On April 26th, Dr. Lorna Breen, chair of the emergency medicine department at Presbyterian Allen Hospital, an epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in Manhattan, committed suicide. Her death was only one example of the impacts of COVID on the mental health of medical workers handling the pandemic. The fact that health workers fighting the pandemic are themselves suffering a health crisis has been often overlooked in the media and our daily conversations. However, this precipitous rise in rates of burnout, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression among health workers may threaten our long term ability to respond to this disease. Addressing this unseen ‘second pandemic’ of mental health issues among health workers is crucial in order to make sure that they can properly diagnose and serve patients.

How did these mental health problems begin? Before the pandemic, Canadian health workers already experienced high rates of depression compared to most other occupations. A March 2019 survey of cardiologists found that 44% reported high stress levels and one-third felt “burned out”. The pandemic has only exacerbated this situation. In a survey by the Canadian Medical Association in April 2020, many physicians reported anxiety over the fear that hospital stocks of personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies would run out. In an Italian survey of 1,379 health workers in the midst of the crisis, 50% reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, 25% symptoms of depression, and 20% anxiety. These problems stemmed from diverse reasons, from a lack of adequate PPE supplies, the pressure of having to make tough decisions about which patients to treat first, and the specter of unemployment.

What are the impacts of these problems on the effort against COVID-19 as a whole? For one, health workers must make tough decisions and manage demanding tasks from disease diagnosis to intensive care on a daily basis. COVID-19 adds increased pressure to workers due to the sheer number of cases during peaks of the disease. When physicians are dealing with PTSD and increased anxiety, they can make mistakes during diagnosis and treatment and even commit self-harm, as was sadly seen in the case of Dr. Lorna Breen. When patients’ health and lives are at stake in a pandemic as publicized as COVID, health workers face great pressure to make the right decisions, something hard to do in the face of stress and mental health issues.

Many physicians also face stigma around seeking help for their situation. This can stem from factors including the fear of being reported to regulatory agencies and the need to appear self-reliant that can stop physicians from asking for help when they need it. A Canadian Medical Association Survey in March reported that 81% of physicians surveyed were aware of mental health programs available, but only 15% accessed these services, even though 34% of physicians screened positive for depression. Making support services accessible in a way that avoids stigmatizing those who seek help (e.g. through one-on-one support and confidential phone help lines) can go a long way to reducing workers’ stress, fatigue and burnout.

Furthermore, the way we talk about health workers in our everyday conversations often devalues their wellbeing. The health measures taken against COVID have been described by Canadian and American politicians, and in everyday talk, in military terms, where health workers are ‘soldiers’, hospitals are ‘the front lines’ and the effort against COVID-19 is a ‘war’. Such descriptions add a veneer of glory and pride to medical workers, but they often deemphasize the need to protect health workers’ physical and mental health. Portraying health workers as soldiers can make deaths due to inadequate supplies of protective equipment, or post-traumatic stress disorder from an inability to control the rapid spread of disease, seem like inevitable collateral damage in the ‘war’ against COVID. Health workers should not be viewed as soldiers whose health and lives are expendable. Unlike soldiers, medical workers do not have the obligation to sacrifice their own lives or wellbeing for their patients, even if such actions are viewed as heroic in the militarized language of the ‘war on COVID’. Instead of glorifying health workers using the metaphors of war, we should view doctors and physicians as fellow human beings who deserve adequate support for their stress, anxiety and burnout.

What steps should we take to resolve the problem of burnout among health workers? Firstly, hospitals themselves can meet physicians’ most basic concerns by providing adequate equipment and reassuring them of safety and employment. Ochsner Health, a hospital in New Orleans provides an example of what institutions should do. Early in the pandemic, the hospital first assured workers about their concerns: adequate PPE and steady employment would be provided in light of the pandemic and economic recession. With this done, the hospital set up one-on-one support for workers, crisis support hotlines to reach behavioural specialists, decompression zones’ to rest between shifts, and mindfulness exercises to reduce stress. Hospital leadership that never forgets the humanity of their medical workers when deploying such initiatives can achieve long-term gains in productivity and employee satisfaction necessary to keep the effort against COVID running.

