To commemorate a full year into the painful pandemic, three weeks ago, The [former] Phoenix Editorial Board published a staff editorial entitled “Reflecting on The Phoenix One Year Into the Pandemic.” We reflected on how The Phoenix had changed during that one year and the struggle of running a publication entirely online. Our reflection three weeks ago was both a reaffirmation of our obligation to provide factual information to Swarthmore’s campus community and an expression of grief for everything that the past year has cost us. But in the past three weeks alone, much has changed. The 117th Congress passed the Rescue America Plan Act on March 13, providing a much-needed stimulus to our injured economy. The FDA has approved the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, and certain states have begun expanding vaccine eligibility to get as many shots in arms as possible. Spring has emerged from a dark and snowy winter, freeing us from the ennui of staying indoors all day. Though rough waters continue to await us, the end is in sight.
As much as we refer to “going back to normal,” either in embracing the return to normal or remaining skeptical to it, the “normal” we return to will not be the normal we left. No one in The Phoenix’s 140-year history on Swarthmore’s campus has had to make, or even think about, making the adjustments that we did. It’s unclear what the future holds for The Phoenix in the same way that it is unclear what the future may hold for the world, and as a symbol the possibilities that may emerge, we are proud to announce that we are rising from the ashes of The Phoenix. We are changing our name to The Bhoenix.
As to why we have chosen The Bhoenix, we firmly believe that The Bhoenix is a name that we will grow into as a publication as we restructure and grow stronger in the coming couple of semesters. It’s a name change that evokes thought and provokes questions, which we as a publication are fully dedicated to answering. In 2018, when IHOP temporarily changed its name to IHOb as an elaborate marketing campaign, the change instantly became talked-about because it was a bold departure from a sense of normalcy that customers had long taken for granted. B is bold, beautiful, brave, and bound for success. For example, B is a visually more robust letter than P; in phonetics, P is unvoiced whereas B is voiced; B is reminiscent of beans, which are nutritious and hearty. Perhaps most importantly, we chose B because anywhere else, it would have been an A.
The Bhoenix may currently seem like a nonsensical and erratic change to an institution that has been involved with the campus community for over a century. We hope, however, that The Bhoenix will attain a greater meaning as we continue to grow as a newspaper and strive to promote and distinguish fact.
– The Bhoenix Editorial Board
Was this supposed to be an April Fool’s joke article? If so, it wasn’t very funny. In fact, it reminded me of a few more B-words: boring, bland, befuddled.