I have no idea if Ron Paul identifies as Christian, but I know an awful lot of the Tea Partiers do.  I’ve read the bible… a couple of times in fact.  I don’t have it memorized, granted, but I seem to remember a parable about a man who helped a wounded stranger lying in the road… and that the general idea of that story was that helping people is the right thing to do.  I don’t have to make some grand metaphorical stretch to relate this story to health care.  The Good Samaritan is literally about health care.  It says to help people who need help.

When did helping people become immoral?  I could see if we were the poorest country on the planet, but we aren’t, we’re the richest; we can afford the tuition down at the local vo-tech or community college.  I think the last time I got sick, it was a $20 copay and the antibiotic prescription it cost me two bucks.  I’m willing to pay for a half-dozen of those a year to help someone else, aren’t you?  Will it require some sacrifice to help people?  Yes.  Guess what else Christianity is about?  Sacrifice.

Why is it the people who are the most desperate to make America a Christian nation are some of the least Christian people I’ve ever seen?  The least forgiving?  The least tolerant?  The least charitable?  I’ve known some remarkable Christians in my life.  I grew up in a church filled with giving, accepting people, people who believed in judging not rather than shouting “abomination!” at the tops of their voices; people who believed that forgiveness and togetherness were more important than wealth and power.  I’ve known good Christians.  Anyone who tells you that helping people who need help is wrong isn’t a good Christian or a good person, no matter how many times they quote the bible.

“Oh the debt!” you cry, “oh, the deficit!”  Oh my fat white ass, I say.  How about we end those two wars.  Not one more penny to Afghanistan until everyone in this country has health care and college tuition.  The whole point of going to Afghanistan was to keep our kids safe.  Are we really keeping them safe if our being in Afghanistan means they can’t go to the doctor or go to college?  What’s riskier, losing 3,000 people to a bomb or losing an entire generation to illness, ignorance, and poverty?  Besides, no one in Afghanistan wants us there anyway, not even the puppet we put in place to run things.

I’m not some naive idealist.  I’ve been poor.  I’ve been rich too.  I’ve needed help.  I’ve occasionally been able to help others.  Tomorrow I may need help again.  Today, thank God, I can help someone else a little.  Maybe you can too.

The United States Congress is currently debating cutting funding for higher education.  I can not say with enough force and clarity how stupid this is.  You heard me.  But, if you combine that with the current hard line on immigration, you can begin to see the larger blueprint.  The reason the right wing is so desperate to plug the borders is because they are planning to create a generation of American born fruit pickers, dishwashers, and lawn maintenance engineers.  If we don’t stop importing unskilled labor, what are we going to do with all of the homegrown unskilled labor we’ll have in 15 years?  I mean… you see what happens when people don’t have jobs.  They get really angry.  They might stop drinking the kool-aid and realize that voting for politicians who promise to protect their presumed lottery winnings may not be the best way to plan for the future.

By the way, it is time to abolish lotteries in this country again.  Lotteries give people false hope and serve only to punish the most desperate.   All Americans must realize that the only way they will have a comfortable life is to work hard, be creative, and plan realistically.  Oh, and if they could stop voting for people who think that cutting education so that rich people don’t have to pay taxes is a good idea, that would be good too.

These people do realize that paying for education a literal investment, right?  It isn’t rhetoric; it’s putting money into an endeavor that will pay greater dividends later on.  Investments only really work well if you buy low and sell high.  Buying high and selling high is pointless… there’s no growth there.  Pell grants for poor kids is the equivalent of buying low.  And don’t they realize that cutting summer Pell grants only punishes the hardest working students, the most highly motivated workers?  The spoiled frat boys don’t go to summer school.  Poor kids desperate to make a better life for themselves and their families to go summer school.  Are those the people we want to punish?  Apparently so.

