The Bowdoin Orient

A fire at 45 Maine Street on Sunday caused significant damage to the three-story commercial and residential building. The damage was deemed to be too significant to repair and led authorities to raze the building to the ground. The official cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Since the birth of the "I Am Bowdoin" effort six weeks ago, student leader Nylea Bivins '12 says the campus is in "a place that I've never seen it in before." Following the Sunday night community meeting on March 6 and the "I Am Bowdoin" rally on March 10—both in response to the March 1 Coles Tower bias incident—students and the administration have aggressively worked to raise awareness about issues of bias.

After polls closed for the Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) elections last Sunday, the results were almost immediately sent to students via email. Derek Brooks '12 will serve as BSG president for the 2011-2012 academic year. Brian Kim '13 was elected treasurer, Dani Chediak '13 won the race for vice president of student organizations, and Chase Taylor '12 was successful in his bid to become vice president of facilities.

The scathing critique of President Barry Mills and the College's perceived lack of intellectual diversity, which appeared in the latest issue of the conservative Claremont Review of Books, triggered several responses from members of the College's faculty this week.

Liberal arts students in colleges like Middlebury, Williams, Amherst and Bowdoin are accustomed to answering the question, "What are you doing with your life after graduation?" As students are often forced to choose a career path more focused than their college studies, many decide to continue their education in graduate school.

While many Bowdoin seniors are searching for jobs or preparing for graduate school, Josh Magno '11 is packing his suitcase. Magno was awarded a prestigious Watson Fellowship and will spend the next year traveling the world, spending time in at least five different countries completing his project "5, 6, 7, 8, Instep, Outreach: An Exploration of Dance as Community Service."

On Wednesday, Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) met to discuss the first year book proposal, as well as a variety of other measures.

Beginning today and continuing through Sunday, Bowdoin's own Northern Bites (NB) will host the 2011 RoboCup U.S. Open for the Standard Platform League in Watson Arena. This is the third consecutive year that the College has hosted the tournament.

Today marks the end of the annual "Consent is Sexy" week, which united students who advocate for racial, sexual, and gender diversity at the College. There have been numerous student panels and awareness events. This week is one of just many events that occur on campus to promote sexual health and discussion at Bowdoin: others include Anything But Straight in Athletics and Out Week. In general, the effects of such initiatives are fairly widespread—they are often topics of conversation in the dining halls and the actual programs are reasonably well attended.

Each year during Ivies, this space is used to remind our campus of the dangers that often accompany our yearly debauchery. And though the meteorological forecast may be wavering between grim and so-so, we can trust that the student body is capable of making choices that will ensure a safe time is had by all, no matter the weather.

This fall will mark my 23rd year of teaching political philosophy and American political thought at Bowdoin. I dearly love this college and want to do everything that I can to see Bowdoin be the best that it can be. But love requires honesty, and Thomas Klingenstein's essay provides us with the opportunity to examine one area where we are notably deficient: intellectual and political diversity.

Last week, Thomas Klingenstein published an article in the Claremont Review of Books discussing President Barry Mills and Bowdoin College. In his article, which was covered in the April 15 edition of the Orient, Klingenstein charges that Bowdoin is "antiseptically" liberal and that President Mills endorses this bias. Though the article is meant to criticize the widespread "liberal tilt" which he sees as plaguing all of higher education, Mr. Klingenstein makes his case through a personal attack on President Mills and Bowdoin College. We found his comments about Bowdoin to be both condescending and factually incorrect.

At the beginning of April, Newsweek magazine ran an exposé on the so-called "secret shame" plaguing the military: in 2010, 50,000 former servicemen tested positive for sexual trauma sustained while in service, up from 30,000 in 2003. In the wake of the repeal of that legal abomination "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," this scandal represents another dimension to the issue of homosexuality in the military: the danger of being openly out while in service comes just as much from the members of one's own unit as it does from commanding officers.

The last few weeks have been filled with papers, midterms, occasional sunny days providing hope for the coming of spring and the anticipation of everyone's favorite week of the year, Ivies. Amid piles of homework, busy extracurricular schedules and time consuming social obligations, what was once one of my favorite days of the year—next to my birthday and Christmas—snuck up on me. This Sunday is Easter. Five years ago, the idea that I would be unaware of when Easter Sunday was less than a week out was unfathomable.

According to a BBC analyst, "All sides are starting to realize the U.S. government cannot keep overspending. For every dollar it spends, 40 cents are now borrowed. If the government was a normal household and was forced to pay normal interest rates, the US would already have declared bankrupt." These words reflect the vast amount of money that the federal government is borrowing to finance continued deficit spending. With the debt at 97.4 percent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP), neither party has offered a serious plan to reduce the debt.

To the Editors: I am responding to Megan Massa's April 15 letter "'I am Bowdoin' event photo lacked diversity" because I feel that it needs to be understood that this commenter is part of the problem. The idea that pictures should be staged and created in order to satisfy everyone in a demographic is absurd. This is a picture of a group of participants, male and female.

