No, you did not misread me. In a weird and naive jeremiad about how much the rest of the District sucks, Joynt suggests we go Confederate on their asses, leaving their Home Rule-less, broke city behind:
“Reason one is that DC’s not going to get home rule. I just don’t see it happening. Why should we wait around, caving into powerlessness, when we could come together to create a governing body that helps to improve the quality of living right here where we live? ….
“If you think about it, it makes sense. If you live in Georgetown, how much of the management of the city government relates to you in a positive way? How many city government decisions are made with Georgetown even remotely in the equation?
“On the other hand, we pay high taxes. I would imagine a good chunk of the parking enforcement haul comes from Georgetown. We are a major tourist attraction, from which the city benefits. I’m just not convinced an appropriate amount of our tax dollars come back to Georgetown.”
Joynt also points out how super unfair it is that Georgetown has to share their councilmember, Jack Evans, “with too wide a swatch of the city and other neighborhoods that don’t share all our issues.”
Later in the day, a friend expressed concern that Georgetown would do a severe disservice to neighborhoods like Anacostia who benefit from Georgetown tax dollars, Joynt was not at all worried:
“Being our own city wouldn’t mean that Georgetown would become irresponsible. We would give and be involved in ways of our own choosing, and hopefully more effectively. [She] feared, too, that Georgetown would lose any hope of diversity. But if we were a well-run community we could attract more diversity, yes? It was an interesting debate.”
Basically, Joynt is saying, the rest of D.C. will miss us when we’re gone and saving them from the outside, and lots of people from all background will vie for entry to our idyllic, magnanimous community.
So although she was holed up in her home in Maryland on Tuesday morning, unable to get to campus and surrounded by downed trees and powerlines, Owen still managed to hold her twenty-person, 10:15 a.m. “Media and Politics” seminar using a real-time blog.
“Within minutes, students were generating thoughtful, quality posts that drew upon course readings, previous discussions, current media developments, and their own insights,” Owen wrote in her e-mail. “I felt more like a participant in the discussion than a teacher telling things to students.”
Is Vox’s extensive blog roll not quite satisfying your Georgetown blogosphere needs? Well Laura Sortwell (MSB ‘10) and Jessica Lioon (MSB ‘10) are looking out for you. Sortwell and Lioon are starting up a Georgetown “blog hub” that will aggregate content from blogs run by Georgetown students, alums, and faculty.
We want to create a forum in which Hoyas can share their ideas, show their expertise on trends and topics in the industry, facilitate discussion, seek new career opportunities, establish business contacts, develop knowledge resources, showcase their work, seek advice, and meet other alumni/students with similar interests.
According to Sortwell, the website–inspired by the Mashable model—is their independent study project (both are studying marketing). The idea came to her after she took an advertising class that focused on marketing and social media.
“There aren’t many schools doing anything like this,” Sortwell said. “It would be a one-stop place to stay in touch with Georgetown. We kind of want it to be a continuation of the intellectual but fun conversations you have at Georgetown.”
Sortwell and Lioon wouldn’t say how many bloggers have approached them about participating, but Sortwell did say they have “gotten an even better response than we expected.” The two are still looking for a good name for the site–they’ve considered names like “Hoya Network,” “Red Square” and “The Front Gates”—but they hope to have it up and running within a month.
The old Saxaspeak collapsed shortly after it became a mere repository of Georgetown Google Alerts. Will this Saxaspeak suffer the same fate? Editor-in-Chief Marissa Amendolia and Online Editor Meghan Bartels say no, in a blog post:
Saxaspeak will provide more regular and, occasionally, more casual coverage of the events and trends that affect Georgetown students….it will augment our customary high-quality and in-depth coverage with shorter, more frequent pieces to keep up with the pace of life at Georgetown. The blog is also designed to simplify the search for information by collecting relevant news links in one place.
Bartels told Vox that TheHoya chose the Saxaspeak name because they thought it was suitable, and because of name recognition among older students.
Although Bartels is currently the only blogger on the Hoya’s Saxaspeak staff, she said she expects to create her own blogging staff separate from the paper soon.
As she announced yesterday, after a semester of terrific blogging, Juliana Brint is leaving Vox to become managing editor of the Voice. I’ve been elected blog editor in her place (some of you may remember that I was editor for Spring Semester ‘09).
I’m pleased to introduce Imani Tate and Hunter Kaplan, who will be joining me as assistant blog editors. Tate has been a member of the Voice’s editorial board and a frequent blog contributor for the past semester; Kaplan is a former editorial board member and cover editor. Both are capable writers and reporters and will go a long way toward helping me fill Brint’s big shoes.
