201 S. Gammon Rd, Madison, WI 53717 jmmswordandshield.com “Sword & Shield” @jmmnews [email protected] DECEMBER 2020 VOLUME LV James Madison Memorial High School Student Newspaper 7 // COVID-19 Friendly Ways to Celebrate this Holiday Season 14 // The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election 21 // The Congressional Election of 2020 DECEMBERDECEMBER ISSUEISSUE 23 // Among Us Game Review! 32 // December Horoscopes 35 // MMSD Winter Sports Update 42 // The COVID-19 Pandemic is Getting Much Worse DECEMBER 2020 Hello, Spartans! Our names are What’s happening Ava Kenney and Sanjay Palta-Hill, and What’s happening we are the Co-Student Life Editors for Dec. THIS MONTH AT JMM? Dec. THIS MONTH AT JMM? the Sword and Shield. In this issue, you 2020 will find analysis of the 2020 Presiden- tial Election, enjoyable winter tips and 2020 Sanjay Palta-Hill ideas, critical college advice, and an 1 Co-Student Life Editor 2 Asynchronous Learning Day update on the coronavirus and its vac- 3 14 cine. During these challenging times, 5 2 Asynchronous Learning Day 6 we hope that this informative and di- 3 7 verting issue will bring you a sense of 48 59 Asynchronous Learning Day motivation, positivity, and community. 610 Ava Kenney 711 Enjoy, and have a great month! 12 8 Co-Student Life Editor 13 Asynchronous Learning Day 914 STUDENT LIFE NEWS ARTS & ENTER. SPORTS OPINIONS 1015 4 // Black Friday 12 / COVID-19 in 22 // Totally Un- 34 // Division Races 41 // Two Perspec- 1116 Asynchronous Learning Day Shopping During a Europe der Control Movie Tighten in the NFC tives on Snow: Snow 1217 13 // Protests Ensue 18 Pandemic? Review 35 // What Graham is the best part of 13 5 // First Semester Against SARS Bru- 23 // Among Us Mertz as the Bad- winter! ... Why 19 14 Virtual Learning tality in Nigeria Review ger’s Quarterback snow is bad! 20 Recap 14 / The 2020 Presi- 24 // How the Arts Means 42 // The COVID-19 15 dential Election 21 5 // DDaF Still Go- Have been Impacted 35 // MMSD Winter Pandemic is Getting 16 Asynchronous Learning Day ing Strong! 15 // How Did Dif- by the COVID-19 Sports Update Much Worse 22 6 // Conversations ferent Demograph- Pandemic 36 // AFC Playoffs 43 // Democrats 1723 in the Closet Pt. 2 ics Vote? 25 // The Good Place Picture Remains Screwed Up 1824 7 // COVID-19 16 // Most Notable Finale Review Murky 25 NO SCHOOL: Winter Break! If You thought the 19 Friendly Ways to Events of Donald 26 // December 37 // College Foot- 26 General Election was 20 Celebrate the Holi- Trump’s Presidency Playlist ball Playoff Field 27 17 // Local and State a great victory for days 27 // Top 5 TikTok Narrows 2128 8 // Math Meets Elections Trends of Fall 2020 37 // Badger Basket- the Democrats, think Become Virtual 18 // Amy Coney 28 // December Po- ball is Back again. Democrats just 2229 8 // What to do Af- Barrett Sworn into etry Column 38 // Alexander barely fell short of a 2330 the Supreme Court 31 ter You’ve Applied 29 // Decorations Zvrev Wins Back- complete disaster, and 24 to College 19 // Checks & for Winter & the to-Back Titles in NO SCHOOL: Winter Break! 9 // Make Your Do- Balances: The Next Holidays Germany that’s not saying much 25 nations Count! Two Years of the 30 // Sustainable 39 // Internation- at all. In the presiden- 26 10 // JMM GEA United States Shopping for the al Break Provides tial election, they were 27 Update! 20 // Trans Day of Holidays Soccer Fans Plenty slated to take North Remembrance 28 10 // SYS November 32 // December of Excitement Carolina, Florida, Iowa Recap! 21 // The Congres- Horoscopes 40 // NBA Offseason 29 sional Election of and even maybe Ohio. 11 // Senior Advice 33 // Winter Word 40 // Badger Foot- 30 Column 2020 Search! ball Starts! 31 2 www.jmmswordandshield.com EDITORS Co-Editors-in-Chief Maggie Di Sanza & Jessica Jiang What’s happening Assistant Editor-in-Chief Amira Pierotti Dec. THISWhat’s MONTH happening AT JMM? Student Life Editors Dec. THIS MONTH AT JMM?Sanjay Palta-Hill & Ava Kenney 2020 Opinions Editors Antonio Wu & 2020 Mihika Shivakumar News Editors 1 Joylyn Gong & Sai Rishi 2 Asynchronous Learning Day Arts & Entertainment 3 Editors 14 Julianna Baldo & Emmie 5 2 Asynchronous Learning Day Digon 6 3 7 Sports Editor 48 Tanay Desai 59 Asynchronous Learning Day Operations Manager 610 Caleigh Christy 711 Copy Editor 12 8 Amina Waheed 13 Asynchronous Learning Day ADVISOR 914 Teri Parris Ford 1015 CONTRIBUTORS 1116 Asynchronous Learning Day Anvika Annyapu 17 12 Julianna Baldo 18 13 Morgan Blackmore 19 14 Emily Cai 20 Caleigh Christy 1521 Tanay Desai 1622 Asynchronous Learning Day Emmie Digon 1723 Maggie Di Sanza 1824 25 NO SCHOOL: Winter Break! Joylyn Gong 19 26 Noah Hadfield 20 27 Jessica Jiang 2128 Sophia Jiang 2229 Ava Kenney Grace LeClaire 2330 31 Sanjay Palta-Hill 24 Amira Pierotti NO SCHOOL: Winter Break! 