So what is the overall plan here?  Is it to create an American born, English speaking, unskilled labor pool?  Why?  Is plutocracy (rule of the wealthy) disguised as democracy the goal?  Was it ever not the goal?  Isn’t the oligarchy (rule of the elite) we already have bad enough?  When America voted for Barack Obama, they were hoping for another Franklin Roosevelt; someone to save them from the next great depression.  It turns out what we really needed was another Teddy Roosevelt; someone to save us from the new generation of robber barons and monopolists… read investment bankers and energy executives.  The unions have been effectively marginalized (though they aren’t entirely guiltless), so there likely won’t be anyone to speak for this new underclass.  Is that another link in the chain that will bind the average joe to his minimum wage job?   Heh… yeah, like we’re going to have a minimum wage in 20 years.  It will be gone like fiscal responsibility and social security for anyone born after 1965.

Somewhere, two guys with a beards are sitting in a cave laughing about how the most powerful nation in the world is quivering in fear as a result of the Underpants Bomber.

“Dude, can you believe this?  The kid who tried to light his underpants did this.  They’re going to ruin everyone’s Thanksgiving because of the underpants guy.”

“I know, right?  I mean… that was never gonna work.  You can’t seriously think you can set fire to your underpants on an airplane and no one will notice.  Honestly dude, the idiot with the explosive shoes had a better shot.”

“Yeah, that was a good one too.  Nooo… no ones going to notice you lighting some matches on a jetliner and then sit by while you try and set your foot on fire.  What an idiot.”

“No kidding, brah.  But look – we don’t have to succeed to get results.  We can send in the C-team to try and light their jockstraps by rubbing two sticks together and the TSA would ban toothpicks, wooden teeth and anyone who’s ever been witnessed eating Chinese food, playing the drums, or eating a chicken leg.  It’s awesome.”

“Oh dude, that’s genius!  We should totally try that!”

“Yeah, maybe at Easter. Then we can get anyone wearing a wooden cross put on the no-fly list.  It’s two sticks, dude… it totally counts.”

“You are so my hero, dude.  That idea is going to earn you a few extra virgins in paradise, brah.”

“Right?  Respect the skills, yo.  Be afraid, be very afraid.”

“In space, no one can hear you scream.”

“Dude, what?

“Oh… sorry dude.  I thought we were playing the movie quote game.”

“Dude.  It’s from The Fly.  Fear… fly… get it?  Never mind, dude.”

Lightning is dangerous.  During a thunderstorm, most people are smart enough to get out of the rain.  But sometimes lighting does funny things.  It burns houses down, it strikes people standing too close to windows… there are even stories about people being hit while talking on the phone during a thunderstorm.  So, why then don’t we build big, lightning proof underground bunkers where we we can hide from the deadly electricity that is so clearly out to get us?  Why, because that would just be silly… a gross overreaction.  But no worse than the video I saw of a five-year-old child being patted down by a TSA agent; no worse than asking that woman I saw on the news – the cancer survivor – to remove her prosthetic breast.

I will not sacrifice my dignity for your fear.  I will not surrender my liberty to your sense of self preservation.  I will not live in a police state.  Next, someone will suggest that it’s acceptable to search people in the airport parking lot.  After that, why not the Airport Marriott?  Before long, federal highways will be secure transportation zones, subject to the same rules as airports.  How long will it be before your home is open to search as soon as you buy an airline ticket?  How long until applying for a passport becomes probable cause?  How long will it be before any law enforcement agent, at any time, can search me because I was “randomly selected?”  How long before I move to Canada?

We get the government we deserve.

I guess I decided to write a little about the TSA after all.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Last year, when Barnes & Noble announced their new eBook reader, the Nook, I was immediately interested.  This did not feel like early adoption to me.  The Kindle has been floating around for years, but I never felt any great need to have one.  I know this is silly, particularly considering the recent tax bill the state of Texas sent them, but Amazon still feels like an abstract to me, an intangible.  Amazon, as a concept, feels flimsy.  I hooked onto the Nook because I liked that I could buy a book reader, and the books to read on it, from an honest to James Joyce bookstore.  I’ve taken a lot of joy from bookstores over the years, and from Barnes and Noble in particular.  I don’t mind showing a little loyalty to a retailer, even a big one, that I think has treated me well.

