Yesterday’s meeting of the Georgetown University Student Association Senate closed a lot of loose ends from last week’s meeting, including a look into removing the university’s ban on student businesses, membership in the student group union, and that danged textbook resolution.

How to succeed in business without violating university rules

The senate unanimously passed a resolution to look into overturning the university’s ban on student businesses that has been on the books for a while. Basically, the bill allows the student life committee to research the impetus for the ban and to lobby the administration for its removal.

The bill came out of a conversation with the Buyback Brothers, the used textbook resellers who were evicted from Red Square by DPS and the administration, according to Vice Speaker Nate Tisa (SFS ’14). Tisa also wants the university to replace the ban with more common-sense procedures like a ban on fronting.

Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ’12) also brought up that the rule seems to be selectively enforced. The Buyback Brothers were evicted from campus when they compete with the bookstore, while other businesses, like H2Bro, can operate undisturbed.

Solidarity of a different sort

The senate also passed a bill designating the GUSA president to represent the Student Association in front of the Student Group Union. For a brief overview, the SGU is a campus organizaiton composed of and meant to represent student groups on campus. The union has a general body comprised of representatives from the constituent clubs, and they elect an eleven-member executive committee to facilitate coordination among the groups . This bill officially delegated the role of SGU liaison to the GUSA president.

Although the executive would ostensibly be speaking for all of GUSA in front of the SGU, the senate would have the power to opt out of any SGU initiatives, thus making the senate’s relationship with SGU only as close at the senate wants.

But Daniel LaMagna (COL ’13) thought the bill didn’t go far enough. According to him, the GUSA president should have a guaranteed spot on the SGU executive committee.

“It seems it would be odd that the president of the student body would be a rank-and-file member of the SGU,” LaMagna said.

To which the bill’s sponsor and SGU Steering Committee Member Eitan Paul (SFS ’12) responded, “We don’t want [the SGU] to be led by the typical voices that are always invovled in this system… [a guaranteed spot on the executive committee] would give a disproportionate voice to student government.”

However, Paul added, “Someone associated with GUSA could conceivably run for executive.”

The act was authorized under a clause in the GUSA by-laws that effectively allows GUSA to enter into treaties with other organizations.

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In America, breast cancer awareness has become somewhat of a national phenomenon—between the ribbons, the special clothing lines (some from the unlikeliest of retailers), and the White House turning into the Pink House for a night, Americans certainly take the fight for the cure pretty seriously. But in other parts of the world, like Qatar, the disease is not quite so well-publicized, and doesn’t reap the profits of quite as many fundraisers.

That’s where students in the Women’s Society and Development Club at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar came in. Last week, the students held a very successful fundraiser in honor of October being the U.S.’s National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the first of its kind in the country. The event consisted of sales from student-made and store-donated baked goods, as well as donations from local fashion designers.

“We wanted to organize an event that would involve all students in Qatar Foundations, would help spread awareness, [and] at the same time [would be] creative and fun,” WSDC co-founder Zarqa Pavez wrote in an email. “So we thought, what is better than fashion and cupcakes for a good cause?”

Fashion and cupcakes. What cultural divide?

The members of the WSDC realized that for the event to meet the most success, they needed to reach out to students all across Education City, where schools from the U.S., Europe, as well as Qatar itself have set up campuses.

“We had to reach out to every campus, and advertise for the event ahead of time,” Pavez wrote.

The sales from the four-hour event earned a total of QRS 15470, equivalent to over $4200 U.S. dollars, were all directly donated to the Qatar National Cancer Society. And with the immense success of this event, the WCDS is already looking ahead for more such events, including discussions, workshops, and awareness campaigns.

“We are convinced that EC [Education City] needs more such events that would encourage students to participate in activities outside the classroom,” Pavez said. “It is a way to give back to our community and encourage awareness and responsibility amongst the youth here in Qatar… We hope to receive the same response each time.”

H/T the Gulf Times, photo from WSDC’s Facebook page.

Earlier this month, the Combos brand—that’s right, the people who make those weird, artificially cheesy pretzel snack things—released their third annual list of the United States’s “50 Manliest Cities.” And although the District scored ninth in 2010, this year our city has taken by far the biggest plummet on the chart, landing us at an embarrassing #42. The verdict—too many cupcakes and not enough NASCAR.

According to their website, the rankings are based on a series of highly scientific, highly stereotypical masculine criteria, including sports, “Manly Lifestyle” (which includes such factors as pick-up truck registry and abundance of fishing), and sales of Combos, because obviously, women don’t eat pretzels. These standards were used to analyze the 50 biggest metropolitan areas in the country, and those were ranked according to their as-determined man score.

And it’s true, D.C. doesn’t exactly fit a lot of those criteria. We don’t have any nearby NASCAR tracks, and one walk down M Street justifies our embarrassing score of #45 on the “Concentration of Manly Retail Stores,” as there isn’t a “western/cowboy apparel store” as far as the eye can see. But where we really take a hit is in the final category, entitled “Manly ‘Kryptonite/Emasculating Criteria.” There, we scored a whopping #9, getting docked manly points for, according to NBC Washington, such castrating characteristics as our famous abundance of cupcakeries and cafes.

And as it houses exponentially more bakeries than biker bars, we think if they divided this ranking up according to neighborhoods, Georgetown would have the lowest MQ (Man Quotient) of them all. To up our factor, we advise every dude waiting for hours in line for a two-bite-sized frosted cake in a pink box to immediately cross the street to Rhino and start a bar fight.

Photo from Washington City Paper.

This may be news to you, but cupcakes are kind of a big deal in our neighborhood. The touristy Georgetown Cupcake and the delicious Baked & Wired lead the pack of bakeries that provide arguably one of the most capitalist desserts ever. They will be soon be joined by a new face.

Headquartered in Los Angeles, Sprinkles Cupcakes has several bakeries across the country, and they are opening a new location here in Georgetown at 3015 M Street on March 3^rd.

In honor of the bakery’s grand opening, a Sprinkles Mobile van will be driving around D.C. giving free cupcakes to anyone who knows its location and the secret password throughout the week.

This Tuesday, Sprinkles Mobile will be making a stop at the front gates of the University.  The time of the stop is yet to be disclosed, but will be released on Tuesday by the Sprinkles Cupcake Twitter account, @sprinklesmobile.

Be sure to keep track of the Sprinkles Cupcake Mobile on twitter and their twitpic-ed schedule.

NBC Washington has been hosting a series of face-offs to award local superlatives—the best live music venue, best people-watching spot, best pizza, etc.—and they finally got around to addressing the real big conflict: who has the best cupcakes in Georgetown, Baked & Wired or Georgetown Cupcake?

Both cupcakeries put up a strong fight, but ultimately Georgetown Cupcake came away with a decisive 56 percent of the vote.

Finally, our local cupcake controversy is resolved!

After a little more than a year and a half at their Potomac Street location, Georgetown Cupcake is relocating a block away to M Street, according to the Washington Post. The new flagship shop will be less cramped than their current digs and will allow for sit-down seating. They’ll also be opening a new outpost in Bethesda, Maryland.

According to former Nathan’s owner Carol Joynt’s blog, the cupcakery will be keeping its current shop to use for delivery and storage.

Joynt for one thinks the move will be a positive development for M Street:

This is such good news for our challenged main thoroughfare, which desperately needs more quality independent retail operations. The clothing chains aren’t cutting it and bring too much down market “mall” vibe to the boulevard – generally. There are odd sketchy places, and a few remaining restaurants. [Georgetown Cupcake] will lift it up considerably.

Photo from Flickr user InspirationDC, used under a Creative Commons license.