Curmie had started a piece about how the NCAA can’t do
literally anything right, as evidenced by this year’s colossally stupid FBS
football rankings. (Yes, Notre Dame got
screwed, and no, Alabama doesn’t belong there.)
And there are plenty of more significant topics to write about with respect
to the various goings-on in the realm of Trumpistan. But this story just demands Curmie attention.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has now declared that State’s use of the Calibri font must be discontinued post-haste.
Situations in Gaza, Ukraine, and Venezuela clearly aren’t enough to
occupy an eager little boy like Marco. So,
changing fonts on official correspondence surges to the top of the priority
list.
Ah, but you see, Gentle Reader, there are REASONS. Seriously, this guy is going to put The Onion
out of business, because his real memoranda are sillier than their fictional
ones. Calibri, you see, is “wasteful.” Exactly how that works is unclear, as is so
often the case with proclamations from this administration. A sans serif font like Calibri uses less ink
to print the first copy, and might well increase photocopy costs by requiring more
pages for the same text. It’s difficult
to see how Calibri is “wasteful.”
The even stranger argument is that we need to return to
Times New Roman as an anti-DEI initiative.
Really, that’s the core argument.
Calibri became the standard when, two years ago, Secretary Antony Blinken
followed the advice of the State Department’s office of diversity and inclusion
(an office which, of course, no longer exists).
The rationale, to quote the New York Times article linked above, was “to
improve accessibility for readers with disabilities, such as low vision and
dyslexia, and people who use assistive technologies, such as screen readers.”
Secretary Rubio seems to be reacting more to the source than
to the policy, as there is a significant difference between this is and the
majority of DEI-related decisions, namely that no one gets hurt. It’s true, of course, that the various forms
of discrimination that DEI programs were intended to combat are still
around. But there is at least some
legitimacy to the standard argument put forward by opponents of DEI: an
underqualified person gets the job (it’s usually about a job) simply on the
basis of gender, race, or whatever. This
does happen; Curmie has seen it.
But the argument gets its suasion from the fact that someone
loses out: for every DEI hire, there’s a straight white male who didn’t get the
gig. Curmie is unconcerned in this
context about whether he deserved it: human nature being what it is, he’s likely to consider himself a victim, either way. That is perfectly understandable. But shifting to Calibri doesn’t hurt anyone. Curmie has no expertise as to whether
documents in one font are easier for certain people to read than the same text
in a different font would be. He’s
willing to bet that Marco Rubio isn’t an expert, either. But the people who specialize in such things
say that the choice of font matters; that’s good enough for Curmie. And let me emphasize this point again: no one
loses anything if that dyslexic person at the next desk can access that
document a little more easily.
OK, it’s a legitimate argument that Times New Roman looks
more formal, perhaps more “elegant,” than Calibri. And if Rubio says it matches better with the department’s
official letterhead, Curmie isn’t going to argue. But that’s not the thrust of his argument,
which seems to confirm the worst suspicions of Curmie’s leftie friends who
assert that the cruelty is not a bug but a feature.
Early on, Curmie thought that Rubio might have a legitimate
shot at being the Least Awful of Trump’s appointees. With the rest of the field consisting of
folks like Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, Linda McMahon, and King of the Wackadoodles
Baby Bobby, he looked like a good bet to stand out by being at least somewhat
competent. Alas, his tenure has been a
disaster. Most of that is probably attributable
to being a good soldier, advocating for policies we can only hope he knew were
stupid, but this one takes not only the cake, but two pies, a dozen donuts and
a loaf of artisanal focaccia.
La la, how the life goes on.
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