No Passing for Canadian Now!

[3113]

I just got a new passport. YIKES! I mean, what do you think when you think "Passport"? There's a picture of you, info, and blank pages to be stamped when you cross the boarders into different nations, right?

HA! Not if you're an American Citizen, friends! You get, on the inside flap, an illustration of Francis Scott Key looking out at the tattered flag and a quote from the Star Spangled Banner. Right after your picture, you get the opening phrases from the Declaration of Independence. On each and every empty page that's gonna get stamped you get a washed out photo-image reminding you of the history of the U.S.: The liberty bell, Mt. Rushmore, the Mississippi river (complete with riverboat, but not happy slaves), a farmer plowing his field with oxen, a cowboy wrangling a bull, the statue of liberty, the railroad (no happy Chinese laborers).

And at the top of each of these pages, quotes from presidents: Eisenhower, Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, the quote on the golden spike, a phrase said by the Mohawk during the first Thanksgiving. Backflap: a picture of a satellite between the Earth and the Moon!

Can you say "over-compensate"? I knew you could. Am I supposed to fill every person who looks at my passport with envy that they are not an American Citizen? Entertain the custom folk with these pretty pictures of my native land...or am I supposed to remember, each time I look at my passport and where I've been, that there's no place like home?

I'm not offended--I find it pretty humorous for them to go this overboard and nationalistic, and maybe it was just done to keep the passports unique and because the passport people were bored and wanted to be artsy. Hey, maybe other countries are doing the same. I dunno. It's just going to make it hard for me to say, "Er...why no. I'm Canadian!"

 

[voluptuary_manque]

It's just going to make it hard for me to say, "Er...why no. I'm Canadian!"

It wouldn't work, anyhow. You would have to say "No, I'm Canadian, eh?"

 

[rgraham666]

I'll be needing my passport in about forty hours. It's a nice, simple document.

Seriously. The U.S. is showing all the signs of a severe inferiority complex these days.

 

[glynndah]

You're lucky. I hear the next edition has a sound chip that plays "God Bless the USA" when you open it.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I'll be needing my passport in about forty hours. It's a nice, simple document.

Seriously. The U.S. is showing all the signs of a severe inferiority complex these days.

Nah, just the one's who live in Washington, D.C. Of course, they have every reason to do so.

 

[3113]

You're lucky. I hear the next edition has a sound chip that plays "God Bless the USA" when you open it.

With full, Kate Smith vocals

My passport also informs me that it has "delicate electronics"! It's wired up and the government is listening in.

 

[oggbashan]

I used to have a passport issued by the Governor of Gibraltar.

Where most British Passports had a polite message asking foreign countries to allow the holder to enter, the Gibraltar one was more direct implying "Leave this person alone or else!"

It was questioned when I entered Yugoslavia in 1962. "Who is the Governor of Gibraltar? Where is Gibraltar? What could the Governor of Gibraltar do if I said you couldn't enter?" He asked these questions as if amused.

In my diary's atlas I showed the border official where Gibraltar was - underlined in red and marked "UK Colony". I suggested that although I was a nonentity and no action would be likely to support me, IF the Governor of Gibraltar was seriously incensed with the sovereign country of Yugoslavia he could stop Yugoslav ships entering or leaving the Mediterrean.

"How? And with what?"

"With the guns of Gibraltar or the British Navy and/or Air Force."

"What guns?"

I thought I might be getting close to revealing genuine military secrets so I just said "Big guns".

"How big? My border guards have guns." He pointed at the ancient Russian Moisin-Nagants they carried.

I replied "Those are 9mm. The guns of Gibraltar are 300mm." Actually they aren't. Even now I don't feel comfortable saying exactly what guns Gibraltar had even if the Rock shook every Wednesday afternoon when they practised.

I was allowed to enter Yugoslavia.

"We don't want to upset the Governor of Gibraltar, do we?"

I think a carton of Senior Service cigarettes may have had more influence on the decision.

Og

 

[jomar]

Now I'm embarrassed. I don't want to go anywhere.

