The Bowdoin Orient

While other students may have found their fall semesters no different than semesters past, Bennet Haynes '08 is an exception. Waking up at 5:30 a.m., speaking Thai to his host families, and spending his days farming and learning about the Green Revolution, Haynes' semester in Thailand with CIEE's Khon Kaen program was a clear break from the monotony of college life.

Queer and straight students alike refrained from speaking on Wednesday as part of the Day of Silence, a nationally practiced event meant to raise awareness about the silencing of queer voices.

Unlike the vast majority of students around the country, Aisha Woodward '08 opted to spend her Spring Break helping underprivileged grade schoolers in New York City as part of Bowdoin's Alternate Spring Break (ASB) program. CBS news, inspired by Bowdoin College students' initiative, invited Woodward and her trip co-leader Jamie Knight '07 to be interviewed live about the experience.

Today's Common Hour speaker, renowned and controversial author of "Midnight's Children" and "The Satanic Verses," Salman Rushdie, has had a death threat out on him since February 14, 1989. The threat was renewed on its anniversary in 2005. The fatwa, or sentence of death, was issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then leader of Iran.

"They drive by campus every day on the way to school, but have no idea what it is," said Rachel Rapp '08, referring to students at local middle schools who have spent little or no time on the college campus that sits at the center of their community. Rapp is a student in Latin American Cultures, a class taught every spring by Associate Professor of Romance Languages and Program Director of Latin American Studies Enrique Yepes. This Friday, Rapp and her class will welcome 88 Brunswick Junior High School students to Bowdoin.

It's the start of a new semester, and time for students to file into Moore Hall, wait in long lines, shuffle through stacks of books, and write a check to the Bowdoin Bookstore. However, the dollar amount that's been appearing on the check has increasingly become a problem for many Bowdoin students.

Brunswick residents, faculty, and students alike filled the Main Lounge of Moulton Union to hear Iraq war veteran and poet Brian Turner read from his recent collection, Here, Bullet. As Turner's soft but piercing voice filled the room, the audience sat transfixed. Most looked to the podium, but others looked down as Turner read about his experiences as an infantry team leader.

"Nine hundred people will go to bed hungry...40 to 60 million will die...a child dies every three seconds." Colby College sociology professor John White started snapping his fingers as he spoke, "One, two, three."

Bowdoin students flocked to the polls earlier this week to vote on Question 1?an issue that has dominated Maine politics for the past month. The referendum, which would have repealed a law passed earlier in the year by the Maine Legislature prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, failed in Tuesday's election.

Former students returned to the College this past weekend for the 2005 Homecoming celebrations at which current students mingled with alumni dating back decades, despite a weekend-long downpour.

Fifty students, many of them strangers, joined together last week to share a meal and celebrate the co-op's first event of the academic year. They may not have known each other that well, but the food they were eating was cooked by people from their own group in the Ladd House kitchen only hours before.