A poly thought.

[randomness]

Your worth is not measured in the number of sweeties you're seeing.

Your worth is measured in how well you treat the sweetie(s) you're seeing.

Comments

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

-Tangentially, I point out that the U.S. puts Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill, Benjamin Franklin on the $100 bill, and (historically) Salmon Chase on the $10,000 bill, none of whom were president.

(Corollary: I'm a geek.)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

True enough. In fact, currency portraits weren't standardized by era until the 20th century. Before that, different portraits were often found on notes with the same denomination.

These four $5 notes:

• a treasury coin note of 1891 (http://www.frbsf.org/currency/metal/treasury/642.html) depicting Gen. Thomas,
• a silver certificate of 1899 (http://www.frbsf.org/currency/metal/silvercerts/1107.html) depicting an unnamed Native American,
• 
  a legal tender note of 1907 (http://www.frbsf.org/currency/industrial/legal/523.html) with Andrew Jackson
  
• and the famous Educational Series silver certificate of 1896 (http://www.frbsf.org/currency/metal/silvercerts/591.html) showing an allegorical figure of Electricity

should serve to illustrate this.

All of these notes could be found in general circulation exactly a century ago. It was important to pay attention. :)

My favorite story about portraits on banknotes, however, is from the Civil War era:

[A]n unpopular figure named Spencer M. Clark was appointed as superintendent of the National Currency Bureau. Clark, a government bureaucrat with an unremarkable record, managed to get his own portrait on a five-cent piece of fractional currency that was issued from 1863 to 1867. Congress became so infuriated with this act of arrogance that it established a ban, which is still in effect today, on portraits of living persons on all bank notes.

Source: http://www.frbsf.org/currency/civilwar/history/text2.html

Photo at http://www.beeslife.com/currency/fractional/3rd_issue_05_cents_1.jpg

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

(Oops. Got the formatting a bit off, even the second time. My bad.)

(I'm a currency geek, too. But I won't be so much of a geek that I spam your inbox again. :) )