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When we reported two days ago that an advisory committee to the U.S. Mint had recommended that Benjamin Banneker grace the District commemorative quarter, there was a predicted and understandable groan from many residents. But for D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the decision isn't final until District residents say it is.
In a release posted on her website yesterday, Norton explained that the committee's proposal to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was just that -- a proposal -- and that District residents would have the final say:
D.C. residents will have an opportunity to express their views on the city's choice for the person who should be on the quarter during the comment period beginning later this week and finishing in late June. Apparently, the recommendation of the advisory committee is an expression of its own views and does not speak for the U.S. Mint, D.C. officials or the residents of the District of Columbia and does not trump the city's final decision. I sought clarification from the Mint because I was concerned that any pre-approval, even by an advisory committee composed of people that do not even live in the District of Columbia, would be inappropriate.Ultimately, Paulson will be the one to make the decision as to who we see on the District's quarter in 2009. But considering that District residents don't often factor in to federal decisions about their own city, we should probably admit that even an overwhelming show of support for challengers Duke Ellington or Frederick Douglass might not stop Paulson from picking Banneker.
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I'm holding fast to my original view that this is a lame choice.
Super lame. Unless we actually get Arlington back as depicted.
yeah, can people express their views on how they want a completely different design?
I'm sure that input will be swiftly ignored..
Tempest in a teapot. It’s an image on a friggen quarter. It could be an engraving of John Philip Sousa’s starfish and I couldn’t care less.
Why is Norton even wasting her breath commenting on this nonsense?
You mean it's not over until Madame Evanti sings?
Hey . . . .
guest_guest: Because that's pretty much all Eleanor ever does - comment on nonsense.
"composed of people that do not even live in the District of Columbia, would be inappropriate"
The irony being of course that Banneker never lived in DC. But I guess demography trumps geography around here.
Besides, Henry Paulson is a District resident. He lives in Woodley Park.
There's not much else she can do, really.
Eleanor really is lame. Hasn't the same advisory council made similar recommendations for all the other quarters?
And I agree with Reid. Pretty lame that no non-black persons were considered.
Ellington is more NYC than DC.
I vote for Harriet Walters!
She embodies what DC is all about!
Demographic or racial matters are important in the workplace, schools, in political representation and possibly at the extended family thanksgiving dinner. Demographic or racial matters on the engraving of some commemorative quarter is as important as a commemorative quarter! Worried about lame or uninspired quarter designs, look at the designs for the fifty states that came before D.C.! None of them are interesting.
They’re quarters.
Somebody please hand me an ice-pick. I need to stop this rigning in my ear.
I'm still sticking with my original vote of Marvin Gaye but changing his running mate to Pierre L'Enfant.
I still think that, in protest of the decision to ban any mention of DC voting rights on our quarter, the back should be blank -- Beatles' "White Album" style...
Don't blame me, I voted for Rayful Edmond.
I'm sticking with my original vote for the Bad Brains logo.
"None of them are interesting."
That's not true. Most of them aren't interesting, but some are. My favorites are Connecticut (although I'm biased), West Virginia, and Montana.
The thing with DC is that the council supposedly wanted to use this as an opportunity to present a non-federal Washington to the country. But it's obvious that at some point that objective became secondary to getting the first coin with an African American on it (I think the Duke Ellington coin comes close to satisfying both those goals, but the other two don't even come close). A noble goal surely, but should it have come at the expense of the stated goal?
Some quarters are lovely, most are forgettable. Just now I forgot that one I really liked with the tree on the back... oh well.
i still vote for monkey's avatar on the other side of the coin.
Y'know, with a little more work, they could make Banneker look like DC native son Sean Combs.
But of course at that point, you'd have to punch a hole in it and do a goatse mashup.