When playing with my scanner and photo editing software to find out how to get around the built-in law prohibiting scanning money, I looked at the dude on that one bill and could not help thinking about what he did to become so admired that he is now on one of those pieces of paper that is usually called money.

Honest Abe managed to trample liberty with all his feet by forcing the South to remain in the Union. They did not like being in that union anymore, but Abe did not want to lose what they had contributed, so he waged a war to keep them in. As he was the victor, he packaged his motives as “freeing the slaves” – but politicians, especially when victorious, have always been very good at this kind of re-purposing.

Another dude that I just recently learned to see in a different light does not have his own paper bill, but at least he has a coin, and, as I remember, at least one stamp with his picture…

Wernher von Braun – the man who took us to the moon.

But he was also a war criminal because he built – or helped build – all the V2s that were used to bomb England. He did not have to stand trial in Nuremberg because his services were needed in the US of A.

So, what could I do to get my picture on some money or at least a coin?

No good idea yet, but maybe some of you might come up with something.

And, so that you did not come here for nothing – here is how I got the picture of Abe from the 5 Dollar bill. My scanner – an HP – did scan the bill without a problem into a png file. I could not open that in Photoshop or Corel Paint – but Gimp was not so picky about the law. So I opened it there, cropped and straightened it, then selected all and hit the Crtl C.

In Photoshop I could open a new doc and just paste the data from Gimp. Once saved as a Photoshop native format – psd – there was no problem re-opening that file – and cutting out honest Abe.