25 Sai Rishi 26 Eliana Sauer 27 Mihika Shivakumar 28 Nolan Sullivan 29 Britney Tang Lavenia Vupal 30 Elfin Wiriyan 31 Antonio Wu Amy Yao 3 Olivia Zhu 3 DECEMBER 2020 STUDENT LIFE BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING DURING A PANDEMIC? By Saivarshini Rishi As we continue to fight our way through this pandemic, we see it changing many important aspects of our lives, such as holidays and events. I want you to close your eyes for a minute and take your mind to Black Friday shopping, a widespread tradition in the U.S. What is the first thing that comes to your mind? I’m not a mind-reader but I’m pretty sure you pictured some- thing like long lines of people outside of stores and people pushing each other to get an item on clearance. But one question that everyone has is, how will it look like this year? I mean, can we picture this sort of a scenario in our current situation? To begin with, many stores have started to introduce these sales earlier than before and have them available for a longer duration to prevent huge crowds of people rushing to get the clearance. Additionally, many stores are closing during the holidays to prevent huge rushes. Walmart, after almost four decades, declared in July that it would close its stores on Thanksgiving Day. Other stores, like Target, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Best Buy, also presented similar deci- sions. Because it’s near impossible to practice social dis- tancing when there are crowds of people gathered at stores, online shopping has turned into an alternative source of purchasing goods on sale. Home Depot for example has sales both online and in-store from No- vember 6th till December 2nd, keeping both options open and allowing shoppers to decide which is better over the other. Best Buy went even further and started advertising on October 29th itself. But for people who do decide to do the in-store shopping, they might not expect the usual crowds of people clustered together. Walmart for instance has issued various safety measures to be followed on Black Friday such as for shopping carts to be sanitized for each shopper, social distancing to be maintained, people to wear their masks, and to line up in a single-file fashion. So, if you do decide to do the in-store shopping, we urge you to follow proper safety precautions. If there is an option where you could buy something you are looking for online, it is advisable that you consider Black Friday this year as another Cyber Monday. 4 www.jmmswordandshield.com DECEMBER 2020 FIRST SEMESTER VIRTU- AL LEARNING RECAP By Saivarshini Rishi Can you believe that the end of first semester of vir- tual learning is just around the corner, given the fact that we don’t have school for 2-3 weeks with Thanksgiving and Winter break? Our experience has truly been unique. The arrival of virtual learning came with drastic chang- es with homework, grading, tests, learning, etc., where some of these changes were easy to accommodate to while others were somewhat on the harder side. The first major difficulty with our current learning environment is the fact that each class only gets two hours per week of synchronous learning. This makes a lot of our education being some form of self-learning. Although we are provided with a handful of resources to use, the time spent learning the material ourselves in addition to the time spent on homework and assignments is way too much and it is basically somewhere between 5-7 hours, depending on the number of classes one takes. The difficulty of the class also plays a huge factor into this DRAMA, DEBATE AND as for students in AP classes, it is way more difficult to learn this material by themselves as it is all college cur- FORENSICS STILL riculum. I would say that in terms of the grading system, I feel that tests being worth 70% of the grade is too high GOING STRONG as classes offer fewer tests compared to before the pan- By Eliana Sauer demic. Doing poorly on one test can majorly impact your Although this year is forcing all of our clubs to go overall grade and creates additional stress for students. online, Drama, Debate and Forensics (DDAF) is But despite all of these hardships, I would like to take making the most of it. Our debate season is well un- a moment here to truly recognize and thank the entire derway, and we just hosted our Badgerland Tourna- JMM team for all of their efforts in equivalating this ment. The debate team has been very successful this learning as to how it was before.