Here and There

Oh, awesome. Did ya hear? The United States Postal Service will be raising the cost of first-class stamps starting Monday. The current cost? $0.42. The increase? Let me give you a magnifying glass: $0.02.

For a whopping grand total of $ANNOYING.

What is it with the U.S. Mint and the USPS keeping pennies on life support? Where’s the incentive in charging for them, not to mention doling them out in the form of change from stamp machines?

Memo to the Secretary of the Treasury and the Post Master General: This hard-working, tax-paying, minimal mail customer would gladly pay a healthily rounded $0.50 for a stamp. Hell, I use the mail so little, I’d be cool shelling out a dollar.

Yes, I would pay cash money to no longer have pennies in my life.

Just got back from afternoon coffee at Peet’s in the Boudin building in Fisherman’s Wharf, and was surprised to find the District of Columbia quarter as part of my change. I hadn’t been paying attention since receiving Alaska’s coin. I was simply waiting for Hawaii, and refocusing on accumulating some presidential dollar coins.

Lo and behold, the DC quarter, emblazoned with Duke Ellington’s likeness. Awesome.

This is also the first coin I’ve seen with a 2009 vintage. It’s good to be alive.

Goddam them and their fucking pennies! Why waste perfectly cool designs on a lousy $0.01 coin that everyone hates? Why not honor Lincoln properly by unveiling his image on a new $1 coin?

Matthew Yglesias » Worst President Ever

I don’t know. Yglesias is really only thinking domestically. Bush has let a major U.S. city disintegrate, overall infrastructure deteriorate, drastically increased the disparity between rich and poor, and plunged the country into massive amounts of debt after years of surplus.

He’s helped the international community slide into chaos, invaded a sovereign nation for virtually no reason at all, snubbed international legal and environmental treaties, and presided over perhaps the most drastic fall of the U.S. dollar in history. He’s allowed (possibly knowingly) the U.S. to torture prisoners, when he wasn’t farming it out. I know I’m forgetting plenty here.

This is no statistical analysis, mind you. Nor am I anywhere near as versed in history as Yglesias. And I agree: Buchanan was abysmal. I just think he’s giving Bush too much credit here, or not holding him as accountable as he should.

Needless to say, count me in that 42 percent that thinks he’s the worst. I think he’s a great candidate for it, anyway.

God it’s nice to take a break from politics, though the theme of abomination still applies.

The new $5 bills will roll out today. Here’s a sneak peak:

Yet another dollar got stuck in the soda machine here at work today. Someone now owes me either $3 or $4. I think I’ll be charging interest for the pain and distress involved.

To top it all off, I took my bills downstairs to Walgreens, where I was charged $1.02. Besides the outrageous pricing for a can of cola, the cashier wouldn’t give me the $0.02. Argh! Don’t get me started on pennies.

Awesome. They’re redesigning the penny. Can’t wait.*

* The above post is sarcastic. I can’t think of a bigger waste of time and resources than to redesign the most useless, reviled coin in the world. Well, maybe invading Iraq gives this a run for its money. So to speak. But you get my point.

New $5 bill design unveiled.

Well, the problem is in people investing in the damn things. They’re actually quite nice as far as postage is concerned. Slate Explainer weighs in.

I finally held a “golden” George Washington dollar in my hand the other day, and boy was I disappointed.

Yes, it’s slightly larger than a quarter. Yes, the edge-incused inscription is a nice extra touch. But the coin itself feels flimsy and candy dollar coin-ish.

Still, I’ll get one for myself, stash it away with the rest of my dorky coin and bill collection, and await the John Adams…

Today is dollar coin release day. Sure, it’ll be awhile before the non-collector nerds among us get to handle one, but in my mind, the wait will be worth it. It’s never too late to keep trying the same thing over and over and over … though there are those who still prefer stinky, wear-outable, easily-counterfeitable paper money.

We’ve been through this before. We tried, and failed. We tried again, and there are remnants still with us, reminding us every once in a while what could’ve been.

I’m talking of course about the relationship we all have with dollar coins. And of course they’re at it again, releasing the first of the Presidential Dollar Coins this week.

Hello George! Can’t wait to get my hands on you. You can bet I’ll be using you.

Now if we can convince them to stop minting all those goddam pennies.

I’ve been holding off commenting on the possible redesign of U.S. currency to make it more identifiable for blind people. It just didn’t necessarily strike me as a bad idea. In general, our paper money has needed some sprucing up for some time, despite recent efforts at just such an end.

So it struck me odd (if not surprising) to read that the Bush Administration is appealing the court ruling requiring the Treasury Department to construct bills easily ID-able by the blind. As I read the story in the Times, I kept wondering, What are administration lawyers going to argue pull out of their asses this time? Even after I came across this:

In the government’s appeal, Justice Department lawyers argued that visually impaired people are not denied ”meaningful access” to money by the way the nation’s currency is designed. They noted the existence of portable reading devices that the blind can use to determine the denomination of paper money. The government said the blind can also make use of credit cards rather than currency.

I’m still wondering what the objection is. After all, as the Times notes:

“In his ruling, the [District Court] judge said that of 180 countries issuing paper currency, only the United States prints bills that are identical in size and color in all their denominations.”

Not that color matters in this instance, but still.

Interestingly enough, this all comes about in the wake of the new Presidential Dollar Coins, slated to begin distribution in 2007.

I am finally the proud recipient of a Colorado state quarter. I’m happy with the design ─ basically some mountains and a ribbon running over their base reading “colorful colorado” (this on a monochromatic coin, remember).

That seriously took forever, longer (it seems) than any of the other 37 quarters issued so far.

Next up: North Dakota (issued two weeks ago), who celebrates its statehood November 2, 1889 (a time often refered to as “Grover Cleveland, Part One”).

Okay, I’ll stop. I’m happy. I got my Colorado.

I admit, I haven’t been the most vigilant coin-collector nerd lately. But it’s August 21, and I still haven’t seen a Colorado quarter. The damn thing was released in June!
I did return from Venezuela with a few paper bills and lots of coins. My favorite bill was the 20,000 bolivares, with its portrait of Simón Rodríguez (whom I found out just today was one of Bólivar’s teachers) with his spectacles resting on his forehead.