The Bowdoin Orient

A Coleman Hall resident was transported to Parkview Adventist Medical Center for alcohol poisoning last Friday, prompting a mandatory meeting for all first year students on Saturday evening. The Office of Residential Life has since requested that proctors continue discussing thses issues with their first-year floors and extend their on-duty hours.

The $12,000 grant awarded to the Brunswick Police Department already appears to be having an effect. Early Sunday morning, Akiva Zamcheck '11 received a court summons for underage possession of alcohol by consumption while walking home alone on Page Street.

This semester's photography courses currently held in McLellan may soon have studio space closer to campus. Brunwick Tour & Travel closed its Maine Street location last Friday, opening up the space for Bowdoin use. "The top floor of the building will become a digital media lab," wrote Director of Academic Budget and Operations Ann Ostwald in an e-mail to the Orient. "Our current plans are to use the bottom floor for costume and prop storage for the theater and dance department, given the building's proximity to Memorial Hall."

Each fall as Bowdoin first years flip through their course catalogs, their first academic challenge arises: picking a first year seminar. The first year seminar, a course that every student must take, provides critical reading and writing assignments designed to test and prepare first years for the rigorous workload ahead. Many students wonder, however, why only select academic departments offer these seminars, seemingly limiting student's choices.

When Tom Ryan '12 begins playing his guitar at Jack Magee's Pub and Grill tomorrow night, Haiti Action Week, a week of fundraising for Haiti disaster relief, will officially begin. Haiti Action Week, which starts tomorrow and will end on the February 27, will include 15 fundraising events. The series of events is the product of collaboration between student groups and the Joseph McKeen Center for the Common Good. All the money raised during Haiti Action Week will be given to Partners in Health.

"Is it possible that having a Fox channel could cause irreparable damage to the liberal psyche at Bowdoin?" said Class of 2010 Representative Rutledge Long as the Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) prepared to pass a proposal approving subscription to the Fox Soccer Channel (FSC). The proposal to begin subscribing to FSC, which passed unanimously with the exception of one abstention, was the only measure voted on at this week's BSG meeting. A proposal to replace a stairwell water fountain in Hawthorn-Longfellow Library (H-L Library) with a new hydration station was also discussed.

When the year's housing lottery begins this spring, students will be given the opportunity to live in gender-blind double bedrooms when they return in the fall, allowing male and female students to share a room together. While no formal announcement has been made to the campus community, students involved in the long campaign for gender-neutral housing options were informed yesterday morning of the change.

Last weekend the Board of Trustees, faculty members and a student representative convened at the Babson Executive Center in Wellesley, Mass. to discuss tenure and honorary degree recipients, as well as the current goals and mission of the College.

A week after Marc Seligson '12 was arrested on assault charges and student leaders gathered to discuss solutions for alcohol problems, a 20-year-old sophomore male student was arrested for drunk driving and the Brunswick Police Department received a $12,000 grant to increase enforcement against underage drinking.

A student-led initiative made gender-neutral housing on campus a reality last week, following coordinated talks between students, Residential Life staff, and Bowdoin Student Government. The announcement that the College will allow a gender-blind doubles option in the upcoming housing lottery demonstrates the active potential students have to shape our campus—potential that students should utilize more often.

The Vancouver Winter Olympics opened on a sad note last week when Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili crashed on a practice run and died of his injuries. Despite this tragedy, the track at the Whistler Sliding Centre was quickly reopened, and the luge competition was completed without further incident on Sunday. Hurtling down an ice chute on a fiberglass board at 90 miles an hour is an inherently risky proposition, but it seems to be one that these athletes were willing to undertake. Precautions can be taken and safety measures enforced, but at the end of the day, men will do what men do, despite—or rather, in spite of—danger to life and limb.

College is a place for a lot of things. A place to make friends, a place to expand our horizons, a place to try things you never had the opportunity to try before, and, yes, a place to drink. While it's probably not what our parents are paying thousands of dollars for, drinking has been part of, either directly or indirectly, virtually every college student's experience for as long as alcohol and education have existed simultaneously—in other words, a very long time.

