Is Texas Cursed?

I acquired a Texas quarter today. The design is simple and elegant—unlike many of its two-bit predecessors—with a Lone Star imposed on the State of Texas. No pastiche of goofy images for the Lone Star 25¢-piece. No brag, just fact. Laconic as a yup or a nope. If this is (fair & balanced) numismatics, so be it.

Texas Quarter 

[x CNN]
The curse of the quarter
A strange series of coincidences befalls the 50 State Quarters.
By Gordon T. Anderson

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Did the Old Man of the Mountain die of natural causes, or was a curse the culprit?

The distinctive rock formation had been famous since Native Americans roamed the White Mountains. More recently, New Hampshire selected it for engraving as the state's contribution to the U.S. Mint's "50 State Quarters" program. When the rock's face crumbled to dust in early May, it was a blow for naturalists and numismatics alike.

Age was cited as the official cause of the Old Man's demise. But conspiracy theorists take note: since the Mint inaugurated the coin series, a string of unfortunate events has befallen many of its subjects.

Call it the Curse of the Quarter.

In 1997, the Treasury Department announced the State Quarters program, to honor various contributions of the 50 states.

The states themselves get to pick the subject of their designs, which are then minted on the backs of quarters and released according to the order by which the individual state joined the Union. Subjects of depiction include history, tourist activities, and flora and fauna.

Since Delaware's quarter came out on January 4, 1999, commemorative coins representing 22 states have been released, and three more are scheduled to roll out this year. Misfortune of some sort has afflicted 17 of the depicted designs.

To be sure, many problems have been minor, even trivial. Still, when bad luck affects three out of every four, one wonders about the nature of coincidence.

Here are some of the more unusual woes:

■ Maryland. The quarter depicts the statehouse in Annapolis, America's oldest legislative building still in use as a capitol. Last summer, the historic wooden cupola was struck by lightning, starting a small fire, which had to be extinguished by automated sprinklers.

■ New Jersey. Washington's crossing of the Delaware was a pivotal event, justly honored on the coin of the state where he landed. Was something more than meteorology involved when an annual re-enactment of the crossing was cancelled last December? The span is only about a mile wide, but severe wind, snow, and ice prevented the annual event from happening.

■ Kentucky. The Bluegrass State takes its equine traditions seriously, so it chose a thoroughbred and the inscription, "My Old Kentucky Home." That theme song was heard at Churchill Downs again this year -- serenading Funny Cide, the first native New Yorker to win the Kentucky Derby. For proud locals, the fact that the horse is a gelding may have proved particularly emasculating.

■ Rhode Island. America's Cup was lost two decades ago. Even so, Rhode Island's quarter celebrates open-sea ocean sailing, perhaps in anticipation of the Cup's return to its historic Newport home. The prize did change hands this year -- but it went to a boat from Switzerland, a landlocked country where sea-faring is literally impossible.

■ Alabama. Helen Keller appears on Alabama's coin, released in March 2003. Barely a month later, a much-anticipated revival of "The Miracle Worker" was forced to close before it even made it to Broadway, the New York Post reported.

■ North Carolina. The Wright brothers are depicted on the quarters of both North Carolina and Ohio. The aviation pioneers have had their wings clipped a bit in recent years. A growing body of evidence supports a claim -- still unsubstantiated -- that New Zealand farmer Richard Pearse may have beaten them to the air by nine months.

A few states honor important local industries. Tennessee fiddles for its music scene, while sales of recorded country music fell for the sixth consecutive year. Georgia promotes the peach, whose 2002 harvest produced much smaller-than-average fruit, the Atlanta Journal reported.

Vermont depicts maple syrup producers. Tapping yields were down as much as 33 percent this winter, according to the Burlington Free Press. Indiana's coin features the once-venerable Indy 500. The event's luster has fallen so far that this year, its TV broadcast attracted fewer viewers than another car race held the same day.

Both New York and Louisiana pay homage to historic ties between France and the United States -- an international relationship that's grown somewhat less cordial recently. The Minuteman of Massachusetts suffered the indignity of a (failed) proposal to eliminate it as the state university's mascot. And a classic Chicago-style brawl erupted over funding and patronage issues related to the Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield. Honest Abe is on the Illinois quarter.

Even the sweet Carolina Wren, which adorns the South Carolina coin, has been affected. The bird's natural habitat is distinctly southern. Yet over the past few years, it has been spotted nesting in significant numbers in Indiana, Ohio, and Rhode Island.

A small colony of Carolina Wrens was even reported to be living in Ontario. Perhaps they're less afraid of SARS than the Curse of the Quarter.

Copyright © 2004 CNN

Correction + W's Mendacity?

Yesterday, I joined the largest group of people in the world: Those Who Have Made A Mistake. I incorrectly claimed that Austin fishwrap columnist John Kelso and I had attended the same showing of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11." Kelso mentioned a theater (Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Lake Creek) very prominently in his column that sat astride the Travis-Williamson County Line. Further, Kelso identified the screening that he attended as beginning at 1:20 pm. The theater where I saw the film (Tinsletown Pflugerville) had a start time of 1:00 pm. However, the audience applause at the end of the film was the same in both theaters. Sapper's (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves regrets the error.

Today, Nicholas Kristof offered an op-ed column in the NYTimes that took on the issue of W the Mendacious. My dislike for W is grounded in his stupidity and his arrogance and pride in his own stupidity. Shame on Yale and Harvard Universities for placing any sort of legitimacy on this clown. W is a disgrace. I truly believe that W is too stupid to be a good liar. If this is (fair & balanced) character assassination, so be it.

