COMMENTARY

ongoing criminal investigation. In truth, it was a sudden RE-investigation, triggered by the Sun-Times inquiry. This time, after a two-month review, police did name Vanecko. But again concluded it was self-defense. Case again seemingly closed. Except that it wasnt. And should not have been. The Sun-Times, month after month, uncovered witnesses whose testimony differed from police accounts and missing CPD files suddenly discovered. The Sun-Times found that over in the Cook County states attorneys office there was the unexplained absence of ANY file or shred of paper documenting its own involvement in the case. Koschmans mother, Nanci, petitioned for a special prosecutor, and two months ago Cook County Circuit Court Judge Michael Toomin agreed, appointing former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb. In a stinging ruling, Toomin cited procedural irregularities . . . lapses, delays . . . false reports and what he caustically termed missing file syndrome, an affliction common to both the police department as well as the states attorneys office. One of the still unexplored areas of this case involves CPD emails. Thats what reporters Novak and Fusco requested in their FOIA on April 19. CPD replied it had 23,000 emails . . . which would be responsive to your request, but it would take one hundred hours of work to produce them, which would be unduly burdensome. Request denied. So Novak and Fusco radically trimmed down and resubmitted their request. This time CPD responded, There are 297 email correspondences responsive to your reBaxter found in a recent study that 80 percent of jokes made by female bosses in boardrooms were met with silence, while 90 percent of jokes made by male bosses received raucous laughter. And from that one piece of data, the media has spent the past few weeks drawing the only possible, logical conclusion: Women are less funny than men. But this conclusion is wrong. Why? Three reasons. First, it fails to acknowledge that humor is linked to social status, not to gender. The male bosses in Dr. Baxters study may not have gotten all those laughs because their jokes were better, but because men enjoy higher status in our society than women, which makes their jokes more likely to be well-received by both genders. It also ignores the fact that theres a difference between laughing at your boss joke and actually thinking its funny. Most significantly, it overlooks an important study by psychologist Paul McGhee. In 1976, McGhee discovered that before the

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 2012 CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

29

JACK HIGGINS OPINION

MARIN cmarin@suntimes.com

CAROL

f you thought the Chicago Police Department had learned anything from a year and a half of embarrassing stories about its 2004 probe of the death of David Koschman, you would be wrong. Police Wont Release Koschman Emails was the headline in Tuesdays Sun-Times as reporters Tim Novak and Chris Fusco outlined how, once again, CPD is denying their most recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Before I get to CPDs stonewalling, lets backtrack for a moment. Thanks to Sun-Times reporting, we now know that Koschman, 21, died in 2004 from a lone punch thrown by Richard J. R.J. Vanecko, nephew of then-Mayor Richard M. Daley. Originally, police said they had no idea who struck Koschman but that whoever did so acted in self-defense. End of story. Or so it seemed. Seven years later in January 2011, when the Sun-Times filed its first of many FOIA requests for documents in the Koschman case, CPD refused, citing, surprisingly, an

EMANUELS COPS PLAYING DODGEBALL

quest but it would take at least 40 hours to produce them. Request denied. You reduce from 23,000 to 297, but go from 100 hours to 40 hours? asked an incredulous Don Craven, attorney for the Illinois Press Association. Somebodys math is skewed. The police department, asked for an explanation, doesnt have one. But the message is clear. Public officials care more about protecting their turf on their terms age of 6, little boys and little girls make the same number of jokes. After age 6 and from them on girls make fewer jokes than boys. Basically, McGhee revealed that women are born with the same capability to be funny as men. And then, somewhere in the first six years of life, they get the message that they should suppress it. But the worst part of Dr. Baxters study isnt its conclusion its that it has everyone asking the wrong question. The question Are women less funny than men? is old and tired and irrelevant and sexist. Its like when people used to wonder if a woman could be president, because what if she became irrational during her time of the month? That is exactly how outdated the women-and-funniness question is. So lets stop asking it. When it comes to gender and humor, instead, lets start asking the right questions. Questions like: How can we stop sending girls and women the message that they should stifle their sense of humor? How can we dispel the myth that women

than they care about the transparency they pretend to value. When the Sun-Times began its Koschman investigation 18 months ago, the mayor was named Daley and the police superintendent was Jody Weis. Today the letterhead denying our requests reads Rahm Emanuel and Garry F. McCarthy. Only the names have changed. The game is the same. arent funny and encourage women to use the sense of humor they were born with? And how can we close the status gap between men and women, which is the larger problem at the root of all this? I live in Manhattan now, where I take the subway to get around, which means few of my friends here have ever seen me drive. But none of them doubt that Im able to. What if we give women the same benefit of the doubt? What if, instead of constantly wondering if women are funny, we just assume that they are? And then redirect our energy toward asking those deeper, tougher, more important questions? If we find the answers, well all benefit from a society where both men and women feel comfortable expressing themselves any way they want to. Plus, well get to hear more jokes. Jenny Hagel, a comedy writer in New York, is head writer of MTVs weekly show 10 on Top. She studied and performed improv for 10 years in Chicago, including at Second City.

ARE WOMEN FUNNY? WRONG QUESTION

BY JENNY HAGEL

ast month a scientific report proved, once and for all, that women are less funny than men. Sound familiar? It should because this happens every year or so. You can pretty much set your watch by it. Every 12 to 18 months, someone in the public sphere asks, Are women less funny than men? People ask this question in private, too. During the five years I performed with Second City I heard it repeatedly from friends, relatives and audience members in the lobby after shows. The latest brave soul to ask it is Dr. Judith Baxter of Aston University in England. As reported by the London Telegraph, Dr.