Passport Postponement

For those of you who live in states bordering Canada or Mexico, or perhaps you just want to cruise to the Caribbean or Bermuda, the State Department is finally making it easier - and cheaper - for you to carry citizenship passport papers.

On February 1, you can officially begin to apply for a passport "card," which is about the size of your driver's license and fits easily into your wallet. It will cost only $45 (which includes the Postal Service's processing fee), and if you already have a passport, it will only cost $20, obtainable via the mails.

The Postal Service is also lowering its execution fee for all passport processing to $25, down from $30.

The card will never be good for flying anywhere, but it will be acceptable for land and water crossings. And though you can apply for one just ten days from now, it won't actually be issued for several months. None of the cards have been created yet. General Dynamics I.T. in Virginia was awarded the contract and it will take them a bit to build the technology embedded into the card and produce the final product.

The details about the card are here.

+++

THE REAL REASONS IT TOOK SO LONG TO GET YOUR PASSPORT

The State Department was involved in the effort to stop Jason Bourne.

They needed to white out all the fine print that read "Made in China."

It took time to make the holographic background extra sparkly.

You have any idea how long it takes to think up a string of random meaningless numbers?

We had to photoshop a turban on each picture to see if we got a match against the Known Terrorist List.

There's a minimum two-week drying period once it's been sprayed with "new passport" smell.

We needed to verify that the photo in your passport is actually more wretched than the one on your license.

The extra help we hired came from FEMA.

[selected from Chris White's Little Fivers on Travel]

+++

WORDS for YOUR WEEK: "The time to enjoy a European trip is about three weeks after unpacking." (George Ade)

+++

The State Department is actually back up to speed on processing times: four to six weeks instead of two to three months.

+++

Hey, you can get your own subscription without ever leaving the comfort of your home by clicking here.