Today is another rainy day with a muggy high of 82.

To masticate today:

• Teen dead in Rock Creek: 15-year-old Joshua Davis was found dead in Rock Creek Park on Tuesday. Early reports venture that he was hit by a falling tree while cycling on Rock Creek trails. Police suggest that storms Monday were possibly a factor in this freak accident.
• Oprah donates $12 million to museum: Oprah is donating to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Oprah is the museum’s most generous donor, and the 350-seat theatre will bear her name in honor. The museum will be located next to the Washington Monument and is projected to open in 2015.

What to look out for:

• Kehoe survey: The Center for Student Programs has released a survey to ascertain the use, condition and purpose of Kehoe field, the synthetic green thing on top of Yates. Responses will influence Kehoe’s future. If you want to save a prime spot for freshmen without upperclassmen friends to light it up, take the survey here.
• Quilting the Mall to end rape culture: Activist-artist group FORCE has begun a movement for a D.C. monument to honor survivors of rape and abuse. The group sees a permanent public space to remember survivors as a crucial step in creating consent culture in the U.S. The group plans to quilt the Mall with survivor stories and invite the public to sit down, using the quilts as picnic blankets to discuss and engender awareness.
• Cakepoppery to arrive in D.C.: Online bakery owner Yael Krigman will open D.C.’s first real life cake pop bakery. A Kickstarter campaign racked up funds for the endeavor, hitting $74,000 within a month. The cake pop is said to be a “cupcake killer.” Watch out, Georgetown Cupcake, the cake pops will rise sometime this November.

     Today is another rainy day with a muggy high of 82.

To masticate today:

• Hoya becomes longest-serving congressman: Last Friday, Representative John Dingell (D-MI) (COL ’49 LAW ’52) set the record for the longest time spent as an American congressman. Dingell, who graduated from Georgetown with a degree in chemistry, has spent 57 years and 177 days as a member of Congress. In those 21,000 days, Dingell served alongside 2,445 colleagues. Dingell visits Georgetown often and spoke on campus in February, 2011.

What to look out for:

• D.C. corruption: Former City Councilmember Michael A. Brown pleaded guilty yesterday to charges of bribery. Undercover federal agents, posing as small business owners, got Brown to accept $55,000. Brown’s plea agreement will likely have him serve a 37-month prison sentence.
• Summertime crackdown: D.C. police have identified four areas of the city with persistent, violent crimes and plan to step up their response and presence there. The police response is tailored specifically to catch recurring criminals in these areas.

This recipe can easily be used to impress your friends with a fancy brunch: just add some mimosas and fruit and you’re ready to go! My recipe makes about four servings.

Ingredients:

• 1 loaf of challah bread (a few days old)
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 cup milk
• butter
• maple syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• dash of nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• dash of salt
• 1 tablespoons Grand Marnier (optional)
• 1 orange
• assorted fruit
• powdered sugar

So pretty much any bread that’s a few days old will work for this recipe; when it’s a teeny bit stale it soaks the egg in better. I strongly suggest using challah, baguette, or thick bread. Whole wheat, while it is healthier, isn’t really worth it, because you’re dumping syrup on it anyway.

Start out by heating up a large pan to medium low with about a tablespoon of butter—enough to cover the pan with a bit extra. While the pan is heating up, beat the eggs and stir in the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, milk, vanilla, salt, and Grand Marnier in a medium sized bowl. Take a grater and grate some of the orange skin into that mix and squeeze a bit of the juice into it as well. If you’re in a dorm you will want to skip the Grand Marnier because your RA won’t be a fan.

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A recent study by the Georgetown Public Policy Institute’s Center of Education and the Work Force reminded students that they should give up their dreams of becoming the next Foucault if they ever want to find a decent paying job.

The report, encouragingly titled “HARD TIMES,” used data from the American Community Survey for the years 2010 and 2011 as the basis for the study. It found that although college graduates above 25 are more likely to hold jobs than non-college graduates, what those graduates majored in greatly affects their employment rate and salary. Recent college graduates who hold bachelor’s degrees or higher still face unemployment rates “ranging from a low of 4.8 percent to a high of 14.7 percent depending on their major.”

The economic recession has not only stagnated job growth but also continues to hurt the housing market. Recent architecture graduates suffer from a 12.8 percent unemployment rate because of the continued fallout from the 2007 real estate bubble. Even those with experience in the field have a 9.3 percent unemployment rate, and only those with graduate degrees in architecture still suffer from a 6.7 percent rate.

The study also revealed that even degrees in technological majors are not guaranteed to provide job security. Unemployment in degrees dealing with computers and mathematics appears “mostly concentrated in information systems” with an unemployment rate of 14.7 percent for recent college graduates. Experienced graduates with information systems degrees, however, only have a 4.4 percent unemployment rate, suggesting that “hiring tends to be slower for users of information compared to those who write programs and create software applications.”

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Say it ain’t so

Update, 8:30 pm: Vox can confirm that Tuscany was closed today. No sign on the door, no one coming to answer the door, and still not answering their phone. Vox will keep on this story to find out if the popular establishment is closing for good, and, potentially, why.

Original Post: Earlier today, several people sent in reports to Vox saying that Tuscany Pizza Cafe, a Georgetown favorite, will be closing for business. Unfortunately, Vox hasn’t been able to confirm any of the reports yet. Calls to the restaurant haven’t been picked up (which may be a bad sign in itself), and there doesn’t seem to be any news source reporting the story. Vox will send a reporter down to the store’s Prospect St. location later today.

If you can provide any information to Vox, email me at cdj29@georgetown.edu.

