A Meaning of Currency

Fox - AP - Latest self-driving Google car heading to public streets. In the article it says that one of Googles cars paused while driving because it saw chairs sitting next to one another. What would be the safest type of road markings (lines and cross walks) for these cars to navigate around? Do you think European style crosswalks (like you see on the cover of Abbey Road) or old style American single line crosswalks would be more effective? What about to protect bicyclists? Wouldn't they need road markings to protect them? Maybe that is why we are seeing these things done in the United States already.

Huffington Post - Raven-Symoné Suggests Rosa Parks, Instead Of Harriet Tubman, Should Be On The $20 Bill. They claim that there is a discussion regarding whether or not a woman should be on the face of the $20 bill and some survey suggested Harriet Tubman (a famous black women who helped hide escaping slaves headed to the north). Ms Raven-Symone disagrees (she is also a black woman), and thinks Rosa Parks should be on the $20. While it is sad that there are no females on any of our bills (Lady Liberty was on many coins over the years), it sort of misses the point of currency design in the United States. We put Presidents on our paper currency or at least Benjamin Franklin who signed the Declaration of Independence. I can think of many famous men who deserve to be on our currency, how about Thomas Edison or Henry Ford or Albert Einstein (hey if any non representative of the government person deserves his own bill he would have to be it).

The images on the front of our money represent not just famous people; but, people who represented our government not society at large. A few people on a talk shows opinion is no more important than anyone else's and a survey doesn't do it. If we are going to let anyone be on our currency then lets vote on each bill. If we are not going to vote on it then we need a guideline and we have one, what guideline would you choose? Heck, I could understand President Obama on the $20 more than Harriet Tubman. He was the first black president after all, doesn't that count for something? What about putting Franklin D Roosevelt on it, is he not deserving, he did have more years in as President than anyone else in history and he has never had his own bill. In the end the question is not whether or not we should have a black person or a woman on our currency, the question is how should we decide what goes on our currency.

Now personally, I don't really care what we put on our currency; but, there should be some rules if we all have to use it or at least one person deciding. It is real expensive to replace currency. Then again the whole argument is pointless as we are headed to all electronic currencies. I should also point out that governments have put their leaders on coins forever, it was to show you who owned you. That is why the Queen of England is on the currency of so many nations that still owe allegiance to England. In the bible Jesus was asked about a government tax, he told his questioners to take out a coin and asked him who's representation was on the coin. The person told Jesus that it was Caesar's and Jesus said to give to Caesar what was Caesars. Even though we use Federal Reserve Notes, in the end it belongs to "The United States of America".