Michael Mayo The Sun-Sentinel

April 2, 2011

Michael Mayo
The Sun-Sentinel

RE: How can I miss her if she won’t go away? – Some comments on Miriam Oliphant and the Educational/Poverty Complex at its best. Alas, its “best” is our “worst”.

Mr. Mayo,

On a day when 12 people died 12,000 miles away in Pakistan, because a book was burned in Florida – Thank God it wasn’t the Bible or the Torah and how many nuclear weapons does Pakistan have and I know it’s true that it has the same number of votes in the UN General Assembly as we do – it may seem passing strange to comment on Miriam Oliphant’s release from Elba, her hiring and her firing by the Broward School system, and the obligatory hand wringing.

The preponderance of evidence would suggest that “ethically challenged” is a charitable description of what the elected officials of Broward County have become. The County Commission, the Board of Education, Mayors, and individual city commissioners have become the best example of well run “shovel ready” projects. All it takes is a bit of cash or a car lease or a club membership or a bottle of gin or a gift card from Wendy’s and these people would give up their mothers, they having already given up their souls. I’m from Hudson County, New Jersey. I know the culture of “white envelopes”. What surprises me is that they do it here for a trifle, a pittance. It’s better to be hung for 3 sheep rather than 1 goat.

As to the endless debate over an ethics code I suggest that West Point has one that works. James Madison said, when asked what was the most important trait to look for in any candidate for public office, “Character. Character is all.” Golfer Bobby Jones said that you shouldn’t get a medal because you walk past a bank and don’t rob it. At the local, county, state, and national level these people don’t even live in the districts that they represent. 10 feet tall and bullet-proof used to be the last step of cocaine addiction. Here it is the entry level. An abundance of “non-malodorous fecal matter syndrome” is a prerequisite for public office here. Human nature being what it is I know it may be difficult to overcome concupiscence. Surely a case can be made for “it” – “it” being the total disregard for any standards, even bad ones, of behavior – being caused by a 100% DNA pure gene pool of one party rule. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the marching orders by which internal Broward County runs are issued by the Church of Modern American Liberalism. Its canons say that we are only two or three election cycles away from manatee suffrage and that abortion if the only Sacrament. Such is their power that Dr. Mengele would win any primary he entered because of his progressive views on abortion.




Just as there is no such thing as being a little bit pregnant there is no such thing as being a little bit dishonest. I am told it has been months since any hot meals have been served in Broward County schools what with all hot stoves having been stolen.

It would have been better if the Grand Jury convened to examine the Broward Board of Education and the Broward County School Sytem had indicted someone, anyone. That way the coven would have convened and pointed a collective finger at the latest “perp walker” and hissed at the “rotten apple” in the barrel. Then we could go back to wondering why Johnny, Fatima, Etienne, but never Wong or Patel, can’t read. And, as always, the answer is, surprise, spend more money. Instead, it bemoaned the fact that stupidity, cupidity, venality, and minor league mendacity are not crimes. If they were we would have to build a new Gitmo.

I hate to club baby seals, particularly developmentally disabled ones. I’ll make an exception for Miriam Oliphant. It took 12 or maybe 13 seconds of conversation before it was obvious that she was swimming in the shallow end of the aforementioned gene pool. Are there any politically correct ways to say that she is dumber than a box of hammers? That she became the chosen one, the model, and the paradigmatic template of the modern American Liberal power elite that governs Broward County speaks ill more of them than it does of her. The evidence of your own eyes demands the judgment be made that she is the poster girl for the racist condescension of White liberals. Here is a woman who could not organize, let alone run, a two car funeral. For 15 years she was protected by the puppet masters who advanced her career to prove how virtuous they were. Not quite everyone has forgotten the minority owned hotel, an idea whose time and went quicker than the morning dew. Such was the need for chiropractors, a need caused by repeated and prolonged self back patting maneuvers, contortions worthy of Dante, leading to myriad acute shoulder, cervical, thoracic, and lumbar subluxations, that the Art Institute was thinking of opening a new division.

White modern American Liberals, and there is no end to them in Broward County, adopted her as the object of their affection. Attractive, well spoken as long as she kept her mouth shut, multi-degreed even if the degrees were laughable, she was Kumbaya personified. That she had notes in her shoes that read “Toes to the front” was just one more obstacle to overcome. To her credit she knew that when the right bus came along she need not have been a member of MENSA to get on it.

She fell upon hard times as the elected Supervisor of Elections. The reason was simple: she was a boob. She hired some incompetent friends and relatives. In Broward Country this is not necessarily a career killer. It is not unusual for a love interest to come to work late. It is not unusual for a love interest to have a few drinks at work. It is unusual, but highly refreshing, for a love interest to come to work two hours late and to be about 3/4ths down the chute, a chute made slippery by that old pirate, Captain Morgan. 24 hour appeals to White guilt couldn’t save her.


In defense of modern American Liberals it can be said that they try to recover their wounded. Think of Alger Hiss.

It took a while but a wedge, a niche if you will, was crested for her, in the Broward County School System. This is a true “shovel ready” job creating panjandrum. If a place can be found for a self styled diversity expert, if the former head of the Teachers’ union can be a pedophile, a place can be found for a victim of life’s circumstances, particularly if she is a highly visible Black woman who might have some skeletons in her closet that would embarrass the Broward Elders who advanced her career. Besides, who would begrudge her? She spent her time in re-hab, didn’t she?

The designated stretcher bearer was School Superintendent Notter. [By God’s Holy Trousers but it is owed to the ledger to note that Notter is a man for whom the word defenestration was invented. How many floors does the Board of Education building have? If it is less than 20 volunteer citizens bands should be recruited in the proper use of whips and dogs so that they may drive him form the building. He should be made to sit backward on a horse and paraded from school to school and pelted with bags of flaming cat scat. I say this not because he is an evil man. Surely at some point in his career he must have had a Damascus moment, a moment when he knew that modern education was like a dog walking on its hind legs. “It is not a question of how well it does it but why does it do it at all.” Like Javert in Les Miserables he had to have come to the conclusion that he had “plowed in the sea”. To be an administrator in a system that destroys rather than nurtures would make Sisyphus an enviable character. To be the overseer in a system where enforced mediocrity is the goal must be a gut wrenching, spirit destroying task.

The Big O was given credit for time served, for being the product of a “balloon juice” educational system, and for keeping her mouth shut. She was hired at the top end of the pay scale as a guidance counselor. Doubtless, her time in the barrel as a negative example would serve her in good stead in dealing with troubled youth. It was not to be.

“Fly not to the devil you know not.” If those Pakistani WOGs keep their killings on their side of the Kashmir Pass, so be it.

We have enough trouble with the “Trousered Apes”, the professional educators who couldn’t find a classroom with a GPS and a blood hound, who regularly ruin year after year of students. That they expect to be praised and rewarded for this shows us that the Road to Avernus stops at the Slough of Despond and that it is now a tax payer funded enterprise.



Kevin Smith