Michael Cavna and Bob Mankoff

Dan Chiasson

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For the Record--Wellesley College

Interestingly, the following intellectual scuffle began when I read a Boston Globe hagiography on the new Pulitzer Prize winner, Professor Frank Bidart of Wellesley College. I'd sketched a cartoon on Bidart several years ago, so checked to see if I'd posted it online.  I had... and discovered Bidart had actually left a comment on it in 2013.  Thus, I wrote a criticism of him, including my comment on his comment, and sent it to the student newspaper, The Wellesley News.  No response.  Well, it didn't respond to the Hillary cartoon I'd sent about three years ago.  I also sent it to all of Bidart's English professor colleagues, which is how I "bumped into" Dan Chiasson.  

Poet/Critic/Professor Dan Chiasson is employed by the New Yorker and Wellesley College.  He alleges that my criticism constitutes a "BORDERLINE HARASSING NOTE" and the three cartoons (each pertaining to the New Yorker) I sent with it to be "RACIST."  The "note" appears immediately below.  Chiasson's rather mind-numbing comment follows, including his threat to inform Campus Police (oh, my!), and request that I cease trying to engage in vigorous debate, cornerstone of a thriving democracy.   My comment regarding his comment then appears.  (When someone asks me to SHUT UP, I generally ignore them!)  And finally the three cartoons appear.  

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Not one of Chiasson's English professor colleagues deigned to respond.  Vigorous debate is certainly not a cornerstone of the English Department!  

Finally, bellowing RACISM is an infantile tactic used to terminate debate.  Might it be surprising that a Harvard PhD like Chiasson employs that tactic?  Not really...

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From: George Slone
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2018 9:12 AM
To: dchiasso@wellesley.edu
Subject: Three criticisms of the New Yorker...

To Dan Chiasson, Poetry Professor, Wellesley College, Poet & Critic for the New Yorker:

Well, I sort of laughed when I saw “Poet and critic” highlighted on your Wellesley College Professor of English biography page.  After all, isn’t that an oxymoron of sorts, considering that in today’s academic/literary milieu, critic has come to mean anything but “rude truth”?   It’s the sales, stupid!  The sales of poetry books!  

Anyhow, perhaps I’ve jolted you a tad this morning in your world of backslapping and self-congratulating.  Ainsi soit-il.  In an effort to instigate a wee bit of vigorous debate, I attach three cartoon sketches I did regarding the New Yorker.  The first one was used for the front cover of one of my books.  Of course, those contacted at the New Yorker remained silent.  Silence, of course, tends to be the modus operandi of those working within the establishment when criticized from outside the establishment, although on rare occasions ad hominem might result.  

Finally, if you’d like to invite me to one of your classes to speak about The American Dissident and my experiences in the censoring, ostracizing, and banning world of poetry, I’d be most happy to jump into my car.  Just let me know.  Thank you for your attention.  

Sincerely,

G. Tod Slone, PhD (Université de Nantes, FR), aka P. Maudit

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From: Dan Chiasson

Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2018 8:03 AM

To: George Slone

Cc: thewellesleynews@gmail.com; fbidart@wellesley.edu; kbrogan@wellesley.edu; wcain@wellesley.edu; mcezaire@wellesley.edu; pfisher@wellesley.edu; ogonzalez@wellesley.edu; ahickey@wellesley.edu; ylee@wellesley.edu; klynch@wellesley.edu; smeyer@wellesley.edu; jnoggle@wellesley.edu; tpeltaso@wellesley.edu; lrodensk@wellesley.edu; lrosenwald@wellesley.edu; msabin@wellesley.edu; vshetley@wellesley.edu; yko@wellesley.edu; msides@wellesley.edu

Subject: Re: Open Letter to Frank Bidart

Dear George Slone, In the interest of transparency I will also now forward to The Wellesley News, and to The College Police, the borderline harassing note you sent to me yesterday, and copies of the racist cartoons you attached. Please cease and desist contact with me and everyone associated with the College. 

Dan Chiasson

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From: George Slone

Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2018 6:35 PM

To: Dan Chiasson

Cc: thewellesleynews@gmail.com; fbidart@wellesley.edu; kbrogan@wellesley.edu; wcain@wellesley.edu; mcezaire@wellesley.edu; pfisher@wellesley.edu; ogonzalez@wellesley.edu; ahickey@wellesley.edu; ylee@wellesley.edu; klynch@wellesley.edu; smeyer@wellesley.edu; jnoggle@wellesley.edu; tpeltaso@wellesley.edu; lrodensk@wellesley.edu; lrosenwald@wellesley.edu; msabin@wellesley.edu; vshetley@wellesley.edu; yko@wellesley.edu; msides@wellesley.edu

Subject: Re: Open Letter to Frank Bidart

Dan Chiasson,

Thanks for your amazing response.  Now, you have me shaking in my boots regarding the College Police!  Will they drive down to the Cape, knock on my door, and put handcuffs on my wrists?  Well, nothing really surprises me these days, especially on the part of poets and professors.   Your email in itself is “harassing” in its evident effort to push in-lockstep fascist pc-groupthink and stifle my First Amendment rights to speak my mind, not your mind.  But, unlike you, I possess a solid backbone, so will not wear a muzzle, despite your request.  I would rather be banished to a left-wing Stalinist gulag, than be stifled by your ilk.  

