I have good news to report. As you may know, Bell's is being forced out of the fairgrounds. Well, it appears that Bell's intends to save the Zingo, their only rollercoaster. They are asking for a deadline extension so they can disassemble the Zingo and take it with them to the new site, wherever that may be.
Looks like the U.S. Mint is producing a new $1 coin. This has failure written all over it, just like the last two $1 coins they put out.
Author Douglas Mudd points out that no country has successfully introduced a $1 coin alongside paper currency of the same amount. One of them has to go. Also, most countries that have $1 coin have a $2 coin, too. No one wants to carry around 10 pounds of change in their pockets, and having the $2 coin helps with that.
This new coin is going to be updated with a new President's face every 3 months. Interesting, but it could lead to confusion.
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of a $1 coin. It's more durable, harder to counterfeit than paper, and should be less expensive in the long run.
I guess we'll see what happens.
Sometimes, I'm really ashamed of Oklahomans. Channel 8 reported that Oklahoma lawmakers are back to trying to pass a law establishing English as the official language. Furthermore, when I clicked on the poll to see if viewers agreed or not, an overwhelming 89% said "yes". I wish I could put into words how dumb I think such a measure would be. I will try.
First of all, I have some Native American blood, and there are negative implications to the Choctaw and Chickasaw languages, not that I speak either. The way the news reported the story, it could be illegal to speak anything other than English in public. There are apparently two bills being considered. One supports a more relaxed rule called "English Plus" (Wow! That sounds so nice!) that would allow employers to speak Non-English with their employees, but waiters and waitresses would be required by law to speak English to customers. This is just 100% ridiculous. The news story had a woman who was offended because she ate somewhere, and her server didn't speak English. Well someone call the police! Some fat bitch couldn't order a tamale! There's no need for a law here. If a restaurant doesn't speak English in an English-speaking country, it'll probably go out of business. The problem will solve itself.
Second of all, this will be an expensive waste of time and taxpayer money. What do these proposed laws hope to accomplish? The United States already has established English as the primary language. Just look around. It's on our currency, traffic signs, you name it. I feel this is just a thinly-veiled racially-motivated attempt to establish that White people are superior in the law books. I feel that the proposed law is primarily aimed at Mexicans and other Hispanics. I just don't see the benefit. All this serves to do is diminish our cultural diversity (I'm sure to the proponents of the law, that sounds like a good thing).
Thirdly, how would you even enforce such a law, if it were passed? Would you throw someone in jail if they violated it or give them a citation? Would this mean you can no longer learn a foreign language in school? Why are Americans so threatened by other people and their languages?
Fourthly, and this one is the most important, in the United States we have a little thing known as the First Amendment which guarantees us the right of freedom of speech, English or not. So, even if the law passes, it would be clearly unconstitutional.
Looks like it is time to write my congressman.
