Afghanistan May be Calming Down

On February 14, 2013, Shashank Bengali of the Los Angeles Times wrote an article called "U.S Fatalities in Afghanistan Declining". This article discusses how finally United States troops are not doing the main fighting in Afghanistan. The Afghan people are now doing the fighting. For the past twenty five days, not one United States service member has died. This statistics all sound good, but analysts say that this may not necessarily mean the war is over. Even though US troops are planning to move out, there is still a huge terrorist threat in the region, and the burden is just being passed down to the Afghans. Analysts believe that if the situation starts to get bad again, then the Afghans are going to plead for United States help because they were the ones who trained them. In my opinion, having Afghans fight there own battles is a huge victory for both nations, but I have a feeling that if the situation starts to get a little harsh, many afghans wont be able to stand up for the job. Hopefully, they will be able to hold the front while America takes a rest for the first time in about twenty three years.

The 1920's

As we have read in the Great Gatsby, the 1920s were years of breaking the law, superficiality, and was filled with mysterious people. The greatest criminal from this time was Alphonse Gabriel Capone, or as we know him as Al Capone. He was a murderer, an alcohol dealer, and did many other things that people did not know of. During the years of the prohibition, Al Capone was able to supply the people with alcohol, and he became rich off of it. He brought alcohol from Canada mostly, or produced it himself. While supplying people with alcohol, he had to stay away from the police and not get caught. Therefore, he began murdering people who can potentially rat him out, or could personally kill him. Because of the corruption throughout the country, Al Capone charged with many counts of murder, but was never convicted because he would pay the judges off. He had created his empire in America, and his headquarters was in Chicago. After about ten years of ruling the gangsters around the country, the police found out that he had not payed his taxes. Immediately they arrested him, and finally he was charged for tax evasion. He was sentenced for eleven years in Alcatraz, where he developed a brain disease which crippled him. He eventually died in his mansion many years later from cardiac arrest. This man connects to the book because as we can see, there are many mysteries surrounding the "Great Gatsby". In the book, Gatsby calls Chicago during the party, in a very mysterious way, which made me think that he may be involved in the mafia's work. Also, having this much money and being able to afford a party of that caliber every weekend raises suspicion of how he can do such things. In my opinion, Gatsby does these parties to hide a greater evil in his life, which is haunting him and his friends.

"The Daily Show With Jon Stewart"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoG14Uer2Pw

"The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" is a show I usually watch on my own time. The video above shows a little segment of the show from a 2012 show. There are three satirical targets in this video. First, it is the people who regulate the lunch of students across america. Second, it is Israel's United Nations representative who discusses Iran's nuclear policies. And third, it is Amare Stoudemire. For the first target, the satirical purpose is to change the policy of school lunches, because clearly they do not work. For the second target, the purpose is to force a recognition of common sense, because how the representative was discussing the bomb threat in Iran was ridiculous. For the third target, it was again a force of recognition of common sense, because if one trains to be an athlete and nothing else, he better make it into professional sports because he would have wasted his time. For the first target, diminution and exaggeration is used because he takes the issue of children throwing away their lunch and not having proper nutrition, and shows it in such a simple way that makes the listener realize that this is a big issue. For the second target, innuendo is used because he directly insults the representative because he uses a very dumb way to represent a bomb. And for the last target, he uses irony because he used to play basketball but now he ended up as a tv host. Jon Stewart wants us to know from the first target that we should complain about the food policies in our cafeterias because the policies the government is using is not working. For the second target, he is trying to show that either the threat in Iran is not a threat after all, or that the manner in which the world is discussing this issue is ridiculous. And at last, for the last target, he is trying to tell us that do not rely on sports to make a living.

What Happened to the F/A-18 Super Hornets?

On January 21, 2013, The Onion wrote an article called "Obama Begins Inauguration Festivities With Ceremonial Drone Flyover". The article discusses Obama's second inauguration. There was something odd about this one, though. Since the 1970s, presidential inaugurations began with three combat jets flying over head. 1999 was the beginning of the F/A-18 Super Hornet. But this year, instead of Super Hornets to fly over head, three drones flew over head. The president, oblivious of all the reports media gives about these drones, still went through with the plan to have those fly over head. The past three years have been a rough time for the drones, because they have been killing innocent civilians. They are great technological and warfare capable machines, but they receive bad attention from the media. This article presents this inauguration in a satirical way, and basically makes fun of the decision the Obama administration made. In my opinion, they should have kept the Super Hornets to fly over head, because that is our Air Force's pride and glory.