The Bowdoin Orient

Members of the College community came together for an intimate, somber gathering at the chapel to celebrate and remember the life of Kathryn Scott '06 last Friday. Scott, who had been on leave from Bowdoin since September, died after a New Hampshire car crash last month. "We gather together this day, surrounded by the mysteries of life and death. We come because in the great tapestry of human life the threads of our lives have been woven together with Katie's," said Reverend Mary Baard, who officiated Saturday's service.

Award-winning author Margot Livesey will join the English Department this spring to teach the first of two spring semester courses in creative writing. Livesay, who will teach a fiction workshop this spring, replaces Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Ford, who recently left his post as visiting writer in the English Department for undisclosed reasons.

Bowdoin Student Government approved the allocation of up to $1,000 to the Student Affairs Committee for running Name Tag Day by a vote of 24-2.

-Attendance: 25/26. Absent: Mike LoBiondo '06. -BSG President DeRay Mckesson spoke with the Colby student government president in hopes of creating a relationship between the Colby, Bates, and Bowdoin student governments.

The Bowdoin campus has become a battleground for groups fighting on both sides of Maine's upcoming referendum on gay rights, Question 1.

After publicly questioning the ?logic and motivation? of U.S. Marine and Maine College Democrats President Alex Cornell du Houx '06 for his military service, Secretary of the College Republican National Committee Dan Schuberth '06 has issued an apology.

A new regulation may soon give the government the ability to monitor user communication on the Bowdoin network without the College even knowing about it?and requires the College to pick up the several-hundred-thousand dollar tab for the system upgrades needed to make it possible.

Two teams this season have especially highlighted the strength of Bowdoin Athletics. The field hockey and football teams' athletic achievements have made the campus proud?they have exceeded all expectations and we congratulate them for their accomplishments.

With the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, one issue quickly rose above all others with those preparing to question his record. Alito's opinion on abortion is clear, whether one consults his 90-year-old mother (who has already gained notoriety in the press for confidently proclaiming her son's pro-life beliefs), or some of the 350 opinions he has written.

There is an issue at Bowdoin that hardly anyone talks about. No, I am not talking about race. I am talking about social class, an issue so taboo that you are practically labeled a card-carrying communist just for bringing it up. Social class is likely to be one of the defining issues of our generation, yet it is an issue that is largely ignored here. In a time of ever-rising income inequality, it is time that we bring this issue out into the open and engage in open discussion about it.

I would like to thank Dahr Jamail for coming to Bowdoin and speaking to many of us last Wednesday night. Frankly, I almost chose homework or sleep over his lecture. However, given my schedule, the opportunity to attend a nighttime lecture is rare for me, and I did not want to waste it. To decide whether I should go, I visited his web site (http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com) and read a few of his headlines: "The Untold Story of Fallujah," " 'Elections' and Other Deceptions in Iraq," and more. I was hooked, and I ended up hearing and seeing even more than I could have expected at a talk. An 18-minute film capturing the destruction and the victims of Falluja, filmed and edited by an independent filmmaker who could not reveal his name for fear of being pursued by the government to a greater extent than he already has been. A room full of openly bitter veterans, yearning to create some sort of stability and peace in a world that constantly, perhaps unendingly, deteriorates before them. The passionate and detailed accounts of a man who first pushed his way into Iraq two years ago, because, like he said, he was pissed.

As I was finishing dinner, I heard a knock at my front door and opened it to find a Bowdoin student I recognized but did not know.

Maine citizens?including hundreds of voters from this campus?will go to the polls Tuesday to vote on Question 1, a proposal that would repeal Maine's law protecting individuals against discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation. Maine's decision on November 8 will send a message to individuals throughout the state. We hope that Maine will choose to say that it is okay to thrive as who you are.

Question 1 has overshadowed another proposal on Tuesday's ballot that is also important for the people of Maine. If approved, Question 7 would help protect one of the most important elements of Maine's economy: our working waterfront.

Before the movement on behalf of "civil rights" began last century, "discriminate" meant nothing more than to make a clear distinction. Since then, the word has developed a new connotation that has all but eliminated the old; it now refers to distinction-making on the basis of class or category without regard to personal merit. Nowadays, those who speak broadly of "discrimination" are normally referring only to discrimination against those who belong to the Left's victimological pantheon, including blacks, women, Hispanics, American Indians, immigrants, homosexuals, and the disabled.

You?ve done everything right. You?ve made the initial contact, and your crush is interested and intrigued, but not afraid that you will show up outside his window at 3 a.m. with tear-streaked cheeks and an oversized stereo above your head blasting ?In Your Eyes.?

Two weeks ago, Alex Linhart's "Freedom to hire" op-ed asked us to examine America as a country and a concept that valued "liberty over equality." Perhaps in some convoluted way, Mr. Linhart is right. Equality has never been a mainstay in the American ideal. Instead, it's something we've had to fight for.

Slam poetry is not for the faint of heart. Attendees of a slam poetry competition?like the one planned for this Saturday evening?should be forewarned that what awaits them are not soft, calm pieces, but rather energetic, competitive, dynamic original works, often resembling the style of rap.

Imagine a war movie devoid of any actual warfare and you have Sam Mendes's latest and most fibrous effort, Jarhead. Deliberate and dramatically tapered, Mendes' dreamscape of U.S. Marines and the maddeningly elusive battlefront of Operation Desert Storm is both sobering and intoxicating. Rightfully absolving itself of the need to politicize its subject matter, Jarhead makes it a duty to immerse the viewers in the life of the soldier instead.

Though the campus has yet to receive any snow, telemark junkies will get first tracks this weekend. Today the Bowdoin Outing Club and New England Telemark (NET) will bring the third annual telemark film festival. The festival was created by Biff Higgison and Matt O'Donnell, members of New England Telemark, which is one of the nation's largest and most qualified organizations dedicated to the sport of telemark skiing.

Thanksgiving is drawing near. According to empirical evidence, holidays cause more stress than anything else (with the possible exceptions of standardized tests and the words "we need to talk"). How can you survive the stress? While I would not condone going on a heavy drinking binge that permits you to stumble through the holiday in an apathetic stupor, I do have some wine-related suggestions.

In the aftermath of daylight-saving time, no one can deny what is to come: a long, dark winter. It always seems to sneak up too quickly, but this is Maine, and the season is inevitable, so you might as well be prepared. That said, don't be so quick to throw on the fleece that's been your staple in past years. Sure it's reliable, but with day after day of cold and snow, why not liven up your wardrobe and combat the winter blues with a little self-expression?

A Bowdoin alumnus with a penchant for the paintbrush addressed an audience of current students and faculty Monday afternoon, discussing where his studies in art have taken him since graduating in 1989.

Not being one to yell at the screen during a movie, I would like to congratulate Saw 2 for provoking my very first in-theater outburst. The inaugural yelp, which went something like "Don't you dare crawl into that oven!" was, of course, acutely premonitory. It was soon confirmed that Joe Hapless didn't give spelunking through an industrial size furnace during a horror film the second thought it probably deserved.

A deafening silence ran across Gillette Stadium as the clock struck midnight in Foxboro on Monday. The new day signaled the end of an unparalleled era in Patriots history. The period saw three Super Bowl rings and an NFL record 21-game win streak. It seemed that victory was guaranteed, regardless of whom the Pats were playing. Monday represents the irretrievable loss of this confidence.