new passport

[redbird]

I have received my new passport. This is basically a good thing, and they were quite efficient, but someone's idea of anti-counterfeiting measures involves meant-to-be-iconic drawings, and more-or-less-inspirational quotes, on every one of the visa pages. With explicit invocation of god in one of them; I'm not sure that's adequately counterbalanced by the knowledge that people who richly deserve annoying will in fact be annoyed by the quotes from Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. In case anyone was wondering, the key issues the State Department wants to alert me to are international parental child abduction [sic], international adoption, and pandemic influenza.

The photo I sent in looks worse for the wavy lines they put over it (presumably to make it harder for a hypothetical thief to change the image).

More Wiscon posts, and maybe even some book posts, will follow soon, I hope.

Comments

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

[seen via friendsfriends]

I'm reasonably certain that "international parental child abduction" is accurate, and refers to cases in which one parent removes a child across national borders from the custody of the other. There have been several such cases that were fairly thoroughly in the news, and I strongly suspect that there were others, not as well publicized.

[redbird]

I'm sure it's accurate; it just seems like a case where stacking nouns like that is not the clearest way to express a concept. Yes, English grammar supports it; it's still awkward. (Also, welcome.)

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

As one who works for the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Accelerator Division Environment, Safety, and Health Department, I don't think that's a very tall stack of nouns.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

You will be interested to read my remarks on U.S. passport art (http://beamjockey.livejournal.com/66849.html).