Funny Money
Posted at 6:00 AM on April 22, 2010
by Dale Connelly
(32 Comments)
Radio Heartland has tickets to give away to a concert by Over the Rhine at the Hopkins Center for the Arts at 7pm next Tuesday, April 27th.
Enter the drawing.
Obey the rules.
Good luck!
With a great bit of ballyhoo, the Department of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve Board and the U.S. Secret Service revealed a new $100 dollar bill yesterday, thoroughly loaded with the latest technology to discourage counterfeiters.
There is 3D security thread and there are watermarks. The bill does a trick called "The Bell In the Inkwell." Images migrate and change in the light. There are obscure sections of extremely tiny print. It appears to be a very busy piece of currency, even when it is just sitting in your pocket.
I don't believe I've ever had my hands on an old fashioned analog $100 bill and I doubt I'll get to spend much time with any of the new ones, which is just as well because I'm afraid I would stand at the cash register, transfixed. I like shiny, pretty things and am easily mezmerized. The bill might turn out to be more entertaining than anything you could buy with it.
Apparently this is a necessary step. The American $100 is a big fat target for monetary imposters because it is the most widely circulated and most often counterfeited denomination outside the US. One must wonder how carefully all these safeguards will be checked by those who do business with American cash overseas.
Technology must always advance to stay ahead of the criminal element and you have to wonder what might be next. In another 10 to 20 years there will be new tricks developed, and before long I suspect Ben Franklin Himself will no doubt look at us from the $100, winking and smiling like the bawdy old troublemaker he was.
Once that level of technology arrives, any crazy thing could follow. I anticipate the day when you'll be able to ask the paper money a security question and the face of Ben Franklin will answer you directly. If the Department of the Treasury is smart, they'll program some future generation of $100's to complete famous Franklin quotes when given the prompt. That's how you'll know it's a REAL Benjamin.
All you'll have to say to little Ben is "A penny saved ...", and he'll answer with "... a penny earned." Or "In this world nothing is certain, but ..." and he should promptly reply with "... death and taxes." If he doesn't, you'll have to surrender him to the authorities.
As secure legal tender, talking currency would be practically invincible. Foreign counterfeiters might learn to do holograms and watermarks and even The Bell In The Inkwell, but getting a translation right requires a tricky melding of science and art. For instance, here's a Franklin quote about money:
"If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some."Carelessly translated to Spanish and back again, it comes out like this:
"If you knew the value of the money, some are going and try to take them given."
What's that, Senor Franklin? I believe you're busted!
Can you complete any of these Franklin security questions successfully?
"A man wrapped up in himself ..."
"A small leak ..."
"Any fool and criticize, condemn and complain ..."
"Buy what thou hast no need of and ere long ...
"Guests, like fish ..."
"Three can keep a secret ..."
"Wealth is not his that has it ..."
Comments (32)
Morning Heartlanders.
I wouldn't get any of these exactly right. Although I think the fish one is "Guests, like fish, start to stink after three days." And "Three can keep a secret if two are dead"... something like that? I'm not too worried that I don't remember all BF's quotes, since the chance that I'll ever had a $100 bill in my possession seems kind of slim!
i think it is "Guests, like fish, taste good the first day but the leftovers smell" right?
as a goat milker, i get to handle ones, fives, even tens and twenties at times. but hundreds are not in our monetary arena.
this will be a fun day of craziness, i imagine. will check in much later this afternoon when i'm home again.
Aaron - the parade sounds like so much fun. could you extend the route a bit (140 miles?) north?
happy day, All!
Heighdy ho Heartlanders! I'm back from photographing the most beautiful baby boy in the world.
Portland is like a sister city to the Twin Cities. I felt right at home there. And I have a hot tip about the latest trend in Portland. What's new in Portland? Chickens! You can keep up to five in your city backyard if they are all girl chickens. People like having fresh eggs, and the chickens are a sort of pet. But no boy chickens. We all know what they sound like at dawn.
And who knows? Chickens today . . . goats tomorrow.
I'll take on the difficult Franklin quote, the one made more difficult because Dale threw a spitball at us, changing one of the words. It is:"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain, and most fools do."
What I want to know is what old Ben said to all those girls who gave him such a reputation. Or maybe it wasn't something he said. Perhaps he waved a few Franklin bills.