Secondly, as individuals, we can help health workers treating the pandemic by donating masks or PPE supplies to our local hospitals. Furthermore, we should stop relying exclusively on military metaphors describing physicians as ‘soldiers’, and instead recognize them as people whose trauma should not be viewed as inevitable results of the ‘war’ on COVID. This change of mindset, although small, can form the foundation for a wider recognition of the mental health crisis among health workers, and policies that prioritize their wellbeing. Although it may require difficult changes to our actions and views towards health workers, peeling back the illusory veneer that glorifies but often dehumanizes health workers and addressing the real mental health problems they face will go a long way to halting this pandemic.

The US Supreme Court plays a dominant role in national governance, the judicial system and the political and social systems in which it operates. Justices have lifetime incumbency to insulate themselves from pressures that inevitably arise from the polarization and stark partisan divide in the country as the court’s very legitimacy relies on its ability to rise above partisan politics. This recognition of the importance of how judicial decisions affect people and the broader social order that gives the judicial system its power assures that it is not an exercise in authoritarianism, but rather part of the indispensable fabric of democracy. However, the Supreme Court’s vulnerability has been the subtext of conflict. The political bias entrenched within the court system deprives citizens of their most fundamental constitutional right, the right to a fair trial. Because of the inherently partisan justice appointment process, it undermines the judicial system’s responsibility to maintain truth and insulate itself from external political biases.

In the United States, Federal and Supreme Court judges are appointed by politicians under the authority of the President. Judges can be appointed by the President, but then have to be approved by the Senate. This is an important point of accountability because if someone is put forward as a potential future justice of the Supreme Court, they will decide on hugely relevant issues in America. Therefore, nominees go through the Senate to make sure there are checks and balances about who is going into the judiciary. However, the so-called “Nuclear Option" implemented in 2013, when the Senate was controlled, ironically, by the Democrats, abolishes the rule that 60 votes in the Senate are needed to approve a federal or Supreme Court justice appointment, which defeats the object of requiring the Senate to approve the appointment made by the President because the threshold is lower. When the same party controls the Senate and White House, they can pass through any nominee they wish as a Supreme Court justice because they already have all of the votes they need, leading to more ideological partisans on the Supreme Court. Another important factor is the nominees’ age as justices on the Supreme Court serve for life. Therefore, they can vote to advance their political agenda no matter who is sitting in the White House, which can change every 4 years.

Despite the claim of seeking neutral arbitrators, Presidents usually nominate judges they expect to uphold laws they support and overturn ones they oppose. For example, in December 2018, a single federal judge in Fort Worth, Texas acted against the legal consensus and ruled that the nation’s entire 2010 health reform law, the ACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) was unconstitutional. President Trump has also repeatedly criticized federal courts and judges who have blocked his policies and even called a judge who ruled against his policy barring asylum for certain immigrants an “Obama Judge.” Every current sitting justice is in line with the politics of the President who appointed them and are clearly identified as Conservative or Liberal based on their rulings and the party affiliation of the Presidents who nominated them. Therefore their decisions seem certain to exacerbate the perception of politics motivating the ruling as many 5-4 decisions reflect the Conservative majority in high-profile cases. For example, Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh in hopes that he would resist the trend of past justices shifting left and would restore the conservative majority of 5-4, despite his numerous allegations of sexual assault at a Senate hearing as well as a very partisan opening statement that undermines his vow to consider cases without political bias and taints the Supreme Court’s role in the system to be impartial guardians of the law. Although Trump has taken the US Supreme Court Justice appointment system to a new, dramatic and very questionable extent, the way he is able to treat the judicial system and manipulate it is just a reflection of the system itself.