My wife got me a Nook for Christmas… well, I didn’t get it until nearly Martin Luther King Day, but I opened the “handsomely printed” IOU from Barnes & Noble on Christmas morning.  Upon seeing it, I felt both excitement and trepidation.  The rumors about an Apple tablet started to spread between the time I mentioned to my wife that I might like a Nook and the time I actually got one.  No one knew what it was yet, no one I knew anyway, but the buzz was that it would be market changing.  For once, the buzz was right.

This morning, not nine months after I first powered on my Nook, I opened up my email to find an advertisement for the new Nook color, effectively making my Nook an avocado colored refrigerator. Nook color is a Nook with a full color touch screen.  No more of that silly electronic paper that was going to change the world.  Eyestrain be damned, here’s the Barnes & Noble iPad lite.  It is described in the ad as “The Ultimate Reading Experience.”

How much time has passed, do you imagine, since the last time someone invented a new, more efficient spoke for the wagon wheel?  I imagine it will be about that long before I get another software update for my NINE MONTH OLD Nook.

How much is an iPad?

That summer there were two other prisoners on the island with me.  It would be inaccurate to call them friends (later that year, one of them would give me the worst beating of my life while the other one watched) but we had our isolation in common, and that was enough to bond us together in an imitation of friendship.  The three of us, our entertainment options limited as they were, spent a lot of time fishing off of the small concrete pier behind my building; we even fished at night.  One morning, as the daily fishing ritual began, one of them, I’ll call him George, was telling us a story about how one of his cousins had managed to steal some beer the last time George had gone for a visit, and what a great time they’d had.  The other con, Lennie (as he was the violent one and is now, as it happens, dead), was unimpressed by George’s tale of common beer drinking.  Lennie was new to our Alcatraz, and hoping to ingratiate himself, promised to bring us a bottle of liquor for our fishing that night, so that we would see how he liked to have a good time.  Neither George nor I (Does this make me Curley?  Curley’s wife?  The rabbit?  Let’s not dwell on that, shall we?) believed a word of it, and told him so.  Lennie was not the sort to have his machismo questioned.  That evening, as promised, the new kid arrived at the pier with a half-gallon of Jim Beam tucked inside his empty bait bucket.

It’s a pity no one was videotaping us.  Every few minutes we would abandon our fishing poles at the end of the pier, walk nonchalantly down to the beach and then disappear beneath the pier where we’d hidden the bottle among the barnacle-encrusted pilings.  A few seconds later, we would reappear, laughing and a little wobblier each time.  The only way we could have been more obvious is if we’d been wearing black clothes and ski masks.

At the end of the night, the bottle empty–we had a little help from a couple of older guys who joined us later on—we headed home as quietly as three very drunk fourteen-year-olds could.  George and Lennie lived in the next building over, so I had a moment alone in the elevator to compose myself before facing my parents.  I walked into the condo, put my head around the living room corner and launched into the, “I’m really tired, I’m going straight to bed” maneuver.  My parents, having no reason to believe otherwise, each called out a “goodnight” and I slipped off to bed, my getaway accomplished… until the phone rang an hour later.

It was George’s grandmother, at the top of her already shrill voice, demanding to know from my father, who was caught completely unawares of course, what exactly I had done to her grandson.  It wasn’t long before my parents became curious about the evening’s events.  I have only a vague recollection of the light coming on in my room that night.  A brief interrogation followed, but in my condition, I was in no shape to answer with any eloquence… or honesty.  I was warned to expect a bad day and released to unconsciousness.