I’ll never let go, blog readers, I’ll never let go…
Well guys, it’s been quite the semester, but my time as Blog Editor is coming to an end. Vox will be in the very capable and experienced hands of Molly Redden, who many of you will remember as last spring’s Blog Editor.
Before I leave to go back to the print edition as Managing Editor, though, let’s look back at some of the good times we’ve had this semester:
According to the blog’s first post, the website redesign team has heard from over 80 members of the Georgetown community so far. The main concerns they’ve expressed are that the new website needs to “deliver compelling content in a variety of formats; enhance functionality and use of multimedia; improve navigation, search functionality and user experience; and redesign mobile interfaces.”
The blog explains that this will be the first redesign in seven years, and the Office of Communications hopes to have the new website up in a year.
Written by an anonymous junior in the College, The Venus Flytrap was started earlier this week and has already tackled classic topics like Chicken Finger Thursdays and SafeRides with aplomb and a lot of expletives.
To give you an idea of the author’s balls-out writing style, here are her thoughts on the new Hariri Building:
I walk in and BAM! It was like I went to real school, a school that cares whether or not our buildings look like Soviet compounds (I’M TALKING TO YOU MR LAUINGER ARCHITECT). Mr Hariri, be proud. As if b-school kids didn’t have enough to be excited about, what with every damn government bailout funding their future jobs (AHEM kid I know that sucks that’s going to work for Fannie Mae), now they have their OWN PERSONAL DEATH STAR.
Seriously, this building’s bricks are really just balled-up hundred dollar bills dyed to look different shades of grey. I’m pretty sure that those lights look so yellow because they’re emitting pure beams of gold and fairy dust. Realistically I know I need to leave Georgetown with an MRS degree since my College majors ain’t gonna help me get shit, so expect to see muh ass parked in the center of this glorious structure every damn night trying to lure an MSB boy into my venus fly trap.
For a long time, the Georgetown neighborhood blogging scene has been confined to us and Georgetown Metropolitan, but it looks like we’ve got new company: The Georgetowner’s Editor at Large Dave Roffman has recently begun blogging at Georgetown Week.
Given The Georgetowner’s focus on the social scene, it’s not surprising that Georgetown Week is largely focused mostly on neighborhood events (think of it as sort of like the Saxa Speak for the adult set). The blog also offers some neighborhood news coverage, though, recently featuring a summary of the latest ANC meeting, an analysis of the state of Georgetown’s trolley tracks, and a rundown of the Citzen’s Association of Georgetown meeting.
As always, Vox is happy to have more blogging company!
A few weeks ago, Georgetown basketball blog Casual Hoya ran a post about a YouTube video of two male Georgetown students jumping off the Key Bridge into the Potomac River. The feat was fantastic enough to earn mentions on a few otherblogs, and it seemed all that would come of the escapade was that people would be awed by Georgetown students’ diving skills, if a little worried about their lack of common sense.
However, since the blog posts went up, the jumpers seem to have had a change of heart regarding their public notoriety. The YouTube was pulled and blogs who had written about it were asked to take down their posts. Casual Hoya removed theirs, but another blog, William World News, left its original post up and published the email its author received.
The email claims that a Georgetown administrator saw the video on Casual Hoya and now the two jumpers are facing expulsion:
Please remove your September 22nd regarding the YouTube video “Descending from Heights” from your blog ASAP!
These students are under threat of expulsion because of this post and the Casual Hoya blog post. I’m sure they appreciate the notoriety, but an administrator who follows Casual Hoya saw this and brought it to the attention of Student Conduct. The YouTube video is no longer accessible, and the Casual Hoya post and other blog posts have also been removed. It would greatly help if the post from your site was removed, as a Google search for the appropriate terms brings up your blog. Please remove this so these students don’t get expelled.
As far as Vox can tell, there’s no clause in Georgetown’s Student Code of Conduct [PDF] banning bridge-jumping. The only violations under “Category C” (expulsion-worthy offenses) are arson, use (or attempted use) of dangerous objects, manufacturing or selling drugs, manufacturing ID cards, physical assault, sexual assault, stalking and theft.
We checked with Georgetown’s Director of Media Relations Andy Pino to see if there is any truth to the expulsion claim, and we’ll let you know when he gets back to us…
Vox Populi is the staff blog of the Georgetown Voice, a weekly newsmagazine at Georgetown University. Opinions expressed in posts are those of their author alone unless otherwise stated.
If you ever needed proof that Georgetowners are sometimes way too fond of their community, look no further than Carol Joynt’s bizarre treatise on why Georgetown should secede from D.C. to form its own city.
From left: Tate, Kaplan, and Redden
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