Failing Education

My perspective on the American education system drastically changed after I saw the movie “waiting for Superman” a couple of months ago. Prior to the experience, I was more concerned with my own education: finishing high school successfully, going on to college, finishing college successfully, a career, money, a family. The film did well to elucidate the crucial problems that the United States’ education system—specifically the inner city education system—faces. Drop out rates are as high as they’ve ever been. Children that attend inner city schools are bullied for rising above their environment and succeeding academically. The film followed several stories about families desperately hoping that their child will be selected in a lottery for a charter school so that they have a chance to be a success.
The political cartoon I found deals with the concept of America’s education system going down the drain. The bus is “driving” towards success, but the viewer sees that students are “leaving through the back door” in the opposite direction of success. The cartoon was found on townhall.com, which, after some quick views at the other political cartoons they have, I deemed to be a very conservative website. The other cartoons deal with making fun of President Obama and supporting the recent Tea Party movement. Conservative or not, the education crisis the country faces is pressing. Asian countries such as China and India rank higher in math scores than the United States does; for decades the United States has been used to leading the world economically, with military strength, and technology, but this could change. With the high drop out rate and widespread illiteracy across the nation, how could the country lead a world that is advancing just as much as we are regressing?

The Land of the Rising Radiation Levels

The phenomena explaining that the flutter of a butterfly in South America can eventually cause a cataclysmic earthquake in Russia has never meant much to me; I was always a believer in a direct cause and effect. An earthquake causes a tsunami. A tsunami causes thousands of deaths. A tsunami causes a nuclear reactor crisis. In my head one concrete event typically led to another concrete, tangible event. If there’s nothing else I learned through my schooling, however, I learned that events that take place around the world in the past and present have a direct effect on the rest of the world’s future.
This particular political cartoon is a distortion on the normal Japanese flag of the red sun, and alters it into a weeping skull warning of poison. The caption of the cartoon is “The Land of the Rising Sun Turns Into the Land of the Rising Radiation Levels”, and normally that would be the only implication the cartoon had, but I could not help think about the Stock Market Game lessons taught in Mr. Sweeney’s class and how the market will either go up or down because of this event. The current civil war in the nation of Libya has caused gas prices to increase around the world, but the Japanese radiation level crisis will presumably force factories to shut down and goods that were previously being shipped from that part of the country to be curtailed. What does this mean for the market? It may be presently effected do to the lack of production by auto-mobile companies such as Toyota, but the world’s constant, hard supply-and-demand will force it to go back up again; it Toyota cars cannot be made in The Land of the Rising Radiation Levels, then they will be made elsewhere.

March Madness

An earthquake and tsunami recently hit the nation of Japan and devastated its homes, roads, and coastal villages; the Japanese are calling this the worst disaster since Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. The expression “when it rains, it pours” seems to be relevant if a viewer were to turn on CNN any time during the day. News is pouring out of all parts of the world. A nuclear power plant meltdown may add to the devastation in Japan. The Middle East chaos seems to be a metaphorical tsunami, with attempted government overthrows and hesitant United States involvement. Right here in our own backyard, Wisconsin union workers are causing uprising and dismay. It is times like these where the President of the United States seems to be pressured the most. President Obama, will you create a “no-fly zone” over Libya, a no-fly zone that could potentially cause war? President Obama, will you send billions of dollars the country does not have to relieve Japan? President Obama, what will you do about Wisconsin? President Obama, President Obama, why aren’t you doing things fast enough, President Obama.

The political cartoon I found ties in March’s theme of college basketball “March Madness” to the literal madness that has been going on so far in the month of March. It takes the concept of the “bracket” (predicting which teams will advance and eventually win the March Madness NCAA tournament) and using it for the President’s life/job. The cartoon portrays President Obama as visibly confused and overwhelmed, supporting the previous statement that the country’s leader may have too many things on his plate right now. In terms of relating the cartoon to discussion in Mr. Sweeney’s class, it goes back to the balance of powers between Congress, the President, and the Judicial Branch. The President may not have his entire power behind the creation of laws, but it is clearly evident that the President’s power exceeds Congress’ and more responsibilities must be accounted for as President of the United States.

Gadhafi or Sheen?

There seems to be times that the American media does not know what to do. News stations faintly understand the concept of morality (covering the potential rebellion of a country with United States’ oil ties versus the cocaine induced meltdown of a famous television sitcom star is slightly more imperative). And because the American media cannot possibly put widespread efforts on both of the unraveling stories, they have picked one, and that is the ranting and rave of Charlie Sheen. Last night my mother informed me that there was a primetime special on 20/20 featuring an interview with the former Two and a Half Man actor, and when I asked her “why do you care?”, she replied, “because I do,” and when I said, “why?”, she said, “because it’s sad and funny and makes me feel better about my own life”. That is the answer. In Mr. Sweeney’s class, we discussed the implication of religion and economics on the country’s political culture; we did not, however, go into detail about how altered America’s interests are in current political events that effect their opinions, future votes, etc.

The cartoon I found deals with what seems like an average American marriage; brunette, blonde, slightly overweight, television blaring, dog sleeping. The marriage epitomizes the typical American family and television viewer. The husband is saying “The childish rant is becoming even more senseless”, and the wife replies, “Moammar Gadhafi or Charlie Sheen?”, symbolizing that, in the last week, Gadhafi and Sheen both publicly made fools of themselves. Gadhafi blamed the current crisis on Osama Bin Ladin and cell phones, refusing to see the truth that has been slowly slapping him in the face for the past twenty years; Sheen’s cocaine induced ravings have caused social networks to explode in novel Sheen jokes.

To me, the message of the cartoon lies in including Gadhafi and Sheen in the same inquiry. It lies in the media covering the breakdown of Sheen as if it had future, important implications on our country. The important news is in Libya. People of a country that is known to harbor threatening terrorists have rebelled. All oil refineries in the country have shut down, causing Europe to face a potential oil crisis because they receive the majority of their oil from Libya. In class, we discussed what it means to recognize the “American political values”, and these two “crisis’s” (which do not even intersect in relevance) call me to question the American public’s civic duty. If people understood what was going on in places like Libya and Egypt, than perhaps they could circumvent similar catastrophes from occurring in other parts of the world in the future.