Famous Author of Historical Novels Reveals Eye For Period Detail
John J. Miller reads a story to his children and gets stumped by a fourth grader:
I read [“The Gift of the Magi”] to my kids last night. My daughter (fourth grade) noticed something funny about how it starts. Here are the first three sentences …:
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies.
This can’t be correct. If sixty cents of it was in pennies, that would leave $1.27. Wouldn’t there have to be 62 pennies? Or maybe 57 pennies?
Even though Miller’s self-published historical novel takes place in the 1860s, he apparently is completely unaware that two-cent and three-cent pieces were circulated during that period. I wonder if he has one of the characters in his literary chef d’oeuvre ordering a Coke Zero at the Marriott at 14th and Pennsylvania.
Facts and history are of little use to wingnuttia. The very idea of rationality and accuracy are of no importance. It is unfortunate (for the future of the right) that his child is already showing signs of leftist bias, I.e., inquisitive intelligentce, at such a young age. Dammit.
Let me Google that for you.
The existence of these alleged coins, knowledge of which I may or may not have had before I wrote my self-published work of 1860s gouger fic (so named for what you want to do to your eyes after reading it), merely serves to amplify and is central to my larger point about how weird the whole 60 pennies thing is.
In all fairness, you knew he was both pretentious and moronic the moment you learned he was a self-published author.
Really, how many normal people of average or above intelligence get rejected by every literary agent they can find, send their manuscript directly to the publishing houses, get rejected by them too and still think well enough of their writing style that they go in for vanity publishing?
Let me Google that for you.
No see, that’s not how communication works. When you say something like “I have 60 pennies” you’re implying that you have only 60 pennies. If you have 80 pennies, it’s true that you have 60 pennies, but to say so comes across as bizarre and unnecessary.
So I’ll stick with the two- and/or three-cent coin explanation.
On the other hand, his ultimate conclusion:
At any rate, the opening lines of “The Gift of the Magi” don’t add up.
is not entirely wrong. The opening lines of “The Gift of the Magi” are fine, but truly, something here does not add up.
He’s updated. Thank God for the Cornerite-correcting emailosphere.
So I’ll stick with the two- and/or three-cent coin explanation.
As does DrMath:
I suspect that with further Googling
youMr Miller could have found several hundred other people providing the same explanation.Another sign of Obama’s reckless fiscal policies, somehow. Also.
He doesn’t believe all those Lie-brul facts about so-called “two-penny” pieces (whatEVER, Loozer!) because elitist historians obscured the conspiracy that killed Lincoln and framed Boothe. He’s one of those people who’s wise to the ruse.
You know: a Boother.
I’m sure he believes that “three-cent coin” is code for “homosexual.”
Also, clocks do not “strike thirteen”, so Orwell’s 1984 is obviously a bunch of foolishness too, also.
Any coin outside the 1, 5, 10, 25, or 50 cent denomination is gay and Satanic and against the Constitution.
3-cent coins are an obvious attack in the War Against Christmas (WAG)
As has already been pointed out, she just had 60 freaking pennies and some other assorted change.
O Henry was just saying that she was so poor that 1/3 of the money she had was in fucking pennies, and that was only because she had haggled. HENCE: “Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. ”
It’s called “reading in context,” jackass. This guy is lucky you don’t have to think to breathe. Jesus fucking Christ.
The Gift of the Magi, updated:
Congress; Look, we bought you this wonderful healthcare bill! Now you can have insurance!
Voter: Thanks, but I had to sell all my internal organs to pay the skyrocketing cost of that insurance.
[meanwhile, at AETNA]: Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? If they’d rather die, then they had better do it and decrease the surplus population! [oops, sorry, wrong story]
His update:
“it is not a stretch to imagine a two cent piece among Della’s little treasure trove. I’ll leave you to do the math!”
Bad idea that.
