Volume 111, Issue 10

The Spectator

“The Pulse of the Student Body”

The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

Volume 111 No. 10

February 11, 2021 ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

Troye Sivan: From Perth to Popstar Arts and Entertainment writer Kaeden Ruparel dissects the life career of Troye Sivan, a singer who built an unlikely pop brand from just being himself. see page 20

stuyspec.com SPORTS

President Biden’s Transgender Discrimination Order: What It Means for Women’s Sports Sportswriter Taee Chi contextualizes ongoing disputes over the place of transgender atheletes in sports and breaks down the factors that make it so divisive. see page 28

Teachers Receive COVID-19 Vaccines

ers have to make appointments though New York State or City or private locations, such as hospitals or clinics. Teachers were notified of this process by union representatives. “I got an eAfter first being admin- mail [...] and our union repreistered to frontline medical sentative told us that people workers and people at high were getting appointments risk of contracting CO- early. I immediately got onVID-19, teachers and other line and got an appointessential workers are now ment,” Latin teacher Susan receiving the COVID-19 Brockman said.

Brockman received the vaccine. Several teachers at first dose of the Moderna Stuyvesant have already been vaccine in the second week vaccinated or plan to receive of January.

“It was the least the vaccine.

Currently, the two vac- painful shot I’ve ever gotcines available are the Pfizer ten,” she said. “Moderna is vaccine, authorized for those on a four week interval so 16 years and older, and the the second shot is the boostModerna vaccine, for those er shot and they say to expect 18 years and older. Both vac- a little worse side effects with cines have success rates of the second shot. My arm was approximately 95 percent sore and I had a couple days and require two doses, with of taking some ibuprofen 21 days between each dose and [had] little bits of aches of the Moderna vaccine and and stuff but I’m not afraid 28 days between each dose about the immune response you get from vaccines.” of the Pfizer vaccine.

Math teacher Ashvin JaisTo get vaccinated, teachhankar received his vaccine

By CHRISTINA WANG, ISABELLA JIA, JANNA WANG, MAGGIE SANSONE, NADA HAMEED, and SAKURA YAMANAKA

NEWSBEAT Report cards were distributed on February 3 via email and Talos.

The Stuyvesant Chess Team placed first in the Greater NY Scholastic Chess Championship. Senior and Team Captain Justin Chen placed first as an undefeated player.

Seniors Rae Seong Jeong, Jessica Jiang, Eric Kim, and Michael Nath were semifinalists for the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship.

There is no school from Monday, February 15 through Friday, February 19 because of Midwinter Recess.

on the internet of sites and going back and forth checking at different times of day to find a location that had an available appointment,” Ingram said in an e-mail interview. She later received the vaccine on January 25 at a location that accommodated allergies.

Upon getting vaccinated, some teachers felt that they could have received the vaccine at a later time. “I’m a little bit older but I’m able to work from home and I feel like I’m not in as much danger as some people. I have a sister who is only one year younger than me and she can’t get the vaccine yet because she’s not a teacher, so I feel a little guilty. But on the other hand, I’m very happy,” Brockman said.

With more vaccinated teachers, many students hope that schools will reopen soon. “It’s great that teachers are able to get the COVID continued on page 4

College Board Discontinues SAT Subject Tests and Optional SAT Essay

By MAHIR HOSSSAIN, KAI CAOTHIEN, FAHIMA MIAJEE, MADISON KIM, and JAMES KANG The College Board announced on January 19 that SAT subject tests and the optional SAT essay will no longer be administered to students. These removals f o l l o w the C O VID-19 pandemic, which made it difficult for the College Board to a d minister i n pers o n standardized exams.

Many were unsurprised by the change as many colleges have started becoming test-

optional amid the pandemic.

The SAT subject tests are college admissions exams that assess a student’s knowledge in one of the 20 subject areas offered while the optional SAT essay is a 50-minute-long timed

build their argument.

Director of College Counseling Jeffrey Makris noted that since these exams have b e e n

essay requiring students to read a passage and analyze the techniques the author used to

optional and were becoming insignificant to the college application process as

Shirley Tan / The Spectator

There is no school on Friday, February 12 in observance of Lunar New Year.

at a local high school facility believer in science and public and found his experience to health,” he said. be safe and efficient. “I waitDirector of Family Ened in line for no more gagement Dina Ingram enthan five mincountered difficulutes and it ties in receiving o n l y the vaccine as took her initial loa few cation minr e utes fused t o to adve r i f y m i n i smy apter to pointpeople ment,” he with allersaid. gies that Jaisaffected hankar breathing. signed Due to up for a her tree vaccinanut altion bel e r g y, cause he along with believes that appointthe vaccine is ment canbeneficial to cellations public health and recaused by ducing the spread of a low supply of COVID-19. “I had doses, Ingram made the decision to Annie Lam / The Spectator was unable to reget the vaccine once it was ceive the vaccine at that locaavailable because I’m a big tion. “It took some juggling

more colleges stopped requiring them, they would eventually phase out. “The exams were canceled and no longer offered because they had already lost their place in the process. They weren’t worth [the] College Board keeping them alive, investing all their money in, marketing them, and administering them all that when colleges [...] didn’t really need them anymore,” Makris said.

“The big thing to remember is that if these exams were still a significant factor, they would never have cancelled them, so the colleges aren’t looking for a replacement for these factors because they’ve already moved past them.”

Many students supported the removal of the SAT essay. “I’ve taken the essay, but I think that it makes sense for the essay to just be scrapped altogether. Especially seeing as it’s already optional continued on page 4

Page 2

The Spectator • February 11, 2021

News Student Union Mid-Year Check-In

By MAHIR HOSSAIN, ISABELLA JIA, MOZEN KALEFA, JENNY LIU, MAGGIE SANSONE, RUIWEN (RAVEN) TANG, JANNA WANG, SAKURA YAMANAKA, and EUGENE YOO

Student Union “We have created an interface now that’s really easy for students to use, so they can learn about different clubs and access meetings and events online [...] so they can commu-

we do is making sure that student concerns are uplifted to an administration,” Korgaonkar said. “But we’ve also created outlets to make sure that students can take it di-

behaviors that have [been] at Stuyvesant for so long. It’s become impossible to avoid how crucial it is to create systemic change in so many areas,” Giordano said. “It’s causing us

nicate with their fellow club members,” Giordano said.

This idea of community is not just for the students, but for the administration as well.

The duo recognized the importance of acquainting Principal Yu, who became the new principal this past September, with the student body and vice versa. They hosted “Get to Know Yu” meetings once every two weeks, in which students and Principal Yu are able to converse in a safe and engaging space. “Part of what

rectly to administration themselves.”

In pursuing policy advocacy, the SU conducted a schoolwide survey on students’ mental health this past January after fervent discussions among Stuyvesant students on Facebook regarding the toll remote learning has taken on their health. They collected, analyzed, and presented data to the administration to push for policy reform. “We’ve reached the point where the pandemic has exacerbated

to [...] use the Student Union in a way that we haven’t used before, and I think that’s difficult, but it’s important, and we need to be doing more of that work.” The duo hopes to continue advocating for this issue moving forward into the new semester.

They also hope to offer more community-bonding opportunities. “It’s really important that we make sure freshmen, sophomores are getting excited about these events [...] to make sure that students are

Courtesy of Julian Giordano

Courtesy of Shivali Korgaonkar

Student Union (SU) President Julian Giordano and Vice President Shivali Korgaonkar ran for office during an unparalleled year of student government leadership. However, their efforts to strengthen and maintain the SU’s role remains unwavering. “We’ve been trying to work on [...] bridging the gap between students and administration,” Giordano said. “We’ve done that in a lot of different ways, [and] a lot of that has to do with communication.”

At the crux of the SU’s work was the idea of fostering a renewed sense of community. They started several initiatives, such as the SpeedFriending Event, live Q&A Town Halls, and a virtual New Year’s Resolution Board. In building a community, the SU also adapted school traditions virtually. They held the Club & Pub Fair over several Zoom meetings in September, and sent Daily morning announcements, in the form of weekly short videos, to students’ inboxes.

Additionally, they released the newly revamped version of StuyActivities, a website that catalogs every official Stuyvesant club. Built by the SU’s IT department, the website helped to create a smooth transition for school activities to resume in a virtual setting.

not just aware of the things that we are hosting and the initiatives we’re leading, but they’re also excited and interested to be a part of them.”

Korgaonkar said.

A hallmark of the spring semester is SING!, the schoolwide musical performance and competition. The SU traditionally plays a large role and hopes to continue to do so this year, despite adapting to a remote environment. “In a normal year, we work on selling the tickets and making sure that the budgets are in place.

The theater is organized, concessions are there, merch is ordered,” Giordano said. “And this year, all of that has been thrown out the window. We’re going to be working a lot with the SING! Coordinators, and we think it’s the perfect opportunity to engage students and to increase socialization that’s really been missing.”

Ultimately, Giordano and Korgaonkar remain positive as they enter the second half of their term as SU President and Vice-President and plan to continue advocating for the student body. “You can’t have a welcoming environment unless [...] students feel supported by the school. I just want to say that’s something we’re continuing to work on, and it’s very much a big priority for us,” Giordano said.

Senior Caucus Senior Atrium group on Facebook, making a senior banner, and releasing virtual stickers for seniors, such as a Zoom background and Facebook profile picture frame.

SU develop, analyze, and present the results from the Mental Health Survey conducted.

Looking ahead, Corr and Sela face a challenge in addressing the uncertainty sur-

etc, virtually doubling the details we had to sort out,” Sela said. However, they are brainstorming solutions, such as reallocating funds that used to be used for in-person events to

Senior Caucus also focused on helping the rest of the SU grow. For example, they collaborated on their “So You Want to Be A…” career awareness newsletter with the Sophomore Caucus. They also helped the

rounding this year’s graduation, prom, and senior package.

“Due to the uncertainty of schools being open and policy about gatherings, it was crucial that we plan for both in-person and virtual prom, graduation,

expand the senior package, and are working hard to ensure that senior traditions are preserved, regardless of whether they are virtual or not.

In the next semester, Corr and Sela hope to create a col-

Courtesy of Ayala Sela

Courtesy of Katerina Corr

Senior Caucus Co-Presidents Katerina Corr and Ayala Sela ran on a platform focused on senior traditions, new school policies, transparency, and continuing past initiatives. Due to the shift to virtual learning, however, they had to adapt to the new circumstances and modified their platform to be centered around supporting seniors with their college applications.

The Senior Caucus collaborated with the Writing Center in November and December to support seniors in college application writing and organized three college essay working sessions to peer revise essays. “It was really encouraging seeing seniors return for every Senior Caucus x Writing Center event and tell us first-hand how helpful it was. It also gave us hope that virtual events could be productive and welcoming,” Corr said.

The pair has also been working on a handful of projects to alleviate stress from remote learning. These include partnering with The Indicator to organize spirit days, launching the “Senior Sunrise” survey to collect photos of seniors during their first week of school, creating a Virtual

lege commitment map or Instagram account, make more activities in the newly-created virtual Senior Atrium such as a virtual senior letter capsule, host a panel with Stuyvesant alumni to discuss their college experiences, organize more themed events with the Indicator, and continue discussions surrounding students’ mental health.

The duo also remained optimistic about many of the benefits remote learning offers with regards to Senior Caucus duties, such as their partnership with the Writing Center, which would have otherwise not impossible had it been in-person since student editors are only available during the school day. “One of the great things about working online is that it offers us much more flexibility with scheduling, as we no longer have to accommodate the availability of different school spaces,” Sela said.

Corr and Sela are determined to make the next semester year a memorable one for the student body. “As the first semester comes to a close, we are excited to bring seniors a fun and memorable end to their time at Stuyvesant,” Corr said.

The Spectator • February 11, 2021

Page 3

News Junior Caucus scholarship opportunities. The caucus’s Internal Affairs department compiled this information according to the relevance of these courses to different ma-

the Stuyvesant experience into a career, or where they want to go to college, [and] we wanted to make the subjects clear so that students that are interested in

Additionally, they hosted an SAT practice virtual event where participating juniors took a mock exam in a monitored, timed atmosphere on Zoom to simulate the conditions of the real SAT. Though Tan and Torres have expressed interest in hosting another mock exam, they are uncertain due to the lack of official announcements about the March SAT from administration. `“We’re planning another SAT day because there is an SAT coming up in March that everyone at Stuy is supposed to take. [...] We want to make sure juniors are prepared,” Torres said.

Junior Caucus also collaborated with clubs, such as Stuy STEM Goes Red and StuyEats., to create community-building events. Junior Caucus also created Spotify and Apple Music playlists based on studentsubmitted songs. “We created a playlist for Spotify users, of songs that got people through quarantine, songs that made people feel nostalgic, and favorite albums. We made this beau-

tiful mosaic of album covers,” Torres said.

The External Affairs department of the caucus hopes to implement a speaker series with Stuyvesant alumni as guest speakers to introduce various career paths to juniors. “Since they’re alumni from our school, we feel that the paths they’ve taken are really unique to our school specifically,” Tan said.

Despite this, the pair also faced the limitations of hosting events during virtual learning.

“We know that a lot of people are Zoom fatigued and don’t want to go to another Zoom after they finish classes. [...] For example, we tested out a holiday Bingo versus different events, and the Bingo didn’t receive as much traction as the card sending event that we did in the winter,” Torres said.

Though the pair have faced obstacles throughout the semester adjusting to remote learning, Tan and Torres express that they will continue to commit to improving the junior experience.

jors. “A lot of juniors are thinking about what they’re going to do in the future, and how to turn

pre-law know to take civil law, know to take comparative government,” Torres said.

new Sophomore Caucus website.

In response to student con-

tion to further discuss this issue.

The survey was sent out to allow

cerns about mental health at Stuyvesant, the caucus worked with the SU to administer a schoolwide mental health survey and pressed the administra-

the SU and the administration to gather more information on how to combat mental health concerns. In addition to implementing new initiatives, Jung and Lee

have also continued policies and projects started by previous caucuses, such as the Senior Caucus’s “Career Options” newsletter.

In line with their pillar of inclusivity, the duo hosted movie nights, such as “Coraline” in October and “Soul” in January to promote community-bonding.

“I feel as though they are a great way to bring the community together and they don’t require too much talking or interaction, but it’s a really positive way to chat and enjoy a movie together,” Jung said.

In the upcoming semester, one of the goals the Sophomore Caucus hopes to achieve is to facilitate better communication between the sophomore body and the administration. “With the ongoing pandemic and virtual learning, it is becoming more and more apparent that especially this year, community building is going to be one of our top priorities,” Lee said.

health presentation, in which the statistics of the recent mental health survey were discussed with administration and teachers, to address the concerns of students. They have demonstrated a receptiveness in listening to freshmen and communicating their experiences to administration and teachers to create possible solutions. “We were able to share a lot of the freshman’s views [...] because we were able to hear all of them and bring that into our experiences,” Olkhovenko said.

“Because this year is so difficult, [...] our goal is to plan a lot of events and give freshmen a lot of resources, so that their experiences are much easier and much more fun.”

However, Olkhovenko and Zhang have also faced limitations in what they were able

to achieve in the fall semester.

For example, they faced challenges in increasing attendance at study hall events.

As Freshman Caucus elections were later in the fall semester this school year, the co-presidents are hoping to make more progress during the spring semester. “Because of how late we were elected in November or December and how late we released our cabinet, we did the most [we could].

Of course we are happy with the progress, but I’m a little upset because we couldn’t do as much as we could because of finals,” Olkhovenko said. “But this spring semester, we have a lot of good plans, and I think we’ll have much much more successful progress [and] do so, so much more in the next three to four months.”

Courtesy of Elizabeth Stansberry

Junior Caucus President Cynthia Tan and Vice President Elio Torres ran with promises to increase accessibility to information and resources for the juniors. They have shifted their focus to events and resources rather than working with the administration for large policy changes.

Tan and Torres emphasized preparing juniors for the college application process by creating a How-To-Recommendations guideline document, which provides tips and information on suggested deadlines for getting teacher recommendations.

“We’re going to explain the basics, like what is a recommendation, [which] colleges need them, what are the discrepancies between different applications, like the Common App and Questbridge, and how many recommendations you need,” Torres said.

Junior Caucus is also working to introduce a website that features a page with all AP courses and electives at Stuyvesant, in addition to a subpage on

Sophomore Caucus Co-Presidents Daniel Jung and Ryan Lee ran with three major intentions in mind: transparency, progression, and inclusivity. Throughout the fall semester, Jung and Lee hosted community-building events within the grade and implemented new initiatives to achieve their goals. Their cabinet consists of two Chiefs of Staff, Internal and External Outreach, IT, Events, Finance, and Graphic Design.

To keep sophomores updated, Jung and Lee decided to create a new Sophomore Caucus website. The Graphic Design and IT departments of the caucus are currently working to improve the website’s functionality and accessibility by integrating features from the older version, such as the study guide database and departmental updates, while also adding new ones, like student resources and a sign-up page for events. While the website is separate from the SU’s website, it

still falls under the SU’s domain.

“We’re envisioning a new website with many new features and upgrades on old ones that has a cleaner design than the current one, and we envision it to be out by the end of the month,” Lee said in an e-mail interview.

The co-presidents recognized the difficulty of this endeavor, as they have not been able to meet in person and collaborate, but are nonetheless optimistic. “Quite soon, we will be able to have results and show it to the student body and we are really excited for that,” Lee said.

With the AP season approaching, the caucus hopes to support students with several upcoming projects to help students with their academic lives.

They are starting a project called Study Guides, which will consist of compiling study guides from juniors and seniors for the underclassmen. The study guides, once organized, will be posted on the

Sasha Socolow / The Spectator

Sophomore Caucus

Freshman Caucus friendly environment. There were a total of 80 attendees

Us and Family Feud.

The co-presidents

playing games, such as Among

used events, such as the mental

also

Courtesy of Unique Zhang & Aleksey Olkhovenko

Freshman Caucus Co-Presidents Aleksey Olkhovenko and Unique Zhang ran on a platform of three primary pillars: communication, compassion, and community. During the fall, Olkhovenko and Zhang aimed to improve the freshman experience with community-building initiatives, such as virtual study halls. Their newly-formed cabinet consists of two Chiefs of Staff, a combined External Affairs/Finance department, an IT department, and an Event Planning department.

One such communitybuilding event was the Holiday Extravaganza to foster more virtual socialization and connection among the freshmen.

The event, hosted on December 23, allowed freshmen to interact with each other in a

Page 4

The Spectator • Febrary 11, 2021

News College Board Discontinues SAT Subject Tests and Optional SAT Essay continued from page 1

and most schools don’t care about whether you take it or not, the essay was becoming a bit obsolete,” junior Christine Lin said in an e-mail interview. “The essay just seems very formulaic and I can understand why [the College Board] decided to get rid of it and just have one uniform test for everyone to take.”

the SAT subject tests, I imagine colleges would put more emphasis on AP tests or Regents exams which places additional stress on me,” sophomore Cynthia Chang said in an e-mail interview.

Reflecting such concern, some teachers hope that there will not be an overemphasis on AP exams. “If it were up to me, I’d completely do away with AP classes at Stuyvesant

applicants, this shift allows [students] to focus more on AP tests that can help them secure college credit and win merit-based aid,” Botier said in an e-mail interview. “Motivated students will continue to learn and excel in those areas in school [...] and many also learn these subjects in Advanced Placement courses.”

Editor-in-Chief of Princeton Review Robert Franek

“There has already been a large emphasis on AP exams and courses, especially at Stuy, so I don’t think the absence of the subject tests will have any large effect on that. It seems like a mindset we’ve already been shifting towards for a long time and I’m not really surprised that it happened.” —Christine Lin, junior

Some view the change positively as they no longer have to spend time on the SAT subject tests. “When you had the subject tests, you would have to at least put some time into studying for that subject test and I think now, you get more time to look into APs and your extracurriculars,” Bronx High School of Science junior Ahanaf Samin said.

Others felt impartial about the changes. “I do think that it would’ve been a good boost on my application to look at it and another thing to consider for me is that a lot of the colleges I [will] apply to sometimes [...] don’t even look at the essay on the SAT [...] so I don’t think it necessarily hinders my application process too much,” Bronx High School of Science sophomore Sabiha Sinthia said.

With the removal, however, many students believe that there will be a larger focus on Advanced Placement (AP) test scores. “Without

and offer more ‘advanced/ honors’ courses and electives that students can opt into,” physics teacher Thomas Miner said in an e-mail interview. “[So as not to] limit ourselves to the College Board’s narrow prescription of our subject matter by calling our courses AP, with all that that registered trademark name entails.”

Others, however, are not expecting much change in the way AP exams are viewed.

“There has already been a large emphasis on AP exams and courses, especially at Stuy, so I don’t think the absence of the subject tests will have any large effect on that,” Lin said. “It seems like a mindset we’ve already been shifting towards for a long time and I’m not really surprised that it happened.”

Following the removal, Executive Director of College Programs at Kaplan Isaac Botier (’02) believes that students will be able to direct their efforts toward AP exams instead. “For college

echoched similar thoughts: “Students will not be put at a disadvantage because of the substantive nature of the AP courses that they’re taking across the globe. It was a shrinking, shrinking number of students that took the SAT subject tests,” he said. “The [College Board] has made that direct pivot to say that their 38 AP exams are a good foil for the SAT subject test’s removal.”

Others, however, feel that the change will have a longterm negative impact. “The real reason the subject testing happens in the first place is because you want to place out of a prerequisite class.

There’s going to be a lot of students who are going to wind up going to college and end up taking five years to get a four year degree,” founder of Kweller Test Preparation Frances Kweller said.

“We had students actively preparing for these tests. It’s really sad to watch them destroy these academic stan-

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and NASA

WORLDBEAT Jeff Bezos stepped down as Amazon’s CEO and will become the Executive Chairman in the summer of 2021.

President Joe Biden announced the end of the United States’ support for the Saudi War in Yemen.

The U.S. Senate supported President Biden’s $1.9 trillion aid plan, but rejected minimum wage increases.

U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Green was voted out of the Education and Labor Committee and Budget Committee due to her recent incendiary remarks.

dards. It’s just hard to watch.

With the removal of the essay and subject tests, Makris believes that college applications will start to boil down to the grades of the applicant. “Grades have always been more important than test scores because grades show more than just how well you perform in a three-hour sitting,” Makris said. “There’s a lot that goes into it. There’s academic ability certainly, but also persistence, engagement, your ability to handle challenges, so your course grades have been statistically a better predictor of college grade point average and graduation rates than the SAT [subject tests] have ever been, and that’s going to continue to be the grades.”

With the elimination of the SAT subject tests, some teachers hope that less emphasis on a standardized curriculum will allow for more room to teach unique

topics. “The SAT II curriculum certainly creates a great foundation for students, but it also crushes some of the creativity and excitement of biology and all of the new developments occurring in the field,” biology teacher Marianne Prabhu said in an e-mail interview. “I hope we can find a middle ground between infusing more diverse biological history and project-based learning with some of the details and facts from the traditional curriculum.”

Overall, many were relieved at the elimination of both exams. “I don’t really [foresee] there being any huge changes to [the] way AP classes [are] taught,” Lin said. “I’m sure the absence of the subject tests will give teachers more leeway and freedom in deciding what is best to teach students. I don’t actually mind [them] being removed, and in a way, I’m glad [they were].”

Teachers Receive COVID-19 Vaccines don’t think it was really nec- coming in and none of the sure,” Brockman said. essary because I doubt we’re vaccine, now that healthcare going to go back to school at “I understand that people have workers have been vaccinat- the end of the year, so I don’t really see a need to get them ed already. Hopefully this will some hesitation getting the vachelp speed up the reopen- vaccinated first,” sophomore ing of schools,” sophomore Caleb Song said in an e-mail cine and some might have side efAlena Chen said in an e-mail interview. “Also, we don’t fects, which make them feel a little interview. “The quicker ev- know if there is any risk to taking it, so I think it puts eryone is able to get vaccileery [...] but I think the pros far nated, the quicker things can [teachers] in an unnecessary start to go back to normal,” risk.” outweigh the cons, for not just your Others are less hopeful she said. own health, but for public health.”

However, some students in returning back to school due to the new COVID-19 are cautious about teachers —Ashvin Jaishankar, math teacher receiving the vaccine due to variants. “I wondered if the speed at which it was re- they would start opening leased. “Teachers getting the the schools, but the thing is For now, Brockman, like vaccines are a little rushed. I that with these other variants kids getting vaccines, I’m not continued from page 1

many, hopes that in-person school will return by the fall.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. I think by the fall we will be back in school,” she said.

With more doses of the vaccine distributed every day, many hope that more of the public will get vaccinated.

“I understand that people have some hesitation getting the vaccine and some might have side effects, which make them feel a little leery,” Jaishankar said. “But I think the pros far outweigh the cons, for not just your own health, but for public health.”

The Spectator • February 11, 2021

By MARY LEE and CALISTA LEE “Big Sibs had always been a key part of the freshman transition into Stuyvesant,” senior and Big Sib Chair Elena Hlamenko said. This is indeed true; every freshmen has had several Big Sibs, welcoming and guiding them as they navigate their first years at Stuyvesant. Big Sibs’ assistance even extends after they’ve graduated to students who are no longer freshmen.

For many, their presence is a beacon of advice and support.

With the start of online learning this school year, both the Big Sib Chairs and Big Sibs have not strayed from this goal and instead have risen to the challenge. Senior and Big Sib Chair Andrea Huang pointed out that in terms of academics and schoolwork, the transition from middle school to Stuyvesant High School can be overwhelming, and the program aims to be a support system for students to ask questions from peers rather than adults. “With remote learning, our goal has been shifted a little bit to help freshmen transition [...] better in terms of socialization. We know that there haven’t been many opportunities for freshmen to meet each other [...] but we’re trying our best to facilitate some discussions or meeting new people for [them],” Huang added.

Due to the virtual nature of school, the Big Sib Chairs knew that this year’s events required a different approach. Senior Aki Yumaguchi, another Big Sib Chair, responded that they have used the mentality of “What can

Big Changes for the Big Sibs Program

we do to make this virtual and if not, what can we replace it with to make their experience still good?” to guide them, which have brought online socialization programs to the forefront.

“Now we use Zoom, various webinars [...] one-on-one things that are up to the Big Sibs,” Hlamenko stated. As a result, many new events have sprung up, including a virtual concert, virtual field day, and mix-and-match homeroom meetings, during which two homerooms merge, facilitating intra-homeroom activities, and interactions between new circles.

But the virtual version can never exactly replicate the inperson experience, and many Big Sibs have noticed that creating engaging and meaningful bonds with freshmen have proven to be more arduous than past years. “It’s much harder to communicate with the Little Sibs. In school you’re able to see them in the hallways, [but] during meetings, we don’t really get to see a lot of face-to-face interactions because some of them don’t have access to cameras, and others are a little bit shy, which is definitely fine. But, I think for me, [it’s] a little bit harder communicating with them,” explained senior Big Sib Stephy Chen. Hlamenko echoed this sentiment, attesting, “It’s much harder to achieve the same level of intimacy and trust between a Big Sib and a Little Sib online.”

Senior and Big Sib Claire Shin also acknowledged the drops in participation compared to last year, which Hlamenko attributes to Zoom fatigue. Instead of being able to meet with a Big Sib

for lunch or have a quick, casual conversation in between classes, looking at a screen after a school day can quickly become burdensome. “It’s mostly the same people who come to our meetups, and I wish I could see more, but I guess they aren’t responsive,” Shin said. Even then, those who do come to these events don’t always actively participate. “A problem with Zoom in general, not just necessarily for Big Sibs, is that it’s very easy to just to mute yourself and then turn off your camera and then just not engage with people in the meeting,” Huang said.

The Big Sib Chairs have recognized these problems and have been trying to remedy them. “Our attendance has been going down, and we are trying to figure out a way to solve this, but we can’t really in a way because we can’t force them to come,” Yamaguchi explained. Huang elaborated on this: “We know that there are a lot of types of Little Sibs out there; some of them are talkative, some of them are less talkative, and it’s kind of hard to cater towards everyone’s needs because we know that it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution.”

The freshmen have had their own thoughts on the Big Sibs program’s handling of the virtual events. An anonymous freshman (C) found comfort in the option to leave his or her mic and camera off. “I do sometimes get anxious if I have to speak on mic so I’d rather talk in the chat which seems like a good way of communicating even if you don’t talk out loud,” the student wrote in an e-mail interview. However, for freshman

Sophianne Leung, she found that the option made it difficult to socialize during Zoom calls, adding on to the lack of communication caused by the discomfort many students, including herself, feel when talking. Fortunately, she has found solace in one-on-one meetings. “[M]y Big Sibs have reached out to do one-on-one meetings, and these I found a lot more personal than the homeroom meetings.

Since it was just one Big Sib and me, the conversations felt easier and more personal,” she wrote in an e-mail interview.

To further facilitate effective communication, an anonymous freshmen (A) noted that their Big Sibs frequently reach out despite their busy schedules. She feels comfortable contacting them for guidance. Though, not all Little Sibs had the same experience. “To my knowledge, none of my [B]ig-[S]ibs have reached out to their [L]ittle [S]ibs or tried to create connections with us,” said an anonymous freshman (B).