To the Editors: Here is a question I have about the entirety of Thomas Klingenstein's essay ("Essay in Claremont Review rips Barry Mills' convocation," April 15), from the he-said-she-said about what happened on the links to the speculative statistics about how many Republicans are on Bowdoin's faculty: Who cares?

To the Editors: The Brunswick Teen Center Program @ People Plus wants to thank Kat Flaherty '11 and the Bowdoin women's basketball, rugby, soccer and volleyball teams for scooping, as well as the a cappella group that performed, at this year's Fool's Eve Fiasco event at The Gelato Fiasco on March 31. We would also like to thank the many Bowdoin faculty, staff and students who came by to enjoy some great gelato and support our program! The Teen Center teens enjoyed a field trip to The Gelato Fiasco once again, each getting a dish of gelato courtesy of the McKeen Center for the Common Good!

While Bowdoin students celebrate Ivies on the football field, alums in San Francisco will be having a party of their own. Nalgenes, Bowdoin logs, and the "spirit of Ivies" will appear on the West Coast this Saturday for the first ever San Francisco Ivies, an event organized by alumni from the Class of 2008. "We're extremely fortunate to have a really huge Bowdoin community out here," said Kate Ambush '08, who helped plan the event. "We were kind of hanging out and we thought, 'Hey, Ivies is coming soon...wouldn't it be great if we could hold the same kind of event here in San Francisco?'"

We all have our days of feeling under slept, under-nourished and simply under the weather. Amid the crankiness, canker sores and chapped lips (note my last column for a few tips on that one), it seems nearly impossible to feel good sometimes. I am a firm believer in the healing powers of delightfully quick ways to look and ultimately feel rejuvenated. The following tips are some practical measures you can take to proactively establish the direction of your day before it even begins.

When I enter a dining hall, I hang my coat on a hanger and leave my bag next to it. I proceed to prepare my meal then find a seat. Am I going out of order? My real question: Is it proper to reserve a seat before you sit down? In episode #415 of Seinfeld, Kramer and Elaine arrive early to a showing of the since-forgotten film, "Checkmate." Kramer asks Elaine to save him a seat, but Elaine protests: "Don't put me through that! I once had the fleece just ripped out of my winter coat in a seat-saving incident." In proper cyclical Seinfeld fashion, Elaine is soon driven to hysterics in a similar seat-saving fiasco.

Though his book won the Society of Africanist Archaeologists Book Prize, Professor of Anthropology Scott MacEachern did not return from the ceremony in Dakar with a gold statuette commemorating the achievement. "I think I got a beer out of it," he said, smiling. But though the prize itself may have been slight, the book's impact is sure to be less modest.

This point in the semester is always the hardest. We have about two weeks until Ivies, and professors are giving work reminiscent of the portions of stuffing your Uncle Sal ate at Thanksgiving. For those of you fortunate enough not to have a Sal across the table, that's a lot. Over the course of the entire academic year, this stretch is one of the toughest we face. I am going to try to answer your stress questions and also take the chance to talk about some mental health questions you all may have.

Dr. Owen Mason brought the prehistoric artic to life in his presentation about prehistoric whaling on the Bering Strait on Tuesday.

After listening to CunninLynguists' newest album, "Oneirology," I was struck by two things: how very similar and yet how very different it was from CunninLynguists' previous work.

Internationally-acclaimed Chicano poet, artist and scholar Tino Villanueva came to campus on Monday to give a reading of his work and speak about poetry's connection to the Chicano experience.

At Bowdoin, where students share roughly similar learning abilities, it can be easy to overlook the challenges facing children with special needs. But for photojournalist Dan Habib, the issue of mainstreaming special needs students into the public education system is not only pertinent—it is personal. His documentary “Including Samuel,” to be screened at Bowdoin today, chronicles his family’s experiences after his son, Samuel, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

One need not travel to the Middle East to learn about diversity in Israel. Tonight's screening of "Shiva" will bring to life the story of a Jewish Morrocan family in mourning.

The men's lacrosse team will play at Williams this Saturday for a spot in this season's NESCAC championship tournament and a chance to take home a NESCAC title.

The women's lacrosse team rolled over Bates on Wednesday evening, notching another impressive win to bring their total tally to 10-2 (5-2 NESCAC). With the victory, the women are now ranked 12th in the nation.

The men's tennis team put up a valiant fight against Middlebury in its match last Saturday. Though ranked behind Middlebury, Bowdoin came within a point of an upset.

In its third meet of the season, the women's track team posted strong individual results at the New Hampshire Invitational last Saturday.

The women's rugby team will travel to the Cumberland Fairgounds this weekend to compete in the Maine Collegiate Rugby Tournament.

The coed sailing squad slugged it out on the high seas at New England Championships last weekend, while the women's team took one last weekend to prepare for its own championship regatta, which takes place on Saturday at Bowdoin.