I can only imagine what he would make of the 25 cent paper note from the 1870s I have in my possession…
“As queer as a three cent piece” was what they said in the 19th century…
Think of what it takes to create something. To truly be creative. To start a revolution. It takes guts, charisma, and bravery. This is the stuff someone like John Miller is made of, and it’s certainly the stuff Hillary was made of before you giggly, non-creative Obot hacks, full of the smell of your own farts and your own wicked misogyny, unfairly stole the Democrat nomination away from her in the Screw Job In Denver. You should be ashamed- of your own intolerance, of you own lack of creativity. But you fauxgressives would rather get our jollies insulting someone like John Miller, whose popular fiction has captured the imagination of the true blue beating heart of Appalachia, those Reagan Democrats and Bubba Voters that Hillary rightfully and successfully courted before your precious Messiah in all his ill-wisdom decided to screw them out of their rightful democratic voice.
No, no, no.
There were no such things are two and three cent pieces. What he was doing was counting American coins and stating the total in Canadian dollars after doing the conversion in his head.
This is just like how my grandfather used to read me folk tales from a big book he’d had as a child, translating the Russian into ‘Merkan as he read. I’m not sure if “Godless Commie Bastards” is a direct translation of all the villains’ names but that’s not really the point.
WRT the health care stuff: several things could happen: 1) the teabaggers will go into full “don’t tread on me” mode – the uninsured among them will refuse to buy coverage, and among the employer-insured group, some, perhaps many, will drop their coverage so as to avoid paying taxes that will go to providing coverage for poor (brown) people. There might be people outside of teabagger ranks who will feel similarly in terms of being forced to hand over money to a private company they despise. The bottom line is depending on how much pillage the insurers think they can get away with, we’re likely to have just as many or perhaps even more people uninsured once this thing takes effect. 2) falls into the category of “stuff I’d like to see”: when the inevitable teabagger rhetoric about “tyrannical government stripping away freedoms with taxes and forcing you to buy insurance” ramps up, I would love, love, LOVE it if the Democratic reply was, “we tried to do something better, but we heard you loud and clear about your fear of government “involvement” in health care and the death panels and all that cal. And we listened. So what you get is a plan that doesn’t “get between you and your doctor” and instead allows your private insurer to do that, while goverment instead stands looking over your shoulder to make sure you put your skin in the game. You’ll be putting in more than you would have with a single-payer plan or even one with a strong optional public insurance plan, but that’s what you said you wanted. You’re welcome.” 3) most likely, the insurers, like all other corporate clients of this government, won’t be able to teach themselves how to say “when”, and within a few years of everything being put into effect, there will be a radical overhaul that either regulates the shit out of the insurers, creates a competing public plan, or puts them out of the business of basic coverage altogether. The outcome of 3) is heavily correlated to how 1) plays out.
No see, that’s not how communication works. When you say something like “I have 60 pennies” you’re implying that you have only 60 pennies.
Oh piss off. Any math geek understands it instinctively. I, for one, frequently respond to questions about my age with completely truthful “39.”
Ah, I see. Not a math geek, eh? Piss off!
wow, Iris is teh crazy. is this a spambot?
Shorter Iris: We had a gameplan all set up to defeat Hillary, and you damn Libs went and picked someone we couldn’t beat.
Well, pardon me, missy, but I’m from the true blue beating beating heart of Appalachia, and we prefer our Millers to be Roger, not John.
Perhaps you’ve already begun humming “Trailer, for sale or rent, rooms to let fifty cents…” but allow me to point you to one of Miller’s other hits:
Dang me, dang me
They oughta take a rope and hang me
High from the highest tree
Woman would you weep for me
(And, while we’re on the subject, Red Sovine.)
Yes, which is why Hillary completely left politics and government work after the Obots stole her crown.
Oh, wait …
It’s not that he didn’t know about 2 and 3 cent pieces. They’re pretty obscure. It’s that he assumed that O Henry had made an error rather than assuming there was something he didn’t know.
Also, everyone knows clocks don’t strike thirteen, so George Orwell’s 1984 is obviously a bunch of hooey also, too.
Clearly he never saw the One-Penny Opera.
O-bots O-bots O-bots GO!
Well, now, I still think it’s pretty rockin’ that his fourth-grade daughter picked up on that so quickly. She may not know all the minutiae of nineteenth-century U.S. currency, but she makes up for it with that sharp eye for integers.
I like your style, fourth-grade daughter! And Dad, there’s a kid you can be proud of, so go get this fine young lady a copy of James R. Newman’s The World of Mathematics today!