Despite the struggles in communication and socialization caused by virtual complications, many Big Sibs and Little Sibs alike have found silver linings in their meetings and events. Many look favorably on the mix and match homeroom sessions as a whole, which have been a space for Big and Little Sibs to enjoy each other’s company. “I feel like the adapted virtual Big Sibs events might be more fun. I feel like people have more areas to relate to, and I feel like a lot of people like games, which is the bonding thing that we’ve been using,” senior and Big Sib Min

Page 5

Features Sun Yu said.

In previous years, playing games had never been a staple in the program, but it has been the foundation for this year’s online meetings. Shin agreed with Yu, recalling one of her favorite moments with her Little Sibs: “I remember we had a homeroom [...] everyone was like laughing because they had played a really amusing game of Among Us.” A also expressed enthusiasm about the games. “My life doesn’t really have any structure right now, and even just playing Among Us for an hour makes me feel more connected.”

For freshman Keira Chin, these sessions also allow her to voice her frustrations regarding school work. “The events in general have helped ease my transition into the school because they help enforce the idea that other students are facing similar difficulties, whether it be from a hard class or large workload,” she stated in an e-mail interview.

Given the circumstances, most Big Sibs and Little Sibs have asserted their appreciation for the Big Sib Chairs’ and the program’s efforts, believing that everyone has adapted to the situation to the best of their ability.

But the program is always looking for feedback, and Hlamenko has stated the program is currently collecting student feedback, especially in light of the flood of student conversations surrounding mental health. “If anything, I would just encourage freshmen to [...] message us with anything that they think could be done better,” Hlamenko offered.

ADVERTISEMENT

Teenage Volunteers Needed for Paid Research Project What's involved?

Answer questions online and complete a virtual interview about substance use and related issues Everything is done on your own devices Answers kept confidential (not shared with parents/others) Participants must be aged 11-17 and fluent in English Must have used nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, or other drugs

Compensation Each participant will earn a $100 gift card to Amazon or Walmart

iuaccess@iupui.edu or 317-278-7750

The Spectator • February 11, 2021

Page 6

Features

Vivian Teo / The Spectator

love with it and decided that I wanted to continue it in college,” Akabas said.

In addition to all the memorable classes and teachers from Stuyvesant, extracurriculars played a huge role in the path that Akabas embarked upon.

Akabas was the editorin-chief of

The S

pectato

r

their humanities classes. The humanities departments are really exceptional, and definitely a big motivational factor for me to take my writing dreams seriously,” Shoshana Akabas (‘10) said. Although Akabas always had a preference for humanities prior to Stuyvesant, the classes she took in-

hen /

Imagine a student, maybe in elementary or middle school, setting her sights on a career she plans to one day pursue. Medicine, perhaps, or maybe even law. She goes into high school with plans to one day conquer her field of choice, and so she takes the necessary steps to ensure her future success. She takes all the right classes and joins all the prestigious clubs that will not only help her learn but also form a network, maximizing her future opportunities.

She even secures several internships at prestigious institutions sometime between the summer of sophomore year and senior year, finding new opportunities at every turn.

This story hits very close to home for many Stuyvesant alumni. Whether the career path in question was medicine, law, or music, for an abundance of students, choosing a career was almost second nature—a part of their identity they’d known about since they were little. As an aspiring physician and Stuyvesant graduate, Farihah Miah (‘16) always knew that she wanted to work in the healthcare field. “I don’t think Stuy had any influence over me wanting to be a doctor. I knew I wanted to go into medicine, and that was an individual choice on my part,” Miah described. “I want to help underserved communities, especially the immigrant population and the Black and Hispanic population because I feel like they aren’t treated very well in the healthcare industry, so I want to work to make some changes in this field,” she explained.

For Albert Zhang (‘19), a sophomore at Binghamton University, planning out his future involved a lot more trial and error. “When I first came into Stuy, I really had no clue what I wanted to do with my life,” Zhang recalled. “A lot of those middle school dream jobs lingered through my first year, like going pro in the NFL or playing games for a living— a lot of things that can definitely be careers, but realistically speaking, those are pretty

narrow margins for successful people,” he said.

Emily Hur (‘19), a Cornell sophomore majoring in Computer Science, echoed similar sentiments, noting that she was interested in pursuing a career in biology but was unsure of the specifics of the field. Stuyvesant’s STEM focus allowed Hur to explore various subjects and delve deeper within her interests.

Hur’s eventual interest in biology was influenced by science teacher Jerry Citron. “[Mr. Citron] was one of my favorite teachers at Stuy,” she said. “I took three classes with him—Human Patho[physiolog y], Human Diseases, AP [Environmental Science]—and that’s what initially got me interested in studying biology at a higher level.”

Likewise, Miah believes that the electives that she took helped her further flesh out her plans for becoming a doctor. Prior to taking electives at Stuyvesant, all Miah knew was that she wanted to go into the medical field, but these classes allowed her to explore certain subjects in detail. Like Hur, an influential teacher for Miah was Mr. Citron, as it was in his classes that Miah was able to delve deeper into specific science topics. “Citron was amazing! I took a few of his elective classes, and he helped me realize that I really enjoyed clinical sciences.

I took Human Pathophysiology and Human Diseases, and although I remember them to be quite hard at the time, they were the most rewarding classes I took in all my time at Stuy,” Miah said.

While Stuyvesant is known for its plethora of STEMbased classes and extracurriculars, its humanities department has also inspired countless students. “I think that even STEM students who come to this school enjoy

Julia S

By TASHFIA NOOR, KHUJISTA UMAMA and GLEN CUCCINELLO

A Trip Down Memory Lane: Career Edition

spired her to pursue a career in STEM as well: “I took Organic Chemistry at Stuyvesant kind of on a whim.[…] I didn’t even really know what the subject was, but I took the class and totally fell in

Stuyvesant’s lite r a r y magazine, Caliper.

While Caliper encouraged her to write, it also had an unexpected influence on her future path. “The two editors-in-chief before me both went on to do [Masters of Fine Arts], and I think that inspired me and gave me a model for my career path,”

Akabas said.

Many of the connections alumni made in Stuyvesant still remain today. Akabas works alongside English teacher Dr. Moore on the New Neighbors partnership, a nonprofit organization that helps resettle refugees. “I actually co-founded the non-profit with her [...]

She was my high school poetry teacher and now she is a partner of mine,” Akabas said.

Although many students enter Stuyvesant with a career path in mind, this certainly is not the case for everyone.

For Zhang, choosing a direction was a work in progress.

Initially, after taking drafting with Mr. Griffith, Zhang saw himself pursuing architecture. “My passion for art, combined with classes I had taken, and a summer of experimenting with Adobe Photoshop, really drove those dreams of traveling the world and creating designs and art,” Zhang said.

Since graduating, he’s tested various career options in college, including accounting and marketing. Recently, he’s settled on pursuing a psychology degree and is looking into various teaching careers. “Right now, I’m most interested in becoming a teacher or a school counselor. […] I’ve cycled through so many different career options, and the only reason I say teacher or school counselor is because these two have been the most recent,” he said.

With the constant questions about what our career plans are, it’s tempting to commit to something just to get started. But it’s critical to look at your career as a longterm goal, not an impulsive choice. As Zhang says, “Understand that what you want to do in life is a culmination of the skills you have, what you’re interested in, and the world around you.”

The Spectator • February 11, 2021

Page 7

Features

By ISABELLA JIA and ELLEN PEHLIVANIAN With the onslaught of COVID-19, most restaurants, offices, and other public establishments were forced to close down. On top of struggles with remote learning and stress, many students also had to deal with losing jobs or internships that they secured pre-quarantine. However, as the coronavirus has progressed, many of these openings have resumed operation, leading many Stuyvesant students to start new jobs or restart ones they had put on pause.

With the pandemic, many jobs have accommodated to a virtual setting. Online outlets like Depop, Mercari, Etsy, and eBay, help promote the rise of small businesses. Over the summer, sophomore Jessica Zhuo created her Depop shop, Urban Jewelry, under the handle @jessicazhuo. Her Depop shop has gained considerable traction since its genesis: Zhuo currently has over 2,000 followers and about 1,350 sales.

She also received support from her parents, as they both work in a jewelry store. “I started my shop because I was sick of being broke all the time and since

my parents worked in a jewelry store, I had a little experience with this,” she described.

Zhuo enjoys the benefits of running a successful online business, including the influx of income and instant gratification from her success. “My favorite part is seeing my numbers rise and not being broke anymore. I think taking good product photos and fast communication is a big part of how my business became successful,” Zhuo said.

To help others who may be interested in starting their own businesses as a job, Zhuo has some advice: “This might sound cheesy but don’t give up. Also, watch lots of YouTube videos to help you because they are very very informative and helpful,” she offered.

Sophomore Kai Caothien also took initiative when he started to look for jobs by himself to support his family financially. Especially with the coronavirus, unemployment rates have peaked to an alltime highin April 2020 at 14.8 percent, with many people being laid off, causing families to suffer financially as a result.

Caothien’s family was no exception, which led him to look for job opportunities. While brows-

What a Jobful ing through the Internet, he stumbled across an editing job online for a tutoring company.

“My job experience was editing writing assignments for third graders. My job has been impacted by the pandemic because it was created as a result of the pandemic, since all I had to do was edit over Google Docs,” he explained. Along with getting paid, Caothien enjoyed reading the pieces he edited. “My favorite thing was reading the stories, as many included lots of humor,” he said. Looking into the future, Caothien is optimistic about new job opportunities and feels that his short job experience has been valuable. “I am definitely looking for more opportunities for jobs, as I really enjoyed helping students improve their writing. Not only was I able to help others [but] it was also a good experience for me to get a glimpse of what entering the workforce is like,” he explained. “Learning from my mistakes during my first job will also be valuable in helping me improve in the future.”

Though the pandemic unexpectedly offered new job opportunities for some students, junior Ella Krechmer had a different experience. Krechmer

had been working since the beginning of her sophomore year in a local dance studio that also teaches gymnastics. However, with the coronavirus and lockdown, her job was put on hold for five months. After the studio reopened in August, Krechmer’s work experience was modified to fit with coronavirus restrictions. She had newfound tasks including sanitizing mats, taking students’ temperatures, limiting the capacity of people in the waiting room, and more. “I definitely don’t prefer these new changes, but I’m glad that I am working. Sadly, though, I have students who I taught before the pandemic that forgot what I looked like without a mask, and others who have never even seen me without a mask,” she said.

Despite adapting to these necessary changes, Krechmer’s passion for teaching has not been undermined. Teaching allows Krechmer to watch her students excel and learn new skills. “My favorite thing about my job is seeing my students succeed. Dance and gymnastics are very difficult, so it’s an incredible feeling to see them get new impressive skills, or finally come together for a dance I choreographed,” she explained.

Krechmer can also practice her own gymnastics skills while working since she is a member of the Girls Varsity Gymnastics team at Stuyvesant. “There’s also definitely the added bonus that since I need to demonstrate some skills or moves, I also get to dance and do gymnastics, and improve,” she said.

Krechmer experiences many wholesome moments at her job since many of her students are toddlers and little kids. “One time I was teaching a class and a student asked me why I was wearing a mask, and another little girl, who was four years old, said, ‘It’s because we’re in the middle of the coronavirus,’ but it was even better because she had this adorable high voice and was saying it very confidently,” Krechmer recalled.

With all these varied job experiences from Stuyvesant students, it’s clear that the typical teenage job experience is changing to adapt to the pandemic.

But, instead of letting this discourage students from pursuing a job, it paves way for different opportunities in a virtual setting. As Zhuo suggested, “If you want to start doing something, start it. Don’t wait until someone does it before you.”

Stoking Physics Love, Childhood Passions, and More!

By ISABELLE LAM

Physics, a required class for all Stuyvesant juniors, is a polarizing subject. Students tend to either love or hate it, chiefly because physics is highly mathematical. It requires challenging math skills that aren’t typically found in science classes such as biology, environmental science, or chemistry. For students who don’t have a lifelong passion, physics is a class that many struggle through. However, there are many who thoroughly enjoy the subject, for all of its quirks and challenges.

During the summer of 2019, senior Andrew Binder and junior Alvin Li co-founded a club aimed to foster a love for physics in students who have little to no experience with the subject.

Given Stuyvesant’s status as a STEM-oriented school, Binder and Li were disappointed that many students did not appreciate physics. “Seeing a STEM school like Stuy that prides itself on how much it values STEM education and how prestigious its Math Team is, it was kind of jarring to see that there was no Physics Team,” Binder said. Although anti-physics sentiments may be pervasive among the student body, both Li and Binder remain undeterred.

Since their childhood, Binder and Li have always gravitated towards the subject. Li described his interest in physics as a byproduct of being interested in math. “You get to apply a lot of the things you learn in mathematics, most notably calculus, trig[onometry], geometry, and some linear algebra at more advanced points,” he said. He always liked science because of the theory and logic behind it, but was not particularly attracted to biology or chemistry because they left many phenomena unexplained. “I feel like physics is really the root of everything because chemistry builds upon physics, and then biology builds upon chemistry,” he said.

Binder shares a similar start in physics. He poked fun at Li,

saying “I’m not so sure about [Li], but when I was a child, I wasn’t very well-versed in calculus and linear algebra. I remember [...] accidentally finding some of Brian Greene’s older NOVA documentaries on PBS.” After that spark was ignited, Binder began to watch as many documentaries and read as many books as he could, finding inspiration in scientists such as Greene and Neil deGrasse Tyson. However, he was just a child, which meant that he couldn’t do much with this new passion. “Unfortunately, y’know, being a nine-year-old kid at that point, I didn’t possess enough mathematical knowledge to be able to actually study physics, so it was a very superficial type of passion that I wasn’t sure how I could act on,” he laughed.

At Stuyvesant, Binder finally got the math education needed to propel his interest forward.

Later on, he met Li due to a shared interest in creating a club centered around physics.

Chartering the club was easy, but when it came to recruiting members, Binder and Li faced problems. The first among them was a lack of interest among students. “What I’ve observed at Stuy [...] is that people get discouraged from sciences such as physics because we only study it for a year. That means that a lot of people get lost in the science because they have to rush through it [and t]hat leaves a really sour taste in [their] mouths,” Binder explained. He contrasted that with how most students study math for all four years at Stuyvesant, which gives them more time to appreciate the subject. Senior Leon Ma added to this sentiment by saying that students were not informed about the F=ma exam until they were juniors, which left them with little preparation time for the test. The F=ma is the qualifying exam for the United States Physics Olympiad (USAPhO).

Other problems arose from the fact that the club was newly established, and therefore not many students knew about it.

“Joining the club was very word of mouth,” Binder said. Because the club wasn’t very established, Li and Binder told people that there were meetings occurring, and people agreed to come, but ultimately did not show up.

In terms of how the Physics Team functions, Li and Binder drew inspiration from the structure of Math Team. Binder and Li recognized that there are some physics students who have more experience than others and may feel unchallenged by the basics. However, they didn’t want to discourage students who are newer to the subject. As a result, they created two teams. “We call them, affectionately, Team Einstein and Team Newton,” Binder said.

Team Einstein is for students with at least a year’s experience

physics teachers at Stuyvesant were willing to commit to leading a team, nor were they experienced in preparing students for physics competitions. “[When we found him, w]e thought ‘Yes, this is the man. This is the one that we want,’” Binder said. On the other hand, Team Newton is coached by Binder and Li. It is geared towards students with little to no experience in highschool mechanics. “Team Einstein meets twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, [while] Team Newton meets once a week on Tuesdays,” Binder explained.

Last year, meetings were held in-person, with only one team.

The combination of switching to virtual learning and having an onslaught of new members proved to be a challenge. Re-

“Seeing a STEM school like Stuy that prides itself on how much it values STEM education and how prestigious its Math Team is, it was kind of jarring to see that there was no Physics Team.”

— Andrew Binder, senior with high-school mechanics and an understanding of calculus.

It is led by Dr. Michael Kagan, a physics professor from Penn State, and former coach of the United States Physics Team from 2015 to 2016. The United States Physics Team is one of the highest level physics competitions, where approximately 20 students are selected to represent the United States in the International Physics Olympiad.

Connecting with Dr. Kagan was a long journey. Because Binder only has one year left at Stuyvesant, he knew he could not lead the team for very long. “I plan on graduating,” he explained, jokingly. “When I started thinking about how to make this team more sustainable, one of the biggest things involved finding a coach.” However, none of the

corded lectures are held over Zoom where many people do not turn their cameras on. Because members are just little black boxes on Li and Binder’s screens, neither know whether members are truly engaged, paying attention, or even in the room.

Outside of club meetings, communication, which previously occurred through a Facebook Messenger group chat, is now done through a Discord server. The group chat was considered too messy because it was often cluttered with random messages. Members of each team are assigned roles of “newton,” “einstein,” “teacher’s assistant (TA),” or “captain.”

These roles give them access to their respective team’s channels.

Members of Team Einstein

are offered positions of TAs, which grants access to both text channels. Ma is a part of Team Einstein, and is a TA for Team Newton. When asked why, he explained, “Teaching is fun sometimes. It’s nice to teach kids and also, [Li] [...] suggests that I [...] help him [and] help the little kids.” Like Li, Ma’s interest in physics stemmed from an interest in mathematics. “I would say it came from liking math puzzles, but math was too abstract for me,” he said. “So, I preferred physics puzzles because [...] they had a basis in real life, as opposed to math. [F=ma primarily focuses on mechanics and] you experience mechanics every single day [...] so it’s a good exercise to apply stuff that you intuitively know is true,” he said.

Since the formation of the club, Li and Binder feel they have grown immensely as leaders. The bulk of the club’s preparation work was done over this past summer so that they could have a slightly easier time during the school year. Not only did they compile over 100 pages of notes, but they also created a website and a YouTube channel. Despite these efforts, Li and Binder still spend 15 to 20 hours a week on the club, mainly writing and grading problem sets and filling in lecture notes.

Despite only being a year old, the Physics Team has already been very successful. Ma qualified for USAPhO last year, along with three other students, Yevgeniy Gorbachev (‘20), Ivan Galakhov (‘20), and senior Keyvon Maybody. In terms of members, the club has also grown significantly from its one team of five members to two distinct teams of 33 members in total. Because of this growth, Binder’s aspirations for the club are high. “There is a community that cares about physics; there’s a community that values the importance of physics education. Let’s grow, and let’s expand. Hopefully, we can even inspire some sort of New York City Physics Team in the coming years,” he concluded.

The Spectator • February 11, 2021

Page 8

Features Sonya Sasson on Squash, Without the Ceiling

By CHRISTINA PAN

at this city called Niagara-onthe-Lake,” Sasson recalled.

“Squash is usually a one-onone sport, so being on a team, together, representing the U.S. was so special. I remember going into the glass court before a tournament, and then just looking outside and seeing someone hold the American flag and chanting ‘Sonya!’ and it just felt so incredibly surreal; and at the end, just hoisting the trophy with teammates, and everyone cheering.”

Squash is not simply a sport to Sasson, nor is her status confined to that of an athlete. It’s become an essential part of her identity and a source of magic, between the milliseconds of each game. “I remember this game where I was playing against a girl who was ranked much higher than I was,” Sasson said. “I lost the first two games, and the third round came around—if I lost this round, I’d be out. It was this brief second between points when you breathe, and you think about what you’re going to do, and it just comes into play in one millisecond.

And I ended up winning the third game, then the fourth game, and then when it came back to the final round, I remembered all I did to get here.

And when you come back out of it, after the comeback and the handshake and walking out of the box, it makes you feel alive like nothing else does.”

The beauty of the sport, however, comes from the fundamental concept behind any skill—it’s the learning process of it all. After every practice, tournament, or training session, Sasson keeps squash journals filled with detailed diagrams and inspiring mantras.

“I have a journal dedicated to mantras,” Sasson said. “I know, it’s a bit cheesy, but I read them before matches and it makes me smile.”

Many of Sasson’s initial

sketches and mantras have made their way into her book, albeit after numerous prototypes. “Ready, Set, Squash!” features tidbits from Captain Squash, a pro-squash player, and Mr. Clockwise, a newbie, as they navigate the seas of squash fundamentals. “I’m a little dorky, yeah.” There’s a hint of playfulness in Sasson’s voice. “But the process of writing the book was actually really long. We had about 10 drafts, and we put it all into this word document, and the book designer helped us format the book.”

It took a full year to publish her book. Once all the information was digitized—from Sasson’s journals, Critelli’s intricate drawings, and professional photographs—they began a meticulous process of editing and designing. “After the manuscript was set, we worked with the book designer, who would present us with different layouts. Once we decided on one, it was honed and revised, again and again until it was perfect,” Sasson said. “We probably re-read the same 40 pages hundreds of times!”

Sasson and her team registered the book under an ISBN number and copyright. After the legalities were dealt with, they directed their focus toward print and distribution.

“Since we were self-publishing, we didn’t have the financial resources or logistics to carry out the distribution as we expected,” Sasson said. “So we went with a relatively large company who would not only print our book on-demand but they would distribute it to over 40,000 retailers worldwide.”

Sasson’s book is out in mainstream retailers like Barnes & Noble, Amazon Prime, and Bookshop, along with independent bookstores like Upper East Side’s Shakespeare & Co. But her main objective is to get the book out

to the general public. “There’s this stigma that squash is elitist, but a big part of that is because the public isn’t really exposed to what squash is and what resources are out there,” Sasson explained. “We want to get this book on every bookshelf, so children all over the place will have a guide to play squash, just like how there are books on how to play soccer or tennis.”

Sasson’s mission to expand squash goes past her book, however. She’s started a program for squash at her local YMCA, and a squash program at her middle school is already in the works. She’s met with former world record-holding squash champions over lunch to brainstorm ways to grow the sport and has even continued her training schedule all through the pandemic. “This book is meant to endure,” Sasson said. “We’re passionate about growing squash, and we feel this book has staying power and will help us in this mission, COVID-19 or not.”

And yet there’s a startling distinction between hitting a squash ball against a pillar when courts are closed during the coronavirus and in a glass box at a bustling tournament. Squash is a sport that, for many, exists solely within the realms of private schools or elite social circles. It’s hard, getting into a sport that can be equally as costly and maddeningly difficult to learn; it’s hard, securing places at tournaments where glass walls enclose two players and the ceiling reaches a zenith.

That glass ceiling often looks untouchable. Sasson’s working to open the top.

“Ready, Set, Squash!: A Fun Guide to the World’s Healthiest Sport” can be found on Instagram and Facebook as @readysetsquash.

The book’s website can be found here.

Courtesy of Sonya Sasson

Courtesy of Sonya Sasson

In March, with New York City shut down, sophomore Sonya Sasson stands at a pillar off West Side Highway with a racquet and a rubber ball in hand. There are no competitors—save for the company of her younger brother—only a blank pillar facing back. Sasson’s gaze is focused. She sets the ball and swings the racquet through the air, watching it bounce from the pillar back to the racquet. Her esoteric game continues, in spite of the glances of passersby or her unflinching adversary. Hours pass.

Sasson takes the ball and her racquet, then returns home—and writes. She writes about practice, precision, and strategy; diagrams, mantras, and lessons fill pages. Then full journals—then multiple ones. A startling pattern begins to unfold. Interrelations between lessons, memories, and experiences; ideas that live past crumpled pages.

Sasson decides to start a new enterprise. That is, she self-publishes a book.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Sasson’s debut book, “Ready, Set, Squash!: A Fun Guide to the World’s Healthiest Sport,” co-written by her coach Wael El Hindi (illustrations by Elena Critelli), introduces young readers to the world of squash, from fun facts and history to simple instructions on mastering the fundamentals of the sport.

Squash was invented in 1830s England, against a wall—or a pillar, perhaps—of the Harrow School. Students discovered that a punctured ball, which “squashed” on impact with the wall, produced a game with a greater variety of shots. Though modern squash is an indoor sport, fundamental rules remain similar. Two players take turns hitting the

ball onto the front wall; a player earns a point each time they win a rally. A game goes up to 11 points, and the player who wins three games out of five wins the match.

Sasson recognizes that squash is a bit of a novelty sport. “When we were still in person at Stuy, I would have my squash racquet poking out my backpack, and people would go ‘nice tennis racquet!’ or ‘badminton, nice!’” Sasson said. “And of course, when I was busy, I just smiled and laughed a bit.”

Sasson began playing squash at 10 years old, after discovering an abandoned racquet court near her apartment complex. Her mother played squash in college and helped her start-up with practices, training sessions, and tournaments.

Six years later, Sasson’s been nationally ranked sixth in her division. She’s played for the U.S. Team in the 2019 Battle of the Border tournament against Canada, and has traveled both nationally and internationally for squash.

All of Sasson’s accomplishments, however, don’t come without sacrifices. Sasson trains six days a week, and the occasional seven. “It’s definitely overwhelming, balancing with school,” Sasson said. “But I think that’s what’s important, especially now. Part of being an athlete is the exhilaration and the failures and achievements, but it’s also about not taking the easy way out. It’s about getting back up and showing up to the next practice.”

Sasson’s success in squash isn’t exclusively due to her unwavering resilience and a rock-solid work ethic—though these are certainly leading factors. That honor goes to the experiences that Sasson’s lived through, both on and off the court. “The battle-border tournament was in Ontario,

The Spectator • February 11, 2021

Page 9

Editorials ADVERTISEMENT

Page 10

The Spectator • February 11, 2021

Editorials Do You C R Dilemma?

With the close of the first semester, discussion regarding the use and effects of CRing a grade has reignited. For context, if a student receives a grade higher than a 65 in a class, there is the option to replace it with a credit-received, or CR, to show that the student has passed the course. The grade will then appear as a CR on the transcript and will not be factored into the student’s overall average. In the ‘Dear Incoming Stuyvesant Class of ...’ Facebook groups, students of all grades are asking whether they should CR their lower grades (generally ranging between 80 and 95), fearing the impact on college admissions. Much of the discourse has led to the discussion of whether students are truly using CR as intended, and how the option has been turned into a tool in the seemingly ever-complicating college process.

The option to CR was introduced in the spring of 2020 to support students who were facing challenging circumstances during remote learning, such as familial disruptions at home, a lack of internet access, and more. The CR option provided a reprieve for students whose raw grades did not accurately reflect their capabilities.

Though the idea of CR-ing a grade was proposed originally as a way to compensate for the difficulties of remote learning, it has largely strayed from this path.

Stuyvesant students have consistently gone to extreme lengths to boost their GPAs, even if only by a few decimal points, and many saw the CR option as a way to do so. This opportunistic use of CR has triggered numerous conver-

By JACKY CHEN On the day before Joe Biden was sworn in, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo officially declared that China “is committing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, China, targeting [Uighur] Muslims and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups,” making the U.S. the first country to levy charges of genocide against China. Biden must not back down from this decision just because Trump made it and must press on with real action.

Currently, China is detaining at least one million Uighurs and other Muslim groups, such as ethnic Kazakhs, in Xinjiang in 380 detention camps without legal process. In these camps, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is cracking down on Islam by destroying mosques and conditioning prisoners to give up their culture. Detainees are to pledge to the Communist party and give up Uighur and other ethnic languages for Mandarin, and they are constantly monitored by cameras and microphones. They have

sations among students who wonder whether colleges would prefer the blank CR to a grade in the 80s or even the 90s. The discussion represents the larger obsession with grades and college at Stuyvesant and indicates the intangible but omnipresent “Stuy Culture.”

There’s no metric to quantify this phenomenon, but the toxic competitiveness that characterizes it is present at all grade levels. Students who arrive at Stuyvesant are immediately greeted by academic feverishness, coupled with parental pressure surrounding high achievement, and must acclimate without questioning why such an atmosphere exists. Though there is no single cause, much of this “Stuy Culture” stems from a frenzy surrounding college admissions.

The current treatment of CR as an attempt to ensure a satisfactory GPA is just the most recent demonstration of what students will consider as a means of rising to the top. Similar to how students often prioritize high grades over learning for its own sake, our present situation is one in which the original intent of the CR option has been abandoned, as many students now view it as a way to prepare an elite transcript.

Simply put, to CR a grade without just cause is to wrongfully game a system whose original intent was never to give certain students a favorable hand to win, but merely to help those with a deck stacked against their favor.

In retrospect, perhaps students’ fixation on numbers as the measure of their intelligence and college readiness in such a concentrated, pressure-cooker environment like Stuyvesant is

inevitable. Students are simply products of their school environment, and the Stuyvesant environment reinforces and tolerates this behavior. Though the appeal of CR-ing grades may tempt any student, freshmen and sophomores can be especially susceptible to misusing the option. This appeal holds especially true if they do not have the hindsight of comfortably receiving mediocre grades and understanding that it does not make or break anything. Indeed, it is common for freshmen to find their first Stuyvesant grades to be lower than what they got in middle school (consider it a rite of passage!). It would serve you well to cut yourself some slack.

