Ariella Aghalarian

There are many articles on “The Onion” that caught my attention; however, the two most amusing to me had to do with politics. The first one was titled “DHS Sets Security Alert Level to Green for 8 Seconds” and the second one was “Congress Deadlocked Over How to Not Provide Health Care.” The first one, I find funny because it’s implying the sudden alert we feel as a country recently. That we take everything so seriously and feel so unsafe after events such as September 11th occurred. They are mocking the idea that our government takes things so seriously and prefer to be on the “safe side” by making sure we are always prepared if such events were to happen again. They are achieving their goal by implying that such a thing as our country not being threatened by terrorism can never happen for long and; therefore, its funny that something like that would happen for even as long as eight seconds because, right now, every little thing can be assumed as an act of terrorism. With the other article, it is obvious that they are mocking the current health care issue and how our government is not providing us with proper health care. The title itself tells you how they are showing that it is as if our government looks for reasons not to give health care. This is funny because right now it does seem that way when no one understands the reasoning behind our government’s actions or issues. The writers took the big concept of not being provided health care and made it as if the government is deliberately doing it, which achieves the piece’s purpose because many people may feel that way.