Tag: Comedy

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College Changes Mascot to “Bi-Polar Bears” for Mental Health Awareness Month

BY: PATRICK LYNOTT Oct. 27, 2020

In a characteristically suave announcement on Friday, Clayton Rose, President of Bowdoin College and an intensely passionate botanist, declared that for the duration of National Mental Health Week, the college would be amending its mascot to the “Bi-Polar Bears.” The decision comes as a response to renewed calls to update the oft bemoaned Counseling Services at the school. “I have decided to take substantial action in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month,” said Rose in the Friday statement, evidently filmed in front of the fireplace at Xanadu. “And effective immediately, I will be changing our mascot to the Bi-Polar Bears. Get it? Because Polar B- and – er. You had to be there, I guess. But I will also be cutting the Counseling budget by another 15%, so there’s that.”

The announcement was met with mostly humdrum murmurings and banal platitudes among the student body. As Arjun Mehta (‘21), a senior majoring in Sourdough Bread and Superfluous Geography, put it: “I would expect such a savvy PR move from the likes of Bates College located in Lewiston and Waterville’s own Colby College, but not from Bowdoin, which can be found in Brunswick, Maine.” 

This does not mark Bowdoin’s first mascot change. The school’s original mascot was the “Whispering Pines,” which was changed to the now defunct “Polar Bears” in 1913. And in 1994, swept up in “Mel-mania,” the college changed the mascot to the “Mavericks” in honor of the Mel Gibson film of the same name. The college of course reverted back to the “Polar Bears” upon revelations of Gibson’s views about semetic people. The Bowdoin administration swore off another impulsive mascot change, until the present one by Rose. “I just couldn’t help myself,” Rose told Harpoon reporters. “The pun was begging to be used. Plus, I needed pretense to announce those budget cuts to the Counseling Services. I think I got out in front of the narrative.” 

The new moniker will be a muzzled and straightjacketed version of the current Polar Bear with a little dialogue bubble that reads “Please help mnfomonfouBDN=jbifdonsqowphcibz.”

All, Bowdoin

Alcohol-Related Transports at Record Low; Peer Health Cites New Online Newsletter As Primary Cause

BY: WILL HAUSMANN Oct. 27, 2020

After six full weekends on campus, there has been a shockingly small number of transports to Mid Coast Hospital due to the over-imbibing of alcohol. Only four students have found themselves taking an unplanned ambulance ride, according to data the Harpoon obtained from the Office of Safety and Security. This represents a 71% decline in transports, compared to an average of 13.7 transports through six weekends in previous years.

Members of Peer Health are suggesting the decline can be attributed to their decision to introduce a virtual newsletter each week, starting in late March of last academic year. “We decided that Peer Health needed a messaging change, so we chose an email newsletter instead of posters because it’s a digital age and stuff,” Darren Shepherd ‘21 told the Harpoon. “After realizing the screenagers of today spend all of their time on the toilet staring at their phones instead of the Stall Street Journal, we realized we needed to go virtual to be successful.”

Susan Seuss ‘21 , a Biology major, aspiring research MD, and co-leader of Peer Health, said she is investigating this effect for her honors project this year. “I conducted a double-blind, peer-reviewed experiment comparing the transport rates of students who identify as ‘Active’ vs ‘Inactive’ readers of Peer Health content,” Seuss said. She went on to say that her data “absolutely guarantees” that the newsletter is preventing transports.

When asked whether COVID and social distancing guidelines could be attributed to the lower number of transports, Seuss and Shepherd said there was “weak causality at best.”

Still, not all students are ready to accept Peer Health’s explanation. According to Orson Digby Palmer V, self-described “beer maven” and third generation member of the lacrosse team, the sole reason for the decline is “this year’s crop of first years are simply not as cool as that of previous years,” and they lack the “100 kegs or bust” mentality exemplified by our newest Supreme Court justice,

All, Op-Ed

OPINION: How I Seized the Chambo Lobby’s Condoms To Display My Supreme Coolness

BY: JACOB TRACHTENBERG Oct. 27, 2020

I am a really cool guy. If you ken me (that’s a traditional Scottish word for “know”), you are certainly aware that I am an attractive, strong, significant, intelligent human being who can ingest exactly twenty-one alcoholic beverages in one nighttime session. (And afterward, I can still recite every Hamlet soliloquy from memory.) But I have encountered a simple yet deceivingly complex conundrum (ah yes, the pleasure of an intentional contradiction)–most of you inferiors are not yet acquainted with me (and you shall regret that).

