Last Friday, Edward Archbold died after taking part in a cockroach-eating contest in Deerfield Beach, Flor. The prize was a python. Thanks to the CNN website, I know that the very next day the brothers Brandon and Blayne Estes championed the inaugural Bentonville, Ark. squirrel cook-off with their squirrel slider recipe.

CNN clearly thinks this information is valuable enough to the planet to be located on its home page. Now I know that if I ever see either Brandon or Blayne, I should ask enthusiastically for a taste of their prize-winning delicacy. I also know...not to eat cockroaches? Thanks CNN for that excellent reporting!

While this kind of news may be somewhat interesting or even useful when the event is read in a local newspaper, it has absolutely no relevance to a college student in Maine.

With useless news comes useful news. The Internet has an enormous database that most of us use every single day. When I study in the library it’s not because I seek specific books that would provide me with certain information, it is to have a studious environment where I can use a computer that would give me more information    that can be stored in a library. Everything from amateur diagnosis, to class research, to communication with distant friends can be conducted via the Internet because it shrinks the distance between people and information.

But when did this obliteration of space occur? It happened on May 24, 1844, when Samuel F. B. Morse dispatched the first telegraphic messagefrom Washington D.C. to Baltimore. Soon after, a massive telegraph grid was constructed across the United States.

In 1854 Henry David Thoreau wrote in “Walden”, “We are in a great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through the broad flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.”

It’s curious that more than a century and a half ago, Thoreau warned of news such as that of Edward Archbold and the Estes brothers—our modern equivalent to Princess Adelaide’s whooping cough. With distance rendered meaningless, much of the news we read everyday has no practical influence upon any of our day-to-day lives.

News is global. We read on the Internet about events that occur thousands of miles away because for some of us there is the chance that our lives will eventually be intertwined with it.

This is why all students should admire an anomaly such as The Bowdoin Orient. Despite the fact that the newspaper business is slowly dying, suffocating under the elasticity of the Internet, the Orient continues to endure and prosper. Like all other adapting newspapers, the Orient also has an online edition. However in this case, the web edition pales in comparison to holding the latest Orient on Friday afternoon on the way into Thorne or Moulton.

The Orient contains information pertinent to the entire Bowdoin community. The news headlines, the sports, the opinions—this is news that has a bearing on our daily lives in Brunswick more than anything Richard Quest could possibly spout.

So I say, congratulations, to the Orient and to all the students who have contributed to it, for maintaining the longest continuously published college weekly in the United States. To all Bowdoin students swamped in an ocean of irrelevant—and sometimes meaningless—knowledge, here is a news service that will not insist on your awareness of Bentonville’s squirrel cook-off or Edward Archbold’s tragic but bizarre death-by-cockroach.