 

[3113]

Now I'm kinda stuck with this vision....

I'm going to visit some country...maybe I'm gonna visit Liar in his godless, socialist country or something like that...My new passport is being examined. The godless, socialist guy frowns as he flips through it...he reads the words from the Star-Spangled Banner, and the opening phrases of the Declaration of Independence. He sees all those quotes and inspiring pictures of the U.S. of A and he says....

"You make me envious of your god-fearing capitalist country, American. This is not allowed in our country."
"I make no apologies for my passport," I say boldly, "nor the great truths of my great country that it communicates to others!"
"I'm still going to have to have you killed," he murmurs regretfully.
"Ha!" I say, "That's what you think! My passport has delicate wiring!"
At that moment, U.S. paratroopers come dropping in!
"We were listening, Ma'am, and heard that you were in trouble. We're here to save you--and, while we're at it, engage in a bloody coup that will transform this country into a true, American style democracy!"

Whadda think? Too over the top?

I suppose this means Liar isn't going to invite me to visit him?

 

[oggbashan]

Our airport entry procedures are nearly as grim as yours.

Once past immigration you'll find that US citizens are not expected to conform except please look the wrong way when crossing a street.

The only US Marines who have visited us have been welcomed. We've even forgiven you for John Paul Jones who wanted to burn a town but forgot that matches don't light in pouring English rain. (We did burn the White House - Oops, sorry!)

This country has an established church but we don't insist that you join it. Even if you do, you'll find that they tolerate almost any eccentricity.

We also have tolerance for other faiths, even irrational belief in unfettered Free Trade.

Og

 

[kendo1]

...a phrase said by the Mohawk during the first Thanksgiving.

Happy, happy Turkey Day,
Let's all eat the American way...

I watched Adam's Family Values yesterday.

 

[Liar]

I suppose this means Liar isn't going to invite me to visit him?

We'll have to rendezvous on international waters. I hear the sargasso sea is buoyant this time of year.

 

[3113]

We'll have to rendezvous on international waters. I hear the sargasso sea is buoyant this time of year.

godless socialist! See if we invade your country and do you any favors.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Was it the Mohawks at the first Thanksgiving? I thought they wre part of the Iroquois Confedersation, in what later became New York.

 

[Luke's Angel]

Was it the Mohawks at the first Thanksgiving? I thought they wre part of the Iroquois Confedersation, in what later became New York.

I doubt they were Mohawks or history would have been very different. Probably like you said a member tribe of the Iroquois Federation.

P.S.

The Mashpee Wampanoags seem to be the tribe that was present at the first Thanksgiving. Though there seem to have been other tribes represented in the history of that time as well.

 

[oggbashan]

There's a column in today's The Times close to this subject. It suggests that the US goes in for the flag-waving, Declaration of Independence quoting etc. because it is a young country still unsure of itself.

We English on the other hand do not need such things. We invented freedom with Magna Carta (and before that with insistence on retaining our traditional laws and customs even when William the Conqueror arrived). We don't need to make declarations or wave flags. We know we're the best.

After all, God speaks to us in Shakespearean English through the King James Version. God wouldn't sound right in any other language.

Og

 

[Boxlicker101]

There's a column in today's The Times close to this subject. It suggests that the US goes in for the flag-waving, Declaration of Independence quoting etc. because it is a young country still unsure of itself.

We English on the other hand do not need such things. We invented freedom with Magna Carta (and before that with insistence on retaining our traditional laws and customs even when William the Conqueror arrived). We don't need to make declarations or wave flags. We know we're the best.

After all, God speaks to us in Shakespearean English through the King James Version. God wouldn't sound right in any other language.

Og

Hey, Og, I thought Athens was the first democracy - about fourteen hundred years before the Magna Carta.

 

[oggbashan]

Hey, Og, I thought Athens was the first democracy - about fourteen hundred years before the Magna Carta.

It was. But it was a slave-owning democracy.

My last post didn't mention democracy but freedom. From Magna Carta we established the principle that our rulers govern with our consent.

