QUESTION OF THE WEEK #4

Hmm. It's hard to say what my favorite holiday memory is.  I think that I just have a tradition in particular that I really enjoy every year...and that would be making Chistmas cookies.  Ever since I can remember, my family has always made Christmas cookies, because of course Santa needs cookies on Christmas Eve, and because we love to eat them!  The process all begins when my mom makes sugar cookie dough and lets it sit in the fridge for two days.  After the long period of waiting (and stealing lil pieces to eat of course :)) my sister and I take out the dough and the flour and the sprinkles and the frosting and the cookies cutters.  Let me just tell you right now, that making cookies is not a simple task.  It's taken years of determination and practice to perfect the process of rolling out the dough with rolling pins to the perfect consistency and then the careful placement of the cookie cutter shapes on the dough in a way that will produce the largest number of cookies from that particular piece of rolled-out dough.  It takes a steady hand and a stubborn desire to succeed to remove a cut piece of dough from the cookies cutter in a way that won't ruin the shape.  Many deformed shapes have been deserted over the years I've spent practicing.  However, the fun doesn't end when the dough is cut out and put on the the cooking sheets.  Sprinkles are the world's most messiest and fun creation.  It's impossible to create a batch of awesome cookies without having sprinkles strewn across the kitchen floor--but hey! It's the best part!  After the cutters have successfully cut, the sprinkles have been sprinkled, and the oven has been preheated begins the excruciating but extremely good-smelling wait for that buzzer to ring.  However, it's worth it every year to get a little taste of those yummy yummy cookies.     

Political Cartoon #4

1.  This cartoon was drawn by Taylor Jones.
2.  The key objects in this cartoon are obviously President Obama, the presidential podium, meant to represent his authority and the fact that he's giving a speech, the mission exhausted banner hanging in the background which symbolizes the grueling effort of the war in Iraq, and the speech bubble, which represents that the exhaustive mission is not yet over.
3.  The main techniques this cartoonist uses are caricature and ridicule.  He makes Obama look a bit ridiculous by drawing his ears and head huge and the rest of his body relatively small.  The speech bubble emphasizes how much more ridiculous he is by making it seem as though he doesn't even know the condition of the economy and the unemployment rates of the country.  The huge banner really emphasizes the fact that the struggle for these soldiers is not yet over.
4.  The cartoon deals with the recent end of the war in Iraq, therefore the soldiers coming home, and also it deals with how poorly Obama is handling the unemployment and economic statuses of the country.
5.  The cartoon is basically saying that all these soldiers are going to be coming home from the war in Iraq, which in itself was a very grueling and tiring mission, and expecting relief and relaxation and some benefits of some kind.  This won't be the case however.  Their mission is going to continue to be grueling and tiresome because when they get home they'll have to find jobs when there basically are none to be had in the U.S. right now.  The cartoon infers that they're also returning to a president who hasn't taken much initiative in locating solutions to the jobs problem and just doesn't really care.
6.  I think the cartoonist is trying to get across that Obama isn't really making much of an effort to create more jobs and better the economy, especially in this time now when our soldiers who should be recieving benefits are returning home.  He basically thinks the government, especially Obama, is really messing up right now.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK #3

The president's job approval rating hasn't gone up from 43%, and his disapproval rating hasn't gone down from 50%.  The prospects are looking pretty grim for Obama from a historical point of view.  Aside from Jimmy Carter, Obama holds the lowest approval rating of all  presidents in office this century during their third year in office.  This looks bad from this view.  However, this number is up from Obama's approval rating of 41% in August, and he's remained steadily at 43% for a few months, which is actually a good thing.  His campaign team really needs to be focusing on getting the approval rating up by December however.  Despite his extremely low approval rating, Obama seems to be competing perfectly well in the polls about the general election against the Republican candidates so far, though this may be just because he appears to be a better option than the terrible consortment of candidates the GOP has come up with.  He still has a possibility for reelection.  Though the president with the lowest approval record who's been reelected lately was George W. Bush with a 48% approval rating, which is still a large percent away from the number that Obama has right now.  In order to have a solid chance at reelection he needs to work on getting his approval rating up.    

