The Bowdoin Orient

Bowdoin students will go to the polls next week to elect a slate of Student Government officers for the 2005-2006 school year. The election will be held Wednesday and Thursday and students will vote online.

Betty Trout-Kelly's upcoming departure from the College means the campus is losing a trusted leader and friend. Now College officials face the challenge of finding a replacement to fill a revamped position of adviser to the President on issues of diversity and equity.

The last vacant lot on downtown Brunswick's Maine Street may soon be put to better use. Development possibilities for the land?located by the train tracks next to the Hannaford supermarket?may include some combination of a train station, retail shops, residential units, parking, and entertainment facilities.

The Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees of Bowdoin College will meet today.

This weekend between 75 and 80 prospective students of a variety of ethnic, socioeconomic, and geographical backgrounds will be on campus as part of the College's Experience weekend.

Beginning in the Fall 2005 semester, students will not be allowed to sign up for a fifth full-credit class until after Phase I and Phase II registrations.

It is especially important that BSG is led by a strong and committed President. The candidate who will best fill this role is sophomore DeRay Mckesson, and we endorse him in his effort to be elected to that position.

Of all the misinformation, half-truths, and outright lies about terrorism put forth by the Bush Administration, none is as pernicious as the one repeated by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer last Friday during his talk at Bowdoin College on "Iraq and the War on Terrorism." Echoing a claim Bush has frequently made since the attacks on September 11, 2001, Bremer asserted, with all the authority his 14 months as special envoy to Iraq confers, that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda attacked the U.S. because they "hate freedom."

In 1994, after years in the minority, Republicans took back control of Congress thanks largely to the efforts of Newt Gingrich and his famous "Contract with America." Although there is still much debate over whether the Contract was a seminal political document or merely a clever political gimmick, its effectiveness cannot be questioned: ten years later, Republicans have tightened their grip on the Presidency, the House, and the Senate.

Recently, I had the pleasure of attending a Common Hour given by BSG President Haliday Douglas '05. It was the first time since I have been at Bowdoin when a student gave a lecture, and it was a well-delivered and intelligent presentation. However, I worry that Douglas' presentation has further emboldened Bowdoin students to take center stage. Douglas' lecture should remain the exception, not the rule.

How many times have you heard or complained about women being more attached to men? We often think of men as detached from their emotions and enjoying "playing the field." Women, on the other hand, are seen as hopelessly romantic and most content settling down with one man to pursue a serious relationship. That's what we've been told or what we commonly think, but are men and women really so different? Are men really from Mars and women from Venus?

Students respond to last Friday night's speech given by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer at Bowdoin entitled "Iraq and the War on Terrorism."

I would like to pose a question to my Democrat colleagues, though. How does attending an event with no intention of really listening to what is said and changing your views make you open-minded? What happened at Schlafly's talk was quite the opposite.

More than any other chapter in Maine, the Bowdoin chapter proved itself to be a proactive organization, as opposed to reactive. While the College Republicans spread their message and framed the political debate on campus by bringing four speakers to campus this year, the campus Left consistently acted in a reactionary manner, attacking the programming of the College Republicans without bringing in speakers to promote their own message.

Tremendous generosity?that's the only way we can describe it. With spring upon us, it would have been easy for Bowdoin to have been apathetic. The end of the semester is near and the Sudan seems so very far away. Yet your response was nothing short of extraordinary.

That Pope John Paul II was a great man and one of the twentieth century's most consequential leaders needs no further reinforcement. To the poor, both in material and in spirit, he was a symbol of hope and encouragement.

Students may think that full knowledge of the Bowdoin social scene comes just by living within the realm of the "Bubble," but the results from the "Bowdoin Student Life Survey" just released by the Gender and Women's Studies Department might leave even the most astute social butterfly surprised.

What would you do if you or someone you knew was sexually assaulted? How would you feel if your metaphorical Bowdoin Bubble were burst by the occurrence of a rape or other sex crime? Who would you turn to for support, and how would the events change the way you viewed the Bowdoin community?

Dear Dr. Jeff: I've heard contradictory things about the safety of Ecstasy. What's your opinion? G.P. Dear G.P.: Ecstasy ("MDMA," "3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine," "X," "E," "Adam," "XTC,"or "Lover's Speed") is still the most popular of the "club drugs," and a small number of students here continue to try it at least once. MDMA has both stimulant and hallucinogenic effects. Users describe a relaxed, euphoric state, with heightened feelings of empathy, pleasure, self-understanding, and self-acceptance.

