I finally made the time to do it, and shelled out the sixty-seven dollars it costs to earn your freedom from America, even if temporarily. That's what it costs to get a passport if you have your passport but have let it expire. On the other hand if you don't have a passport at all, like the lady at the post office ahead of me, you have to make an appointment for another day, a couple of weeks away. And then you have to come back and pay a hundred bucks for return-of-the-Messiah delivery timeframe, or two-hundred bucks for faster-than-pony-express delivery service.
Give or take.
As I drove away from the post office, with Jenna's form in hand (yes, your kids now need passports to leave with you), I was thinking that I could let go of this place. I could leave this country that seems to be getting sicker by the day. That if in a year from now, our duly elected officials resemble the current configuration, I would have to go. Who could stay?
But since America has the monopoly on teh internets, everything will probably be okay. After all, we're not THAT far gone over here. Right? That is unless you read the latest
Zogby poll on U.S.ians attitudes re: the net.
Marshall Kirkpatrick breaks it down for us, calling U.S. attitudes "insane":
To summarize: an alarming percentage of respondents are open to brain implants that allow them to access the internet with their minds and that allow their children's locations to be tracked, they think government censorship of online video content is acceptable, the internet makes them feel closer to God and less close their significant others - but their own identities on the internet are not very important to them. This is frightening stuff.
I'll say. And don't forget the 92% who believe that aspiring gang members will fire weapons at their cars if they flash their headlights.
Isn't it great to be a superpower?
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