1# $OpenBSD: README,v 1.4 2024/08/26 20:10:53 jmc Exp $ 2# $NetBSD: README,v 1.2 1995/03/23 08:28:29 cgd Exp $ 3# @(#)README 8.1 (Berkeley) 5/31/93 4 5 Some years ago, my neighbor Avery said to me: "There has not been an 6adequate jokebook published since "Joe_Miller", which came out in 1739 and 7which, incidentally, was the most miserable no-good ... jokebook in the 8history of the printed word." 9 In a subsequent conversation, Avery said: "A funny story is a funny 10story, no matter who is in it - whether it's about Catholics or Protestants, 11Jews or Gentiles, blacks or whites, browns or yellows. If a story is genuinely 12funny it makes no difference how dirty it is. Shout it from the rooftops. 13Let the chips fall all over the prairie and let the bonehead wowsers yelp. 14... on them." 15 It is a nice thing to have a neighbor of Avery's grain. He has 16believed in the aforestated principles all his life. A great many other 17people nowadays are casting aside the pietistic attitude that has led them 18to plug up their ears against the facts of life. We of The Brotherhood 19believe as Avery believes; we have never been intimidated by the pharisaical 20meddlers who have been smelling up the American landscape since the time of 21the bundling board. Neither has any one of our members ever been called a 22racist. Still, we have been in unremitting revolt against the ignorant 23propensity which ordains, in effect, that "The Green Pastures" should never 24have been written; the idiot attitude which compelled Arthur Kober to abandon 25his delightful Bella Gross, and Octavius Roy Cohen to quit writing about the 26splendiferous Florian Slappey; the moronic frame of mind which, if carried 27to its logical end, would have forbidden Ring Lardner from writing in the 28language of the masses. 29 -- H. Allen Smith, "Rude Jokes" 30 31 ... let us keep in mind the basic governing philosophy of The 32Brotherhood, as handsomely summarized in these words: we believe in 33healthy, hearty laughter -- at the expense of the whole human race, if 34needs be. 35 Needs be. 36 -- H. Allen Smith, "Rude Jokes" 37