The Bowdoin Orient

A group of students could create drastic changes in the College's residential life system as it proposes to create Bowdoin's first cooperative residence within the next few years.

Forty-six percent of Bowdoin students take a prescription medication, according to Director of Health Services Dr. Jeff Benson.

Approximately 300 students have reported contracting the flu during the past two weeks, according to the Dudley Coe Health Center. However, officials say that the worst may be over.

Bowdoin's student health insurance program faces drastic changes in the near future. Students who do not have the required coverage will have to buy one of the two policies Bowdoin will offer. The first has a coverage cap of $50,000, while the other has a coverage cap of $250,000.

We never thought we'd say this, but we could learn a thing or two from Colby. Well, maybe just one thing. Our friends in Waterville have garnered national attention for experimenting with alcohol?in the dining hall, that is. Students of age are invited to purchase a beer or two (or a glass of wine) with dinner on Friday nights.

The proper and strongest argument against the College Republicans' decision to host Vernon Robinson isn't that he was offensive or failed to properly "celebrate" Black History Month. It is that he offered absolutely nothing constructive. In welcoming Vernon Robinson to Bowdoin, the College Republicans performed a disservice to the campus as a whole, and to student conservatives in particular.

Tons of people are making millions off of fad diets and "get-in-shape quick" schemes pedaled on TV. In my humble opinion, every one of these people is wrong. They target the feeble in spirit to take their money, while offering very little in the form of lifestyle change. They offer complex yet incomplete answers to simple problems. Because I love you, gentle reader, I give you the Ben Peisch lifestyle, completely free.

As a young straight white male with a college education, a car, a girlfriend, two dogs, an unbroken home, a wallet full of money and a cookie in my pocket, I can tell you one thing for sure: life never gives me any breaks.

Despite President Bush's assurance that he will not use a "litmus test" when nominating justices to the Supreme Court, his private beliefs and public remarks have convinced many that he intends to pack the Court with conservatives in hopes of denying a woman's right to choose abortion. The President has defended his opposition to abortion by arguing that every life "is a sacred gift given by our Creator" and ought to be protected, and that abortion "discourages a culture that values life."

His approach to racial identity is intriguing. What does it mean to be African-American, if not simply to share a common skin pigmentation? Is it simply a cosmetic characteristic? Does it have actual political implications? Is it determined by historical forces and tradition? No one person has all the answers to these questions, and as a young Caucasian, I am certainly not eminently qualified to comment on how it feels to be African-American.

A host of responses to African-American conservative Vernon Robinson's talk.

I can appreciate College Prowler's quest for candor, and thus want to make clear that my gripe is not with the author, Mr. Wong. My offense stems from the fact that the less than flattering evaluation of Bowdoin women is so ubiquitous on campus and weighs so heavily on the minds of Bowdoin men as to earn such emphasis within the book.

Your article "Foreign applications plunge," Feb. 18, 2005 contains a quote from an unnamed "Hazlett" claiming that President Bush was responsible for a decrease in the number of H-1B visas. If only this were the case as the H-1B program, as it exists now, should be eliminated.

The 22-foot high boot which sits outside the L.L. Bean flagship store in Freeport, Maine?seen by the 3.5 million people a year who visit the store?is an interesting creation to most, but a fascinating temptation to an inebriated person.

The greenhouse gas emissions of the New England region equal those of the entire nation of Germany. This fact served as both a sobering reality check and an inspiring challenge to the attendants of the 3rd annual Northeastern Climate Conference, held last weekend at the University of Vermont in Burlington.

While many Bowdoin students enjoyed the Posse Retreat and the first great snowfall of the semester, several others traveled to Harvard Business School for the 7th Annual Africa Business Conference. The conference, held on February 12th, drew well over three hundred people, most of them coming from all over Africa and Europe.

