead. Hoyas raised on a steady ironic diet of Rush Limbaugh and Townhall.com are understandably anguished.

It didn’t happen last year, either, but Barger’s email just started my grieving. To mourn an event that always had the potential to make a lot of people mad, but never lived up to those expectations, let’s remember TBGD the way it would want to be remembered–angsty about women, and through the recollections of some crazy Catholics:

A busy line-up of prominent conservative speakers and workshops ran from 9:30AM to 4:30PM. In the lobby, representatives from various Washington, D.C. think tanks displayed literature and shared information. Members of TFP Student Action had their own table and were engaged in lively discussion during the greater part of the day. Many students promptly joined the TFP’s petition against the immoral “V-Monologues” scheduled to play again at Georgetown on February 17-18.

Flickr photo from user Decaf used under a Creative Commons license

Aaron Golds (COL ‘11), who I previously suspected of being a candidate for the student ANC spot, confirms via email that he wants the gig. I’m glad to hear it, but I hunger for more candidates to clash and tangle with Golds, all for the chance to meet thrice-monthly with ANC Commissioner Ed Solomon.

But then, maybe Golds’s motives aren’t so hard to understand. A commissioner told me once that being student commissioner is a great pick-up line–”Hey baby, I’m the youngest elected official in DC”–so maybe hanging out with Ed Solomon & Co. is just a brilliant scheme to add some more notches.

The offending email that went out a few hours ago:

Dear students,

At the end of July and the beginning of August, University Information Services will be moving faculty and staff to a separate e-mail system. We will require two weekend long outages to accomplish this, scheduled for:

July 25 at 6:00 PM to July 28 at 8:00 AM
August 1 at 6:00 PM to August 4 at 8:00 AM

During these outages, you will not be able to access GUMail e-mail.

If you have a critical need for e-mail during these outages, please contact the Student Help Desk for assistance…

What constitutes a “critical need for e-mail”? Weekend tasks from your Devil Wears Prada-esque boss? Love notes from your significant other? The secret code word for a Kidz Bop concert presale? UIS doesn’t provide any criteria for what makes an excuse legit. Everyone should apply for a dispensation just to see if they’re favored students.

It’s good that Georgetown is attempting to improve faculty and staff email service; students should be next. And for most students, any important messages of a non-Georgetown nature are probably going through Gmail anyway. But 62 email-less hours in a row, two weekends in a row? It’s going to be rough.

Wondering what life at Georgetown would be like if the color-coded terrorist warning rises above Yellow? The university’s preparedness plan knows and will tell you, in an ominous yet understated way.

At Orange, not much happens besides tighter security. But at Red, the shit gets heavy. Everyone has to wear an ID card, campus visitors have to be signed in, and buildings are locked down to one entrance, and a 24-hour “Emergency Operations Center” opens up. Fortunately, we won’t probably won’t hit Red unless something big happens, like bombs going off everywhere or an Iranian person attending graduation.

Flickr photo from djwhelan used under a Creative Commons license

“Yoo hoo, I’m over here”

If you only read Public Safety emails, you’re missing out on 3/4s of the fun. The real joy is following the links in the email for the full crime report. For example, you might have seen yesterday’s email about a burglary in campus convenience store Vital Vittles and gone on your way. But if you did that, you would’ve missed this gem:

A complainant reported that at approximately 8:10 p.m. while unlocking the door to Vital Vittles, he observed an unknown male hiding inside the store. The suspect stated to the complainant that he was looking for ‘Charles’ and then walked out the door. No property was reported missing.

Thinking up an absurd excuse for being inside a closed store so as to baffle your discoverer? That can only be one man.

Flickr photo from user @ly$ in wonderland used under a Creative Commons license

MA in Arab Studies, Georgetown ‘74

I know firsthand that learning Arabic is a time-consuming, difficult task. That’s why I’m so impressed that Harvard Law student Joel Pollak has the time not only to study Arabic in the Georgetown-produced Al-Kitaab textbook, but to uncover its propagandic nature.

He doesn’t like Al-Kitaab for a lot of reasons, but mainly he’s mad because it has a story about a depressed girl and talks about Egyptian president Gamal Nasser. Pollak took his distaste for Nasser so far that he became, as we say in Arabic, a prick:

The accompanying lesson describes the highlights of Nasser’s career, including the nationalization of the Suez Canal and the formation of the United Arab Republic. No mention is made of Egypt’s defeat in the Six-Day War or of Nasser’s brutal, repressive rule. In my class, we were asked to recite a passage about Nasser to practice our vocalization. (I refused.)

When Neal Pollak finds himself in a memory hole, he keeps on digging.

Via Yglesias

Georgetown announced in 2006 that it was going to use a 56-acre property it had bought the year before in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Northern Virginia to build a “Contemplative Center.” Two years later, the University hasn’t even filed for a construction permit.

The center was supposed to house programs Campus Ministry programs like ESCAPE. Its $5.3 million price tag was to be covered by a $10 million donation by Arthur Calcagnini Jr. (COL ‘54).

The center would have areas for religious services, art projects, meditations, and “perhaps even a ropes course”. Most interesting for current students, “the center could be ready for guests by the end of 2008.”

Now, months away from the proposed end of 2008 deadline, it looks like very little progress has been made. Georgetown has yet to submit the necessary application, site plans, or special use permit that must be approved before construction can begin. Plus, conservation-minded locals are already up in arms about the preservation of a 19th century farmhouse located on the property.

University Spokesperson Julie Green-Bataille writes in an email:

“…[O]nce the approvals are granted, we anticipate a 12 month construction time period so opening would be after that –the time frames in the [Blue & Gray] article are obviously outdated as we still haven’t secured the approvals but the plans have been presented to the local community on several occasions and we’re moving forward through the process.”

My guess is Georgetown students will be waiting a while longer for that ropes course. We’ll be sure to update you as the project  gets further mired in Georgetown’s and Clarke’s unique morasses.

Looks like Jennifer Chau has got some competition. Joining that angsty salutatorian in the incoming class will be one Sean Kensil (MSB ‘12), the valedictorian at King Low Heywood Thomas School in Stamford, Connecticut.

Chau’s already proved that she doesn’t like coming in second, but if these two ever go head-to-academic-head, my money’s on Sean. Why, you ask? Well, anyone who can pronounce that tongue twister of a school name without laughing gets automatic points. But more importantly, he was the editor of his school newspaper!

The Northwest Current has always been one of the city’s most self-indulgent publications. Some of that self-love fell on our faces this week when Current writer and Georgetown grad school alum Krysten Jenci wrote a column about the Georgetown campus.

I can’t link to it because the Current doesn’t believe in the Internet, but I’ve retyped a representative excerpt:

I still remember standing on campus that first night filled with the kind of excitement that made me think I could change the world. Walking farther onto the campus, across the diagonal brick walkway toward the White-Gravenor building, I dreamed of learning great things and meeting important people.

I like Georgetown as much as the next nostalgic senior, but seriously? Get it together, Krysten.

Start saving your pennies, 3 AM pancakes lovers. Wisconsin Avenue institution and health hazard Georgetown Cafe is up for sale…on Craigslist.

According to a listing posted yesterday, the restaurant is selling for $325,000. Along with the unmentioned charming, dingy interior, the owners are offering a “hard to obtain” liquor license. Oh la la!

Flickr photo from shawnblog used under a Creative Commons license