Paging Alan Johnson, Is the News and Record now allowing erctile disfunction jokes? I thought you were trying to improve the paper's image?

Oh, Hugh, lighten up. It was a funny play on words. If it had been said about Kennedy you would have appreciated it also.

Gotta go with Hugh on this one. It's a pretty lame play on words, and not even original to the writer. (There's a current play by this title.) Compared with the letter about Cheney and Vietnam, this isn't very amusing. Only crude and stupid.

Gee, for something to be crude & stupid; why read and then comment on same? It would seem that only adds to the tone.

Shalom

Darryl,
You have to admit it IS funny. Those who find it so offensive are the same ones who loved talking about the President getting hummed in the oval office. The Puritans are here!

To all: My first response was to laugh. Personally, I'm not offended but I can understand someone could be.

That said, it's immature, sophmorish and doesn't belong in the LTTE section of a daily newspaper.

hugh, the Editorial Board saw differently than you.

DD, there is humor in the statement. I just try to be empathetic sometimes to those who cannot bear to see their loved ones as the "butt of a joke!"

Shalom

"Gee, for something to be crude & stupid; why read and then comment on same? It would seem that only adds to the tone."

Darryl, I'll assume you don't know the answer, so I'll tell you. First, I couldn't tell it was crude and stupid before I read it. I'm no mind reader. I commented on it because I don't really approve of crude and stupid jokes like this one, especially plagiarized ones. I view it as my obligation to stamp out crudity and stupidity in America, although, truth be told, I'm really more concerned with stupidity than crudity, which is fine as long as it's clever (as was the one about it being a good thing that Cheney wasn't in Vietnam). And I really can't follow your logic (such as it is) that equates _identifying_ crudity and stupidity with the very properties being identified. The problem, Darryl, is that you have confused what "seems" true to you with what is _actually_ true, a problem that philosophers since Plato have attempted to address.

This joke is the equivalent of Uncle Joe's leering and clumsy double entendres. It lacks a certain wit, a certain je ne sais pas. It strains. One imagines poor Bill thinking, "heh heh here's a really good one heh heh," as he sets crayon to paper. I expect that anyone who finds this funny also finds pro wrestling amusing.

So brian, blonde jokes are ok?

How about anti-sematic jokes?

Or, ethnic jokes?

How about if Cheny is a albino, non-christian (that covers all three above). Would that have been ok?

That is the reasoning I read in the posting.

It is ok for crudity, however, stupidity is fine!

That logic causes great trouble. Far too many people can be harmed. I am remided of some scripture that basically says that words fits spoken are like a balm to the soul. However, words not fitly spoken cause wounds that take much time to heal and are remembered even longer.

Shalom

Darryl,
I appreciate you having empathy for those whose heroes have become the "butt" of the joke. I still couldn't stop myself from laughing at the humor contained within the LTE.

Hugh,
Damn straight! They'd never let that kind of moronic humor appear in POPULAR MECHANICS!

Brian444,

I thought it was funny and I detest wrestling, stock car racing and monster trucks. To me, they are all mindless activities, meaning you have to do no thinking to sit and watch. I watch no reality shows, The Sopranos nor most of the garbage on TV. And I still thought it was humorous.

I would appreciate an honest answer as to what was crude and stupid about the play on words. Also, since children think literally, I can't imagine they would even know how to create the subtleties presented in the letter. So how is it childish?

Darryl writes:

"So brian, blonde jokes are ok?

How about anti-sematic jokes?"

Blonde jokes are usually as stupid and crude as the one in the letter. I don't think I've ever heard a funny or clever one. As for "anti-sematic jokes," I've never heard of them at all. Do you mean "anti-semantic jokes"?--that is, jokes that make fun of words? If so, then I have no real problem with them. You have also misread my post, which clearly states that "crudity" (not stupidity") is "fine as long as it is clever." Please make a note of the grammatical convention by which subordinate clauses are presumed to modify the noun in closest proximity.

Yvonne, by childish, I was thinking more about an 8th grade boy, not a preschooler. The joke in the letter is the equivalent of my making a joke about you whose punchline is, "Yvonne to feel your ----." Get it? "Yvonne"="I want"! Superfluous sexual reference!! HA HA!!

Here's a test: which is funny, the bumper sticker that says "Reelect Al Gore" or the one that says "Lick [or F---] Bush"? If you answered the latter or think they're both funny, then you doubtlessly thought the joke in the letter was funny. In fact, "Lick Bush" (get it??! "Bush" is also female pubic hair!!! HA HA!!) operates on precisely the same comedic principle and plane as "Iraqtile Dysfunction." "Reelect Al Gore," by contrast, is actually clever and hence funny.

Ultimately, however, I fear that explaining why "Iraqtile Dysfunction" isn't funny is a wasted effort, since to a certain cohort of low, crude persons--the crowd to which Oscar Wilde could never play, the crowd about which Mencken spoke when he said that no one will ever go broke underestimating the taste of the American people--it actually is funny. There's no accounting for taste.

Do you all not realize, as I do, that Bill Burnett has spent the last three days telling this joke twice to everyone he knows, emailing to all his friends, and chuckling to himself every time he thinks about it? You'll probably get it in your mailbox soon.

brian, the more you write the more you prove my suspicions correct. I thank you for doing that!

Shalom

Brian,
You rose in this genetic bouliabasse, when you mentioned Oscar Wilde and H.L. Mencken. They are two of my faves! Of course, many of the ones who post here have no idea who they were and how old Oscar died!
Don't always agree with you, but since you are literate, I don't care!