Good Morning to All.
Like sherilee, I don't know hardly any of those sayings, only the fish and guest one, but I'm sure I have heard most or all of them. Is there one about things quickly parting company which is what happens to my memory of quotes.
Ive only got the quotes already given so far. Museum goers, the Franklin exhibit at the History Center is excellent, it is there through July 4, 2010. Bet all the answers are there too!
A friend of mine always had a $100 bill in her purse, given to her on her wedding day by her new father-in-law to keep, so she would never be without cash. As far as I know, she still has it.
I've had a couple myself, just for the experience-can't say I've really thought well of the folks who hand me one for a $15 purchase at the beginning of the market, though.
Greetings! I just saw a note at work about cashiers accepting $100 bills -- apparently some counterfeit bills made it into the registers. So they want cashiers to check all $100 bills more closely now.
I don't remember any Ben Franklin quotes very well -- sort of what Jim says.
Welcome back, Steve! Portland seems pretty progressive -- I'd like to keep a few egg layers in my yard for fresh eggs. I think the suburban mania for perfectly green, manicured lawns precludes the messiness of chickens, though. All kinds of zoning laws would have to be changed for that to happen, I guess.
I guess the currency bearing his image should be a busy bill, since he was a busy man as the real father of our country (having fathered many, many children both in and outside of marriage).
I did not know "Buy what thou hast no Need of and ere long thou shalt sell thy Necessaries." My favorite is "Three can keep a secret if two are dead."
Good morning, all!
Text looks bigger today. I like it. As I was saying yesterday after that successful Russian Museum outing, I am proposing a meet up on May 2 for the MayDay celebration inn South Minneapolis. Its a Sunday from 1-6. Extremely awesome, but extremely crowded , Ther'es a parade from 26th and Bloomington Ave. Going all the way to Powderhorn Park. Puppets, Bands, and a whole lot of hippie culture. So I wont be able to meet up seeing that I am in the parade and the pageant in the park afterwords. But this would be a good outing for Radio heartland I think. We always sing You are my Sunshine to welcome spring back to Minnesota, and its very fun. So is this possible?
Ok and to tie this into the theme. This is completely free, no "funny money" involved.
In Chicago, where my daughter lives, there was a roster in a yard of a nearby house which you could hear crowing from time to time. I think you can have chickens in Minneapolis, maybe not rosters. You would think a small rural town, like the one I live in, would allow chickens, but I think you can't have them here.
Bold seems to be the normal type style this morning for comments. Is that what others are seeing? I don't mind everything being in bold, but I haven't seen this before.
Aaron - that sounds really fun. What time is the actual parade? Is there a smaller, specific area suitable for folks to meet and actually find each other? If it's big, sprawling and really crowded we need to narrow down the possibilities. And how can we meet you? That's the whole idea, my friend!
Is there someone who knows that area well that has suggestions?
ben was such an interesting guy. he seemed to know the value of keeping good notes on your thoughts. i think he may have been the first blogger. he had a thought and put it in his newspaper or his poor richards almanac. he knew it would all come in handy and found places to spread it around in his books his social and diplomatic interactions. i loved his program where he would choose the 13 things he wanted to work on about himself each year and he would then set about to better himself by working on each of those areas for a week he wouud repeat the cycle 4 times a year (13 things to work on x 4 = 52 weeks) then reevaaluate if he should do the same thirteen next year or tweek his list a bit. it amazes me how constructive we can be if an effort is put forth. ben was amazing.
100's i've had a few
but then again too few to mention
i find that they
give me great tension.
a pocketful of five and tens
is full for now then thin again
there is no thought of lots or few
i spend them till the day is through
but if its hundreds
i feel an itch to stash it
i think of it differently
its not really like cash it
is like having a account
that you carry along
right there in your pocket
and before its all gone
you should think about what you would like it to do
the possibilities are there in this world for you.
i you have a hunderd with you
you know your all set
you can have some good fun
when you spend it and yet
it is so sad when its gone and you feel kind of wrong
it was fun while it lasted but then it was gone
hundres are different
and they need lots more thought
about the things you end up with
all those things that you bought
did you need it for real
or was just a quick fling
cause you had that darn hundred
to buy that darn thing.