BTW, “borderline harassing” is not illegal.  Do you even know what the legal definition of harassment is?  Allow me to help you (and your colleagues) with that.  For a person to be punished by law for harassment—he or she, black or white—, the harassment must be continual (not one time) to the point where one can prove one can no longer do one's job.  That is the legal definition, not the pc-definition.  AND normally, the harassment must be effected by a co-worker or boss, certainly not by someone from outside your ivory tower, who did not make threats of violence and cannot really effect the job performance of a “normal” or “average” professor at your institution.  

Racist cartoons?  Are you nuts?  Well, if you’re pc-indoctrinated, as I suspect you are, then yes, you must be.  Two of the three cartoons I sent to you depict your New Yorker colleagues.  In one of them, the colleagues in question are all white.  How was that possibly racist?   In the other one, they are black and slightly black.  In both, my criticism is equally harsh.  That in itself proves the absence of racism.  Think!  Think, if that is at all possible for you at this point in your game.  

Could you really see no reason at all in those cartoons?  Is it possible for someone with a PhD from Harvard not to see reason when it appears in CAPITAL LETTERS?  Well, you prove that it is.  With characters like you at the helm, it is no wonder the poetry establishment embraces censorship, ostracizing, and banning of rare poet apostates like me.  In-lockstep is your desire for the poetry community.  Methinks, no thanks!

Finally, what a great lesson this controversy would be for adult Wellesley College students to engage in.  Too bad, you and the others contacted will likely keep it from them.  Why?  Because it makes you and the others contacted look far less than the Dr. deities you like to parade around as.   Can you not even comprehend that your "cease and desist contact" request is simply a statement of rejection of vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy?  It is likely that your attitude mirrors that amongst the professorate of Wellesley College.  And that is truly sad for democracy... 

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Michael Cavna

Michael Cavna Dan Perkins

Inliers Who Somehow Think They’re Outliers

“Inliers” do not possess the basic courage and capablity for questioning and challenging the diverse hands feeding them. They write articles like “Tom Tomorrow: What does it mean when a true outlier is a Pulitzer Prize finalist?”  Michael Cavna, the Washington Post cartoon columnist who wrote that one, seems incapable of understanding the basic premise that “true outliers” can NOT become Pulitzer Prize finalists.  They can only do that if in fact they are “untrue outliers” who somehow think they are “true outliers,” kind of like Cavna himself.

The entire structure feeding the Cavnas and other “inliers” remains out of bounds for their critical thinking.  Now, for example, rather than trumpet the “string of honors,” as Cavna does regarding cartoonist Dan Perkins aka Tom November, why not actually think and wonder who might be the faceless judges of cartoonist propriety handing out those so-called “honors” and what might tick them off, and how and why do those cartoonists who receive the  so-called “honors” sufficiently self-censor themselves to be considered for them?  

How do the faceless judges keep cartoonists barking like little doggies for the little doggie biscuits held in their hands?  Where are the courageous cartoonists in America—you know, like the Charlie Hebdo martyrs of freedom of speech in France—, who bite those hands and satirize those faceless judges?  Well, you ain’t gonna find them even way at the bottom of the Pulitzer Prize list.  So-called “alternative or independent” cartoonists have really become nothing but second-tier established-order cartoonists desperate to climb the ladder to the first tier like, once upon a time, Gary Trudeau, now PC, Democrat-Party, anti-Charlie-Hebdo Islamist apologist.  

Cavna needs to define the term “outlier,” which for him, seems to mean not yet recognized by the established-order and he or she who sketches PC-acceptable themes, while barking to be recognized by that order.  Cavna-designated “outlier” Dan Perkins notes:  “It’s been gratifying to have the work recognized in the past couple of years.  I got the Herblock, I got a Society of Illustrators silver medal, and now this—it’s just nice to have these things.”  But why doesn’t Perkins have the capacity to ask himself what he’s probably been doing wrong to get recognized by a society of illustrators?  Perkins barks ravenously:  “Time is not my friend. How many more years will I be eligible [for the Pulitzer]? I don’t have that many more shots at it.  But even to have made it as a finalist— this is hugely significant for me. … I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”  But when one barks ravenously, one cannot see or think clearly.  

Cavna exists in WaPo dreamlandia, ever barking for doggie bones.  The whole award-system structure serves a purpose:  to place those who do not have the courage to bite established-order hands in the limelight and to keep those who do bite those hands out of it.  Period.  Now, as a cartoonist, I shall have to satirize Cavna around that basic premise.  Do you think he will respond?  Would he publish the cartoon in his WaPo column?  In fact, will he simply censor this comment out of view from faithful WaPo readers?

Signe Wilkinson

Imagine if Signe's nonsensical statement read: "Oddly, middle-aged BLACK MEN are a pain in the neck to draw because they're so dark.  When they get white eyebrows and white hair and no discernible features, that get's difficult."  Yes, that would probably provoke Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to proclaim racism and demand an apology, which Signe of course would be quick to deliver.  Hypocrisy and double standards are rampant in the PC milieu. 

Michael Cavna