It is frustrating, heart-wrenching, confusing, and saddening all at the same time: Where is the intellectual discussion at Bowdoin? It took me a long time—my first year and a half at Bowdoin, to be exact—to put my finger on it, but the issue has been brought up several times over the past year. With appearances in Student Digest posts, table tents, Bowdoin Student Government, Orient op-eds, this question is far from new.

What did Scott Brown's recent election for the late Edward Kennedy's senate seat in Massachusetts mean? If you're a Democrat, you might argue that Martha Coakley, Scott Brown's opponent, was a poor candidate who didn't take the election seriously and that special elections are notorious for producing odd results due to low levels of turnout.

The public domain is a peculiar thing. The concept itself stems from the idea that some things are not owned by anyone, and therefore belong to everyone for free and fair use. It is this principal that newspapers, for example, use to justify publishing the names of individuals involved in activities pertaining to the "public interest."

In last week's Orient, Steve Robinson argued that the green movement threatens our liberty. We think he's right about that but, unlike him, we think that our liberties should be abridged. New technology, when utilized by industry without regulation, has increased the harm that we do to others. This harm is mostly unintentional and does not derive from a single source, and yet future harms are easily foreseeable.

Last week, the Orient made the decision to print the name of a student arrested on allegations of physically assaulting a nurse who was providing him with care after he had been drinking. Following our decision, students have questioned our motives and scolded us for being irresponsible journalists. Though we are not surprised that emotions are running high, we would like to use this space to explain our ethical practices policy and the journalistic integrity of our decision.

Now in his ninth year leading the College, President Barry Mills remains modest about the growing list of changes, expansions and projects taken on under his supervision. While he said he recognizes the "pretty important role" he's played in imagining and implementing projects, he noted that "the College, in so many ways, isn't about the president."

In the tumultuous hours following Al-Qaeda's terrorist attacks on U.S. cities on September 11, 2001, the College's Disaster Response team was immediately activated, Residential Life identified students with ties to New York, Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh, allowing proctors and RAs to track students down, and administrators and students convened in Morrell Gym, as President Barry Mills spoke, beginning his term as president in the midst of crisis.

This week, we have pulled a selection of actual headlines quotations from articles published in the Orient within the last decade. We have selected miscellaneous stories that might otherwise go undiscovered in the archives. While not as pertinent to the College's history as those selected for the larger section, they still reflect a piece—however small—of the College's past.

"My first break was doing a character named Tommy the Tequila Worm, which basically sounded like a cross between Ren from Ren and Stimpy and Speedy Gonzalez. It was definitely funny, but not anything I took as an indication it could be something I could do on a regular basis," Gabe Kornbluh '08 said. As an avid fan of film and television, Kornbluh, a former film reviewer for the Orient, is now a voice-over artist and associate producer for a production department of a DC-based communications firm, Greer Margolis Mitchell Burns (GMMB). During his years at Bowdoin, Kornbluh said he "tried to take as many Trisha Welsch classes as [he] could, was a proud patron of the Evening Star and Bart And Greg's DVD Explosion and was taken in by the great crew at [Bowdoin Cable Network]."

Between a 1,723-person student body and a smattering of campus wide parties held every weekend, the Bowdoin social scene has its limits for many. Last Saturday, however, these limits were pushed by a queer-friendly party. Held at a College House on campus, the party aimed to welcome LGBTIQ students from across Maine colleges into an alternative environment. "At any NESCAC school, this is going to be the issue," said one female, who was granted anonymity to protect her identity. In a search for a more all-encompassing social scene, a group of LGBTIQ students have made efforts to expand and redefine what is largely heteronormative party culture existing not only at Bowdoin, but also at Bates and Colby. Though there exists a variety of formal campus organizations focused on queer issues, support and community, LGBTIQ students at Bowdoin lament the lack of more informal social opportunities on campus.