The next morning I heard what happened to George and Lennie after we’d separated the night before.  George had failed to make it past the pool deck by his building, and was discovered, vomit encrusted and incoherent, by his grandparents, with whom he was staying.  Lennie, sensing a bad situation, had long since abandoned him to the night.  George’s grandmother, not having any idea that Lennie existed, of course blamed me for her Georgie’s condition.

I was in real trouble.  My parents were furious with me, but not because I had been drinking… well, yes, because I’d been drinking… but worse, because I had acted irresponsibly, abandoned an incapacitated friend, and then lied about it.  My parents believed it was their job to teach me to drink responsibly, something they’d already started by allowing me the occasional drink with the family.  My parents were right.

Parents are responsible for their children’s education.  Every teacher will tell you that, without parental support, students have very little chance of success.  Education goes beyond what is taught in schools and churches.  Parents must teach their children about everyday life, their place in society, and what behavior is expected from them in social situations.  Responsible alcohol consumption is, like it or not, a part of everyone’s social education.  Why then have we taken the power to educate children about alcohol away from parents?

The legal drinking age in the United States is twenty-one.  How many of you believe that no one under 21 drinks?  Under 18?  Under 16?  None of you; because you aren’t naïve.  Kids drink.  Why are we lying to ourselves about it?  We are making parents afraid to teach their children about responsible alcohol consumption.  You’ve read the stories about parents being arrested for letting kids drink at home.  This is counter-productive.  It is time to accept that a minimum legal drinking (MLDA) of 21 is unenforceable.

It’s also time to stop piling on additional unenforceable laws.  For example; a few years ago, in an effort to curb college age drinking, New Hampshire established a law that allows under-21 drinkers to be prosecuted for “internal possession”, that is, the possession of alcohol within their bodies.  Suspects don’t have to display any disorderly behavior; they don’t have to be behind the wheel of a car; they merely have to appear as though they have consumed alcohol in order to draw the attention of law enforcement.  This is absurd.  Laws like this deter no one.  They serve simply to make our children into criminals.

The primary argument against lowering the drinking age has to do with drinking and driving.  According to drinkingage.procon.org, raising the MLDA from 18 to 21 “has decreased the percentage of fatal traffic accidents for those between 18 and 20 by 13% and has saved approximately 21,887 lives from 1975-2002.”  I suggest that the founding of Mothers Against Drunk Driving in 1980, whose work has led to the drastic strengthening of drunk driving laws, provided a major contribution to lowering the number of alcohol related fatalities (though MADD has since gone a bit off the rails).  Drunk driving now has serious consequences, whereas before 1980, drunken driving violations often carried minimal penalties.  Does anyone else remember their parents driving to a restaurant with a drink in their hand so they wouldn’t have to pay bar prices for their pre-dinner cocktail?  MADD stopped that.

Another factor in reducing alcohol related fatalities, and in fact all automobile fatalities, is the advent of mandatory seat belt laws.  Beginning in the early 1980’s, states began to require that automobile operators and passengers wear seatbelts.  According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 13,000 lives were saved by seatbelts in 2008 alone.  And lets not forget about airbags… and head restraints… and new lighter materials… and mandatory car seats for children… and crumple zones… all implemented in the last thirty years.

Turning 21 has become a right of passage, not because it is the end of adolescence, but because of the drinking age.  21 is no longer the age when young adults begin to accept responsibility.  21 is now the age when kids can finally have (what they think is) real fun.  Binge drinking is up across college campuses in the U.S.  Alcohol poisoning deaths are on the rise.  21 for 21 (that’s 21 drinks on your 21^st birthday) has become a popular birthday celebration.

There are other factors to consider as well… like how European nations have managed to reduce alcohol related fatalities without lowering drinking ages… or how we have soldiers fighting overseas who aren’t old enough to wind down with a beer… or how 18-year-olds are responsible enough to vote and serve on a jury but not responsible enough to have a glass of wine with dinner.

