There were political discussions, people lip-synching to "It's Raining Men," bands in the Ramskellar, and comedians. Such a weekend on the Fordham campus could only mean one thing: Campus Activities Board Fall Fest was back to entertain the masses.
"CAB's goal with Fall Fest was to build community within the student body and to make students familiar with one another," Regina Fetterolf, assistant director of programming in the Office of Student Leadership and Community Development, said.
The first event of Fall Fest was the speech and question-and-answer session with Phillip Gourevitch in McGinley Ballroom on Thursday night. Gourevitch is a longtime writer for The New Yorker who covered the 2004 presidential election for the magazine. He also wrote the 1998 book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow You Will be Killed With Our Families, which is about the 1994 Rwanda genocides. The book won many awards including The National Book Critics Circle Award. Gourevitch has also published Standard Operating Procedure, a book about the events that took place in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Gourevitch discussed the pictures that exposed the actions of American soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison and the changing of our nation's standards, which he says allowed this torture to occur.
"My job is to make readers look at the thing that makes one want to look away," Gourevitch said when asked what his duty was as a journalist.
He also said that he is surprised with the small level of opposition to this war, and that he believes that, if there were a draft, there would be a huge public mobilization against it.
On Friday night, CAB showed the HBO film Recount in McGinley Ballroom. The film, which premiered on HBO earlier this year, chronicled the 2000 presidential election and the historic recount that occurred in the state of Florida. That process ended with the Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore, which determined the presidency.
Key moments in the film included Al Gore's initial concession call to George W. Bush on Nov. 8, the decision by Gore's campaign to sue for hand recounts in Democratic counties where voting irregularities were alleged, and the series of decisions in Florida that led to the Supreme Court deciding that the Florida recounts should be ended.
2008 Woodie Awards
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