This year, I have been unable to converse with all my buddies from ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades–my many, many close friends who all do, in fact, exist, such as Jimmy, Johnny, Jerry, Joey, Janie, Jenny, Jackie, and my best friend of all, Rick. I shall provide evidence of their quiddity (oh, what a sumptuous term!). I shall first provide Jenny’s phone number: 867-5309. And now, a video of Rick singing one of his delightful little tunes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ. 

Although relinquishing time with J, J, J, J, J, J, J, and R was arduous, I shall now form new social attachments at Boing Doing. (That was a joke, by the way!) While adhering to social distancing guidelines, I concocted a scheme to demonstrate my utter coolness to my peers, without the help of my dastardly roommates. (My roommates refuse to acknowledge my quiddity [oh, what a voluptuous piece of vocabulary!], perhaps out of envy, but I shall disclose that tale during another 24-hour solar period!)

I shall now discuss my brilliant plot. It revolves around the free condoms in the lobby of Chambo, for one must take advantage of what one is given without cost. I often opine that power rests in the hands of those who hold condoms. I had to ensure all recognized the gargantuan number of condoms I possessed and certainly intended to employ during that night’s witching hour.

Enough chitter-chatter: shall we bask in my swagger? From here, I shall describe my six-point plan in enthralling narrative format. Prepare thyself.

Step 1: I stumbled upon a gathering–a legal one with mask-wearing collegiate citizens. Rule breaking is naughty, but not as naughty as I was about to (pretend to) be! They were socializing in the Chamberlain Hall lobby viewing the television (oh, the immaturity!)–next to the box of complimentary phallic protectors. Perfect!

Step 2: I strode to the condom box, guaranteeing my footsteps were as loud as possible. As I arrived at the box, I confidently yodeled (exact words: “YODELEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEH!”) to attract the attention of my classmates. They stared at me, in awe of my confidence and might.

Step 3: It was time to pop the question: “Which one of these condoms is largest?” A muscular first-year answered, “they’re all the same, headass!” But this was part of the plot from the outset! You see, now they know about my (ten sentences redacted for ‘flowery’ language).

Step 4: I grabbed each and every condom and stuffed them all in my wintry jacket. Oh, the pleasure of the condom! A round of applause erupted, and the plebeians chanted my name–oh, how fickle the masses are! The approval I desperately craved had been achieved, if only for a temporary amount of time; I was finally hip, as the masses say.

Step 5: I located a second gathering in my floor’s common room and “accidentally” spilled my jacket-full of condoms on the vodka-stained carpet. “Bravo!” exclaimed my proctor. “You are definitely going to have sex tonight, perhaps even seventeen times!” But my proctor counted the condoms incorrectly–there were in fact nineteen condoms on the ground. I was to possess nineteen sexes that night, in fact! Ah, how sophisticated–and sexual–I am!

Step 6: I returned to my room and immediately discarded the condoms, because no true patrician needs those anyway. Alright, I admit I played finger-puppets with them for a while, but quickly after, I buried them in the trash can as I ritualistically chanted Kant’s treatises on the immorality of sex. For no perspicacious human would base one’s sexual philosophy on infantile and lewd pieces of ‘cinema’ such as “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” or “Animal House” rather than Kant. One day, I shall find a partner who despises sex as much as I; on that day, I shall perhaps be open to….

Anyway, the deed is done. My reputation has skyrocketed–every time I encounter someone who attended that gathering, they laugh, as if enthused by my mere quiddity (if you have not looked up that word, you do not deserve life)! Thus begins my social dominion over the college.

Now, all grasp my coolness–except the guys who actually needed condoms that night.

All, Op-Ed

College Releases Plans to Protect its Most Vulnerable: White Athletes

BY: SHARIF ABOULEISH Oct. 1, 2020

Two weeks ago, after several athletes were found sharing a blunt outside Farley Field house, the administration has decided to act. “This tragedy simply cannot be repeated,” spoke Dean Quinby to a Harpoon reporter, “I mean, how could our athletes be so poor as to not afford separate fatties”? In consultation with President Rose, Quinby has decided to implement a series of sweeping reforms. We have graciously summarized them for you below, which you may peruse at your leisure:

