The Bowdoin Orient
Volume CXLI, Number 14
February 3, 2012
OPINION
Facing off
The students behind Mass Deactivation presented a challenge to the Bowdoin community this week, urging students to deactivate their Facebook accounts for exactly one month starting on February 8. The premise of the experiment is to re-experience what life would be like without the social network, and creators Tyler Patton '12 and Ruiqi Tang '13 think that Bowdoin—as close-knit as it is tech-saturated—is the perfect environment in which to do so. And they're right.
Half-Assed: Republicans and the ‘Bowdoin Hello’ face distortions of original meanings
By JUDAH ISSEROFF, COLUMNISTThere were two major developments over this winter break. Both the Republican Party and the "Bowdoin Hello" were put on notice. Now, as a dedicated Bowdoin student and an avid politics junkie, the prospective retirement of these two institutional staples has me scrambling to figure out what happened.
Hockey games should not resemble carnivals
By BILL WILSON, CONTRIBUTORI attended a Bowdoin men's hockey game last December with an old friend whose son is a Bowdoin student. Great hockey, great arena. But the deafening musical assault—which relentlessly attacks and overwhelms the ear of every attendee during every single possible break in the action (even for 20 seconds, while the players quickly "set up" for a face-off)—is extraordinary. But not just extraordinary, disorienting. We almost always had to yell at each other if we wanted to speak—and we were sitting right next to each other.
Southpaw: Closing the distance between readers, the media and the legal system
By CAITLIN HURWIT, COLUMNISTWhen the entertainments of a long break run dry—"Hugo" seen (in 3-D), cookies baked (and eaten)—what is a liberal young woman to do to occupy herself for the rest of a five-week break? Download NPR podcasts, obviously, and catch up on back issues of The New Yorker.
Learning from Abbey’s environmentalism
By PETER NAUFFTS, CONTRIBUTORFor better or worse, modern-day environmentalism has become an increasingly global movement. There is plenty of logic behind this transition: greenhouse gas emissions from a coal-powered plant in China or South Africa do not just impact local populations, but on people around the world. Population growth in Nigeria or India will increase demand for food commodities and valuable resources worldwide.
