More Government Ak-yur-uh-see
Yesterday, the USPS honored US the late entertainer and author Maya Angelou. They issued a stamp in her honor.
There’s only one teeny little problem. The stamp apparently features a quote that isn’t Angelou’s. Rather, it’s a slightly-modified version of a phrase actually written by children’s author Joan Walsh Anglund in 1967.
It’s not the first time recently that the USPS has Fornicated Fido, though. In 2010, the USPS issued a stamp honoring the Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately, the stamp used an image of a Las Vegas replica of the statue instead of the real thing.
We vets shouldn’t really be surprised at this kind of stuff. As Jonn noted here at TAH multiple times, vets have seen government at its best . . . and at its worst. And we know – from firsthand experience – that there’s usually not a helluva lot of difference between the two.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Government Incompetence
Some might say it’s fitting to put a quote like that on a stamp honoring a person who insisted on using the title of “Doctor” but never actually earned a Ph.D. I know folks gave Ben Franklin the same treatment since he never had the piece of paper either, but one could say he had just a bit more street cred than Angelou.
I don’t get all the fawning praise for her. I haven’t read any of her “poetry” that wouldn’t be matched by a high school sophomore.
Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but in her case, she’s like president mom-jeans. All hype and no substance, another “the Emperor has no clothes!” story.
I don’t dislike her, I just find that her supporters are insufferable art types, and her work unreadable.
We could have done so much better than appointing her to national prominence.
But that’s just me. YMMV, as it should. I’m just stating my own opinion, and nothing more.
Me, too. But, I don’t get a lot of artsy-fartsy crap that “those folks” seem to find so deep and meaningful.
Guess I’m just another low IQ neanderthal …
My mom told me a story from the 1960’s, when ‘abstract’ art became the rage. She was invited to an art exhibition by a local artist, and was standing nearby when an interesting conversation took place between the artist and an ‘admirer’ of his work. The artist engaged the lady in conversation about a piece they were standing in front of. The lady simply gushed about the ‘depth’ and ‘spiritual significance,’ etc, of the abstract. The artist listened quietly, then said icily, “Madam, it is clear you know nothing of my work. The piece you have so thoroughly analyzed happens to be upside down.”
And that’s the way I feel about a lot of ‘art’ out there today. It makes no sense to me, and I refuse to act like it does.
I find it hilarious that if I came up with the concept first using janitorial items out of a Grainger catalog, I would have something on exhibit at a modern art museum.
Affirmative Action Poetry…
Exactly
There will always be flag stamps, and that is what I buy. They always have other types around for folks (birds, butterflies, etc.) who don’t feel patriotic.
I bought a few sheets of Simpsons stamps back when they were available. I always used the Homer stamp for remitting my mortgage payment. I was planning on providing a link to those stamps in the event that any of you may not have seen them, or believe they actually existed. It turns out that much like the rest of the government, and I do realize that the Post Office is quasi government, there was contrioversy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/simpsons-stamps-cost-postal-service-12-million-in-waste/2012/08/21/1a7442d2-ebb5-11e1-a80b-9f898562d010_story.html
D’oh!
I guess the person who came up with this thought that a poem about a bird singing was Angelou’s, without actually referencing the poetry book titled ‘I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings’.
This is also the post office that got the biplane printed upside down on a stamp (inverted Jenny stamp), because the stamp sheets were fed wrong into the presses on the secondary run.
It doesn’t surprise me that they quoted the wrong person.
I’ll be releasing a new compilation soon, Ex-PH2, called:
“I know Why the Aged Bird Pees.”
Different kind of error, Ex-PH2. And far more excusable.
The inverted Jenny stamp was the result of human error during the printing process. Any repetitive process done by humans is subject to occasional error.
In contrast, these last two were design errors that made it through (presumably) multiple layers of review. Those should be caught before production, and unless exceptionally subtle are essentially inexcusable.
I can forgive an error by a bored or distracted worker much more easily than I can a bunch of executives who approved producing something without anyone asking the common-sense question, “Have we double-checked this to make sure it’s legit?”
Too fat to whore,
Too mad to work,
Searches her dreams for the
Lucky sign and walks bare-handed
Into a den of bureaucrats for
Her portion.
‘They don’t give me welfare.
I take it.’
High art indeed, you can count me out.
VOV – serious question, as I am too lazy to Google-fu it myself: is that really Angelou’s work? Or just a dead-on parody by you?
I was going to guess Vogon, but I’m no art-lover. {/snerk}
Serious that is her my friend…the poem is called “Momma Welfare Roll”
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/momma-welfare-roll/
I was afraid of that. I was hoping for a chance to congratulate you on an excellent bit of very accurate parody…
I wonder if she ever realized how well she did self-parody?
Maya Angelou is a hack of very limited talent who was lauded and promoted way beyond what she deserved simply because she was female, black, and liberal.
And I know it’s heresy to say anything against St. Martin, but there are many “deep” quotes attributed to MLK Jr. that are not his in any way. Hell… even his doctoral thesis turned out to be plagiarized.
People still use stamps?