Additional reporting by Lucia He

Photo: Lucia He/Georgetown Voice

With recreational weed laws now reality in Colorado and Washington, along with the first commercial hemp crop being planted in 60 years, skies seem clear for marijuana advocates—or perhaps happily hazy. In the District, however, an ACLU report suggests that racial bias continues to mar increasing possession arrests.

Using FBI and U.S. Census data, the report examined arrests for marijuana possession across America. D.C. arrests ballooned over 60 percent from 2001 to 2010. On a nationwide average, a black individual is 3.37 times more likely than a white individual to be arrested for possession. In the District, nine out of 10 arrests were black, the second largest disparity in the nation. Baltimore took first. The report also indicates this phenomenon occurs in virtually everywhere in the U.S., as 96 percent of counties (with over 30,000 residents and a 2 percent black population) have higher possession arrest rates for black individuals.

These statistics are concerning since rates of marijuana use are near equal for blacks and whites. Furthermore, these findings raise questions on police use of racial profiling.

The crackdown on Mary Jane is puzzlingly absent from police chief reports countrywide. The cause may arise from certain arrest strategies. The “stop-and-frisk” is a New York creation, wherein an officer may search an individual they deem suspicious of criminal activity.

D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier refuted that her force consciously targeted marijuana possession arrests. Another D.C. police source remarked that black arrests constituted 85 percent of aggregate arrests in 2012, down from 91 percent in 2010.

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Vox doesn’t know how to put this, but it’s “kind of a big deal.”

Earlier this week, the District’s Newseum announced that it will debut an exhibition featuring Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, the Paramount hit comedy about a 1970′s news team starring Will Ferrel as “anchorman.”

The exhibit, which opens on Nov. 14th of this year, arrives just in time for the release of the long-awaited sequel to Anchorman, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, which debuts in movie theaters on Dec. 20.

The display will include film memorabilia such as costumes and props used by the Channel 4 Evening News, as seen in the original movie. This includes Burgundy’s jazz flute and the whip used by rival anchorman Arturo Mendes (Ben Stiller) during the movie’s memorable fight scene.

Even more exciting is an interactive element of the display. Visitors will have the opportunity to  pose for photos in a re-creation of the KVWN-TV anchor desk, and will even have the opportunity to step in front of the camera and participate in a Anchorman-themed TV spot at one of the Newseum’s “Be a TV Reporter” stations. According to an article by the Newseum, “budding reporters can find out if they have what it takes to become a member of the Channel 4 news teams.”

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View Campus Crime Watch: May 2013 in a larger map

There were 22 violent and property crimes in Georgetown this May, according to DPS’s daily crime log. 15 of these were thefts of unattended property around campus, and the laptop gnomes succeeded in nabbing five victims this May. Oddly, a man was spotted wacking off in his car near the Lau steps.

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Georgetown alum and filmmaker Timothy Tracy (COL ’01) was released today from Venezuelan prison, 40 days after being arrested by order of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on charges of spying and inciting revolution.

The Associated Press reports:

Family and friends say the 35-year-old Hollywood producer and actor had been in the country since October making a documentary about Venezuelan politics when he was arrested on April 24 at Caracas’ airport as he tried to leave the country to attend his father’s 80th birthday in suburban Detroit.

U.S. President Barack Obama had deemed “ridiculous” allegations by Venezuela that he was a spy. Friends said Tracy hardly spoke Spanish and had been very open about his work as he met with Venezuelans on both sides of the country’s deep political divide. Tracy’s previous production work had included script consulting on a film about barbershop quartets.

Tracy’s release was organized by former U.S. Congressman William Delahunt, who has worked with Venezuelan authorities to ease tensions between the two countries, which haven’t had ambassadors since 2010. Delahunt was hired by Tracy’s family as an attorney in the case.

Unfortunately, Tracy isn’t the last Georgetown filmmaker held captive overseas.

Photo courtesy Tracy Family

The need to lay blame at the door of an identifiable enemy is only human, yet acting on that desire is fraught with moral complications belying any subjectively drawn line between good and evil.

Georgetown alum Zal Batmanglij’s (COL ’02) second film, The East, explores this blurry ethical territory through the lens of anti-corporatism as it attempts to weave together the plots of a thoughtful, quiet indie film and a tense spy thriller, and is for the most part successful. With fellow Hoya Brit Marling (COL ’05), who co-wrote and stars in the film, he tells the story of Sarah Moss, an FBI agent turned private intelligence operative, who infiltrates an eco-terrorist organization that calls itself The East in an attempt to protect her firm’s clients from the movement’s attacks.

Once she’s fully embedded in the cell and sees the fight from the perspective of its members, Moss begins to question her own allegiances and the mechanics of a world she previously took for granted. She also sees the members of The East in a new light, particularly, the group’s mysterious founder and leader, Benji (Alexander Skarsgård from True Blood), with whom she begins an affair that ultimately leads to the demise of the comfortable relationship she had before she was assigned to The East.

Underneath the film’s activist exterior emanates a message about integrity and acting with the courage of your convictions no matter where they take you.  Crack the occasionally too-thin veneer of taking down cartoonishly evil CEOs and sticking it to The Man, you’ll find a character study of the almost absurdly self-assured.

The East gives the audience several different portraits of confident, driven people, and then begins to poke holes in them to see where they bleed and if they break.  Marling’s Sarah, and Skarsgård’s Benji, are joined by equally strong performances from Ellen Page and Toby Kebbell who create intricate and compelling characters whose own stories propel the plot forward and are almost more interesting than the espionage and intrigue provided by Marling and Skarsgård.

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