Louisiana Voice

He was a small-time celebrity as a street hustler, but Ricco Bastardo wanted more in life. He desperately craved respectability and recognition. And more than anything, he wanted his name in the Social Register.

His only success in life had come thanks to a huge grubstake from his father, owner of a chain of seedy bars, strip clubs and cheap motels. He had parlayed that into a chain of lucrative storefront predator loan companies that he turned into a mega fortune, made on the backs of the poor.

There were the persistent rumors of mob connections. People who knew him swore Ricco was tied into the mob and that his payday loan operations were merely fronts for a massive money-laundering operation. There was no way, they said, that he could have amassed such a large fortune legitimately.

It was impossible to prove, of course, because his tax records were a tightly-held secret.

He took not one, not two, but three trophy wives over the years in his desperate—but vain—attempt to climb the ladder to join society’s elite upper crust.

But now he saw his opportunity and he was determined to seize the day. The presidency of Hope and Change University was being vacated and he announced his desire for the appointment.

No one gave him a ghost of a chance. He had zero experience running a university and, in fact, his own academic achievements had been called into question but they, like his tax returns, were locked away from prying eyes. The only thing anyone knew for sure about his scholastic pursuits was that he was admitted to the prestigious school up east only after his father bestowed a generous endowment upon the institution.

But he refused to allow that to discourage him from his dream of social acceptance and the adulation for which he yearned. He pushed his way to the front of the line by insulting the other applicants, hurling personal attacks at them to the point of outright libel, disparaging their families, and embellishing his own dubious, even nonexistent achievements.

There were rumors, as yet unproven, of outside help from rival university presidents who saw an opportunity to gain advantage over Hope and Change with Ricco’s appointment. Coincidentally, confidential emails, embarrassing to his leading rival, were released only days before the selection committee was scheduled to vote on a new president which only served to further fuel the persistent rumors.

Against all odds and in defiance of all logic, he was chosen and he set about immediately putting his stamp on the university, dismantling the legacy of Hope and Change in the process.

His first priority was to shut down the school infirmary, depriving thousands of students of medical care. Just as important was his insistence on constructing an ivy-covered wall around the school to keep out the riffraff. The university was his domain and low-income residents from the city where it was located were suddenly unwelcome. Education was strictly for the select few and strictly off-limits to all others.

As for the school’s heretofore powerhouse football team, the Fighting Scapegoats, Ricco Bastardo proclaimed that he was far more knowledgeable than the scouting reports compiled on upcoming opponents. Moreover, he insisted he knew more about football than the coaches. And he continued to hold himself blameless as the team went down to a humiliating string of defeats.

He decided the entire administrative structure of the university needed a change to shake off perceived (by him) doldrums. He announced four key appointments and a string of controversial changes:

• Viziato Bastardo, his oldest son, was named Dean of Student Life;
• Son-in-law Ignorante Opportunista, Dean of Arts and Sciences;
• Daughter Splendido Opportunista (wife of Ignorante) Administrative Vice President;
• Unemployed Uber driver Rancido Mungere, was named school band director. His first move was to abolish racial quotas by removing all the black keys from the orchestra piano.
• Cooperative programs with other universities were promptly abolished by Ricco, who said they were not in Hope and Change’s best interests. He then entered into new cooperative agreements between Hope and Change’s advanced computer technology programs and a local animal husbandry school’s goat farm.
• He converted the university’s power and heating systems to coal-fired furnaces and put the dining hall on an all-fried fast-food menu.
• Even as he vocally lamented the “invasion of third-world students” enrolled at Hope and Change, he employed undocumented workers for Buildings and Grounds maintenance.

Both the Economics and Earth Sciences departments lost their accreditation within the first year of Ricco’s administration.

Finally, when Hope and Change University’s newspaper published an editorial critical of the loss of important research grants under his administration, Ricco abolished the publication, calling it the “enemy of the students.”

And whenever he was criticized for any of his actions, which was often, he invariably responded not with diplomatic, tactful explanations—ways in which he could defend his actions in a concise, orderly, structured manner, but with 280-character tweets, a practice that his peers felt was demeaning and beneath the dignity of a university president.

But those out in the countryside who had never been to college, some of whom never finished high school, were greatly pleased.

He was communicating on their level.

And members of the Board of Regents, terrified at incurring his twitter wrath, became his enablers by simply doing nothing.