THE WOE OF AFTERMATH Dear Senator Thurmond; A lot of my friends, when we talk politics, they can't understand why I liked you, why I always defended you. They don't understand why I bristle when they bring up your name alongside that triumvirate of Southern racist boogeymen: George Wallace, Lester Maddox, and Jesse Helms. "Whoa," I say. "Don't lump Strom Thurmond in with Jesse Helms. Nobody's as bad as Jesse Helms. Not even Jesse Helms, if you know what I mean." Where some saw you as being representative of the worst of the South - a former racist demagogue shouting vicious, barbed-wire rhetoric, championing segregation and Jim Crow, stalling Civil Rights legislation by performing the longest filibuster in Senate history - I tried to take you in context. And with a man your age, that isn't easy! Witness and party to almost the entirety of the 20th century - America's great flowering - it's like the phrase "American Original" was coined to describe you. A health nut before it was fashionable to be one, you neither smoked nor drank, no mean feat in your beloved state of South Carolina, with its yellow-stained fingers, it's pack-a-day coughs, and its red-rimmed hangover eyes. But being a teetotaler and a devout Christian believer didn't make you a prude. Far from it. In remarking upon your legendary love of women, Senator John Tower once said of you: "When Strom Thurmond dies, they'll have to beat his pecker down with a baseball bat in order to close the coffin lid." As I write these words, that's a mystery the truth of which is known only to you, God, and your undertaker. But seeing as you once managed to sneak a back-seat quickie with Sue Logue - a woman inmate being driven to the prison where she was to be electrocuted for the murder of a business partner - I wouldn't doubt it about you. An honored, decorated combat veteran of World War II, who chose to serve when you could easily have stayed home. The longest-serving member of the Senate in the history of that august institution. Bullheaded and stubborn in your beliefs, yet ultimately proven capable of evolution, understanding and growth. A horny old man until the day you died. America will be a lot less complicated - and a little more boring - without you. Farewell, Senator Thurmond. You've earned the right to rest in peace. Sincerely, Yer old pal Jerky *** **** *** Y'all have probably heard about the recent Supreme Court decision declaring the Texas anti-sodomy law to be unconstitutional. Seeing as that particular piece of legislation outlawed oral and anal sex for gay people only, yer old pal Jerky thinks the Supes made the right call, here, Justice Scallia's fingernails-on-blackboard shriek of dissent notwithstanding. But it set yer old pal Jerky to thinking... That's why he wrote up this list of the... TOP TEN MOST QUESTIONABLE DECISIONS the SUPREME COURT HAS YET TO MAKE! "Our Top Ten goes to eleven." 11. Affirming the right to arm bears. 10. Making abortions illegal, except in cases where we know the baby's gonna come out fat, ugly or dumb as a rock. 9. Keeping pot illegal, but making crack cocaine available over the counter. 8. Legalizing the use of Dutch people as slave labor, and/or for use in painful scientific experiments. 7. Removing all government restrictions on firearm ownership, then making it a capital offense to buy, sell, trade or manufacture ammunition. 6. Expanding paternity and maternity leaves to cover people's pets, so you can take a three-month leave whenever your dog has puppies. 5. Bringing religion back to public schools by approving a law that forces every student to recite a mandatory morning prayer to Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young. 4. Allowing the federal government to set up fat camps where overweight citezens could be kept - against their will - until they reached their optimal weight as determined by their height and other variables. 3. Granting mall-cops the power to perform cavity-searches as per their own discretion. 2. Approving of Texas's plan to replace their current method of execution - lethal injection - with a far grislier, far more painful method: death by scrotal tork! 1. No more free speech. From now on, it's $1.99 per gallon! Send all Jokes, Letters and other stuff to Jerky: feedback@dailydirt.com