Dear Dr. Jeff: I feel pretty down sometimes. How would I know if I'm depressed and need medication? J.M. Dear J.M.: We all feel blue and moody from time to time, and transitory feelings of sadness, self-doubt, or discouragement are perfectly normal and situational. Depression, on the other hand, lasts longer and is more intense, pervasive, deep, and incapacitating

As our trusty leader, Bill Yeo?a mountain man if there ever was one?bounded up the mountain, we made the designation between short legs and long legs, along with the distinction between ultra-marathon runners (Phil Shaw '08) and those who are tired after four miles.

It may not be particularly difficult to write an obituary for Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, gonzo journalist extraordinaire, as he provides quite a wealth of material, but I recall as I take up my pen that Thompson himself wrote by far the most remarkable obituary I've ever read, for Richard Nixon, for Rolling Stone magazine back in 1994.

Five Flights is a comedy that deals with what a group of adult siblings want to do with the aviary bequeathed to them in their father's will. Ideas range from selling it to a real estate developer to creating a new age church of "the fifth day," the day God created birds.

Million Dollar Baby?A story of love and loyalty where even shadows illuminate and silence speaks poetry, Eastwood's masterpiece finds beauty in simplicity and completely won me over.

Best Picture: The late surging Baby might take this from The Aviator, or then again, it might not.

Constantine seems like such an evil undertaking on so many levels. First, it's a comic book movie not released in the summer, where comic book movies belong. Instead, it's been flung into the February purgatory of action films that don't quite make the cut. Second, not only is Francis Lawrence a debut director, but his name sounds like a monk's and that doesn't seem right. And finally, the title character is played by Keanu Reeves, the one and only king of "whoa," and he's presumably reviving Neo for the fourth time, because the Wachowski Brothers ran out of Matrices and what else is he going to do?

Favorite song? DV: Anything off Guns 'n' Roses' "Appetite for Destruction"?Gun 'n' Roses was the only band to capture the sound and swagger of Aerosmith and The Stones at their peak.

What do you get when you mix together student talent and music lovers with a pinch of activism and a dash of refreshments? This Tuesday's V-day and BQSA sponsored Coffee House at MacMillan emceed by Emily Sheffield '06.

It may not be nutritious, but cotton candy is cute. It's light, pink, fluffy, all sweetness, and bad for your teeth. To exploit the sugary charm amassed within, it only asks that you kindly accept its chronic hydrophobia and forget everything you've ever learned about not eating string. Easy, but fun. Airy, yet irresistible.

Traditionally, England's entertainment exports to America have been music-related. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Clapton, Osborne...and well, everyone involved in the British Invasion. They even throw us a film every now and again. But rarely do the trades blow a British TV show west across the Atlantic. But just under a year ago, a rare gem washed up on U.S. shores, and has since developed a devoted, if not enormous, following.

The Men's Hockey Team has stumbled to the end of the regular season, losing two of their final four games of the season. With these losses, Bowdoin finishes the regular season with a record of 15-5-3 (11-5-3 NESCAC) and the fourteenth ranking in the nation. The team's NESCAC record earns it the fourth seed in the conference tournament and a home game in the first round. The Polar Bears face Amherst tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. at Dayton Arena.

The Women's Indoor Track Team competed against 29 other colleges in the New England Division III meet at Smith College in the first meet of the championship season. Finishing seventh overall, the women realized Coach Peter Slovenski's goal of placing in the top seven as a team.

The men's track team placed seventh at the New England Championships at Tufts University on Saturday, missing sixth place by only a half a point. Although the men had some setbacks during competition, their captains once again came through for the men.

The Bowdoin Women's Indoor Track Team traveled to New London, CT, where they defeated the United States Coast Guard Academy this weekend.

The men's distance medley relay team of Andrew Combs '06, Greydon Foil '05, Owen McKenna '06, and Steven Bartus '08 qualified automatically for the National Championships last Friday with a time of 10:00.58 at the Valentine's Classic in Boston. The time broke the long-standing Bowdoin record by a whopping 13 seconds.