[Sosfbay-discuss] My "only" speech

[Tian Harter]

Monday June 29th, I gave this speech to the open mike crowd at Red Rock 
coffee house in downtown Mountain View. They enjoyed it, so I thought 
I'd share it with you to. If you want to see the illustrated version,
that is online at:

http://tian.greens.org/MountainView/My/OnlySpeech.html

When Steve introduced me he said I was going to "share a political 
message with us." Then I took the stage, put down my bag, and started 
talking...

Good evening Red Rock! I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to
talk to you. I heard on the radio that last year on the campaign trail,
President Obama put a lot of effort into sharing two words with us,
"hope" and "change". Being less than a block from Hope Street, I thought
it would be a good thing to talk to you about change. Back in the '80s
the only constant was change. Every year another series of American
coins came out, and every year the quarters had eagles on the back.
Since then there has been a lot of change in the change.

Sometime in the mid '90s Congress realized that one of our problems is
that too many Americans don't know much about American history. Their
solution to the problem was to legislate the State Quarters Program.
The idea was that every State in the USA would pick the art for their
quarter using a democratic process, and then that would be their
character on the national stage. The first quarters came out in '99,
and they have been coming out at five a year ever since. (At this point
I pulled out my 50 quarter collection to show them.) Now that series is
finished.

One of the things I've learned from this program is more about the word
"only". Only keeps its bite because of the fact that when you are
busted, and the police give you one phone call, telling whomever it
is "you are my only hope" compels them to action. When Princess Leah
sends her droid to tell Obi-Wan-Kenobe "you are my only hope", it's the
same thing writ large. Corporate America likes only, because being
the only product with some feature is an advantage in the marketplace.

In politics only doesn't work quite that way. Let me illustrate with
some examples from the State Quarters. The only quarter with a guitar
on it is Tennessee. There are lots of quarters that mention food, but
the only one that features somebody farming an indigenous crop in what
could be a sustainable manner is Vermont, which shows somebody in a
coonskin cap tapping a maple tree. The only year of the program when
all five quarters came from adjacent states was 2007, when Montana,
Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah quarters came out.

For years I was telling people the only quarter that featured an
environmentalist was California, which features John Muir, the patron
saint of the Sierra Club, looking out over Yosemite Valley.  Yosemite
was the first State Park, and that project was where the idea of State
Parks came from.  I had to stop saying "only" in connection with that
one when the Hawaii quarter came out, featuring King Kamehameha and his
quote "the beauty of the land is preserved in righteousness." The
slogan is on the quarter in the original Hawaiian, which I can't
pronounce for you. It's still the only circulating quarter with a non
European language quote on it, but that will change later this year.

In politics even when it's over it's not over. While the State Quarters
were coming out all of the territories and possessions were saying "we
want quarters to", and this year it's happening. So far this year, the
DC and Puerto Rico quarters have come out. We can still look forward to
seeing quarters from Guam, American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands, and
the Northern Mariana Islands. Then it will really be over.

This is change we can believe in. I picked my favorite quarters based
on their slogans. Those are the New Jersey quarter, which claims to be
"crossroads of the revolution", and the DC quarter, which proclaims
"JUSTICE FOR ALL". I'd like to invite you to look at the change in your
pocket and find other interesting lessons about American History.
Maybe you'll find something that you like a lot. Thank you.


During Q&A Steve asked what other states had food mentioned on them.
I told him "Wisconsin has a cow, a wheel of cheese, and an ear of corn.
Alaska and Washington have salmon on them." More recently I've figured
out that there is also rice on the Arkansas quarter, wheat on the South
Dakota quarter, duck on the Arkansas and Minnesota quarters, buffalo on
the North Dakota and Kansas quarters, sunflowers on the Kansas quarter,
a peach on the Georgia quarter, and a pheasant on the South Dakota
quarter. I still could have missed something else on another one.

-- 
Tian
http://tian.greens.org
Latest change: Added press conference about Jeppesen pictures.
A soldier wants 3 hots and a cot. A singer needs 3 chords and the truth.