All posts by HPSH Plaid Line

COVID-19, Travel/Food

Holiday travels: 2020 vs. the past 

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By: McKenna Nutter

COVID-19 has had a large impact on many aspects of everyone’s life. As the holiday season has recently come to an end, many of us are able to look back on the differences between this year and the years past.

The difference, even in the media, was large. While most years we are encouraged to spend time and gather with our friends and family, this year was very different. We had been warned that it was risky to go see our families, and that we should make other arrangements, such as the highly suggested virtual gatherings.

Another major difference, this recent holiday season, was the restrictions and lack in travel. We all know that the airports are filled each year with millions of people flying out to see families, and the streets and highways are filled with cars packed for the road with people driving to see their loved ones. However, the year of 2020 has no doubt been different.

Each of the airlines and airports have had their own pandemic restrictions, and they all vary from one to another. In many states, there are mandates of their own. For example, in Maine, a visitor must self-quarantine for 14 days unless they have had a negative COVID test result within the last 72 hours. Every state has different regulations, and some have none at all but, no matter the state, over the holiday season, there has definitely been an increase in cases. 

Though there has been a major difference in holiday travel this year, the holidays have seemed to increase the travel. TSA data has shown that during a single week, right before the holidays, over 1 million people had been screened each day. This number may not sound too bad during a normal year, in fact it sounds pretty good, but in a year when we are encouraged to stay home and stay safe, this is a large number. 

As predicted, the surge in the number of cases, and the number of deaths, after the holidays was incredibly high. Of all the states in America, Arizona was definitely a hot spot, and Arizona is only one part of the 50 state nation. After the holiday fun was over, the U.S. was averaging more than 246,000 new cases per day! Not to mention the number of deaths was evened out between 3,000 and 4,000 per day. 

This surge in numbers was expected, and though the experts had continually encouraged us to stay home, the warnings may not have been completely ignored, but they went unfollowed by many. 

Hopefully, with the number of new vaccines going out, and the set-up of many vaccination sites, we will be able to pull this surge back into control.

Basketball

The Timberwolves’ coach change

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By: Alexandra Rimbu

The MN Timberwolves lost to the New York Knicks on Sunday, Feb 21, reaching a league-worst of 7-24 this season. This loss was ultimately what caused management to fire head coach Ryan Saunders, whose replacement, Chris Finch, was named shortly after on Monday.

Saunders’s association with the Timberwolves first began in 2019 when he took an assistant job and was later named interim coach after the firing of Tom Thibodeau. Next season, he took on the job permanently, and at age 33, he became the youngest head coach in the league.

The Timberwolves went 43-94 under Saunders, in a little less than two full seasons. They finished with the third-worst record in the league last season and had the worst record so far before his firing.

CBS Sports claimed that Saunders was stuck in “an impossible situation” on some level. They went on to state there was almost “total roster upheaval during his tenure” and that more games were “lost to injury” than you could have counted. And, of course, the absence of star player Karl-Anthony Towns from a majority of the games did not help the situation.

However, with results like that, the coaching change came as no surprise. Finch was a frontrunner for numerous jobs this offseason, and Rosas, the Timberwolves president, said “Chris brings a wealth of basketball experience from his time in the NBA, G League and Internationally. He is one of the most creative basketball minds in the NBA, has success maximizing players, and I am excited to see him bring our team to the next level and beyond.”

The future looks promising for the Timberwolves, and we’ll have to see if Finch lives up to everybody’s expectations.

Editor’s Note: Since this writing, the Timberwolves have yet to get their 1st win under coach Finch.

Movies/TV/Theaters

Review on Netflix’s ‘100 Humans’

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By: Joxery Mezen Camacho

While I was browsing Netflix, the show ‘100 Humans’ came up.

The slogan “Life’s Questions. Answered.” is what compelled me to click on it and see what the show is about.

The Netflix synopsis states that the show has humans of different backgrounds partake in a multitude of experiments that explore different aspects of life. This easily convinced me to watch it because of my heavy interest in psychology. 

The show looked at people’s difference in abilities and in perspectives. The whole thing is set out to be a social experiment. The experiments done on these 100 humans were all quite interesting, and the reasoning behind most of them did make me interested in watching to the end to find out the results. However, at times the experiments didn’t use all of the 100 humans available which made their end results to be less accurate. 

I would also say that 100 humans doesn’t mean 100% accuracy on the end results, since there are over 7 billion people living in this world. Nevertheless, the topics and questions that are brought up do make one question and reflect what their own perspectives are and what society’s perspectives are. The show did this by bringing in people who are knowledgeable about the different topics mentioned to further speak about them and explain what the results meant, and why those were the results they arrived at. 

