June 25, 2013
Cheryl S. Gonzales
Equal Opportunity and Diversity Director
University of North Florida
1 UNF Drive
Jacksonville, FL 32224

RE: Jabberwocky or obfuscatory persiflage? – As Homer Simpson says, “Don’t make me choose.” Some comments on your astonishingly vacuous op-ed piece in today’s Miami Herald.

Ms. Gonzales,

If I were to argue that a place should have been set aside for a bearded, curmudgeonly, calorically and follicley challenged, gimpy, literate, old White guy on the Miami Heat would you think poorly of me? I have been White a lot longer than the guy with the tattoos. I can play basketball just as hard as Lebron James; I just can’t play it as well. Do you think that should have kept me off the team?

I must confess that in 1997 I was pursued by several public agencies – the Broward Board of Education, Broward County, Tri-Rail, the City of Fort Lauderdale, and at least 4 state agencies – to assist in my Quixotically larcenous quest to get a big bite of the allocated portion of the minority business pie.

Once I put my toe in the pool I was besieged by earnest, hard-working civil servants, all of whom were desperately trying to tell me how I could weld my ravenous lips to the eternally lactating public mammary. The only possible rational explanation for why the Establishment leaves the cash box open and invites all sorts of brigands and villains to come and grab as many Benjamins as they can carry is White guilt. Somewhere out there is a generic White group saying ”take enough taxpayers’ money, and I’ll help you take it, to make me feel less guilty about our grandfathers being such rotters. Also execute that “white Hispanic” George Zimmerman just after drawing and quartering Paula Deen.” That’s another way to level the playing field.

Back then I found 3 ladies whose charms were such that they convinced me to front them in the application process for minority status. Because of their difficulty in peeing standing up they were “entitled” to preferential treatment in the awarding of public contracts.

I tip-toed up to the edge of perjury but went no further.

I cherish those memories. Who knows? If the venture had gone forward I would have considered being ungendered in order to become regendered.

“With vim and vigor the council supports
infusing Florida’s economic development
with a diversity and inclusion paradigm.”
The Miami Herald
Today
You

God’s Holy Trousers! Is that how adults sound these days? The really scary part is that you believe this drivel. Worse, you are in a position to influence others and to infuse your diversity and inclusion paradigm with a daylight raid on the public treasury. That you will do this with both vim and vigor there can be no doubt.

I am reading your screed for the 3rd time. I have already held it up to a mirror thinking perhaps there was an extra meaning. I am too old to be disappointed but I was. It may actually make more sense when it is completely unreadable.

You say that we have to “align legislation and policy”. Is that another way of saying you want the trains to run on time?

You say we should “support Florida’s microenterprises as part of the small business economic development continuum”. At last we know where Professor Irwin Corey went. He is alive and well and babbling non-stop at the University of North Florida. Perhaps you are a fan of Tanqueray, a big fan of Tanqueray, before you start your assault on clear prose. Whenever you have an urge to write you should be made to wear boxing gloves

You mention “private placements”. The ones that I am familiar with began with an idea that attracted money. The people putting the money in weighed and accepted the risk of losing it all. At the very least they were looking for a return that would rival Croesus. Is that what you had in mind?

What in the name of Peter Drucker is a “business inclusion lens”? Can they be done in a same day surgery clinic? Will they be covered by Obamacare?

Hercules had to re-route a river to complete one of his tasks. Thank God the North Pole is melting – Sorry about that, polar bears, but every cloud has a silver lining. It is good news for the adorable baby seals, Winners and losers. That may be God’s plan – because you will need an ocean to cleanse out your stables.

You mention 5 different groups who will assist you in your thankless task. Assuming that each of them has an office and someone to answer the phone can you tell me how they pay their expenses? What is the source of their income? Is it the beginning of the elusive Summer of Recovery?

Believe me when I say my contempt is not personal. I wasn’t sure if jabberwocky or obfuscatory persiflage best described your article.

Neither word is sufficient to the task.

It’s time to bring up the siege guns, the heavy artillery. It’s time for one of the great words in the English language.



BULLSHIT




Kevin Smith