[meteorite-list] 'Rites & Wrong Cartoon

Mon, 29 Mar 2004 12:43:04 -0800

Park Forest comic (copy protection removed)
 
 
 
Re:  I have rarely seen such an openly racist piece of work as the cartoon entitled 'Rites & Wrongs.   I have lived in Park Forest since 1971 and have always felt safe in the community.  It is one of the few communities in the Chicagoland region that is racially integrated and has been since the 1950s.  It has one of the lowest crime rates in the 5-county region.  I do not know where you got your information.  The people who collected meteorites were able to sell them to dealers, if they so desired, or to a consortium of museums.  No one was held up or robbed as they gathered them or sold them.  It is such a shame that you would choose to promulgate such an inaccurate image of the community.  

Janet Muchnik
Village Manager
 
 
 
Thanks for your comments Janet,
 
Since I have made reference to the Meteorite Central Mailing list I am forwarding a copy of this to them as well.
 
It is a comic and it is satire comic and it should be taken as such.  If satire humor brings undue stress to you or someone you know, I would not watch Mad television or Saturday Night Live, you might have a heart attack.  As far as it being racist I do not see that unless you consider Park Forest or Chicago itself a race....and even then you would be stretching things.  
 
I have posted my thoughts of the comic on the meteorite central mailing list and you can read about it in the archives the list has here, I will however make a couple notes and if you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail me again.  In fact, if you can continue a conversation in a respectable manner, then I have no problem with doing something like adding a comment from you to the comic page.  
 
Meteorite Central Archives, look around the current date, and it should not be hard to find my postings. 
 
 
 
I will note that seems clear that the page was referred to you by a Bill Kieskowski, who's e-mails to me have been nothing but secondary e-motions.  I am not his councilor and this is not a group session, plus I am not sure how things work around Chicago, but I do not think you will find such actions productive anywhere.  It surely has not convinced me to take it down or the like and if anything, I might make a postcard now and send it out for free to everyone in the meteorite community or whoever else would like one. 
 
Personally if I had a problem with something, I would not continue to spotlight it.
 
Please read the following:
 
Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic by Henri Bergson.  Henri Bergson was well known for his work in the philosophy of humor.  I read his work in college, but you can view it here for free.
 
 
The following is from Bergson classic work, which is a not copyrighted.  His work is accepted one must say by the United States Government who has published and promoted the work for several years now. 
 
"Bergson notes that a person robbing another has been a common theme throughout the history of comic drawling. Here is what he says, on this subject, "Who are the actors in these scenes? With whom has the wit to deal? First of all, with his interlocutors themselves, when his witticism is a direct retort to one of them Often with an absent person whom he supposes to have spoken and to whom he is replying. Still oftener, with the whole world,--in the ordinary meaning of the term,--which he takes to task, twisting a current idea into a paradox, or making use of a hackneyed phrase, or parodying some quotation or proverb. If we compare these scenes in miniature with one another, we find they are almost always variations of a comic theme with which we are well acquainted, that of the "robber robbed." You take up a metaphor, phrase, an argument, and turn it against the man who is, or might be, its author, so that he is made to say what he did not mean to say and lets himself be caught, to some extent, in the toils of language. But the theme of the "robber robbed" is not the only possible one. We have gone over many varieties of the comic, and there is not one of them that is incapable of being volatilized into a witticism."
 
What Berger is trying to say here and in the paragraphs before it, is that by nature, the witticism in the being robbed scene in a comic is something we can all relate to and that while it can be turned against the writer, that it is not a direct attack on a person or group, but more a reflection of part of our society. Berger ends with saying it is "witticism", in others words, it is humor.
 
If you would like I can give you references to many other writers of the philosophic nature of comics.  All seem to agree with 90% of the same thing.
 
Almost every dealer reported seeing gang activity in the region, and that Chicago as a metropolitan as has always been known to have gang activity.  Many movies and songs have been made about this since the 1950's.  Even the recently popular "Chicago" musical, had them wearing gangster hats on the movie bills and carried much of the image in the film.  In other words, it is my opinion, that if the Chicago-area would like people to change their thoughts on it, then the first step would be to stop marketing such.
 
Gang activity is everywhere in the United States and even outside of Wichita, Kansas...where I live.  I do not think anyone, in the meteorite community thinks Park Forest is a terrible place to live.  Everyone I know enjoyed there hunts there and although, urban meteorite hunting did present some new challenges, I think most would do it again.
 
I would also like you to note the name of the comic, 'Rites & Wrongs.  By nature it is not a politically correct comic and the name I think reflects that and the readership it is aimed at understands this I believe, in fact, if any person on the Meteorite Central Mailing list, the only place I have sent this comic, did not understand this was a comic and thinks that this is an accurate "image" of life in Park Forest, feel free to e-mail both me and Janet and say such.  Janet, you yourself looked at and labeled it a "cartoon" in your e-mail to me. 
 
If we can not laugh at the world, we are doomed to cry with it.
 
As I have been kind to answer you e-mail, perhaps you can answer me, If the meteorite fell in Los Angeles would you fell any different about the comic?
 
Mark Bostick
Creator and Owner of 'Rites & Wrongs
 
 

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