Where's the dignity?

I just got my new passport - my first since 2000.  As happy as I am to have a new passport, and to be able to travel, all I can say is: the design is really embarrassing.

The outside, at least, still looks (more or less) the same. But inside is a kitchy klown kar of Americana: flags and eagles, monuments and pseudo-inspiring quotations reflecting a diversity so agonizingly precise that you know the selection process took months and dozens of meetings to finalize.  It's like a patriotic checkbook on steroids.

I liked my old passport.  Simple, plain, down to business.  Not a scrapbook.  Not a brochure.  Not an advertisement.  It was where stamps and visas went.  Now I find it hard to believe that stamps and visas will even be visible against all the background clutter.

Is this supposed to remind us as we venture abroad, how totally awesome the USA is?  Is it supposed to inspire us to live up to our true and exceptional American selves?  Are we supposed to whip it out at our next overseas dinner party, to dazzle foreign friends with our wicked cool bison and eagles?

 

The mind boggles.

Comments

[Mark Case]

"Oh, could you not stamp over the Eagle's face?"

[Joy]

I think his mighty eye will burn right through.

[Jayson Truttmann]

Great for 2nd grade art class on "Collage of America"