The US Government and Its Colors: Newspaper Gets Excited
May 29, 2015
I am not sure why the Washington Post content is catching my attention. I don’t look for information about the colors which the US government says are acceptable. The Bezos newspaper does find this subject important. Navigate to “The US Government Has 650 Official Colors. Can You Tell Them Apart?” The answer to the question is, “Nah. Don’t care.” I was looking for information about search and content processing yesterday, May 29.
Somehow “search” and “color” aimed me at a color article. The write up includes a link to the panoply of colors. But the keystone of the write up is a test. No, I am not kidding. There are color swatches and click boxes. The idea is to figure out which color denotes a mail box. I know I spot mail boxes by driving into the post office parking lot and looking for the boxes which have a slot for the mail. I am not sure I process the color because I have learned that the post office in Harrod’s Creek has one box with a slot in front of the house trailer which serves as the official USPS facility. I don’t know the color of the trailer either.
Here’s what the test looks like:
So what?
Question 5 asks, “Which of these is described as Public Building Standard?” The answer is green.
My recollection of my government work is different. The White House is sort of creamy white.
The GSA building is stone tan and gray.
Justice is sort of light gray.
The CIA has no color which I can recall because I have no memory of the facility.
How many green government buildings do you recall? Even Ft. Knox paints it buildings a sort of yellow white.
The point is that there are some stories which warrant coverage; for example, the valuation of Temis, which was acquired by an Italian outfit at a price which is stunningly low. How about tackling the China-Indonesia matter? What about the US budget?
But color? The only thing the story did not include was a link to Amazon so I could buy some paint to daub on my print out of this story. As the story itself points out:
Right. That dull beige is 34554, the color of mediocrity.
There you go. Journalism and reportage uses the word “mediocrity.”
Stephen E Arnold, May 29, 2015
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