  1. The SWAG center will be converted into a safe space for white athletes. “They have suffered”, spoke Quinby, “can you imagine what it must be like—to have smoked marijuana and shared the same blunt? We must—”. As if of the same mind, Rose completed the sentence, “—care for them, as they so clearly care about us.” When asked whether ‘us’ referred to the administration or other students, Rose seemed confused that other students existed.
  1. The J-Board will introduce a new criterion to Covid-19 related hearings—the timed 1 mile. “We feel as if certain members of our community are more likely, due to socio-economic conditions, to violate Covid-19 regulations. In order to preserve collegial equity, we will be allowing students to share their track speeds with us during trials.” It seems, at long last, the administration is finally listening to the overwhelming chorus demanding fairness at Bowdoin.
  1. A statement will be released Friday warning that students who violate the on-campus community contract without wearing standard issue LL-Bean boots will be punished. 
  1. Different cohorts of students incur different expenses—a gender studies major endures hundreds of thousands in debt, another student might have to support their family, or an athlete might need to buy items (specifically, bagels for the lacrosse team). As a result, the college will be creating a “White Athlete Fund”—sponsored by Bank of America—in order to prevent fatty sharing. “No student should have to limit their experience at Bowdoin because of monetary restrictions” wrote President Rose in an email which began with his usual sweeping and unnecessary prologue.

For more information regarding the policy framework the college used to craft these reforms, please see:

https://ballotpedia.org/The_Republican_Party_Platform,_2020

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_North_Carolina_academic-athletic_scandal

Op-Ed

Why I’m Not Hypocritical for Lying

BY: The Head Handmaid for People of Praise Herself, AMY CONEY BARRETT & AINE LAWLOR Sep. 27th. 2020

Everyone keeps saying I am being hypocritical—and by everyone, I mean all those liberals on social media—and I just thought it was time I cleared the record to prove I am not hypocritical, just a self-interested liar. There are two main issues I need to address: my pro-life stance and my desire to fill the supreme court right now. I don’t care about any other issues because if I looked beyond my church-induced fear of abortion into any other pressing political topics (the pandemic, the economy, healthcare, racial equality, the state of our democracy, etc.) then I would be forced to reckon with the blatant fact that Trump sucks, and the only reason I vote is to prevent other women from having reproductive rights. I only do this because my preacher says abortion is a sin, and I never recieved enough education to actually read and interpret the bible on my own (It’s a good thing women don’t need to be literate, especially when you have your own scribe. Don’t look me in the eyes, Marcella, we’ve discussed this.). It’s not like I’ll discover that biblical texts couldn’t give a shit about abortion (or my suppressed attraction to other women for that matter. Marcella, you didn’t hear that.).  

But anyway, back to the point, some people are suggesting that my support for the forced sterilization of women in ICE detention centers contradicts my fierce pro-life stance, which is just not sensible. They fail to acknowledge the key fact that my discriminatory views are precisely that — discriminatory — and that obviously my stances against birth control, abortion, and family planning only apply when I want them to and I don’t want them to right now! I need to reconcile my racist prejudices with my sexist ones and thus no hypocrisy here, just unashamed bigotry (No, you can’t go to the bathroom, Marcella. I don’t care if it’s been 3 days.)

Secondly, and I don’t even know why I have to explain myself here, it is not hypocritical of me to want to confirm a new Supreme Court justice before the election even though I adamantly claimed in 2016 that this exact situation was immoral and undemocratic. And the reason that this is not hypocritical is that, once again, I have different standards for everyone and morals don’t apply to me (Obviously, otherwise I would go to hell for the abortion I had when I was 17 after I seduced Father Whyte with my womanly charm. Oh, don’t give me that look, Marcella, as if your loins could ever entice a man of his stature.). And for the record, I was crossing my fingers (to ward off the devil that is Nancy Pelosi and her demonic curves), so I didn’t actually make any promises.

The most important part of my defense against accusations of hypocrisy is the pure fact that I am consistently and relentlessly acting in my own interests, and I have never done otherwise, which is a form of consistency in and of itself. My words may be hypocritical at times, but my actions are always, always predictable—I have never showed an ounce of altruism, selflessness, or care for people other than my own. Hypocrisy is like socially-liberal, fiscally-conservative people who say and act contradictorily every time they discuss politics. Or like Susan Collins who tries to fool liberals into thinking she has not been whipped by Mitch McConnell and her preacher in the same go (Of course, Susan Collins is a woman of rapturous eroticism. If only she and I could- Marcella! Have you been writing these asides in the article? Fine. But I’ll be checking later. (She can’t read, so I’ll be good – Marcella.)) But that is not me, my words mean nothing, and they never have, Like those Bowdoin guys who have the Healthy Masculinity Club in their bio and then interrupt women in every conversation. My actions speak louder than the biblical verses on my doormat, and my vote for Trump this November will never be about anything other than my steadfast belief that no other women should ever have any rights that are denied to me because my husband is a controlling asshole, and my life revolves around reinforcing the patriarchy. Now if we could all join hands, I’d like to lead us all in a prayer for the souls lost in abortion clinics, and absolutely not for any of the souls lost to “COVID.” Amen.