The best medicine. (On The Contrary).(the need for humor about September 11, 2001)(Column)

"WHEN WILL IT BE OK TO LAUGH AGAIN?" So the press and maybe the public wondered after last September 11. The moratorium on laughter, unofficially declared by David Letterman, was intended to signal respect for the dead and for the people who mourned them; but the desire for laughter persisted. Only people hungry for a laugh ask when one will be available.

There was no disrespect in this and no denial of grief; people crack jokes at deathbeds and funerals, at least in my family. "Tell him he's driving too fast. That'll get a rise out of him," my brother said ...

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