Henry Cate's Life Humor 1.9

From the Henry Cate Life Humor collection:

----------

        LACK OF PLANNING ON YOUR PART
 DOESN'T CONSTITUTE AN EMERGENCY
 ON MY PART.

----------

   WITH MALICE TOWARD SUMS
Two score and some years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this nation a new tax, conceived in desperation and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equally fair game.
Now we are engaged in a great mass of calculations, testing whether this taxpayer any taxpayer so confused and so impoverished can long endure.
We are met on Form 1040.  We have come to dedicate a large portion of our income to a final resting place with those men who here spend their lives that they may spend our money.
It is altogether anguish and torture that we should do this, but in a legal sense we cannot evade; we cannot cheat; we cannot underestimate this tax.  The collectors, clever and sly who compute here, have gone far beyond our poor power to add or subtract.
Our creditors will little note nor long remember what we paid here, but the Internal Revenue Service can never forget what we report here.
It is for us taxpayers rather to be devoted here to the tax which the government has thus far so nobly spent.  It is from these vanquished dollars that we take increased devotion to the few remaining; that we here highly resolve that next year shall not find us in a higher income bracket; that this taxpayer, underpaid, shall figure out more deductions, and that taxation of the people, by the Congress, and for the government, shall not cause our solvency to perish from the earth.

----------

Subject: Oxymorons from a contest in OMNI Magazine:
We are not anticipating any emergencies.
It's not an optical illusion.  It just looks like one.
"This report is filled with omissions."
No one goes to that restaurant anymore--it's always to crowded.
"This paper fills a much-needed gap in the theory."
By definition, one divided by zero is undefined.

----------

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.
 -- Hubert Humphrey

----------

Newspaper editors are men who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then print the chaff.
 -- Adlai Stevenson

----------

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.
 -- Barry Goldwater

----------

Subject: On following the proper procedures ...
    Hildago was later defeated at Guadalajara. The rebel army  was captured on is way through the mountains. All were  court-martialed and shot, except Hildago, because he was a  priest. He was handed over to the bishop of Durango who  excommunicated him and returned him to the army where he  was then executed.

----------

Excerpt from a description of a visit by the New Yorker editors to a circus act on Coney Island:
"Hey, how 'bout you stand over there against that wall while I throw knives all around you?", he asked.
"No," we replied.
"That's what everybody says," he sighed sadly, walking away.

----------

 The following is from a sheet printed by Baldy Sayings, 901 Arendell Street, Morehead City, NC 28557. EXAMPLES OF UNCLEAR WRITING, SENTENCES TAKEN FROM ACTUAL LETTERS RECEIVED BY A LOCAL WELFARE DEPARTMENT TO APPLICATIONS FOR SUPPORT...
I am forwarding my marriage certificate and six children.  I have seven, but one which was baptized on a half sheet of paper.
I am glad to report that my husband who was missing is dead.
This is my ninth child.  What are you going to do about it?
Please find for certain if my husband is dead.  The man I am now living with can't eat or do anything until he knows for sure.
In answer to your letter, I have given birth to a boy weighing ten pounds.  I hope this is satisfactory.
In accordance with your instructions, I have given birth to twins in the enclosed envelope.