The pattern of political manipulation seen in the US judicial system is no mistake, and the fact that there has been little change despite an unspeakable number of politically-incentivized judicial appointments emphasizes how broken the legal institutions are. In addition to the political appointment process, it is no coincidence that court case decisions themselves are an act of judicial politics. Most states elect judges, but if the plaintiff believes a mistake was made with the decision, their case is able to be addressed by higher courts. However, Federal courts will refuse to hear a case if they find it presents a political question. For example, in a major ruling of the Trump Administration about a question on the 2020 census form, asking whether a person is a citizen, the court stated that asking this question would make the census less accurate because undocumented immigrants and documented citizens would have less of an incentive to participate, the court’s 3 liberal justices argued that the Supreme Court should have affirmed the lower court’s ruling and strike the question down about citizenship as arbitrary, capricious and in violation of the federal law. But, the 5 conservative justices refused and instead, sent the case back to lower courts giving the Trump administration another chance to justify its case. Court cases are constrained by political parties as they are able to determine what cases land on the high court’s agenda and what issues are kept off and this is part of the reason why only a small percentage of potential legal conflicts make their way into the federal court system and the share that makes it onto the Supreme Court docket is even smaller. With a President who pushes constitutional boundaries to extremes, it is crucial the Supreme Court performs its constitutional duty as a check and balance on the political process, but in the current status quo, it is not clear that it will.

The practices of the current system imperil the state of justice and help create the polarized political system so many Americans loathe. The judicial system’s purpose is to defend its foundations of promising equal justice under the law and justices have the responsibility to fulfill their role of being impartial arbiters of the law. One of the fundamental constitutional rights is the right to a free and fair trial; the court should not already know or have decided the outcome of one’s case because they have been appointed to follow a certain political agenda before their story is told. Americans should not be living under a judicial system where people are discriminated against and denied their right to a fair trial because of a judge’s political affiliation. Why would an American trust their judge is going to come to a fair conclusion on their case if they have been appointed with a particular political agenda to pursue? They would essentially be facing politicians, not a judiciary in court.

What do you want to be when you grow up? Age 5: Chef. Age 7: Firefighter. Age 9: Makeup Artist. Age 12: Engineer. Age 14: doctorlawyersocialworkerjournalistpsychologist.

Everyone around me seems to have decided what field they want to pursue for a career. Sciences, Law, Mathematics, Arts. Me? Well, that’s funny, because I have no idea. I feel like there was some meeting where everyone decided ‘BAM! I’m going to be a _______’. Can you take a wild guess... yup, I missed this very meeting.

I have absolutely no clue as to what I want to do with my future. My career choice seems to change with what I'm watching. Doctor (Untold Stories of the ER), Lawyer (How to Get Away with Murder), Journalist (Gilmore Girls), Detective (Forensic Files). But, I realized that I still don’t know what I want to do.

I feel the pressure of this question, but what am I supposed to answer? My entire future depends on what I decide to pursue. What if I choose the wrong career, or I end up choosing something I don’t love? What do I want to be? Well that’s a tough question, and honestly, I want to be me. I want to be happy. I want to make the people around me happy. I want to live everyday to the fullest. I want to have no regrets. I want to enjoy life.

Why is it imperative that students decide on their career so early on? So that they can focus on that subject area, so they can be more focused and passionate. But what about students that have no idea what they want to pursue, are they considered unfocused or not serious? No, they simply have so many different possibilities for themselves and don’t know which one to choose.

How do you know what’s going to make you happy for the rest of your life, especially if you’re only 15 and don’t even have a driver’s license? You can’t. You can’t know what’s going to make you happy even five years from now. But, you can know what makes you happy now. We don’t know what’s coming next. Life is full of ups and downs, but if we do things that we enjoy, it will make the journey much more fun.

Writing down words on a page, or (in this instance) spasmodically slamming buttons on a metalloid rectangular prism, one could consider an act of creation - that of a creative at work. In doing so, the ‘artist’ at hand is making something new, bringing something to the table - the world - that has supposedly never been seen before.

But how true is this? Sure, if we were to analyze this essay from a purely statistical standpoint, we’d find that the specific combination of letters and characters - even words and phrases - on the page is unique - appearing only once in the history of written language. But surely this is too flat of a definition for what writing is - isn’t it?

