This story has conflicted me. On the one hand, an artist named Maria Alguilar received $40K (US) to construct her 16-foot-wide circular mural at the entrance of Livermore, California's main public library. This is happy news of positive funding for the arts. (Great use of taxpayer money, as most artists will tell you.) The mural contained 175 names of famous persons. Unfortunately, ten of these names and one word, all literally written in stone, were misspelled. When this was pointed out, city officials offered the artist an additional $6K to fly back to Livermore and fix things.

On the other hand, the bad news is that Ms. Alguilar claims she has been bombarded by hate mail and appears to be refusing to do a thing about the flubbed words, beyond implying an act that citizens of Livermore might consider doing to themselves, en masse. OK, she's peeved, one could probably construct a case for "artistic license" here and nasty emails are quite painful to receive. (Although I'm compelled to add that, if nasty emails made everyone dig their heels in and refuse to work, not a whole heck of a lot would ever get done in this world.) However, I took exception to her comment, "None of us are particularly good spellers anymore because of computers." That's flat wrong. It is also a convenient cop-out, and hence the confliction.

Edited to add: To the person who emailed saying

"You obviosly (sic) don't know jack-(deleted word) about art. Your (sic) pretty (deleted word-)ing stupid if you cant (sic) tell the diffrence (sic) between fine art by an artist and somebodies (sic) spelling. Why dont (sic) you stick to having babies and cleaning your house and stop inflecting (sic) your (deleted word-)ing writing on people who appreacite (sic) art?"

I thank you for so swiftly illustrating my point about nasty emails, but you've missed the boat, here.

This artist hadn't done something that she'd hoped to, someday, sell. She had already been paid, and quite handsomely, to do a job. The mural looked lovely from the photo, but it was incumbent on the artist to double-check that the job was done properly. As there were words involved, she should have paid attention, checked her spelling and not whined, after the fact, that "None of us are particularly good spellers anymore because of computers."

I hope this isn't lost on you, but in the grown-up world people are meant to be responsible for their actions. There is no shame in making mistakes. The shame comes from not admitting to - and rectifying - one's mistakes. It's shameful, in my opinion, to scoop your marbles off the playground, stamp off and sulk when it's you who's screwed up. My children, who are all still quite young, were made to understand this years ago.

I've already done my bit toward propagating the species, assure you that though cleaning the house pays nothing, let alone $40K a pop, I do conscientious work, and would urge you to rethink your position on the "spelling" concept. An expanded vocabulary and the usefulness of a well-placed apostrophe, here or there, are also avenues worth investigating. My knowledge of art isn't the last word and my writing about such is a job I do to the very best of my ability. If it's not to your liking, don't read it. But do, please, get back with me when you've got a mortgage or two and are required, yourself, to perform for pay. I suspect you'll have re-prioritized your life somewhat by that time.