The experiments done were also quite interesting. Many of them were funny, and some took a more serious approach. But overall, they were all light-hearted.

The show went through a few experiments each episode and would switch off from each as everything went on. I didn’t mind the approach and thought it worked well because it left little room for boredom of a question. 

The show was funny and interesting and the episodes were about half an hour each. And while the show and experiments weren’t all that accurate, and could’ve probably been done better, I liked most of the questions they posed and how they made me think and reflect on the experiment results.

I’d rate this show a 9/10. 

Movies/TV/Theaters

Remy the Ratatouille: how a TikTok trend became a full musical

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By: Bijou Kruszka

It’s the year 2007, and the Pixar movie ‘Ratatouille’ just came out in theaters. Now, nearly 14 years later, the musical version of the movie, composed by TikTok creators, is performed by Broadway actors. How did we get here?

It all started with Emily Jacobson in August of 2020, who had just read an article on a new ‘Ratatouille’-themed ride at Disney World, according to an Inside Edition interview with Jacobson. She started singing an improvised song about the main character, Remy, and decided to post it to TikTok. The song’s lyrics were “Remy the ratatouille, the rat of all my dreams. I praise you, oh ratatouille. May the world remember your name.”

In a Buzzfeed interview, Jacobson said that she had “pretty much forgotten about it” until 2 months later, when she “woke up to hundreds of notifications.” The song had blown up and got the attention of composer Daniel Mertzluff. Mertzluff added ensemble-like vocals and instrumentation to Jacobson’s song, and pitched the idea of a ‘Ratatouille’ musical.

People all over TikTok quickly jumped on to this idea, composing songs, choreographing said songs, dreaming up costume and set designs, and even creating a Playbill cover. The 15-second song, consisting of 4 short lines, had somehow created an entire community on TikTok.

In the Buzzfeed interview, Jacobson stated that she was concerned that she was going to get copyrighted by Disney, but Disney seemed to encourage the trend. Patton Oswalt, who voiced Remy in the movie, showed his support as well.

In December of 2020, it was announced a virtual performance of this ‘Ratatouille’ musical would be live streamed, with the proceeds going to the Actors Fund, which benefits actors, especially during the pandemic. The production streamed from January 1st to January 4th, and it raised $2,000,000 for the Actors Fund.

The performance starred Titus Burgess as Remy, Wayne Brady as his father, Andrew Barth Feldman as Linguini, Ashley Park as Colette and Andre de Shields as Anton Ego. The show got good reception, with critics agreeing that though it was odd, it was very enjoyable.

In the end, we can see that somehow ‘Ratatouille’, in the middle of a pandemic, pulled thousands of people together to create something. Perhaps, Remy really is the rat of all our dreams.

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COVID-19, Sports

​The effects COVID-19 has had on professional sports

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By: Charles Fragrassi

​COVID-19 has changed all of our lives forever; it changes our daily routines, grocery stores, and sporting events.

The NBA was one of the first major sports organizations to be affected by this; they responded by shutting down completely. After 4 months or so, they resumed play in a “bubble” in Walt Disney World. This was a great solution to COVID as they had zero COVID cases the rest of the season and were able to finished the season.

Major League Baseball was the next sport in season, and they too started their season three months late and had numerous precautions for COVID-19, such as there were to be zero fans in attendance, and teams were set to play against teams that were a certain amount of miles from each other to prevent traveling cross country.

MLB wasn’t as lucky as the NBA, and had people test positive from time to time. Some of the precautions were that they were not allowed to travel with the team and have access to the facilities. In order to get back to playing, they had to not have had a fever for 72 hours, and test negative twice. Although there were a few positive cases from time to time, MLB finished their season with hopes that next season will be back to normal.

As COVID cases grew more and more, there were questions about if the NFL would even have a season. The National Football League defied odds by having a season during the pandemic. Some of the precautions the NFL took were pretty much no handshakes or jersey swaps after the game, which in my opinion made no sense because they were just tackling each other for the past hour.

Players and coaches were also required to wear masks on the sideline and were strongly encouraged to social distance. They also made a requirement that only 62 players were allowed to travel at a time. Also, if any players tested positive, they were immediately placed on the COVID-19 reserve list and weren’t allowed back until it had been 10 days since symptoms first appeared, and they had to be 72 hours symptom free, with two negative tests.

Although there were a few games rescheduled due to COVID, the NFL did a pretty good job and finished the season pretty flawlessly.

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Music/Concerts

A review of The Weeknd’s Super Bowl halftime performance 

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By: Caroline Crosby

There’s much to dissect concerning the eye-catching narrative that The Weeknd worked so hard to convey to fans, so I’ll first offer a personal hottake. 