If we think about it, language has two aspects to it - a grammatical side, and logical side - one part being the actual words you see on the page, such as the word ‘reading’, and the meaning behind such a word that is commonly associated with it (i.e. the logical side). In the example above, we could ask any layman to identify innumerous photographs and personal memories which could be represented by the single word, ‘reading’. The idea of ‘reading’ is manifold: we can imagine a schoolgirl in the prairies of Saskatchewan reading her copy of David Copperfield, or a Roman philosopher reading a recent declaration of his public execution, and weeping with sorrow. And we could imagine someone reading an edition of Cuspidor itself - laughing at - what objectively seem to be - merely symbols on a page. All the above would seem absurd, if only these symbols, these words were inane, vapid, and lacking a logical side to them. As Mortimer J. Adler said: “so long as words, sentences, and paragraphs are opaque and unanalyzed, they are a barrier to, rather than a medium of, communication. You will read words, but not receive knowledge.” (emphasis mine) which aptly explains the paradox we’ve all experienced: flipping to the next page in a book, only to realize we’d barely parsed the meaning of the last one. We had read words, but not received ideas.

So, looking for the originality of any piece of literature is fruitless from purely the grammatical side of things - which suggests we ought to examine whether the logical side has help to provide.

But, again, there’s quite a bit of ambiguity here: what do we mean by logical? In the broadest sense, we could say that almost all books that fall under a general category - such as the category of Romance Novels are the same, for the most part. When we boil down any romantic plotline or story to its bare bones, there are consistent elements that arise in every story. “Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl.” is how Adler neatly summarizes the plot of Tom Jones, a vast novel of over 330,000 words, “That, indeed, is the plot of every romance.” he continues, “To recognise this is to learn what it means to say that there are only a small number of plots in the world.” What!? Only a small number of plots? Does this negate the fact that, in essence, most of the 736 movies released this year in the U.S. are ‘original’? What does it mean to be original?

Now might be a good time for a definition. Merriam-Webster gives us a few clues regarding originality: “1) not secondary, derivative, or imitative (an original composition); 2) independent and creative in thought or action : INVENTIVE (an original artist)”.

I have qualms about both of these definitions. How can we come to terms with ‘not secondary, derivative, or imitative’ if, as Michael Chabon explains: "all literature, highbrow or low, from the Aeneid onward, is fan fiction”? The creator has to be inspired or exhorted by someone or thing- whether they be alive and in the room, or millenia dead - to imitate a style. How we speak, write, and express our ideas are largely shaped by the way others do so around us: indeed, if (almost) everyone around me had expressed their thoughts in a different way - such as using another language altogether - I’d very soon end up imitating them and deriving my ideas from them. Surely, even this supposedly ‘original’ article is very much simply a rough approximation of everything I’ve read and heard from those around me that I’ve taken care to mark down, filter through my emotions, biases, and prejudices and mold into a quick 2-minute read. It’s my truly unoriginally unique opinion. “All novels are sequels, influence is bliss”.

‘So, what’s the verdict?’ you’re likely asking. ‘Is there a final conclusion to this meandering farrago of verbiage?’ My goal with writing this article was not to come to a final conclusion about the originality of ideas. Rather, it was meant to get you, the prospective reader, thinking about the recycling of ideas and thoughts. If history repeats, why can’t ideas? As the Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca notes to his friend Lucilius, “Quite possibly you’ll be demanding to know why I’m quoting so many fine sayings from Epicurus [a rivalling philosopher] rather than ones belonging to our own school. But why should you think of them as belonging to Epicurus and not as common property? Think how many poets say things that philosophers have said - or ought to have said!” (emphasis mine).

In this way, all I’m doing is continuing the multi-millenia tradition of recycling ideas from the past. Giving the reader the power to decide for themselves, bringing ideas scattered across the universe of human knowledge into a slightly more actionable format. To be honest, I had been so worried in the past that my writing would be unoriginal - vacuous and cliche like most of the literature I’d read by others my age. I was worried that my ideas would have been expressed already, in a better, more concise manner. But then I realized - why not write about this concern itself?

