The Bowdoin Orient

The fight to save Upward Bound and other federal education programs slated for elimination in President Bush's proposed budget has cleared an initial obstacle in the U.S. Senate. The body passed an amended version of the 2006 federal budget that included immediate increases in Pell grants and restored funding for the TRIO programs, of which Upward Bound is a part.

After receiving the largest number of applications in the history of the College?5,026?and making some tough decisions, Bowdoin has sent out acceptance letters to prospective members of the class of 2009. They are expected to arrive on Monday.

The College will lose a key community member this year in Burgwell "Burgie" Howard, Director of Smith Union and Student Activities, and Assistant Dean of Student Affairs.

The likelihood that a new bill would suspend driver's licenses from adults caught furnishing alcohol to minors decreased Wednesday in a busy day at the State House in Augusta, the Orient has learned.

Bowdoin's facilities management department has created two new leadership positions as part of a series of changes following the death of Director of Facilities Management David D'Angelo in October.

Few would dispute the preeminence of the sandwich among today's array of lunch options. Its virtues are many, but perhaps its greatest is its inherent flexibility: there's simply no limit to what can go between two slices of bread. Nevertheless, some favorite combinations have emerged ever since the Earl of Sandwich bequeathed his greatest creation to humanity a long time ago

Theresa Marie Schiavo's life ended yesterday morning, but her death will reverberate in our legal system and in our public consciousness for a very long time. Regardless of where one stands within the confused and bitter maelstrom surrounding her, however, the extent to which she has been transformed from a suffering woman and into a religious symbol and a political tool is as despicable as it is startling.

Before we left for Spring Break, my Orient colleague Conor Williams wrote a column on the privatization of Social Security entitled "The Administration's Doublespeak." In his concluding paragraph, Williams argued that, "the President's plan has no safeguard for hubris." Why stop with hubris? There are seven deadly sins and hubris is just one of them. The government should prevent us from committing any of them. Here is my plan.

I like to think that I've been a good boy all my life. I walk the line against club drugs and riverboat gambling, I use sunblock lotion religiously, and I floss regularly. After I lather and rinse, I repeat. Recently, however, my life has begun to spiral out of control, like in a movie when the protagonist spins into a lollipop-swirl background while screaming "noooooooo!" What has been the cause of this slide from to control to crazytown you ask? Nine girls, ten days, and thousands of itchy bumps later identified as scabies.

The Associated Press recently reported that a survey of cell phone users revealed some shocking results. It turns out that six in ten cell phone users find it annoying to be in the presence of other cell phone users. Nonetheless, eight in ten users find cell phones to be "convenient," a boon to their busy lives.

I would like to respond briefly to Jonathan Perez's article in the March 4 Orient, entitled "The liberal arts education as miseducation." I too have found myself reflecting in recent weeks on Bowdoin's educational shortcomings, though I have arrived at a somewhat different outlook than Perez.

I certainly do not condone the brouhahas that occurred during the Winter Carnival weekend at Bowdoin. I am equally disturbed by the pious reaction by some students to these unfortunate events. When similar occurrences took place at Bowdoin during my years at the school, they were equally unfortunate and I was generally relieved when informed that I was not involved. After reading the Orient, I cannot help but ask, is Steve Gogolak not Bowdoin's own reincarnation of Douglas Niedermeyer of Animal House fame?

I was disappointed and offended by the last paragraph of Chris Averill's letter on March 4. Averill made the astonishing assertion that "the Bowdoin College Republicans do not benefit from a 'Conservative Resource Center,' such as the Queer Trans and Women's Resource Centers."

The flack over the recent guest speaker has ignored one key aspect of black conservative ideals, the treatment of race. That is, current discourse only authenticates black conservatives when they deny systematic and institutional racism as reasons for the gaps between blacks and whites.

This morning [March 7] I had the nausea-inducing experience of seeing the College Republicans' new series of flyers, and they look strangely similar to those that the College Democrats have been posting around campus in recent months.

When thefacebook.com was launched at Bowdoin last summer, it caught on quickly and spread through the Bowdoin community like wildfire. By the first week of school, nearly the entire campus was signed up, and numbers today are topping more than 1700, with loyal members including not only current students and alumni, but also a few faculty and staff members. With such a fast and successful introduction, it's hard to imagine another web service that could rival thefacebook.com?until BowdoinMatch.com.

Dear Dr. Jeff: It seems like there are a lot of people here struggling with eating disorders. What can we do to help out? P.W. Dear P.W.: We don't know the exact prevalence of eating disorders on campus, but we do know that it's too high.

Earth Day calls for a celebration of the environment. It also inspires us to better our own relations with the environment. And Earth Day is not just celebrated at Bowdoin College with speakers and fairs?it is celebrated all over the world with events to honor in a joyful manner our commitment to the environment.

Comedian Mitch Hedberg, one of the most popular stand-up acts today and a cult figure on college campuses, is reported to have died Wednesday while traveling between gigs on the East Coast. He was 37. As of Thursday night, his cause of death remained unconfirmed, although some have speculated that his passing may have been correlated with recent drug problems.

Zach De La Rocha, the former frontman of Rage Against the Machine, called Saul Williams's said the shotgun to the head "an invitation to live and die in the moment, a confrontation of the politics of empire, a dare to transform oneself in the face of fear, and a post-9/11 love song all in one." Thanks to the Kenneth V. Santagata Memorial Lecture Fund, Bowdoin students have a chance to see this landmark slam poet, considered one of the most familiar and critically acclaimed in America.

Michelle Branch has teamed up with friend and Missouri-based singer-songwriter, Jessica Harp, to form The Wreckers, producing a sound similar to Branch's, with a little of Harp's country influences thrown in for good measure.

As we all know, Hollywood is a loot it and shoot it industry. It has no qualms milking anything and everything for pay?whatever it's worth?over and over again. Strictly speaking, it's a plagiarist's paradise. And when the assignment is blockbuster comedy, Guess Who wanted the passing grade?

Kasabian's "Club Foot" is one of the recent heavy rotation numbers. It might leave you to believe Kasabian is some gritty rock and roll band out of the slums of Russia or somewhere?the video looks like a depressing social realist movie and the band name sounds vaguely foreign. Builds mystique. Actually, the band is British (alright, should have guessed that), and named after Charles Manson's getaway driver. That's tasteful! Well, at least they didn't record an album in the house where Sharon Tate was murdered, like Nine Inch Nails once did.

What is the best song to make out to? LS: Make out songs can't be pre-meditated, they have to naturally occur. Back in the day, you could have thrown on some Al Green, turned down the lights and let things go. But in modern times, that sort of thing doesn't fly. RM: We should all agree on this one: the entirety of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music. Each track is 15 minutes of distorted, screeching, hissing white noise made with various electronic noisemakers. But Badly Drawn Boy songs work pretty well too.

The Bowdoin College Softball Team lit up Florida in the team's annual spring trip, returning to Bowdoin with an 11-3 record, good for the best start in school history. After dropping their first two games, the team won 11 of 12, including their final eight games of the trip. Bowdoin plays their first games outside of Florida on Sunday, April 3 against Plymouth State at UMass-Dartmouth.

The men's and women's track teams crowned a combined five All-Americans at the Indoor Track Nationals, held at Illinois-Wesleyan on March 11.

Members of the men's and women's track team overcame adverse weather conditions to post many good performances at the Santa Barbara Relays after spending Spring Break training in southern California.