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Thursday, March 28, 2002

Pride Dead in Ohio

One of the neatest things that the US Mint has done in years is the 50 State Quarters program. Each state gets to choose it’s own design; which has led to some nice looking coins. You get to see the things that make each state unique. The Kentucky Derby, the Statue of Liberty, or something as simple as the Georgia Peach adorn these new look quarters; and collectors are hording them all across the country.

But I don’t think that enough thought went into some of them. Vermont shows a man taping into maple trees… telling everyone that Vermont is full of sap. North Carolina shows the flight of the Kitty Hawk… two people from another state bring a machine that there not sure works to your state because there is nothing there to hit. This is your claim to fame? And one of the most confusing is New Jersey’s where they have General Washington crossing the Delaware. How many state’s names can we get on one coin? And like Jersey, both Rhode Island and Virginia show boats on the water. So nothing good actually happened on the land?

Most of those are just poor choices, but that’s not the worst. By far the most recently release quarter makes the greatest mockery of the state that it’s supposed to honor. The state is Ohio and the design is very simple. There is an outline of the state with the Wright Brother’s plane on one side and John Glenn’s space suit on the other and the words ‘Birth Place of Aviation Pioneers’. You might ask why this design insults the state that chose it. Both of these events were great moments in aviation and American history, but neither of these things actually happened in Ohio. Does this mean nothing good actually happens in Ohio? What the coin says to me is that Ohio is a great place to have sex, and some of the babies born there can fly.