What I’d like to do is look at a modern one (maybe something from Readers Digest) and an old one side by side and see if we can detect what in our current batch of biases and social norms will seem incongruous or just plain ugly to future generations.

And I didn’t feel particularly called out, just continuing the thoughts I had while responding to queuno. We laugh at these jokes as intended, but we also get into some serious conversation, don’t we?

I totally read Johnnie as the father of the child, not the older brother, but I see now that you’re right. The diminutive indicates he’s a child. My perception was probably influenced by my southern culture in which adults often retain nicknames, e.g. Jimmy Carter.

I loved “Going it Blind”.

About “Underestimated” – On my mission in Japan one day, my companion and I were riding the subway, standing next to three high school girls. My companion looked a lot like Christopher Reeve. The girls were chattering about how beautiful he was and how they wished someone like he would marry them. This lasted for at least a couple of minutes.

When we got close to our stop, my companion turned to them, bowed slightly, smiled and thanked them in Japanese for their compliments. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone blush that deeply.

The humor comes from the juxtaposition of “rubber tree” and “gutta percha” combined with the Italian accent making a pun between “gutta percha” and “he’s got a perch.”

The football one, I think, isn’t sexist at all, except insofar as it involves a man noticing beautiful female body parts (whether he thinks she has nice legs, or is suggesting that she ought to play football in order to improve the poor ones she has, I don’t know.) The alligator slippers one gets its humor from the speaker reading the letter literally and seeing something that is undeniably but unintentionally there. A child who is teased for wanting a baby of the same sex isn’t the same as a couple preferring one sex over the other — that’s normal childish longing, not guilty sexism.

I thought the s-m-a-r-t one was really quite positive — the joke would work for any child, including boys, by having the rude visitors spell some comment about b-i-g e-a-r-s or f-r-e-c-k-l-e-s or whatever. The child, whether boy or girl, triumphs over the rude adults. Hurray!

Yes, I have posted a lot of jokes that are slams against women, and some against men, and I apologize if I’ve made choices in particular cases that offend. But humor does depend on disparity — a winner/loser, a joker/straightman, unexpected misinterpretations. I don’t think, though, that I’ve ever put up anything that was plainly mean-spirited. I hope not.