Last Friday, Edward Archbold died after taking part in a cockroach-eating contest in Deerfield Beach, Flor. The prize was a python. Thanks to the CNN website, I know that the very next day the brothers Brandon and Blayne Estes championed the inaugural Bentonville, Ark. squirrel cook-off with their squirrel slider recipe.
CNN clearly thinks this information is valuable enough to the planet to be located on its home page. Now I know that if I ever see either Brandon or Blayne, I should ask enthusiastically for a taste of their prize-winning delicacy. I also know...not to eat cockroaches? Thanks CNN for that excellent reporting!
While this kind of news may be somewhat interesting or even useful when the event is read in a local newspaper, it has absolutely no relevance to a college student in Maine.
With useless news comes useful news. The Internet has an enormous database that most of us use every single day. When I study in the library it’s not because I seek specific books that would provide me with certain information, it is to have a studious environment where I can use a computer that would give me more information    that can be stored in a library. Everything from amateur diagnosis, to class research, to communication with distant friends can be conducted via the Internet because it shrinks the distance between people and information.
But when did this obliteration of space occur? It happened on May 24, 1844, when Samuel F. B. Morse dispatched the first telegraphic messagefrom Washington D.C. to Baltimore. Soon after, a massive telegraph grid was constructed across the United States.
In 1854 Henry David Thoreau wrote in “Walden”, “We are in a great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through the broad flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.”
    It’s curious that more than a century and a half ago, Thoreau warned of news such as that of Edward Archbold and the Estes brothers—our modern equivalent to Princess Adelaide’s whooping cough. With distance rendered meaningless, much of the news we read everyday has no practical influence upon any of our day-to-day lives.
News is global. We read on the Internet about events that occur thousands of miles away because for some of us there is the chance that our lives will eventually be intertwined with it.
This is why all students should admire an anomaly such as the Bowdoin Orient. Despite the fact that the newspaper business is slowly dying, suffocating under the elasticity of the Internet, the Orient continues to endure and prosper. Like all other adapting newspapers, the Orient also has an online edition. However in this case, the web edition pales in comparison to holding the latest Orient on Friday afternoon on the way into Thorne or Moulton.
The Orient contains information pertinent to the entire Bowdoin community. The news headlines, the sports, the opinions—this is news that has a bearing on our daily lives in Brunswick more than anything Richard Quest could possibly spout.
So I say, congratulations, to the Orient and to all the students who have contributed to it, for maintaining the longest continuously published college weekly in the United States. To all Bowdoin students swamped in an ocean of irrelevant—and sometimes meaningless—knowledge, here is a news service that will not insist on your awareness of Bentonville’s squirrel cook-off or Edward Archbold’s tragic but bizarre death-by-cockroach.Last Friday, Edward Archbold died after taking part in a cockroach-eating contest in Deerfield Beach, Flor. The prize was a python. Thanks to the CNN website, I know that the very next day the brothers Brandon and Blayne Estes championed the inaugural Bentonville, Ark. squirrel cook-off with their squirrel slider recipe.
CNN clearly thinks this information is valuable enough to the planet to be located on its home page. Now I know that if I ever see either Brandon or Blayne, I should ask enthusiastically for a taste of their prize-winning delicacy. I also know...not to eat cockroaches? Thanks CNN for that excellent reporting!
While this kind of news may be somewhat interesting or even useful when the event is read in a local newspaper, it has absolutely no relevance to a college student in Maine.
With useless news comes useful news. The Internet has an enormous database that most of us use every single day. When I study in the library it’s not because I seek specific books that would provide me with certain information, it is to have a studious environment where I can use a computer that would give me more information    that can be stored in a library. Everything from amateur diagnosis, to class research, to communication with distant friends can be conducted via the Internet because it shrinks the distance between people and information.
But when did this obliteration of space occur? It happened on May 24, 1844, when Samuel F. B. Morse dispatched the first telegraphic messagefrom Washington D.C. to Baltimore. Soon after, a massive telegraph grid was constructed across the United States.
In 1854 Henry David Thoreau wrote in “Walden”, “We are in a great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through the broad flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.”
    It’s curious that more than a century and a half ago, Thoreau warned of news such as that of Edward Archbold and the Estes brothers—our modern equivalent to Princess Adelaide’s whooping cough. With distance rendered meaningless, much of the news we read everyday has no practical influence upon any of our day-to-day lives.
News is global. We read on the Internet about events that occur thousands of miles away because for some of us there is the chance that our lives will eventually be intertwined with it.
This is why all students should admire an anomaly such as the Bowdoin Orient. Despite the fact that the newspaper business is slowly dying, suffocating under the elasticity of the Internet, the Orient continues to endure and prosper. Like all other adapting newspapers, the Orient also has an online edition. However in this case, the web edition pales in comparison to holding the latest Orient on Friday afternoon on the way into Thorne or Moulton.
The Orient contains information pertinent to the entire Bowdoin community. The news headlines, the sports, the opinions—this is news that has a bearing on our daily lives in Brunswick more than anything Richard Quest could possibly spout.
So I say, congratulations, to the Orient and to all the students who have contributed to it, for maintaining the longest continuously published college weekly in the United States. To all Bowdoin students swamped in an ocean of irrelevant—and sometimes meaningless—knowledge, here is a news service that will not insist on your awareness of Bentonville’s squirrel cook-off or Edward Archbold’s tragic but bizarre death-by-cockroach.