Dyslexia and Decorum

  A lack of the latter was again displayed in what passes for public discourse these days. On a book tour, California Governor Gavin Newsom has mentioned his dyslexia which is covered in his book. President Trump took notice and, with his usual empathy remarked that Newson “said, in a speech, he was dumb, had low Boards, can’t read, has dyslexia, and has a mental disorder — A Cognitive Mess!”
  I should note that Newsom’s response was also a little less than decorous: “Newsom fired back at Trump on the social platform X, saying, “I spoke about my dyslexia.” “I know that’s hard for a brain-dead moron who bombs children and protects pedophiles to understand,” he added.”

This is not the first time the Trump administration has demonstrated a lack of concern for those with dyslexia, among, it must be admitted, a very large number of other groups for which little concern is shown.

Font Fights

    In the Great Reaction and backlash to the somewhat excessive efforts of the DEI folks, there was one you likely missed. It came at the tail-end of last year and involved typeface, which was just typed in a different way and you may not have noticed. For people with various visual disabilities, like dyslexia, the types of typefaces can make a difference.
  Way back in 2023 during the Biden Administration, Secretary of State, Antony Blinken issued a directive that the State Department drop the typeface, Times New Roman and adopt Calibri. Calibri is more accessible it was argued and Blinken said “that Times New Roman “can introduce accessibility issues for individuals with disabilities who use Optical Character Recognition technology or screen readers.”

  On Dec. 9, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a new directive. Marco’s memo has, as its subject heading: “Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,” Rubio called Calibri “informal” and said it “clashes” with State letterhead. He also criticized it as a “radical” diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiative.” The reaction was immediate.

  On Dec. 10, this response to the Times New Roman directive appeared in The New York Times. Since it is likely you chose not to read this typeface article, given all the other Trump news, much of it is reproduced below, where the issues and arguments are displayed in Arial.

“A Typeface Falls Victim In the Push Against D.E.I.: Secretary of State Marco Rubio Called the Biden-era Move to the Sans Serif Typeface ''wasteful,'' Casting the Return to Times New Roman as Part of a Push to Stamp out Diversity Efforts,” 

 by Mike Crowley and Hamed Aleaziz.
    Secretary of State Marco Rubio waded into the surprisingly fraught politics of typefaces on Tuesday with an order halting the State Department's official use of Calibri, reversing a 2023 Biden-era directive that Mr. Rubio called a ''wasteful'' sop to diversity.
  While mostly framed as a matter of clarity and formality in presentation, Mr. Rubio's directive to all diplomatic posts around the world blamed ''radical'' diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs for what he said was a misguided and ineffective switch from the serif typeface Times New Roman to sans serif Calibri in official department paperwork.

   In an ''Action Request'' memo obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Rubio said that switching back to the use of Times New Roman would ''restore decorum and professionalism to the department's written work.'' Calibri is ''informal'' when compared to serif typefaces like Times New Roman, the order said, and ''clashes'' with the department's official letterhead….
  Mr. Rubio's directive, under the subject line ''Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,'' served as the latest attempt by the Trump administration to stamp out remnants of diversity initiatives across the federal government.

   Then-Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken ordered the 2023 typeface shift on the recommendation of the State Department's office of diversity and inclusion, which Mr. Rubio has since abolished. The change was meant to improve accessibility for readers with disabilities, such as low vision and dyslexia, and people who use assistive technologies, such as screen readers.

   Calibri, sometimes described as soft and modern, is typically considered more accessible for people with reading challenges thanks to its simpler shapes and wider spacing, which make its letters easier to distinguish. Mr. Blinken's move was applauded by accessibility advocates.

   But Mr. Rubio's order rejected the grounds for the switch. The change, he allowed, ''was not among the department's most illegal, immoral, radical or wasteful instances of D.E.I.A.,'' the acronym for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. But Mr. Rubio called it a failure by its own standards, saying that ''accessibility-based document remediation cases'' at the department had not declined.

  ''Switching to Calibri achieved nothing except the degradation of the department's official correspondence,'' Mr. Rubio said. He noted that Times New Roman had been the department's official typeface for nearly 20 years until the 2023 change. (Before 2004, the State Department used Courier New.)

  Echoing President Trump's call for classical style in federal architecture, Mr. Rubio's order cited the origins of serif typefaces in Roman antiquity. Those typefaces, which are used by The New York Times, include small strokes at the edges of many characters.

   Admirers say those flourishes make letters look more elegant and make them easier to distinguish from one another, even though they can also create a sense of clutter.

  Serif typefaces are ''generally perceived to connote tradition, formality and ceremony,'' Mr. Rubio's order said, adding that they were used by the White House, Supreme Court and other state and federal government entities, as well as in the script on the side of Air Force One.

   Many diplomats are unhappy with changes Mr. Rubio has made to the department's structure and leadership, and have reported badly damaged morale within their ranks. But the Biden administration's move to Calibri prompted some grumbling from some traditionalists who preferred Times New Roman. Mr. Blinken also changed the standard font size, from 14-point to 15-point, requiring extra keystrokes that some diplomats found annoying.”

