One More Thing to Dust...

All of today's talk about authorized spying on US citizens by the government is ruse to hide a much more important scandal... best git yer hands out of yer pants and listen up here. The US Government has apparently decided to have a little garage sale. Seems that there are some in House that want to make it easier for the gubment to sell federally owned land to private interests. While the legislation purports to act in favor of mining interests, there are those that believe that the real thrust of the fire sale is to benefit private land developers. Having covered every available square inch of commercially useable ground with strip malls, Starbucks, Office Supply, and Circuit City outlets; and having crammed neighborhoods into every remaining nook and cranny, there is no land left to build upon. Must...(gasp)... have (cough)... government (wheeze)... land!

What is a recovering conservative to think? After all, what could be wrong with an oversized, inefficient sovereign divesting itself of unused real estate to those who best know how to turn a dime, especially in an up market? Policy assumptions underlying long established legal concepts suggest that property should be committed to the best possible economic use. What could possibly go wrong?

Maybe nothing, perhaps it is a rare instance of the government unloading an unused asset at the peak of a seller's market. I wonder though, what the last great conservative president would think. It was after all, the last true Republican that was largely responsible for today's US Park System. It was through the obsessively dedicated, sociopathically focused efforts of Roosevelt the First that some of the Nation's most treasured lands, and its various 4-legged inhabitants, are protected and open to the public.

Perhaps the proposed legislation should be expanded to include Yellowstone Park and Denali. They are, after all, some of the crown jewels in the holdings of the US. If the gubment wants to sell that which it bought from the Indians for good wampum, or purchased from the French with ill-gotten gold, well, why the hell shouldn't it? In fact, I say we put an oil rig and a 7-11 Convenience Store right on the front lawn of the White House.

But none of that is really what is on my mind (yes, shameless trick to pull you in, but keep reading because there is some eye candy as payoff). Instead, when I saw the report about the modern day land grab, I thought instead about another lasting impact that Roosevelt had on modern society. Roosevelt had a grand, bold vision of what the United States should mean to the rest of the world, and he wanted that vision reflected in grandest, boldest of means. Although less important to some degree today, the true heart and soul of a government is reflected in whatever things it may create or produce. Almost without exception, this includes coinage and currency, as expressed in its artistic stylings. The quality of coinage turns on the availability of gifted sculptors and engravers.

Both the Greeks and the Romans used their coins to express the strengths of the people, the love of particular rulers and heroes, and as a form of propoganda. The Greeks, by and large, had far superior sculptors and minters. As a result, ancient Greek coins carry a hefty premium over Roman coins, because they are valued for the undeniable aesthetic beauty of the remaining coins. The Greeks produced negotiable works of art as much as a system of regulating and stabilizing trade.

The Romans however, well, it seems that they were so damned busy conquering far away lands, importing Egyptian wheat and recruiting new legions to spread the freedoms of the Roman form of government that they failed to pay as much attneion as they should have to their artisans. Some of the coins of the Roman era are so poorly crafted, today's HBO viewers of "Rome" would think that all the fall of the Roman Empire was the result of a combination of Down's syndrome and wide spread in-breeding.

Once the Romans finally threw in the towel, it was not until the Renaissance the sculpture, and subsequently coinage, gained traction as a worth while endeavor.

In the United States, there was a brief period of time when our collective cultural contribution aspired to heights a little greater than the current (and upcoming) dose of Howard Stern. (Yes, I have priced Sirius Radio, so what about it?)

Before the likes of Howard, Madonna and Lindsay Lohan, the soul and the collective conscience of the country was shaped and molded by the likes of Augustus Saint-Gaudens. And it was the likes of Saint-Gaudens and his contemporaries that helped to define enduring, idealistic, and iconoclastic images of modern beauty.

Roosevelt turned to Saint-Gaudens to breath new life into American coinage, which had grown stale, at least by standards of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In return for Roosevelt's confidences, Saint-Gaudens produced what, at least for the time being, is without a doubt one the best looking US coin in the nation's history. The design is still used by the US Mint to whore out bullion sales.

PBS, another important but underperforming government asset, has some great information on Saint-Gaudens and his works.

Some of Saint-Gaudens contemporaries were the Frasers.
Theirs is an interesting story by itself. Although Pa Fraser is probably most well-known for the "End of the Trail" sculpture housed in the NationalCowboy Hall of Fame, it is his medallic achievements that are of most interest today.
In fact, the US Mint, apparently fresh out of original artistic designs, reissued Fraser's most well-known contribution to the numismatic scene. I guess you could say that coin collectors are going through their own little "retro" phase, because they snapped these up as quick as the Mint could churn them out.

I apologize to Fraser, and to any one actually reading this far, for the piss-poor scan of the indian head. I borrowed a beautiful photo off of Google Images, but I think some assclown jacked up the picture so that it wouldn't upload here, and you gotta drive to their place to see it. I never did like those guys.

Ok, a little more eye-candy disguised as serious social commentary. Which has the most appeal on all sensory levels: Pamela Anderson or Liberty with an exposed breast?

Photographers the world over have made a fortune off of lovely Pamela, but images fade, film becomes more crackled and brittle than my crusty briefs, and eventually deteriorates. Liberty and her scandalous exposed breast shall live on well after the silicon in Pamela's chest has been recycled by Mother Nature.

Thanks to Rep. Mike Castle, the tired-ass coin designs that have remained static for 20 years (nearly 100 years in the case of the Lincoln cent) are starting to go through a mini-renaissance once again. Mike Castle for President in 2008! Here is a Yankee I can support!

Most of the real innovation has come on the US nickel. Thank you Joe Fitzgerald and Don Everhart for making Thomas Jefferson cool again.

Coast to Coast, this guy is the most if you want to take part in some of this artistic coingasm.

Fine, go ahead and sell off the real estate, this neighborhood has been going to hell ever since I moved in. Just don't, elected officials and fellow citizen-soldiers, continue to neglect some of the other treasures held for the public good. I am goint to petition the Mint to make a commemorative coin for this site, and on the obverse it should say, "In God We Trust, but We Read... Formerly Living".