What about plagiarism? What about academic integrity? What about copyright? Now I’ve got you thinking, now you’ve got the memo.

Post Scriptum. What’s your opinion on originality? Are we all bound to be parrots to previous generations, or can we exercise liberty in what we write, say, and think? Email me, at pinda@utschools.ca

What if I told you that pasta was the strongest thing in the universe? You wouldn’t believe it, right? Well, my job today is to fully convince you that pasta shapes are responsible for the strongest material our universe is capable of creating.

Our story begins with a neutron star; these are formed when stars around 8 times the size of our sun go supernova. Their cores are then highly compressed into a hot, spinning, sphere about 20-30 km in diameter. They are so condensed, that one teaspoon of this matter would weigh ten million tons on Earth.

These stars are a little bit like pizza - they have crusts. Because there is so much gravity acting on these stars, the liquid core is encompassed by a frozen layer. Although the crust is extremely hot, the density of the outer layer is high enough to counter the temperature, and “freeze” it into a lattice. Below the crust, where the density remains high but temperatures rise even more, an extreme environment is created. The gravitational forces here are so powerful our best models strongly suggest that the neutrons (and what few protons remain) bizarrely rearrange themselves into some very recognizable shapes.

Does this pasta-bly look familiar? Penne for your thoughts? See, I’d like to make a lasagna joke here, but it’s too cheesy and has too many layers.

In all seriousness, it’s really important for astrophysicists to be able to understand the properties of nuclear pasta. How matter acts under extreme density is related to many astrophysics problems, which we aren’t close to understanding, let alone solving. An example includes neutrino transport in supernovae (note that a neutrino is a subatomic particle that is very common, but very difficult to detect because it has a minimal mass, and no charge. Additionally, neutron stars are the source of some of the most unique and interesting data we’ve collected from the far reaches of our universe. From irregular bursts of gamma rays to gravitational waves, there’s still a lot going on that we just don’t know.

If a small lump of nuclear pasta is pushed up to the surface of a neutron star, even if it’s just a few inches tall, it can completely change the behaviour of the star. A team from McGill University, Indiana University and Caltech has developed the largest computer simulation of this material, in an attempt to figure out why that is. They discovered that the nuclear pasta, which they predicted to be weaker than the neutron star crust, to be extremely powerful. For comparison, it would take 10 billion times more energy to break this material then it would to break steel. The results have also supported the theory which states that neutron stars have such a strong gravitational pull, that they cause big ripples in the fabric of spacetime itself. If the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory can detect these waves, we would be able to collect significantly more data on how neutron stars behave, and thus, get a better understanding of how our universe works..

Some final food for thought is that these pasta shapes are not only present in neutron stars. Think back to F2 Science - remember the endoplasmic reticulum? It resembles a bowl of lasagna and rigatoni. After all, when we let nature self-assemble, patterns will inevitably emerge. Maybe pasta was written in the stars of our destiny, all along.

In the past, the Toronto Raptors were always seen as an “okay” team and were never a top destination for any top tier players. Luckily, this reputation changed after we won the NBA title last year! With Kawhi Leonard as our star player, we seemed unstoppable. But when he left (for the Clippers) most people suspected that we’d go back to our old ways. Obviously we proved them wrong. After dragging out the conference semifinals against the Boston Celtics to game 7, we proved that even without a superstar we’re a good team. Did we lose? Yes. But that’s okay because now we have room for improvement and expansion.