I have to give Miller credit. He could have simply pulled the original column after learning that its premise was invalid. Instead he left it up for our continued mockery.
Or maybe he’s just that desperate to be published.
That is,
“published”
or perhaps,
“published” ;^)
Wingnuts really should be aware of two-cent pieces; they were, after all, the first coin to bear the motto “In God We Trust.” (There’s a prototype two-cent piece in the Smithsonian with “God Our Trust” in its place, IIRC.)
But then, I’m sure they think “In God We Trust” was on the coins from the very beginning, just like how “under God” has been in the Pledge of Allegiance since Washington’s time.
Meh. Not enough self righteousness. And the fart bit was amusing but not versimilitudinous. Fake Iris get’s a 6.5.
Why would anyone write a column about this, let alone publishing it, without checking with Teh Google?
I mean, Miller, of course.
Speaking of math geeks and being OT, here’s an interesting Mandelbrot set . Oddly, I was unaware of this particular implementation.
Wingnuts really should be aware of two-cent pieces; they were, after all, the first coin to bear the motto “In God We Trust.”
But was it on the side?
Oh, coin geeks rejoice!!
Treasury site
The use of IN GOD WE TRUST has not been uninterrupted. The motto disappeared from the five-cent coin in 1883, and did not reappear until production of the Jefferson nickel began in 1938. Since 1938, all United States coins bear the inscription……the motto has been in continuous use on the one-cent coin since 1909, and on the ten-cent coin since 1916. It also has appeared on all gold coins and silver dollar coins, half-dollar coins, and quarter-dollar coins struck since July 1, 1908….A law passed…on July 30, 1956… declaring IN GOD WE TRUST the national motto of the United States. IN GOD WE TRUST was first used on paper money in 1957, when it appeared on the one-dollar silver certificate. The first paper currency bearing the motto entered circulation on October 1, 1957.
it should be obvious to anybody that the esoteric numismatic calculations in this story are merely coded references to the secrets of the dancing chickens, who are plotting even as we speak to distract us with three cent pieces while they covertly install islamic socialism
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resorting to Gazoogle would mean surrendering his smug satisfaction and giving in to liberal objective facts. The fact that the math only works with faggy 3-penny coins is central to his point.
inevitable orange satan rhetoric about “tyrannical government stripping away freedoms with taxes and forcing you to buy insurance”
i regret to say that while the above fyt is a joke, it is also not a joke
.
GOD DAMN IT FYWP I DID NOT SAY ANYTHING BECAUSE YOU ET MY FUCKING COMMENT GOD DAMN YOU TO HELL
I tried to say,
Speaking of math geeks and being OT, here’s an interesting Mandelbrot set . I was, surprisingly, unaware of this particular implementation.
That’s a fyt from another thread, innit?
Sad to say you are correct. Hell, I feel that way about it myself – it’s welfare for the insurance industry, a massive transfer of wealth from all of us to health insurance company shareholders and CEOs. Then again, I’ve always believed – and watching this whole health care thing play out has only reinforced the belief – that this country will never really fix health care until the existing system comes crashing to the ground. So in a way I see the shit sandwich they’ve served up as an opportunity to incite the loonies to do exactly what will have to happen to bring the existing system crashing to the ground, which is, stop giving their money to insurance companies. There’s a pretty hardcore 30% stupid and insane demographic out there – if they drop out of the system, there are no half-measures that can keep it going.
You know: a Boother.
Too late; that name has already been appropriated by Republican politicians.
God created the integers. All the rest is the work of gaybortion Taxachussetts elitists.
The fact is, screw you hippies trying to make us get health insurance if we are healthy and if we already have it and if we don’t want to pay for black welfare cases to use it for gay abortions.
While its certainly true that a single two-cent coin, or tuppence, is all that is needed to complete the numerical configuration. Its also true that a coin in circulation for thirty years is common, even today. You are forgetting the most rare of American coinage, the four-cent piece, or quappence. The quappence was minted only for a short while and was immortalized in the Booth Tarkington short story, “The Flummoxed Novelist”. The protagonist says “He would err for her gratitude, substituting quappence for the pennies she charged to clean his shirt.”
