The political cartoon that I picked has a target audience of democrats. The secondary audience is republicans who mock the democrats for not liking the majority choice, or anyone who understands why the democrats are upset. The occasion of this cartoon is about Caucuses happening around the US that give an insight on which democratic candidate the states will vote for in 2020 to win the presidential election.

The speaker of this cartoon is highly in tune with everything political, and I would assume that they are either a democrat that’s upset or confused about why their party is mad, or they could just be a different party that’s making fun of the democrats. The purpose of this cartoon is to pick on the democrats as they are being overly judgmental of their candidates.

The donkey, or democrat, being upset is a nod to a group of democrats that think Bernie Sanders views are a bit too far left, and that the whole democratic party will move more left if he is voted for by the majority. This is why the donkey in the cartoon is worried about Sanders winning, and is asking for a reboot as if a new candidate would win in those polls instead. This idea however may be merely a conspiracy theory as to why the system used to collect the data for the Caucuses had technical difficulties that led the majority choice to be delayed. The theory is that the democrats caused the delay as a way to try to stop Sanders from winning the majority vote.

The description for the photo stated that this sunset was the last one of the year as it was December 31 of 2019. Although it seems like a lesser important photograph that others, such as the ones of the Australian fires, this photograph still portrays an argument.

That very argument is to simply enjoy the little things in life. For most people a sunset is insignificant because we see it on a daily basis depending on the weather. We never realize just how much we like/appreciate them until we no longer see them. Take for example how in the past week, we hadn’t seen the sun for what seemed like an eternity. The absence of the sun was able to create an effect of like a fog of depression on everyone’s days.

A sunset is something that we tend to forget about as it doesn’t really impact our lives, but we forget how waking up to a sunrise or enjoying a sunset to our friends can really uplift our mood. Personally watching a sunset during the summer when with friends can be one of the best experiences of the year based on my experience.

A sunset gets overlooked like many other things, and with the fact that this sunset was the last of the year, it creates more of an emphasize to appreciate it. When I first looked at this photo, I admit that I overlooked the date that the sunset took place, so I thought that this was a place like Alaska where they go into darkness for months at a time. This is what led me to the argument of “enjoy the little things,” but once I realized that the date was actually the last day of the year, I still thought that that argument applied.

The simplicity and lighting of the photograph is what drew me to it, but overall I thought that it was a well taken photo and had a good purpose behind it.

The Documentary that I watched was called Free Solo and it was about a professional rock climber named Alex Honnold who decided to free solo climb “El Capitan” in Yosemite National Park.

For anyone who doesn’t know, free soloing is essentially just climbing without ropes, equipment, or anything besides yourself. It is similar to bouldering but on a way larger scale. El Capitan is one of (if not the) most famous climbing wall in the US due to the sheer height and climb ability of it. There are a variety of ways to climb up El Cap, but no one had ever attempted to free solo any route due to how life threatening it is to accomplish.

The Film opened up with an introduction to Alex and his crew, and gave us background information about El Capitan. The reason the documentary was made was to simply go against the argument that free soloing El Capitan is impossible. It previously has been attempted before by 2 or 3 people, but all have sadly died trying.

In order to gain the audiences trust with Alex’s ability to actually accomplish this deadly climb, the documentary starts with a summary of how Alex started to climb at a young age with his father, and then how he won national rock climbing competitions the first time he’d even try. They even gave us a glimpse on his family and girlfriend’s climbing abilities for further support, but Alex was he main talent.

There was an initial day that the climb was going to take place, but sadly Alex decided to turn back as he wasn’t confident enough to climb that day. The team then had to wait weeks to months in order to climb again because the weather had to be just right in order for Alex to free solo and not die. Both Alex and his team planned for a perfect day, and a set number of hours to climb each point, so that the only thing that could be a danger to Alex would be himself.

In the overall journey up the wall the documentary pulled on the anxiety that Alex would fall especially on the hardest part of the climb. Once Alex made it to the top, however; all that stress and anxiety is released, and you can’t help but feel ecstatic for him. They even include Alex telling his girlfriend that he loves her after the climb because he isn’t good at voicing his opinions which highlights just how proud he was of what he just accomplished.

Personally I am into climbing so I found this very energizing to watch, but I think that anyone would be able to enjoy it because of how amazing the feat was. Alex put his life on the line to accomplish one of his dreams, and it is so inspiring to watch him complete it. I recommend this for anyone who’s into emotional roller coasters because this documentary pulls on all of them.