All of that is to say: CR as you will, but be aware of all its intricacies. Look at high school with a larger bandwidth, one that allows you to realize, “GPA is not forever.” It is a tough pill to swallow, but a necessary one. Perhaps your eyes bulge in horror at the sight of a grade below a 90. It might as well be a single-digit grade, for all you care. But an admissions officer might see things differently.

Yes, you got an 80 in math.

But the next semester, you got a 90. After that, an 100. After that, you replaced the teacher.

In truth, colleges want to see improvement as you progress through high school. (For the dissenters: they do see you as more than just a grade-producing machine). But CRs, when abused, can have a stink to them. Colleges are free to gag as they will. An 80 will always be an 80. But a CR is an unknown blank—for better or for worse, colleges can fill in that blank, probably with a lower grade than you imagine.

The Spectator The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

“The Pulse of the Student Body”

charges of genocide to China’s attempts to wipe out the Uighurs could bring transparency to the situation and call for other countries to act.

China is already ready to pin Pompeo’s accusation as another questionable foreign policy position of Trump’s administration, like that on Myanmar and Saudi Arabia, and has already placed sanctions on Trump. However, his failures should not take away from the victory of a formal declaration from the U.S. of the genocide in Xinjiang. America is still a major global power and China’s largest trading partner by far.

Pompeo’s declaration of genocide forces Biden to take action and live up to the position he took in August.

The contrast between the attention the Uighur situation receives on the news and social media, with major human rights groups pushing for change and the inaction on the global stage, shows the cynical nature of geopolitics. In 2019, 22 mostly European countries came to the United Nations to rally against China regarding Xinjiang, only to be opposed

&

E D I TO RS

Suah Chung Kenisha Mahajan** Gavin McGinley Dexter Wells PHOTO GRAPHY E D I TO RS

E D I TO R S

IN

C HIEF

Morris Raskin* Karen Zhang*

Francesca Nemati Sasha Socolow ART

N EWS

E D I TO RS

Jenny Liu* Momoca Mairaj F EAT URE S

E D I TO RS

Angela Cai Christina Pan Clara Shapiro* O PI N I O NS

E D I TO RS

Maya Nelson Aaron Visser* S C I E N C E

E D I TO R S

Gerard Lin Sonya Sasson**

D I RE CTO RS

Afra Mahmud** Adrianna Peng Sophie Poget L AYO UT

E D I TO RS

Krish Gupta Sam Levine Matt Melucci H U M O R

E D I TO RS

Logan Ruzzier** Kelly Yip*

* Managing Board ** Editors-in-Training Please address all letters to: 345 Chambers Street New York, NY 10282 (212) 312-4800 ext. 2601 opinions@stuyspec.com

E D I TO RS

Ezra Lee Amy Lin Susie McKnight CO PY

E D I TO RS

Nora Miller Tashfia Noor** Shreyasi Saha Ruiwen Tang Raymond Yang** BUSI NE SS

S P O RTS

M ANAGE RS

Jared Moser** Tina Nguyen WE B

E D I TO RS

David Chen** Alyssa Choi Andrey Sokolov FAC U LT Y

ADV I SE R

Kerry Garfinkel We reserve the right to edit letters for clarity and length. © 2018 The Spectator All rights reserved by the creators.

FOR THE RECORD

• The Issue 9 Sports Article, “Watch Out for These Five NBA Teams” was written by Aidan Look and Taee Chi, not Nakib Abedin.

• The Issue 9 Features Article “The Vaccine Dilemma: NYC’s Journey Back to Normalcy” should be Sandra Brandan, not Brandan Sandra.

Where Trump Went Right

also reported torture—not uncommon in China’s infamous prisons—and sexual abuse.

Additionally, the CCP uses forced sterilization to decrease the Muslim population. On Twitter, China’s U.S. embassy callously boasted that Uighur women had been emancipated and were no longer “baby-making machines.” Uighurs are sent into forced labor for China’s Belt and Road Initiative and are mandated to produce cotton, hair products, garments, computer parts, and other goods.

China’s propaganda machine is incredibly effective at covering up, gaslighting their citizens and the world into denying its validity entirely. My parents, who still consume mostly Chinese media, view any accusation of genocide as Western propaganda. Unfortunately, it’s challenging to counter China’s narrative. The information we do have is extremely limited, coming from satellite cameras and refugee testimony. To justify its reeducation camps, China cites Islamic extremism from past Uighur attacks and neighboring countries like Afghanistan. U.S.

ARTS

E NT E RTAI NM E NT

by 37 others, among them Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, showing how even Islamic countries are subject to the economic and political weight of China. Even Trump waited three years to make a meaningful comment on Xinjiang due to Chinese trade deals. We must celebrate any progress toward a world of compassion and peace. I wish that America would comment on behalf of Uighurs and care for their human suffering, but we are far away from that world. Until then, small victories will have to suffice.

Biden needs to continue to improve previous policies with China. Though the Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act to boycott Chinese products made in Xinjiang last year is stalled in the Senate, it is difficult to track where companies are getting their resources from due to the complications of supply chains. Biden can counteract with authoritative identifiers and DNA tests on products. For agricultural goods such as cotton, a DNA test can be used to see if the crop came from Xinjiang. Unique serialization numbers for products

to identify places of origin that currently do not exist in supply chains should be enforced to make the act worthwhile. Additional sanctions on China coordinated with other countries can also cause China to reverse its course in Xinjiang. Biden would have to confront Disney about its use of Xinjiang in the Mulan remake and Nike about where its materials come from.

However, Biden should not go in alone like Trump but rather seek the support of most of the European Union. International pressure has worked on China before, causing them to back down from supporting Sudan during the Darfur Genocide in 2003. China’s business loss in Xinjiang would greatly hurt it due to the economic importance of the region as China’s largest producer of natural gas.

Finally, the U.S. can crack down on the 2022 Beijing Olympics, an event that China takes seriously, given the gains it received in the 2008 Olympics.

Ultimately, we cannot let the bad actions of the Trump administration stop us from interfering with the Uighur genocide.

The Spectator • February 11, 2021

Page 11

Opinions

By LAUREN CHIN

By ELIZABETH BLACK New York Governor Andrew Cuomo banned indoor dining in restaurants in an effort to control and prevent the spread of COVID-19 on March 16, 2020. The new law was not much of a disruption to millions of New Yorkers who were already staying home in fear of the virus.

Ten months later, however, the public’s interest changed in favor of comfort and enjoyment over COVID-safety, and restaurant owners became dangerously more and more creative with outdoor dining.

During the spring and summer, outdoor dining was exactly what its name suggested: tables and chairs on a terrace, patio, or street where patrons dined to avoid gathering in large crowds indoors.

Seating abided by social distancing guidelines, so eating at a restaurant was no more dangerous than simply going outside. However, as autumn approached and a typically frigid winter promptly followed, outdoor dining underwent certain changes.

To fight slipping temperatures, restaurants began to set up pop-up tents with outdoor heaters, causing tables to move closer and closer together to fit into the tent walls. Gradually, these tents have evolved into sturdy structures of three or four walls of plywood or even sturdier materials made for almost miniature buildings placed on sidewalks. Photos of New York City’s confusing outdoor dining architecture began to trend on social media, taken by users who were unsure how it was any safer

on the humanities. This has created a trend of art departments receiving less funding than other subjects; just this past year, the New York City

humanities degrees has stayed about the same, even decreasing in some places.

Life after school is no different. People who work in

are extremely important.

There’s nothing wrong with appreciating what math and science have done for our society, especially in this past

Department of Education cut their public art education budget by 30 percent.

Additionally, studies show that throughout the past decade, the number of college students in the United States who graduate with STEM degrees has increased, while the number of graduates with

finance, computer science, or business are paid higher than artists, journalists, and writers.

As of May 2019, the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the highestearning jobs are typically in the medical field, such as anesthesiologists or surgeons.

Obviously, STEM careers

year. For instance, medical workers have become more valued due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the real issue arises when people see STEM subjects as more valuable than the humanities.

Subjects like history, law, and literature are still extremely important in our daily lives.

Vivian Teo / The Spectator

As an elementary school student, my dream was to become an author. I had been writing ever since I could hold a pen and was telling stories long before that. To me, it seemed inevitable that I would become a writer in the future.

Contrary to my classmates, I greatly enjoyed the writing assignments and essays we were given, pouring my heart and soul into these projects.

Though I achieved similar grades in English and mathematics, I was ultimately encouraged to study harder in the latter subject. Teachers and family members reminded me that most writers rarely achieved the level of fame and fortune that I hoped to attain. Eventually, I began to wonder if a degree in writing would really do me that much good. Perhaps it was better to pursue a career in something more secure, such as in the medical or financial fields. Like many others, I was encouraged to believe that the humanities and STEM were not equally beneficial to society.

The belief that STEM subjects are better than the humanities starts in the educational system. Within the past decade, the United States government has decided to fund STEM subjects more in an attempt to teach American children critical and analytical thinking. As a result, less of our daily education is spent

The Arts in a World of STEM

Outdoor Indoor Dining

than indoor dining.

Cuomo’s call to close indoor dining aimed mainly to increase airflow between guests and to work together with New York City’s outdoor dining regulations. Most U.S. cities lack clear-cut restrictions on what is considered outdoor or indoor dining, but New York State’s official jurisdiction states that anything walled in on three or more sides is legally considered an indoor restaurant and therefore must operate at 25 percent capacity. The guidelines also call for proper ventilation

“igloos,” freestanding curtains, or other methods to keep their outdoor dining properly ventilated, this structure comes at the expense of the warmth offered by indoor dining, which is the sole factor keeping many restaurants financially afloat during winter, especially after suffering immeasurably because of the pandemic.

Unfortunately, full safety and comfort cannot coexist in the current situation.

Cuomo’s plan is forcing restaurants to choose one or the other, but what if a balance

restaurants, rates of infection can decrease. However, once the ban is lifted, its positive effects could be undone in a matter of days, as people will rush back into restaurants and begin spreading the virus again. While no outcome is guaranteed, New York cannot afford to experiment with a plan like this.

Another approach is to simply reinforce the aforementioned outdoor dining guidelines more strongly. This method is a logical course of action for safety but would be the final blow to the income

If carried out cautiously, a safe reopening of indoor restaurants may be the only way to satisfy patrons and restaurant owners while controlling the coronavirus spread as much as possible. in any dining area.

Many outdoor dining structures violate these regulations and therefore technically classify as indoor spaces, defeating any purpose of preventing COVID-19. Fully enclosed spaces operating at much more than 25 percent capacity that lack proper ventilation can be seen all over the city. While some restaurant owners follow the rules by implementing one-table

can be found? By changing our course of action, we may be able to safely return to eating inside a restaurant much sooner than anticipated.

Los Angeles, for instance, recently put a ban on both indoor and outdoor dining until further notice. Though the results have yet to be observed, the plan is reasonable: since masks are off in dining spaces, COVID-19 is easily spread among patrons. By emptying

of restaurants that are already suffering more than ever. Few people want to eat in freezing weather, and most people would rather order takeout instead, severely affecting wages and tips given to the waiting staff.

A third possible solution, though riskier, has the potential to be the best-case scenario. If approached with care and attention, reopening indoor dining at a low capacity

As a Stuyvesant student, imagine what life would be like without your English class, the fifth-floor mural, or the colorful ads you see in the subway. As residents of New York, we appreciate how places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Museum of Natural History are crucial parts of our city’s culture.

Outside of our personal lives, it’s also easy to see how the humanities have affected history. Thousands of years ago, before human civilization even existed, humans were first creating art. Additionally, studying history is especially important, as it ensures that we don’t make the same mistakes as our ancestors.

Aside from their cultural impact, the humanities help human development. Learning about art is critical for the development of a person’s behavior and contributes to increased civic engagement and a more open mind. Furthermore, art has been linked to improving a person’s mental health, allowing them to feel more confident and engaged.

It is important in creating healthy and happy citizens.

Society needs both STEM subjects and the arts in order to flourish. They have been a part of humanity’s culture for thousands of years, helping us learn more about the world and how we fit into it.

In order to allow each person to reach their full potential, we must value both subjects equally.

may be effective. Banning dining altogether has too many drawbacks and may end up doing more harm than good.

When asked to create outdoor dining spaces, restaurants unknowingly opt for unsafe options in order to maintain business. Though reopening indoor dining may sound shocking, it may be the only way to approach this.

Most indoor dining spaces in restaurants are much larger than the outdoor tents, so fewer people will crowd in a small area, and social distancing can be enforced. The buildings can also have proper ventilation through air conditioning, fans, air filters and purifiers, vents, and more. To maintain proper airflow, capacity should not exceed 25 percent. The same comfort can be achieved as that of current outdoor dining without jeopardizing restaurants’ earnings. When spring arrives, indoor seating can be closed, as outdoor dining will be able to operate safely, as it did during the warmer months of 2020.

If indoor dining is brought back, the city and state should monitor it with extremely careful restrictions, and the health department should constantly assess its effectiveness. However, should this new plan be installed and indoor dining reopened, closer attention from state and city officials would help ensure its safety. If carried out cautiously, a safe reopening of indoor restaurants may be the only way to satisfy patrons and restaurant owners while controlling the coronavirus spread as much as possible.

Page 12

The Spectator • February 11, 2021

Opinions

By ELICIA CHAU The League of Legends extension has been relatively unused in the past few years, nestled between Chrome and Spotify on my old desktop. I occasionally think about opening the game, just for nostalgia, but I never seem to follow through: there’s never enough time, always something else to do. Years ago, I was addicted, pushing every hour of my bedtime to squeeze in an extra game or two. Today, at most, I open the universe page (the League of Legends informative website, with the backstories of the champions and the universe the game is set in) to keep up with new champs, who got nerfed, new skins—the like. Usually, the game and its universe slip past my mind, forgotten and wasting storage as I continue to glance over it during Zoom classes.

I don’t have much motivation for gameplay these days: the toxic chats, the screaming about how much other players suck, the slurs at every slight mistake, and the headaches from hour-long games were too much. At 10, I was first introduced to the game, and by 11, I was already receiving sexual comments while playing. I had accidentally mentioned I was a minor, and a female minor at that, to an online acquaintance.

His immediate response was a request for nudes, and though I only discovered what that meant through an Urban Dictionary search the next day, I still felt uncomfortable enough to remove him. My young mind knew that what he was asking was wrong, and the frequency of such encounters powered my eventual complete leave.

Toxicity in gaming is common, but it only multiplies

By ELIO TORRES

when gender is factored in, resulting in intricate sexism in the gaming world. At first, it’s subtle, sprinkled in between the female champions in scanty costumes and the automatic assumption that every girl who plays is a support main, left aiding other players instead of taking the spotlight for herself.

It quickly spirals into misogynistic comments, where female Twitch streamers are shunned for the smallest of things. It becomes reading about projects like GamerGate from 2014, when men obsessed with

breakthroughs or that they’re not good enough to play in professional leagues; it’s that the hate, the threats, and the harassment are amplified when it comes to a woman.

Take Hafu Chan, for example. A former World of Warcraft pro, she left the competitive world and now plays Hearthstone Arena on Twitch.

She is heavily acclaimed as one of the best in the world. She clearly loves Hearthstone, but her experience as a World of Warcraft player propelled her to speak out about the sexism and

on their playing skills due to appearance solely. You never see male pros faced with the aggressive, perpetual threats of sexual violence and abuse that females face.

Sexism is so common that it becomes overlooked. For instance, Maria “Remilia” Creveling is the only woman who has competed in the League of Legends World Championship (LCS), and she made her debut in 2016 in the top professional league, which drew 3.8 million peak viewers in 2020. However, many of the comment

You rarely see male pros getting questioned on their playing skills due to appearance solely. You never see male pros faced with the aggressive, perpetual threats of sexual violence and abuse that females face. “cleansing corruption in the gaming world” decided to target female game developers and speakers with leaked addresses and threats of death or rape. It becomes feeling distant from playing male-dominated games like League.

A quick Google search of “Top League of Legends Players” brings countless results, about 99 percent of which are men. A search of other games like World of Warcraft and Overwatch brings similar lists.

They are all amazing, don’t get me wrong, but the lack of female players in the top ranks of the gaming industry fuels misogynists to jump in with the “all women are [EXPLETIVE] at games.” And it’s not that women don’t try to make

verbal abuse that many women in the gaming community face on their journey to becoming professionals. At 17, she faced a team named “Gonna Rape Hafu At Regionals” in a World of Warcraft tournament. She’s been called sexist names and had false rumors spread about her. When she actively spoke out about sexism in the 10-minute documentary “The Trials of a Female Esports Champion,” commenters in the related Reddit thread were quick to say that her harassment was not due to her gender and that such comments were “just part of the job.” However, when we look into this situation more deeply, seeing the faults of this claim is easy. You rarely see male pros getting questioned

sections of streams featuring her team, the Renegades, were flooded with critiques of her appearance and bashes of her playing abilities. Within weeks, Remilia removed herself from the team’s roster due to anxiety and self-esteem issues.

With so many instances of clear sexism and targeting, we need solutions to this ongoing issue. This process begins with two connected principles: awareness and support. In the summer of 2020, over 70 allegations of gender-based harassment, sexual assault, and abuse surfaced, compiled by Jessica Richey, a streamer in New York, into a Medium post that has been widely shared throughout the gaming community. It sparked a #MeToo

Hunts Point and Hazard Pay

benefits for essential workers who have put their livelihoods in jeopardy to maintain a semblance of normalcy for the rest of us.

for its workers. Three hundred workers, or roughly 10 percent of the workforce at the market, contracted the virus in under a year, with six fatalities tied to

At the Hunts Point Produce Market in the Bronx, exhausted workers unsurprisingly reacted to this underappreciation. More than half of all produce delivered to restaurants and supermarkets in the city first makes its way through their hands.

Research into the facility has revealed that Hunts Point has been a coronavirus hotspot

those cases. Francisco Soto, an employee of the facility, likened the crowding of the market to Penn Station, a comparison sure to elicit shudders from anyone who has had to navigate their way through the train hub.

For their work, these employees only make between $15 and $22 an hour.

In response to these condi-

Anna Ast / The Spectator

The virus mandated lockdown and isolation for New Yorkers who could subsist on virtual meetings and intermittent grocery outings. The slightest reference to the subway became a household ick. However, the essential workers who kept grocery aisles stocked and the city fed continued to work, risking exposure to the virus.

Though most industries in the U.S. workforce slowed down and 75 million citizens filed for unemployment, essential businesses across the country had to expedite their operations to meet demand—nurses and doctors took on more patients, delivery drivers had twice as many orders to account for, and MTA employees had to keep the trains running at a pre-pandemic pace.

New Yorkers showed appreciation for local essential workers with evening applause from window sills and balconies. Yet amidst unprecedented risks and workloads, the federal government and corporate executives failed to recompense these workers with hazard or “hero” pay for their work. In fact, just 25 percent of companies that rely on in-person workers gave any pay increases to their employees who worked through the pandemic. Lawmakers also have not passed any measures to provide federal hazard pay for essential workers. President Joe Biden’s administration needs to secure hazard pay and

I Play ADC, Not Support

tions, all 1,400 workers of the Teamsters Local 202 Union went on strike for the first time since 1986. They demanded a three-year contract for wage raises, with an increase of $1-per-hour for each year. They also pushed for loftier employee health care, which was justified by the growing tally of coronavirus cases. Congressional politicians, like U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of NY-14, attended the strike to offer their support and called on the federal government to intervene on behalf of workers. The strike concluded in under a week with an offer from the market’s cooperative board, which promised to deliver on a three-year plan to raise wages by $2-per-hour and spend more money on personal protective equipment for workers; the agreement was the largest in Hunts Point history.

Hunts Point employees are by no means the only essential workers who were forced to step up in the pandemic without a pay increase. At the onset of the pandemic, Congress advanced legislation to dedicate $200 billion to essential worker hazard pay, and a number of large companies agreed to give bonuses to frontline workers.

Unfortunately, the hazard pay proposal died in the Republican-controlled Senate, and most employers terminated frontline bonuses just months into the pandemic. Without compensation for the added risk of expo-

moment that has become a large comfort to those who have also experienced sexual harassment while gaming. The support from streamers and game companies has been swift and large. For instance, Lono, a top player, lost his sponsorship following multiple Twitter allegations of sexual harrassment, which was a stark contrast to the backlash that met similar accusations in 2019. The change has been uplifting.

Similarly, Riot Games, which manages League of Legends and the LCS, was criticized for its sexist treatment toward employees in a Kotaku article, filled with anecdotes from former female workers and countless denials from the company, that spread like wildfire. Despite those denials, Riot formally apologized and outlined a plan of action titled “Our First Steps Forward” to acknowledge the issues. Though the outline is fairly basic, it is a step in the right direction: we are finally beginning to see the sexism that had previously been written off as nothing brought to light.

I will probably never be as avid in gaming as I once was.

The countless times a sexual comment was made were plenty enough for me to quit the game, and even if I were to open up the League extension one day and hit up my old friends, it wouldn’t be the same.

But seeing the slow change that is developing in the streaming community is comforting. It’s a sign that one day in the future, there may be a female player who no longer feels as though she is foreign in the gaming world. Ultimately, games are games: they don’t have a gender, even if there are those who attempt to limit it to one.

sure to the virus, essential worker strikes, like the Hunts Point labor strike, are necessary and inevitable; Amazon and Target employees walked off their jobs at distribution centers, fast-food workers have held walkouts, and employees at chains like Family Dollar, Instacart, and Shell have gone on strike all since March.

The Hunts Point strike occurred during the same week of the inauguration of Biden, a president who has committed to raising the federal minimum wage and delivering racial equity. His commitment is the first step for these low-wage frontline workers—who are mostly people of color—to receive a fair and livable wage. For many of these workers, their working wages are so low that they would have made more money on federal unemployment. Moreover, while individual wage agreements between companies and employees are directly responsible for take-home pay, the people working in these positions are underpinned by structural discrimination. An insufficient federal minimum wage and systemic racism hurt social mobility by keeping the same Americans in poverty. Appreciation of frontline and low-wage workers must start with the U.S. Labor Department and within Capitol Hill. If pandemic legislation can bail out corporations, it can also deliver for the hardworking Americans that the corporations would be nothing without.

The Spectator • February 11, 2021

Page 13

Opinions

By SHIVANI SHAH I often encounter TikToks advertising detox teas or diets that will help you “lose weight quick.” I usually laugh and keep scrolling, knowing how futile and detrimental they are. However, I often notice 12-year-old girls asking about the specific measurements for the drink or further requirements for the diets. In fact, 46 percent of nine to 11-year-olds are “sometimes” or “very often” on diets.

If I saw these TikToks a couple of years ago, I would have believed them too.

America has a toxic diet culture that promotes weight loss over everything else. While some science-backed diets exist, far more common are harmful routines that equate a skinny body with a healthy one.

This culture promotes the idea that food comes in the way of achieving an ideal hourglass body. Fifty percent of women are on a diet on any given day.

By ERICA LI Red, nude, black, push-up, lightly lined, wired, wirefree— what is it about a bra that simply entices everyone? It is a piece of fabric worn to support and cover two lumps of fat in the middle of a woman’s chest.

Breasts are a natural part of human anatomy, and yet, they have been oversexualized and stigmatized throughout history. If you’re a woman, your breasts’ size and shape matter (especially to the strangers on New York City’s street corners), even if you are wearing a bra. If you choose not to wear a bra, you get called “easy” and slutshamed for showing the world your nipples.

The prejudice a woman faces for being nude compared to a man is drastic. In 2020, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by three women who were fined by the city for being topless in public. The judges had rejected this notion under the fact that the U.S. Constitution bars nudity from both men and women but a topless male is not considered nude while a woman being topless is. However, society has come a long way since

By JOHN GROSSMAN Americans love their cars.

In 2019, 93 percent of American households had access to at least one functional vehicle, and 73 percent of American car owners claimed that they love their cars. Unlike them, I cannot understand their appeal and would go my entire life without learning to drive. Few things sound less pleasant to me than realizing that there is no adequate place for me to dispose of my four-wheeled metal pollution box and having to parallel park on some narrow street 15 minutes away from my destination.

Unfortunately, I am not responsible for American city planning. American cities are mostly unwalkable nightmares of asphalt and smog, and public transportation is sparse and remains underfunded across the country. Because of this problematic design, 85.4 percent of workers commute by car. Amer-

The Toxic Diet Culture

Many of these diets cut off whole food groups from one regime. For example, the Ketogenic diet restricts starches, sugars, and even fruits; the Paleolithic diet avoids sugar, grains, legumes, and dairy; and the Atkins diet refrains from fruit, grains, starchy vegetables, dairy, and nuts. Most people are unable to sustain the diet, stray away from it, and then start again. Eighty percent of overweight people cannot maintain weight loss for a long period of time. A study from the American Heart Association found that this yo-yo dieting increases a woman’s risk of developing heart disease. The Ketogenic diet, in particular, has the potential of causing low blood pressure, kidney stones, and increased risk of heart disease.

The issue with this toxic diet culture is not only its unsustainability but also the mindset it spreads. It pushes the idea that losing weight is the key to happiness and confidence, with 77

percent of 800 women believing that if they lost a certain amount of weight, they would feel differently about themselves. However, in a study of 1,979 participants, those who lost five percent or more of their body weight over four years were 52 percent more likely to be depressed than the participants who maintained their weight over the four years.

The diet culture also alters the way children view themselves and is only magnified by the increased usage of social media among young users, as it is a medium for trends and diet cultures to spread. Many times, children cannot differentiate between what is manufactured and what is real, which provides unrealistic standards for the ideal body. They see celebrities on Instagram promoting diet culture to their adult audience.

They notice when Kourtney Kardashian raves about the Ketogenic diet or when Chris Hemsworth publicizes losing

33 pounds for a role. Moreover, parents, who may also follow the culture, have the greatest influence on their kids. Girls under the age of 11 with a mother who diets are significantly more likely to diet than girls with mothers who do not.

However, our relationship with food does not have to be this emotionally intense. The intuitive movement offers another way. It teaches you how to listen to the signals of your body, eat when you’re hungry, and stop when full. Intuitive eating ends the common practice of calorie counting or labeling food as “bad” or “good,” which is found to result in a 17 percent increase in the chance of binge eating among women.

Long-term results of intuitive eating show a decrease in cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and body dissatisfaction, as well as an increase in improved eating behaviors and want for physical activity. The aim of intuitive eating is not to lose

A Woman’s Choice: The Bra

the U.S. Constitution was written. Women now have the right to vote and a voice in the American government. But the naked truth is that women are still not seen equally compared to men, especially when it comes to their bodies.

A major example of a woman’s breasts being oversexualized is breastfeeding, a natural biological function that still carries a social stigma in public. Breastfeeding has been scientifically proven to be more beneficial for your child than formula. Though breastfeeding in public has been legalized in all 50 states since 1999, people are still calling the cops on mothers. In 2012, an Applebee’s manager called the police after witnessing a young mother breastfeeding her child in a booth. The manager told the mother to breastfeed in the bathroom or leave. When she didn’t leave, the manager called the police, who arrived on the scene to inform the manager that it was perfectly legal and within the mother’s rights to breastfeed her baby in public.

These social stigmas of breastfeeding can also be seen on television. In an episode of “Gilmore Girls,” Luke Danes is

ranting to Lorelai Gilmore about how appalled he is by a mother breastfeeding her child in the corner of the diner. He says, “When did that become acceptable? In the old days, a woman would never consider doing that in public. They’d go find a barn or a cave or something. I mean, it’s indecent; this is a diner, not a peep show.” Luke Danes’s comment about a “peep show” indicates that the mother was doing something sexual, which she was not. It also suggests that simply having your breasts out in public gives off sexual suggestions and holds a negative connotation, which it should not.

A majority of these sexist notions stem from our public education system. The dress code system purposely sexualizes female students and sets a precedent for male students to victim blame. The essence of enforcing a dress code is to make the school environment suited for learning, not to degrade young students and compromise their education. Telling female students that their bra straps are on display, thus distracting the male students, only tears down their self-esteem and hinders the discussion of mutu-

al respect between male and female students. It also sends the message that a male student’s comfort is more important than a female student’s—that a female student must do anything in her power to not distract the male student because he is not able to control his emotions and needs.

However, there is hope for the future. More and more students are beginning to fight back against these injustices.

For example, Lizzy Martinez, a 17-year-old student at Braden River High School, was forced to put bandages on her nipples to cover the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra. To spread awareness about this sexist notion, Lizzy started a “bracott,” encouraging girls to go braless and clip bras on their backpacks.

Boys also joined in by wearing bandages over their nipples. It gained media attention overnight, showing how powerful student-led movements can be in fighting against sexist dress codes.

Students are not the only ones rebelling against sexism.

Celebrities, such as Kendall Jenner and Emma Watson, have begun participating in Free the

It’s Time for a Car-Free Manhattan

ica is a car-dependent country, and it would be extremely difficult to change that—except in New York City.

Only 45 percent of households in the city own a car, and it is even lower in my home borough of Manhattan, where household car ownership stands at 22 percent. Cars do not serve a clear purpose in Manhattan.

In my neighborhood, I can get to several grocery stores, parks, cafes, restaurants, and retail stores on foot. Additionally, I have access to a subway line with frequent service, two crosstown buses, and a ferry line. My neighborhood is by no means an outstanding example of the amenities and connections available to Manhattanites. Even the most remote corners of Manhattan are easily accessible by public transportation, making cars obsolete when we consider the alternatives.

