or at least the Hamiltons in this case. The Treasury Department issued its new $10 bill today in a special ceremony at the National Archives. The link on the title of this post goes to a pretty cool interactive link at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing that shows some of the features. The folks at Treasury have devoted lots of these Hamiltons to make sure the bad guys can't copy them. There's a sermon in there somewhere.
I discovered this news while walking past the National Archives building today. It was a slow day at work so I decided to get some fresh air. There was a photographer on the street and a video crew was packing up along Constitution Avenue, and I ask the photog what was up. He told me, and I went inside to get a press kit.
This new bill is first of all - pink! That's right it's pink; can't call this one a "greenback" any more. Granted there is some green in it, but mostly it's pink.
It has the first words of the Preamble to the Constitution on it (We the People .... all you Star Trek fans remember those as "holy words.")
It also has the Statue of Liberty's torch on it. The ink changes color, just like the $20 bill does, and there is a watermark image and a security thread.
A lot of time and effort went into the making of this bill. I had to get one once I saw the hubub around it. Alexander Hamilton is still there, though he is not encased in a circular motif as he was on the old bills.
You have probably heard the sermon about how the Secret Service wants their agents to know the real thing so they can recognize the fake ones. The become real familiar with the original so that they can pick up the fake ones easily. However, the advent of digital technology has made keeping ahead of the bad guys more difficult. I wonder if the physical is a reflection of the spiritual?
The other day I had a dentist appointment, and my oral hygenist was telling me about how her teenaged daughter was on "MySpace." She had posted her photo, her address, and other pertinent information about herself on her site. And her mom was justifiably upset. When she and I were teenagers, there was no Internet (Yeah I know, that makes me as old as Noah, so what!) Now we cannot imagine life without it, at least here in the U.S.
There have always been sexual predators, but now it is so much easier for them. You have probably seen the NBC report about catching sexual predators. So what to do? The U.S. Department of Justice has some guidelines at its website. Some of them should be obvious, but in our high-tension, fast paced world we might miss them:
a. Never arrange a face-to-face meeting with someone they met on-line.
b. Never upload (post) pictures of themselves on-line to people they do not know.
c. Never give identifying information, such as school names, team names, etc.
d. Never download pictures from an unknown source, since they may be sexually explicit or contain computer viruses.
There are also some helpful tips in this brochure.
Parents need prayer. We all have to make a living, but take it from a survivor, making more Hamiltons will not replace a child's innocence.
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