Miklos
« Je donne mon avis non comme bon mais comme mien. » — Michel de Montaigne

Click to enlarge. Source: ChatGPT

Click to enlarge. Source (image and text): ChatGPT

Pro ⦿ Con

The proposal described in the article is a bold and unapologetically modern expression of political confidence, national branding, and cultural symbolism. At a time when many Americans feel that institutions have become detached, bureaucratic, and emotionally hollow, the idea of introducing a dramatic new currency design centered on a sitting president would represent a striking attempt to reconnect national imagery with contemporary political identity.

From this perspective, the proposed $250 bill is not merely about money, but about symbolism. President Trump’s political move­ment has always emphasized strength, disruption, and visi­bi­lity — qualities that the reported design inten­tionally amplifies. The controversial portrait of the president holding a knife in his teeth may be unconventional, but it is a metaphor for toughness, resi­lience, and refusal to conform to polished political expectations. In an era domi­nated by carefully focus-grouped imagery, the design’s raw thea­tri­cality will stand out precisely because it rejects restraint.

The proposal can also be praised as a challenge to outdated traditions surrounding American currency. Critics often invoke precedent, noting that living presidents do not appear on modern U.S. bills, but traditions are not sacred merely because they are old. American political history is filled with moments when esta­bli­shed norms were broken in order to reflect changing cultural realities. As Trump is a trans­for­ma­tional historical figure, comme­mo­rating him in real time is justified rather than inap­pro­priate.

Politically, the idea demons­trates an instinct for spectacle that has long distin­guished Trump from conven­tional politicians. Whether admired or criticized, his move­ment has consis­tently under­stood the power of visual symbolism in shaping public imagi­nation. A $250 bill bearing his likeness will instantly become one of the most reco­gni­zable pieces of political icono­graphy in modern America. This is not vanity, but a deli­berate assertion that this admi­nis­tration views itself as histo­rically conse­quential and worthy of lasting national recognition.

The article also unin­ten­tionally highlights the willingness of the admi­nis­tration to push against insti­tu­tional hesitation and elite discomfort. The fact that legal experts and former officials reportedly reacted with alarm will rein­force the perception that entren­ched bureau­cratic culture resists any dramatic depar­ture from esta­blished norms. In that inter­pre­tation, the contro­versy itself becomes evidence that the idea succeeds in challenging stale conventions.

Even the creation of internal mockups is a positive sign of creative ambition within govern­ment agencies often criticized for inertia. Rather than endlessly repro­ducing cautious, inter­chan­geable designs, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, under this inter­pretation, has explored imagery that reflected the emotional intensity and populist energy of a major political era.

Ultimately, the proposal embodies confidence rather than caution. The article does not describe an abuse of symbolism but an embrace of it: an administration willing to leave a visible mark on the nation’s cultural and political landscape instead of disap­pearing into the bland anony­mity of proce­dural gover­nance. Whether one agrees with the aesthetics or not, the proposal is memo­rable, unmis­ta­kable, and unapo­lo­ge­tically American in its scale and audacity.

The proposal to create a $250 bill featuring President Trump’s portrait represents a profound abuse of political power and a distur­bing attempt to perso­nalize national insti­tu­tions around a single indivi­dual. American currency has h­istorically reflected continuity, insti­tutional legi­ti­macy, and national heritage — not the branding ambitions of a sitting president seeking to immor­talize himself while still in office.

The most alarming aspect of the story is not merely the proposed denomination itself, but the apparent political pressure exerted on the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Civil institutions responsible for currency design are expected to operate according to esta­bli­shed proce­dures, historical precedent, and public interest. If Treasury officials or White House aides attempt to coerce or steer the process toward glorifying a living president, this does blur the line between democratic governance and personality cult politics.

The reported design choices make the situation even more troubling. A portrait of the president holding a knife in his teeth is not a symbol of dignity, stability, or consti­tu­tional leadership. It evokes aggression, spectacle, and theatrical machismo more commonly associated with authoritarian propaganda than with American civic imagery. Currency is among the most visible symbols of a nation’s identity; transforming it into a vehicle for provocative personal branding degrades the seriousness of the institution itself.

The proposal also breaks sharply with longstanding American norms regarding who appears on currency. While no explicit consti­t­utional prohibition exists against depicting living individuals, the tradition of honoring deceased statesmen reflects an important principle: national symbols should transcend temporary political passions. Introducing a sitting president onto a new denomination will inevitably be perceived as an attempt to politicize the nation’s money for personal legacy-building purposes.

