It's all fun and games, until someone gets compared to a chimp.

I am fairly tolerant when it comes to humor; but, when that humor becomes racist, I do not find it amusing anymore. I am not politically savvy, however, that does not mean that I do not brush up on some information when I need to. What I do know is that when a political cartoonist includes politics and racism in the same little drawing window, nothing good can come from that.
I came across a political cartoon a while back, and it was implanted in my brain because of the gravity behind it. It did not even take me more than five minutes to find the same cartoon I was thinking about when I “Googled” for it. The cartoonist goes by the name Sean Delonas and his cartoon came out in the New York Post after President Obama wrote the stimulus bill last year. In the cartoon, two police officers, who seem to be either dim-witted or surprised, point their gun to a dead chimpanzee – which appears to be their doing – on the ground in a residential neighborhood.
At first glance, I did not think that this cartoon was anything out of the ordinary but when I read the caption that came with it, I realized at that moment that that was the most offensive political cartoon I had ever seen. The caption read, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” I understand that the nature of political cartoons are to be humorous and in most cases, politically satirical, but the fact that such a heavy undertone of racism was included in that cartoon makes me feel uncomfortable. Like I said, I can take humor but there are times when crossing the line becomes too much.
I needed to look at this picture several times to really grasp what I was staring at. I just do not take racism lightly, and for someone to be able to publish that on paper and have it encouraged by others is plainly infuriating. In case you are still wondering why I was in such a state of shock, let me tell you why I was offended. The chimpanzee was supposed to represent President Obama. This was obvious because the stimulus bill had been written by Obama just a couple of days earlier and then, this cartoon was published. I later read that the New York Post claimed that the monkey was in reference to the attack of a woman by a chimp. However, the synonymy between the chimpanzee and President Obama that the cartoonist seems to show is too close; and yet, the editors to actually say that these are two entirely different things. I mean, Delonas should have just refrained from expressing this cartoon at all.
If the cartoonist wanted to depict something against the president without causing such an upheaval then, he should have just used the internet. There are too many people who can get offended with something that has such a hard racist connotation that maybe it would have been better to post it in an unsupervised arena. I am in no way condoning such drawings, but I do also understand that everyone is entitled to an opinion. Sometimes I just think that people should have blogs instead of having access to print. I am all for freedom of speech, but when is too much? It is sad to know that the people who published this cartoon took such a light position on it and did not print a retraction.
***Photo courtesy of www.HuffingtonePost.com***

Improved writing..I think not.

I have always been a poor writer and to this day, I still think I am. I just am not able to express myself in a consistent matter. I do try and I do wish that my writing has improved from other people’s point of view, but in all sincerity I feel I lack the great writing ability.
It is not that I cannot write; it is more that I cannot follow rules or English guidelines. I try my best to have consistency and flow but for some reason my brain will not let me. When I get a graded assignment back with annotations I feel somewhat saddened because I always do my best to write a paper. I write out my thoughts and place them on paper or in these cases, on screen; however, many of the notes that I receive is due to my lack of arrangement on my essays.
When I read my essays aloud I find them to make sense and even when I revise them I feel that my writing is good. But that is not the case. I love to read and I even felt that reading may have had a positive effect on my writing, yet, I do not see it immediately. I may be underestimating myself or I might be spot-on, but the fact is that I personally feel my writing still has much improving to do. I do write in my spare time in my journals at home, but that is just personal feeling and is not really graded or judged by other people.
When I write, that is what I do. I just write. I tend to write out whatever is on my mind, comment on whatever I just read, or respond right away. It is only later that I check what I write. I think my problem is that after I have written what I wanted to write it makes sense to me because I already thought about it and when I check my essays I overlook important things that I should be catching automatically. I know I am sounding like a total downer, but I just do not see any improvement; and that is not a comment about the reading material or assignments in this class, I just have never been able to see my writing habits unfold to new heights. It may an insecurity issue, it may be because my sign is a Cancer, or I just do not understand or want to grasp the writing rules.
All I know is that I do love to write, and I do love the reading and assignments in this class. I just have not been able to fully express myself in a formal fashion through words. I know I have spent many years now writing to teachers, friends, myself (my audience), but the truth is that I still have a long way to go in order for me to actually see that I have made an improvement in my writing.