It is time to lower the MLDA to 16.  I recognize that seems low, but 16 is an honest, if not conservative, estimate of when kids actually start drinking.  I can’t state this clearly enough.  At 16, kids are drinking; it serves no purpose to pretend that they aren’t.  With the MLDA at 16, parents will have the opportunity to properly instruct their children in alcohol responsibility without fear of prosecution.

Put them in a bowl, you idiots.  Thanks for the extra landfill material.  Oh, and thanks for teaching yet another major corporation that Americans are serious about changing the world for the better… unless it inconveniences them in the slightest; then never mind.  Morons.

Sincerely,

Jack

Closing America’s borders is impossible.  They are too long, often too remote, and the temptation to enter the U.S. (it’s where they keep the money and jobs) is too strong.  Admitting this means admitting that America’s current immigration policy is unenforceable.

Unenforceable laws should be changed.  We learned this during prohibition.  Adding more unenforceable laws (hi Arizona) only serves to increase the burden on a law enforcement network that is already overtaxed.

There are options to changing the laws.  We could conquer the rest of North America.  If everyone is American already, immigration becomes moot.  That’s a lot of territory though, and Brazil, Argentina and Chile are sure to take offense.  That means taking, or at least subduing, South America too.  I don’t think the European Union would much care for the American invasion of Canada either.  Queen Elizabeth is on their money still, after all.  This is probably a bad idea.  Let’s set it aside.

How about this?  We could invite the other North American nations to join the United States.  You never know; there might be some interest if the deal was right.  Everyone votes.  Each smaller nation becomes a state.  Mexican states become American states, as do Canadian provinces and territories. Congress adds seats to accommodate the new populations (don’t be surprised if southern Canada and northern Mexico break into smaller states to buy their highly populated areas a few more Senators).  Everyone learns English (everyone in the world is going to have to know English in another fifty years) and at least one of the other two major North American languages in school.  Everything else could be worked out in congress and with elections.  We could even change the name; how about the United States of North America?  Do you think Colombia would mind if we were Columbia?  Probably.  How about Lincolnia?  Maybe one of the native tribal languages has a strong word that means “home” or “land”.  I think even the politicians could find something to like about this idea.  Liberals get to deliver wealth and equality to developing areas and conservatives will have vast new populations of people who are very concerned about maintaining state’s rights and a weak federal government.  Ok, ok… I know this is another science fiction idea.

There is no way around it; U.S. immigration policy has to change.  Here’s my real solution.  Anyone born in North America is welcome to live and work in the United States.  When immigrants cross the border, they will be registered, given tax I.D. numbers and sent on their way.  They will pay taxes like everyone else.  They will obey the law, like everyone else.  If they commit crimes, they’ll be prosecuted like everyone else (which we’ll be able to afford after we implement prison reform… but that’s another post).  North Americans will be allowed to visit their home nations as often as they like. After five years or so of a consistent, stable, productive life in the U.S., a path to citizenship will be offered.  Anyone who completes four years of military service will be offered citizenship.  If a service member on the citizenship track dies in honorable service (not in a car crash on the way home from the grocery store), his or her family will be offered citizenship.  No one convicted of a felony on U.S. soil will be offered citizenship, but a criminal offense will not automatically be grounds for deportation either.  Misdemeanor convictions reset the timetable for citizenship.  Immigration policy for citizens of non-North American nations will remain the same.

A caveat: workers may bring their spouses and their children as dependents, but not their parents.  This may seem harsh, but America’s current entitlement systems cannot sustain the burden of an elderly, non-participatory population.

Honest people will enter legally.  Honest companies will employ legal workers.  There are already laws on the books that deal with dishonest employers and illegal immigrants.  With the vast majority of workers entering legally, law enforcement agencies will be able to enforce existing laws.   The only people dying in the desert trying to enter the country illegally will be drug dealers (at least until we rethink the war on drugs… yet another post).

Some people will complain that open borders will make it easier for terrorists to enter.  This would be true, if the borders weren’t already like a sieve.  I suggest that he registration process at the border will have a better chance of catching terrorists than a barbed wire fence.

