Dear Puffin

So the State Dept. is considering a new protocol for people applying for passports and, well, I’m stunned and part of me remains convinced that this is an elaborate hoax. You can see the new Biographical Questionnaire here in PDF format, but I am also attaching screenshots because this is frankly so bizarre that it might just evaporate in a puff of insanity at any moment. Or, which is less likely, the State Dept might come to their senses and try to hide this under the governmental carpet, which is capacious, but getting quite crowded.

My personal favorite questions include the following, from the section for people whose birth was not recorded within a year or who were not born in a US medical facility. (I don’t know how many people that might be, but I assume quite a few, especially older folks. And, you know, anyone who deviated even slightly from the stereotype birth plan. Like a home birth, or, hmmm, going into labor unexpectedly? Does that count?) Anyway, these are the questions you might be asked to fill out, if you want a passport:

Did your mother receive pre-natal or post-natal medical care?: Ok….

Name of Doctor: Well that might be difficult to track down but I’m pretty sure I could. My mother, on the other hand, probably has no idea who her mother’s obstetrician was. It was, like, 55 years ago.

Dates of appointments: SERIOUSLY? How anal retentive would you have to be to keep records of the dates of your prenatal appointments? Or conversely, how traumatic would they have to have been for them to be so memorable? And also, guys, I wasn’t there. I was freaking in utero for my mother’s prenatal care. Hence the term prenatal. Was I keeping a diary of her prenatal appointments while I was still in the womb? No, I’m sorry, I was not. Silly of me, I know.

Please describe the circumstances of your birth including the names (as well as address and phone number, if available) of persons present or in attendance at your birth: …………………..

……I…what?……….

…….but………I don’t………

…….pfft…..hehehe……ahahahahaha…..

LOL

Um, how shall I put this, I don’t really have a clear memory of my own birth. And I was not collecting names and contact info from the other people present. I was busy. BEING BORN. I also didn’t pass out party favors or commemorative gift baskets, and I didn’t make a scrapbook page. Martha Stewart has literally been disappointed with me since birth. I mean you’d think I spent all 9 months just developing organs and stuff. That was 9 months wasted. I could have crocheted doilies for the entire nursing staff of whatever hospital I wasn’t born in.

Anyway Puffin, the page snaps are behind the cut. Click to embiggen or go here to see the whole thing in a PDF.

On a more serious note, this strikes me as a twisted version of the birther obsession with the intimacies of the delivery room. Could Obama actually fill this form out? No of course not, no normal person ever could. There is also, of course, potential for abuse here, even for people who were born in hospitals in the normal way. When they are asking for every address you have ever lived in and every employer you haveever had, the chances of being able to complete the form in the best of cases is low. And that effectively gives some beaurocrat in DC the ability to deny you a passport for other reasons and use the guaranteed 3 errors on this form as an excuse. This just seems rife with potential for abuse.

What a weird start to the week Puffin!

Love
MacGuffin (who has no idea who may or may not have been present at her birth)

On a more serious note, this strikes me as a twisted version of the birther obsession with the intimacies of the delivery room. Could Obama actually fill this form out? No of course not, no normal person ever could. There is also, of course, potential for abuse here, even for people who were born in hospitals in the normal way. When they are asking for every address you have ever lived in and every employer you have ever had, the chances of being able to complete the form in the best of cases is low. And that effectively gives some beaurocrat in DC the ability to deny you a passport for other reasons and use the guaranteed 3 errors on this form as an excuse. This just seems rife with potential for abuse.

What a weird start to the week Puffin!

Love
MacGuffin (who has no idea who may or may not have been present at her birth)

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