Equally concerning is the broader cultural message such a move sends. Democracies depend on strong institutions that remain larger than any one leader. Efforts to place a current president’s image onto newly created currency risk encouraging a style of politics centered on loyalty to personalities rather than commitment to constitutional principles. The symbolism matters. Nations where rulers aggressively imprint their own likenesses onto public spaces, state media, and currency are rarely held up as models of democratic restraint.

Even supporters of the administration should recognize the dangers of normalizing this kind of political self-memorialization. Today it may benefit one leader; tomorrow it establishes a precedent future administrations could exploit even further. Public institutions should not be transformed into instruments of vanity, spectacle, or partisan mythology.

This episode deserves intense scrutiny not because it is merely unusual, but because it reflects a deeper erosion of institutional boundaries. A government confident in democratic legitimacy does not need to market its leader through national currency. The fact that such a proposal reportedly advanced as far as internal design mockups should concern anyone who values the distinction between public service and personal glorification.

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This article is an echo to that one.

Click to enlarge. Source: Flow

I read today Ross Douhat’s NYT newsletter “Pope Leo Isn’t Standing Athwart the Singularity” posted yesterday (5/28). I must confess I don’t see what the author means by “Singularity”, in this specific (A.I.) context. More generally, I have really no idea what his overall opinion of the encyclical is. As to me, I tend to agree with a report I had read earlier about the Pope’s position.

For me, to put it (much) simpler – I am not a Pope (yet) -, A.I. is, first, a “new tool”, and while any tool has usually been invented for reasonable uses, it has (almost always) be abused by greedy humans (in search of power and/or money). Take the knife, for instance: it allow to slice meat, to peal veggies, but also to kill any existing form of life, including humans. Even just the stone: there are proofs that some monkeys use stones in order to break the shell of nuts, but it can be used in order to harm. So has been any invention.

Looking more specifically at technology, look what the internet has caused: the ever-increasing propagation of fake rumors, dis­in­for­mation and with it a decrease in critical thinking (there was a French saying many years ago that “If it’s in the newspaper, then it must be true” – this is now the case on the internet), used, again, for the above purposes (power, greed), and with observable results: the rise of far-right (and far-left) extremism and political power.

This tool – A.I. – being so universally available on so-called “smart” phones – is already shaping children and adolescents: they refer to it as not only a useful, but necessary crutch, and, being so young, can’t exercise any critical thinking about it. I have been using – should I rather say, testing – a variety of A.I.s (after all, I am a trained computer scientist) and while they indeed could be useful in some cases, they do make insidious, factual mistakes (usually referred to as “hallucinations”), in addition to create dependence.

Into which kind of adults will they develop? Twenty-three years ago (in 2003), I had written in my blog:

We are thus transforming into a new being, atrophied in our muscles (except for those of our fingers for the keyboard, and especially of the thumb for the mobile phone), hybrid (wired and permanently connected, not only to a mobile phone, but to the network), and soon atrophied in our brain – no need to think when we are immobile and cut off from the real world and when we “navigate” in a world of signs: we have nothing but reflexes and needs, increasingly instinctive and immediate – to finally dissolve, the ultimate fusion fantasy – in this hyperspace and its hyperculture that the philosopher Pierre Lévy describes to us in rhapsodic tones. This process of man’s devitalization is manifested by his evolution from citizen to consumer, from actor to spectator, from active to passive, towards the “upper” society of which H. G. Wells speaks in The Time Machine: “The Eloi, like the Carolingian kings, had decayed to a mere beautiful futility,” living only in idleness and fear of others, those below, the Morlocks, servants turned predators

Coincidentally – and (obviously) ironically – three days ago, I posted this (English follows French).

While A.I.’s “powers” are already immense, it is a giant with feet of clay: it – and the world at large – increasingly depend on… electricity. Everything that we use (or almost) needs it. But did you hear of the total power blackout in the Iberian Peninsula a year ago? If this happens – and as it had, it will –, how will we humans continue to live in cities – no electricity, so no water (powered by electrical pumps), no elevators, no fridges, no stores (the “cash” registers being off, the lights being off, their fridges being off), no transportation, no phones… and no A.I.

This ever-increasing interconnectivity of technical systems makes it increasingly likely that bugs, breakdowns and outages will propagate rather than be “just” local and produce unexpected havoc.

While there had been a way to “terminate” the Golem after it turned into a violent monster, will there be a way to neutralize unrestrained A.I.s?