   
  A few days later there was this follow-up piece in the Times: “Is Times New Roman Better Than Calibri for the State Department?” by Jonatha Corum, Dec.13. Perhaps this is the most important point in it: “I wonder if it’s all a bit of a distraction from what the State Department is actually doing, rather than the font they’re doing it in,” said Tobias Frere-Jones, a type designer known for Gotham, Interstate and other ubiquitous typefaces. “But it is an opportunity to talk about what makes things legible.” Perhaps the larger question is not which typeface is best, or the rationale for the change, but whether the clever people in the Trump administration deliberately chose Times New Roman to sabotage Newsom's run for the presidency. One would not want to elect a president who could not read the State Department memos. Or, the hugest question might be, to use a word of the kind often employed by the current President, do you think President Trump has ever read a State Department memo?

Sources: I have provided enough for this typeface topic and you can easily find some on your own. I could offer more, but will just give you the one with the best title: "A New Serif in Town: Trump's Font Culture War" by Will Barker in The Week:UK. CANCON Up here in the north things tend to move at a glacial pace, which has been quickening. DEI mantras arrived here fairly fast, but the Great Reaction is just now beginning and only the most extreme DEI demands have started to melt. On the language front, things seem fairly calm. The Government of Canada has enough problems in sending out memos in the two official languages so font issues are probably on the back burners. It is the case, however, that several new languages, which are very old, have been added and typeface traumas may be in the offing. Fonts for some of the Indigenous languages are being developed, particularly in British Columbia, but there are sure to be complaints from settlers who will not be able to find the characters on their keyboards, which sometimes are now required in official documents. There are many examples. The first one below is an "Acknowledgement" and the second a sign.

“This place is the unceded and ancestral territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking peoples, the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, and has been stewarded by them since time immemorial.”

Beyond the Palewall (12)

 

 I have not done one of these for a while and, although no one appears to have noticed, will again offer some news nuggets, this time consisting mainly of quotations

Quotations: 
   Here are some recent ones that caught my attention. Remember, I am only the messenger.

   "For several years, many university leaders have failed to act as their students and faculty have shown ever greater readiness to block an expanding range of views that they deem wrong or beyond the pale. Some scholars report that this has had a chilling effect on their work, making them less willing to participate in the academy or in the wider world of public discourse. The price of pushing boundaries, particularly with more conservative ideas, has become higher and higher.
   Schools ought to be teaching their students that there is as much courage in listening as there is in speaking up. It has not gone unnoticed — on campuses but also by members of Congress and by the public writ large — that many of those who are now demanding the right to protest have previously sought to curtail the speech of those whom they declared hateful." ("A Way Back From Campus Chaos," Editorial Board, NYT, May 11, 2024.)

At Harvard, two members of a task force on antisemitism resigned and one said this: “We are at a moment when the toxicity of intellectual slovenliness has been laid bare for all to see,” wrote Rabbi David Wolpe in his resignation announcement. "Should American Jews Abandon Elite Universities?" Brett Stephens, NYT, June 25, 2024.)

U.S. Politics:
"What would fascism look like in America? A quote long misattributed to Sinclair Lewis says that it would come “wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” The comedian George Carlin said that it would come not “with jackboots” but “Nike sneakers and smiley shirts.” ("How Does Democracy Die? Maybe By Laser Vision: 'The Boys' and Other TV Series Imagine Fascism Coming to American, Whether Wrapped in the Flag or in a Superhero's Tights," James Poniewozik, NYT, June 19, 2024.)

In answer to the question, "What Have We Liberals Done to the West Coast?", Nicholas Kristoff suggests, "Offer A Version of Progressivism That Doesn't Result in Progress" (NYT, June 15, 2024.)
   "We are more likely to believe that “housing is a human right” than conservatives in Florida or Texas, but less likely to actually get people housed. We accept a yawning gulf between our values and our outcomes...
   So my take is that the West Coast’s central problem is not so much that it’s unserious as that it’s infected with an ideological purity that is focused more on intentions than on oversight and outcomes.  
   For example, as a gesture to support trans kids, Oregon took money from the tight education budget to put tampons in boys’ restrooms in elementary schools — including boys’ restrooms in kindergartens.
   “The inability of progressives, particularly in the Portland metro area, to deal with the nitty-gritty of governing and to get something done is just staggering,” Representative Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat who has been representing and championing Portland for more than half a century, told me. “People are much more interested in ideology than in actual results.”