Car ownership in Manhattan is also cumbersome. The average monthly cost of parking is

$430, and the average speed of traffic is 4.7 miles per hour. This expense means that you will be shelling out thousands of dollars each year to move about one mile per hour faster than walking speed. Beyond New York-exclusive car issues, there are the general downsides. Personal vehicles emit 24 pounds of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases for every gallon of gasoline and account for about one-fifth of U.S. carbon emissions. As climate change is an existential threat, we should be doing anything we can to reduce emissions. Cars are also massive contributors to air pollution; removing them from our streets would help clean the air in Manhattan.

Though Manhattan is substantially less car-dependent than the rest of America, an area that is nearly four times the size of Central Park is still devoted to roads and parking, reserved for the minority of residents and visitors who use cars. By

restricting roads to buses, delivery vans, and rideshares, we can free up a ton of space and eliminate traffic. We could turn major thoroughfares into busways and cut down bus trip times across the city. We could turn one lane on most streets into a protected bike lane to make bike riding safer and less intimidating. We could close three lanes of the West Side Highway and expand the Hudson River Greenway with extra green space, playgrounds, and walking paths.

We could even fully close small residential blocks to traffic altogether and turn the streets into safe places for kids to play and people to congregate.

Beyond the quality of life benefits, removing cars brings economic benefits. In 2018, Madrid closed its city’s center to private cars for a few weeks leading up to Christmas. That year, retail stores on Madrid’s main shopping street made 9.5 percent more than they did in the previous year. In the Unit-

weight but to maintain your weight and to love food.

Intuitive eating is effective because it does not restrict foods and does not bring guilt for eating food you love. When you know you cannot eat something, you are more likely to crave and eat more of it than when you are allowed to eat it. Additionally, intuitive eating fixes the unfulfilled satisfaction after losing weight, as it promotes happiness that is not dependent on outside characteristics.

However, it is much easier to write about this model than to implement these lifestyles. It will take a lot of work to undo the deeply-rooted diet culture, but there is still hope. Famous celebrities like Jameela Jamil are rejecting the diet culture and promoting intuitive eating. The intuitive eating movement is growing very quickly, and there is a growing recognition of the toxicity of the diet culture.

Nipple, a feminist campaign dedicated to emphasizing a woman’s choice as to how she displays her body. Though some people see these movements as aggressive and immoral, these campaigns are about equality and having a choice. Women no longer want to deal with the societal judgment of their breasts or the pain of having to wear a bra, and that is okay. Wearing a bra is painful sometimes. The constraining straps and underwires can cause soreness in your shoulders, back, neck, chest, and even spine, which is often why many women don’t wear one.

When a woman embraces her body and sexuality, she is called a slut. When a woman covers up, she’s called a prude. There is nothing a woman can do to please society. This is why campaigns such as Free the Nipple are important, because they help women around the world embrace themselves and learn to love their bodies.

For so long, women have been conditioned to think that wearing a bra is a must. It is not.

Love your body, and do what you feel is right for you, because at the end of the day, it is your choice.

ed Kingdom, where pedestrian streets are more common, store vacancy rates are five times higher on streets with high levels of automobile traffic than those that prioritize walking and cycling. A car-free street is simply a more pleasant experience.

Pedestrians are not confined to narrow sidewalks and are free from the whizzing and honking of cars.

Beyond the creative uses of streets that would be open to us, Manhattanites would experience a higher quality of life. Our streets would be quieter, the air would be fresher, buses would run faster, and the wealthy would be more compelled to care about the MTA when there is no other alternative. The snow would not turn as brown from the exhaust fumes, and walking would no longer be a contact sport. Banning private cars is a necessary step to untether Manhattan from the automobile and give Manhattan back to New Yorkers.

The Spectator ● February 11, 2021

Page 14

Science NASA to Make History With New Mars Rover

By ZOE PICCIRILLO You’ve heard of Mars rovers, but have you heard of Mars helicopters? NASA’s new Perseverance rover will land on Mars on February 18, 2021 for a historical mission to discover new signs of life and explore the possibility of human travel to the planet. Perseverance will also travel with a sidekick: a helicopter named Ingenuity.

NASA has sent four rovers to Mars, each with a unique mission, since the late 1990s. Sojourner was the first rover to successfully land on Mars, in 1997. It took pictures of Ares Vallis, an area of the planet with a diverse landscape of rocks. Sojourner also measured aspects of the weather on Mars such as wind speed and temperature. The Opportunity and Spirit rovers searched for signs of water on Mars in 2004. They discovered minerals that are often present near water such as grey hematite.

Ultimately, they concluded that Mars once had water, held in lakes and as water vapor in the atmosphere. NASA sent a rover called Curiosity to Mars in 2012 to search for more evidence of water and measure radiation on the planet to determine how habitable the plan-

et may be for humans in 2012. Curiosity found rocks that were once mud when water existed and high levels of radiation where humans would need special protections to survive on the planet.

Of all the Mars rovers, Perseverance seems to be the most ambitious: it aims to find signs of ancient life. Since water was once present on Mars, NASA believes life may have been present as well. For two years, the rover will collect rock and soil samples from the Jezero Crater, which was a 28-mile-wide delta and lake billions of years ago. Furthermore, Perseverance’s operations will allow scientists to interact with Martian samples for the first time in history: it will not only survey samples but also return them back to Earth.

While Perseverance surveys the terrain and searches for microbial fossils, Ingenuity has a different task: it will test the limits of planetary exploration. A fourpound, solar-powered helicopter that looks like a drone, Ingenuity will be the first aircraft to fly on another planet if it survives the challenging conditions for flight on Mars. The helicopter will have to withstand frigid temperatures, which can reach negative 130 de-

grees Fahrenheit. It will also have to adapt to the thin atmosphere, which makes it difficult to achieve lift on Mars. To withstand this, the helicopter is built with large rotor blades that spin faster than a typical helicopter would on Earth.

While this mission for Ingenuity is simply a test flight, the helicopter has the potential to revolutionize future missions on Mars.

If Ingenuity can fly throughout Mars, it could provide a novel aerial viewpoint for high-definition images, and survey terrain difficult for rovers to access. The helicopter’s ability to travel above new terrain could vastly expand research on the Red Planet, as it could explore areas beyond those covered by past rovers.

Beyond its main mission to explore signs of life, Perseverance has various other research plans.

One goal is to discover how sound is perceived differently on Mars.

To do so, Perseverance is carrying two microphones to investigate aspects of sound. For example, Mars’s atmosphere is 96 percent carbon dioxide, which supposedly would muffle high-pitched sounds. Perseverance also carries new technologies, including a Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE).

MOXIE will attempt to convert carbon dioxide abundant in Mars’s atmosphere into breathable oxygen. The device could be a major source of oxygen for humans who travel to Mars, and it would support the notion that it is possible for humans to be on Mars.

From bringing the first Martian samples to Earth to launching the first aircraft on another planet, NASA’s upcoming mission poses challenges but also exudes innovation and excitement. Perseverance faces a difficult landing as Jezero Crater has diverse terrain, including cliffs and boulders. Ingenuity will have to lift off in an atmosphere unlike Earth’s. Yet, Perseverance and Ingenuity could be the first robots to tell us about extraterrestrial life that lived long before us, as well as propel the movement to send humans to Mars. The idea of human travel to Mars has long been fantasized, but it could finally become a reality if the rover and helicopter reveal more signs that it is possible. This mission will be a turning point for space travel, changing the questions about humans on Mars from “What if ?” to “When?” While the next two years are still unknown, what’s to come after February 18 certainly seems promising.

SCIENCEBEAT NASA is set to deploy the Perseverance rover, along with the helicopter Ingenuity, to Mars to survey the Martian terrain, search for microbial fossils, and test the limits of planetary exploration.

New COVID-19 variants that are more virulent and infectious are emerging in Brazil and the United Kingdom, with some making their way into the United States.

The Super Bowl may cause an explosion in the number of COVID-19 cases in the near future, with celebrations and meetups creating new transmission chains.

A polar vortex is set to affect the southern US in midFebruary, with temperatures expected to drop to below freezing.

When Science is Not So Scientific: The World of Forensics Edgar Marx was a suspect in the murder of his landlady, Lovey Benovsky, in February 1974. A key piece of evidence was a bite mark left on Benovksy’s nose. Despite claims from the California Court of Appeals that there was “no established science of identifying persons from bite marks,” dentists used an impression of Marx’s teeth to prove him guilty.

Combined with Marx’s previous inconsistent statements, the evidence persuaded the jury to find Marx guilty of voluntary manslaughter.

People v. Marx became a reference during future convictions utilizing bite-mark analysis, and the practice found its way into the case of Robert Lee Stinson in 1985. The 21-year-old was charged with the murder and rape of 63-year-old Ione Cychosz. The only available evidence was bite marks left on the victim. After analyzing the indentations, forensic odontologist Dr. L. Thomas Johnson concluded that the perpetrator was missing an upper lateral incisor. Stinson had a missing central incisor, but the difference was overlooked by investigators.

To prove Stinson’s guilt, Johnson held a model of Stinson’s teeth against a mold of a bite mark found on Cychosz and disregarded how three different dental models also fit the impression.

Judge Genine Jeske even claimed that “there were adequate standards and controls in the area of forensic odontology” despite the lack of scientific research to back the statement. The jury found Stinson guilty of first-degree murder. He was 44 years old when he was exonerated, and the real killer, Moses Price Jr., was caught. Price had committed a series of robberies, raped another woman, and killed a man while Stinson was serving a life sentence.

Stinson’s case is not unique.

According to the Innocence Project, an organization that uses DNA testing to exonerate the wrongfully convicted, at least 26 people convicted by bite-mark ev-

idence were later acquitted. Bitemark evidence remains admissible in most states, but many forensic odontologists have regarded the evidence as unreliable.

A more widely employed technique, microscopic hair analysis, determined the fate of 18-yearold Kirk Odom. The D.C. resident was accused of raping a woman at gunpoint in February 1981. A few strands of his hair were collected to see if they matched those found on the victim’s nightgown, and an FBI microscopist determined them to be a match. Despite the uncertainty, prosecutors claimed that the microscopist was rarely mistaken in the thousands of cases he’d worked on, and convinced the jury to find Odom guilty of rape, sodomy, armed robbery, and burglary. Odom served his 21-year sentence before DNA evidence brought the truth out. The real perpetrator had already committed another crime and was not prosecuted due to the statute of limitations, which places restrictions on how long after an alleged crime legal action can be taken.

With the breakthrough of DNA analysis, the reliability of hair analysis was called into question. A 2002 study found that approximately 11 percent of the time, microscopically indistinguishable hair strands contain different mitochondrial DNA. Such a significant discrepancy has profound implications. According to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, of over 300 people exonerated by DNA evidence, nearly a quarter were wrongfully convicted when using hair analysis. In 2012, the FBI announced an internal investigation to reexamine 21,000 cases involving hair analysis.

Even fingerprint analysis, largely regarded as an accurate technique, can be flawed. In 2004, Brandon Mayfield was accused of bombing commuter trains in Madrid when fingerprints found on a bag containing detonators were photographed and sent to the FBI. After running them through an Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, the

prints matched those of Mayfield, who was arrested for two weeks before Spanish authorities found new information that proved Mayfield innocent.

Additionally, a 2011 study

tors better recreate crime scenes, which could potentially eliminate suspects and decrease the opportunity of false convictions.

Though DNA testing is the most accurate forensics method

found that the chances of a fingerprint false positive identification was 0.1 percent. While this seems like a small probability, it is still concerning given the large number of cases that use fingerprint analysis. Since 1920, there have been 22 known cases of fingerprint analysis errors. However, future advancements may be able to improve the accuracy of this method. A 2018 Nature report details how biological components found on prints, like proteins and lipids, can provide insight into the age of the print and help investiga-

to date, this technique has also encountered problems. Lydia Fairchild found herself the victim of the method’s limitations in 2002. When Fairchild and Jamie Townsend, the father of their two children, applied for welfare, DNA tests taken to confirm their parenthood indicated that Fairchild was not the biological mother of her children. The couple was suspected of welfare fraud and risked having their children taken.

With the pair unable to explain the findings and Lydia pregnant with their third child, the court decided

Emily Young-Squire / The Spectator

By OLIVIA ZHENG

that an observer could witness the birth and test Fairchild and her newborn after. The subsequent test showed that Fairchild’s DNA did not match that of her child, suggesting an anomaly in Fairchild’s genetic makeup.

Fairchild’s attorney came across a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine that detailed another case, involving Karen Keegan, a mother whose DNA did not match that of her children. Keegan had chimerism.

In this condition, an individual has more than one set of DNA due to a migration of genetic material between expecting mothers and their fetuses, blood transfusions, organ transplants, or in the case of Keegan and Fairchild, the fusion of twins very early in embryonic development.

This medical phenomenon challenges the notion that DNA analysis is infallible. Though there are only around 100 documented cases of chimerism, the number of chimeras is unknown. And while Fairchild did not lose custody of her children, other chimeric parents may have. In contrast, chimeric criminals who leave one set of DNA at a crime scene and another for a test can be proven innocent when guilty. Though DNA evidence has freed many of the wrongfully convicted, there is a chance that a chimeric convict could be exonerated with the aid of their inner twin when they are actually guilty.

Though these are unlikely scenarios given the rarity of the fusion of twins resulting in a single individual, they should nonetheless be addressed when conducting DNA analysis. In paternity cases, for example, analyzing DNA taken from sperm cells rather than swabbed cheek cells minimizes the chances of a father’s profile not matching that of his child.

Despite the rapid progressions in forensic science in the past few decades, forensic techniques remain subject to error. Since the lives of millions are changed by our use of forensic technology, we must be cautious when equating flawed science with truth.

The Spectator ● February 11, 2021

Page 15

Science Another One? COVID Strains Keep Emerging…

And Getting Deadlier

By SATHIRTHA MONDAL A little more than 12 months ago, the first case of the coronavirus was detected in Wuhan, China. As the novel coronavirus surpasses 100 million cases worldwide, it’s safe to say that our lives have been altered radically.

One step outside and you’re immediately surrounded by masked figures, empty streets, and social distancing signs. Though the coronavirus is neither the most contagious virus to infect humans nor the most deadly, it is still to be feared—it has caused one of the deadliest pandemics in history. It doesn’t help that more variants are emerging—ones that are more infectious, lethal, and may possibly render our only defense to the virus, the COVID-19 vaccines, ineffective. It’s the news no one wanted to hear: the coronavirus has mutated into more virulent emerging strains.

The virus never stops mutating. As it spreads from person to person, it acquires random mutations that change its structure and behavior. Currently, there are several thousand COVID variants circulating the globe, but three new variants in particular have caught the attention of health officials: B.1.1.7 in the U.K., B.1.351 in South Africa, and P.1 in Brazil.

While previous mutations only had minor changes that did not concern researchers, there is preliminary evidence that these variants behave differently, and are thus far more deadly.

The B.1.1.7 variant, which emerged in late September, dominated the U.K. in late December, accumulating nearly two-thirds of overall cases. In a recent study conducted by Public Health England, the U.K.’s leading science

advisory group, the B.1.1.7 variant has substantially higher transmissibility and a 30 percent higher mortality rate. This is accredited to the strain’s 17 mutations within its spike proteins, the component that allows the virus to penetrate cells and initiate infection at the cellular level. These mutations

peaks in South Africa’s daily cases and deaths, surpassing previous highs set during the first wave in July. South African researchers have suggested that the variant infects nearly twice as many people within a given period compared to normal strains, as it leads to infections among the different strains

which conceal it from immune response and prevent antibodies from neutralizing it. The variant also contains more spike proteins on its surface, allowing it to attach more firmly to host cells. The new outbreak increased Brazil’s death toll to over 219,000, only second to the U.S., a nation with nearly

Though the coronavirus is neither the most contagious virus to infect humans nor the most deadly, it is still to be feared—it has caused one of the deadliest pandemics in history.

allow the protein to easily attach to our cells, letting the virus reside in the upper respiratory tract instead of deep within the lungs.

This means that more particles are prone to escaping when an infected person coughs or speaks.

Scientists also suggest that the B.1.1.7 variant causes infected patients to have higher viral loads, or produce more viral particles, which leads to more severe disease and a greater risk of death.

The B.1.1.7 variant has spread to over 60 countries, including the U.S., where it is said to be circulating in at least 26 states. Leading researchers predict this variant may dominate the U.S. by March.

Similarly, the B.1.351 in South Africa poses a threat due to its numerous mutations in the spike protein. The variant caused recent

in South Africa and has spread to at least 22 other countries. This strain poses a serious threat due to two key mutations: E484K and N501. The E484K mutation helps to disguise the virus, allowing it to bypass existing antibodies produced from prior infections or vaccination. The N501 mutation allows the virus to bind more tightly to the host cell. All in all, these changes make the virus more transmissible while making the antibodies less effective in neutralizing the B.1.351 variant.

Additionally, the P.1 variant caused the same number of deaths in Manaus, Brazil, in a span of one month that the U.K. variant did over three months.

This suggests that the P.1 variation exhibits similar mutations to the B.1.351 and B.1.1.7 strains,

one and a half times the population of Brazil. The U.S. found its first case of the P.1 variant in Minnesota.

While these new strains have raised alarm, the vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer have given us hope of ending this pandemic. Despite this, the pandemic is continuing to worsen, regardless of the measures put in place.

Another COVID-19 variant has been discovered in Los Angeles, California, and is said to be responsible for two-thirds of LA’s one million cases in the last two months alone. These resurgences may show that our best answer, the vaccine, may no longer be adequate.

The vaccine may not provide much relief, as these strains have reinvigorated the spread of CO-

VID-19. Normally, a vaccination grants active immunity because the immune system produces antibodies that last an entire lifetime. However, these new strains all have the ability to disguise themselves such that the antibodies cannot recognize and eradicate them, raising questions over the efficacy of the vaccine against emerging strains. However, Moderna says tests have concluded that the COVID-19 vaccine offers some protection against the new variants, specifically the B.1.1.7.

However, their vaccine produced far fewer antibodies against B.1.351, suggesting the acquired immunity would eventually wane.

In response, Moderna is developing a booster shot that would specifically target B.1.351 and even combat P.1. Meanwhile, Pfizer released a statement that their vaccine protects against B.1.1.7 as well, though its effectiveness against the other strains is yet to be determined.

Though cases and hospitalizations have declined in the U.S., the new strains may easily reverse this progress and aggravate the pandemic further. In response, our government has implemented stricter mitigation measures, such as public mask-wearing and stayat-home orders, and distributed more tests and vaccines. Recently, President Joe Biden signed a travel ban, in an effort to mitigate the spread of the novel strains as well.

However, doing your part in stopping the spread is significant now, more than ever. Wearing higher filtration masks in public, such as the N95 mask, getting tested, socially distancing yourself, and frequently washing hands are simple tasks, yet they are pivotal in ending this pandemic once and for all.

Limitless: NASA and the United States Government One giant leap for mankind was made on July 20, 1969: Apollo 11 and Commander Neil Armstrong landed on the moon.

The United States began one of its most exploratory and futuristic programs in 1958 with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA.) NASA’s funding has changed over its three-quarter-century legacy, starting at 0.1 percent to its highest five percent to now 0.5 percent of the federal budget.

NASA also generated significant technological advances, secured governmental funding, promoted international relations, and has even produced job opportunities.

In order to be at the forefront of space exploration—both internationally and for human gain—the U.S. must continue to publicly fund NASA. About $22.629 billion is spent on the NASA budget per year, resulting in over 30,000 products, procedures, and materials. Many NASA- and government-funded explorations have resulted in inventions that are instrumental in modern-day medicine, such as the artificial heart pump, which was modeled after the space shuttle’s engine fuel pump. NASA has also improved food science research, including 3D-printed food and closed-system ecologies, which support sustainable nutrition

and not only aid astronauts but also people suffering from food shortages. These NASA spinoffs are not just limited to a couple of discoveries but are found in almost every aspect of daily life, such as heart defibrillators, breast cancer screenings, GPSes, which were initially developed for military applications, and weather satellites.

Though privatized companies are other potential investors in NASA, they fail to consider the benefits for humanity and instead focus on financial gain. The lack of regulation of space exploration due to privatized ownership can lead to unsafe practices and individualized focuses. Some of these could include prioritizing personal capital and exploration over human safety. In other leading countries, such as China, space exploration is publically funded. The Chinese government formed a Leading Space Group in 1989, coordinating, planning, and budgeting for the space policy. China also has the National Space Administration, which is responsible for space activities and international space cooperation. According to U.S. Representative Ted Yoho, Beijing could outcompete the United States because they have put more money into their efforts. If the United States hopes to maintain a leading role in space and technological advancement, it will need to put in efforts similar

to the ones of the Chinese government and other international leading space agencies. Space exploration may provide the answers to many crucial questions, especially if NASA’s goal is to

121 countries and three multinational organizations, NASA attracts attention and support from over 1.2 million citizen scientists in 80 countries. When working through international

send humans to another planet by 2030 and find life on planets beyond Earth.

Space exploration also encourages international relations for the United States government and its people. NASA has participated in 572 international agreements as of October 2012.

In addition to cooperation with

cooperation, countries have become increasingly efficient with their funds to develop technological advances. Rather than just spending money on NASA, the United States is spending money on international collaboration to produce better technologies for Americans and humanity in general.

Jenny Chen/ The Spectator

By CHLOE TERESTCHENKO

Funding space exploration is also economically beneficial to the country. Space exploration generated over $64.3 billion and about $7 billion in local, state, and federal taxes in 2019.

Simultaneously, NASA’s budget is less than one percent of the tax-dollar and about 0.5 percent of the Federal Government Budget, which is fairly reasonable in comparison to the entire budget.

Approximately only 0.3 percent of an American’s taxpayer money goes to funding NASA, with large successes in innovation.

Beyond producing beneficial space goods, NASA also generates essential products for other areas of employment, including weather, medicine, and farming, to name a few. Additionally, space exploration creates jobs for the American people. According to the Coalition for Space Exploration, NASA and its partnered corporations employed 312,000 people for highly-skilled jobs.

Beyond the technological and societal advancements made by NASA, a growing influence in international relations and an increase in economic growth can inspire future generations. Even beyond its significant advantages, space exploration may provide a potential future solution to scarce resources and overpopulation. Literally and figuratively, space is the limit, and the United States should be at the forefront of discovery.

Page 16

The Spectator ● February 11, 2021

Science The Horrid Sound That Haunts Your Nightmares: Your Own Voice

By KAITLYN LEE A video your friend took of you laughing like a maniac while walking to the subway station. A recording you have to submit for a language assignment. Whatever the case, we are all familiar with how we wince as we listen to the shrill, high-pitched voice that exits our mouths. What causes such an intense feeling of discomfort when we listen to the real version of our voices?

We are often disturbed by the sound of our recorded voice because our perception of our voice is different from reality.

This phenomenon is known as voice confrontation. What creates this difference are the vibrations our ears pick up while we listen. When we listen to others, their voices create sound waves that travel through the air. These waves vibrate the eardrums inside our ears, which then vibrate the ossicles, or the small bones inside the ear, and the cochlea, a spiral-shaped organ that changes the vibrations into electrical signals. These signals are then transmitted to the brain through the auditory nerve. However, when we listen to ourselves speak, the vibrations of our voice are not the only source of sound. In addition to vibrations produced by external sources, the internal vibrations of your body—the ones produced by your vocal cords, your bones, and your airways— also produce sound, and your brain processes these two sources of sound. Because of both ex-

ternal and internal stimuli, your College London, stated, perceived voice is a distorted “We get used to the version of what your voice sound we hear in actually sounds like: it is our heads […] deeper and lower than We build what others perceive. our selfHowever, it isn’t image and just the ears that play vocal selfinto voice confrontaimage tion; the brain has around a significant role w h a t as well. The difwe hear, ferences in the rather sensory input than the our ears rereality.” ceive are what In addicause us to extion to the perience voice misconfrontation, conbut our brain cepand contion, scious sense Holzman of self amand Rousplify it. Beey also sides talking, concluded many of us that the do not hear e m o our voices, cretions ating a strong c o n detachment veyed from our by an v o i c e s. i n d iv i d A ual’s true study v o i c e conresulted in ducted such negative by psyresponses. When chologists listening to our speech Philip Holzman from recordings, we also Angel Liu / The Spectator and Clyde Rousey pick up extralinguistic in 1967 showed that only 38 per- elements—nonverbal, indirect cent of participants were able to communication that helps conquickly identify their own voice. vey different emotions and parts As Martin Birchall, a profes- of our personality that we are ofsor of laryngology at University ten unaware of. These can range

from subtle anxiety to overt aggression. According to Holzman and Rousey, “The disruption and defensive experience are a response to a sudden confrontation with expressive qualities in the voice which the subject had not intended to express and which [...] [s]he was not aware [s]he had expressed.” Voice confrontation is not as simple as hearing a contrast that makes your voice feel foreign: it is a part of yourself that is unrecognizable to you, yet something that the world knows you by.

Though voice confrontation produces a response of displeasure for us, we become accustomed to it in most cases.

However, certain individuals struggling with their gender identity are especially prone to issues regarding their voice. For them, it is difficult to listen to their own voice since it sounds similar to voices of the opposite gender, making them more susceptible to stress, anxiety, depression, and gender dysphoria, the feeling of distress that occurs when one’s sex does not match their gender identity. Additionally, transgender individuals are more prone to transphobic attitudes and comments when their voices do not match their expressed gender identity. Fortunately, as medicine progresses, voice and speech therapists are providing professional guidance in developing a voice that matches their gender identity, decreasing the risks of lesions, scarring, and muscle tension in vocal cord tissue that

may result from an individual attempting to change their own voice. If therapy is unsuccessful, gender reassignment surgery can also resolve issues in voice changes, allowing individuals to fit into and freely express their gender identity.

Moreover, people in voiceheavy professions often find themselves with voice confrontation issues. However, Bob Kirschner, the head mixer and engineer at Creative Media Design, learned that as individuals become more experienced, they grow accustomed to their voice; some even begin to enjoy the sound of it. Kirschner can easily distinguish the inexperienced, who display awkward, hushed tones in an attempt to hide their voice, from the individuals who have gotten over their voice confrontation and speak with confidence. “You have to be comfortable with your own voice if you’re going to be a good voice artist,” Kirschner notes. “That means learning to become authentic and playing to your strengths.”

Voice confrontation is common because our voice is a core aspect of how we identify ourselves. Our voice is not just a series of sound waves synthesized by our vocal cords; rather, it is a way we connect and communicate with the world around us.

From cheering and screaming at a concert to angrily complaining about a stressful school day, our voice lets us respond and react to these experiences, and allows us to show that we are alive.

Pollution and the Pandemic

By JENNA MACKENROTH When the first lockdowns occurred in March, there was a noticeable decrease in pollution. This change was especially noticeable around metropolitan areas, where there was a sharp reduction in commuter traffic.

Smog, light, and auditory pollution all decreased. Beyond improving the quality of life for animals, the sudden drop in pollution offered insight into a plethora of topics regarding the contaminants in our natural environment.

Researchers took a nuanced approach to analyzing the changes in pollution, for example comparing current pollutant levels to past ones to determine the severity of the pandemic’s effect. Because of factors including current pollution reduction efforts and natural disasters like the Californian wildfires, researchers and analysts observed notable changes through careful analysis of pollutant levels, and accounted for them while developing a complex analysis of the atmosphere. Though they ordinarily account for these events, the coronavirus pandemic was anything but normal.

This posed a major obstacle: a modern pandemic had never happened before, so pre-existing models of the atmosphere were extremely limited. To remedy this, Christoph Keller of the Universities Space Research Association at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and his team completely disregarded the pandemic. When creating models of the weather and pollution, they

neglected all predictable outcomes of the pandemic. They avoided reprogramming pre-existing models and observed only the pandemic’s effects on pollution, specifically nitrogen dioxide through simple subtraction. This strategy allowed them to receive data from 46 countries and compare the change in emissions as a result of the pandemic.

The data was both surprising

from the nitrogen dioxide levels increasing in response to a decrease, Keller and his team concluded that the rebound period did not occur due to the pandemic. Similar to the decrease of nitrogen dioxide levels, additional research suggested that the amount of PM2.5, or particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers, had shown a significant reduction during the

research to exemplify the specific effects of a decrease in traffic; from this, politicians and legislators can infer which policies best decrease traffic, thus reducing pollutants.

Researchers also obtained important information about the links between pollution and immune responses. As an airborne disease, the coronavirus gave scientists unique insights into

As it is unlikely that conditions, such as reduced traffic and a sudden decrease in noise and light pollution, created by the pandemic will be replicated, the research generated is critical to new and unique developments regarding pollution.

and expected by the researchers, as nitrogen dioxide levels decreased significantly. “In some ways, I was surprised by how much it dropped. Many countries have already done a very good job in lowering their nitrogen dioxide concentrations over the last decades due to clean air regulations, but what our results clearly show is that there is still a significant human behaviordriven contribution,” Keller said.

