[Todos] Jonathan Swift waving a banner

[fvicent en dm.uba.ar]

Moshe Sniedovich
University of Melbourne

Dear Moshe

You will be coming to the ALIO/IFORS meeting in Buenos Aires. You and I
will have a chat then, but it will be too late! You might have a stroke
laughing like mad when you face what will be expecting you there. Just
relax and let me see if I can save you from that ordeal.

Many years ago we met via Internet because you and me are Richard
Bellman's fans. As you know, Bellman liked to make puns while being damn
serious writing mathematics. So do I. The difference is that I made puns
more than mathematics in my ludricrous career.

Now, I did not tell you at that time that this is Fabio from Buenos Aires.
Instead I told you that my letter was coming from the Academy of Lagado in
the Kingdom of Laputa. That was a warning, what my message implied was
that anything coming from my alma mater is not to be taken seriously -
bullshit is what I meant. What we do in the Academy is to extract
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers.
--------------------------
It was 1993 and, after working 30 years as an OR practitioner, Argentina
was stricken by an American flu, a strain known as Neoliberalism - hundred
of thousands gauchos were laid off, a good many of the industrial and
commercial concerns went down the drain. I spent two years playing with my
dick till I got a position to stay alive at the Buenos Aires university
(UBA)

Dr Hugo Scolnik and his wife Irene Loiseau were teaching OR as it was
taught in 1950. I replaced them with a syllabus on LP, network flows, DP,
Local Search,...,that is, Combinatorial Optimization. At present, Scolnik
is Computer's chairman and the lady is teaching my syllabus in the
Computer Department. I was forcefully retired.

Now I spend my time walking my dog and writing essays in the genre of
Jonathan Swift. Last June I learned that professors at UBA were getting
grants from the IDB by doubtful means. I wrote a report on corruption and
far from being thanked I was slandered. Let me give you a list of epithets
so that you and David may have a laugh: fascist, antisemite, thief,
crackpot, jerk, senile and misogynic. Many of these beautiful names are
still coming, especially from the Computer Department.

I was gladly surprised to learn that agreeable Hugo Scolnik is IFORS
vicepresident and Irene Loiseau is chairwoman at the IFORS meeting. I am
not invited, but you will recognize me because I will be the guy striking
a drum and waving a banner with a cheering crowd at the entrance of the
meeting place.

Best wishes,
Fabio Vicentini

Copy to the faculty of the School of Sciences