Political Cartoon #3

1.  This cartoon was drawn by Milt Priggee.
2.  The key objects in the cartoon are the train, meant to represent Herman Cain and his campaign to be the Republican nominee and the beautifual woman standing in front of the train blocking its path, which is meant to represent the woman with whom Cain was having an affair with.
3.  The cartoonist uses mostly caricature.  He doesn't really ridicule Herman Cain, he just gives the straight facts.  He amplifies the characters to make them dominant features and to exaggerate their meaning.  He doesn't use satire either really.
4.  The cartoon clearly deals with Herman Cain's withdraw from the GOP race for nomination.  He seemed to be on the fast track to success with the Republican party.  They were excited about having him as their choice candidate, and he was ranking number one just a few short months ago.  However over the last few weeks a number of scandals have come out regarding Herman Cain.  He was accused of sexual harassment by several previous co-workers. It seemed as though he could possibly recover from this, until the shocking news emerged that he'd been having an affair for about thirteen years.  He then withdrew from the race, obviously what the cartoon is attempting to portray:  the woman getting in the way of his fast-track campaign.
5.  The cartoon is trying to say that what really threw Herman Cain off-track were the women that came out and complained about Cain, and that his campaign was completely ruined by the scandals that emerged.
6.  The cartoonist's point of view is that Herman Cain had an impressive thing going for him, and that it's a shame that such a small thing (the woman) could have stopped such a powerful force like him, but that it's his own fault that he let his 'friends' stand in the way of his success. 

QUESTION OF THE WEEK #2

Mitt Romney is upsettingly one of the best candidates for the Republican nomination.  I believe he is simply because he looks better than the other candidates at this point, and its too late for other people to come forward.  Romney has definitely been the guy that the Republican party agrees to settle for.  They don't like him, and he's not their top pick, but after the Herman Cain scandal broke, and their love for him died, Romney was left standing as the steady, normal one.  For that reason he just might win.  People simply hate him less than the other candidates and that may be enough to get him through to the presidential election.  However, the reason people don't like him are many in number.  Early on, Romney showed a lack of committment to one side or the other.  He was caught on video sharing different opinions on the same issue, and trying to please all groups, which was not reassurring to Republicans in general.  That showed them a lack of strength in him.  More recently, he's also showed a huge weakness in dealing with the media.  He hasn't made many appearences on major networks, and a lot less than Gingrich has.  He's also tried to avoid media contact as much as possible on the campaign trail, which is a huge misstep for him.  The candidates should be using the media to their advantage as much as possible, because it's how the people get to know the candidates, and how the candidate's image is portrayed.  These weaknesses, along with others have made Romney appear to be a weak candidate, especially as Gingrich and Huntsman and being looked at more closely.

Political Cartoon #2

1.  This was drawn by Tim Eagan.
2.  The key objects in the cartoon are the giant robot head that is supposed to represent Mitt Romney, the running elephant, who's supposed to represent the Republican party, and the giant man, who's supposed to be Newt Gingrich.
3.  The cartoon uses ridicule and caricature to portray its meaning.  The Republican nomination candidates look like ominously large imposing people who seem to be the object of the 'elephant's' nightmares.  It mocks the Republican party for choosing nominees who are literally the party's worst nightmare, by literally making the nominees the object of the party's nightmares.  The caricature of the elephant is also mocking because it's scared and doesn't really know what to do or how to escape the nightmare.
4.  The cartoon deals with the race for the Republican nomination for presidential candidacy, and the terrible nominees that are running for the role and the terrible position that the Republican party is in because of all this.
5.  The cartoon is trying to say that no matter where the Republicans turn, they aren't finding a solution.  Their main two nominees are terrible, and they have nowhere else to turn.  At the end of the cartoon, the elephant looks rather dejected and annoyed, which I'm sure is how the Republican party is feeling right now. 
6.  The cartoonist's point of view is hard to determine.  The cartoonist appears to almost feel sorry for the Republican party because literally no matter where they turn a nightmare is staring them in the face.  The cartoonist appears to think that Gingrich and Romney are unsuitable candidates and that they're imposing and persistant and won't give in.