Though this trend was previously established by countries carrying out reduction efforts, the statistics differed in one distinct way. Whereas these countries experienced “rebound” periods

initial lockdown period.

From this data, researchers can observe and potentially develop new ways of combating high levels of pollution. For example, the absence of a rebound in nitrogen dioxide offered greater insight into avoiding a resurgence of pollutants. Similarly, the pandemic has allowed researchers to observe the efficacy of reduced transportation and human interaction in urban areas. From this, they can also infer whether legislation against pollution caused by high traffic is an effective means of reducing pollution levels. For example, researchers may be able to use this

the role that pollution plays in the spread and degree of severity of respiratory illnesses. Epidemiological estimates indicate that air pollution contributed to 29 percent of coronavirus deaths in the Czech Republic, 27 percent in China, and 26 percent in Germany. According to Professor Thomas Münzel from the University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University, Germany, the pollutants can cause severe stress on the respiratory and immune systems of those breathing them.

“When people inhale polluted air, the very small polluting particles, the PM2.5, migrate

from the lungs to the blood and blood vessels, causing inflammation and severe oxidative stress,” Professor Münzel says. Though the link between the spread of respiratory illnesses and pollution is strong, Münzel also notes that the research supporting this link has limitations. For one, the analysis was conducted on middle to high income countries, creating a model that is not necessarily applicable to the entire world. Additionally, the research was developed by analyzing data from individual countries rather than data from individuals, and thus could hide significant variations in different regions and climates. Regardless, the results have given researchers better opportunities to observe the larger health effects of pollution.

Though the environmental and epidemiological findings are preliminary, they open doors to answer several questions about pollution. As it is unlikely that conditions created by the pandemic, such as reduced traffic and a sudden decrease in noise and light pollution, will be replicated in the future, the research is critical to new developments regarding pollution. Specifically, the research completed during the pandemic has allowed analysts to determine the more direct causes and effects of pollution. Whether or not the progress made in research will play a role in decreasing pollutant levels in the future, preventing other pandemics from occurring, or even equipping researchers to deal with future unprecedented conditions, it is sure to send waves through the scientific community.

The Spectator ● February 11, 2020

Page 17

Arts and Entertainment Music

By CLARA SHAPIRO First, a list of basic facts about conductors: 1. A conductor guides, or conducts, the orchestra.

2. A baton often comes into play, but not always.

3. The action cannot start until the conductor goes to the pit or stage.

4. A conductor might also be referred to as “maestro.”

Beyond that, the conductor is a bit of an enigmatic figure, particularly for those who are neither a conductor nor are conducted.

A conductor might let her arms glide and swoop for Beethoven’s “Pastoral.” She might bounce a bit if she has caught Mendelssohn in a happy mood. For a fierce ending to the “Carmen” overture, her arms might come slicing down in a ninja-chop.

What is more of a mystery is how these movements connect to the music created.

A few months ago, I had the privilege of speaking with the extraordinary Canadian conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson. Wilson has conducted some of the world’s most renowned orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, and she is also a celebrated conductor of operas at venues such as the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and the Bolshoi Theater.

The main thing we had set out to talk about, when we greeted each other from our Zoom boxes, was the mysterious nature of her art—what a conductor does, and how and why somebody might become one. But as we spoke, it became clear that we were edging towards a larger question: why classical music? It is not yet time to perform a requiem for classical music, but this question nevertheless comes at a time when 62 percent of the New York Philharmonic’s audience is over the age of 55.

Wilson had some ideas about how classical music might get its health and deserved glory back.

Here is our conversation, cut down for clarity and length: CS: I saw that you play an incredible number of instruments—the flute, the piano, and the violin. Yet it was to conducting that you ultimately turned.

So what was it that drew you to conducting?

Television

By KENISHA MAHAJAN Legendary cartoonist Matt Groening created a timeless classic with “The Simpsons” (1989-) and a cult favorite with his foray into sci-fi, “Futurama” (19992013). His latest creation, “Disenchantment,” takes a step into the past to create a new, rather unconventional, fairytale.

“Disenchantment” follows the alcohol-fueled adventures of Princess Tiabeanie (Bean for short), her personal demon Luci, and Elfo—an ironically grumpy elf. Together, the three navigate the fantastical world of Dreamland and beyond, going on misadventures ranging from chasing exorcists and curing elves to es-

“A Maestro Is a Master at Making Magic”: A Talk With Maestro Keri-Lynn Wilson KLW: When I was a little girl, I grew up playing in the youth orchestra in Winnipeg, and the conductor was my father. So I had a conductor in my family whom I admired and was sitting literally under his nose as a flutist in the orchestra. I was enthralled by this magnanimous kind of profession. It’s a very difficult kind of career to describe, because what are they doing up there? Conductors are just moving their arms around, up in the air. How does that connect to the notes that we’re hearing? Anyway, I grew up loving playing almost every kind of instrument […] throughout my childhood, I did play the flute, violin, and piano. Then I went to the Juilliard school and because I excelled on the flute, that was my main instrument. And then, when I was at Juilliard, I was playing a lot in the orchestra, and I [have] loved the sound of the orchestra since I was a kid. It was always the sound of the orchestra that made me very passionate about music. Not opera—I hated opera as a kid. Because my sister was the singer. And whenever she sang, I would close my ears. Probably because I had no voice. Anyway, back to Juilliard— I loved playing in the orchestra, but I was also a very good flutist. I won the flute competition at Juilliard, which was quite an honor. I had my Carnegie Hall debut on the flute. But then, one day, [during] my last year of study on the flute, I decided I was terribly bored and I never wanted to play the flute again. I thought, why don’t I take the addition for the conducting program at Juilliard? I thought, “Why don’t I take the big step, take an addition to get into the Juilliard school as a conductor, and pursue another degree?” So I would get a second master’s in conducting. So for me, it was really an overnight decision. Somebody saw me following [the] conductors’ master class—I was still a flutist—and they said “Oh, are you taking the addition to get into Juilliard?”

And I said, “No, no, no.” But then that night I thought, “That’s a great idea!” And I did.

CS: How would you describe the role of a conductor? What does a conductor do?

KLW: To sum it up, a conductor ultimately has to inspire. Has to inspire the entire orchestra, or opera company, to play together,

to make music together, to play as one. That’s what a great teacher does—make everybody think as one, or aspire for something as a unit. Unified, a group. So a conductor has two visions. One is to technically put everything together, to be very precise. To fix things like a mechanic. So the technical aspect is balanced with the artistic. Your musicianship.

How you make the phrasing. The difference between a conductor and a maestro, I would say, is that a conductor is good practically, you know putting it together.

Very clear, everything is technically perfect. But perhaps a maestro is a master at making magic, and that magic comes from making the music alive. So that’s the part of the inspiration. How you do your gestures, you reflect the music in a way that is shaping the music and making the music come alive.

CS: I notice sometimes that conductors’ faces change as they conduct. Sometimes they look stormy, or they’ll look ecstatic or contemplative. And as I watch you conduct, I notice some of these changes happening. Do you really feel like you have to go through these changes emotionally as you conduct?

KLW: Absolutely. And you know why? Because we’re like actors. Our bodies are reflective of what the mood is. So if the music is happy, you’re not going to be frowning like this. You have to exude the joy, or the happy, sort of uplifting type of spirit. If it’s a dark mood, your face is going to be much darker. We’re like choreographers with our arms, right?

What you see in your arm should reflect what you’re hearing. And then your facial expressions, yes, that’s like being an actor. So when I was a kid, I was always doing skits with my friends and we didn’t have internet like we do today—TikTok and all that stuff— but we were always taping voice recorders. I would do comedy skits and all sorts of stuff. So I think that that helped a little. In an extroverted personality, one is better equipped to be a conductor, I think.

CS: How does being a woman shape your experience of being a conductor, if at all?

KLW: Not at all. None whatsoever. I’ve been in this profession [for] three decades now.

Ever since I started out, all the journalists would say “What’s it like to be a female conductor?”

And I’m like—ugh! I say, “I don’t know, because I don’t know what it’s like to be a male conductor.”

But when I was a kid, I never thought that there was anything that wasn’t possible. I mean, sure I wanted to be everything—I wanted to be an instrumentalist, I wanted to be a president. It was like picking an instrument—I wanted to be the best at something. And just because I was a girl, I couldn’t? I never imagined that that would get in the way.

So I just did what I did. And to this day I hate it when people say “Ah! It’s a female conductor!”

What the heck is the difference?

It’s a conductor! It’s exhausting, because all the time we spent in these interviews talking about women conductors, we could have talked about much more interesting things, like Mahler’s symphonies or Wagner or something. Why dwell on this issue?

CS: Why might someone find classical music appealing?

KLW: What I would do is I would sit [a person who hates classical music] down. And I would play for him ten of my favorite recordings, and I would see if he reacted to any of them.

And I mean, the greatest moments in classical music. I’d put on Beethoven Five. I’d put on Mahler Five. I’d put on Shostakovich Five. I’d play Götterdämmerung in its loudest moments.

I would put Tosca on. I would put Don Carlo. I would put Boris Godunov. And Mozart Requiem.

And if he didn’t respond in a positive way to any of those, I’d throw him out the door and say “That’s hopeless.” But it would be interesting what he responded to. Because I think we all have individual tastes. The one thing I think is part of a problem in people’s perceptions, people who think they don’t like classical music, is they hear a Handel oboe concerto on the radio and that’s supposed to represent classical music. Some Baroque thing, maybe it’s a little out of tune, early instrument. And they think, “Ah, I don’t like that!” Or they hear [something] over and over again in a commercial, or on Bugs Bunny. It’s the way it’s presented that potentially is a problem. So when you sit them in a concert hall, or an opera house, and they listen to “bohème,” they see the sets,

or they go sit in the best seat of the house at Carnegie Hall, and hear Tchaikovsky’s “Pathetique,” they’ve got to be moved. That’s a much better way than hearing an oboe sonata of Handel in the elevator. It’s all about your experience. So I’m hopeful that as long as we educate—we have to educate the young and expose them to this great world of music. And I think that’s what good about the internet. You know, more and more, with Youtube, I think that’s helping. I’m hopeful.

CS: Have you noticed a difference between how other people in other parts of the world view classical music and how America does?

KLW: I think that there are differences, but the main difference is the culture. In America, classical music and opera are not at the forefront of everybody’s everyday life. That’s an understatement. Whereas in Germany, or in Austria or in Japan, in Russia, classical music is essential.

It is worshipped. There’s only a smaller portion of Italy [that] still is so incredibly knowledgeable about every verismo tune. You know, I used to get into taxis, two decades ago, and older taxi men would be playing opera in the car.

You don’t get that so much. But yes, certain countries are so passionate. In Moscow, at The Bolshoi, it’s always sold out. And it’s sold out by the locals. The Met gets sold out because of tourism as well. There aren’t enough people to fill the house every day in America. And it’s a matter of culture. Europe has always respected the arts. It’s been much more prominent, just in everyday society. It’s unfortunate, and it shouldn’t be that way, but in the New World, we’re a little behind.

And now, a game—Maestro Wilson has invited us to her house to test whether we really are all incurable philistines. She will sit us down near the grand piano, and then we will listen to all the most astounding pieces— Beethoven Five, Mahler Five, Shostakovich Five, Götterdämmerung, Tosca, Boris Gudonov, and Mozart’s Requiem. Perhaps none of it will click and we will return to our Handel-in-the-elevator lives disgruntled, but for now, there is still a chance to experience the beauty of this music.

For now, there is time to listen.

“Disenchantment” Part Three Casts a Spell caping prophecies, and everything in between. On a quest to save the kingdom from Bean’s estranged mother, crazed theologians, and various invaders, the characters must traverse new worlds, while revisiting a few old ones and learning a great deal about themselves along the way.

The character development in Part Three is even more extensive than that of past seasons.

Most notably, Bean’s personal growth is immense. Previously, audiences saw her evolve from a reckless teenager to a brave adventurer. In this season, however, Bean matures emotionally, having to come to terms with her father’s insanity, and steps up to replace him as the Queen

of Dreamland. Audience members are also exposed to a more vulnerable, naive side of Bean as she explores her sexuality in a few heartwarming episodes.

In season two, the three leads develop together, but this season separates them to allow for individual growth. Season three advances the “antihero” role Luci has been playing: in spite of being a demon, his kind nature is even more evident after this third installment. In seasons one and two, Elfo—while pessimistic compared to his Elven relatives—was the optimist of the group. This season, even though he maintains his silly charm, an array of heartbreak and disappointment forces him to take

off his rose-colored glasses. The episodes also follow King Zog’s gradual descent into madness after a near-death experience.

In addition to the growth of the main characters, nuance is also added to previously unimportant side characters as they become more integral to the plot. For example, Bean’s amphibian exstepmother, Oona, helps Bean deal with her father’s insanity and acts as a much-needed mother figure. Even though some screen time is taken away from the main cast, the development of these secondary figures proved necessary for the show. The stories of the supporting cast were key to discovering some of the mysteries of Dreamland and opened

up several new possibilities for season four. In earlier seasons, it seemed like these characters were simply sources of comedic relief, but season three confirmed that they will each play significant roles in saving the kingdom.

What makes “Disenchantment” a standout among Groening’s other shows—and other animated comedies in general— is how plot-driven the show has become. In Parts One and Two, “Disenchantment” toes the line between an episodic format and a more grand, unified plot; most of the episodes stood alone, with “mini-arcs” at the beginning and continued on page 15

Page 18

The Spectator ● February 11, 2020

Arts and Entertainment Television continued from page 14

end of every season. Following a multi-episode quest, the characters would return to Dreamland to continue their misadventures.

Part Three consistently pushes the story forward, and the episodes benefit heavily from the serialization. After this season, it seems that the show has settled heavily into its story and is no longer concerned with going back home. Because of this switch, “Disenchantment” Part Three really delivers in the world-building aspect. While the previous seasons took place primarily in Dreamland, the newest installment of “Disenchantment” branches out and creates a developed world, integrating new

Music

By LEVI SIMON As 2020 slowed to its conclusion, its music releases did as well. Still, there was no shortage of notable projects during the tumultuous year’s final month.

From chamber-folk compilations to sitcom-style electronic offerings, there’s a lot to cover, as well as incredibly varying degrees of success.

“Nightmare Vacation”

by Rico Nasty Rico Nasty serves her signature raspy aggression in spades on “Nightmare Vacation,” but the final product doesn’t quite live up to expectations. Even if the Maryland rapper’s debut LP is packed full of energy, the inconsistent hooks sour the skillful buildup of the verses. Even a two-minute song overstays its welcome without a sticky chorus to relieve the tension of the dissonant instrumentals and relentless, threatening flow. When Nasty scraps together a solid, cathartic hook, we’re blessed with a banger that very few competitors could hope to touch, but that’s a rare occurrence (notably found on “Nightmare Vacation”). The lead singles, “OHFR?” (classic Rico) and “IPHONE” (a successful foray into hyperpop produced by Dylan Brady of “100 gecs”), stand head and shoulders above the nasalized, bratty delivery on “[EXPLETIVE] Poppin,” the squandered beat on “No Debate,” and the airy monotony of “Don’t Like Me.” Nasty also has originality issues when it comes to production. The leaden piano loop on “Check Me Out” is reminiscent of a royalty free NLE Choppa type beat, and “Loser” featuring Trippie Redd sounds like a soulless ripoff of her collaborator. However, despite its flaws, “Nightmare Vacation” is a promising sign for Rico Nasty’s future. She’s shown more potential than any other rapper in her belligerent, irreverent lane, and it’s just a matter of time until she drops a project that properly reflects her talents.

“Man on the Moon III: The Chosen” by Kid Cudi Hip-hop legend Kid Cudi at-

“Disenchantment” Part Three Casts a Spell locations into the plot. However, this narrative shift is bound to face some growing pains. Some episodes in Season three are jampacked with story, leaving little room for humor, while others are a bit slower and take unnecessary detours. Despite this, as a whole, season three is well-paced and strikes a comfortable balance between telling a story and amusing the audience.

The cast also finds their footing and gets into the groove of their characters in season three.

Abbi Jacobson is perfect as Bean and does a great job of capturing her rough-around-the-edges personality. Nat Faxon is hilarious as Elfo, guaranteeing a laugh whenever he cracks a joke. However, Luci’s voice actor, Eric Andre, is easily the best of the three, offer-

ing snide, philosophical remarks that are welcome in almost any scene. John DiMaggio—better known as Futurama’s Bender— maintains his wonderful performance as King Zog, though, with Zog’s limited role this season, DiMaggio isn’t able to explore his character as deeply as others. Regardless, the cast is a highlight of the show and manages to deliver countless laughs, even during a more plot-heavy season.

Visually, “Disenchantment” is by far Groening’s most stunning series. The superior animation was already clear from seasons one and two, but the varied environments of season three just highlight it further. From the vibrant subterranean Trogland to the lavish and ostentatious Bent-

wood, the modern steampunkesque Steamland, and even the quaint and charming Mermaid Island, every location and sequence is absolutely mesmerizing. Even if “Simpsons”-brand humor isn’t for you, “Disenchantment” is worth watching for the captivating visuals alone.

Part Three was a massive step forward for “Disenchantment,” giving viewers an extremely intriguing storyline while maintaining the level of hilarity audiences have come to expect of Groening. Even though the humor wasn’t front-and-center this season, the character development, world-building, animation, and captivating plot make this series a delight to watch. The show’s consistent improvement hints that the best is yet to come.

The Month in Review: A Selection of Album Appraisals tempts to update his dreary introspection for the modern scene, to mixed results. Highlights on “The Chosen” follow a formula of arpeggiated shimmers, hazy synth textures, wistful yet hopeful lyricism, and drawn out vocal melodies. Tracks like “Sad People” and “Tequila Shots” feel like getting home after a long day and sinking into your pillow, accepting how tired and beat down you are, but pushing through it anyway. Cudi’s desperate refrains on “Dive” are soul-cleansing.

However, the rest of the project forgoes standout moments for a consistent fuzzy vibe that doesn’t distinguish itself much. In fact, it borrows from its contemporaries so much so that it can be distracting.

Despite directly influencing superstars such as Juice WRLD and Travis Scott, Cudi feels like he’s playing catch-up on “The Chosen.” The spacy, atmospheric synths, droning, autotuned hums, and buzzing low end are straight out of the Travis Scott playbook.

Their early 2020 collaborative single, “THE SCOTTS,” reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 charts, so it’s not unlikely that Cudi is trying to recapture the lightning from that hit. He also draws from the growing drill scene, with sliding 808s, sharp snares, and features from prominent drill rappers Skepta and Pop Smoke. The trendy sounds that populate “The Chosen” never manage to blur Cudi’s artistic identity in full, but they do make the project a bit harder to imagine holding up years down the line when the luster of atmospheric trap has faded. Overall, “The Chosen” doesn’t reach the threshold set by the previous two entries in the trilogy, and it will likely fall out of rotation within a few months.

“We Will Always Love You”

by The Avalanches On “We Will Always Love You,” the Australian plunderphonics powerhouse band The Avalanches return for a disappointing second attempt at recapturing their debut glory.

While it would be a monumental undertaking to match the sheer bliss of “Since I Left You” (2000), one would hope for a

better effort than “We Will Always,” which is a half-baked pileup of sounds that lack the pulse to be danceable, the hooks to be catchy, the creativity to be experimental, and the breadth to be atmospheric. The final product is a hodgepodge of soul samples that occasionally make their way around a rhythm or a decent guest vocalist, but more often than not go any which way they choose, sometimes left to awkwardly bleed out and sometimes aborting before reaching their logical conclusion. As opposed to the harmonious surges of layered beauty in “Since I Left You,” “We Will Always” delivers a Foster the People-style hook here and a retro jam there; it messes around with bubbly synths for a track before cascading into a trap-influenced clunker that doesn’t even bother to mix its centerpiece rappers properly.

Simply put, “We Will Always Love You” is plagued with inconsistency. Somewhere within the core of the project, there’s a great album, but there’s too much muck to wade through to justify the search for any quality in the first place. Stick to “Since I Left You” if you’re looking for an Avalanches project, because this isn’t worth your time.

“Charmed” by DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ If the Avalanches themselves aren’t going to recapture the glory of “Since I Left You,” someone else has to. DJ Sabrina’s sitcom-tinted twist on future funk and house is a breath of fresh air that is similarly impressive to The Avalanches’ legendary project, with entirely different means.

Layered crescendos are present in both projects, but The Avalanches’ chunky basslines are replaced with butter-slick grooves imported directly from a theme song that, though you’ve never heard before, instantly ingrains itself into the back of your head.

Sabrina has a knack for bottling the aesthetics of the ‘90s and adding an infectious charm, creating an experience that is infinitely danceable and creates nostalgia even for those who never experienced the era. However, “Charmed” is restrained from its potential icon status by its length

and linear structure. Clocking in at just over three hours, it would have benefitted from cutting back on its less impressive moments. In tandem with the standard instrumental palate and the slow, linear progression of each track, the runtime turns Sabrina’s creative decisions from immersive to tiring very quickly. Stripping the project down to its euphoric highlights, such as “How Did You Know?,” “Next to Me,” and “End of an Era,” would’ve elevated “Charmed” from a good project to an excellent one.

However, it’s still a standout release and it’s an indicator of great things to come from DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ. “Windswept Adan”

by Ichiko Aoba “Windswept Adan” sees Japanese folk singer Ichiko Aoba expand the limits of her sound. Aoba is known for using lone acoustic guitar melodies and field recordings as the foundation for her angelic voice; the simplicity of the instrumentals allow her delicate singing to float undisturbed, creating a natural sonic environment that few other artists could foster.

“Windswept Adan” fleshes out the foundational perfection of Aoba’s previous works with chimes, harps, flutes, and strings, creating a textured, cohesive and beautiful sound. Each song seems to flutter gently, giving the listener the feeling of sitting on a park bench on a breezy spring day and watching the ripples in a pond pass by. There is nothing particularly profound about Aoba’s music, but it’s so understated and organic that it feels like a part of nature. Nobody created “Windswept Adan.” It innately exists.

Aoba’s hushed approach to the vocals adds to the aquatic timbre of most songs here, especially “Porcelain” and “Kirinaki Shima.” As always, they are serene and calming. Perhaps “Windswept Adan” would have benefitted from more of the creative and varied songwriting decisions seen on previous projects, but it is, nonetheless, a breathtaking album, a must-listen, and a future cornerstone of the chamber folk genre.

Playlist Romance, a Full Circle

By THE ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT DEPARTMENT No matter what state your love life (or lack thereof) is in, romance is at its finest in music.

She Harry Styles Pop A Love That Will Never Grow Old Emmylou Harris Country Soren beabadoobee Alternative I Will Follow You into the Dark Death Cab for Cutie Alternative / Indie See You Again Tyler, the Creator ft. Kali Uchis Hip-hop Love Really Hurts Without You Billy Ocean R&B / Soul 505 Arctic Monkeys Alternative / Indie Just Like Heaven The Cure Alternative Rock Looking Out for You Joy Again Indie Pop Motion Sickness Phoebe Bridgers Indie Wonderful Lianne La Havas Soul anything Adrianne Lenker Alternative Love You For A Long Time Maggie Rogers Alternative Writer in the Dark Lorde Alternative Strawberry Blond Mitski Indie Folk

The Spectator ● February 11, 2020

Page 19

Arts and Entertainment Television

By SAMIRA ESHA and YASMINE CHOKRANE In a time when people are rarely traveling farther than their living room or the depths of their kitchen cabinet, the opportunity to be whisked away to a 19th century Regency fever dream seems too perfect to pass up.

Nearly 86 million viewers have jumped at the chance to do so with Netflix’s new hit show, “Bridgerton,” which has taken the world by storm. Based on the first book of the popular book series by Julia Quinn, “The Duke and I,” the first season of “Bridgerton” is romantic, raunchy, and remarkable in both the barriers it shatters and the amount of pop songs it plays.

Set in 1813, the story follows the quest of our protagonist Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor), the eldest daughter of the Bridgerton family, to find her perfect suitor. She longs to marry, desperate to replicate the love between her mother (Ruth Gemmell) and late father. During her search, she strikes up a ruse with the Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page), as well as her brother’s oldest friend, in which they appear to be courting when in fact their intentions lie elsewhere. Daphne uses this scheme as an opportunity to attract more suitors while the Duke takes advantage of the situation to shake off public attention. But as a friendship blossoms and the facade crumbles, the characters begin to develop feelings for one another—making both of their situations all the more complicated.

The relationship between Daphne and the Duke (his name is Simon, though only Daphne addresses him as such) is captivating. The fast-paced nature of the story keeps the viewers’ attention, as does the raunchiness of their relationship. But as you’re propelled forward into the story, their love is what grounds

Music

By MATTHEW WAGMAN Sir Sly is one of the most charismatic and inventive bands of the decade, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the music they make is always particularly good.

In the strangely defined scene of modern “Alternative” music, they occupy an even stranger niche, sitting between the introspective and experimental indie electronic groups and the more pop-friendly alt-rock bands.

Even with crossover appeal and catchy tunes, they’ve never quite “made it,” though they’ve always garnered some level of attention.

Like many artists nowadays, they started as a largely anonymous band on the Internet. They emerged by dropping digital singles and gathering attention from blogs and forums on the Internet until they eventually revealed that they weren’t, in fact, just Foster the People in an electropop outfit, but a legitimate band ready to carve out their own space in the Alternative scene.

They started flip-flopping between masterworks and duds when they decided to string multiple songs together in one

“Bridgerton”: A 19th Century Love Story the viewer in the more grandiose scenes.

“I burn for you,” Simon declares to Daphne in a flurry of frustration, fear, and fondness.

And we burn for them—their romance commanding the viewers’ attention. Daphne’s compassionate and delicate nature, colored against Simon’s more cynical point of view, brings about a fire of emotion, to the point where the viewer is unable to tear their eyes away from the screen.

That isn’t to say Simon and Daphne are the perfect couple.

Many criticisms have been made about how their relationship is stagnant, and as we watch them confront the same obstacles and recycle the same arguments, the brightness of their flame dims. In truth, their relationship can grow tiresome at points. All of these problems are in addition to their lack of communication, which culminates in a rape scene that, despite the argument it causes, isn’t addressed in any meaningful manner.

But beyond that issue, their love story serves as a refraction of the nuanced and subtle dynamics of suitor season, particularly the imbalanced one between men and women, which is shown even more expansively through the engagements of two of the show’s major families, the Bridgertons and the Featheringtons. However, that event happens to be one of the only ways the show commits to replicating the reality of Regency-era England. With the exception of

the inequality portrayed between men and women and the more decorative vernacular, the show diverges from accuracy in almost every other sense.

From music to fashion, “Bridgerton” takes inspiration from the modern day. The score is mostly composed of string renditions of popular pop songs (Ariana Grande’s “thank u next” and Shawn Mendes’s “In My Blood” among the most well-

Emily Chen / The Spectator

known). Additionally, the costumes—while reminiscent of the style of dress of the period—are far from accurate. In an interview with Express, Ellen Mirojnick, the dress designer on the set of Bridgerton, said that the team “kept the style and silhouette of 1813 for the most part” but also used “more modern fabrics and more modern techniques.”

The entire show can be said to be a silhouette of 19th century England held to a 21st century moral standard—yet another way “Bridgerton” diverges from any commitment to historical accuracy. Though “Bridgerton”

is an escapist fantasy, the show’s ignorance to certain racial realities often has come off as tonedeaf to some. The storyline of Marina Thompson (Ruby Barker) is recalled as an example of this disregard, as the debutante is humiliated amongst a town full of privileged white families after news breaks out that she is a single mother. Compared to Daphne’s hopeful aspirations for love, Marina needs the reassurance of marriage when it comes to the well-being of herself and her baby—her bitter storyline is difficult to watch.

There is an absence of hopeful and uplifting Black characters in Hollywood, and “Bridgerton” doesn’t make an effort to change that reality. In its attempt to be completely colorblind, the show not only refuses to confront the issue of privilege but refuses to confront the issue of race at all. In fact, the only attempt the series makes in order to address this issue is a half-baked explanation from Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) and a naive belief in the power of love. In doing so, the series internalizes that this society has suffered from systemic racism but refuses to provide any solutions and, instead, heralds interracial parties and marriages as the shot for reconciliation.

Not only does this choice minimize the severity of racism during that time period, but it wastes an opportunity to address racism within our own.

The issue is best summarized in Kathryn VanArendonk’s Vulture article, where she states that the “diversity backstory feels warm yet half-baked, as though the writers were eager to include a rationale but not all that interested in dealing with the less pleasant ramifications.”

At the same time, the show’s existence at all is certainly worth applauding. Prior to its release, there were many concerns raised criticizing the presence of powerful Black people in a historical piece. Diversity has scarcely existed in a Regency piece such as this show, with roles being reserved solely for white people.

That casting was mostly to attend to questions about accuracy, recognizing that—historically— people of color were systemically and socially excluded from positions of power.

But in a piece of fiction such as “Bridgerton,” where 19th century couples dance to symphonic-style Ariana Grande and dances are adorned in anachronistic glitter, historical accuracy isn’t a viable enough justification to exclude POC actors from these contemporary genres.

