The new club on campus

As I sat down to my first meal at J Street in a long while, I couldn’t help but notice a pile of 4×6 inch white cards in front of me. As all GW students are, I have grown quite accustomed to eating my lunch in the presence of littered palm cards, however this time was different. Munching on my first Subway sub of the year, I picked up a flyer, which proudly read: After U Rock… U Club: RH Bistro @ U Club after the Guster and Jason Mraz concert. It gets better – Colonial Cash accepted! I was floored. My very own kept secret, the GW University Club now selling out to the entire GW community. Not only was I graced with this chance to witness the demise of what was a small kept Thursday night secret, but I had the opportunity to witness the catastrophe first hand when they announced the after-party soiree live at the Guster/Jason Mraz concert.

It was way back in the days of 2001 when I can remember my first U Club experience. Friends were so quick to label it the new Thursday night hotspot. It was not too much later when I would walk out of my night class and hurry over to U Club just to make the 7 o’clock last call. I was always welcomed with a smile from my roommate, a cold Corona and a plate of chicken wings. Those were the days. Every senior can look back and remember those faithful emails and chats with David Burt, former GW Student Association President, calling our names to attend the weekly gathering. What always confused me, yet kept me feeling oh so hip, was the fact that the U Club was truly a private dining club for alumni, faculty and staff of the University. Why was I, the casual nobody, invited to this place? Those thoughts quickly dissipated when friends and acquaintances made U Club Thursday nights a regular hang out. Casual run-ins could extend from the fraternity brother to your classic Student Association member and, yes, members of the GW Hatchet.

The U Club will no longer be the same fine institution it was when frequented by us regulars. Yes, you can continue to throw your money away on a fancy marketing strategy, but the memories can’t be recreated.

-Stefanie Jackowitz, senior

No red review

Regarding the article in The Hatchet about the Princeton Review’s ranking of GW (“Survey’s accuracy questioned,” Sept. 2, p. 7), people upset about these rankings should report immediately to the GW hospital emergency room to get a pantybunch-ectomy (panty-bunch removal) – STAT!

As a new SPHHS graduate student, I have to ask why people are taking this so seriously when one of the press contacts for this review is the publicity director for Princeton Review Books. These rankings are a form of PR that bring more attention to Princeton Review (a company that prepares for standardized testing) than the schools ranked.

Anyone who takes seriously rankings such as “Best Campus Food,” and “Top Party School” really needs to re-examine their priorities. These overly vague and undefined rankings are as helpful as putting your “Best Looking” and “Most School Spirit” superlatives on your resume. That and $1 get you a ride on the bus.

As “South Park’s” Jimmy would say, “Come on.”

-Alan Enderson, graduate student

Settling for civil unions

It wasn’t immediately clear to me whether the column entitled “Andy, Vermont and Marriage” by Graham N. Murphy (Sept. 2, p. 5) was intended to be wholly satirical, or just up until the final two or three paragraphs. So I will look the part of the fool for contesting the point made in those last lines.

I think that it is always a bit asinine to speak of what gay people want or need, because we are, at the end of the day, just that – a people. The one characteristic that links us does not and should not define us nor what we want or need. “What gay people want” in terms of a legally recognized union ranges from not caring outright to a stubborn desire for marital equality, civil unions falling somewhere in between.

Much like the debate raging over proposals by Del. Norton and Rep. Davis for voting rights in the District, many people (myself included) see civil unions as a Davis-esque cheapened settlement. Are civil unions more likely than gay marriage in the present-day United States? Clearly, as evidenced by the state of Vermont. However, since when is a settlement on such a large scale acceptable? People settle for things in all walks of life for a variety of reasons, oftentimes because there is shared fault or there are valid points on both sides, but what kind of parent settles when their child dies from severe medical malpractice? What kind of employee settles when she is harassed and discriminated against in the workplace?

And finally, what kind of people settle for a second-class limited recognition of a love and a bond just as powerful and incredible as those of heterosexuals? This “gay” won’t accept sitting around with his “civil union life partner” and perhaps that polarizes me from “what the gays want” – but at least at the end of the day, I know that I never settled for anything less then the equality I deserve.

-Ben Williams, junior