The Bowdoin Orient

With the formation of an advisory committee on Darfur by President Barry Mills this week, Bowdoin may become the latest addition to the small list of colleges and universities taking a stand on investment in Sudan. Harvard, Stanford, Amherst, Dartmouth, and, most recently, Brown and Yale have all taken some form of action concerning their investments in the region in response to concerns related to genocide and human rights violations in Darfur.

After regularly receiving overly informal emails in their inboxes?and even the occasional inappropriate message?some faculty members are wondering if students might want to slow down before they click the "send" button. Faculty members point to messages they have received that make unfair demands or turn out to be downright embarrassing for students.

As a selection committee prepares to consider a record 213 candidates for residency in Bowdoin's six college houses, interviews with leaders of the College House System show that there is not a consensus on what the goals of the system should be. According to Director of Residential Life Kimberly Pacelli, the applicant pool is significantly larger than normal.

As Maine Attorney General Steven Rowe enlisted members of the Topsham area community to stop underage drinking, he also called on an unusual group to join his fight?Bowdoin students.

Spring Break is coming, and while some students are looking forward to two weeks of rest and relaxation, 66 students will see their spring breaks take them to New Mexico, Mississippi, Peru, New York City, Guatemala, and Thailand. These students will be traveling as part of Bowdoin's Alternative Spring Break (ASB), a program that has existed for five years at the College.

Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) will present the student body with nine proposed amendments to the BSG constitution Wednesday. Students will be given a chance to vote on these amendments, which have all been passed by a vote of at least four fifths of the full BSG body

Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) has operated in stealth mode in years past. With the exception of a few scattered emails here and there, students were largely left unaware of what their representatives were doing?or not doing?on their behalf. Like any governing body, BSG cannot be effective unless it is accountable to those it serves. And the only way for it to be accountable is to run it transparently with productive communication going both ways between BSG members and students.

Three weeks ago, this page called on the College's administration to create a forum for dialogue on divestment from companies that do business with Sudan. The Sudanese government has supported genocide in the Darfur region of that country, and U.S. colleges and universities are beginning to use their economic power to show that this is not acceptable.

On Wednesday, a campus-wide referendum will be held to approve amendments made to the Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) constitution. We write to you today to ask for your support. All of the changes that we have made are part of an effort to make us a more effective body in order to serve you, our peers. Over the weekend you will receive official information about these initiatives, but we would like to take this opportunity to present the reasons that we are enthusiastic about these reforms.

Everybody loves a clown. Well, except for people who are paralyzed by fear at the mere mention of clowns (e.g. anyone who has seen the movie "Poltergeist" or heard of John Wayne Gacy, Jr.). Or people who think clowns are boring (e.g. anyone whose parents were so manipulated by classical conventions that they actually hired a clown to perform at your birthday party). Or people who think clowns are stupid (e.g. anyone who has ever borne witness to the musical stylings and stage antics of the Insane Clown Posse). Or anyone who thinks clowns are depressing (e.g. all vocational clowns). OK, that's a horrible example. Let's start over.

Whenever my parents discover that I haven't heard about some "big" current event, such as, oh I don't know, quail hunts, or the fact that Elton John is gay, they blame it on "the Bowdoin Bubble." And of course I always roll my eyes and then promptly watch Headline News for the next 72 hours straight, trying to catch up on everything I missed while I was immersed in "Grey's Anatomy," "The Gauntlet II," and "That 70's Show" reruns. But what my parents don't seem to realize is that all that reality TV, all those vintage "Sex and the City" episodes, and certainly Doctor McDreamy, have taught me something very important about the Bowdoin Bubble: It really does exist. Though perhaps not in the way my parents think.

I would like to thank the directors of the Vagina Monologues, Whitney Hogan '07, Gwenn Hollingworth '06, Alex Lamb '07, and Emily Skinner '08, for organizing the showing of Eve Ensler's documentary, "Until the Violence Stops," Monday at the pub. For those of us who attended, it provided a valuable alternative to other events on campus that evening.

As editor of HYPE Magazine, I would like to challenge Mr. Emerson [a trustee who wrote the letter "Trustees worry about tone of political debate" on February 17] to find where HYPE "equated Republicans with racists."

We believe that strong newspapers help to create strong communities. We do our best to provide in-depth, balanced reports that provide news and context for the campus and academic communities. However, the opinion pages are the one place where responsibility for content lies with the campus and academic communities.