watch out what you wish for
when you have one of those
you can buy more stuff
than you have fingers and toes
but when its all done and the hundred is past
it want to darn quick and the spending was fast.
paris hilton you're not but you forgot for minute it was fun while it lasted but now it feels like sin it
just isn't right to put so much demand
on your brain and you pocket and in your left hand
so give me some washingtns and hamiltons and lincolns
and they will be gone way too quick before i'm done blinking
but i don't feel as bad when they're gone as with ben's
he was here for me to consider and deal with and then..
i hate it when my weakness is shown in such open sight. where is that hundred ...oh its gone now thats right.
i shoud have i could have but planning was nill
my pocket was bursting with coin and big bills
bens teaching me now even fronm his cold grave
with his portrait on paper how wise it is to save
thanks ben my dead mentor
now quit rubbing it in
my pockets were full
and now they are thin
a ben franklin i'm not
though i wish i could be
the world can be a better place for you and for me
if we all put some effort into bettering our vessel
and the battles with self are woth the self wrestle
ben did it in style and his hundreds remind me
that i aint no ben. some errors are behind me
but i will keep on working toward that better end
i have a strong will but boy does it bend
its a battle of will and i know where i'm aimed
but those hundreds will taunt me till death just the same
As I said in yesterdays posting, meet like on the parade route. Meeting in Powderhorn will be impossible. I would suggest the 29th street bridge that crosses over the Midtown Greenway bike route. I could possibly meet you there like at 12, before I walk to the parade lineup. Thats my suggestion
And Dale, could you play a obscure version of You are my Sunshine (not Peter Ostroushko's touching version, I don't need to be a sobbing mess this morning) for this possible meet up at MayDay, where this song is kind of the theme song of the day, when, during the ceremony, the sun puppet is brought across Powderhorn Lake, and the Tree of Life puppet is raised and we all sing You are my Sunshine. Its powerful stuff!
being a cool, trendy city, duluth allows chickens (i think 5 also, Steve, and no roosters) in the city limits. the slogan of the advocate group was "if chickens are outlawed only outlaws will have chickens."
Blackhoof allows chickens - there are way more chickens than 100 dollar bills.
now i'm really off to my day
g'day
One of the most startling things I (and any guest from the city) learned when I first had chickens...girls and boys...was that roosters do not crow only at dawn. I hear them as early as midnight, 1 and 2 and onward...and all day long. They have to declare their territory continually, lest they be forgotten and an intruder attempts to sneak into their domain.
I could not complete a single Franklin quote, though the fish one is familiar -- after reading it, thank you, Sherrilee.
I'm off to Skog Fjorden at the Concordia Language Village for an adult Norwegian weekend...may not be able check in tomorrow, so wishing all a super weekend.
Great poem, Tim! I'll play with the Ben quotes in a bit...
I think Robbinsdale allows up to 3 female chickens, and it's tempting.
RE May Day: Powderhorn Park hasa brick community building that could perhaps be a meeting-up place. Maybe we could have a couple places designated for different times, so if a person didn't get there till 1:00... Aaron, do you have any idea how long the parade usually takes?
manga tusen taak cynthia
ben may be the best quote guy.
i wa sthinking the other day about churchill, jfk etc but ben is a wealth of quotes
Tim -- were we supposed to sing your poem to the tune of "My Way"... that's what I was doing (in my brain, not outloud in my cube). Fab.
Aaron.. I've been Googling the 29th street bridge and the Greenway... not sure which bridge you mean for May Day. Crossroad?
A man wrapped up in himself only gets tied in knots.
tim--nice, nice and as usual whipped off before 8. Love the overlapping stanza. There is an English poet of the last 50 yearsa or so who does that, and his name is . . . don't remember.
Bold on the posts is nice, on the netry screen would be better. And see below, tim.
Dale--
yesterday tim and I were chading down this song; do you have it: Harry Chapin's "Flowers are Red."
Good trip, cynthia.
Sure, I know all of these quotations.
"A man wrapped up in himself is an ego burrito."
"A small leak leads to a plumber's crack."
"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain but really good fools somehow make money from doing it."
"Buy what thou hast no need of and ere long thou whilst own a Sham-Wow."
"Guests, like fish, will swallow just about anything if dangled before them attractively enough."
"Three can keep a secret unless one is my sister."