The Challenge Valentine's Day is all about indulging ourselves with the food that we love. Whether it's Dorothy's passion for Chinese cuisine or Alicia's obsession with pesto, it's about time we review what really entices our taste buds.

I'm going to start off this piece the same way that the funny old lady who played with dildos did on her famous late night sex show: Let's talk sex. (For those of you who don't know who I'm referring to, it's Sue Johanson, host of the late night sitcom on the Oxygen Channel known as Talk Sex). At college, "talking sex" with people often stimulates a wide range of discussion, especially since we are all not always on the same page in terms of our sexual experiences and desires. In other words, you have people who've had sex, have sex all the time, and haven't had sex at all. And in between are all the people who do have sex, even regularly, but all for slightly different reasons.

Thus far, 2010 has brought with it a bounty of accomplishment, celebration and reward for Professor of Art Mark Wethli. After topping Portland Phoenix's "Portland's Most Influential of 2010" list for his work at Coleman Burke Gallery in Portland, last week Wethli also came away with a New England Award for Painting, receiving both the critics' pick and people's choice.

While Portland is home to a wealth of art, two galleries—curated specifically around educational goals and contemporary issues—should be of particular interest to members of the Bowdoin community.

If you're keeping tabs on what's hot on the campus-band scene at Bowdoin, then it's time to add another band to your list. Bowdoin College's own rap group, Egyptian Gold, has been making music for over a year. While there maybe a lot of buzz regarding this new sub—genre of hip-hop music on college campuses, anyone who knows them will certainly testify that they are a far cry from your average Asher Roth.

Third time's the charm for Charlotte Gainsbourg, the famous French actress who has never been taken seriously in the music world—until now. With her third album, IRM, Gainsbourg had the incredible forethought to partner with Beck as the album's producer. The two have collaborated to create an album that is at once electrifying and docile, fierce and benign, an album that is nothing short of eclectic.

This weekend, the music department presents an opportunity for Bowdoin students to hear some off-campus sounds while staying right on-campus.

This week we honor the Winter Olympics with an international competition of beers. Admittedly, not all Olympic sports are created equal. Curlers, we're looking at you. After Charles Barkley learned your sport was for real he called his grandmother and "told her she could win a gold medal because they have dusting in the Olympics now." Beer drinking is a far more interesting, exciting sport than curling.

In early March, Béla Fleck, one of the most accomplished banjo players in the world, will perform at Bowdoin accompanied by a group of African musicians. According to Bowdoin's Web site, the concert is meant to be a showcase of Fleck's latest project, "Throw Down Your Heart," the result of numerous collaborations with African artists that occurred during Fleck's quest to find the "African origins of the banjo."

TIM SULLIVAN '10 AND BARRETT MOORE '10

"When I watch it on TV, I still find it hard to believe that I was there," said Bowdoin Women's Ice Hockey Coach Stacy Wilson of the Olympics. "It's sort of surreal."

After beating Trinity and Wesleyan on the road last weekend, the men's ice hockey team controls its own destiny heading into its final two games of the regular season.

The women's basketball team finished its regular season with a decisive win over the Connecticut College Camels last Saturday, 81-37. With a regular season record of 19-5, the fifth-seeded Polar Bears will face Tufts in the quarterfinal round of the NESCAC tournament Saturday.

The men's indoor track team will be traveling to Bates on Saturday to compete in the D-III New England Championships. This is the most prestigious meet of the season, with 25 teams in attendance.

Seeking strong individual performances to qualify them for later meets, the Polar Bears competed last weekend at the Boston University Valentine's day meet, a fast meet against Division I competition.

Walk into any room on campus with a television and there is a solid chance that an event from the Olympic Winter Games will be unfolding on the screen. The Games, which began last Friday, have placed a rare media spotlight on the often-overlooked sport of Nordic Skiing. The Nordic ski team will offer a taste of that Olympic excitement this weekend as it heads to the Williams Carnival at Prospect Mountain in Woodford, Vermont.