Harriet Tubman is another example of somebody who has done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, like her contemporary Frederick Douglass. However, poor Harriet is not getting the money she deserves in death, much like she didn’t get it while living over a hundred years ago. Steve Mnuchin recently announced snalp (the opposite of plans) to indefinitely defer his predecessor’s initiative to put Mrs. Tubman on the Twenty Dollar Bill. She was supposed to grace our twenties in 2020, but those earlier plans were placed under the rule of Obama, along with the Paris Accord, the Iran Deal, Hope…
Harriet the slave escaped bondage with plenty of scars and an unfortunate case of epileptic seizures from being whacked in the head with a weight at a young age. (Like Obama, she lacked a verifiable birth certificate, so her exact age was unknown). Her traumatic brain injury went untreated for some seventy years. Despite the disabling headaches and seizures, she conducted seventy (70) other slaves via the underground railroad to freedom in more than a dozen dangerous return trips south of the Mason Dixon. While free cities such as Philadelphia were at first an option, after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, these sanctuaries were no longer safe. Harriet (Mrs. Moses) instead led her people to Canada. Then, like now, when things seem to suck in the US, people head north of the border. Rather than chilling in the frozen tundra of Ontario, during the Civil War, she served the Union cause as a cook, nurse, scout, and even a stint as Harriet the spy! She led a raid that released 700+ slaves. Her debilitating brain damage was apparently less of a deterrent to service than disappearing bone spurs.
Her wartime efforts received no compensation, nor was she given a post-war pension until many, many years later through an act of congress. After abolition, Harriet focused on women’s suffrage and espoused the view of equality between the sexes (Thanks Wikipedia).
Even today, a black woman in America is unlikely to get fair treatment, unless her name is Oprah or Michelle or Beyonce. Even Meghan had to move overseas to be treated like a nice princess instead of a nasty woman (to be fair, she is only half-black and Trump thinks most women are nasty, so this may not be racially motivated on his part).
2020 may not see the first female on a bill since Monica (sorry, cheap shot), but maybe that’s because Trumps wants Tubs to receive better recognition for a higher value by being on a new 2028 $28 bill (nicknamed the Marshall). Or maybe he’s racist. Either way, we can all agree that the Mnuch is worse than the Mooch. And we’re not counting Elizabeth Warren’s dollar coin [Liz, Pocahontas, Sacajawea, what’s the difference?].
How could Harriet bump Andrew Jackson? AJ was a president! And he was considered a great man by a man who considers himself the greatest man, while most people now recognize that he was a violent, ignorant, populist, slave-owning racist (that’s AJ, by the way, in case it wasn’t clear. Trump checks many of those same boxes, but to my knowledge, never owned any slaves unless Melania really is being held against her will). But did I mention that he was president? Setting aside all of Jackson’s horrible attributes, the actual plan for Tubman’s bill was not to eliminate Andrew, but to add Harriet. Jackson would have still been on the bill, but moved to the back (in an ironic twist of racial roles – Rosa P would be proud).
We need to keep the greatest presidents current by keeping them on currency. Therefore, I propose that we give our favorite president the primary coin of currency, the lucky unit that keeps turning up, the inescapable gift of give and take at 7-11, subject to more sayings than any other denomination (except for the Jews, but that’s a different story), the puny penny. It makes cents. [How many punny penny jokes can I make? A lot. How many funny penny jokes? Not too many. Just offering my two cents.]
Aside from Jon Voight, some of you may be rushing to judgment over the idea of kicking old Abe off a coin, but he still has the Five Dollar Bill if you will (the fin if you’re in). Honest Abe gets a fiver, AJacks keeps the twenty, and Don the Con gets to lead the way with an earnings starter (a Donny saved…). Trump is just like Lincoln (“most people don’t even know he was a Republican, right?”), working hard fix a broken country caused by the black guy(s) (slaves in Lincoln’s day, Obama in Trump’s troubled times). If Abe had only spent his free time watching Fox News instead of going to the theater, imagine how different history might have been! (Pretty sure the Emancipation Proclamation wouldn’t have happened, Harriet would have been an illegal, we would have had to build a wall to keep people in, and we’d still be waiting for Canada to pay for it).
Some of you may be thinking that a penny is too measly or lowly for our bigly badly leader. You’re being too literal. Donald took a measly $1M loan (later revealed to be closer to $650M, but never mind the details) and turned it into a $10B empire (later to be revealed to be closer to the emperor having no clothes, but let the history books worry about that). $1,000,000 – $10,000,000,000! Following this pattern, a penny today can be converted into $100 tomorrow! What a genius! We’ll wait a few years for appreciation before we kick Franklin off the C-note.
Color me stupid, but whereas other people look silly or sick in silver or green, the copper-coated zinc coin closely captures the golden hue of our healthiest human ever (eat your heart out Wheaties cover chumps). I’m tempted to suggest that Trump’s coin be golden, like his showers and towers, but like changing Benjamins to Donalds, we’ll leave that next move to a future generation.
A penny for your thoughts? Let’s charge people a paltry penny to publish their brain farts on Twitter. Another way to repay the debt or maybe to pay for something like a school or bridge (or security for a Trump golf outing). FWIW, I do pay a pretty penny for this upgraded WordPress site to host my brain farts for your enjoyment or ignoring.
Some might argue that since it costs more to make a penny than it is actually worth, the cent should be abolished like a bad habit. But these penny-pinchers clearly do not understand economics the way that someone who went to Wharton does (don’t look to me, I didn’t go there; I’m relying on the logic of our very stable genius). Simply sticking this face on a coin will instantly elevate its intrinsics to something far greater than face value. Nearly half of America will be too inspired to part with their homage coins to the hero who wasn’t captured in Vietnam (it’s over half if you don’t count all of the illegal voters). The other half will be similarly unlikely to want to use these coins (for slightly different reasons). Regardless, the combined effect will be all Americans saving money, which is a good thing for a country in massive debt. Trumpennies for everyone! Make it rain!
Traipse Reports - Trips and Races 