Bureaucracy

Can I tell you how stupid the Department of State is? Very stupid. I now know one place where tax money is completely wasted.

Last weekend, L. and I went to the post office to send in our applications for new passports. We had each filled out the forms, and they list on the form that it's good through August of this year. So, we completed the listed steps on the form: provided the required documentation, existing passports, and a check for $67 fee. We even provided our email addresses on the forms, which they list as optional but a way to contact you if there is a problem with your application. Good enough.

Today I came home and saw a large envelope in the mail from the passport office. Seemed odd, since I just sent my application off on Saturday. I opened it up and all of my stuff was in there with a letter saying that the passport fee had been increased.

Uhhhh. OK. So, they send back everything? What the fuck? How much wasted money is going into this kind of stupidness? Email me and let me know that I'm $8 short and I'll send the difference. That's free. Or send just a letter to let me know. That's 41 cents. But pay to ship everything back to me? Completely dumb. Sometimes I just shake my head and wonder what has happened to this country. Makes me ashamed to be American sometimes.

Speaking of which, on a side rant, I hope to the high heavens that this next election changes things. I know it's not going to be some radical change. The Republicans have run this country into the ground far enough that it's going to be awhile before we recover. It took Bill Clinton two terms to help us recover from the first round of Republican rule. This will take a lot longer, I fear. But, to those who voted for Bush, I can definitely say: I told you so. Too bad we didn't just leave well enough alone when the South seceded from the Union. All those fundamentalist Christian goons and neo-conservative, non-thinking, easily-lead sheep could have had their own little hole-in-the-ground country and left the rest of us to have an actual separation of church and state. I guess it's easy to pull the wool over their eyes when you take away education, tell them to have blind faith, and punish them for ever thinking on their own or asking questions. Like Chris Rock said recently, Bush has made it hard for a white man to become president in this country. God I hope so. McCain should be called "McSame".