Money to the blind and the racist

Two quick hits today

A federal district judge ruled that our paper money discriminates against the blind because they are all the same shape. He ordered the Treasury to look at ways to distinguish the bills. I’m all for making it easier, but we don’t have a good history for doing so. How may times have we tried to introduce the dollar coin only to fail because the people don’t want change (pun intended). But if the TD can figure out a way to distinguish the bills while making them harder to counterfeit but not costing a fortune to do so, I’m all in favor. While their at it they need to see if they can embed a chip that will make stupid people not spend money on stupid things. Now that would be great!

The other quick hit was that Michael Irvin apologized for joking that Tony Romo’s grandmother must have got it on with a black man for him to be that good athletically. I agree that he should apologize and I’m glad he did but then I listen to The Ticket (all “sports” stations here in DFW) and the afternoon boys go off on the world saying he shouldn’t have to apologize because he is black and can say what he wants. They recognize that this is a double standard (as if doing so takes that problem off the table) but say that it should be. I believe that is exactly what racism is, when one thing is ok or expected of one race but not another. Like it is ok for white people to drink from a water fountain but it is not ok for black people. It is NEVER ok to be racist, regardless of who is the racist. It is not ok for Irvin to be a racist any more than it is ok for Michael Richards. Now before you go off saying it was just a joke, imagine if I said in an interview on Sunday morning “Barack Obama’s granddad must have snuck into Hyde Park and got it on with a white woman because he is just too smart to be a black man.” I doubt those on the set with me would be laughing.