The Bowdoin Orient

In an act suggesting that Bowdoin is not immune to the credit crisis gripping the country, Wachovia Bank froze a fund containing less than five hundred thousand dollars of the College's money on Monday. The same fund contained millions of dollars of college money before Bowdoin transferred a large portion of it to other investments this summer, according to Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration Katy Longley.

Over the past three years, Bowdoin has gotten straight "A's" in most of the Sustainable Endowment Institute's "Green Report Card," which measures colleges' commitments to sustainability. Belying those marks, though, has been its grade for endowment transparency. For the same three years, it has stubbornly remained at an "F."

With a month remaining until Election Day, students are gearing up with the non-partisan "Get Out the Vote" (GOTV) campaign vigorously working to register members of the Bowdoin community to vote.

On paper, e-books have long seemed like the wave of the future. But while their attractiveness has yet to translate into a thriving market, that's not stopping the Hawthorne-Longfellow Library from offering access to an ever-growing supply of nearly 100,000 e-book titles.

Writer-in-Residence Margot Livesey of the English department received a standing ovation from students, faculty, and community members on Monday after reading aloud from her latest novel, "The House on Fortune Street."

Last month, two members of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (MDEP) paid an unnanounced visit to Bowdoin and cited the College for three minor violations.

After two weeks of economic volatility, college administrators remain uncertain how events on Wall Street will affect Maine Street. President Barry Mills said that he is most concerned about the pressure of college costs for families, the effect of increasing oil and gasoline prices for employees, and the diminishing retirement accounts of employees, particularly of faculty members.

This fall, Bowdoin alum and Iraq War veteran Alex Cornell du Houx '08 has his sights on the Maine Legislature. Cornell du Houx is running for state representative from District 66, a part of Brunswick that consists of approximately 300 Bowdoin students, including residents in Howell House, Helmreich House, Burnett House, and Stowe Inn.

In a recent report, the Sustainable Endowment Institute gave Bowdoin a failing grade on endowment transparency. Only a handful of people, including President Mills, have any information regarding how the endowment is invested. Bowdoin investments are handled by outside managers rather than directly, which means the College must adhere to confidentiality agreements.

You should all hope that my understanding of the nature of a "Great Depression" is better than a friend of mine's, otherwise, we may soon be seeing "anarchy, with mobs roaming the streets, looting, and pillaging." Potentially taking us to that point is the current course of the financial system. Loathe as I am to say it, the government is now the only institution that has the ability to save us from disaster.

As I am sure you are aware of, this is an election year. Politicians' signs adorn every yard and television without political advertisement is a rarity. Among the elections facing Bowdoin students is the Senate race between incumbent Senator Susan Collins and Representative Tom Allen. Although all polls to date show Collins as the favorite by a large margin, this election has drawn national attention. Many believe that should Barack Obama be elected, a senate majority will be essential to achieving "real change". As a native Mainer and a Bowdoin student I feel I can express a unique perspective on this issue.

To the Editors: In her Op-ed last week, Caitlin Callahan asserted that "a vote for Susan Collins is a vote for more of the same failed conservative policies" ("Vote Obama, Allen for change," September 26). An example of a "failed policy" she gives is the appointment of Justice Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. How she manages to conclude that appointing Alito to the Supreme Court is a failed policy is beyond me.

To the Editors: In his Op-ed piece last Friday, Steve Robinson ("Coping with conservatism: Understanding the republican spectrum," September 26) makes a strong case that the conservative movement in America is multi-faceted. It is surprising, then, that he subsequently presents a wholly inaccurate and oversimplified view of the Democratic Party and its agenda.

The election season is finally upon us. After an exhaustive series of primaries and conventions for both parties?and seemingly endless coverage and commentary on the candidates?November 4 is now less than a month and a half away.

I love watching television. I also love politics. It only makes sense then that I love watching politics on television?and specifically political commercials. Indeed, as we get closer and closer to Election Day, it's hard to avoid these 30-second nuggets during local news, game shows, and the late night comics.

All over the country there are people who believe in conservatism. These people may be registered republicans, independents, or even blue dog democrats. They come from all walks of life, but whatever their color or creed, they see value in conservative ideals. It is important to realize that the Republican Party is not homogenous. Instead, it is a coalition of many groups whose ideas of conservatism differ, but share a central theme.

On November 4, we, as Bowdoin students and residents of Maine, will have the opportunity to make our mark on history. Many consider this election to be the most important of our lifetime and the votes we cast will determine the direction of our country and the world.

Last Monday morning, as I brushed my teeth, my roommate came into the bathroom pressing a wad of tissue to her nose. "Whush wong?" I asked through a foam of Crest. "I think I'm getting sick," she said, turning on the faucet with the hands that had just held the repository tissue.

It was dinner time on a Sunday night, early October 2005. Alone with my roommate in a booth at the back of Thorne, I was determined to keep the conversation as general as possible. Something had been festering inside me all day, and now it was pushing its way up into my throat. Avoiding eye contact with my roommate, I tried to keep my lips clenched. But 20 minutes' time found me powerless over my internal burden, and I slipped: "Shelley, I think I might be gay."

Don't wear white past Labor Day. It's an old adage of American style. In fact, I've been alerted many times that my assortment of heinously bright clothing comes close to violating the rule. Once the middle of September rolls around and the colors are starting to explode from leaves and fall from trees, people stuff those same bright colors into the back of the closet, not to return until spring?which, in the Bowdoin world, means right around graduation.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings '85 is not the only Bowdoin alumnus who has made a career in the DVD business. A little closer to campus is Bart D'Alauro '95, the co-owner of Bart & Greg's DVD Explosion in the Tontine Mall in downtown Brunswick.