“Bridgerton” recognizes this fact, and—while there are many issues regarding colorism and stereotyping—it’s incredibly refreshing to stand witness to. And with all the problematic aspects of the show taken into consideration, it starts a necessary conversation about how we grapple with addressing diversity within historical fiction. It forges a space for more shows like “Bridgerton” to be made, hopefully more nuanced and more capable of grappling with the complexity of, particularly, historical marginalization.

Still, with the show’s highly dramatic storytelling, the exciting display of young love, and—of course—those gorgeous ball gowns, “Bridgerton” serves as the perfect show to binge while stuck at home.

Bands To Watch: Sir Sly—Third Time’s The Charm? release, the EP “Gold” in 2013.

While the title track––and lead single––for their debut EP exemplified their slickly produced, largely electronic but still sonically substantive style, the following track was comparably disappointing, ending up as a ridiculous rant of the frontman’s relationship grievances. Of course, as it was their debut release and their act of revealing themselves to the world, “Gold” was otherwise pretty much stacked with bangers, and it was only natural that their freshman album “You Haunt Me” (2014) was a little less solid. While “You Haunt Me” did expand in the direction they were going in their first releases, the album’s dark and moody feel starts to drag on the longer you listen, exacerbated by their decision to put all the singles at the beginning of the album and pack the end with progressively longer and less conventional tracks.

Sir Sly seemed poised to make a turnaround with their second album “Don’t You Worry, Honey” (2017), toting singles like “High” and “&Run,” showcasing a much more aggressive and forward-moving style that

started to break into the Alternative mainstream. However, it failed to move past many of the same issues that plagued their first album. Songs which had no business being on the album of a band looking to break out rubbed shoulders with slightly awkward dance songs and tracks that would’ve made great singles in their own right. Of course, the album featured another long rant which somehow managed to become a single (“Altar”), as if the first one didn’t work well enough to document frontman Landon Jacobs’s bruised ego. The band worked heavily to tour that album through the summer, and while it didn’t blow up as much as it should’ve, their prospects were looking good. A few years later, they were a more mature band with another release primed for the summer festival circuit and managed to drop their first single, “All Your Love,” in May of the fateful year of 2020.

Poor timing aside, “All Your Love” is a slow jam of intimate electric guitar, the gentle thump of reverb soaked drums, and Jacobs’s gentle croon, altered and extended just enough to fill the

registers the instruments left over. It’s a well-put-together and emotionally authentic song, but their second single, “Material Boy,” looked like a textbook radio banger. Released far later in the year and influenced by the momentous occurrences that transpired in the intervening time, lines like “deeply American which is to say I’m deeply ashamed” slightly distract from what is otherwise a driving synth anthem of self-doubt and acceptance: self-aware, defiant, and easy to dance to. It’s similar but also far enough from their previous music that it could deceive listeners into thinking the band managed to focus on what they did best and take it to new places with an updated sound.

However, their next two singles, “Little Deaths” and “Citizen” quickly disabuse listeners of that notion. While they’re both somewhat enjoyable songs, Jacobs’s emotions seem to turn to nebulous and poorly focused discontent, toward himself, society, and life in general. The pair is clunky and doesn’t seem enjoyable until a few listens in, lacking the pop power or self-conscious

indie sentimentality which could potentially make up for the disappointing negativity.

It’s no secret that Sir Sly has been known to release quite underwhelming songs before, including what they try to pass off as major singles. This seems like a pattern—“All Your Love” is a bit too disconnected sonically and chronologically from the other singles to be guaranteed a spot on the upcoming album, and “Material Boy” won’t make up the gap left by the two songs that followed it. Two (somewhat inconsistently) stellar albums in a row by a random band from California, especially in this day and age, where sounds are fleeting and artists are even less permanent, is pretty good. As someone who has two of their T-shirts and has traveled all the length of New Jersey just to see them, their cycle of hits and misses really stings when it applies to their entire albums as well. But we’ll have to wait and see—they’ve surprised everyone before, and if the past year has taught us anything about music or life, it’s that we can’t take anything for granted.

Page 20

The Spectator ● February 11, 2020

Arts and Entertainment Troye Sivan: From Perth to Popstar

Music

Sivan’s introduction to the music world and what it would bring: a defiance of the status quo, a combination of genres that had rarely been explored together before, and Sivan’s eccentric personality.

As he garnered more experience—personal and artistic—Sivan released his first studio album, “Blue Neighborhood” (2015), a mixture of upbeat, empowering anthems like “YOUTH,” reflective songs like “SUBURBIA,” and wistful melodies like those on “HEAVEN.” The album demonstrated Sivan’s growth as he continued to discover more about himself, musically and personally.

Contrasting classic rock and pop with a retro disco vibe and even a touch of indie, both the message and composition of Sivan’s songs were inspired by his formative experiences. “HEAVEN”

“I’m kind of terrified. I know that some people are going to have a problem with this. I know that this could kind of change everything for me. But it shouldn’t have to.” Those were the words of an 18-year-old YouTube star in the process of coming out. His name?

Troye Sivan.

A native to South Africa, Sivan had a YouTube following as a musician and had taken up a number of acting roles, but it wasn’t until he was 17 that he began to post comedic videos and share his life with the world.

Three years after coming out as gay to his family and friends, Sivan posted a video titled “Coming Out,” a light-hearted yet authentic reflection on his experiences, as well as the amazing unexpected support from his family, considering the role religion played in their lives. Closing with his signature wink to remind the viewers that he was still the same Sivan to them, this video inspired many teens struggling with their sexual identity to come out themselves, in turn giving Sivan the confidence to take a new direction with his content.

With this heavy weight lifted off his shoulders, Sivan released his debut EP “TRXYE” (2014), featuring the single “Happy Little Pill” which detailed Sivan’s experience in his new home of Hollywood and the impact of being in the spotlight. “TRXYE” was

detailed the conflict of being gay and Orthodox Jewish, with the accompanying music video showing Sivan lying on his boyfriend’s chest interspersed with footage from Pride protests. He continued his pro-LGBTQIA+ messaging in “YOUTH,” a disco-pop anthem about loving yourself and living life to the fullest, which ended up going triple platinum.

Sivan’s 2018 song “Strawberries and Cigarettes” showed the singer’s ability to fully delve into the details of his relationships, resonating with many of his LGBTQIA+ teen fans. He sings about the carefree and spontaneous nature of young love without shying away from the heartbreak that often ensues. The song was featured in a movie that felt shockingly similar to Sivan’s own life, “Love, Simon” (2018). Through

Iris Lin / The Spectator

By KAEDEN RUPAREL

Film Notting Hill (1999) - Lianne Ohayon For a romantic comedy released in the heyday of successful rom-coms, setting oneself apart is a tough thing to do. Nevertheless, “Notting Hill” accomplishes just that. Hollywood star Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) doesn’t just fall in love with bookstore owner (Hugh Grant) fresh out of a bad marriage. “Notting Hill” dives deep into the fine print of love and proves that not all is smooth sailing for the charming couple. The film delves into Anna’s fame that she so greatly wants to escape and emphasizes the consequences it has on her and Will’s relationship. Another layer of depth is added to the film through the backdrops, most of which take place on the vibrant and bustling Portobello Road of London. “Notting Hill” is not a simple rom-com; it is multifaceted and layered with complex emotions, beautiful sets, and the strong message that there is no one true meaning of love.

The Twilight Saga (2008-2012) - Caroline Pickering Just good enough to be a box office hit and just trashy enough to be hilarious, the Twilight Saga is the perfect movie to watch on any Valentine’s Day. It may not be the dramatic, emotional film that normally graces ones’ screen this time of year, but it is a series you won’t want to miss. “Twilight” (2008) was, and still is, one of the most well-known love stories of our generation, and the vampire-filled saga still holds up as one of the most entertaining series available to stream. “The Twilight Saga” is a jack of all trades for your Valentine’s Day needs. It’s a compelling and emotional love story with enough twists and turns to leave you on the edge of your seat. It has superhero movie caliber action to keep those who don’t normally enjoy romantic movies entertained. And, it’s just bad enough that I would qualify it as a comedy, without being unwatchable. So, if you’re looking for something to keep you entertained this Valentine’s Day, “The Twilight Saga” is the right movie series for you!

Moonrise Kingdom (2012) - Levi Simon Wes Anderson brings his signature quirk to “Moonrise Kingdom,” a crowd-pleasing love story of two young, determined outcasts. Anderson’s repertoire of symmetrical shots, controlled camera movement, bright hues, and flat, snappy dialogue adds so much color and depth to the otherwise simple tale, simultaneously encouraging quick laughs and cutting, wistful melancholy. He explores maturity and adolescence through the lens of early romance but ends up saying so much more.

“Strawberries and Cigarettes,” Sivan demonstrated that he was no longer singing to the LGBQTIA+ teens of the world, but rather for them, telling their story with the voice that many of them did not have.

The Australian singer’s sophomore album “Bloom” (2018) was a turning point for him. He once again blended genres but with deeper reflection, seeking to convey messages for the LGBTQIA+ community, both on behalf of and to them. Specifically, his song “Bloom” communicates sexual connotations that many LGBTQIA+ teens clearly understand but that went over the head of many straight teens who likely believe the song is actually about flowers. The album also features “Seventeen,” a song about Sivan’s encounters on the app Grindr as an experimenting teen, as well as “What A Heavenly Way To Die,” which talks about growing old with his partner. Sivan’s intent with the album was to convey a surface-level innocent message about relationships, with a subtext that is easily recognizable only to LGBTQIA+ teens. This theme is clear in other songs, like “Dance To This” with Ariana Grande, “Animal, “Plum,” and “Lucky Strike.”

Outside of music, Sivan furthered his self-exploration with his developing fashion sense.

Crafting a signature look that was boundary-breakingly femme— like his look at the Met Gala, where he chose a fully red suit

complemented with boots and vampy makeup—Sivan grew into an icon as the boy from Australia who became a pop star, embracing his identity and wearing it on his sleeve (often literally). Echoed in the “Bloom” music video, in which Sivan sports a multitude of different vibrant outfits, ending with an eccentric flowery dress, Sivan’s message, through music and fashion, is clear: love you for you.

After a tumultuous journey of self-discovery, Sivan released his latest EP, “In A Dream” (2020), an ode to himself. “Rager Teenager” specifically shows his evolution as a human, and the rest of the album echoes themes of self-love after spending his life figuring out who he was. While Sivian’s typical mixture of genres is present in “In A Dream,” the main feature of the EP that sets it apart from his previous albums is simple: he has become his own muse.

Going from a nervous boy in Perth, Australia coming out on YouTube to a prominent figure in the LGBTQIA+ community and the world of pop, Sivan’s personal and musical growth is undeniable.

Because of the pandemic, he isn’t able to tour right now, but he has briefly mentioned plans to tour for his recent “In A Dream” as soon as it’s safe. Rumour has it that he’s planning on starting at a concert in Perth to recognize his origins and where he first became the Troye Sivan that so many of us adore.

A&E’s Valentine’s Watchlist

By THE A&E DEPARTMENT

Pride & Prejudice (2005) - Jaein Ku Based on Jane Austen’s timeless novel of the same name, “Pride & Prejudice” sets itself apart from other romance movies with captivating shots in sunkissed fields and grand manors. Deborah Moggach’s screenplay and the film’s dramatic soundtrack perfectly convey the misjudgments and mishaps that ensue as Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth overcome their pride and prejudice as individuals from different social classes. By utilizing subtle facial expressions rather than spoken dialogue, Keira Knightly’s execution of Elizabeth’s independence and Matthew Macfadyen’s performance of Mr. Darcy’s vulnerability breathes life into Austen’s characters. The sensational tension and the heart-tugging finale in “Pride & Prejudice” compels even the most hardened hearts to fantasize about true love and happily ever afters.

500 Days of Summer (2009) - Eleanor Leung As staunchly stated by the movie’s omniscient narrator, “500 Days of Summer” is not a love story… at least, it’s not your typical love story. The audience roots for hopeless romantic Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) as he falls in love with Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel), who, ironically, thinks the idea of true love is just that: an idea.

Despite their differing beliefs, the two grow closer, their relationship punctuated by illicit sex and park dates. In essence, Tom and Summer seem to be “the one” for each other. So it comes as a surprise to both Tom and the audience when Summer dumps him. As viewers, we’re accustomed to and even expect the manic-pixie-dream-girl (Summer, in this case) to be everything the male protagonist wants. But “500 Days of Summer” portrays Summer to be the opposite. Instead, the movie comments on love’s intricacies, and how even relationships that we are absolutely faithful to can crumble as quickly as they form.

Carol (2015) - Adele Bois Director Todd Haynes confronts ideas of repression and traditionalism in this 2015 rendition of Patricia Highsmith’s novel “The Price of Salt.” “Carol” successfully translates Highsmith’s depiction of LGBT subculture in 1950s America into a modern-day love story; Carol (Cate Blanchett) and Therese (Rooney Mara) unexpectedly form an intimate relationship culminating in a cross-country road trip in pursuit of acceptance. Clips of dingy motel rooms, dark bars, and rain-washed windows touch on the theme of Carol and Therese’s alienation despite being together. Though “Carol” is about forbidden love in a repressive period, it is poignant and maintains a heartfelt, aching beauty.

How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days (2003) - Christine Lin Critics say it’s unrealistic. Cheesy. Predictable. So what? Romantic comedies are supposed to offer you a lighthearted laugh and a reality where love triumphs all, which is exactly what “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” does. Directed by Donald Petrie, the movie follows advertising executive Benjamin Barry (Matthew McConaughey) as he bets that he can make any woman fall in love with him in 10 days. Ironically, the woman chosen is Andie Anderson (Kate Hudson), who is assigned to write an article for “Composure” magazine on how to lose a guy in 10 days.

They scream. They fight. They do everything in their power to ruin things, yet McConaughey and Hudson’s chemistry shines through to create a genuine and witty battle-of-the-sexes love story. “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” is the comfort food of rom-coms and is a beautiful ode to McConaughey’s cinematic roots and Hudson’s iconic eggshell-yellow dress.

Call Me By Your Name (2017) - Shivali Korgaonkar “Call Me By Your Name” is a true masterpiece of nuanced, modernday love. Set in Northern Italy, the film follows the veiled love story of a high school boy who falls in love with his father’s older student. The film subtly touches on same-sex relationships, pedophilia, and religion, while also maintaining an effortless and relatable style. Stunning shots in isolated creeks and waterfalls flowing on mountain tops support the surreal love between Elio and Oliver over this one blissful summer. The screenplay is eerily familiar and personal, with actors who phenomenally embrace the intentional awkwardness of each scene. The soundtrack is the icing on the cake, as orchestras of emotional, raspy music emphasize the existing tear-jerking nature of the film. “Call Me By Your Name” is not merely a story of heartbreak.

It is a story of learning, loving, and regretting.

The Princess Bride (1987) - Nicole Liu “The Princess Bride” is widely considered to be a cult classic and a staple in pop culture today, as exhibited by the endless quoting of some of its most iconic lines. The film follows the story of Westley (Cary Elwes), a farm boy who must venture through the fictional kingdom of Florin to rescue his true love, Princess Buttercup (Robin Wright) from the repugnant Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon). With witty one-liners, sword fights, and secret torture dungeons, there is never a dull moment. The love story is also one for the ages, as Westley fights tooth and nail to be reunited with his soulmate once again. Westley and Buttercup’s relationship challenges the notions of marrying for status or wealth by encouraging marrying for the sake of real love. “The Princess Bride” is the perfect blend of adventure, romance, and comedy, and it conveys the beautiful message that true love can prevail, even in spite of the most unexpected curveballs.

The Spectator ● February 11, 2021

Page 21

Humor These articles are works of fiction. All quotes are libel and slander.

Enterprising Students Repurpose Heat From Laptops

By OLIVER STEWART and ARSHIA MAZUMDER The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has thoroughly altered almost every aspect of our education system. Remote learning, which has been ongoing at Stuyvesant since midMarch, appears set to continue for the foreseeable future.

Teenagers’ screen time, once fairly limited, has skyrocketed during the pandemic. For the most part, students have adjusted. The computers? Not so much.

A study conducted by researchers at Stuyvesant found that much widely-used educational software, including Google Meet, LockDown Browser, and Edpuzzle, causes devices to overheat and reach temperatures far above their normal levels.

When different programs run at the same time, the problem is exacerbated. In one case, a student trying to finish all of his missing work before the end of the semester ran Google Meet with the camera enabled, filled out a 100-question JunoPod, and watched a half-hour long video on Edpuzzle, all at the same time. The laptop in question reached temperatures upward of 150 degrees Fahrenheit, giving its owner—freshman Arthur Wu—second-degree thigh burns.

“Sometimes I need to put ice on my lap from doing schoolwork for an hour,” Wu said. “It burns, man.”

According to medical experts, consistent lap heat exposure is a serious health concern, and the response from the Stuyvesant community reflects that reality.

Multiple petitions calling for bans on various programs gained significant traction in the “Dear Incoming Stuyvesant” groups on Facebook, including a Change.org petition titled “Ban Meets Before My [redacted] Overheats.” As petitions and pleas to the administration await an official response, students have begun to repurpose the excess heat in a variety of creative ways.

Many students began incorporating this newfound heat source into various hob-

bies that they have picked up during quarantine. In Wu’s case, that hobby is cooking. Over the summer, Wu mastered a variety of dishes including pancakes, crepes, soufflés, and curries.

“I wouldn’t say mastered,” his father interjected. “Everything he makes is saltier than the Dead Sea, but not as salty as his attitude.”

One day, during a particularly arduous biology period, Wu saw an opportunity staring right at him. “It was a total lightbulb moment—something just clicked. While the teacher was going on about cellular recitation or something, I decided, to hell with it. I’m making lunch.” According to Wu, he put on some nearby oven mitts and gingerly carried the laptop— which at the time was running Peardeck, 11 Chrome tabs, and a Zoom meeting with 35 participants—to the kitchen counter.

“I did have a moment of hesitation,” Wu recalled. “I thought, ‘what if it isn’t hot enough?’ So I put my finger near the screen to check, and I could feel the heat radiating from the device.” As it turned out, online instruction was more than enough to heat Wu’s laptop to 158 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature required to safely cook an egg.

Wu cracked the eggs over his open laptop and fried them next to the trackpad. According to Wu, the experiment was a runaway success. “The eggs came out crispy and a little burnt, but I thought it went really well. The color was a little off-putting—I’d never eaten black eggs before—but once I got past that and took a bite, they were the best damn eggs I’ve ever had.” After being asked to elaborate on the taste, he kissed his fingers like an Italian chef and responded, “Exquisite. They were definitely crunchy, almost like tortilla chips, but eggy. I would say it was reminiscent of brittle cardboard with a hint of melted keyboard gunk. I would absolutely recommend trying it. Ten out of 10.”

Junior Ellen French found another way to make use of the excess heat radiating from her shuddering PC. Starting

in October of her junior year, French began to join as many extracurriculars as she could in order to improve her college prospects. From studying for the Biology Olympiad, leading the crochet club, and attempting to virtually play ultimate frisbee, to discussing student issues in the Junior Caucus cabinet, French was attending so many meetings with so little cooldown time in between that a worrying smell of burning plastic emerged from her desktop whenever she opened Zoom. In addition, her maze of Barron’s and SAT prep books blocked her computer fans from expelling heat properly.

This worried French deeply. “I was thinking, what am I gonna do?” she remembered.

“I mean, I love going to my clubs, I really do, but I won’t be able to even turn my computer on if I continue like this.”

Then, winter came. “I really wasn’t expecting it, but it was so friggin’ cold. I had to double, triple up on my crocheted tops, but it was no use.

My fingers were numb from the temperature and from typing hours on end. I really didn’t think I could crochet myself any more crop tops or bucket hats. Then I remembered my heating problem.”

It was then that French had the bright idea to use the fans from her desktop tower as a DIY space heater. To get to them, she dedicated a day to clearing out all of the clutter, organizing her bedroom in the process. “In hindsight,” French said, “having all those paper books near the hot computer was probably a fire hazard.” After hours of cleaning, she ducked under the desks, turned the tower so the fans faced her, and felt the warm whoosh of the fans.

“Ahh,” French sighed over the call. “It was euphoric.”

French had to adjust the tower and cut back on the hot air so her face would not burn, but her old, crusty, and fairly unstable desktop was remodeled into a trusty, super-powerful heater. “It’s like summer in here. You wouldn’t believe it.” While being interviewed, she wore a tank top with a high bun and fanned herself

with what appeared to be her math homework folded into a paper fan. “I did some stuff to redirect the air to the top of my desk using some tubing. I’m so glad it worked. I mean, it’s freezing out there,” she cheerfully commented.

She warned those who wished to try it at home to make sure to remain hydrated after setting it up to avoid heatstroke.

While cooking and heating are fairly harmless uses, others have repurposed the heat from their overworked computers in more devious ways.

A senior, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Spectator that she had been using the heat from her tablet as a safeguard against interloping siblings. By running dozens of applications simultaneously, she heated her iPad to unsafe temperatures, ensuring that anyone trying to use it would need protective gloves, the only pair of which she kept hidden under her bed.

“My sister—she’s a freshman this year—is taking the same Spanish class I took my freshman year and she keeps asking me to pass homework answers. I told her no, but she still tried to snoop around my room. Whining to our parents didn’t work, so I decided to teach her a lesson.” According to the anonymous senior, she pretended to be on the phone when her sister was nearby and mentioned offhand that every single classwork, homework, and project she did for Spanish I was on her iPad. To make the trap even more enticing, she thanked the person on the phone for sending the answers to the final exam to the tablet. Then, picking up the tablet, she opened every single school-related app, as well as Fruit Ninja, and left the iPad running. Finally, she placed the tablet on her pillow and left the room.

As soon as she stepped through the door, she heard a scream. “Apparently, my sister is as much of a snake as I expected. She actually snuck into my room and tried to break into my tablet. She’s a dumdum, and she paid the price for it.” Her sister suffered serious burns to her fingertips. In retrospect, the senior feels guilty. “I didn’t know

that the iPad could get that hot. I mean, I only wear those gloves as a precaution. But the way her fingers look—my god, it’s like she stuck them in a toaster.”

The senior urged readers to regard her story as a cautionary tale. “Don’t take people’s stuff. Be academically responsible.” Finally, the senior noted, “Passcodes are fine, but humans are vulnerable. And humans are also stupid. Heat and a passcode are where it’s at.”

While some Stuyvesant students have used their searing gadgets to their own advantage, the dangers are significant, prompting medical experts—and members of the Stuyvesant administration— to urge students not to try and harness the heat. Principal Seung Yu, speaking to an audience of Stuyvesant students and parents at the behest of the Student Union, told those watching that taking advantage of their computers’ high temperatures is never worth it. “I mean, seriously,” he continued. “Never. Not even if you think it would be really cool to set up a jacuzzi in your backyard and heat it with your Chromebook. It will inevitably go bad. You will try and get into the jacuzzi and it’ll be so hot that your little toesies will never feel the same again.

Why are you asking if I know from experience? I’ve never done this. I am speaking in hypotheticals. Obviously.”

Yu also encouraged students to create their own “boiling device evacuation kit,” recommending that they include a fire extinguisher, a manual on how to hard reset their device, a gas mask to deal with the fumes of burning rubber, and a protective suit that can withstand 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit. All of these, however, are only temporary solutions, and students and administrators alike hope that teachers remain mindful of the risks when asking students to overextend their devices. “We ask that teachers keep in mind,” Yu said, “that they will have to financially compensate for any fire damage done to student property by the technological demands of their coursework.”

plan that Dr. Narom came up with to contain SCP-4220 is as follows: Precisely 35 minutes prior to the scheduled occurrence of SCP-4220, numerous food stations arrive near the scene, known locally as “halal carts.” SCP Foundation agents man these stations. They then each use

an SCP Foundation-brand megaphone to announce to anybody in the area that they are offering free food, which is, of course, distributed by MeatCo, a subsidiary of the Foundation. Just as

SCP-4220

By LOGAN RUZZIER and LIESEL WONG Item #: SCP-4220 Object Class: Euclid Special Containment Procedures: The SCP Foun-

dation has had inordinate difficulty in containing SCP4220. At SCP-4220’s initial occurrence, a veritable army of SCP agents and personnel had to report to the scene and administer Class-A amnestics to ███ witnesses. During the following occurrence, the SCP Foundation was more

vigilant as they’d been monitoring the locale and only needed to administer amnestics to ██ bystanders. However, this was not sustainable in the long run and presented the risk of an information breach, so researchers frantically searched for methods of containment. The ingenious

continued on page 24

Page 22

The Spectator ● February 11, 2021

Humor Hundsness Changes Jupiter Ed

By SANJANA YASNA David Hundsness, the founder of Jupiter Ed, recently posted the rationale behind his official plan to make major changes to Jupiter Ed on Facebook. Here’s a copy of his post: “As the creator of Jupiter Ed, I have worked my hardest to improve this platform over a span of more years than most students have lived. Jupiter Ed’s constant improvement has never stagnated as a result of my hard efforts, though at the cost of my own health. It used to make me ecstatic to know that this platform has successfully served millions of kids throughout the U.S. (except Alaska, since only oil farmers live there).

However, this feeling of accomplishment is fading beneath the bad user reviews fueled by COVID-19 pandemic complications.

“After reviewing just a handful of the reviews, handpicked with a random number generator, it’s clear that there’s a split between teachers and students that must be mend-

ed. What we need during this tumultuous time is unity, just like the unity President Biden preached in his inaugural speech. And these changes will be carried out with all of the agility and vigor our President displays.

“From now on, there won’t be JunoPods. Rather, each class session is coupled with a ‘Jolly Pod’ that opens up a class thread for students and teachers to comment on.

This means that a student will no longer see a stressful bundle of present and previous assignments. This simple format is designed to preserve the sanity of elderly educators and prevent teachers from selling individual student work to Russian GRU officers, who seek to defame the U.S. education system.

“The age of individual assignments and student grades has ended. Instead, a teacher simply posts questions pertaining to class in a Jolly Pod, and their students each select an answer. At the end of a session, teachers are graded by the percentage of their questions that have a majority

of students picking the right answer. This grade, called the teacher appraisal, is e-mailed to parents every day.

“If a majority of students pick an incorrect answer, Jupiter sets a timer of five minutes, and the teacher gives a boring and lengthy explanation for the correct answer.

However, if a majority of the students wind up picking the right answer, Jupiter displays a personal topic for a teacher to discuss with their students for the next five minutes as an entertaining communitybuilding exercise. Students are encouraged to post comments and questions in the stream. If fewer than 20 student comments are made in that five minute period, a teacher loses five percentage points from their teacher appraisal grade. This grade may possibly turn negative.

Here are a few sample Jupiter Ed prompts for teachers: • What was your favorite ‘nerdy’ kid character design from a 1980s film?

• What are your thoughts on most families today

•

• •

•

•

only having one TV remote? Tell us about how you used to have more than five remotes, most of which probably didn’t function.

Do you find the way kids text today displeasing? Should they continue texting with their thumbs or should they slacken the speed and use their pointer finger only?

What are your thoughts on present-day reading diversions?

What are your thoughts on the issue of underfunded nursing homes in America? Require or encourage students to volunteer in nursing centers or make students spread awareness on this issue!

In what ways do you incorporate fiber into your diet? Make sure to chronicle the profound impact it has had in your life and the importance of maintaining a regular digestive schedule.

Ask your students to

make you read a loveable WEBTOON or Wattpad story chapter.

• Request your students to send you some ‘Karen memes’ and give them instances where you’ve met a ‘Karen’ yourself.

• Express your newfound love of tonic water.

• Describe at length your role in Project MKUltra.

I look forward to new criticisms and suggestions from the users I overwork myself to serve.”

As it seems, Jupiter Ed is now an icebreaker platform instead of the grading platform it used to be. Would you rather have a class focused on the material itself being taught or a teacher’s personal stories and experiences? Has the education system fallen so low that Stuyvesant students will have to purposefully give wrong answers and leave teachers at the mercy of their parents in the interest of their education? Or will this provide a never before seen era of happy teenagers?

A Button for Everything

By ESHAAL UBAID

endless. Need motivation? The familiar voice will remind you of your need to absolutely destroy Craig at running back and forth in a run-down gymnasium, while your gym teacher severely judges you.

Want to mess with someone? With one press of this button, you’ll s e n d every fiber of their being into a fight-orflight response and instill in them a vague desire to improve their cardiorespiratory fitness level. Lost in a place where you don’t know the language? No worries, the distress call of the Pacer Test is universally recognized.

3. The Pepsi Button.

Though it may seem like a knockoff of the iconic Diet Coke button, the positive implications of allowing this heavenly

nectar to be easily accessible are wholly distinct.

The population would be happier, more capable of resolving plaguing issues, and perhaps even motivated to finish up a 10-minute task that’s been left on hold for m o n t h s.

As the ultimate energizing beve r age, Pepsi instills inner peace and a willingness to compromise.

