QUESTION OF THE WEEK #6

It really seems like this year has flown by so far.  I feel like just yesterday, I just started going to field hockey tryouts during the summer.  Where has all the time gone?  As someone who plays a lot of sports, I judge time by what sport season I'm in.  With field hockey done, winter sports almost coming to a close within the next few weeks, and the beginning of soccer workouts and tryout information, it really feels like this year is almost over.  We've already completely finished U.S. Government and we're on to comparative.  AP exams are drawing ever closer.  Homecoming has come and gone, along with fall and the holidays.  Winter is upon us, and it's freezing with no snow!  Thank God, I'm finally done with all my college applications, and even now, recieving answers back from those schools! But now it's time to move on to starting scholarship applications--an equally ominous task.  Everything is moving too fast.  I'm excited for what comes next, after graduation and all, but it makes me sad at the same time.  What I see for right now is just trying to make the rest of these next months coming up the best ever, and continuing to work hard and study up before those AP exams actually show up.  I'm looking forward to hopefully a great soccer season, and a great rest of the year in classes and extracurriculars, but sitting in this freezing cold weather, I'm getting some serious senioritus yearnings for summer.  Need heat.  HALFWAY THROUGH! yay!  

Political Cartoon #6

1.  This cartoon was drawn by Milt Priggee.
2.  The key objects are the pins with the words on them, the facial features and postures of the characters themselves, and the plus and equal sign.  They all combine together to form a relationship equating two people, with the pins giving the reasoning on why they relate.
3.  The cartoonist mostly uses caracature, using drawing to show the resemblance and illuminate specific features of the subjects that he wants to bring to light to convey his meaning more directly.
4.  The cartoon deals with Mitt Romney, his views, and how the Republican Party views him and his views.  From Romney's first decision to enter the race for becoming the Republican nominee, the party hasn't looked with much favor upon him.  They're aren't excited about him or his views.  He's a little too moderate for the tastes of most of the Republican party, and he's been known to change his views on things easily, showing a desire to simply please the masses rather than stay focused to his cause and his party.  This cartoon highlights this idea by adding up those dominant characteristics about Romney that the party doesn't like and predicts the winner of the upcoming 2012 Presidential campaign to President Obama.
5.  The cartoon gives off the meaning that Mitt Romney might as well just not run, because with his lack of popularity due to his constantly changing opinions and moderate views, he will not garner enough support to beat Obama in the 2012 race.  The cartoon puts a rather negative view on the whole Republican Party because Mitt Romney is the current front-runner, and if he's the best they got, prospects aren't looking so great for their party.
6.  The cartoonist's point of view is pretty much the same as the message of the cartoon gives off, that is that Mitt Romney is not well-liked or well-approved enough to stand a chance beating Obama in the 2012 race.  It's unclear which party or which view of Obama he holds though.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK #5

At this point I'm pretty unsure of who will win the nomination.  With the completion of the Iowa Caucus, and Romney's close win over Rick Santorum, I suppose it appears that Mitt Romney is in the lead at the moment, however the Republican Party has shown very little interest in him over the course of the race.  The main reason he is in the lead is because he's the candidate with the least baggage and the least liable.  However, Rick Santorum ran a close second to Romney in Iowa.  Santorum's main issue is that he is completely socially conservative.  This has both gained and lost him a lot of support.  He is unwavering in his pro-life and heterosexual relationship beliefs, and for this reason he loses a lot of support among the more moderate Republicans.  Their resistance may be enough to keep him from winning the race.  Ron Paul is an interesting candidate.  He has some momentum, especially with the grass roots that he held over of the course of his political career, and he has very clear views on issues, but he has a strange foreign policy stance.  He's also very conservative and very strict in accordance with the Constitution, which could be an issue with passing legislation if he were to make it into office.  Gingrich, who has a lot of baggage, and is portrayed by most political cartoonists as a ticking time bomb, did not do very well in the Iowa Caucus, placing fourth.  The Republican Party was showing a lot of excitement for him in previous weeks, but we are yet to see if they'll except him despite all the baggage he carries.  At this point, most people believe Rick Perry should just back out of the race.  He did very poorly in the Iowa Caucus, and at this point, the Republicans don't seem at all enthusiastic about having him as their nominee.  At this point, I'd say that Romney holds the lead, but it will be interesting to see if Paul and Santorum will keep up the momentum, and if Gingrich will make a popular comeback.

Political Cartoon #5

1.  This political cartoon was drawn by Taylor Jones.
2.  The key objects are the elephants being rode by candidates, which is ultimately meant to represent the GOP race.  The candidates represent themselves.  The gun in the background is meant to represent hostility.
3.  The cartoonist certainly uses a lot of caricature to represent their points.  The expressions of the candidates readily give away the cartoonist's view of their emotions, and the GOP race, as a literal race, on elephants, which represent the Republican party is a funny add-on.  The cartoonist also uses placement of the figures to give meaning and intuition into their expressions and how each candidate is currently feeling.
4.  The cartoon deals with the Iowa Caucus that just occured.  Mitt Romney (the candidate on the elephant in the lead) won Iowa, very closely folled by Rick Santorum, who was closely followed by Ron Paul.  Newt Gingrich took up fourth place, with Rick Perry coming in fifth.  The candidates are represented on their elephants thus in this cartoon.  The cartoon shows how Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul are near the top and have the best chances for the nomination, followed by a persistant Newt Gingrich, who, holding a gun, seems to be more than willing to fight for his top position in the race.  You can see by the expression on Romney's face that he's a little nervous that Santorum is so closeby, and as the two face-off, you can see Ron Paul eyeing them down, wanting to gain more of a lead.
5.  The cartoon says a lot about the current goings-on of the GOP race.  It definitely says that Gingrich is ready to put up a fight and is not ready to lose the race yet, despite not doing very well in the caucus.  It's definitely showing that Romney's straining to keep the lead, and that Santorum and Paul are well on the route to undermining Romney's lead, even though he won Iowa.  The cartoon makes clear that the race is far from over and that there's still much more to come.
6.  The cartoonist's point of view is that Romney better watch his back because the others are gaining momentum, and that Gingrich is not ready to be out of the race yet.  A funny kind of side note that the cartoonist added, whether willingly or not, is that they didn't even include Rick Perry in the cartoon, perhaps inferring that he's insignificant and that he should just drop out of the race.