This Thursday (April 14th) if you happen to be in Chicago, consider Glenn Back’s appearance at the Chicago Theatre. Tickets are still available at a variety of prices, from $33 to $170. How do I know he’ll be there? I just walked by the theater marquis Saturday afternoon and saw Beck’s name in 18-inch letters. Much as I hate to admit it, Beck and I are both performers, so there’s part of me that would like to watch him in action.

I.D.

I almost didn’t make it to Chicago for the third-year architecture field trip.

Last Thursday morning I went to the bank to make a regular payment and decided to stop on the way out to check the available balance on my debit card–oh so foolishly leaving my card behind in the ATM. Of course I didn’t realize this until about 6:30 that evening, when it was far too late to retrieve the card and there was no possibility of replacement. That card was the only way I could have financed the trip. Luckily, I had just received my new passport in Thursday’s mail. So as soon as I got to Chicago, I found a U.S. Bank branch near our hotel and got a cash advance to carry me through the weekend. Here’s the irony: I was enabled to learn about Glenn Beck’s performance only because I had an I.D. (my new passport) obtained through presentation of a birth certificate.

Two weeks earlier I had filed my application for a new passport at the Fargo post office: a simple two-page form and a copy of my birth certificate. That certified document had been ordered one week earlier from an on-line provider. Because we’re taking a group of students to Brazil and Argentina at the end of May, the new passport was necessary a.s.a.p. for visa applications.

The state departments of three nations are each willing to accept a certified statement of my birth (i.e., birth certificate) in Cook County, Illinois, sixty-six years ago—without seeing the original document—in order 1) to issue a new passport acceptable for international travel (and convenient for domestic flights) and 2) to apply for that Brazilian visa. If there is a weak link in this chain of events, it has to be the certified statement of birth. The U.S.A., Brazil and Argentina accept this as confirmation of my nativity and citizenship, yet Birthers presumably will not. Good thing (for several reasons) I’m not running for public office. [Hold your applause on that news.] But why is this insufficient documentation for a large percentage of the Republican Party?

It’s a good bet there will be more than a busload of Birthers in the Beck audience Thursday night. But much as I might like to observe his performance, there is also NO way I’d contribute 33 cents to the Beck coffers, let alone real dollars. And much as it may put my grundies in a bundle, I know that a carpool of those wingnuts will drive over from Agincourt.

I’m just sayin’.