Understand Humor

Alexandra Fol, here’s what your world sounds like:

Question: Why did the chicken cross the road?

Alexandra Fol: Well, to strive beyond limitations while achieving stability, of course.

I do not want to live in this world. This is a world that doesn’t understand humor. You made it abundantly clear that you don’t know what a joke is in your Feb. 15 letter to the editor, “Crossing behavior border,” when you said you were “utterly appalled” by Casey Schreiner’s column from the previous day.

Mr. Schreiner is a humorist. He writes in a satirical and mocking style that should not be taken as 100 percent serious. He wrote about sombrero-clad Mexican jumping beans in his lead for crying out loud! But you obviously don’t understand what humor is. You wrote, “I wonder whether he [Schreiner] knows that majoring in computer science does also require studying, effort and ambition, just as in every other field.” Do you mean to tell me, Ms. Fol, that computer science majors don’t just relax in chaise lounges while recruiters throw money, diamonds and tropical drinks at them like Mr. Schreiner said? Surely Mr. Schreiner wouldn’t lie to us.

Or wait, maybe he would. Maybe he thought that by grossly exaggerating his view of a computer science major’s prospects, he could make it entertaining, or even, dare I say it, funny. I think I’m starting to catch on to this “humor” concept!

You then chastised Mr. Schreiner for poking fun at Chancellor John Silber when he called him “evil” and said that Silber would “cackle maniacally” in his tank as he drove by the homeless students with useless majors. Ms. Fol, maybe, just maybe, Schreiner also had humor in mind when he wrote this. I know it’s a shocking concept, but Mr. Schreiner might not actually think that this situation is realistic, that Chancellor Silber, in fact, will not at any point in the near future be rolling down Commonwealth Avenue in a tool of destruction.

You also defended Chancellor Silber by noting that he has raised $30 million for the University, as well as citing an example where he paid for a music ensemble’s trip to Greece out of his own pocket. Well, Ms. Fol, John Silber is also the man who said students could “go to hell” if they want to persist in their Guest Policy argument. That’s also known as “funny,” but in a different way. The Chancellor of this university wants me to burn for all eternity because I want to watch Conan with a friend who lives in a different dorm. What a great guy!

Then comes your utterly appalling statement — that Mr. Schreiner crossed “the border of behavior which should probably not be crossed, even with the right of free speech.” I guess my communication degree is useless, just like Mr. Schreiner said! Because in all of my journalism classes, I have never been taught about your theory that you have to have good manners for the First Amendment to apply to you. Were the muckrakers behaving well when they forged identities to uncover social injustice? Were Woodward and Bernstein behaving well when they brought down the administration of this nation?

In your world, maybe all of these parties would have been censored. Clearly they had no concept of a “border of behavior” when they were writing. But thank God I don’t live in your world.