[x NYTimes]
Calling Bush a Liar
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

So is President Bush a liar?

Plenty of Americans think so. Bookshops are filled with titles about Mr. Bush like "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them," "Big Lies," "Thieves in High Places" and "The Lies of George W. Bush."

A consensus is emerging on the left that Mr. Bush is fundamentally dishonest, perhaps even evil — a nut, yes, but mostly a liar and a schemer. That view is at the heart of Michael Moore's scathing new documentary, "Farenheit 9/11."

In the 1990's, nothing made conservatives look more petty and simple-minded than their demonization of Bill and Hillary Clinton, who were even accused of spending their spare time killing Vince Foster and others. Mr. Clinton, in other words, left the right wing addled. Now Mr. Bush is doing the same to the left. For example, Mr. Moore hints that the real reason Mr. Bush invaded Afghanistan was to give his cronies a chance to profit by building an oil pipeline there.

"I'm just raising what I think is a legitimate question," Mr. Moore told me, a touch defensively, adding, "I'm just posing a question."

Right. And right-wing nuts were "just posing a question" about whether Mr. Clinton was a serial killer.

I'm against the "liar" label for two reasons. First, it further polarizes the political cesspool, and this polarization is making America increasingly difficult to govern. Second, insults and rage impede understanding.

Lefties have been asking me whether Mr. Bush has already captured Osama bin Laden, and whether Mr. Bush will plant W.M.D. in Iraq. Those are the questions of a conspiracy theorist, for even if officials wanted to pull such stunts, they would be daunted by the fear of leaks.

Bob Woodward's latest book underscores that Mr. Bush actually believed that Saddam did have W.M.D. After one briefing, Mr. Bush turned to George Tenet and protested, "I've been told all this intelligence about having W.M.D., and this is the best we've got?" The same book also reports that Mr. Bush told Mr. Tenet several times, "Make sure no one stretches to make our case."

In fact, of course, Mr. Bush did stretch the truth. The run-up to Iraq was all about exaggerations, but not flat-out lies. Indeed, there's some evidence that Mr. Bush carefully avoids the most blatant lies — witness his meticulous descriptions of the periods in which he did not use illegal drugs.

True, Mr. Bush boasted that he doesn't normally read newspaper articles, when his wife said he does. And Mr. Bush wrongly claimed that he was watching on television on the morning of 9/11 as the first airplane hit the World Trade Center. But considering the odd things the president often says ("I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family"), Mr. Bush always has available a prima facie defense of confusion.

Mr. Bush's central problem is not that he was lying about Iraq, but that he was overzealous and self-deluded. He surrounded himself with like-minded ideologues, and they all told one another that Saddam was a mortal threat to us. They deceived themselves along with the public — a more common problem in government than flat-out lying.

Some Democrats, like Mr. Clinton and Senator Joseph Lieberman, have pushed back against the impulse to demonize Mr. Bush. I salute them, for there are so many legitimate criticisms we can (and should) make about this president that we don't need to get into kindergarten epithets.

But the rush to sling mud is gaining momentum, and "Farenheit 9/11" marks the polarization of yet another form of media. One medium after another has found it profitable to turn from information to entertainment, from nuance to table-thumping.

Talk radio pioneered this strategy, then cable television. Political books have lately become as subtle as professional wrestling, and the Internet is adding to the polarization. Now, with the economic success of "Farenheit 9/11," look for more documentaries that shriek rather than explain.

It wasn't surprising when the right foamed at the mouth during the Clinton years, for conservatives have always been quick to detect evil empires. But liberals love subtlety and describe the world in a palette of grays — yet many have now dropped all nuance about this president.

Mr. Bush got us into a mess by overdosing on moral clarity and self-righteousness, and embracing conspiracy theories of like-minded zealots. How sad that many liberals now seem intent on making the same mistakes.


Nicholas Kristof 

Nicholas D. Kristof, a columnist for The Times since November 2001, writes op-ed columns that appear each Wednesday and Saturday. Previously, he was associate managing editor of The Times, responsible for Sunday editions.

Born on April 27, 1959, Mr. Kristof grew up on a cherry farm near Yamhill, Oregon, and raised sheep for his Future Farmers of America project. He graduated from Harvard College in three years, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1981, and then won first class honors in his study of law at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship. He later studied Arabic in Cairo and Chinese in Taipei. After working in France, he caught the travel bug and began backpacking around Africa and Asia, writing articles to cover his expenses. Mr. Kristof has lived on four continents, reported on six, and traveled to well over 100 countries. He has had unpleasant experiences with malaria, mobs, war and an African airplane crash.

Mr. Kristof joined The New York Times in October 1984, initially covering economics. After that, he served as a business correspondent based in Los Angeles, Hong Kong bureau chief, Beijing bureau chief and Tokyo bureau chief. In 2000, he covered the presidential campaign and in particular Governor Bush, and he is the author of the chapter on Mr. Bush in the reference book "The Presidents."

In 1990 Mr. Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, also a Times journalist, won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of China's Tiananmen Square democracy movement. They were the first married couple to win a Pulitzer for journalism. Mr. Kristof has won other prizes including the George Polk Award and the Overseas Press Club awards.

Mr. Kristof and Ms. WuDunn are authors of "China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power" and "Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia." Mr. Kristof and Ms. WuDunn are the parents of Gregory, Geoffrey and Caroline. Mr. Kristof enjoys running, backpacking in the Oregon Cascades, and having his Chinese and Japanese corrected by his children.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company