Heaps and Heaps of Bailey

Friday, August 22, 2008

Today the world saw a brand new issue of The Hoya.

Let's trash it!

First up, "GU Enhances Safety Measures." What is this story? Well, basically it's that exact email that was sent last night to students from Rocky DelMonaco and Todd Olson. Seriously, Victoria Fosdal uses the exact terms from the e-mail that would seem most controversial: "enhance safety," "community-based," "protective equipment," "batons." Did she not notice that all of these words have been spun? Distance your self from your source a little bit. "Protective equipment" sounds nice, but what it means is DPS officers hitting drunk students this year, and not with gymnastics "batons," but with nightsticks.

Here's a line from the e-mail: "officers... have also undergone comprehensive training in the proper care, use, and storage of this protective equipment." Here's a line from the article: "officers had to undergo extensive training to learn how to properly care, use and store the equipment."

“We want to minimize the ‘us against them’ mentality,” Van Slyke is quoted as saying. I guess using the main campus newspaper to deliver your spin on things is the first step in that.

How about the opinion page? The editorial board uses the opportunity to take shots at the last DPS director while only saying "Van Slyke comes to Georgetown from the University of Mississippi and University of Texas with an impressive résumé" (We Deserve a New Safety Era). Apparently they didn't read this or the Voice blog yesterday (not that anyone does). And in the other op-ed on the subject, somebody tells students that they need to do everything the administration tells them to do about security (To Improve Campus Safety, Students Must Support Administrative Efforts).

Besides the usual new-student stuff, there are a couple other things in here. One is news of the Leo's renovations being completed. The headline (Leo's Completes Vowed Renovations) doesn't fit the fact that they didn't complete all the renovations they said they would even after scaling them back prior to construction. I'll let that slide, though, because the real crime of this article is what the staff of Leo's named these things. "Leo’s Downunder," "Pasta Palate," "Green Lite," "Stir-up the World," and, Jesus Christ, "DELIfully Fresh" is almost certainly the worst set of puns in the history of the English language. As a comedy writer, it will be much harder to go there without throwing up now, even though the odds were already pretty good.

Finally, more alcohol policy bullshit (Most Alcohol Amendments Accepted)! Again I think the positive tone is a little off the mark considering what's been done. Buried in here is the mind-numbing fact that Todd Olson is still making alcohol-infraction punishments more serious if there's a beer pong table around, and also this:

Finally, Olson maintained the current container policy that limits students to no more than two empty containers in the residence at any time. When asked whether empty cans or handles of alcohol constituted a container, Olson responded that a container was defined as "any container that is not a keg."

You'd better not have a lot of cups, bowls, Nalgenes, pots, teakettles, water pitchers, jars, Tupperware, storage bins, or other containers around. A container that is not a keg is a "container" according to Olson, and you can only have two of those in your dorm room.