Some people will be concerned that Real Americans will lose their jobs to new immigrants.  Tough shit.  By the way; you screaming warriors of freedom look pretty silly cowering there behind the lacy skirts of equality.  Real Americans cherish freedom above all else, right?  Well cowboy, freedom means competition. Man up, Real Americans.  Earn your jobs.  You’ll be proud that you did and the country will be better for it.  A competitive workforce means higher productivity.  Higher productivity leads to a strong economy.   A strong economy creates more jobs… and that’s good for everyone, even Real Americans.

Some people just don’t want a bunch of Mexicans in their town.  Those people are too stupid to rebut.

Some people will be concerned about the exodus of higher quality workers from Central American nations to the United States and the economic disaster they might leave in their wake.  I’m concerned about this too.  I want to believe that more opportunities will be available for younger Central American workers once their more established elders move to the U.S. to earn more money.  I want to believe that a U.S. economy, strengthened by an influx of Central American labor, will invest in the home nations of its workers in order maintain the flow of quality workers.  Honestly though, that may just be another science fiction answer, no more likely than the second option above (the one without all the war).

Tell me what you think?  Do you have anything to add?  Do you have a better solution all together?

Gay marriage also feels inevitable to me, although I think the struggle will be much longer.  It’s a religion thing.  I’ve refuted Leviticus before.  I’ll send it to you if you want to read it.  Civil unions aren’t going to work either.  We’ve already learned the “separate but equal” lesson.

I’ll tell you what shocks me about the gay marriage struggle; the hyperbolic opposition.  Two years ago people were screaming about the end of civilization and people marrying animals and recognizing the rights of inanimate objects.  Of course, people were also claiming that a United States Senator and former law professor was the disciple of a radical black Baptist minister, a secret Muslim terrorist, a socialist, a 1960’s student bomber… and Nigerian… so there’s no accounting for crazy.  But at least I understood why people got all worked up about Obama.  He was running for president.  His election would have an impact on their lives.  The gay marriage thing though… I just don’t see what two ladies marrying each other has to do with anyone who isn’t invited to the ceremony.  If you don’t have to figure out what wedding present to get for the two guys who already have everything, I’m not sure what all the fuss is about.

Which part of gay marriage violates the sanctity of straight marriage?  It’s like saying my blue car undermines the innate, God sanctioned redness of your car.

I also don’t understand why moderate Republicans haven’t figured out that gay rights could save them from the tea party.  Civil rights advocates draw independent voters.  I promise you the Democrats will be talking about it.  You don’t think that Senate vote came up yesterday, six weeks before the election, by accident, do you?

A few more thoughts; if you aren’t gay, no one is going to ask you to switch.  For that matter, if you don’t like gay people, no one is even going to ask you to start.  All you have to do is be quiet.  Here’s one of my favorite platitudes: the best way to keep your foot out of your mouth is to keep your mouth shut.  Or, as my father used to say: if you don’t have anything nice to say, shut the fuck up you needledick moron.  Subtle he wasn’t.  Oh… and if you are gay, but don’t want people to know, becoming an anti-gay crusader is no longer an option.  You may as well have a rainbow flag next to the American flag on your lapel.  Yes, girlfriend, you are that obvious.

The dollar coin has had three recent incarnations.  The Susan B. Anthony dollar coin was originally released from 1979-1981 and was almost universally disliked.  It was released again in 1999 to replenish the supply of dollar coins until the nearly-as-unpopular Sacagawea dollar could be minted in 2000.  In 2007 the newest Presidential dollar coins entered circulation.  The Presidential coins, which are being released four-a-year not unlike the state quarters, are the same size, shape and color as the… ugh, who cares?  Everyone hates them… all of them.  Why?