"Wealth is not his that has it when he owns a house."
TGITH--I was waiting for and hoping you would do that. We all promise not to tell your sister you said that.
"Any fool can criticixe if he has the title of consultant."
TGiTH... good, I like them all. Ego burrito will now be part of my lexicon and I will be thinking about you this summer at the State Fair when I stand listening to the ShamWow guy!
A little late to the game this morning (and rotten at remembering Ben Franklin quotes).
I hope to get to the May Day festival this year - but probably couldn't make a noon meetup time. Later at the community building (you're talking about the one at the east end of the Powderhorn Park lake, right B in R?) would be more likely for me.
Have fun at language camp Cynthia! Barb in Blackhoof - hope all goes well and you are toothacheless soon. (And Tim - I will have to read the poem more carefully later, when I'm not pretending to work...)
Clyde,
Go ahead and tell her. I'm sure that I'll probably be seeing her this weekend and she'll probably take a swipe at me with her stubby T-Rex arms for something I say or do. If I'm going to get smacked anyway, I may as well have an enjoyable reason for it...
A great, TGITH, glad you did that 'cause I can't think of any. Dale, love the image of Ben-on-the-bill talking back to us.
Yes, Anna, at 35th St. and 15th Ave. South. For latecomers, we could pick the most popular time and meet there at the playground on the NE corner, perhaps. Here's a link with a map: http://www.ask.com/local?what=powderhorn+park&where=Minneapolis%2C+MN
And there's another playground on the west side, top of the hill, that could be a backup meeting place for people that come even later -- would help keep it kinda loose; it's not fun to be tied down at this festival.
Off topic from end of yesterday:
Clyde re: Abby - I'll answer to Abby anytime, and I also love that name. But when the group on Saturday asked me which name I like better, and I found myself saying Barbara, so I've reverted.
I'm feeling quite ignorant this morning. I didn't know a single ending to those quotes. Now that I've read the other replies, some of them sound vaguely familiar, but I wouldn't have known them. Oh well, things like that don't stick in my brain for some reason. Give me songs, music, or math, and I'm good :)
tim - sorry for not replying yesterday. It is spelled Yoopers, and according to a recent poll, you must be born here to be one. Thankfully, I was born here, just not raised here, haha. It is indeed God's country. I have a half-hour drive to and from work now, and there's something new to see every day. Yesterday, I was leaving for work, and at an intersection, I saw a fox. He was just standing among the trees, looking at me. He sure was beautiful. I haven't eaten a single pasty since I've moved back, but I plan on it :)
Alanna--I am going to correct what you just said. I bet that to be a real Yooper your grandparents had to be born there. In NE MN you are always an outsider unless you are at least the third generation and you are not welcome to volunteer for public roles especially the ones for which they won't volunteer.
It is that perfect spring day here: cool, clear blue sky, almost all leaves full, and the day when the many thousands of flowering trees which cover these two towns are at their peak.
Clyde - I have that in the bag as well then :) My dad and his parents were all born in the UP. Which is the main reason why I went to college at Michigan Tech (my dad went there, so I got in-state tuition) and stayed here after I graduated. I currently work with my great-uncle (my dad's uncle) and his son. I don't think anyone looks at people as outsiders, but when you get to the smaller towns (like Gwinn...), people do look at you oddly if they don't know you, haha. It's as if they're wondering "Why would you move here? Why not Marquette?" They're still polite and cheerful, but they don't hold long conversations with you like they do the local folks. It's interesting :)
Every timwe a real Two Harborite would die, it was an opportunity for many people to tell me that he/she was a real native unlike me who had only lived there almost all of my life and that I never should have been the chair of the centennial committee,even though it had been a good centennial. (I bet some of you think I am exaggerating.)
You know for once I think I will comment on Dale's topic: I think I once had a $100 bill. As for the new one, I think the new design is a secret code of the Knights Templar and the Aztecs telling us when the world will end, where the holy grail is buried, that Obama was born Minsk Glen Beck's Swiss bank account number, and the middle naqmes of the three stooges. I bet TGITH will be able to decode it.
- Become a Member
- Member Connect Accounts
- Leadership Circle
- Sustaining Members
- Member Discounts
- Become a Sponsor
- Tax Information
- Planned Giving
- Vehicle Donation
- Donate Stock