Y’all miss the sharpest bogosity in that bit–the obviously false attribution of the detective work to his daughter, thus giving him a handy way to evade the fallout–he was just trusting the pure insight of a child. That O Henry was just another posterchild giving guilt-by-association a bad name, that is.
Reminds me of Stephen King’s finale for the true fascist politician, in The Dead Zone, where the guy holds up a child to protect himself from a rifle bullet. (Ineffective, as ever second-amendment wingnut can tell you.)
ice9
Reminds me of Stephen King’s finale for the true fascist politician, in The Dead Zone, where the guy holds up a child to protect himself from a rifle bullet. (Ineffective, as ever second-amendment wingnut can tell you.)
Of course. Child-piercing bullets are standard ammo for assassins. Stillson should have held up a rhinoceros to protect himself.
While a republican is as large as a rhinoceros, they make poor cover due to their notoriously thin skin. Also, its well known that you can only hold up a republican as cautionary example, also.
This is what happens when a stupid man forgets he is stupid.
A baby seal would have been more practical.
~
The currency conundrum in the Magi story has been around for quite a while. I first read about it in the Sixties, in a book that went back farther than that. The writer solved it the same way you folks did, by noting the existence of the more-than-one-cent coinage.
This simply shows the genius of O’Henry — the real surprise ending was how right wingers would still be confused by his mysterious currencies.
The effect is only cheapened by the fact that all things confuse them.
FYWP STOP EATING ALL MY COMMENTS
Oh sure, NOW you let one through. WP tasks me!!!
where the guy holds up a child to protect himself from a rifle bullet.
If more children were packing and able to defend themselves, this kind of scenario would no longer arise.
My grandfather fought at Gallipoli. The only reason he survived and returned home to start a family is that he was carrying a small child* in an inside pocket, which stopped a Turkish bullet.
True story. The small child, its bakelite container, and the bullet have been handed down through the family.
* Standard officer issue in those days.
Turkish bullet
this is tasty but it’s hard to get the right kind of eggplant here in the states
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True story. The small child, its bakelite container, and the bullet have been handed down through the family.
Not the excelsior that filled the bakelite container? For shame…no antique dealer would talk to you.
LIBRULS, GET A BRAINS AT THE BRAINS STORE, MORANS. I’M GETTING AIDS READING THIS PAGE CUZ YALLL ARE SO GAY.
I agree with SOARING AMERICN EAGLE. All you web people are being way too quiet this weekend. I need entertainment, dammit!!! Though apparently not as much as EAGLE does.
The three-cent piece was adorned with LIBERTY on one side. You’d think that would attract the wingers. Why? Because FREEDOM ISN’T FREE, and LIBERTY ISN’T LIBS!!!11!
Bookmark it, plebes.
YALLL
Needs more LLLLLLL.
Also, everyone knows clocks don’t strike thirteen, so George Orwell’s 1984 is obviously a bunch of hooey also, too.
heh, also.
Why would anyone write a column about this, let alone publishing it, without checking with Teh Google?
I mean, Miller, of course.
Of course, Mr. O. Henry could have checked it on teh gazoogle, too. But in his day, the Internet really was a series of tubes.
Damn, two posts in a row. I am branded LOSER. And this would be #3. I should just have my own blog and go nuts.
Damn, two posts in a row. I am branded LOSER. And this would be #3. I should just have my own blog and go nuts.
Too late now.
~
This reminds me of a comment I read on some site with public-domain movies, and some fundie angrily commented that the fact was, the site had edited “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance in some Little Rascals short. Said short was from 1939.
OMIGODTEHCOMMIESHAVETIMEMASHEENZ.
…two posts in a row.
(not your fault that everyone else is in a coma – that’s my story, and I’m stickin to it)
No, I’m a loser, but it’s not actually because of this post. It’s because I wear soiled underwear outside my trousers.
Damn, two posts in a row. I am branded LOSER. And this would be #3. I should just have my own blog and go nuts.
I’ve never heard that rule.
Never.
Ever.
What?!
What about half-cents?
“No, I’m a loser, but it’s not actually because of this post. It’s because I wear soiled underwear outside my trousers.”
I thought that made you a super hero…
Also, why do they call it “soiled” when it is not soil…..
oh, what the hell, let’s beat this joke into the ground! Here I am again!
