political cartoon #6

        In this cartoon, there is a man/animal in grounded hot air balloon.  The man is saying "here we go..hold on..any minute now... get ready".  The man has his arms extended and is trying to catch these sandbags that are being thrown at him.  The bags say "tax cut" on the them.  On the ground there is a flattened balloon with no air in it that says "economy" on it.  What this is try to say is that congress things that doing tax cuts are going to make the economy expand.  What the president needs to be catching is hot air, not tax cuts.  That means that having tax cuts would only make us grounded longer.
        This relates to what we are learning in class because we are just starting to get into taxs and bank accounts and things of this nature.  Soon we are going to need to get jobs to help pay for college.  We need to learn about taxes so we can save some money

political cartoon #5

         In this cartoon, George Bush is passing torches to Barack Obama.  George Bush says "the torch are passed!".  On the torches are words like "mideast, climate change", and "economy".  George Bush is wearing clothes that are tattered and worn out, while Obama is wear clothes that seem new and neat. 
        The torches are symbolic of problems that the President has to deal with, such as the middle east, climate change, and the economy.  The reason the problems are portrayed as torches is because it shows that the former president is "passing" the problems onto the new president, so to speak.  The clothes that both George Bush and Barack Obama are wearing are also symbolic.  George W. Bush's clothes are worn out because he has had to deal with these problems for a while now, while Barack Obama's clothes are all nice and neat because he hasn't had to deal with these problems for that long yet.
       The message that the artist is trying to get across in this cartoon is that George Bush, while President of the United States, has made alot of problems that Obama is having to deal with now.

political cartoon #4

        In this comic, President Barack Obama is playing basketball.  Up at the top, the title says "March Madness".  There are alot of bombs coming towards Obama.  On the bombs there are words such as "GOP, Economy, Gas Prices, Japan, Libya", and "Environment".  The artists messgae is very clear.  The artist is saying that there are alot of problems that have been "thrown" at Obama during the month of March. 
         This month has been perticularly hard on Obama.   First off, Libya is in a state of civil war at this point, which is coincidently driving up the prices of gas in America.  Also, Japan was hit with an 8.9 earthquake and a tsunami.  Japan also had a melt down at one of their nuclear power plants.
         While the comic is comical, it also influences the way the reader thinks.  When people read this, they get to see all the stuff that Obama has had to deal with this month.  So, the reader feels a little better about the decisions Obama makes, simply because he is dealing with alot of stuff right now.

political cartoon #3

         In this cartoon there is a guy reading the newspaper.  The front of the page reads "oil hits $109 per barrel".  The man's wife says to him "Cant's they just switch to smaller barrels?".  The couple represents two average Americans, nothing special about them.  By having the people in this cartoon be average Americans, its gets the readers to think things like "are people actually that stupid?". 
        This cartoon is relavent to the stock market game that we are currently involved in in class.  Because of rising prices in oil, companies may have to higher their prices on goods.  Higher prices means less people will be buying, or that people will buy less.  This will end up dropping the stocks for alot of businesses, especially companies that rely heavily on gas, such as Exxon Mobil and Hess (both of which have had stock prices go down recently).

political cartoon #2

            In this cartoon, a woman from congress is handing Uncle Sam a huge stack of papers.  She tells hime "You have 72 hours to consume this in its entirety and digest its contents" to which Uncle Sam replies "...And then you expect me to pass it?".  After Uncle Sam's comment, another politician says "Here's some T.P. and a Tylenol".  On the giant stack of papers it says 2000 page healthcare bill.
           In the cartoon, the congress woman and the politician who creates the bills for congress to pass.  Uncle Sam represents the entire Congress.  What this cartoon is saying that congress has a lot of work to do to make a bill into a law.  Most people want this task done very fast, and they are very ignorant to how much work it really takes to pass a bill.  This is relavent to what we are learning in class because recently we watch a video on how one bill got passed, and how difficult it was.  In this cartoon, the satire is present when the guy says "here is some T.P. (toilet paper) and a Tylenol".  This makes it seem like passing a bill is similar to taking a painful poop.

political cartoon #1

        In this cartoon a guy is buying gas and he is wondering which would be cheaper to buy.  On the gas pump it says Egypt and Libya.  The gas pumps say Egypt and Libya because both of those places are in political wars. On the guys jacket it says USA.  The artist is trying to say that the only country in the Middle East that the United States carres about is which one will give us more oil.
        This cartoon are relative to the prices in the stock market, a subject we are on in class.  Not only do Americans need gasoline for transportation, but alot of big companies depend on oil to power their factories.  If companies have to pay more for gas, then their stock prices might go down because less people will buy gasoline.  This means that stock prices might go up and then people could make money buy buying stocks now and then selling them later.  The message influences readers because the guy who represents the USA looks like a senseless idiot who doesn't care what is happening around the room.  People see this guy and say "I don't want to be like that" and they start paying attention to whats happening, especially in the Middle East.