Good news for those of you who enjoy breathing clean, fresh air: The Boston Globe is reporting today that city health officials have approved a ban on the sale of cigarettes at Boston pharmacies and on college campuses. College kids are pretty smart, so they’ll find some way of getting their smokes onto campus, but it’s still nice to know that it won’t be as easy.

The restriction, which will start in early 2009, also includes a ban on smoking on the outdoor patios of bars and restaurants, on loading docks, and in all hotels, inns, and bed and breakfasts.

If only they would restrict smoking on campus completely! That way, non-smokers won’t have to slog their way through clouds of smoke on the way to class. But banning the sale of cigarettes on campus is certainly a step in the right direction.

Have you ever heard of the terms “contract gym” or “contract PE”? Maybe your school calls it something different, so bear with me for a moment. The gist is that instead of getting sweaty during the school day, you sign an agreement that you will go to your local gym, YMCA, JCC, etc. at least two times a week for an hour to work out on your own time.

In my humble opinion, this is the most brilliant idea ever.

With all due respect to my own high school gym teacher, a very cool lady who actually lived around the corner from me when I was growing up, I would have much preferred this method of staying fit. I would have gladly ditched kickball and floor hockey to head to the gym and take a class in kickboxing, Spin, yoga, etc. Not only would I truly feel that I burned some calories, but it would also establish a lifelong habit of regular exercise, not to mention going to my college fitness center on a regular basis.

That’s where the brilliant part comes in. Instead of encouraging the idea that gym is only for the athletically inclined, contract gym allows non-athletes to find a physical activity that they enjoy enough to do on a regular basis. If you haven’t already heard, many Americans are obese. This is an awesome way to counterattack that trend, not to mention avoiding the Freshman 15 that Joe Campus wrote so eloquently about last week.

Your thoughts?

When students return to school in the midst of an election year, they can expect that their politically-minded classmates will be fired up about the presidential campaigns of Senators McCain and Obama.

Some campuses, however, fan the flames of the political firestorm regardless of whether or not it’s time for a major vote.

The Princeton Review ranks the most politically active campuses in its 2009 Best 368 Colleges. If you prefer CNN to ESPN and political cartoons to comic books, then you might feel quite welcome at one of these top ten schools from this year’s ranking:

1.  American University—Washington, DC
2.  George Washington University—Washington, DC
3.  Princeton University—Princeton, NJ
4.  New College of Florida—Sarasota, FL
5.  West Point—West Point, NY
6.  Warren Wilson College—Asheville, NC
7.  Harvard University—Cambridge, MA
8.  George Mason University—Fairfax, VA
9.  Simon’s Rock College of Bard—Great Barrington, MA
10.  Georgetown University—Washington, DC