We had a Civil War and executed a King by due process (even if some argued its legality) to emphasise that government could not be arbitrary.

King George III and his supporters tried to govern our American Colonies by arbitrary process and we all know what happened there.

Og

 

[Weird Harold]

Hey, Og, I thought Athens was the first democracy - about fourteen hundred years before the Magna Carta.

That was just the small scale, proof of concept, trial. It failed miserably, IIRC and had to be tinkered with before it took hold in England.

 

[3113]

The Mashpee Wampanoags seem to be the tribe that was present at the first Thanksgiving. Though there seem to have been other tribes represented in the history of that time as well.

My bad (I think). The quote is about thanking all the animals, who have many things to teach us and hoping that they'll always be in the world. It's called "Thanksgiving Address Mohawk version."

Meaning, I presume, a general prayer of Thanksgiving, not anything that was necessarily said at the first Thanksgiving. But leave it to the passport to make that totally unclear. Nice picture of a bear and a totem pole in that one.

 

[rgraham666]

Nice picture of a bear and a totem pole in that one.

And shortly a passport will be the only place you will see either of those things.

 

[cloudy]

Nice picture of a bear and a totem pole in that one.

Which is absolutely hilarious - the peoples that constructed totem poles lived in the Pacific Northwest, not anywhere close to where the first Thanksgiving was held.



(way to look really stupid, passport folks)

 

[Boxlicker101]

It was. But it was a slave-owning democracy.

My last post didn't mention democracy but freedom. From Magna Carta we established the principle that our rulers govern with our consent.

We had a Civil War and executed a King by due process (even if some argued its legality) to emphasise that government could not be arbitrary.

King George III and his supporters tried to govern our American Colonies by arbitrary process and we all know what happened there.

Og

True, but so was England at the time of the Magna Carta. There were technical differences between chattel slavery and serfdom practiced in Europe back then, but the lords had the power of life a death over their serfs.

Although a step in the right direction, the Magna Carta just transferred some authority to nobles and did nothing much for the common folk. From what I have read about English history, the king who was executed just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Cromwell, his successor was also overthrown and put to death, deservedy so. There has never been a US president who was executed. Aaron Burr, a former VP, probably would have been hanged for murder if he had not been able to escape.

 

[3113]

Which is absolutely hilarious - the peoples that constructed totem poles lived in the Pacific Northwest, not anywhere close to where the first Thanksgiving was held.



(way to look really stupid, passport folks)

Well, the picture looks like the Pacific Northwest (rivers, pine trees and all), which I suppose is better than a bunch of teepees, and I *think* the passport folk didn't mean "Thanksgiving" as in the holiday but they used the term "Thanksgiving address" which brings to mind the holiday and it's history (also "Mohawk" version which brings to mind "Last of the Mohicans").

In short, they may be factually correct and their intentions good, but in a passport for dumb Americans and those stamping said books in other lands.... Talk about a Comedy of Misunderstandings.

 

[oggbashan]

True, but so was England at the time of the Magna Carta. There were technical differences between chattel slavery and serfdom practiced in Europe back then, but the lords had the power of life a death over their serfs.

Although a step in the right direction, the Magna Carta just transferred some authority to nobles and did nothing much for the common folk. From what I have read about English history, the king who was executed just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Cromwell, his successor was also overthrown and put to death, deservedy so. There has never been a US president who was executed. Aaron Burr, a former VP, probably would have been hanged for murder if he had not been able to escape.

Oops. The lords had the power of life and death IF the villein had committed an offence and was proven in a court of law (probably the lord's court) to have done it. Magna Carta stated "To no man will we deny justice". A villein was not a slave and the Black Death and the wars against France changed the status of agricultural labourers for ever.

Oops again. Oliver Cromwell died a natural death as Lord Protector of England. He was executed posthumously after the Restoration but between his death and then there were two other Protectors - his incompetent son Richard and General Monck who invited the King back. Cromwell and Monck were NOT "overthrown".

Og