Op-Ed

The Pfizer Vaccine: What and Why
BY JULIA LIU '23
2020 was a long and, to be honest, pretty awful year for just about everyone, and COVID-19 has been the main cause. However, after months of suffering with little progress on any cures or vaccines, pharmaceutical bigshot Pfizer and its partner BioNTech announced that their mRNA-based vaccine candidate was 95% effective, prompting celebration across the globe. Still, many have raised concerns about the vaccine and its...
The Second Epidemic: Social Isolation and its Effects
BY OLIVIA HU '22
​“Loneliness is a discrepancy between what you want and what you have [in your relationships].” - Stephanie Cacioppo, neuroscientist at UChicago
​As we round the corner on a new year and the ninth month mark of the coronavirus pandemic, quarantine becomes a heavier burden than ever before...
Donald Trump vs. Richard Nixon: Backdoor Dealings
BY MICHAEL MORONEY
​In the last fifty years, the United States has witnessed two of the biggest presidential scandals to ever rock the nation. Both Donald Trump and Richard Nixon have been the faces of presidential controversy, from Nixon’s infamous Watergate scandal in 1972 to Trump’s sexual assault allegations and impeachment trials. These series of misconduct exposed the manipulative tactics each candidate used in their campaigns. In pursuing their personal agendas, Trump and Nixon undermined the integrity of the U.S. government. During his campaign, Republican president Richard Nixon committed one of the most heinous acts of presidential treason. In the Watergate scandal of 1974, five men—Virgilio Gonzalez, Bernard Barker, James McCord, Eugenio Martínez, and Frank Sturgis—attempted to steal classified documents, hoping to undermine the Democratic presidential candidate. They were arrested as suspects for the breaking into of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate complex in...
Let A Hundred Voices Resound: Music Propaganda’s Role in China’s Cultural Revolution 
BY GRACE CHAI '23
“And my sense of rhythm is still pretty bad,” I admitted to my flute teacher one afternoon during my usual Skype lesson. “Oh, really?” she responded, smiling slightly. “Well, when I was young and was auditioning for a music program, I didn’t know anything about music theory. That was in 1977 China, when the restrictions on applicants were lifted.” Instantly, I was intrigued. After I pressed a little further, she recounted how during the ‘60s, music institution entrance exams and one’s family politics were intertwined. I left that session with a hunger to know more, and after a solid ten minutes of Googling, I had my article idea. For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, my teacher lived during China’s Cultural Revolution...
Why do We Continue to Ignore Global Warming? 
BY ANDONI ZERVOGLOS '22
It’s no surprise that global warming is a real issue. Like COVID-19, it’s been here for a while. However, there’s no easy fix, and the problem is only escalating. The 2020 US hurricane season has been record-breaking, with over thirty named tropical storms, $40.26 billion in damage, and around 400 casualties. According to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, wildfires scorched 8,719,721 acres across the West Coast as of November 9th, generating enough smoke to be visible from the East. Climate change has vastly impacted both the economy and human life. Our planet is sick, and our neglect will ultimately kill it. When these facts are apparent, why do we continue...
Outerspace + Travel
BY PRANAV AKSHATH '24 
The average person will not climb into a rocket and blast off towards Mars any time soon, making outer space seem distant and difficult to understand. While some citizens resist the idea of space exploration, funding it actually supports our personal needs. Scientists working at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and other public and private space institutions have not only created technology for space travel, but also adapted them to fit our day-to-day lives. For instance, we have seen countless ads promoting memory foam and use it daily in items such as shoes and beds. Contrary to expectation, memory foam wasn’t...
Cancel Culture and Its Relation to Johnny Depp
BY SYDNEY PASCAL '22
The internet’s growing popularity has allowed trends to take over all aspects of our lives, especially our opinions. As a result, we often adhere to a mob mentality and support the most popular ideas without substantial evidence, leading to the digital phenomenon known as cancel culture. Even though the idea of cancel culture is rooted in morality and positive social change, it has recently taken a much more negative route. Nowadays, cancel culture doesn’t just affect, but also the real person on the other side of the screen, and in a world revolving around public image, this is extremely dangerous. For the critically acclaimed actor Johnny Depp, cancel culture nearly cost him his career. While the intentions behind cancel culture may be good, its negative impacts outweigh the positive. At first glance, cancel culture...