George Washington’s face belongs on a single, be it a bill or a coin.  Not Sacagawea, not Susan B. Anthony, not Ronald Reagan; G. Fn. Washington.  And not some new George either; the dollar coin should have the portrait of Washington from the one-dollar bill. Do you need some variety?  Alternate the reverse of the coin year to year between the Eye of Providence and the Great Seal (they’re actually both the Great… oh, just look it up).  And for pity’s sake, make sure it says E. Pluribus Unum on one side and In God We Trust on the other.  The idea is to get people to like them, not protest them. The dollar coin also must be easily identifiable as something other than a quarter.  I like the British Pound model, where the Pound coin is considerably thicker than the smaller change.  As the lowest denomination dollar coin it should be copper, like a penny (which we should stop producing… but that’s another post).

You can feel that dollar coin in your hand, can’t you?  It’s solid and heavy with deep ridges along the edge… maybe a crosshatch pattern or a quote from the Declaration or even some of the spider-webby bits from the bill.  It shines like a new penny.  Washington is there where he belongs, grimacing up at you.  It feels right.  That’s a dollar.  Stop fighting it U.S. Treasury.

In order for a dollar coin to gain acceptance, no matter whose face graces its obverse (that’s the front, dude) the United States must stop printing dollar bills.  If people are given the choice they will go with what they know.  If the production of dollar bills stops, people will complain (not to mention printing supply companies) but they will get over it, just as they have in Britain and in Canada.  It will be unpopular… until it isn’t.  This would be an easy opportunity for politicians to do what’s right, no matter how unpopular.

Have you ever heard of a Toonie?  A Toonie is a Canadian Two-dollar coin and, despite the silly name, is a bit of genius.  A two-dollar coin allows a merchant or a banker to easily make change from a five.  The United States needs a Toonie.  It should be modeled after the popular, but now rare, two-dollar bill.  The two-dollar coin should have the portrait of Thomas Jefferson on the front and an altered version of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on the reverse (the original is far too wide for a coin); it could be called a Jeffie.  A Tommy?  No; a Teejay.  Teejay would stick.  Oh, and it should be two-toned like the Canadian Toonie as well, only silver and copper, not silver and gold.

Is all of that feeling a little traditional to you?  Good, it was supposed to.  I’m not a big tradition guy, but most people are.  If American dollar coins are going to work, traditional is the way to go.  Can you guess what the five-dollar coin should look like?  Right; they should look like great big silver pennies… only with the portrait from the five-dollar bill instead of the profile angle from the penny.

Coins are considerably more expensive to produce than bills.  A bill costs six or seven cents to make and a coin costs about thirty cents.  But a coin will last thirty years, where a bill will only last eighteen months.  I’ll do the math for you.  A bill would have to be replaced twenty times in the time it would take for a coin to wear out.  Seven cents times twenty is $1.40.  Over thirty years, it costs almost five times as much to keep bills in circulation as it does a coin.  Coins are better.  They’re more cost effective, they’re greener, and they don’t wrinkle when you try to put them in a vending machine.

We don’t need coins of any higher denomination than five dollars yet, but in the spirit of the Dollar Rede$ign (so lame) Project, lets play with a few of the bills.  People seem to want the Roosevelts, Reagan and King on their money.  I say, why not?  I’m willing to bet that a large portion of the population couldn’t say who was on anything larger than a five-dollar bill anyway… at least not until you get to Franklin… and that’s only because “the Benjamins” are now firmly ensconced in the vernacular.  Give the ten to Ronald Reagan with maybe a Western scene on the reverse…  Monument Valley might be good.  The twenty should go to the Roosevelts.  Both portraits would be on the front.  The reverse could be World War II Memorial on one side and Mount Rushmore (to represent the National Park system) on the other… sort of arranged like the dollar bill is now.  Martin Luther King, Jr. should be on the fifty.  And though I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t have any say about what goes on the reverse of King’s fifty, a dove carrying an olive branch might be a good place to start.

Whew… I managed to get through that whole thing without using the word “numismatist”.