Looking back on the performance, as someone who knew next to nothing about the superstar’s intentions, I must say, I was incredibly confused at first. It provided all the glamour and elaborate choreography that has come to be expected of a legendary Super Bowl halftime show, but the underlying message (far from my own comprehension, at the time) irked me. What was he trying to say? Why include the dizzying mirror scene and sea of red-jacket clad backup dancers? What significance did the face-obscuring bandages offer? 

I was not alone in my perplexity. The performance was well received by many, but also prompted much speculation and critique from confused fans and the general public alike. 

The media, to no one’s surprise, has been diligently circulating rumors regarding the “true meaning” of The Weeknd’s unique performance on the 7th. So what in the world could the real message be, and why were some fans so shocked after it’s grand debut?

In an interview with ‘Variety’, on the 3rd of February, The Weeknd stated that, “The significance of the entire head bandages is reflecting on the absurd culture of Hollywood celebrity and people manipulating themselves for superficial reasons to please and be validated, it’s all a progression and we watch The Character’s storyline hit heightened levels of danger and absurdity as his tale goes on.” 

The character referred to here, is one that The Weeknd had been developing since September of 2020, in preparation for the emerging show’s narrative. Throughout his concerts and various public appearances prior to the Super Bowl, the 30-year-old was frequently seen in prosthetics and bandages, adding to the general confusion of devoted fans and other patrons of pop culture.

Many expressed discontent with the star’s sudden transformation and obviously intense physical reconstruction, convinced that he was gearing up for some big reveal per his highly anticipated Super Bowl debut.

The Weeknd shocked fans yet again when he showed up as himself, perfectly bandage and prosthetic free. The performance came and went, and as expected, general Twitter chaos ensued. It was only after the fact when the bizarre storyline reached its climax and became clearest to the public.

Overall, The Weeknd’s cryptic performance provided a moving commentary on the loss of individuality that plagues fame, and the plastic “people pleasing personas” that many stars find themselves chained to in order to retain popularity in today’s society.

Regarding the big show in an interview with ‘Billboard Magazine’, The Weeknd explained, “We’ve really been focusing on dialing in on the fans at home and making performances a cinematic experience, and we want to do that with the Superbowl.” 

Truly dedicated to said performance, various sources report that The Weeknd paid around 7 million USD out of pocket to supply all the necessary resources for the show. A highly unusual feat for those graced with halftime-level stardom, but probably didn’t make much of a dent in the wallet of the man in the ruby jacket.

In other semi-relevant news, the aforementioned Givenchy jacket sported by our performer was embroidered with authentic rubies, and weighed around 44 lbs. For reference, The Weeknd spun around a football field in front of 96.4 million viewers, in a jacket equal in weight to that of an adolescent Basset Hound.

If that doesn’t convince you of the man’s sheer devotion to the arts, I’m not sure what will.

For the full recording of The Weeknd’s performance, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rhadTURsrw 

COVID-19

What is herd immunity?

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By: Hayat Osman

Herd immunity is when enough people in a population are immune to a disease that it slows down the spread of the illness.

When a disease such as COVID-19 begins to spread scientists start by looking at the reproduction number, this represents how many people in a susceptible population could catch the virus from a single infected person.

For example, with the measles, one infected person on average would pass the virus to 12-18 other people. With COVID-19, an infected person would likely infect 2-4 other people, furthering the spread of the disease.

When people in a population start becoming immune to a disease, the chances of infecting others goes down making it harder for the virus to spread. The result is the community being protected against diseases as well as those with weak immune systems.

Scientists say herd immunity could be reached two ways: through broad infection or vaccination. To get herd immunity through broad infection the majority of a population would need to get sick from the virus and develop natural defenses such as antibodies to fight the disease.

But this method would be deadly because less than 5% of people worldwide have had COVID-19 and to reach immunity that number would need to be between 60-70%.

Experts say the most efficient way to herd immunity is through vaccination.

Vaccines help produce antibodies which help the immune system recognize diseases, controlling it from further spread. The benefits of reaching herd immunity through vaccination is only having the needed amount of people vaccinated, while broad infection may affect 100% of the population and generations after.

With COVID-19 the number of vaccinations that would be necessary to reach immunity is between 60-70%.

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Movies/TV/Theaters

Review on documentary: ‘Dolores’

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By: Joxery Mezen Camacho

“Then we see the racism that we’re looking at today, we see the misogyny, homophobia and all that. And that’s because our histories are not being told, they are not included in our school books. So then what happens is that people will  grow up ignorant of the contributions of people of color or of women or of the LGBT community, of labor unions, etc. We have this abysmal ignorance of women inside America. I think that it’s not only important for women, but it’s important for our  whole society that our stories be told and that our victories and our achievements can be recorded in history. “ – Dolores Huerta, Huffington Post

Dolores Huerta has spent most of her life being an activist; however, many don’t know who she is or find her to be a subordinate when compared to her work partner, Cesar Chavez. This documentary shows her life as a dedicated activist and the problems she had to face because of it. 

