LJ Maintenance

Before vacation, for reasons I will not get into here, I wiped all the personal info and all userpics which showed my face. Took some time this afternoon to put stuff back again, and also took a couple of people off my FL who had taken me off theirs. There are still a lot of people on my FL who have not "friended" me back, but they are people whose locked posts are really none of my business.

If we have met, and you are not on my FL and want to be, comment here and remind me how I know you (I have a horrible memory for names) and maybe I'll add you.

New Passport

My passport book arrived today, the passport card and old passport will come under separate mailings, according to the blurb in the envelope. The new electronic passport is a work of art. I wish I could scan the pages in to show you. Every pair of pages has a famous American quote, and a picture which matches the quote. It has a harder cover than before, probably to protect the e-chip. The binding is sewn with thread, the art work appears to be photo-engraved. Very classy.

I almost cried at the last page. It's an artist's rendition of a satellite approaching, with the earth below and the moon in the foreground. The quote on the opposite page is
"Every generation has the obligation to free men's minds for a look at new worlds...to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation." - Ellison S. Onizuka 
Onizuka is one of the astronauts who died aboard the Challenger.

Some of the other quotes:

"The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class - it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity." - Anna Julia Cooper

"We send thanks to all the Animal life in the world. They have many things to teach us as people. We are glad they are still here, and we hope it will always be so. - Excerpt from the Thanksgiving Address, Mohawk version.

Pages 22-23 have a picture of a steam locomotive coming off a trestle, and the quote "May God continue the unity of our country as the railroad unites the two great oceans of the world" - Inscribed on the Golden Spike, Promontory Point, 1869

"What America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

"We have a great dream. It started back in 1776, and God grant that America will be true to her dream."  -Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair." - George Washington

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty." - John F. Kennedy