Discordant: Racism in Classical Music
BY GRACE CHAI '23
Music is a curious thing. Having shadowed humanity since the beginning, it is woven into our lives, culture, and history. Listen, and you will hear it: human hearts that thump, thump, thump in unison, faster and faster, spiraling into oblivion, in one multicultural, multilingual, transcendent song of the universe—only for shrill cacophonies to pierce the air...
If a vaccine for COVID-19 was released at the end of 2020, would you be willing to receive it?
BY ERIN TOBIN '23
Since March, developing a working vaccine has become a necessity as coronavirus cases increase daily. However, if a vaccine was administered by the end of 2020, would the American public trust enough to take it? This September, in a study by Pew Research Center, 51% of adults said they would be willing to receive a coronavirus vaccine. Why are these numbers so...
Indigenous Communities and Wildfires
BY BELLE HU '22
​While COVID-19 wreaked havoc behind the scenes, the 2020 California wildfires took center stage, upsetting the lives of many on the West Coast and ravaging over four million acres. And though we all acted as if everything was perfectly normal and returned to our everyday lives, it was rather hard to ignore a glaring problem: California’s ineffective wildfire policy. In fact, the US’s traditional method of putting out fires has actually created a self-defeating cycle. While the last century’s fire-extinguishing efforts have successfully shielded plants from the flames, they have also allowed natural fires to ignite more frequently and ferociously. Many point out that California’s wildfire policies have backfired (pun-intended), but scientists have looked...
Mitt Romney for Secretary of State
BY MICHAEL MORONEY '23
Joe Biden will be announcing his choice for the Secretary of State, a crucial presidential Cabinet position, in the next couple of days. The Secretary of State serves as the president's primary advisor on US foreign affairs, and he or she imposes orders and acts on other countries, relaying US foreign economic interests to the president and the US public sector. The state of the national economy and the GDP is an ongoing concern for many Americans, as the constant changes in the stock...
US VS. New Zealand: A Comparison of COVID Responses
BY NAKISA RAZBAN '23 
Ten and a half million cases and over two-hundred thousand deaths from COVID-19 in America. Months and months of soaring case graphs with no clear end in sight. The United States, like the rest of the world, is going through hard times. The differentiating factor, however, is how poorly our government has dealt with the virus. America is the wealthiest country in the world, yet the numbers stated above are disproportionately large for such an economically prosperous nation...
The Current State of the Student Government
BY GEORGE JI '23
Ask any student what AB’s Student Council has done for them, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a specific answer. The purpose of the Student Government is to represent the student’s interests. In its first line, their official constitution states that the Council seeks to ”voice student opinions about school policies.” So, how well has the Student Council done its job? Well, in the past year, six policies have been introduced to the council floor.  Of those proposed, only three passed. Four were proposed by just one member.  On average, the Student Council produces one piece of new legislation every two months. For a group of around fifteen members, this is unacceptable. Suffice to say, the Student Council has not done its job in terms of representing students and their voices. When asked about this, Class...
The 2020 Election: An Impending Crisis
BY BELLE HU '22
He put down the microphone and paused to survey the lively audience. Each individual proudly sported a red hat with bold, capital letters: Make America Great Again. Applause erupted, accompanied by hoots and whistles for their president. Yet, none of these Trump supporters, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, wore a mask. The CDC...
Avatar: The Last Airbender​ Review
BY DIVYASRI KRISHNAN '21
Say you just got a Netflix account, and you’re looking for something to watch. There’s Riverdale, but you’ve had your share of horror stories. Sierra Burgess is a Loser? Yikes, you’re not into manipulative protagonists. 13 Reasons Why… who decided romanticizing suicide was a good idea? Ugh. Is there anything you can watch? Well, your search is over. The...
​Asian Americans and COVID-19
BY AKSHITHA MAQTEDAR '21
German immigrants were said to have brought the yellow fever. Irish immigrants were said to have brought cholera. Jewish immigrants were said to have brought typhoid. Mexican immigrants were said to have brought typhus. America has a history of associating immigrant groups with different diseases. With the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, many Asian Americans are being accused of having or spreading COVID-19. Will this pattern of blaming immigrants for spreading...
Meritocracy
BY MICHAEL CHENG '20
Back in the fall a Spectrum colleague told me that, supposedly, “people are moving to Lexington” out of a concern for how the expanding slate of wellness policies could affect academic quality. I want to set aside that statement’s validity (because I think it’s overblown at best). But the mere idea blew my mind. Because if we accept that statement for the sake of argument, then it begs the question: What is “Lexington” providing that Acton might be taking away? Acton-Boxborough and Lexington High...