The documentary mainly focuses on her time spent making change for farm workers through the Farmworkers Movement in the 1960’s. However, it begins retelling her earlier years of when she wasn’t an activist. We’re shown the inequality and the state of the society she lived in. The documentary captures it well. It also captures her want to do something about it by showing her actions and everything she has to sacrifice. 

It goes on to further show her sacrifices and struggles in her work as an activist through videos. Some showed the sexism she faced and the difficulties that came with being a single mother. Some of her children are also in the documentary, and they speak of their own perspectives and thoughts. This helped when trying to understand the struggles that come with the dedication of activism. 

The documentary pays careful attention to the outside things that impacted Huerta’s work, such as the people who worked around her and those that she met through her work. We see her grow as an activist and as a person who becomes more confident. 

Once the end of the documentary is near, there is a focus on who Huerta has become and what she has accomplished, as well as her own opinions on the way she has lived her life. 

Overall, the documentary uses a good mix of interviews of people in Huerta’s life, historians, past interview clips, and commentary in order to get her story across. It was able to captivate my interest and had many scenes where I felt as though I was actually there experiencing the events unfolding.

I give the documentary a 10/10 and strongly recommend it for its ability to show different perspectives while keeping everything interesting and informative. 

I believe that this documentary is important because it spreads the importance of who Dolores Huerta is, giving her the credit she deserves. 

Editorials/Student Voice

My first day of work ever experience

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By: Jimmy Somerville

I recently picked up my first ever actual job at Dominos. I turned 16 in November and like many other teenagers, and just people in general, I want money. And you get money by having a job, so I was never seriously job searching, but if there was an opportunity for a job, I was going to take it, and I got that opportunity.

My mom picked up pizza for us at Dominos and she saw they were hiring and all I had to do was text PIZZA to the phone number on the sign, and before you know it, I had an interview, and now I officially work at Dominos.

So, about my first day of work experience. I want to say my first day was around 17 days ago. So, it was a Tuesday I’m pretty sure. I was a little bit nervous but nothing crazy.

My shift was from 3-7 and 4 hours is actually a lot longer than I thought.

They had me sorting out and placing the order number stickers on the pizza boxes, and had me putting what the customer ordered on the pizza boxes. For example, if a customer orders a large pizza, the sticker would say 14” because it is 14 inches. I then take the sticker and put it on the box and set it a certain way on this shelf.

I also took calls which are harder than you’d imagine and sort of stressful at times. It is kind of difficult at first understanding how the computer works, especially when you have to move fast.

But overall, not a bad first day.

I will say work isn’t fun and I am just hoping my shift ends pretty soon after I get there. But my schedule is 2, 5 hour shifts a week, so nothing crazy at all. But 5 hours is a pretty long time. But at least I’m making $12 an hour. I know it’s worth it to have money at the end of the day.

Entertainment

Why Zendaya is one of the most influential people of this generation

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By: Ayane Jarso

Zendaya Coleman is a 24-year-old actress, model, singer, and dancer. She first gained her popularity when she played the role of Rocky Blue on the Disney Channel show ‘Shake It Up’.

She has played many roles that have proven her versatility when it comes to acting. She played Anne Wheeler in the film ‘The Greatest Showman’. MJ in the new Spider-Man movies, showing her more awkward, intense, teenage roles.

One of her biggest roles, on ‘Euphoria’, is 17-year-old Rue, who struggles with a drug addiction. I personally believe this is one of her most influential roles.

In the ‘Euphoria’ series, her character, Rue, comes straight out of rehab with no intention to stay clean. Throughout the show, Rue ruins many very important relationships in her life due to her addiction, and when she does decide to get clean, it’s not for herself, but for the girl that she’s madly in love with, Jules.

This role that Zendaya plays shows young people how relying on others for all your happiness can really mess up your life; you should take care of yourself before getting invested in someone else. I truly believe that people would not feel the importance of this show without her incredible execution with this character.

Not only does she play important roles on the big screen, but she also uses her platform to make real change in the world. Zendaya does everything in her power to fight colorism in Hollywood by denying roles that are meant for dark skinned women. She has used her platform numerous times to encourage young people to vote and make their voices heard! She speaks out against police brutality bringing more attention to the Black Lives Matter movement.

According to Insider.com, Zendaya stated that if she hadn’t become an actor she’d be a teacher; both of her parents are educators and education is very important to her.

She is an inspiration to young people everywhere and she is still accomplishing so much!