In a few months my ten-year with my current passport will end and I am forced by decree to obtain a new one, whether I like "it" or not. That raises an irritating issue: the newish U.S. over-the-top nationalistic passport that will be forced upon me. "What’s in the Australian passport? There are wombats, dingoes, koalas, emus, and kangaroos, but they don’t say a word." that's the final line from the Slate.com article on one of my pet peeves THE RIDICULOUS U.S. PASSPORT. Like the author I'm proud to be American and very patriotic in a Thoreauvian way, but cling to my old subtle-paged passport with its few blank remaining pages as a symbol of democracy with discretion, intelligence and compassion - like the majority of the tiny percentage of Americans who actually have a passport and use it. On the other hand, perhaps the new one is more accurate, the passport of paranoia and posturing - and all things I travel to get away from.
And by the way... what ever happened to all those yellow, orange and red alert colors the Bush Administration came up with to remind us of how paranoid we should be traveling beyond our front steps?
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