Friday, February 27, 2015
You know what would be nice? I'd like it if the US changed its currency to honor persons other than Presidents. Of course, not all of our dough has Presidents on it-- Benjamin Franklin's there, and I'd keep him, so not every rap song would have to be updated. Alexander Hamilton? Yeah, Alex can stay. Salmon P. Chase, on the other hand, seems undeserving of the honor. I'd propose American Nobel Peace Prize winners, but that would mean swapping out Jackson-- the perpetrator of an American genocide-- with Henry Kissinger, and that would be too raw. I don't think I would ever be able to stop vomiting. The goal, of course, would be to represent the best of what the United States has given the world, so, for example, Louis Armstrong on the $5 dollar bill, Ella Fitzgerald on the $10, maybe Martin Luther King, Jr. on the $20. Keep Washington on the single, and Jefferson on the deuce-- I like $2 bills because they make me think about playing the ponies, and unless we are talking about putting, say, Miles Davis on the $2 I see no reason to change. Promote Lincoln to the $50, or maybe put Julia Child on it-- we should have more women on our money, so maybe Abigail "Remember the ladies" Adams would be a better pick, or Clara Barton. (Given my relationship with money, maybe a special Amelia Earhart series would be good.)
UPDATE: Hey, a zeitgeist-y moment: Women on 20s. Shirley Chisholm, whose final resting place is around the corner from my house, would be a fine candidate, and how could I have forgotten Eleanor Roosevelt-- but I think I am still Team Clara Barton.
UPDATE: Hey, a zeitgeist-y moment: Women on 20s. Shirley Chisholm, whose final resting place is around the corner from my house, would be a fine candidate, and how could I have forgotten Eleanor Roosevelt-- but I think I am still Team Clara Barton.
// posted by Bill @ 10:37 AM 
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Scientists is good, even sports heroes. Jackie Robinson. Jonas Salk. I'll go with Louis Armstrong, too. Amelia Earhart is certainly better than Charles Lindbergh, but whereas the one is politically problematic, I agree the other fosters an inappropriate relationship with money.
Did you know that the Brits' money, while the Queen is always on one side, has many great people honored on the other side including great authors like Dickens and the Brontes. A good rule of thumb for such ideas, I think, would be to require that the honoree be dead for 25-30 years but the name would still be recognized, honored (and read- in the case of authors), by Middle Schoolers. That would eliminate the Flash In the Pans completely and cut down on the political nonsense
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