Anyway . . . someone today decided to ridicule the idea of the suspension of public tours of the White House as a part of the sequester spending cutbacks. He did it by pointing out other White House expenses that he apparently thought were frivolous:
Like the "Chief Calligrapher," Patricia A. Blair, who has an annual salary of $96,725, and her two deputies, Debra S. Brown, who gets paid $85,953 per year, and Richard T. Muffler, who gets paid $94,372 every year.OK, let's set aside politics. I have no idea what these particular calligraphers do, and I suspect they stay on from president to president. But I'm wondering . . . is this the going rate, or are they overpaid?
If I could find someone to pay me nearly a hundred thousand dollars a year for my handwriting, I'd quit being a lawyer in a minute! But I know I could train from here until doomsday without coming up to snuff on calligraphy.
UPDATE (3/7/2013): My dad saw this post (he may be the only person still following this blog after my unscheduled and unannounced 6-month posting hiatus) and sent me this article that rounds up some reaction to "calligraphy-gate" from around the political spectrum.