So there are branded losers now? Will there be a price war to gain market share? Trademark protection so each loser’s brand is not diluted? Espionage to try to figure out the secret recipe another loser brings to the marketplace?
What do you think soil is made of? Magical Unity Ponies?
Soil was never issued in 3 cent denominations.
“Magical Unity Ponies?”
I was at a wedding yesterday and a girl told me she gave “magical blowjobs”
Sometimes, it pays not to be so sure about the sure things…
So now Senate liberals are jamming this 2,337 page monstrosity of a bill down the throats of the American people at 1 am five days before Christmas.
There will be hell to pay this November, libs. This bill is extremely unpopular and will trigger a revolt against big government schemes the likes of which has never been seen!
Even if this bill DOES finally pass after conerence (still unlikely) it still means Republicans and the TEA Party movement wins!
Oh no, it’s a nightmare. Someone wake me up. Please.
I got this name from a DVD in the house of one of the children I raped.
READING TAKE TOO LONG! MAKE TROOFIE MAD!
Ramming through a piece of legislation that will impact nearly 20 percent of our economy along a party line vote in the dead of night, made possible by corrupt bargains and bribery.
Chicago-style urban politics has truly come to Washington. I can’t believe it. The shakedown artists Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton must be proud of Hopey tonight.
How disgusting,
Is it still The Day Obamacare Died? Damn, Obamacare is taking even longer to die than Reagan. Although to be fair, it’s armed considerably fewer terrorists and drooled less along the way.
I really, really hate black people.
Have any of you libs even read the bill? Do you know what’s in it?
It’s going to kill jobs and RAISE health care costs, forcing millions into the medical ghetto known as Medicaid and putting additional costs on small businesses at a time of double-digit unemployment.
You may barely ram this bill through, but it will be your undoing.
Not a single Republican will vote for it. We will not be held responsible for it’s failure. YOU will be!
Troofies mad the libs are ramming the legislation and not him.
What about half-cents?
Offered to trolls & J. J. Miller for their thoughts, as an entire penny would be inflationary.
Notice I’ve stopped crowing about anything being “dead” or how we should suck it. I’m scared, and it’s beautiful to watch.
It’s not over yet.
One Senator could fail to make it for the vote. Remember, the Klansman from West Virginia is over ninety.
Yep. Shitting my pants like the chickenhawk pussy bitch I’ve always been.
Yeah, you’re right I’m scared, and so are the American people.
They don’t want this bill. START OVER! Start over!
Well it’s simple, Troofie. If you don’t like the bill, just refuse to comply with the mandate.
Be sure to tell all your little friends to do the same. FREEDOM!!!!!!!
“I’m scared and so are the American people.”
So you’re separate entities?
TROOFIE’S AN ILLEGAL!!!!!1!!
Pssh. Yeah. Sure. Because we exist.
As a small business owner, you know what I’ll do?
Simply fire some employees, and cut other’s hours and until they’re only part time. I just can’t afford the added mandate.
I’ll ,make sure the ones I do it to supported Hopey.
Pssh. Yeah. Sure. Because I exist.
I actually agree with your hero Howard Dean.
Kill the bill. START OVER, as Senator Cornyn said tonight.
How can you pass something this important with zero bipartisan support? Hmmm?
Like this, cocksucker.
I’m not gonna fuck you either, homo. Sorry.
Just wait until the Republicans take back the House in 2010. Even lib George Stephanopolus said this morning that the election next year could be a “tsunami”.
Then we will have the power to investigate Hopey.
Libs are so stupid, I believe everything one of them says.
Just wait until the Republicans take back the House in 2010.
Just wait until monkeys fly out of my butt!
Howard Dean: “I would let this thing go to conference committee and let’s see if we can fix it some more…”
sooooo…you’ve read the bill and know everything there is to know about the major players involved, but you don’t watch the shows the major players go on?
So I see Hopey has shaken down Howard Dean with his thuggery, too.
Pathetic.
I’m still waiting for my hoverboard. Darn you, Zemeckis!
Bribe ’em, and then if they still won’t do what you want, shake them down and intimidate them.
It’s the Chicago Way.
I thought he was a pansy or sumptin and was gonna let the arabs walk over us. WTF. I need to check my memos
Someone said “soil”?