Accordingly, it is entirely possible that replacing the Diet Coke button in the White House with one for Pepsi could lead to world peace as well as stability in our polarized world of politics. If anything, a Pepsi Button would encourage the eradication of Diet Coke entirely. No one truly wants to deal with this lackluster bottle of Ivy Jiang / The Spectator

It seems as though humanity has seen it all after escaping the warped hellhole we called 2020. We’ve witnessed everything from murder hornets to the atrocity of singer-songwriter Justin Bieber’s “Yummy” sweeping the Internet. For a while, there had been no terrifying notion left unexplored, no event that could’ve possibly shocked our fatigued and out-of-shape beings anymore.

That is, until, the revelation of former President Donald Trump’s Diet Coke button.

You read that correctly.

Our very own spray-tanned TV personality left behind a fun little surprise in the Oval Office for the unsuspecting President Joe Biden, along with all the toilet seats up. A button, of course, whose sole purpose is to order a good ol’ glass of the second-worst soft drink I have ever had the displeasure of trying (we all know that Sprite, the worst one, only serves a purpose at some nine-year-old gremlin’s birthday party).

While this particular button is questionable and may be buried under a series of

distasteful memes, its potential has not gone unnoticed by me. Why make a pesky app for everything when you could have it all at the push of a cartoony button? With some modifications, buttons to summon oddly specific things could be the next big advancement in technology.

Thus, here are some proposals for insanely useful buttons!

Mr. President, take notes.

1. The brain cell button.

A good number of us require some extra noggin capacity to finish up algebra homework at 2:42 a.m. because having some semblance of a sane sleep schedule is a huge no-no at Stuyvesant. The button, however, has a cooldown timer between uses. It must allow for an adequate number of brain cells to fry before summoning new ones. Abuse of the button would lead to an alarming number of big brains with the capacity to do physics problems or solve spicy mysteries such as what dimension pens teleport to after you’ve dropped them.

2. The FitnessGram Pacer Test Button. The possibilities for this are just

misery. Any step toward destroying it is a service to humanity.

4. Finally, the No. 2 Pencil Button. You can try as hard as humanly possible, but when the situation calls for you to bubble in answers with those banana-hued writing utensils, your chances of randomly finding one decrease by a phenomenal degree. With a push of the button, a pencil would materialize upon whatever tearstained test paper lying in front of you. Though this would require an exhaustive understanding of quantum mechanics, a profound mastery of energy manipulation, and a heck of a lot of pencils, we can all agree that it would be worth it.

As we wait for the patenting and large scale manufacturing of these extremely useful buttons, we can only snicker at the pathetically uninspired Diet Coke Button. It almost makes one forget trivial matters, such as widespread hunger or the socioeconomic tolls of a global pandemic.

It’s comforting to know that we’re focusing on what’s truly important.

A Peloton Class With Joe Biden

By HELENA WILLIAMS “Good afternoon, folks!”

As you watch your Peloton screen in disbelief, you witness the President of the United States, wearing skin-

tight yoga pants and his signature aviators, step onto his Peloton. “Today, we’re gonna be doing a really hard workout, but I want you to remember that we’re in a battle for the soul of your long-forgot-

ten thighs.” Biden taps a button on his ancient Blackberry and Coldplay fills the room.

“Now here’s the deal, set your resistance between 10 and 20, and get your cadence up over 100! Because if I’m going to

live to be over 100, I’m gonna need every ounce of muscle I’ve got.”

You start pedaling and settle into your rhythm as Biden gives one of his signature motivational speeches.

“We’re gonna build back better and make a lot of important changes to the American safety net.” His speech is the first political speech you’ve continued on page 23

The Spectator ● February 11, 2021

Page 23

Humor Dear Secret Stuy Cupid Admirer

By EZRA LEE At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Stuy Cupid, a new website, was introduced to Stuyvesant and revolutionized the dating scene. The purpose was for individuals to send out anonymous confessions. If two people sent confessions to each other, there would be a “match,” and their identities would be revealed.

As horny high school teens yearned for more love and affection during the first few months of quarantine, the initial launch was met with widespread success. However, the website was soon used for a different purpose as friends started to spam each other with thirsty confessions. Unfortunately, the app has been permanently closed, leaving many with questions about the hundreds of confessors who have yet to be revealed.

Here is a letter from an anonymous junior to their secret

admirer.

Dear Secret Stuy Cupid Admirer, April 4, 2020. 11:09 a.m.

I’ll never forget that exact moment. I felt the vibration of my phone notify me of the email from emailer@cupid. stuy.app. A message that said, “It’s official! Your flawlessness hasn’t gone unnoticed.

Looks like someone’s got a secret admirer!” popped up on my screen. An image with an extremely unoriginal joke was also included saying, “You look familiar. Did we have a class together? I could have sworn we had chemistry.”

I’ve asked my only three friends, and not one confessed that they sent the confession.

I’ve been attacked by them for being a “simp,” but I desperately need to know who wrote this confession. This letter is my last opportunity to figure out my confessor before I officially call it quits.

And while I am currently happily matched with another Stuy student who appreciates my love for food (we call each other Ken and Barbie by the way ;)), you are still a constant presence in the back of my mind. Though I am happy, I always think about what we could’ve become if only we’d matched and gone on a virtual date.

With the website gone, I’ll never know who you are…unless I bribe the creator (which I have definitely not considered doing in the slightest). In the end, all I wish for you is to live a happy and fulfilling life.

To the person who wrote me that confession: pm me I just wanna talk ;) Signed, Anonymous junior Many more curious and desperate Stuyvesant students have yet to learn more about their anonymous confessors.

“I desperately need the website to come back! It was the best thing that ever happened in 2020,” one sophomore said.

Others, however, have considerably less time to find their confessors. “I haven’t found my confessor yet, and I’m almost graduating. I remember they wrote, ‘I looked at you every single day during AP Bio last year, and worship you at home at my shrine. I hope one day you’ll appreciate and recognize my love when I confess to you at your doorsteps.’ Isn’t that so romantic?” a senior said. Some may call this senior delusional, but I think she’s just an avid Wattpad reader.

Hundreds of students have posted on anonymous confession pages and commented on posts about revamping Stuy Cupid, motivated by their desperation to receive insignificant emails of someone finding them attractive. If you’re currently

reading this article, then you are a part of this group. Unfortunately, the website developer declined to comment on the issue, which means all we can do now is wait for another computer science nerd to build us a dating platform like the ephemeral yet ethereal Stuy Cupid.

While we may never know who our secret admirers are, they’ll be remembered forever. This Valentine’s Day, treat yourself to some candy, and take a risk! You could even talk to the person you confessed to through Stuy Cupid.

And this goes especially for the people who confessed to me (you know who you are).

Maybe that void of despair you created in our hearts can be filled once again with love.

PS: If YOU are MY Stuy Cupid Admirer, please fill out this Google Form! I would love to get to know you more :)

The Evolution of the Quarantine Girl

By KRISTA PROTEASA Long ago, the four foods Quarantine Girl ate most lived together in harmony: pizza, cereal, Takis, and Kinder Happy Hippo. Then, everything changed when the pandemic attacked. Only Quarantine Girl, master of all four foods, could stop it, but when Quarantine Girl needed her iced coffee most, it vanished. One hundred years passed, and Quarantine Girl discovered a new reason to reinvent herself: a video-sharing app that shares a name with a popular Kesha song.

She recently downloaded this certain video-sharing app (that shall remain nameless for copyright reasons), and ever since then, she’s been

trying to become a completely different person. It started with pink hair dye. Quarantine Girl bleached and dyed pink the two locks of hair that framed her face at precisely 3:37 a.m. on April 28, 2020.

The meaning of the pink is unknown, other than the offchance that pink represents peak teenage rebellion for its strong hue and practically no possibility of being any less subdued. Blue could’ve been a more suitable option, but we’ll never know.

The pink hair didn’t last long, for, after 18 days, she dyed it back to black. After the black hair dye came an innumerable number of fake piercings that Quarantine Girl bought from Claire’s. It’s likely that the fake piercings demon-

strated her lack of confidence in her decisions but simply looked cool as well. The fake jewelry was followed by an overwhelming influx of black ripped jeans, black fishnets, and, of course, black rings.

This app she downloaded had an extraordinary influence on her.

For a whopping five months, this dark phase in her evolution ensued. Every day, no smiles were exchanged between her and any of her friends. They were all consumed by an arbitrary need to appear as emotionless as the emo bands they once idolized in 2012. However, after everyone on the app stopped acting like this, so did Quarantine Girl. She was quick to dispose of her black wardrobe and

move onto the next stage, constantly in search of the mythical clout she and all her friends so desperately craved.

This next stage included almost all the same wardrobe and accessories, but this time, she had to bleach her entire head of hair and put on chains wherever possible.

These long chains were very difficult to untangle as many as nine times a day, so they were quickly abandoned as well. One might still be lost in her hair to this day.

As soon as people on the app started posting themselves wearing form-fitting camisoles paired with jeans three to four sizes too large, Quarantine Girl had no choice but to fill her wardrobe with just those. Her shoes were

also largely oversized and not even her mother could convince her to purchase well-fitting clothes. Her room quickly became covered in faux vines, record-shaped discs of plastic, and a plethora of rainbow swirls. The room decor caused her too many headaches, so, out of necessity, she had to get rid of it all.

Her entire evolution has lasted almost 11 months so far, and she still hasn’t stably settled on one presentation for her appearance. For now, her appearance will keep rotating like Pluto around the Sun. Her hair is crying for help, and her wardrobe is constantly exhibiting wildly different color palettes, but the fun never stops in Quarantine Girl’s little bedroom.

A Peloton Class With Joe Biden continued from page 22

heard in years that you don’t have to cringe at because it actually contains good ideas, allowing you to tune it out like any normal political speech. Even the burning in your legs seems to fade away as your eyes glaze over from tears of relief because politics is finally back to being heartstoppingly boring.

Your attention is brought back by Biden taking his hands off the handlebars to fire finger guns in your general direction. “Now ladies and gents, we’re going to kick that resistance up to 45 because I really want you to FEEL what it was like to go toe-to-toe with 45 himself.” You turn the resistance knob up a whole bunch, and suddenly, you feel like there’s an immense

weight trying to crush you.

It’s almost like you’re trying to carry the hopes of the entire Democratic Party, along with any person who has half a brain, on your back…Oh, the pain! Yet, when you look up at the screen, Biden is now somehow doing handstand push-ups with his hands on the pedals, and his aviators are still in place. “C’mon, man, let’s have a push-up competition!”

Begrudgingly, you drop to the floor (for no mere mortal could pedal and push-up at the same time like Biden) and attempt to coax your couchpotato arms into lifting you off the floor. You shoot a glance at the Peloton screen only to see that Biden is now giving a full gymnastic performance from his Peloton, demonstrating the reflexes

he’s trained to dodge Republican filibusters, while simultaneously signing an executive order to give every kid in the United States juice boxes.

Desperately, you try putting your knees down to do easier push-ups, but the second you do, Biden shouts “No malarkey!” Crap, how can he even see you through the screen?

You barely grind out one more full push-up before collapsing.

When you peel yourself off the floor, Biden is back to talking. “Now folks, I’d like to bring in a good friend of mine to help inspire you.”

As you watch in shock, former president Barack Obama walks on-screen. “We got this country out of one recession, and we can do it again. Right, Barack?”

“Of course!” The two

fist bump (indeed, their bromance is quite obvious), and Obama steps into the center of the frame. “Now listen folks, I know this is a tough exercise session, but you’ve gotta stick with it. Remember: YES WE CAN!” And with these words, you feel one last surge of adrenaline through your veins, and you get back on the bike and start pedaling. You’re doing it! Ridin’ with Biden! You feel a swelling of patriotic pride in your heart, just as a bald eagle caws outside your window, and for once, you feel good about America.

That’s when the Secret Service agents burst into Biden’s workout studio. “Sir, you can’t just bring a Peloton into the White House! This thing has a microphone and a camera—WAIT, WHAT

ARE YOU DOING? ARE YOU STREAMING?” And suddenly, against their wills, the Secret Service agents start doing jumping jacks as Biden continues to pedal, and Obama shouts encouraging platitudes. Even their desire to protect the president has been overcome by the desire to get STRONK. Finally, Biden slows down, takes off his aviators, and smiles at the camera. “Now that’s what I call a workout!

Thanks for joining me, folks.

I’ll see you all again soon if McConnell doesn’t put a ban on Pelotons!” And with that, he vanishes in a puff of red, white, and blue smoke, leaving you, your aching muscles, and your newfound sense of American identity to reminisce about the past hour of exercise.

The Spectator ● February 11, 2021

Page 24

Humor SCP-4220 continued from page 21

Dr. Narom stipulated, exactly 100 percent of the surrounding witnesses rushed to these food stations and immediately paid their attention to them, ignoring all other events, including SCP-4220.

This ritual occurs every week that SCP-4220 takes place and has been completely successful in preventing notice of its occurrence, with no use of amnestics required. That being said, other efforts are still being undertaken to contain the effects of SCP-4220, and researchers are on-site at all times in order to observe whether these effects remain localized within the ██████████ ████ ██████ building.

Description: SCP-4220 is an anomaly sporadically occurring inside ██████████ ████ ██████ at ███ ████████ Street, ██, ████████. SCP-4220’s first appearance occurred on May 1st, 20██ at 3:35 p.m.

Further analysis indicates SCP-4220 begins at 3:35 p.m. every Monday. SCP-4220 begins with a translucent barrier appearing in front of ██████████ ████ ██████. No more than 30 seconds later, areas of the ██████ begin to fade from sight. As each section of the building disappears, numerous small animals drop to the ground, falling through the floor that was once there.

Curiously, the vermin land upon the concrete ground gently and with no observ-

able injuries. These vermin include but are not limited to: brown rats, black rats, albino rats, American cockroaches, pillbugs, numerous species of spider, and one white-faced whistling duck. While these creatures horrifically rain from the sky, they are accompanied by eight black vending machines, which plummet and crash with none of the grace of their counterparts.

Agents have determined that only furniture containing food was dropped to the ground. Around 3:37 p.m., the creatures form an orderly line for one of the eight vending machines. They seem to “give” each vending machine various items resembling currency, such as unpaired shoes from the lost-andfound box, a stolen wooden bench, several screaming souls from the underworld, a five-pound Pomeranian, and a pizza. In response, the vending machine intermittently dispenses the snacks stored inside of it. Agents attempting to access the disappearing ██████ are met with startling resistance—the agents are teleported into █████ █████, a nearby supermarket, with an armful of study materials. No trace of the building’s structure is left behind by 3:40 p.m. The area in which the building once was does not seem to be responding to any sources of stimuli until its reappearance at 6:00 p.m. As the building is restored, all animals left on the ground float upward and are gently placed in their respective crevices. Agents entering the building following

SCP-4220 see major alterations in the building’s decorations and stairwells. On several occasions, the eponymous portrait of █████ ██████████ was found moving up escalators, resting on the mats in the gym, or floating inside the building’s █████ █████ swimming pool. More ominous events have included red, spray-painted, Xs over several rooms: specifically rooms ███, ███, and ███. Startling graffiti of distorted gym uniforms and apples dripping blood also appeared on several of the ██████’s floors, mainly on walls that lead to a dead-end. One of the most shocking effects of the building’s metamorphosis includes re-routed escalators and stairwells. Several floors contained escalators moving in the same direction, resulting in many agents taking the stairs after missing their destination. The stairs themselves also changed with several staircases missing or skipping floors, floating, or leading up to random classrooms.

SCP-4220 also causes any loose item within the building that does not belong to the ██████ administration to disappear permanently. For each item that disappears, a completely unrelated item appears in the lost-andfound box. People within the ██████ building at the time of SCP-4220 are also immediately transported to the █████ █████supermarket with study materials.

Discovery: ██████████

One ████

██████ junior by the name of ██████ ████████ was walking towards Ferry’s to purchase a bacon-avocadochipotle on a roll when ███ spotted ███ ██████ disappearing. The student posted on social media in the █████████████ ███████████ ████ ████████ group regarding the aforementioned situation. However, the post was quickly regarded as a joke, with students intermittently “bumping” the post. Agent ██████████ soon found and questioned the junior who saw SCP-4220 and convinced the student that ███ was hallucinating, on account of her rampant sleep deprivation. After its posting on May 2, 2020, the post continued to be “bumped” by several nefarious users. A ████████ user named ████████ commented “WoW just a typical day in life!” on August 12, 2020, at 1:42 a.m., with another comment on August 13, 2020, at 3:23 p.m. saying “it had to be done.” To assess their suspicious comments, a pair of agents interrogated the students at a secure location.

The agents asked the students if they were involved in SCP4220 or heard of the anomaly in any way. Both students denied any involvement in SCP4220 and emphasized the comment was a joke about their beloved school. The students were given Class-A amnestics following the investigation. Since the specific area surrounding SCP-4220 has been undergoing rigorous quarantine, there have been

no large-scale discoveries of SCP-4220.

Addendum A: One new development has been made regarding the timing of the ██████’s appearance and disappearance. Beginning on June 1, the building appeared to enter a new phase. The building became nocturnal, with SCP-4220 appearing at 12:00 a.m. every Monday. Dr. Narom has developed one theory for this change. He suggests SCP-4220 might be adopting new sleep habits to account for the large amount of free-time suddenly available at the empty building.

Agents have determined that the nature of the changes inside the ██████ has remained the same.

Addendum B: A recent development has determined that the vending machine could be refilled by ████████████ security guards. Agents watching the school have seen silhouettes of people traveling around the school right before the school begins to disappear, particularly in the stairwells. A deeper analysis has led to a recognition of rectangular badges, characteristic of security guards, on the shoulders of the silhouettes. Investigations inside the school building have resulted in no sighting of the security guards. This new information prompts more questions about SCP-4220. Agents continue to investigate how security guards gain access to the resources needed to maintain the vending machines.

New Epidemic Emerges as Teachers Are Unable To Confiscate Students’ Phones

By CYRUS CURSETJEE Recently, scientists have shortly turned their attention away from the COVID-19 pandemic and toward an emerging threat to teachers’ welfare around the world. The rapidly spreading Phone Confiscation Syndrome, or PCS, is said to have originated at Stuyvesant High School several months ago, when numerous teachers hosting daily classes over Zoom reported experiencing muscle spasms and tremors in their hands while teaching online classes.

Online learning has increased dramatically since September 2020, and along with it, diagnoses of PCS have skyrocketed. After conducting a highly detailed experiment, behavior analyst Dr. Seung Yu reached a shocking conclusion regarding the causes of these abnormal behaviors. Whenever a teacher with PCS thinks that a student is on their phone, their brain unconsciously sends nerve

impulses down their arm, causing their hand to spasm as if they were going to snatch the phone through the screen.

Intrigued by this new epidemic, my team of undercover Spectator reporters interviewed Stuyvesant teachers with PCS over Zoom. Many were eager to share their saddening experiences.

The story of one anonymous teacher perfectly exemplifies the horrific impact that PCS can have on teaching styles, and even families.

“Quarantine has ruined my life. Every day, I used to walk between desks, pretending to look over students’ work.

I was actually searching for phones under desks, hanging out of pockets, inside opened backpacks. Though I can hide my PCS from the class, my husband and kids still stare at me every time I ask a question, and my hands start shaking wildly under the desk.”

Spanish teacher and former Dean Manuel Simon

was one of the first teachers to contract PCS. “I used to patrol the hallways when I wasn’t teaching and confiscate every phone that I saw. And believe me chico, no student could sneak past me. Other Spanish teachers and I had a group chat, and I would always win the competition for most phones confiscated in a month. Now whenever I try to eat a donut, my hand starts shaking, and it falls on the floor,” he said. “Then, all the students say ‘Ay Caramba’ in the Zoom chat. These kids think they’re smart, keeping their phones below the camera where I can’t see them. We’ll see who’s smart after they get a glimpse of their participation grades.”

If that wasn’t bad enough, there has been a recent influx of reports about an advanced stage of PCS known as SelfConfiscation Disorder, a strange desire for teachers to confiscate their own phones.

To learn more, we interviewed

the wife of a Stuyvesant teacher: “He would get up suddenly from bed at 2 a.m. to sit at his desk, where he would hold his phone in one hand and try to grab it with the other, saying ‘no phones in class, no phones in class,’” she said.

According to Dr. Yu’s latest findings, 15 percent of teachers with PCS have shown early signs of developing SelfConfiscation Disorder;rates are only increasing. “Unfortunately, we have not yet found a cure for PCS, although multiple treatments have proven to be effective,” Dr. Yu announced.

If you are showing early signs of PCS, it is essential that you begin to engage in trust-building exercises. Unfortunately, you cannot go to a guidance counselor to request for a student to be transferred out of your class (though studies have shown that most students would be more than willing). One of the most

helpful exercises is to try to go a whole class without accusing a student of being on their phone. As you develop a greater sense of control, try going a whole day or even a whole week. Remember, this is a gradual process that may be very difficult for some teachers.

Dr. Yu requested to share this concluding message with readers: “Perhaps the most important thing to take away from this PCS debacle is the severity of our current situation. My studies have shown that all the stress from the coronavirus pandemic has aggravated disorders that have remained hidden in people for quite some time. PCS might just be a resultant syndrome of O.L.D. (Ornithological Lethargy Disease), but this needs to be confirmed with further research. In the meantime, I recommend dipping your hands in paint thinner to ease those spasms! Have a wonderful day.”

The Spectator ● February 11, 2021

Page 25

Sports Soccer

Liverpool’s Staggering Injury Issue

By SHAFIUL HAQUE It’s been quite surprising that Liverpool has gone from winning titles and achieving glory in recent seasons to struggling to perform on a game-to-game basis. Since the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the nation, the Premier League has been more competitive than ever.

Currently, the Reds sit fourth in the Premier League, seven points behind Manchester City at first place. For any team, being in a Champions League spot would be fantastic, but Liverpool FC manager Jürgen Klopp wishes to achieve much more with his team. Klopp has dealt with many problems throughout the season, including a loss of form for the front three and an inability to break the deadlock at times. All of these drawbacks can be attributed to one thing: Liverpool’s injury problem. One by one, key players are racking up injuries, making the team’s aspirations for this season almost unreachable.

Virgil van Dijk Injury: Anterior Cruciate Ligament (Mid-October 2020) Expected Return: May 2021 Virgil van Dijk has been suffering from knee ligament damage ever since Liverpool’s 2-2 draw against Everton FC on October 17, 2020. Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford went for a calamitous challenge with Van Dijk and managed to escape a possible red card after the latter was called offside. After Pickford drove straight into Van Dijk’s knees, Van Dijk dropped to the floor, grimacing from a torn ACL. Klopp was dismayed after

the match, expressing his worries about the duration of Van Dijk’s absence. “I do not know,” Klopp told beIN Sports. “So it is not good. [Van Dijk] played for us—I do not know how many games in a row—he plays with pain, he plays with pretty much everything, but he couldn’t play on. That’s not good.” Since his injury, Van Dijk has undergone successful surgery in London and is in the rehabilitation phase of his recovery. A crucial player for the Reds since his signing in January 2018, Van Dijk is truly missed on the Liverpool side.

Without him, Liverpool’s back line has no firm force organizing or guiding them while defending. As a result, Klopp has transformed defensive midfielder Fabinho (Fábio Henrique Tavares), who has recently suffered from a minor muscular injury, into a center back to replace Van Dijk.

Joe Gomez Injury: Knee (Early November 2020) Expected Return: Out for 2020-21 Season Joe Gomez has been dealing with patella problems since he took a tumble during an England international team training session. Klopp has admitted that Gomez bruised his knee badly and would presumably be out for the rest of the season. “Gomez is actually in a pretty good place but far away from being back,” Klopp told reporters. “He walks round, looks completely normal, is not yet out on the pitch running, or even out of the gym.

It’s just a really tough injury as well.” Though he is only 23, Gomez has been a helpful center back for the Reds, amassing

130 appearances for the club.

Since his injury in November 2020, Liverpool has been struggling at the defensive line, and Klopp has had to deploy youth players and players who are not naturally center backs. This has completely altered Liverpool’s counter-pressing structure and made it harder for them in defensive transitions.

Injury: Soft Tissue Muscle (Mid December 2020) Expected Return: Early February 2021 Naby Keïta has had his fair share of difficulties since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, regularly stuck on the bench and left out of the squad for quarantine or injuries. He has managed to start the first four games of Liverpool’s Premier League campaign but struggled to play the subsequent games.

Keïta failed to feature since Liverpool’s substantial 7-0 victory against Crystal Palace in December 2020. Klopp explained that he contracted a muscle problem, and the club wishes to take his recovery process slow to prevent further aggravation. Though Keïta has rarely featured for the Reds since his big money move from RB Leipzig, Klopp hopes to get him playing his best in a Liverpool shirt. In his absence, the club has missed ball progression and creativity from the midfield, and fans hope that he will return to link with fellow midfielders Thiago Alcântara and Georginio Wijnaldum.

Diogo Jota Injury: Knee (Mid-December 2020) Expected Return: Mid-February 2021 A new arrival to the club, Diogo Jota is currently suffering from a bruised knee after Liverpool’s 1-1 draw against FC Midtjylland in the Champions League. Though his injury might not seem as much of a scare with a front three of Sadio Mané, Roberto Firmino, and Mohamed Salah, his return is timely, as Liverpool has struggled to rack up goals as of late. It’s been tough for Klopp, who has only won five Premier League games out of the last 13 without Jota. A week ago, Klopp explained, “He needs time. How much I miss him is not important. I am not allowed to miss him. He is not there, and we deal with it.” Jota began his career with the Reds superbly, scoring nine goals in the Premier League and Champions League.

He has transitioned well into the squad, playing on either wing and sometimes playing as a center forward. With his return imminent in February, the Anfield supporters hope that he will improve the offense for 2021.

Joël Matip Injury: Ligament (Late January 2021) Expected Return: Out for 2020-21 Season Joël Matip has suffered from injuries throughout the season.

He was ruled out for a month after an adductor problem in December. Matip was most recently injured in Liverpool’s 3-1 win against the Tottenham Hotspurs, Liverpool’s first victory of the new year. Klopp sent in a substitute at halftime and, following the game, explained

Naby Keïta

that the damage to Matip’s ankle ligaments was serious. In a press conference, Klopp explained, “Last night I was after the game, especially with that [Matip injury], pretty emotional just because at halftime the boys [are] sitting there. Now, meanwhile, there are still glimpses of hope that it’s not serious.” A few days after the match, Liverpool revealed that his fractured ligament ruled him out for the entire season, which devastated the squad. Matip has always put in a good shift for the Reds and has enjoyed some spectacular moments with the club, winning the Champions League and Premier League. His injury has made prospects significantly worse for the club, especially with half the season left to play.

Klopp has insisted that the club didn’t need to break the bank for a new signing each time a key player was ruled out by injury, but with three first choice center-backs out for lengthy periods of time, Klopp now has very little say. On Deadline Day, the last day before the transfer market closes, the German manager brought in center backs Ozan Kabak from Schalke 04 and Ben Davies from Preston North End. With his replacement options and hopes of his players returning from injury, Klopp wishes for his squad to do the best it can in its upcoming matches. Though it will be tough for his team to score goals and defend with a new backline, Klopp is an experienced manager, and all managers must go through difficulties in order to bring their teams back to success.

Athlete of the Issue

Flying Into Action: An Interview With Erica Kwak Erica Kwak Grade: Senior Height: 5’3” Hair Color: Black Eye Color: Brown Date of Birth: September 4th, 2003

1. How long have you been on the Stuyvesant cheerleading team?

Three years.

2. What inspired you to join the cheerleading team in freshman year?

I wanted to go to tryouts after I found out some of my friends were going to. I didn’t have any friends outside of the ones from my middle school, so I saw cheer as an opportunity to meet new people. Going to the Clubs & Pubs Fair and seeing some of the stuff they do on the team really inspired me to try out, because I wanted to do cool things in the air and compete.

3. What does a typical practice look like? What types of drills, warmups, or conditioning do you do with your team?

We start off our practices stretching in a circle to loosen up our muscles. As our warmup, we then do bear crawls, lunges, and squats in a line down the mats. We then get into our stunt groups, and after doing basic drills as a team, we focus on our individual groups and practice whatever skills or [routines] we need to work on. Sometimes at the end, we showcase what we achieved that practice. Then we condition for a bit. We either do more down-the-mats, or we get into rows and do exercises like planks, leg circles, jumping jacks, etc. Practices always vary, but that’s what an ideal one looks like.

4. What is the biggest challenge that you have faced while cheerleading?

I fractured my ankle during my sophomore year. I was really bummed out, because after months of practicing, I had to be taken out of all the routines and couldn’t cheer at football

games or compete. Not long after, our former coach kept pressuring me to come back to practices after a lot of people had quit, so I ended up going against my doctor’s orders and practiced on a not completely healed ankle. We didn’t even end up going to Nationals, so the ankle soreness was for nothing.

5. What position do you serve as on the team? What skills or techniques are involved?

I’m a flyer, aka the person you see getting thrown in the air and stuff. Flyers have to “stay tight,” meaning we have to squeeze our entire body to maintain our balance and also to lift some of our weight to make the bases and backs’ jobs easier.