It's three weeks into school and things are finally getting underway. We all have our favorite seats in our classes, we know where we're eating dinner and when, and we're getting into the swing of the social aspect of Bowdoin. Before we get too far into our routines, however, I'd like to take a minute to address an idea that seems to permeate college culture. This is the idea that sex and sexual encounters don't mean anything more than the comical stories into which they are distilled the next day during brunch. Along with this, the idea that the mature people in our age group are all relating to sex in the same way. Sure, drunk and/or casual sex is something that happens at Bowdoin, but not everyone's doing it, and regardless of how casual it is, that certainly doesn't have to make it meaningless.

Ties do not usually reflect the forefront of style. In fact, they are linked to a formal sensibility that allows them only to be worn with a suit jacket, to an interview, or a handful of other times per year. They're associated with the anxiety of formal events, made worse by the presence of a rope-like object located suffocatingly close to the neck.

Local pianist Martin Perry will take the Studzinski stage this weekend to perform a concert of monumental works by composers native to New England?Charles Ives' "Concord Sonata," and Frederic Rzewski's "De Profundis." They are both inspired by 19th century literary figures and are also, despite originating in different eras, profoundly modern pieces of music. Bowdoin students and faculty may recognize Martin Perry as the founder of the gourmet Henry and Marty Restaurant on Maine Street in Brunswick. However, he is foremost an active and accomplished professional pianist. His concerts in Boston, New York, and Maine focus on 20th-century composers. He recently performed Bernstein's "Age of Anxiety" with the Portland Symphony Orchestra.

"Parterre," an exhibit by artist Lauren Fensterstock that raises the question of how man fits in with?and attempts to control?nature, opens today at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. The museum invited Fensterstock to browse through its archived works last summer in hopes that she would respond creatively to them. When Fensterstock came to the museum in August 2007, she knew that she was most interested in works of art depicting nature but wanted to be open to what she found.

Although a liberal arts education often lends a cold shoulder to the specialized world of architecture and urban planning, San Francisco-based architect Liz Ogbu will remind the Bowdoin and Brunswick communities of the socially, environmentally, and functionally significant role architecture plays in today's world on Monday. Ogbu provides a pertinent voice: ten years after her own liberal arts education at Wellesley College, Ogbu has channeled her talent and ambition into revolutionizing the role of architecture and its relationship to the community.

Ah, the delight of an extra-marital affair. Authors can't get enough of them and, it seems, neither can husbands or wives. Isabel Fonseca's novel "Attachment" is a recent addition to this duplicitous canon. Jean Hubbard, the American wife of an Englishman named Mark, stumbles upon a missive from his delicious and descriptive mistress, Giovana. Correctly guessing the password to his naughtyboy1 account, Jean exchanges spicy emails with her adversary. The trajectory of Jean's erotic education follows a steep incline, seemingly in tandem with her husband's physical experiences.

What do Fort Andross and the vacant mills of eastern Europe have in common? Cotton Estes '07 spent the past year finding out. After receiving a Watson fellowship at the end of her senior year at Bowdoin, Estes traveled to eight eastern European countries to find deserted factories and mills that were in the process of or had been converted for artistic and communal purposes.

Women's volleyball began the week with two wins and two losses at the MIT Invitational this weekend, but closed with a tight victory over Colby on Wednesday. The Colby match was held at Farley, marking Bowdoin's first home NESCAC match of the 2008 season. Going into the match, first year Gina Lonati expected a win.

Taking on intra-state rival University of Maine-Farmington, the women's rugby team made a defiant statement, winning the game by a resounding score of 79-0. "The game was a scoring fest with a lot of attacking opportunities," Head Coach MaryBeth Mathews said. "Their victory was a team effort; nine different players scored tries throughout the game, which shows the strength of the team as a whole."

Battling two NESCAC opponents this week, the women's soccer team displayed definitive style defeating Bates 2-0 on Wednesday, as well as in the 3-3 tie with Amherst earlier in the week. Wednesday brought clouds and a slight rain to Pickard field but did not damper the Lady Polar Bears as they handed the Bobcats their fourth consecutive loss.

Tennis team co-captain Alex White '09 and teammate Stephen Sullivan '11 reached the doubles final of the ITA New England Championships at Williams last weekend. The duo overpowered teams from Bates, UMass-Boston, Middlebury, and Trinity before falling to top-seeded Ben Stein and Amrit Rupasinghe of Bates, 8-5. One of the pair's most notable wins of the tournament came in the semifinals against second-seeded Trinity doubles team Gautam Samarth and David Yahng.

The women's tennis team showed off its skills recently, playing well at the ITA New England Championships, hosted by MIT last weekend. Co-captain Sarah D'Elia '09 and teammate Brett Davis '10 dominated the doubles bracket, advancing to the semifinals of the tournament.

Despite a fifth place finish in the NESCAC Tournament, which barely pushed the Bowdoin College Men's Golf Team out of qualification for the NESCAC Championships, senior captain Jeff Cutter and Ryan Blossom '10 both earned All-NESCAC recognition.

Accompanied by Bowdoin women's hockey coach Stacy Wilson will be selecting more than just Bowdoin's squad this year. From September 17-21, 41 of the top female hockey players in Canada met in Calgary for the first round of the selection process for the national team accompanied by Wilson. At the selection camp, Wilson coached one of two teams alongside one of the Team Canada coaches.