I need entertainment, dammit!!!
* mimes “walking into the wind” *
What, not good enough?
Tough crowd here tonight, eh?
* reconciles Quantum Theory with Relativity *
* squares the circle *
* locates a graviton *
* finds Higg’s Boson *
* documents an honest politician *
OUCH! Oh, man – I’m gonna need a truss after that last one.
Republicans and the TEA Party movement wins!
Yeah, Obama better look out! Once Americans realize that all the things that make the bill weak were all c/o the GOP & DINOs, teh shit is sure gonna hit teh fan like nobody’s beeswax! More progressives winning primaries will surely be The Hand Of DOOM for the Soros/Ayers/ACORN/Illuminati/Reptoid conspiracy! After all, who can possibly resist a party that’s had the exact same answer to everything for 30 years, no matter how many times it fails?
“VOTE GOP IN 2010/2012 : 17TH TIME’S THE CHARM!”
Also, teabag me.
Forcing small business to spend money for a big government program, and forcing individuals to buy health insurance is just another version of shaking down “Whitey” for his lunch money.
Jim, the TEA Party Movement is now MORE POPULAR than the Democrat Party.
Republicans are very angry at how often Obama rams his big, too long package down their throats. Very angry.
Speaking of poop, hasn’t Sarah Palin done anything ludicrous in the last ten minues? She’s always good for entertainment.
At the very least, it’s always fun imagining whom to summon next before The Death Panel.
I just don’t see the political viability of a movement made up of little girls pretending to serve tea to teddy bears.
Simply fire some employees, and cut other’s hours and until they’re only part time
don’t forget to mail the nose you’ve cut off of your face to congress in protest
.
I think you meant UPS your nose, because no one wants to use the US Postal Service for fear it will wind up getting them sent to one of them FEMA death camps.
i, for one, will never join a political movement that forces me to stick my pinky in the air
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I thought no one uses the USP becasue of the burdensome 44 cents stampts, interminable two-three day wait for delivery, and horribly inconvenient daily home pickup and multiple drop off locations countrywide.
er usps
Butbutbut- SOSHULIZM!
Teh Post Office is fascism just like Auschwitz!!!
Hey, I think I’m beginning to finally get the hang of thinking like a wingnut. I just have to mangle the thinking as badly as the spelling…
Socialism, fascism, what’s the diff?
the TEA Party Movement is now MORE POPULAR than the Democrat Party.
Woot. “Tickle Me Elmo” was once more popular than Barbie.
Please feel free to cast a write-in vote for “the TEA Party Movement” in both 2010 & 2012, with my blessings.
Oh, & the GOP is less still less popular than the Democratic party – so enjoy your fail.
the gop vs the ruff tuff tea party will self destruct in 2010 unless the democratic party vs the democratic party beats them to it
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I’ll bet quappence that Troofie doesn’t know that the survey that showed teabaggers were considered authentic political movement was funded by George Soros. Its merely the latest scheme to crapotage the Repubsnickan party.
did someone say “crapotage”?
What the wingnuts really fear is that we will RAM THIS BILL DOWN THEIR THROATS!
i believe what you mean is “crapaudage” , the act of throwing toads into mill machinery
of course, you have to dress them up and serve them tea, first
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a second non-lester the giant ape said,
Damn, two posts in a row. I am branded LOSER. And this would be #3.
Remarkably prescient of you. I wonder how you were able to call it:
I can only hope that I’m never so hard-up for entertainment that I’m reduced to trolling blogs, blowing increasingly shriller racist / white-supremacist dog-whistles in the hope of provoking a response.
@N__B
“Child-piercing bullets are standard ammo for assassins. Stillson should have held up a rhinoceros to protect himself.”
Or a hippopotamus; that would do if the assassin couldn’t afford bullets made of platinum.
Also.
.
Sir/Madam, I am interested in joining your newsletter, and circle of wedding friends… now does this mean I have to bring my own pony, or just some unicorn/rainbow bedsheets?
I’m sending this entire thread to the Car Talk Puzzler. If I win a muffler, I’ll share it.
Stop hating America libs!