ON THESE DAYS! June 28 On this day in the year 1914, Austria's Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophia, are gunned down by a Serbian nationalist lunatic in the middle of a busy street in Sarajevo, thereby starting a little scrap the old-timers used to call World War One. On this day in 1975, at the Western Open, golfer Lee Trevino is hit by a bolt of lightning. I don't have a joke to go with this factoid, I just like picturing golfers getting hit by lightning. PEE-OW! Man, that must sting! On this day in 1820, brave colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson disproved the myth that tomatoes are poisonous by eating a crate of them on the courthouse steps in Salem, New Jersey. Today, the typical American consumes about 80 pounds of tomatoes per year, most of it in "sauce" form. June 29 On this day in 1955, Bill Haley and His Comets hit the top of the charts with the immortal Rock Around the Clock, which contains one of the most blistering guitar solos ever. Still a damn impressive tune, even after all this time and fluctuations in musical taste. When the sitcom Happy Days dropped Rock Around the Clock as their theme song and adopted the ridiculous, eponymous Happy Days ("Sunday, Monday, Happydays...") in its stead... that was a sad, sad day. On this day in 1967, hugely-endowed actress Jayne Mansfield is decapitated in a horrible car crash. Thankfully, her tits were unscathed, so Jayne's lucrative showbiz career was able to continue for a few more months. On this day in 1989, Susan Lucci loses the daytime Emmy for the tenth straight year. Chaos ensues. June 30 On this day in 1908, a gigantic, gaseous fireball slams into the Siberian tundra at Tunguska, leveling trees for thousands of square miles. Some folks claim the incident was actually a catastrophic UFO crash-landing, while others believe the explosion was caused by a small asteroid. As for yer old pal Jerky, he believes the devastation was caused by the accidental ignition of the world's biggest vodka still. On this day in 1974, in New York, petty thief Peter Leonard starts a fire in an unocupied store to cover up a burglary. That fire quickly spreads to Gulliver's, a nearby popular nightclub. Twenty-four people are incinerated in the resulting inferno. OOPS! The so-called Night of the Long Knives took place on this day in 1934. Himmler, Goering and Goebbels convince Hitler that he needs to get rid of Ernst Roehm, who controlled the 3 million-strong Sturm Abteilung brownshirt militia, without which Hitler probably would not have been able to seize power in Germany in the first place. Roughly 400 Nazi party members, including Roehm, are killed in the purge, which is only revealed to the German public half a month later. Geeze... almost kinda makes you feel sorry for them. Then again, they were all a buncha fuckin Nazis to begin with, so FUCK'em.

THEY SAID IT! "God told me to strike at Al Qaeda, and I struck them, and then God instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me, I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them." - Preznit Dubya spoke the above terrifying words to Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, according to the reputable, mainstream Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. Folks, this is serious. The man at the helm of the most powerful military empire in history is claiming to have been instructed by a supernatural being to start wars that have resulted in the deaths of thousands of people. Is this the Son of Sam administration or what?! *** *** *** "Religion is a thought disorder, and something from which one can get better, perhaps with the help of some pills." - Notorious polymath intellectual Jonathan Miller gives one helluvan interview to the Paris Review.

JOKES! Today's first joke was sent in by our old pal Puritan... A college student picked up his date at her parents' home. He'd scraped together every cent he had to take her to a fancy restaurant. To his dismay, she ordered almost everything expensive on the menu. Appetizers, lobster, champagne... the works. Finally he asked her, "Does your Mother feed you like this at home?" "No," she said, "but my Mother's not looking to fuck me." *** *** *** Thanks to our old pal Mick for sending in today's second joke. Mother Superior called all the nuns together and said: "I must tell you something. We have a case of Gonorrhea in the convent!" A blonde nun in the back said: "Thank God! I was getting so tired of White Zinfandel." WORST JOKE OF THE DAY Junior Johnston sent in this shitty joke. This man awoke and he found himself on top of a cloud. He pondered for a bit. Finally he came to the conclusion that he died and went to heaven. He walked around for a bit and then he ran into this beautiful naked blonde. He thought oh yes I must be in heaven. They had sex for what felt like hours. After he walked around again then ran into this gorgeous naked brunette. Same thing happened they had sex for a long time. Then he walked around for a bit longer ran into a very good-looking naked redhead, same thing happened. By this time he was so happy but there was a problem, he needed to take a dump so bad and he couldn't find a place to go. He thought for a bit and decided just to squat down and do his business right there on the cloud. He did. Then he was lost, there wasn't anything to wipe with. So what he did was just pluck a piece of cloud and proceeded to wipe his butt with it. All of a sudden he felt a huge punch right to his head.he opened his eyes to see what hit him.it was his wife and she yells, "What the hell is wrong with you, you fucked me three times, shit on the bed then wiped your ass with the sheets."