"Parkview Adventist Medical Center, this is Dorothy, may I help you?" the receptionist asks into a telephone for the fifth time in one minute. Despite the endless repetition, her voice remains jovial and sing-songy. In the reception area, every time Dorothy speaks, something seems amiss. Her joyous tone does not fit in with its decidedly morose and mirthless surroundings. All of one's senses perceive the happy sound of her voice as violently clashing with the vibe of Parkview's main reception area.

A long awaited revival of the Bowdoin College Meddiebempsters is hitting the campus tonight at 7:00 p.m. in the Chapel. After four months without an open on-campus performance, the Meddies are back and ready to show off their expanded repertoire with a 40-minute show.

Mara Partridge '05 hadn't had much exposure to gospel music growing up, but when she started her freshman year at Georgetown University, she joined a sixty-person gospel choir, and pretty soon she was hooked.

Yes, friends, the 2004 Red Sox season was just begging to be a movie romance. We've all seen it: that undying, completely insane loyalty, the tears dripping into the bottle of Sam Adams, the pain, the triumphs, and David Ortiz. There's a real special, powerful, psychotic love between a Boston fan and his team. And oh yeah?Fever Pitch, the sweet, unexpectedly tame Farrelly brothers labor of love just in time for spring training, is also about a girl.

The Mars Volta's influences are nowhere near those of most contemporary rock bands', such as Interpol, Franz Ferdinand, and the White Stripes. In the latter part of the classic rock era, something happened. I like to call it the "acid effect"?once bands started tripping on LSD, and blues and typical "rock" structures elapsed, the many realms of space were being explored under the term art/progressive rock.

Before I get to this week's column let me first say a few words about that most basic necessity, the corkscrew. Throughout my years as a wine drinker, I have had the unfortunate experience of having the corkscrew break while opening a bottle on three separate occasions.

Looking for some good live music to spice up your weekend? Search no further than the Reel Big Fish concert this Saturday at 8:00 p.m. in Morrell Gym, with special guest emo/pop-punk band the Spotlight, which features Rob Reider '07 on bass.

"My boobs are more beautiful!" "No, my boobs are way better!" What a great argument. I wish all girls could debate like that instead of staring at MTV and wishing they could trade bodies with some over worked and over primped shell of a celebrity. "V-Day is an organization aimed to fight violence against women," Britta Bene '05 explained. "Violence not only in a physical sense but body image and what the media can do."

Almost 100 years after Peary and MacMillan made their storied trek to the North Pole, another Bowdoinite will journey North in search of a polar bear. Unlike his predecessors, however, he won't poach and stuff his furry friend?he'll fall in love with it. This romance is the subject of The Thing About Hunting Polar Bears, a new play by James Nylund '06, which premieres tonight in Wish Theater as part of the Bates-Bowdoin One Acts festival.

Odelay was the album that made Beck Hansen's critical reputation, turning the slacker-jokester-one-hit-wonder into a genius in the eyes of Rolling Stone, Spin, et. al. Since that genre-mashing mid-90s masterpiece, Beck has remained a critical darling, but never again pervaded the nation's airwaves as he did with "Loser," "Where It's At," and "Devil's Haircut." He gave himself a significant makeover for every new album, turning from Odelay's rock/hip-hop/folk blend to Mutations' spacey coffee shop tropicalia to Midnite Vultures' disco funk to Sea Change's sad cowboy, but consciously tried to avoid "following up" Odelay, even trying to release Mutations on an indie label, Bong Load, before he was informed that he was too big a rock star for that sort of thing.

Beneath the towering, pristine pine trees that surround the closely-groomed neon green turf field, the Bowdoin Men's Lacrosse Team is creating quite a stir. This gritty group of gentlemen have complied a 7-2 record overall, and more importantly, an undefeated 4-0 record in the NESCAC.

The Bowdoin College Women's Lacrosse Team, now ranked seventh nationally, had a very successful weekend, bringing home two conference wins. The team defeated Connecticut College and Williams this week, and looks forward to an important match-up with Middlebury this weekend.

The Bowdoin Men's Rugby Team kicked off its spring season with a solid 16-12 victory over Babson this past Saturday. The Babson squad had two emotional victories over Bowdoin in the past two years, once in the regular season in 2003 and once in the New England playoffs in 2002, but that only served as motivation for the Bowdoin ruggers.

The Bowdoin College Women's Lacrosse Team suffered its first loss of the season against Trinity College this past Saturday. Trinity improved to 6-0 record, its best start in the past six years, while Bowdoin dropped to 6-1 (1-1 NESCAC). This weekend, Bowdoin has conference games against Connecticut College and Williams.