There were many from this article, including some of the words in the title: The Blindness of Elites: Walter Kirn and the Empty Politics of Defiance," Thomas Chatterton Williams, The Atlantic, May 3, 2024.
   "Kirn would never describe himself as a Trump supporter, but he cares less about Trump’s rampage through American democracy, or even the lunacy and violence of January 6, than he does about the selfish and self-satisfied elites—all noblesse, no oblige—who sparked that anger and sustained it. Call him a counter-elite. As he said about Skull and Bones: “That’s our elite. Who wouldn’t want to be counter to it?”....
   What became clear to me in Montana is that his resentment against the tastemakers and gatekeepers is so unrelenting because it’s fueled not simply by dislike but also by real affection—a sympathy for Americans in unimportant places, people without power or influence, whose opinions and lifestyles he believes are often dismissed as retrograde or irrelevant."...   
   On a fundamental level, Kirn is right. This America that he wishes to dwell upon—and force us to acknowledge—is not what most of us who are invested with access or influence care to deal with. We may say the right things, but our notions of diversity, inclusivity, and justice are extremely narrowly defined. And as the polls keep showing in the run-up to November’s election, Kirn is correct to point out that a growing multiethnic assortment of citizens find themselves more repelled by the status quo than they are by Trump’s return."

Closer to Home:
"In reaction to “the bombshell report of the Prime Minister’s national security advisory committee, in which it is alleged some MPs have been conspiring with foreign powers against the national interest,”...
   And a third is our declining sense of nationhood. The case of the traitorous parliamentarians raises an intriguing question: Is it possible to commit crimes against the national security of a country that does not believe it is a nation and makes no effort to defend its security?
   After decades of entertaining the idea that the whole thing could be wound up at any minute on the vote of a single province, and after years of being told that the Canadian experience was, from the start, a crime against humanity, it’s hard to get too worked up about a little light treason.
    If, what is more, we cannot be bothered to defend ourselves, preferring, as we have for generations, to free-ride on the Americans, can we blame other countries for drawing the appropriate conclusions?f we think so little of ourselves, if we ask so little of ourselves, if there is so little here here, is it any wonder that we should ultimately come to see this reflected in the people who represent us? ("What Else Do You Call It When People Conspire Against Their Own Country?" Andrew Coyne, G&M, June 7, 2024.)

   Canada is the subject of this article in The Atlantic: "Canada's Extremist Attack on Free Speech: A Bill Making Its Way Through the Canadian Parliament Would Impose Draconian Criminal Penalties on Hate Speech and Curtail People's Liberty In Order to Stop Crimes They Haven't Yet Committed," Conor Friedersdorf, June 6, 2024.
   "The "Online Harms Act" states that any person who advocates for or promotes genocide is “liable to imprisonment for life.” It defines lesser “hate crimes” as including online speech that is “likely to foment detestation or vilification” on the basis of race, religion, gender, or other protected categories. And if someone “fears” they may become a victim of a hate crime, they can go before a judge, who may summon the preemptively accused for a sort of precrime trial. If the judge finds “reasonable grounds” for the fear, the defendant must enter into “a recognizance.” This is madness."

   These next two articles are not from Canada and surely they express sentiments not held by any Canadian, but one has to ask if they could even be published in Canada in the very near future.

1. "Jordan Bardella, the New Face of France’s Right: Charismatic and clean cut, shorn of the Le Pen name, the young National Rally leader seems poised to take his party to its best showing ever in European elections on Sunday," Roger Cohen, NYT, June 8, 2024.
   “Our civilization can die,” Mr. Bardella told a crowd of more than 5,000 flag-waving supporters this past week, as chants of “Jordan! Jordan!” reverberated around a vast arena in Paris. “It can die because it will be submerged in migrants who will have changed our customs, culture and way of life irreversibly.”.....   
   Mass immigration — some 5.1 million immigrants entered the European Union in 2022, more than double the number the previous year — is the core issue in the European election, polls show, along with the struggles of French families to make ends meet as the war in Ukraine has driven up energy and food prices.
   In this context, the National Rally has successfully portrayed itself as the home of French patriotism, the party of people reasonably concerned that immigration is out of control.
   With his Italian background, Mr. Bardella has been able to argue that the issue is not immigration itself, but the refusal of many migrants to assimilate. On the left, the very word patriotism in France tends to be viewed skeptically, a first step to nationalism and even war."

2. "This D-Day, Europe Needs to Resolve to Get Its Act Together," Brett Stephens, NYT, June 4, 2024.
   "Demographics: What do Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, his predecessor Angela Merkel, President Emmanuel Macron of France, Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands and the former British prime minister Theresa May have in common? They are childless. That’s their personal business (and far from representative of all E.U. leaders), but it’s symbolic of a continent where just under 3.9 million Europeans were born in 2022 and 5.15 million died. A shrinking and aging population typically correlates with low economic growth, not least because entrepreneurship is usually a young person’s game.
   Europe has an additional challenge: a relatively high Muslim birthrate, along with the prospect of long-term Muslim migration. Under a “medium migration” scenario estimated by Pew, by 2050 Britain will be nearly 17 percent Muslim, France 17.4 percent and Sweden 20.5 percent. Those wondering about the ascendance of far-right European parties, who are heavily favored to sweep this week’s elections in the E.U. Parliament and who are often sympathetic to Vladimir Putin, know this is a factor. And they need to be honest that the values of depressingly notable segments of these Muslim populations are fundamentally at odds with European traditions of moral tolerance and political liberalism."

  Words such as these, like certain cartoons, may soon not be allowed in Canada and be beyond the pale.