Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

I read the title of this and as I could not wrap my head around the idea of "Rubio" here actually meaning Marco Rubio, I assumed this was a font name, but also laughing to myself just how hilariously absurd it would be for the Secretary of State to involved in picking fonts...only to click the link and discover that yes, it is exactly that absurd.

in this case "Rubio" means that ICE would deport him if they saw him randomly on the streets of Chicago

Did you have that kind of reaction, that it’s absurd, when Blinken ordered the use of Calibri after ~20 years of consistent use of Times New Roman?

It is objectively more concerning and “absurd”, regardless of “team”, that Blinken arbitrarily introduced fragmentation by adding an additional font to official government communications when a convention had been established across government to use Times New Roman.

No, Times New Roman is old fashioned, so moving to something more readable doesn't shock me.

Can you cite a source that Blinken's decision was arbitrary? Because Rubio himself is quoted here as attributing a reason for the change (i.e. that it wasn't arbitrary).

I'm also interested to hear your thoughts on the arbitrariness of Microsoft's decision to switch to Calibri in 2007 - imagine the "fragmentation" that must have caused across the business world!

Sure, this is a good point, but only if you completely ignore the the accessibility gains provided by the change. But I'm guessing rationality wasn't on the menu when this was written.

You seem weirdly worked up over this.

Blinken made no public statements on this until he was asked about it. He did not come out and say for example, "For too long, the vision impaired community have been discriminated against by the systemic bias via the use of Times New Roman. Today we are taking action to change this and restore the dignity of those this font has long oppressed", but Rubio just did exactly this. For all I can tell the actual decision was a recommendation made by an internal team doing an accessibility review.

The only other place I’m familiar with people making grandiose announcements about their font selection, other than a font company announcement, is here on HN.