The Bowdoin Orient

It's not every day that a star-studded motion picture with Oscar aspirations details the life and work of a Bowdoin alum. Kinsey, a Fox Searchlight release starring Liam Neeson, has received much critical praise since opening in select cities November 12.

This spring, nine seniors will be the first Bowdoin students to graduate with a major in Gender and Women's Studies.

Quietly but with confidence, top college officials have launched Bowdoin's latest capital campaign, setting a goal of raising $250 million by 2010.

The Brunswick Police Department issued a trespass warning this week to a resident of Brunswick in response to an off-campus incident that possibly involved date-rape drugs.

Could someone please tell us when it became more important for the College to serve the interests of the ten members of Freeport High School's brand-new indoor track team than those of its own 1,677 students?

Upon reaching Bowdoin College, first years (not freshmen, mind you!) are taught the ins and outs of the fabled "Bowdoin Bubble." This "Bubble," which revisionist historians date to the late 1960s, was used as an excuse to forget about the "real world" and enjoy the liminal atmosphere of college.

Education is predicated upon exposure. Pueblo, Colorado, besides a regional specialty in the science of locusts, cannot provide the type of environment needed for the intellectual growth necessary for the progress of mankind, and, with Bowdoin College's recent path, neither can Brunswick, Maine.

Explain this to me?why is it that the College basically looks the other way while underage kids can drink as much beer as they want, but it's a serious offense for someone of legal drinking age to have a glass of whiskey?

Whenever I hear Republicans call Democrats elitist, I feel that I am living in some parallel universe where up is down and right is left. Call me crazy, but my idea of an elitist politician is someone whose policies serve a small privileged group of people.

Distilled to its most basic level, war is not about abstract principles like "freedom" or tactical concepts like "acceptable casualties." It is about the willingness of individuals to make a sacrifice that is far too great to be comfortably comprehended by those whose lives are not constantly at risk.

The devil dancing in the Middle East is dead. After Arafat used his life to deny Palestinians a national state, Palestinians will now have the chance to use Arafat's death to usher in a new era of compromise.

I found Peisch and Williams' op-eds for last week's Orient?both discussing the "Democratic Party" and its "values"?very problematic.

Johnson's "Hostilities from Election Remain" last week once again attempted to smear Chairman Schuberth's name through the mud. Dan is not even enrolled at Bowdoin this semester, and he makes more headlines than most of the students here do.

I am writing to remark on last week's letter to the editor written by Dan Schuberth. Schuberth used the letters forum to publish a self-serving article rather than to challenge, correct, or amend a previously published Orient article, and in my opinion his article demeans the purpose and professional standard of such a forum.

Whether at a party or walking on the street, many Bowdoin students feel a constant, pervasive fear of Bowdoin Security. This concern is reasonable: security officers are older than we are, have more authority than we do, and have the power to incite drastic changes in our lives.

Fall season is coming to a close at the Outing Club, and this weekend we are sending out our last trip of the semester. Around this time in November paddling and hiking taper off due to cold and snow, and winter sports like skiing and snowshoeing haven't quite gotten started yet. Despite the small number of trips that have been going out during this seasonal transition, there has been lots of Outing Club activity on campus on which to report.

The Coastal Humane Society is familiar to many faculty and staff of the College. Many of the dogs you see meandering the campus, with anxious owners clasping plastic bags, were rescued by the Society before they found permanent homes here in Brunswick. Now Bowdoin students will have the opportunity to help this organization in its progressive approach to saving stray animals by attending its third annual Gala Holiday Auction.

Dear Dr. Jeff: Many people I know on campus have "blacked out" from drinking during a weekend now and then. Is it anything to worry about? M. M.

Many Bowdoin students are finding yet another productive way to spend their time, signing up in droves (over 1200 as the Orient went to press) for a website known as the thefacebook.com.

"To test just how resilient these bottles are, my friends and I duck taped one to my driveway and we ran over it with a car and it did not break!" said Morgan Finch '08. Finch recalled that she and her friends might have used a Mountaineer. Nalgene bottles come in different sizes, shapes, and colors, are reusable, basically indestructible, and are able to hold just about anything.

I first learned of theface-book.com this summer from my sister. Having just spent the past nine months in Africa, I had been oblivious to this latest craze. "Are you on thefacebook?" she asked me, soon after my return. I was perplexed.