Andy Williams adds this message:
“It’s the mooooooost wonderful time of the year
(pig schlong, pig schlong!)
of Sadly No trolls, and holiday death tolls
so drink lots of beer!
(curly pig schlong!)
It’s the mooooost wonderful time of the year!
I don’t know if there was even that much thought in it. “O Henry made a mistake, you can’t have $1.87 if 60 cents is in pennies” is one of those “facts” that gets passed around like “a duck’s quack doesn’t echo”.
Jennifer:
So, if I’m to read you right, your analysis is this: That the poor are mostly stupid “teabaggers” and we’ll know this for sure if and when they refuse to pay into any insurance mandates? Right?
And, in addition, you are going to go ahead and enable the system by paying into a system that you think sucks and is unjust, but hey! It ain’t hurtin’ you, so you’ll just wait it out until the really squeezed and angry are forced to take dramatic action.
And then you and everyone else who has sat on the sidelines can reap the benefits.
Frankly, as someone who has for years been a member of the poor class and has had to take the shit while the rest just says, “Oh that sucks, we’re with you — after we pay into the system that is screwing you and reap out benefits — but have faith!”
Yes, I know you know the deal, that the poor and lower middles and middle class have been screwed, but ever consider how it feels to be a part of any of those classes and have people looking down, “Hey, we got a great tax cut last year — but yeah, we know it sucks for you so we kinda feel guilty, so we’ll post on blogs, volunteer at the soup kitchen and donate our old clothes to goodwill.”
I’m not a fucking loonie because I’m pissed and no I’m not a teabagger. I’m not a rube who believes that protests are actually going to get anything. As you stated in your own post, the only action that’s going to get anything is direct civil disobedience; refusal to play into the game.
The corporate/Congress/government only cares about how much money they can get from you. If they don’t get enough, they’ll just blow a whistle here and there to distract you and take more. The teabaggers are fools and they will figure that out eventually. It wouldn’t hurt if some liberals actually made an attempt to get to these people instead of marginalizing them and playing the role handed to you — the role that keeps power against the machine unorganized.
Yes, Jennifer, if I’m forced to pay into an insurance scam at my level of poverty just to feed the rich and greedy, I will refuse to pay in. Because either way you see, it sucks for me. At some point, whether you like it or not, you’ll be facing the same decision, I’m sure of it.
Even though Miller’s self-published historical novel takes place in the 1860s, he apparently is completely unaware that two-cent and three-cent pieces were circulated during that period.
Facts are stupid things!
Any coin outside the 1, 5, 10, 25, or 50 cent denomination is gay and Satanic and against the Constitution.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Not my collection of Presidential dollar coins!
*sigh* So much for my closet door…
Eh, it’s just one of those things that occasionally pops up in literature, like Daniel Defoe having Robinson Crusoe strip naked, swim out to the sinking wreck of his ship… and filling his pockets with stuff. It doesn’t mitigate the fact that the best writing that Miller has ever done doesn’t measure up to a scrap of O.Henry’s used bogroll.
@DASNATGBF: Defoe never said that Crusoe took off all his clothes and on the next page refers only to Crusoe’s coat, shirt and waistcoat discarded on the shore. Apparently Crusoe left his pants on, although such modesty was probably uncalled for in the middle of nowhere.
link
This is not an endorsement of the argument that O’Henry didn’t say “only sixty pennies.” 🙂
All I know is what I heard from Stephen King (who makes his own share of errors). Whoopsie!
Where did Nightmare go? He was just getting good.
The idea of Obama as thug is precious. Last I heard he was a precious Muslum egghead.
It has occurred to me in retrospect that, since the O Henry story has been thoroughly considered by smart people and the sixty pennies issue is, for non-stupid folk, retired, the author of the original post (you remember him?) is doubly bogus–he is attributing to his daughter his own plagiarism of a nonsensical point that has already been thoroughly considered. Since my previous literary allusion was well received by perhaps the best commenters on the entire internet system, I’ll offer another one: Who said “You got chirren of your own!”
ice9
One day, I intend to acquire 19th Century coinage totalling $1.87, with sixty cents in pennies, to be shadowboxed with a nice-looking printout of “The Gift of the Magi”.
Maybe after I make my “Tom Corbett, Space Cadet” shadowbox, for which I already have the parts.