The Georgetown Hoyas beat the Drexel Dragons 81-53 on Saturday.

Even though Georgetown Day School’s qualifications for actually being in Georgetown were called into question by commenters, it was still fun to imagine they would choose a school named Georgetown. Instead, they’re going with Sidwell Friends, a Quaker school that won’t do much to dispel Obama’s elitist image.

Just look at this City Paper story by the masterful Joe Eaton (emphasis added):

Sidwell employs a school chef. A recent day’s menu included tortellini pomodoro, Provençal organic spinach salad, roasted spaghetti squash, and Italian ice. Not to your kid’s liking? The next day he could get marinated local cucumbers, grilled “all natural” burgers, and roasted organic fries. And for dessert? Local apple-cranberry compote. Vegetables grown in the student garden may also make it to the organic menu, depending on the harvest.

Compotes are pretty intense.

Photo from Flickr user thinairchi used under a Creative Commons license

Pity the poor National Zoo pandas. They’re diplomatic pawns between two great powers, not near as cute as they once were, and now not even their places on Metro cards are safe. That’s because Metro is producing commemorative Barack Obama SmarTrip cards for the inauguration. But you’ll have to be fast and loaded:

Currently, Metro plans to sell them for $10 per card, with no value added to the card at the time of initial purchase, which would make them $5 more expensive than regular SmarTrip cards. They may also be hard to come by, as Metro will only have an initial order of 35,000 on hand to begin with, though Taubenkibel said the agency hopes to have more available as time permits.

I just wish this change was permanent, because it’d be cool in an ominous, first-they-came-for-the-SmarTrips way.

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson

Sunday

Songwriter Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson harnessed the talents Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor and TV on the Radio’s Kyp Malone for his self-titled debut.  According to NPR, Robinson’s “emotive, at times tormented rock rides on the clamor of discordant guitar jabs, tinny drums, and pained singing.”  See him for $10 with Castanets at DC9.  Doors open at 8:00.

Sondre Lerche

Monday 

Norwegian born Sondre Lerche blends pop and jazz in catchy but lengthy songs.  His 2002 album Faces Down was named one of Rolling Stone’s 50 best albums of the year, and his latest release, Phantom Punch, was produced with Tony Hoffer.  Lerche will be at the 9:30 Club on Monday at the usual time.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Solidarity Committee’s campaign to help Leo’s employee Leslie Tang, whose home was destroyed in a fire, turned out really, really well:

We have really pulled it together and accompanied Leslie as a community through this difficult phase in her life in a moving expression of the Jesuit value of human solidarity. I would like to offer thanks to all of you who contributed to this effort, and especially to an anonymous donor of $5000. In total, we have raised almost $13,000 at this point. I am good friends with Leslie, and thus been lucky enough to watch her pull through this with an incredibly strong spirit, bolstered by the expressions of an equally strong community.

Good on Solidarity for really coming through on this. Now that it’s over, they should treat themselves to something frivolous. Maybe that giant Donald Rumsfeld puppet they’ve been putting away for.

Guesses as to the anonymous donor’s identity? Put ‘em in the comments.

SAC certainly set the bar high for angry late-night meeting antics on Monday, but GUSA proved that chaos and outrage aren’t exclusive to SAC at a three-ring circus of a meeting Wednesday night. In between talk about SafeRides and secret Santas, the discussion on SAC reform took on a life of its own and resulted in complete pandemonium.

After GUSA senators Matt Wagner (SFS `11), Tim Swenson (COL `10), and Tyler Stone (COL `09) spoke glowingly of SAC-GUSA relations and their hopes for more SAC transparency in the future, outspoken senator Nick Troiano (COL ‘11), last seen refusing to leave a closed SAC meeting, burst smashed their rose-colored glasses.

“I can’t believe the amount of spin you all have put on this,” Troiano said, referring to SAC’s amending of its constitution on Monday to make votes confidential and to allow the chair to select his or her own successor. “It seems like you’re posturing to be the next Secretary of State.”

After some more back and forth with thinly veiled insults flying in every direction, a metaphor comparing amending the SAC constitution to ending slavery in the U.S., and a muttered motion from Swenson to “end the Nick Troiano show,” all hell broke loose.

Read the rest of this entry »

The semester is coming to a close, so the Voice celebrated the only way our bloated egos will allow: by putting out an issue. Check it out:

• The cover story is about slam poetry in DC. Writer Shira Hecht journeys into DC’s scene and finds out that slam poets are “trying to get some.”
• SAC continues wriggling away from transparency, and Kate Mays reviews Pat Dowd’s first time. She approves!
• If Chris Wright wants to hang out with the Hoyas, he needs to start hitting his threes.
• Are you a US pro soccer player and feel like no one appreciates you? Hunter in Voices does, and he wants you to get paid more.
• Daniel Craig’s smoldering glare could melt an iceberg, but he didn’t melt reviewer Vivian Chen’s heart. She thought it was just all right.

Professor Tom Daschle

Barack Obama’s transition team has announced the leaders of some policy working groups, and three Georgetown professors, including the Dean of the Law Center, are on the list.

Visiting professor and former senator Tom Daschle will be on the Health Care group, and is also slated to Secretary of Health and Human Services. Law Center Dean T. Alexander Aleinikoff is on the Immigration group, and law professor Daniel Tarullo is on the Economic working group.

Photo from Flickr user talkradionews used under a Creative Commons license

Peta2 released its annual list of vegetarian-friendly schools this week, and we’re on it. In the grand tradition of the Jacksonville game, we made it, but barely, scraping into 10th place:

Placing in the top 10 for the second year in a row, Georgetown has continued to win rave reviews from students and faculty alike. Some of the many highlights include barbecued veggie-riblet sandwiches, Asian sesame lo mein, and vegan tacos. No wonder Georgetown sits comfortably among the most prestigious universities in the country!

I haven’t seen such breathless copywriting since the season finale of Mad Men, but hurray for Leo’s.

What’s up at first-place American University? I’m sure the AU Eagle is taking the rankings in stride and not acting like it’s BREAKING NEWS…

Read the rest of this entry »

The founder of Craigslist gears up for a long, HoyaTrade-induced winter

The Corp is really catching on to this ARPANET thing. First it launched Hoyapedia, the wildly-uneven Georgetown wiki that might someday be fun, and now it has HoyaTrade, an announcement and trade board for Georgetown.

Hoyapedia’s problem was that most of its articles were lifted from elsewhere. HoyaTrade cleverly avoids this trap by having basically no content–as of this post, there are literally no posts for anything. In fairness, my e-mail to Corp CEO Jesse Scharff about HoyaTrade went unanswered, suggesting that this is still hush-hush. Read the rest of this entry »