I'm spending a couple of weeks proving I'm not a terrorist, an illegal alien, a non-citizen with dastardly plans of some sort. (That's where the paranoid part comes into play.) I need a copy of my Birth Certificate in order to get a passport so I can, what?.........go to Canada, a known enemy of the USofA? Take a cruise into dangerous international waters, clogged with rafts loaded with mad furriners desperate to get into this soul-sucking bastard of a fascist paradise?
WTF? WTFF? I'm 60 years old. My foremothers and fathers emigrated here legally at the turn of the 20th Century. I was born in Minneapolis, in a hospital that still stands, to legally married citizens who are both veterans of WWII. And I can't get a Birth Certificate without paying $6.00 to some outsource company that takes my order online and forwards it to Hennepin County, which collects $22.00 to do what? Go into the basement and dig through paper files from 1949 because it's not really the 21st Century.
$6.00 seems a small amount until you realize that every person who wants a document from the county is paying it. And then you realize that the county could damn well man the website and not put one more layer of bullshit into the mix, one more place where the information can be lost or forgotten or whatever the fuck they do with it when it somehow hasn't arrived in the place it must arrive.
AND, once I fill out the form I have to take another form to a notary, a form with exactly the same information on it, and the notary signs and stamps the form, and I fax it into the ether where it does what? Mates with the internet form and has a Birth Certificate baby? Which I then have to pay UPS $9.98 to ship to me. 1 piece of fucking paper costs $9.98 to ship across country the short way? And if I don't want to pay the $9.98 I can opt for using the USPS, but that will take 10-12 days. My best friend sends me stuff all the time via USPS and it rarely takes more than 2 days to get here. I order parrot food and toys from Minnesota and pay $8.99 for 11 pounds of stuff, which takes 3 days to get here by USPS. WTF?
So if they don't get this shit to me, which they will "expedite" for a mere additional $20.00, on top of the $22.00 they pay to Bob Cratchitt for going into the basement and finding a piece of paper, on top of the $6.00 I pay to a company that is probably owned by a close personal friend of Gov. Pawlenty, who, like all Republicans, outsources as many government functions as possible to companies owned by their close personal friends. If they don't get this to me before the 17th of January I can't get on the cruise ship to take a cruise I've already paid for because I might be a terrorist, or an illegal alien, or someone who is going to do something, both undefined, that will bring Amurcca to it's knees?
Of course, with Republicans and Glenn Beck in charge, Amurrca WILL be brought to it's knees, because there's nothing like fear to make sure more fascists are elected to higher office.
I spent 2 hours today on hold, listening to some sappy female voice telling me how important my fucking phone call is. I actually screamed at her once - "If my call is so fucking important to you, ANSWER THE GODDAMN PHONE!" I'm insane. I've been driven insane by Lou Dobbs' hate rants against illegal aliens, and Dick Cheney's terror that he'll be blamed for fucking up on the 9/11 attacks, blame he well deserves. I'm going insane because Amurrca Amurrca uber alles needs to protect the Homeland from terrorist attacks that we were too blind, complacent and self-centered to realize were happening all over the world, and can't be prevented until and unless every person who has ever expressed anger toward the US for, I don't know, putting a fascist into power and having all the intellectuals, students, journalist, and artists brutally murdered?, is lined up against a wall and shot. WTF? HOMELAND Security? Could you choose a more Nazi name?
I'm so tired of living in a country that allows the residents of glennbeckistan to actually speak, out loud, on television. I'm so tired of living in a country where one entire political party gets it's lifeblood from creating fear, from creating and feeding paranoia, from trying to return this country to a 1950's that never really existed, but is remembered as a paradise for WASP types by old white guys who think women, Jews, blacks and gays are uppity and threatening. These old, overfed, bespoke-suited white guys know they're an endangered species, NOT because of outside groups but because they have nothing of value to offer in the 21st Century.
Please do not point out the fallacies in my logic or arguments until I've been restored to sanity. I'm meaner than a junkyard dog right now.