5 posts tagged “money”
Yet another report from the Department of Symbolism Means More Than Action.
The U.S. Mint, in honor of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille, is issuing a silver dollar with Braille on it. Ooooh! Aaaaah! "This is going to put Braille in front of people in a very dramatic way," according to Chris Danielson, a spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind.
No offense, Mr. Danielson, but how? This is a silver dollar and as such, it will only be purchased by coin collectors who are NEVER GOING TO TOUCH IT. It's not going to put Braille in front of anyone but numismatic nerds.
According to Associated Press: On the back of the coin, the Braille code for the word Braille -- or "Brl" -- is inscribed, above a depiction of a school-age boy reading a Braille book with a cane resting on his arm. Behind him is a bookshelf bearing the word "Independence."
"It really expresses the hopes, the dreams and the independent spirit," NFB Executive Director Mark Riccobono said of the design.
I want to have a feel good moment like these guys are having, but this is just symbolism masquerading as something meaningful.What would put Braille and the concerns of the blind in front of the American public is an actual dollar coin in circulation with Braille on it. Oh, and how about changing all the fricking paper money so that the bills are readily distinguishable by a blind person? All the spiffy colors and patterns, guess what? No help to a blind person.
To help the blind gain more independence, America could do what most countries do and manufacture bills of different sizes to allow the sightless to tell which bill is which. That way they don't have to depend on someone else to tell them--truthfully, one hopes--that this is a twenty, this is a ten, this is a five.
Well, I thought I'd been keeping low, but Hieronymous saw me and tagged me.
1) What was I doing 10 years ago?
I was living in Wichita with my sister, who was getting ready to sell her house and move in with her boyfriend. I was working for Planned Parenthood, trying to avoid my adorable, sad little stalker, and writing a lot of letters to a Marine in Okinawa.
2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?
- Prep a manuscript to send to an agent.
- Go to post office to send manuscript and buy stamps for the department (I know, we're living in the Dark Ages.)
- Go to flower shop with my stripper-like pile of crumpled ones to pay for departmental flowers for a sick GTA.
- Pay some bills.
- Write.
3) Snacks I enjoy:
Lindt milk chocolate, bacon, grapes, pistachios
4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Pay off the mortgages of all my family and friends. Build a massive media empire to rival Rupert Murdoch's, only mine would actually disseminate news and facts. Give a shload of cash to Planned Parenthood, Oxfam, Médecins sans Frontières, and other charities. Use the rest of it to start a foundation to provide education and reproductive health services to girls and women all over the world, but especially in Afghanistan and most of Africa. Oh, and if I had anything left over, let's not forget the golden chariot pulled by 500 hairless cats wearing diamond encrusted harnesses.
5) Places I have lived:
In Kansas: Hugoton, Liberal, Wichita, Manhattan, and Lawrence. Nagaoka, Japan. Tampa, Florida.
6) Jobs I have had:
Church janitor, architectural image library archivist, secretary at nuclear reactor--lasted 4 days, hotel maid, English teacher, sex educator, public relations nimbob, editor, volunteer coordinator, church secretary, university secretary, writer.
7) Bloggers I am tagging who I will enjoy getting to know better:
Seriously, I can't think of anyone who hasn't done this. Really, I thought I had a few people, but when I looked back through their blogs...too late. Already tagged. So, it's all on you now.
Yeah, you better be saving your pennies, especially as they now officially cost more to make than they're worth. According to data released by the US Mint, each penny now costs 1.26¢ to make.
I used to just toss them aside. Going through drive-thrus, I've been known to simply ditch the pennies out of my change, right there in the drive. Guess I won't be doing that anymore.
So, here we are, in the midst of some serious economic doldrums. People are saying "recession." People are saying, "looming depression." I personally have been saying, "great googly-moogly" and "motherfucker." Yet, we're still throwing money away to produce money that is of limited value. Oh, sure, there's something special about finding a shiny penny on the ground, or carrying an old wheat penny around in your pocket for luck, but the fact that nearly every store I go in these days has a little plastic dish for people to deposit or borrow pennies from? That's a sign.