It’s scary at first, since there’s a lot of risk involved, but over time you learn that your stunts will never hit if you don’t trust your stunt group.

6. What’s your favorite or proudest moment with the Stuyvesant cheerleading team?

When we took home the Top Banana at camp in 2019.

The Top Banana is this big inflatable banana that they give to the most spirited team each day at camp, and whichever team gets it the last day takes it home.

It sounds stupid, but it’s considered a really great achievement and honor to receive the banana.

After two consecutive summers

Courtesy of Erica Kwak

By AIDAN LOOK

of taking it home, there was a lot of pressure to continue the streak. It really took us by surprise when they announced our team, because we had a rough couple of days and didn’t expect it at all. Everyone was cry-

ing, and it was one of the most rewarding moments after a long summer of sweaty, exhausting practices.

7. Who is/was your funniest teammate?

Helen Yang! She graduated in 2020, but she never failed to make us laugh, and the team wouldn’t have been the same without her positive energy.

Favorite food: Ramen Favorite class: I really enjoyed Women’s Voices, even though I didn’t participate much and was half asleep a lot of the time. The readings and discussions were always really interesting and thought-provoking. It made me so much more aware of the heteronormativity in our society and how that’s constantly being reflected in the media (like video games, commercials, etc.).

Overall, I recommend everyone to take the course because you’ll definitely feel enlightened by the end of the semester.

Favorite movie(s) or TV show(s): “Rick and Morty” Other hobbies: I love painting

Page 26

The Spectator ● February 11, 2021

Sports Sports Editorial

The Epidemic of Plane Crashes in Soccer the first of its kind. It drew immediate comparisons to the fate of Chapecoense, a club that lost nearly their entire roster in a horrific plane crash in 2016. There were 77 people on board their LaMia flight, and 71 of them died as the plane ran out of fuel minutes before landing.

The Palmas FC plane crash also reminded people of the untimely death of Emiliano Sala, who passed away en route to complete a transfer to Cardiff City from Nantes FC in 2019.

The plane crashed off the shore of Guernsey, a small island located in the middle of the English Channel. Two rescue missions were sent to find Sala, and they found him dead on their second attempt.

The epidemic of plane crashes in soccer is a very frus-

By NAKIB ABEDIN A plane containing four players and the president of Brazilian soccer club Palmas FC crashed on January 24, killing all of those on board, including the pilot. The players were traveling to Goiania to play a game against Vila Nova after completing their quarantine periods following positive COVID-19 tests. However, moments after takeoff, the plane crashed onto the ground, leaving no survivors.

Palmas later released a statement asking for prayers and support for the friends and families of Lucas Praxedes, Guilherme Noe, Ranule Gomes dos Reis, and Marcus Molinari, the players who lost their lives in this tragic incident.

However, this incident is not

trating one, especially considering how preventable they are.

In the case of Palmas FC, the poor infrastructure of the airport played a crucial role in the plane’s failed ascension. For Chapecoense, 71 deaths could have been prevented with better operation planning for fuel, as well as clear-headed decisionmaking by the crew. The crew was aware that they would run out of fuel 20 minutes before the plane’s descent, yet they never informed Air Traffic Control (ATC). As the ATC operators were unaware of the fuel shortage, they delayed the landing of the flight that the Chapecoense players were in, eating away precious time. The death of Sala may be the most frustrating of them all. The weather was clearly not conducive to travel, and the

flight was on a relatively small plane. Additionally, the pilot was not licensed to fly the plane on a commercial journey, making the plane crash even more inevitable.

David Henderson, the 66-yearold man who arranged Sala’s flight from Nantes to Cardiff, was charged with manslaughter for the negligence that led to the deaths of Sala and the pilot.

Blame doesn’t fall solely on the hands of reckless airline attendants, though. Sports leagues also need to take action to prevent future incidents like these.

It is imperative that executives postpone any match in which either team has to fly through dangerous weather in order to arrive on time. Though this choice may prove to be a burden on scheduling, it would play a huge role in preventing future plane crashes.

Leagues can also subsidize the travel costs for teams so that they can use medium to large-sized planes instead of small ones.

Small planes are vulnerable to strong winds and thunderstorms and are consequently more dangerous. In the case of Palmas and Sala, the disasters may have been avoided simply if the plane were bigger. Moreover, sports leagues could hire certain airline companies to have exclusive rights in transporting teams from city to city. This way, the leagues can ensure that the fuel, electricity, and other essential materials are properly managed on each flight.

One thing that was already abundantly clear was only confirmed after the news about Palmas FC: we need to learn from this epidemic of plane crashes, or else tragedy will strike again.

Soccer

Another Chelsea Head Coach Bites the Dust time?

Statistically, compared to other head coaches’ tenures, Lampard’s was quite underwhelming. Ever since owner Roman Abramovich bought the club in 2003, Chelsea has been known for firing coaches quickly once they fall out with the players or board or once they experience a poor run of form. In fact, of the 12 head coaches to have held the job for more than one game during Abramovich’s reign, Lampard ranks fourth for duration, as only José Mourinho (five years, nine months over two spells), Antonio Conte (two years), and Carlo Ancelotti (one year, 11 months) lasted longer. All three of them won the Premier League at least once (Mourinho did so three times) and amassed a total nine trophies during their time at

By VERNON HUGHES After a dominant 3-1 win over Leeds United on December 5, 2020, Chelsea FC seized the first place spot in the English Premier League. They were ninth in the league by January 20, having suffered five losses in eight games. Most of the blame was placed on Frank Lampard, their inexperienced head coach, who found his beginnings on the very same team. As a player, Lampard was a goal-scoring machine and now holds the record for most goals scored in Chelsea. However, it was officially announced by January 26 that Chelsea had fired Lampard after just 18 months of leadership. Was the Chelsea board of directors right to be so trigger-happy with this decision, or did Lampard deserve more

Chelsea. Contrastingly, Lampard won no trophies and had the worst points-per-game ratio of all 12 head coaches. He was fired after 84 games with just a 52 percent win ratio. Meanwhile, Ole Gunnar Solskjær, the coach of Chelsea rival Manchester United FC, had a 51 percent win ratio after the same number of games, but his club stayed patient with him, and they are now second in the league. However, the tendency to “hire and fire” frequently is part of Chelsea’s identity, and Lampard would have known this characteristic walking into the job. In fact, based on the statistics alone, he received more time than what is normally given to Chelsea managers and was extremely fortunate to last as long as he did.

Yet, Lampard’s record was

not always disappointing, and in fact, he overachieved in his first season considering the low expectations the media placed on him as a head coach due to the circumstances he had to deal with. When he acquired the job during the summer of 2019, he had only had one year of managerial experience, which was coaching Derby County in the second tier of English soccer, the Championship. Moreover, Chelsea had just sold Eden Hazard, who had been the club’s best player for the better part of a decade. The club was also facing a transfer ban that blocked the signing of any new players, because they had breached regulations involving the international transfers of players under the age of 18. With a hoard of players passing their primes

and many either being sold or shunned from the starting 11, Lampard turned to the products of Chelsea’s famed youth academy. Chelsea’s academy team won the FA Youth Cup for five consecutive years between 2013 and 2018, while also winning the UEFA Youth League, the most prestigious academy competition in Europe, twice. However, ever since John Terry had broken into the team in 1998, no academy product has been able to hold down a spot as one of the team’s top performers. Lampard immediately gave academy players more trust than any previous head coach, handing out a record eight academy player debuts. He made young players like midcontinued on page 27

NFL

Spectator Sports’ Super Bowl Picks

By THE SPORTS DEPARTMENT

Brady against Mahomes, it was a matchup for the ages! Here were the Spectator Sports Staff ’s predictions prior to Super Bowl LV. “It’s time that Tom Brady passes on the torch to the next great quarterback, Patrick Mahomes. The Chiefs proved to be a powerful force throughout the season and look to win their second Super Bowl in a row to top it all off.

Patrick Mahomes has enough weapons for an impeccable offense, and the Chiefs’ defense have proved that they can beat any passing game, including Tom Brady’s. While the Buccaneers won their matchup against the Packers by the skin of their teeth, the Chiefs are coming off a hot streak. The defending champions are eager to create a new dynasty by beating the quarterback of the old, and Tom Brady must give it his all if he wants to win his seventh ring.”

—Yaqin Rahman, junior Julia Shen / The Spectator

“The Kansas City Chiefs will secure another ring this year, led by future legend Mahomes. Though Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady has much more experience in championship games, the speed and all-around versatility of the Chiefs [are] enough to outscore him. Their stacked offense will overcome Tampa Bay’s high-ranked defense for almost unstoppable drives.

Especially if Brady throws picks like he did against Green Bay, he’ll have a tough day in Tampa.” —Ava Quarles, freshman

“It’s becoming clear that Patrick Mahomes is the most talented football player of all time. He makes amazing throws look effortless, and he could be down 100 points and still win the game. Mahomes is the best player the league has ever seen, and the Chiefs’ defense is very underrated, with terrific stars in Chris Jones and Tyrann Matthieu. Overall, the Chiefs will win this game, and Mahomes may even go on to beat Brady’s record of six Super Bowl rings.

Foolish as it may sound, Brady will lose.” —Ben Hamel, junior

“As a general rule, you should never bet against Brady. But this time, things are different. This time, Brady is mortal. This time, for the first time in his Super Bowl career, Brady will be overmatched, dueling superstar (and probably future G.O.A.T.) Patrick Mahomes. In the NFC Championship game, while Tampa Bay upset the favored Packers, Brady tossed three interceptions and saw big stops from the defense saving the day.

Meanwhile, Kansas City coasted in the AFC Championship with Mahomes not even at 100 percent after he went through the concussion protocol the week before the game. With a healthy Mahomes and the rest of the team in great form, it doesn’t seem like there’s any team in the NFL that can beat the Chiefs.” —Krish Gupta, junior

“The lovely Tampa Bay Buccaneers are going to win because Tom Brady always finds a way to get into the Super Bowl.

Doesn’t matter what the Chiefs do, that’s just how it works. As per usual, he will pull off some ridiculous play and score a lastminute touchdown or find a player who makes a beautiful catch to score touchdown after touchdown. My only comfort is he will retire next season after this 10th appearance in the Super Bowl and what could possibly be his seventh win.”

—Aki Yamaguchi, senior

“As redundant as it may get, Tom Brady will be walking out with the Vince Lombardi Trophy and his seventh ring. Patrick Mahomes has been dominating the NFL for a while, but Brady’s been doing it for decades. Even after a fresh start with him leaving the Patriots, Brady has proven that he alone can dominate the NFL. Love him or hate him, he’ll take his team to another win. It’s just what he does.” —Sathirtha Mondal, sophomore “I’m no expert on football, so take my prediction with a grain of salt. However, one thing I am sure of is that you simply cannot bet against Tom Brady. He has been performing at this level for decades, whereas Patrick Mahomes has only been doing it for a few years. With the utmost respect [toward] everything Mahomes has accomplished, I believe Tom Brady’s experience, leadership, and sheer determination will give him the edge in this showdown.” —Nakib Abedin, sophomore

The Spectator ● February 11, 2021

Page 27

Sports UFC

Down for the Count: The Notorious One at a Crossroads Former two-division UFC champion Conor McGregor staggered against the cage. One final blow was all it took as he crashed onto the canvas, leaning back in shock. The Etihad Arena crowd at UFC 257 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates erupted in cheers. The victorious former UFC lightweight champion Dustin Poirier triumphantly strutted toward his wife as fans screamed in surprise. McGregor had only been knocked out once in his entire career, in a boxing match against legend Floyd Mayweather, and Poirier had achieved what seemed impossible; he had knocked out the Notorious One in an MMA fight.

The highly-anticipated Poirier-McGregor matchup of UFC 257 went down on January 23, 2021. The full card was the second highest-selling event in UFC history, with over 1.6 million payper-views (PPVs), sitting only behind the Khabib Nurmagomedov-McGregor matchup of UFC 229, which reached 2.4 million PPVs. McGregor consistently guarantees high-selling events for UFC with his unique trash-talk and brash promotion, taking part in all of the top five PPV figures in UFC history.

McGregor took a noticeably different approach leading up to this fight though, with much calmer body language at the pre-fight press conferences and weigh-in. It was strange to see a humble and collected McGregor compared to his typical trash-talking, boisterous self. He is often aggressive prior to fights, insulting his opponents about all matters from their families and

personal lives to their fighting abilities. This time around, however, McGregor seemed focused and composed, a clear shift in his strategy.

Poirier matched McGregor’s calm demeanor as the two were friendly with each other at the weigh-in and pre-fight press conference. McGregor had promised a donation of $500 thousand to Poirier’s nonprofit, The Good Fight, founded in 2018 with his wife to help underserved communities, especially in his hometown Lafayette, Louisiana. Poirier expressed his respect and gratitude for McGregor’s gesture in the pre-fight press conference. At the weigh-in, Poirier also gifted McGregor a bottle of his signature Louisiana Style Hot Sauce, which McGregor accepted with enthusiasm.

UFC 257 was not the first time the Notorious One and the Diamond faced each other in the octagon. They first met in UFC 178 in 2014, where McGregor’s pre-fight approach proved effective. McGregor had gotten into Poirier’s head before the match with his trash-talk and usual antics, and Poirier was thrown off going into the fight. McGregor taunted during the fight, knocking Poirier out in only one minute and 46 seconds.

After a seven-year gap, Poirier vastly improved his fighting ability and was ready to once again meet McGregor in UFC 257, this time on Fight Island, an area designated for UFC fights during the COVID-19 pandemic. The fight started off with jabs until Poirier grappled with McGregor, dropping him to the ground.

Both sides landed powerful hits in the first round, but in the sec-

ond round, Poirier continued to implement his deadly calf kicks, gradually weakening McGregor’s legs and base. Thirty-eight percent of Poirier’s significant strikes

fighters, and celebrities. Images of McGregor incapacitated on the canvas circulated immediately, spoiling many fans’ views of McGregor as the best fighter

throughout the fight were targeted at McGregor’s legs, whereas McGregor primarily focused on Poirier’s head, landing 79 percent of his strikes there. Halfway through the second round, with McGregor visibly hurt, Poirier managed a flurry of punches on him, striking the Notorious One’s head as he fell back onto the floor, his head against the cage.

The upset withdrew a wide range of reactions from fans,

in the UFC. YouTube boxing star Jake Paul, after numerous taunting posts on social media offering McGregor $50 million for a fight, posted in laughter at his knockout, lowering his offer to $10 thousand. Undefeated legend Nurmagomedov also took a jab at McGregor and his team, criticizing his preparation for the fight.

Stars such as Damian Lillard, Niall Horan, Manny Pacquiao, and Justin Bieber, among oth-

Noah Taylor / The Spectator

By MATT MELUCCI

ers, commented on social media about the fight, either congratulating Poirier’s huge victory or expressing their continuous support or surprise with McGregor’s subpar fighting performance.

The knockout defeat is a major setback in McGregor’s journey toward once again holding the lightweight title. Had McGregor defeated the Diamond, he would have a strong chance at a rematch with his rival, Nurmagomedov, redeeming himself after his loss in 2018. Poirier, on the other hand, aims to fight for the UFC world title, and his victory against McGregor has set a clear path toward the UFC belt.

McGregor has arrived at a crossroads. With an ongoing sexual assault lawsuit in Ireland and this recent loss, he seems close to the end of his fighting career.

The Notorious One fought only two fights in the four years prior to UFC 257. He lost his ravenous hunger for victory and trash-talking stemming from his humble beginnings as he reached stardom. With his newfound relaxed manner, he seems to no longer be a match for other prime fighters like Nurmagomedov and Poirier.

McGregor should not get comfortable with his success at this point in his career. He currently still holds immense drawing power in the UFC, but another loss could jeopardize his career and pay. He has been medically suspended for six months to recover from his leg injury due to Poirier’s calf kicks, but if he wants to maintain his legacy in the UFC and remain the Notorious One, he must emerge victorious in the trilogy against Poirier and fight to regain the UFC lightweight title.

Soccer

Another Chelsea Head Coach Bites the Dust continued from page 25

fielder Mason Mount, forward Tammy Abraham, defender Reece James, and defender Fikayo Tomori integral parts of the team and gave opportunities to teenagers Callum Hudson-Odoi and Billy Gilmour. With this youthful team, Chelsea was not expected to make the next year’s UEFA Champions League by finishing in the top four in the Premier League, but they secured the fourth place spot. The media and fans viewed this as a momentous achievement and commended Lampard for beating the odds.

Lampard seemed poised for good things at the start of the summer of 2020. After a summer transfer ban had prohibited Chelsea from spending any money the previous year, Abramovich sanctioned a spending spree that saw the club expend more than any other team in Europe.

Most clubs had a modest transfer window because of the economic problems inflicted by COVID-19, but Chelsea still spent over $270 million. German midfielder Kai Havertz cost $89 million (a club record fee), while his German teammate Timo Werner ($58 million), English left-back Ben Chilwell ($55 million), Moroccan attacking midfielder Hakim Ziyech ($44 million), and

Senegalese goalkeeper Édouard Mendy ($26 million) were all also signed for hefty sums. Thiago Silva, the defender and excaptain of Paris Saint-Germain, joined on a free transfer. All six of these major signings were meant to play a vital role as Chelsea was supposed to be challenging for the Premier League title.

At the very least, Lampard was expected to lead his fresh team to the top four with more points than they had the previous season.

Until December, everything seemed rosy. Werner was Chelsea’s top scorer and assister, and Chilwell, Silva, and Mendy had revitalized a leaky defense so that Chelsea had more clean sheets (games without letting the opposition score) than any other team in the league. Ziyech was also creating ample chances and racking up assists every time he was able to play.

Havertz was the only signing who was not firing on all cylinders, but many people attributed this performance to his young age, difficulty adapting to life in England, and possible effects from his contraction and heavy symptoms of COVID-19.

Unfortunately, the new signings soon started to falter. A turning point in their season came on December 12, when Chelsea lost 1-0 to Everton, with Mendy making a mistake and giving the opposition a penalty that produced the only goal of the game. After keeping nine clean sheets in their previous 13 appearances in all competitions, Chelsea’s defense, led by Silva, Mendy, and Chilwell, went on to only keep two clean sheets in the last eight Premier League games of Lampard’s tenure. Werner did not score in the last 11 games, Ziyech missed December due to an injury, and Havertz continued to perform underwhelmingly. The Chelsea Board was the most furious with Lampard’s inability t o

Laurina Xie / The Spectator

capitalize on German duo Havertz and Werner.

With poor results and a lack of experience, trophies, and success from his new signings, Lampard’s temper and attitude deteriorated his relationships with the team executives. According to a report from Sports Illustrated, Lampard’s stubborn tendencies harmed his relationship with Marina Granovskaia, an influential Chelsea director.

Lampard’s personality also hurt his relationships with the players.

Many fringe players complained about not being spoken to for months, and others felt Lampard lacked empathy, epitomised by his overly harsh criticism.

Eventually, these factors led to Lampard’s tarnished reputation and firing. Based on the rapid removal of his predecessors, it seems he deserved it. A day after Lampard was sacked, December 26, it was announced German head coach Thomas Tuchel would take over. The general consensus is that Tuchel is experienced, having won trophies at both Borussia Dortmund and Paris Saint-Germain, and his German heritage will help him get the best out of Havertz and Werner, making him a step up from Lampard.

Even though it seems

Lampard got more time than he deserved, some Chelsea fans are still pained to see their legend fail and believe the club should have shown more loyalty to a man who had been a faithful player for them for 13 years. There is still some hope that he will return at a later point once he has gained more experience and is ready to take on the unique challenge of being the head coach of Chelsea.

For now, Lampard’s immediate future is unclear. It is unlikely he will get a job at another top club because of how his time at Chelsea ended, but he still did well in his first season and could be offered the head coaching role for a team lower down in the Premier League or in the United States’s Major League Soccer, where he spent a year as a player for New York City FC. He may also choose to take some time off, given that his wife Christine is expecting her second child—his fourth including children from a previous marriage— with him around April. Once he is more experienced, Lampard could well return to Chelsea as the head coach to redefine his legacy after his player years, but only time will tell whether he will be afforded the opportunity a second time and can lead the team to glory before biting the dust again.

Page 28

The Spectator ● February 11, 2021

THE SPECTATOR SPORTS Sports Editorial

President Biden’s Transgender Discrimination Order: What It Means for Women’s Sports

By TAEE CHI What place comes to mind when you think of sports? While you might be visualizing the squeaky-clean hardwood floor of a basketball court or the sprawling green field of a soccer pitch, you are probably not thinking of the Oval Office. However, when newly inaugurated President Joe Biden signed an executive order to prevent LGBTQ+ discrimination, he revitalized the ongoing debate on whether or not transgender athletes should be allowed to compete in women’s sports and merged the worlds of politics and sports.

The directive, titled “Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation,” was signed just hours after President Biden was inaugurated on January 20, 2021. It calls on federallyfunded schools across the U.S. to allow transgender athletes to partake in sports teams of their gender identities. “Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to […] school sports,” the order reads. While it doesn’t set any uniform guidelines, the act mandates that agencies must review and revise their current policies within 100 days to ensure that transgender students are not subject to discrimination in school athletics. Furthermore, failure to comply with the order will result in legal action and the withdrawal of federal education funds.

The dilemma around transgender athletes competing in

sports has long been a hot topic of debate. Just last year, bills aimed to prevent transgender athletes from competing in sports of their identified genders were introduced in 17 different U.S. states. In Idaho, the bill became a law and was supported by the state’s Republican-dominated house as well as the Trump administration. The Trump administration intervened once again in Connecticut, supporting a lawsuit filed by several cisgender girls who were looking to block a state law that allowed transgender athletes to participate in sports teams of their identified genders. The U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights eventually ruled that the policy allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports violates the civil rights of female athletes.

Given the history of transgender inclusion—or rather, exclusion—in sports, it’s clear why Biden’s discrimination order is such a victory for athletes who have transitioned from male to female. But, as one would expect, not everyone supports the order. There has been heated opposition to the president’s decision from people who claim that transgender ath-

letes will uneven the playing field and ruin women’s sports. The focal point of their argument is that biologically, male athletes have a physical advantage over femaleborn athletes, giving them a greater chance of unfairly claiming scholarships and awards.

To compensate for the biological differences, the NCAA requires transgender women to complete one year of testosterone sup-

Saadat Rafin / The Spectator

pression treatment before they can participate on women’s teams.

In addition, the International Olympic Committee guidelines allow transgender women to compete in the women’s category only if their blood testosterone levels have been sustained below 10 nanomoles per liter for at least

12 months. However, a groundbreaking new study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine revealed that even after two years of suppressing their testosterone level, transgender women still hold a competitive edge over their cisgender counterparts. For instance, the transgender athletes who were involved in the study ran 12 percent faster than the biologically female participants.

As a result, the researchers who conducted the study concluded that the one-year waiting period for transitioning Olympic athletes is inadequate and that the playing field may never be even for transgender athletes and biologically female athletes.

The question of how to balance inclusivity and fair competition in sports is by no means an easy one to answer, as valid points are made on both sides of the argument. While it is true that transgender females have a biological advantage that may give them a lead over cisgender athletes, it is wrong to exclude them from competing in what they love. Everyone is entitled to equal opportunities, and gender identity should never prevent anyone from participating in sports. That being said, however, accommodations and rule changes are necessary to make the situation just for everyone.

One solution could be to end male and female sections and instead divide athletes into categories based on hormone levels, height, weight, and other bio-

logical factors. This adjustment would be particularly beneficial in contact sports such as football and martial arts, because it would reduce the risk of injuries, which has been a major concern for those against transgender participation. While this proposal would help level the competitive advantages transgender athletes have, it is unrealistic. For as long as we can recall, sports have nearly always been separated by gender. By creating multiple categories of athletes, sports committees face the risk of overcomplicating sports and making the viewer experience less enjoyable. Take, for example, an event like the Olympics. Having multiple groups of athletes for each competition could be too convoluted and might result in a loss of viewership.

A more plausible solution would be to set limits on testosterone levels based on the sport.

For example, a transgender tennis player would be required to lower their testerone levels to 8.0 nanomoles per liter before being eligible to compete, while a transgender wrestler would have to lower their testosterone levels to half of that. This way, transgender participation would not be terminated but rather carefully regulated to ensure fairness in sports for everyone.

The ethical question of where to draw the line may never be answered in a way that satisfies everyone, yet we must all try to broaden our perspectives and rely on the concrete facts provided by science to make a morally sound decision.

Baseball

Remembering Hank Aaron

By SAM LEVINE and BEN HAMEL Hank Aaron, one of the greatest baseball players of all time and longtime home run king, passed away last week. He was 86 years old.

Aaron spent 23 seasons in Major League Baseball and was an All Star for 21 of those years.

He surpassed Babe Ruth’s record of 714 home runs in 1974 and ended his career with 755, a record that stood for 33 years until Barry Bonds overtook Aaron.

Aaron stands as the all-time RBI and total bases leader, records that don’t seem to be in jeopardy in the near future, and has played the third most games of any player, with 3,298 ball games logged.

Even more incredible, arguably, is that he was more than just a power hitter. Take away all 755 of his home runs, and he still tops 3,000 hits. With them, Aaron has the third most hits in MLB history with his 3,771, trailing only Pete Rose and Ty Cobb. He was also quick in both the outfield and on the basepaths. Aaron won three Gold Glove awards in his career, and he was always a threat to steal a base, snagging 15 or more bases for nine consecutive seasons in his prime. He was a true five-tool player and indisputably one of the best to ever do it.

Aaron’s true greatness goes well beyond his performance on

the diamond, though. As a Black man growing up during the peak of the Jim Crow era, he experienced extreme racism, including an unwillingness of people to accept him as a baseball player, despite his obvious talent. This treatment didn’t improve as he joined the minor leagues, where he played in Jacksonville, Florida.

Aaron and his Black teammates slept at different hotels from the white members of the team, and they were heckled by fans and called slurs by white crowd members.

When Aaron joined the Milwaukee Braves in the big leagues, it was more of the same. He had to shower after all his teammates, and he was berated by fans, all while he was bashing home runs day in and day out. At one point, Aaron was even the most mailedto person in the country—some fan mail, but also a lot of hate mail, filled with death threats directed at him and his family.

While he endured all this hate, he kept it inside, not wanting to share it with his teammates or friends.

As Aaron’s career continued, the racism never stopped. And as he climbed the home run ladder, he garnered even more hatred.

Aaron needed to hire private security to protect him and his family, and even needed to sleep alone at the ballpark sometimes to avoid having to go home,

where he could be in danger.

Despite being the best player in the league and living the dream, Aaron had to suffer through his seasons. While you would never have seen it from looking at him, he and other Black players dealt with unimaginable treatment. “We brought excitement, speed. We paid our dues, man.

No one knows what we had to go through—get off the bus, go get dressed somewhere else, go cat on the other side of town, get back in half an hour ready to play,” Aaron told Sports Illustrated in 1992. “What has baseball done for us? How many of those guys are around the game today? The white man allowed us a few crumbs. ‘You can sit right here in the front of the bus so long as you’re pulling in money.

After that, it’s back to the back of the bus.’”

As Aaron approached fateful home run number 715, anticipation grew high. He drilled number 714 on April 4, 1974 and was presented with a trophy on the field by commissioner Bowie Kuhn. A few days later, the Braves returned to Atlanta (where they now play), and Aaron walked up to the plate in the fourth inning. On the second pitch, Aaron cranked a ball over the left field seats, making him the all-time homerun leader. As legendary announcer Vin Scully put it, “What a marvelous moment for the country and the

world. A Black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol.”

Yet, who wasn’t there to see it? Commissioner Kuhn, who had instead chosen to attend a meeting with a Cleveland Indians Booster organization. It was a clear snub to Aaron from the man in charge and also a symbol that no matter how far Aaron had come, he still hadn’t earned the respect of all fans and baseball executives.

Aaron finished his career atop the charts in almost every important statistical category, cementing himself as one of the all-time

greats in baseball history, if not the greatest to ever live. However, Aaron’s legacy goes beyond that.

He is a pioneer of the sport, who helped pave the way for players like Ken Griffey Jr. and Bonds.

He battled through racism and hate that would be enough to deter most people, and yet he did it as he became one of the greatest MLB players ever. President Joe Biden put it best: “With courage and dignity, he eclipsed the most hallowed record in sports while absorbing vengeance that would have broken most people.” May he rest in peace among the rest of baseball’s greats.

SPORTSBEAT The Tampa Bay Buccaneers won the Super Bowl, routing the Kansas City Chiefs 31-9. Tom Brady won Super Bowl MVP, marking his seventh Super Bowl ring.

Derrick Rose was traded to the New York Knicks, reuniting with both the team and former coach Tom Thibodeau.

Aaron Rodgers won NFL MVP, his third time winning the award.

Aaron Donald won his third Defensive Player of the Year award as well. There were also eight new NFL Hall of Fame inductees, including Peyton Manning and Calvin Johnson.

Cy Young winner Trevor Bauer signed with the reigning champion Los Angeles Dodgers, adding to an already stacked lineup and rotation.