February 11th, 2009
For decades, whenever I heard the word “surreal,” my first thought was of painter Salvador Dali, known for using fantastic imagery in incongruous juxtapositions.
Now, it seems everybody is using the word to describe everything, from the movie, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” to the landing of the jet liner in the Hudson River to Blagojevich on Letterman to twisters in Oklahoma to Madoff’s swindling, even to the Super Bowl.
Yikes. It bugs me when words I’ve become comfortable with turn into overused expressions.
It’s so phantasmagoric.
February 11th, 2009
In celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday, a newly designed penny will make its way into circulation Thursday, with a new backside design of a log cabin.
This is the first design change to the penny in 50 years. The three other new one-centers will be introduced in three-month intervals. All the pennies produced this year — something in the neighborhood of 5.5 billion — will be the new-look pennies. Then in 2010, the penny’s backside image may revert to the Lincoln Memorial. Or it could be something entirely different, U.S. Mint spokesman Mike White says, according to this Kansas City Star story.
The tail images represent four major aspects of Abraham Lincoln’s life: 1.His birth and early childhood in Kentucky, 2. His formative years in Indiana, 3. His professional life in Illinois, 4. His presidency in Washington, D.C., according to this WREX story.
My questions are these: Do you pick up a penny you find on the ground? And would you be more inclined to pick up this new penny?