At the moment, there are several NBA rumors going around about how the Raptors could develop a new “super team”. The Raptors front office reportedly cut 25 - 40 million dollars from their 2019 - 2020 season salary cap so they could afford star players like Giannis Antetokounmpo in the future. They also stored extra cap space for the 2020- 2021 season and still haven’t spent most of the championship money. This makes the Raptors one of the richest teams in the entire NBA! To top things off, players like Fred VanVleet, Marc Gasol, and Serge Ibaka are becoming free agents (and Kyle Lowry, but he’s basically a Raptor by birth). If we can’t sign them back, we would end up saving even more money. Of course we wouldn’t want to lose our ‘key three’, but if it comes down to the worst case scenario (or best, depending how you look at it), the Raptors could instead sign several star players. This “dream team” process could take up to two years but it would definitely be worth it.

Last season, a lot of teams shifted in skill because of the large amount of trades and signings. In the upcoming seasons (2020-2021, 2021-2022) this will most likely happen again. Players like Paul George, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Lebron James, Tacko Fall, Gordon Hayward, Anthony Davis, JaVale McGee, Dwight Howard, Demar Derozan, and so many more are going to be free agents. The players that every team hopes to sign are Giannis Antetokounmpo or Anthony Davis.

Giannis currently plays with the Milwaukee Bucks, but since they did terribly this season, he may not be going back. The Bucks stated that they would be willing to give him 245 million dollars for a 5 year contract. That’s approximately 50.8 million dollars every year! So obviously they’re still in the running. Another possible team Giannis could migrate to is the Raptors. After winning last year we’ve gained a lot of popularity and are willing to pay the big bucks too. Although nothing is confirmed yet, speculators suspect we’re one of the top choices. Other popular teams in the running include:

• Miami Heat

  • • A very likely option because the Heat are on fire. They have several star players and with Giannis, their chances of winning are high.

• New York Knicks

  • • Possible option because several players want to rebuild the team from scratch (Paul George, Anthony Davis, etc). Giannis could migrate to this team along with many other star players.

• Golden State Warriors

  • • They need another star player to win and have a really great reputation.

Anthony Davis on the other hand will most likely not migrate to Toronto because he’s never really shown any appreciation for the Raptors. Some teams he could sign with include:

• Los Angeles Lakers

  • • This is his current team and here he’s accompanied by LeBron James

• New York Knicks

  • • Possible choice for same reasons as Giannis (rebuilding the team with stars).

• Los Angeles Clippers

  • • There are a few other stars on this team and it’s his current city (so he won’t have to move).

• Milwaukee Bucks

  • • He could possibly migrate here to accompany or replace Antetokounmpo.

Many players want to come to Toronto, so even if we can’t sign the top 2, there are several other choices. By the 2021-2022 season, we could be one of the largest and most powerful teams in the NBA. To top things off Nick Nurse signed a multi-year contract with the Raptors. With him coaching, things will run smoothly.

Now that we have all these different possibilities we just have to wait for reality. They have all the credentials they need but can they manage to sign the stars? The Raptors have a chance to be great, but can they pull it off?

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Summary and upkeep (all major sports highlights):

• Raptors lose to the Boston Celtics at game 7 of the conference semifinals

• Nick Nurse signs a multi-year contract with the Raps

• Giannis wins 2nd NBA MVP in a row

• Milwaukee Bucks did much worse than expected, so chances of Giannis Antetokounmpo leaving increase

• NBA finals predictions were way off

• WNBA finally gets attention

• People believe Las Vegas Aces or Washington Mystics are most likely to win WNBA championships

• Maple Leafs lose first round playoffs for the fourth season straight (even though they weren’t against the Bruins)

• Serena Williams knocked out of Western and Southern Open by Maria Sakkari, and loses at US Open semi-finals to Victoria Azarenca

• Naomi Osaka (female) and Dominic Theim (male) win the US Open

• Novak Djokovic kicked out of US Open after accidentally striking a line judge

• NFL takes off with a boom

• All eyes are on Cam Newton as he replaces Tom Brady as Quarterback (New England Patriots)

• Lionel Messi faces legal issues when deciding to leave Barcelona but ends up staying because he would rather not go to “war”

• Alex Morgan signs for Tottenham Hotspur

• US Golf Open suspected to have less viewers than ever

• Olympics postponed to 2021 (July 23rd - August 8)