Cartoon : Fall Colors

Cartoon by Joe Heller of the The Green Bay Press-Gazette (Wisconsin) published 16 October 2009.

- If you say that you are tickled pink, you are very pleased or entertained. I was tickled pink to have you visit us. We were tickled pink when your flowers arrived.

- If your anger or other emotion is white-hot, this means it is marked by very exceedingly strong feelings and enthusiasm. a fierce, white-hot loyalty to the king. See other examples HERE

- A scarlet woman is an expression that comes from the novel A Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne, where a woman in 17th century Puritan Massachusetts who had committed adultery was forced to wear a scarlet-colored letter “A” on her clothes to mark her sin. A scarlet woman is an archaic term for a woman who is unfaithful or has a lot of sex with men; it also refers to a prostitute. Here the cartoonist is making fun of how Republicans view Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine because she was the only Republican to vote in favor of the Democrat health care bill that came out of the Senate Finance Committee and is therefore considered to be unfaithful to the Republican Party.

- A blue dog is an American political name given to moderate-to-conservative Democrats committed to financial and national security, favoring compromise and bipartisanship over ideology and party discipline. In 2006, many Blue Dog Democrats were elected in conservative-leaning districts ending the Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

- A red herring is a piece of information or suggestion introduced to draw attention away from the real facts of a situation. (A red herring is a type of strong-smelling smoked fish that was once drawn across the trail of a scent to mislead hunting dogs and put them off the scent.) The detectives were following a red herring, but they're on the right track now. The mystery novel has a couple of red herrings that keep readers off guard.

- If you are black and blue, this means you are covered in bruises caused by being hit. In the cartoon, the cartoonist wants to say that the health care fight is living the consumer black and blue. He’d been beaten black and blue by a street gang.

Cartoon : A Health Care System From Scratch

Cartoon by Jeff Stahler of The Columbus Dispatch (Ohio) published on 29 September 2009.

From the very beginning, from the outset; from nothing. For example, I knew we'd have a problem from scratch. Similarly, to start from scratch means "to start from the very beginning," as in After the business failed, they decided to reorganize and start from scratch. This term comes from racing, where a competitor starts from the line scratched into the ground (whereas others may start ahead with a handicap). [Mid-1800s] (www.answers.com)

- We often use this term in cooking to mean that you used basic ingredients and not any from a can or a box. For example, if you like to make your own cakes starting from flour, eggs, milk, etc., you can say, “I made this cake from scratch.”

Cartoon : ‘Give it to me straight!’

Cartoon by Steve Kelley of The New Orleans Times-Picayune published on 28 September 2009.

- If you say “Give it to me straight,” you’re asking someone to tell you something directly and very simply without hiding the unpleasant facts. This means you want a straight answer, one that is honest and true. In the case of your doctor, you don’t want him to beat around bush; you want him to be straight with you. Unfortunately, most politicians don’t have a reputation for straight talking.

- If you are sick and tired of something, this means that you are unhappy about something, especially something that has continued for a while. Usually during presidential election campaigns, the public grows sick and tired of political advertising. In another variation of this expression, you can also say, “I’m sick to death of campaign advertisements!” In the cartoon, the doctor could have said, “You’re sick to death of the health care debate.”

Cartoon : Healthcare Gamble

Cartoon by Jerry Holbert of The Boston Herald published 10 September 2009.

- A gamble is an action or plan that involves a lot risk, but if successful, has huge benefits. This is also a verb. For example, there are people who go to Las Vegas or Monte Carlo to gamble with their money.

- When you gamble at the craps table, you bet your money. When you bet, you risk a certain amount of money on something that you think or hope will happen. If you win, you gain more money, otherwise you lose it all. If you like to go the PMU and you want to gamble, you place a bet on the horse you think will win.

- The whole (kit and) caboodle is a very common and informal expression meaning ‘everything.’ This is a typically American expression. A kit of course is a set of objects such as in a toolkit. A caboodle is a very old and archaic word meaning a group or collection of people. The word has disappeared from use except in this expression.

Vocabulary In the News : 13 September 2009 – The Washington Times

A more readable version of this front page, click on the image! For the homepage of The Washington Times, go to : http://www.washingtontimes.com/

- Tens of thousands of protesters have descended on Washington D.C. for a ‘tea party.’ A tea party is the name given to the nationwide protests against increased taxes, socialized medicine, government spending, increased gun control laws, and any other program that has expanded the power and control of government in the lives of the ordinary citizen. These protests are named after the Boston Tea Party that took place in 1773 against a then increasingly powerful British government. At that time, in protest against a tea tax, colonists disguised as American Indians, threw crates of tea into Boston Harbor. A rally is simply when a large group of people get together to either support or protest someone or something. Here, protestors are rallying to assail big government and what they see as an attack against the US Constitution. To assail can mean to either physically attack or severely criticize. In this case, they are criticizing the expansion of the government’s powers. This rally is the result of a grassroots movement. In other words, this movement began with the ordinary citizen and not any political leader.

- President Obama is taking a new approach and argument in order to persuade the American people in favor of his healthcare overhaul. This is word is both a noun and a verb. If you overhaul something, you completely change it in order to make it run more efficiently. According to the article, the president is now using Treasury data to gird the American people for the perils if the system isn’t overhauled. To gird simply means to prepare for something difficult though this is word rarely used in everyday speech.

- The Obama administration has asked Iran to clarify a vague proposal they made for talks. In doing so, the administration is calling Iran’s bluff. If you call someone’s bluff, you ask them to do what they are threatening to do because you believe that they don’t intend to do it. This is a term that comes from card playing when one player bluffs the others trying to make them think he has a better hand of cards. You don’t believe him so you call his bluff by forcing him to show his cards.

- ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) defines itself as a community-based organization working for families of low to moderate income. They are deeply involved in voter registration and have been severely criticized for registering illegal immigrants and other non citizens. They have also come under fire for registering the same person several times and for registering pets to vote! They were deeply involved in last year’s elections. This time they have come under fire when a video from a hidden camera during an undercover sting (une opération secrète d’infiltration) was released showing ACORN workers advising a man and women, posing as a prostitute and pimp, on how to avoid paying taxes through falsifying tax forms and on how to seek illegal benefits for underage girls. ACORN fired back by accusing conservatives of smearing (diffamer) them in order to attack President Obama’s agenda. To fire back means to respond to an answer or a remark quickly and angrily. Obama was involved with the organization and also hired them during his presidential campaign. The headline states that Acorn is firing back in wake of this sting. This simply means that they are reacting after an event and in result of that even. It’s the image of a boat moving through the water, the waves left behind the boat are called the wake. So when we say in wake of something, we are talking about the after effects of an event.

Front page of The Washington Times taken from: http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/

NOTE: I was unable to access the articles on the newspaper’s webpage and was getting a ‘site error’ message. It may be that you have to subscribe in order to read them.

Here is a video from MSNBC concerning the Tea Party in Washington.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

To read more :

Up to two million march to US Capitol to protest against Obama's spending in 'tea-party' demonstration http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1213056/Up-million-march-US-Capitol-protest-Obamas-spending-tea-party-demonstration.html#ixzz0QzVYkSRr

Vocabulary In the News : 10 September 2009 – Detroit Free Press

NOTE! I apologize, link to image and PDF became inactive over time.

For a more readable version of this front page, you can save a pdf format of it by going HERE! To visit this newspaper’s homepage, go to: http://www.freep.com/

- As everybody knows, President Obama, speaking to a joint session of Congress on the 9th , addressed health care reform. The President said that the time for bickering is over. Bickering is a noun to describe arguing that has no significance and is unimportant. The noun is derived from the verb, to bicker which means to argue over things that are unimportant. In other words, Obama believes that the arguments against his health care plan have no merit and the debate should stop. http://www.freep.com/article/20090910/NEWS15/909100384/1318/

- The state of Michigan is confronting a problem in their judicial system. Petty spats are clogging up the courts! Petty refers to something that is unimportant and insignificant. A spat is an brief and usually unimportant argument. If two lovers are having an silly fight, we might call that a lovers’ spat. As you know, Americans are quite litigious and the problem in Michigan is that a lot of these petty spats are clogging up the courts. In other words, these cases are blocking and slowing down the system. The term is used often to describe pipes, tubes and waterways when they are blocked. http://www.freep.com/article/20090910/NEWS05/909100395/1322/PPO-requests--petty-spats-clog-up-courts (if you read the article, you’ll need to know what a PPO is : https://www.msu.edu/~safe/facts/ppo.htm)

- If you have a major success, you score big! The Ford Motor Company has been struggling to get the same publicity for its new electric car as General Motors has been been getting. Ford Motors scored big when they announced that they got a gig on the Jay Leno Show! A gig is an idiomatic expression for a public performance. In this case, the car will be featured in a segment of the show where celebrities are going to race it. Most of the time, a gig is used by singers and comedians. http://www.freep.com/article/20090910/BUSINESS06/909100338/1322/Ford-scores-big-Leno-gig

The front page of the Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan) was taken from http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/

For more about the health care debate in the US, here is a video from Newsy. The video is from just before the President addressed Congress.

To watch the video on the Newsy website and to read the transcript, go to: http://www.newsy.com/videos/a_speech_to_cure_u_s_health_care_reform

Cartoon : Unplugged and fear-mongering

Cartoon by Bill Day of The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tennessee and published on 17 August 2009.

One of the fiercest and most important debates in US history is currently taking place over universal healthcare. Other terms being used are socialized medicine and Obamacare. The debate is not simply over healthcare but also over the role of the federal government in the every day lives of Americans. The arguments and debates have become very heated on both sides of the issue. Currently, polls show that a majority of Americans oppose a single-payer program (single-payer meaning only one provider of healthcare : the federal government)

This cartoon by Bill Day is critical of the Republican Party’s opposition to healthcare and accuses conservatives of being unplugged and fear-mongering. Republicans are represented by the picture of an elephant. Democrats would be pictured by the use of a donkey.

1. Unplugged has a couple of meanings. Normally it refers to rock music being played without the use of electrical instruments. However, here the cartoonist is accusing Republicans of being unplugged from reality. The word of course comes from the verb “to plug in.” If during this hot weather you want to cool yourself down with an electrical fan, you first have to plug the fan in! When you disconnected the fan from the electricity, you unplug the fan.

2. The cartoonist is also accusing Republicans of using the debate to spread and promote fear. This is called fear-mongering. This comes from the word monger which means to deal or sell something. We see it in a few words such as a fishmonger or ironmonger who is someone who sells fish or iron. Today, this suffix is often used to describe someone who is spreading or promoting something undesirable. You might come across terms such as war-monger, scandal-monger, rumor-monger, hate-monger, etc.. These terms are both a noun to describe a person or a verb. So, a fear-monger is someone who spreads fear. To create the noun to describe the act, just add the suffix –ing : fear-mongering, war-mongering, scandal-mongering, rumor-mongering, hate-mongering, etc..