Nate Chaffetz's op/ed last week "Think twice before divesting," exemplified much of the confusion that arises when we talk about sweatshops, divestment, and socially- responsible investing. To start with a minor point, a sweatshop is not a place where "laborers work longer hours at lower wages than prevail in developed countries." We do not expect factory owners in Vietnam to pay their workers what it costs to live in the United States, and surely that is not what Chaffetz meant. A sweatshop is a place where workers are forced to work long hours and are paid less than that country's living wage. Working conditions are dangerous and frequently cause injury and death, and attempts to speak out or organize are met with intimidation and violence. Bowdoin is currently working with the Worker Rights Consortium, a non-profit organization that monitors working conditions in foreign factories, to make sure that the companies we buy from for the Bowdoin Bookstore meet certain basic human rights standards. Instead of taking money out of these countries' economies, we are funneling it toward factories that pay a living wage and respect their workers' rights. This is a good first step in the right direction.

There are two new reasons that the world is going to Hell in a hand basket: 1) Kevin Federline's new single, "Popozao," and 2) mainstream media have successfully spent an entire week covering Vice President Dick Cheney's hunting accident. Every pundit and comedian in the country has been taking shots at Cheney (kinda like that one) for an entire week, alleging a cover-up, intentional deception, and arguing that this proves the Bush administration's propensity for sowing lies. The coverage of this accident, however, speaks to a problem greater than the vice president's aim.

A college student, Matthew Shepard, was beaten and left to die because of his sexual orientation in Laramie, Wyoming, in October of 1998. On Tuesday, his mother Judy Shepard will speak on campus.

Top 10 of 2005: 1.) Brokeback Mountain? Not only the best film of the year, but also a landmark film sociologically, as it tells the story of two cowboys in the 1960s who are in love but unsure of how to act out their emotions in a society that will not allow them to be together.

Another year, another Academy Awards to put us plain folk in our place. At the podium, celebrities will spout crocodile-tears for the golden trophy, and on the red carpet, Charlize Theron's midriff will be draped in a designer version of our college tuition. For this country's finest performers and filmmakers, the glitz and glory are well-deserved perks, but for the ordinary filmgoer, the ceremony's creed of self-congratulation may feel a bit lopsided.

J.W. Dundee's Original Honey Brown ($6.49 for a six-pack at Hannaford) This beer is one of the standards in the endless racks of beer in Northeastern supermarkets, joining the ranks of Rolling Rock and Pete's Wicked Ale.

Spring break is tantalizingly close, and I, for one, cannot wait. In order to keep myself occupied, I am attempting to clean out all my quotidian wines so I have lots of room for the goodies I'm planning on purchasing while on vacation. Below are three that I've finished and rather enjoyed.

What is the best album ever created? Paul: "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars." Pete: "Astral Weeks" and "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea"; "London Calling" and "Highway 61." Each is a belated version of the other. You wouldn't want to leave out Minnesota, with "Purple Rain" and the Replacements' "Let It Be," both I believe from 1984.

Despite putting up its toughest fight of the season, the Bowdoin Women's Squash Team fell a third time to Bates at the team squash nationals. The Bears took third in the B Division at last weekend's tournament. Although the Polar Bears had hoped to eclipse Bates by the end of the season, the players enjoyed the close matches and friendly rivalry.

The Bowdoin Women's Track Team came out strong for one of the last meets of the season, finishing 20th at the NCAA Open New England Championships. Last Friday, Emily Sheffield '06 fought hard in the 800-meter trials for second place in her heat, ensuring her place in the finals. Louise Duffus '07 took fourth place in the weight throw with a distance of 52'1."

With the first pitches thrown last Thursday, baseball's exhibition is now underway without any clear leader. The New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, and Toronto Blue Jays have added components that could be key to a championship run. But there are several questions remaining for each team as the spring training games take off. The three teams atop the Eastern Division have issues with the pitchers at the top of their rotation, as well as their bullpens.

The second-half charge from Bates in last Saturday's NESCAC quarterfinals ended the men's basketball team's three-game winning streak and knocked the Polar Bears out of NESCAC tournament play. The fourth-seeded Bobcats recovered from a 34-24 deficit at the half to squarely defeat fifth-seeded Bowdoin 67-51 in Saturday's game.