Joe Biden is not our 46th president. Mask makers are strategically planting something in your reusable masks. The sky is falling, and at an alarming rate. As I take you through what occurred this crazy year, I hope I can express that some statements shouldn’t be dismissed just because of political labels. And stop calling me “Chicken Little”.

Our 22nd president, Stephen Grover Cleveland served his first term in office from March 4, 1893 until March 4, 1897. One 4 year term served, Grover ran for office once more, running against Indiana’s own Benjamin Harrison. Running primarily on lowering tariffs for the benefit of consumers, Cleveland lost his return to presidency. Considering many lucrative jobs in the private sector, he eventually accepted a position at a prestigious law firm in New York. His child Ruth was born, attracting attention from the public, and the tariff issue resurfaced, sending Grover Cleveland back into the running in 1892. Running once again against Ben Harrison, Cleveland now won, and was widely accepted as the 24th president of the United States. Commenting on the semantics of this affair, acclaimed author and influencer John Green said,

“We consider Grover Cleveland to have been both the 22nd and 24th presidents which is impossible because one person cannot be two presidents… It’s not like if you go to the hall of presidents at DisneyWorld there’s two Grover Clevelands because– he’s only one person!”

To clarify, the 22nd president of our United States ran for his second term and beat the 23rd president, at which point the 22nd president was in office once more. Then, after serving his final term, Grover stepped down and William McKinley was elected as the 24th POTUS. What I believe to be a fact, Barack Obama was not the 44th president, he was the 43rd, Donald Trump was our 44th, and Joe Biden is now serving as our 45th president, not our 46th. What did you think I meant?

Since the first recorded cases in December of 2019, manufacturers have been incentivized to branch out into mask making. The high demand and cheap production cost means to consumers that we can find thousands of masks with a quick google search. But did you know that some reusable masks have pockets in which manufacturers or even sneaky government programs can place GPS locators? Well, they don’t. These masks contain pouches in which air filters can be replaced or “doubled up” by the user, even allowing room for biodegradable filters, eliminating the waste produced by disposable surgical masks. When informed about these masks, Joseph ‘21 of Whitney Young’s BPA stated,

“From a business perspective, great move. Make a better product, sell it for cheaper, get your customer used to using it. From a moral standpoint, also a great move. More jobs will be created since third-party filter manufacturers don’t have to compete with the entire mask market, and, better yet, they’re sustainable?! 10/10 in my book.”

There you have it, reusable masks are the new thing, and I think they’re here to stay (Until they get all wetand gross and you have to put them in the washing machine). I think that there is an absolutely miniscule chance that there is a GPS tracker in your mask, but there is a 100% chance there is one in your phone. And if you think your mask has a tracker in it, you probably don’t wear it as much as you check twitter. Grow up America.

By now, you can probably tell that I fished you in with absurdity, and I’m not as much of an extremist as it may have seemed. So I’ll get straight to the point with this final claim. The sky is falling in Chicago, and oddly enough, the common response is to buy bags of rock salt? According to Oxford Languages (better known as what shows up when you search a definition on google), the definition of “sky” is as follows: “the region of the atmosphere and outer space seen from the earth.” Now, to get as fair as possible, the same Oxford Languages describes “atmosphere” to be defined as, “the envelope of gases surrounding the earth or another planet.” As we all hopefully know, clouds are the liquid or solid formation of water stemming from the mixture of gaseous and liquid water (vapor) in the air we breathe on Earth, post-condensation. Thus, the gaseous water in the air that composes the atmosphere, which is referred to as the sky, fell for hours over our city overnight Monday to Tuesday. A WY alumn and my older brother, Kareem ‘20 said this when asked to report on the matter:

“Shut up.” 

I question my time management.

Anyways, I hope that at the very least you were opened to new possibilities, and maybe had a laugh or two. This has been Samir Benaissa ‘21 “reporting” for WY Beacon News and DubTV, I hope our new year shapes out to be better than the last. Thank you.