While practicing medicine on a Navajo Reservation in New Mexico, Dr. Jeff Benson of the Dudley Coe Health Center witnessed a miracle of alternative medicine that altered his view of the medical field.

Dear Dr. Jeff: I've had some funny looking bumps on my belly for a few weeks now. I've done some research on line, and think it may be molluscum. What should I do? -J.S. Dear J.S.: Molluscum is a fairly common skin infection, and we've seen a lot of it over the years at the Health Center. So, first of all, come on in! Let one of us take a look, and if it is molluscum that's causing those funny looking bumps, we can discuss various treatment options.

Maybe you've heard they can shatter glass with their voices. Maybe you've heard that, if they sing a certain note incorrectly, they can kill themselves with the reverberations. Maybe those rumors are true, maybe they're not, but either way, the Huun Huur Tu Throat Singers from the Russian republic of Tuva will stage an interesting show Friday night in Kresge.

Pickard Theater will be taken by storm Saturday evening by the eclectically inventive work of dance-theater company 33 Fainting Spells. Performing their latest production Our Little Sunbeam, an interweaving of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's tragedy Ivanov with speculative accounts of the joy of early space travel, they will showcase an innovative 'dance-drama' contemplating life and perspective narrated by original pop and rap music.

Welcome to part two of the Thanksgiving wine extravaganza. This week we cover some more wines that should be good for Thanksgiving dinner. I would like to point out that these wines cost less than the average bake-shop pie and that it takes less time to uncork a bottle of wine than it does to make even the simplest of side dishes. So, for the student with three papers to write over the break (and I think that's almost everyone I know) this is the most minimal way to be a part of creating a fabulous Thanksgiving.

In 1715 Hermon Moll, an eminent American cartographer, produced a map showing California separated from the mainland by a body of water he tentatively labeled "Gulf of California or Red Sea." Moll was not alone: the misconception that California was an island persisted for over a hundred years.

Synopsis: Anxious, neurotic Joel (Carrey) and alternative, free-spirited Clementine (Winslet) enjoy a long relationship before breaking up somewhat acrimoniously. When he discovers that Clementine has patronized a new technology to erase him from her memory, an embittered Joel sets out to do the same. During the procedure, however, Joel rediscovers his love for Clementine and must fight through his own subconscious to reverse the process before his memory of her is gone for good.

The Incredibles is another sure sign that Pixar can't go wrong. The first time that quirky 3-D desk lamp bounced its way across movie screens and took its place as the 'i' in the Pixar Animation Studios logo, we were nine years younger and still in the reign of the Disney musical. But by the time the Toy Story credits rolled, a change was in the popcorn-scented air. Could it be? No more weepy Ariels or Mulan princesses, mushy love stories, or Hunchbacks and Simbas prancing around in song? That little lamp was a herald of a new age, and the beginning of the end of an important era in children's animation.

The Bates College Gamelan Mawar Mekar, a four-year-old orchestra specializing in music from the Indonesian island of Java, and Bates's visiting Fulbright scholar Joko Susilo, a master puppeteer, will present the shadow puppet play The Abduction of Sinta tonight at 7:00 p.m. in Kresge Auditorium.

The men's cross country team placed 11th out of 40 teams at the New England Championships on Saturday. The men were seeded to place 11th, but were hoping to improve upon their seeding. Unfortunately, the men were on the losing end of a tight battle between 7th and 11th place- finishing only 19 points behind seventh-place Middlebury. The men also qualified one individual, Andrew Combs '06, for the National Championships, to be held tomorrow at Wisconsin - Eau Claire.

The cold weather and threat of snow did not discourage the women of the Bowdoin cross-country team as they traveled a short distance to the Twin Brook Recreational Area in Cumberland, Maine to compete in the New England Division III Championship meet.

Famed long distance runner Joan Benoit Samuelson '79 will be inducted into the USA Track and Field Hall of Fame on December 3.

What has been a nightmare season in Miami took another bad turn this week as Dave Wannstedt stepped down as head coach of the Dolphins. In his press conference, Wannstedt accepted responsibility for his team's abysmal 1-8 performance. He has been the recipient of harsh criticism from Dolphin fans since taking over the team in 2000. This criticism has grown loudest over the past two seasons as Miami failed to make the playoffs in both years despite having a tremendous amount of talent on both sides of the ball.