If you don't hesitate to leave your pennies in those plastic dishes, you probably wouldn't mind not getting them back in change at all. Perhaps at last, that means we, as a society, are finally ready to say good-bye to the penny. Round up all purchases to the nearest nickel and we would simplify a lot of transactions in addition to saving a bunch of money. Somewhere in the neighborhood of $34 million a year.
A current proposal in the House would not do away with the penny, but would take us back to World War II, when pennies were made of steel, a much cheaper metal than copper. Because the nickel is also a profligate in these days of rising nickel and zinc prices, the proposal includes plans to make the nickel out of steel as well. This is considered preferable to the "politically impossible" suggestion of doing away with the penny. There seems to be some sense that people want to keep the penny and yet my brain keeps going back to all those discarded pennies. Do we really want it?
And then, look at all the things we didn't want that we got: the war in Iraq, the USA PATRIOT Act, Guantanamo, tax breaks for the super wealthy. We didn't riot over any of those and they're worried that getting rid of the penny is politically impossible?
Don't, don't even get me started on the willful failure of the dollar coins.
So, we started bright and early, setting out our garage sale stuff at 7:00 am. By 7:03 am, we were turning away our first early birds. Our house is on a major thoroughfare, so we got a ton of traffic, including nut jobs who parked on our lawn, then got out to ask, "Can I park here?" No, no, dipshit, as the sign you just ran over clearly stated, parking is at the high school or around the corner. *sigh* We also had people who parked on the very busy, two-lane street that is clearly marked NO PARKING. Good times.
One of our garage sale participants turned out to be a master of retail displays. Note the lovely kitchen ensemble--all in an effort to sell his toaster and baker's rack. (Success!)
My husband, no surprise, turned out to be our best salesman. He was walking the "floor" and chatting up customers all day. The things he talked people into buying...
This intrepid shopper bought a small grill (with bonus free bag of charcoal!) and carried it home on his bike, with a wok and the toaster.
Oh, and hey!
Happy Voxiversary to my fellow Cute Overloaders!
I'm fascinated by China, and by what America can learn from China, so I was pretty pleased to find a nifty little diagram on BBC that explains how China is ruled. It's educational and a bit scary. It's particularly scary when you look back at the last six years. With the Republican Party in control of the House and the Senate and the White House and the Supreme Court, we were heading toward a one party system as secretive, corrupt and oppressive as China's Communist Party. A place where wrong-headed laws of all sorts can be passed almost without meaningful debate (say, the USA PATRIOT Act?) A place where the courts are manipulated by the administrative branch. A place where party politics become national politics, because the party has more power to influence legislation than the voters. Do I need to go on?
Oh, what the heck. Maybe just a few more. Thanks to our brief foray into one party government, we're experiencing some of the same things we criticise China for. Let's look at the list of complaints against China:
Courts not independent (Let's see--we've got Attorneys General being fired for political reasons.) Torture used to get confessions (According to the Bushies, waterboarding isn't torture anymore. Although it was during WW2 when we charged and convicted Axis troops of just such a crime.) Arbitrary detention without charge (Got this one in spades. P.S. Habeas Corpus, we still miss you, dude.) Some prisoners sent to "re-education centres" (I don't know if that's what they're doing at Gitmo, but I'd say that frying someone's brain with prolonged isolation and sensory deprivation probably counts.) More than 700 known executions in 2003 (Amesty International figures) (Although the US only executes about 50-60 people a year. If we look at it from a per capita basis, though, China executes 7 out of every 10 million citizens. We execute 2 out of every 10 million.)
All this to say that I feel as though we've dodged a bullet in turning the House and the Senate over to the Democrats. They're not anything like our saviors, but at least they may be inclined to oppose the Republicans over some things. I mean, as a nation, we're still in a wagon driven by a madman, heading toward a cliff. At least now, there's another person holding one of the reins, who might just manage to steer us away from the edge.
EDIT: Oh, and I meant to recommend Naomi Wolf's article on the 10 Easy Steps to Fascism that ran in the Guardian last week.
(Of course, the sad reality is that America is being ruled by a single party system. The Money Party. So, while we've momentarily thwarted the ambitions of the Republican Party, we're still living in a country ruled by an elite group of people who've amassed power and influence that trumps democracy. A country where rich people and companies have more influence over legislation than the voters. A country where the only vote that counts is the one you make with your checkbook. So, please, if you have the money, vote.)