ASK JERKY! Relationship troubles? Philosophical quandaries? Nagging doubts about your spouse? Jerky knows the answer! Send your letter to the feedback address at the bottom of the page: Dear Jerky, I was an amateur stand-up comedian who relied mostly on shock-value for my material. Until one day in my regular "not on stage" personal life, I was introduced to a woman. I replied: "Hey, you look like that chick I wanna rape." I expected a disgusted look, or perhaps even a fiesty slap-to-the-face. Instead, the tone of her scream could only be described as the opposite of languid. It was then that I realized she was this chick I had raped the year before (it was date rape... it's not like I jumped out of the bushes or anything). I didn't recognize her face... she lost a lotta weight. No doubt a by-product of all the psychological damage I caused. Anyway Jerky, I just wanna tell you that my five minutes per-week of prison net access is dedicated entirely to your newsletter. Rock on Jerky... Rock on!!!! Signed: YOP Spido Dear Spido; Thanks for your kind words of support. I'm honored that - along with working out at the gym, trading homosexual favors for cigarettes, and trying to ignore the ever-present threat that a fellow inmate might stick a shiv in your neck just to watch you die - you would make the Daily Dirt a special part of your life behind bars. Oh! I almost forgot... my mom says she forgives you, and could you give her a call when you get out? *** **** *** Jerky, In the past I have enjoyed your articles, which did not relate to politics, but now that you have started to bash Bush, because you think it's trendy, count me out! I will never again read an article you write, nor will I trust anything which is sent to me from your website. You smell like a Democrat, you talk like a Democrat and by God you will be forced to live like a Democrat. God help your soul! OH! By the way, my Father has been a Free Mason for more years than you have walked this earth. I can understand just why a person like you could never understand why a person like my Dad has remained a Free Mason for all these years. He's eighty-one years old and is an accomplished poet, benefactor, and would never read the acidic filth which exudes from that thing which you eat from. Either you remove me from your list or I will delete anything which comes from you, or who ever sends out your dribble. Signed: FCYoung Dear FCY; Since I STARTED to bash Bush?! I've been consistently putting the rhetorical boots to that jackanape fraud since The Powers That Be started dropping hints they might actually be perverse enough to run him as their proxy candidate, back when he was still serving his first term as governor of Texas. I think you must have missed a few issues somewhere along the way, pal. Anyhoo, farewell and good riddance!

READER'S SOAPBOX! Got a gripe? Pet peeve? Have your say in the Daily Dirt! Columns can pretty much be about anything, as long they meet the following criteria: 1) don't write shit that'll get us in trouble. 2) Keep it interesting. 3) Keep it short. 4) We don't edit your mistakes. Oh yeah! feel free to send a picture of yourself if you want. TOPIC: YOUR NEWSLETTER SUCKS! Care of: Keith DeCesco Dear Mr LeBouef, I've been reading your rag for the past few years now, it fills that painful 3 minute void in my life in which I don't get any email from anyone else, and your old jokes and Hustler Beaver Hunt 1977-1983 reject pictures ocasionally pass off as entertainment; I am even remotely amused by your sterotypical American attitude towards Canadians, but I have to ask you about your latest asinine rant about Toronto: Are you really this ignorant?!? I realize that you seldom get out of the spare room of your mother's trailer long enough to understand that the US isn't the only country in the world with an ATM or running water and electricity, but surely at some point in your pathetic existence you must have come across some kind of information about Toronto on your computer. Judging (once again) by the zitty assed and hairy bushed pics you regenerate time in and time out you obviously don't do much surfing for porn, (unless you're afraid to admit the bulk of your porn collection is of young Swedish boys, but that's neither here nor there) you must have some knowledge on the size of Toronto, the fact that a large number of television shows and movies are filmed there as well. The Rolling Stones do several rehersals and recordings in Toronto, happily admitting how great the city is; Maxim Magazine declared Toronto the greatest city in North America several issues back. I could go on but given your short attention span and the fact that you are probably unemployed so your vacations probably don't allow you to venture out past the trailer park, what's the point? All you are doing is reinforcing the stereotpye that Americans are vastly uneducated about anything else other than reality TV shows, gun laws and who's who in Hollywood. Your moniker LeBouef or whatever the fuck it is is French and you seem to hate the French; ironic, or have you even noticed? Please, do yourself and your country a great service and read something other than the second amendment. You may actually learn something. I'm sure you've gotten several emails pointing out your stupidity, so I won't keep you from reading them. Heaven forbid you do anything else today, at least until you and your mom are settled in for the afternoon watching Oprah. Keith DeCesco PS ~ Happy 4th of July! [Yer old pal Jerky is having a hard time trying to figure out which part of your letter is the most amusing to him. Could it be your pathetically thin skin? The fact that you not only fell for Maxim Magazine's "best city in the world" prank, but that you also actually stored that information in your brain for future use when defending Toronto against insults? Your failed attempts to conceal a perfectly valid inferiority complex about the Big Grey Zero where you live by launching into a litany of shop-worn Canuck clichés, delivered in the above-it-all, "smiling rage" style of someone who is deeply offended, and who is simultaneously in denial about being deeply offended? Or maybe it's a rich melange of all these elements. All I know is... I'm not laughing WITH you, I'm laughing AT you! - Jerky]

Send all Jokes, Letters and other stuff to Jerky: feedback@dailydirt.com