Les 7^e et 8^e couplets de Vive le pinard !
Cliquer pour agrandir. Source : Firefly (corrigé)

Non seulement « le vin rouge français est souvent considéré comme le meilleur et le plus célèbre du monde » (source), mais, selon un récent sondage de l’Ifop, « plus de 9 Français sur 10 considèrent le vin “partie de l’identité culturelle de la Franceˮ ».

Actuellement, la consommation moyenne de vin en France est d’environ 36 à 40 litres par habitant et par an (calculée sur l’ensemble de la population, y compris les non-consommateurs, enfants et adultes – et donc bien plus élevée par buveur), alors qu’elle avait atteint un pic de 200 litres par an (source) – sans doute l’équivalent d’environ une bouteille par jour par buveur – dans les années 1930, quelques années après l’affirmation de Courteline selon laquelle « Mieux vaut boire trop de vin qu’un petit peu de mauvais », in La Philosophie de Georges Courteline.

Le général Charles de Gaulle durant la I^e Guerre mondiale.
Cliquer pour agrandir. Source : Flow modifié

Le site de chants militaires du ministère des armées et des anciens combattants relate : « C’est seulement en octobre 1914 que le vin entre dans la ration du soldat avec un quart de litre par jour. La ration est doublée en janvier 1916 et passe à trois quarts de litre en janvier 1918. »

On peut se demander à juste titre si les autorités militaires avaient oublié ce qui s’était passé à la bataille d’Azincourt :

La nuit du 24 octobre 1415, tandis que les archers anglais priaient en silence et aiguisaient leurs flèches dans le froid et la boue, les chevaliers français, certains de leur victoire, festoyaient bruyamment dans leur camp. Ivres de vin et d’orgueil, ils trinquaient à la santé du roi Charles, se vantaient des rançons qu’ils allaient exiger des nobles anglais faits prisonniers, et se disputaient même déjà entre eux pour savoir lequel d’entre eux aurait l’honneur de capturer le jeune Henri V. Les nobles avaient fait venir des tonneaux de vin de Bourgogne pour célébrer par avance leur triomphe inévitable, et les chants et les rires résonnaient dans la nuit. Au matin, les têtes lourdes et les jambes chancelantes, ces mêmes chevaliers revêtirent leurs armures pesantes et s’enfoncèrent en titubant dans les champs détrempés d’Azincourt — où les attendaient, sobres et déterminés, les arcs tendus des hommes d’Henri.¹

Bataille que la France a perdu (mais probablement pour d’autres raisons que la vinasse !).

Le site du ministère dit aussi : « En 1916, la chanson de marche Vive le Pinard !, paroles de Louis Bousquet (célèbre parolier, entre autres de Quand Madelon…) et musique de Georges Piquet, est interprétée et enregistrée par Bach (non, pas JSB). »

Partition de Vive le pinard !. Cliquer pour agrandir.

Le site fournit aussi les paroles de cette chanson au célèbre refrain (« Le pinard, c’est de la vinasse ; ça réchauffe là où c’que ça passe… »), dont les 7^e et 8^e couplets ont inspiré deux des illustrations jointes à ce billet.

Les 7^e et 8^e couplets de Vive le pinard !
Cliquer pour agrandir. Source : Leonardo

Quand à l’interprétation de cette chanson, on a trouvé celle de Bach (non datée), formidable !, plus courte que la version (écrite) qu’en donne le site du ministère, et qui en diffère en style et en contenu :

                          I.
Sur les chemins de France et de Navarre,
Dans le soleil, la neige ou le brouillard,
Le soldat chante une chanson bizarre,
Intitulée « Le refrain du pinard ».

                       Refrain
Le pinard, c’est de la vinasse,
Ça réchauffe là où c’que ça passe,
Vas-y bidasse, remplis mon quart,
Vive le pinard ! vive le pinard !

                          II.
Aimer sa sœur, sa tante, sa marraine,
Jusqu’à la mort aimer son étendard,
Aimer son frère, aimer son capitaine,
Ça n’empêch’ pas d’adorer le pinard. (au refrain)

                          III.
Dans le désert, on dit qu’ le dromadaire
N’a jamais soif – ça c’est des racontars.
S’il ne boit pas, c’est qu’il n’aim’ pas l’eau claire,
Il boirait bien s’il avait du pinard. (au refrain)

                          IV.
Quand l’ président, il reçoit un monarque,
Il va l’attendre depuis le quai d’la gare,
Il lui présente les personnages de marque,
Puis il leur offre un verre de pinard. (au refrain)