COVID-19 Reveals a Weak Healthcare Industry
BY SYDNEY PASCAL '22
The coronavirus has affected all aspects of the United States and other countries throughout the world, especially the healthcare industry. Healthcare workers risk their safety every day because there are simply not enough supplies to protect them. Moreover, many unemployed Americans have lost access to healthcare. Although the US healthcare system has worked in the past, the coronavirus has revealed the healthcare system's inherent flaws and exposed its instability. These flaws pose a danger to society today and must be fixed in order to provide medical attention to those who need it. From manufacturing to insurance, it is clear that the system’s integrity is a weak one, prioritizing profit over well-being. Hospitals across the country are facing supply shortages that are causing dangerous working environments...
Should We Have a Mandatory Lockdown?
BY DIVYASRI KRISHNAN '21
A couple of months ago, the world was a different place. We walked out of our houses, shook each other’s hands, hugged, kissed, and laughed with each other. We shared forks and spoons and passed plates around the table without a second thought. We were a people connected indelibly by hand and mouth, connected to a degree we ourselves did not comprehend—until we lost it. The world we live in now would seem alien to us then. We rarely venture outside anymore, scrub our hands with a new ferocity, and maintain a scrupulous distance from friends to whom we were once attached at the hip. This pandemic will abate, say the news headlines...
College Reactions to COVID-19
BY BELLE HU '22
STUDENT MOVING: Loading/Unloading 20 Minutes Only. The bolded words catch students’ eyes as they scramble past, hoisting large cardboard boxes. Maybe that bustling week of August has arrived, when college freshmen meet their soon-to-be homes for the very first time. But there is a sense of restlessness, confusion, and anxiety. Uncertainty clogs the air. This is no cheery college orientation week. The announcement that there would be no school the following week--and possibly longer—had recently awakened a sudden unease in students across the nation. In-person classes were canceled. Indefinitely. Yet, the COVID-19 pandemic had...
Should Countries Demand Reparations from China?
BY BEN ORR '21
In April, the Mercatus Center at the George Mason University predicted that “the economic cost of the first two months spent fighting [COVID-19] will be $2.14 trillion.” Nearly a month later, the U.S. government has committed over 2.4 trillion USD to coronavirus relief, an amount close to the GDPs of the UK and France. COVID-19 has damaged both underdeveloped and strong economies, producing lows reminiscent of the 2008 recession. While the novel coronavirus emerged in the Chinese province of Wuhan, the virus’s origin does not make the Chinese government inherently responsible for the outbreak. Thus, it is necessary to examine the People’s Republic...
Controversy Over JK Rowling
BY SAHANA PRABHU '23
J.K. Rowling is an internationally renowned author, recognized for writing the immensely popular Harry Potter series. The first Harry Potter book, published in 1997, was widely successful, and Rowling continued to gain traction after the film adaptation’s release in 2001. Yet, despite the series’ prominent reputation, countless controversies have arisen about J. K. Rowling. In recent months, Rowling posted a tweet claiming that Dumbledore, the headmaster of the wizarding school, is gay. While appearing to support gay rights, Rowling has also espoused anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric in other tweets, enraging many of her fans. They felt that she was exploiting the community for personal gain and perpetuating harmful ideas. Ultimately, even though Rowling may have tried to show support through...
Problems with the New AP Tests
BY SUPRIA SHROFF '22
School closures have greatly affected nationwide testing. All in-person tests for the rest of the school year have been canceled, including Advanced Placement (AP) exams worldwide. However, the College Board’s survey of high school students showed that 88-94% of students were still interested in taking the test, and for good reason. Students in AP classes have been studying and preparing all year for these exams. Not to mention, taking AP tests contributes to college credit as well. With this in mind, the College Board decided to move all 2020 AP exams online, making tests open-note and open-internet. Instead of two to three-hour exams with multiple choice and free response questions, the updated exams were just 45 minutes and consisted of only free response sections. Taking high-stakes exams at home obviously brings up the question of academic integrity. After learning about how online testing will work, many students were left wondering how the College Board will combat cheating. The College Board revealed that they would take extensive measures regarding exam security. Collaborating with other students or peers while taking the test would be forbidden, so the College Board claimed that they would track chats, forums, and emails. To make sure a student has honestly answered the test questions themselves, they explained that they have...