I suppose the craze started back in the time of the ancient Romans when going out in public in the modern equivalent of a bathrobe was "in" and massacres were considered the highest form of entertainment. Yes before the Roman Empire, coins were difficult to make, easily counterfeited, and worst of all boring. Then my favorite person of all time, Julius "I got a month and a method of baby-extraction named after me" Caesar, came on the scene and revolutionized the way the world bought their tunics and war slaves; he put his face on every coin. Coined currency became an instant success and prostitutes all over the Roman empire no longer asked for three goats in exchange for their "services." Now they could use a defined set of currency to charge their clients! Because of their J. Caesar's overwhelmingly successful coin, the Augustus Caesar Coin was released after Julius' death and it had a younger, sexier visage on its face. Roman currency became a fad that just wouldn't die.
Then the Roman Empire collapsed; feifs, serfdom, kingdoms, and the overall regression of human knowledge took over Europe; and currency was buried along with Incitatus' senatorial toga. But this dark era of darkness and lack of light in the form of shiney coins didn't last long� one, one and a half millenia at most. Then the Renaissance brought "intelligence" back to the world, and a few years later, George Washington was leading a revolution of his own. The war was eventually won and Britain sent home in tears. For leading the revolution and being the first president of the United States (and the only one most people can seem to name as coming before Clinton) Washington was eventually memorialized on not one, but two forms of currency and his own short-lived reality TV show. His face was the coolest face to ever grace a quarter or one dollar bill. And, unlike the times of ancient Rome, the great thing was that in America, people didn't have any choice as to what currency they had to use to pay for goods and/or services. United States' citizens HAD to use United States' currency in United States' stores to buy Taiwanese goods. We still have to use good olde American pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, half dollars (yes, we have half dollars), dollar coins, dollar bills, 2 dollar bills (still legal!), five dollar bills and on and on and you get the point. We have an established legal tender. But it was just too boring, and the good people at the US mint will not stand for boring pennies!
The attempted US Coin Revolution began in an attempt to end the 1998 LA Coin Riots whichstarted when LAtians got fed up with their boring old quarters and burned as many as they could find. When they realized that quarters don't burn well, they all grabbed for their coins, burned their hands, and ran madly through the streets cursing Washington's good name. The US mint immediately responded by announcing their 10 Year Plan; to prevent further riots (and to make Nebraska feel important) each state was to be given its very own quarter featuring the most irrelevant, obscure, or historically inaccurate event that an in-state failure of an artist could come up with. The Mint made a deal with Conan O'Brien in which he would reveal some of the new quarters in exchange for his first born child. He agreed and showed the mint's plans for Arkansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, and a few others. (See below.)
The plan worked and people started using quarters again, but then NICKEL usage began to suffer severly. The solution? Immortalize Leif Ericson on the nickel because he embodies the spirit of freedom of spirit and pillaging which America has come to idolize. I can only hope that when penny usage hits an all-time low we can have a memorial to the Confederacy on the opposite side of Honest Abe's coin. Until then, I'm going to head over to Walgreens and spend my entire life savings on Skittles.
3 comments:
If you believe that all men were created INTELLECTUALLY equal, then that says a lot more about you than it does about my (or any one else's) political beliefs. It has been my experience that there are some people so intrinsically stupid, that there is no hope that they will ever show the slightest glimmer of intelligence. They're hopeless idiots. It's a shame they have to be the standard on which schools teach. I guess it's mostly public schools, but they're keeping the smart kids who aren't in accelerated programs from reaching their potential. Frankly we should give up on such stupid people and make them serve us at McDonald's now rather than wait for them to take up valuable classtime with their antics and idiocy only to get a half-decent job afterwards anyways.
SLIGHT tangent there. Heh. Anyways, my point is, that it isn't fair to say that two people are intellectual equals when such a thing probably doesn't exist. There my be intellectual similarities, but usually the differences stand out most. There are intellectual similarities between both candidates (for instance a lack of ability to use what I like to call "reason" or "logic") and there are differences.
Sorry. I'll go easy on ya next time. Promise.
Come on. You don't HONESTLY believe all politicians are "created equal" do you?
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