I was glad to get this comment. It educates me and reminds me to ask Ms. Cobbe another question for public information. lee

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Dinner after Women's March for Choice in Washingto...":

Lee,

In the interest of accuracy, I think a few things should be clarified:

1.) Lawson, who is a software vendor, started out in the 1970s as a supplier of mainframe computer software to IBM. I am familiar with them through a parent's career, and I think I can say without exception that the likelihood of Lawson having a connection within the school district or board is pretty slim. That doesn't mean there could be some sort of connection via relatives or friends, but Lawson itself has been around long before any of the Board members came on the scene.

2.) The IDEAS e-mail system is not filtered, in the sense that e-mails are blocked, to the best of my knowledge. In fact, spam has become such a problem within the system that it takes up a measurable portion of the traffic, despite there being some filters in place to keep it to a minimum.

3.) The Websense system is just that - it is a filter that prevents inappropriate content from entering the District's network, and in doing so, can also be set up to filter or block specific Web sites, classes of sites (blogs) or domains. Websense is a service that provides regular updates to the filters as well as allowing custom configurations to them that the end users (HCSD) can set up to their liking, e.g., block Lee's blog but not April Griffin's.

If you want to look for connections, try poking around in Assessment & Accountability for the link between them and the Scantron company....



Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 2:29 PM

I sent my draft. See corrections below, please. ldd

From: Linda Cobbe [mailto:lcobbe@sdhc.us]
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 4:41 PM
To: lee de cesare
Subject: Re: suppressing free speech

From what I can tell, this is the part addressed to me, but I'm having difficulty determining what you're saying in a couple of the sentences. I have underlined the sentences I need you to clarify.

I understand a technology committee made the decision to interrupt my blog's and two other teacher blogs' access to the schools.

Please tell me the names of the people on that committee and the name of the chair. Was Mr. Davis, he? Tell me also if the committee got the permission of the board to interrupt the flow of free speech into and from a publicly supported institution so that I can pass it on to elected officials who should know of such derogation of free speech in a public institution supported by taxes. I would like to see the order and who signed it that authorized this shut-down of free speech to and from the schools. This request is all public information.

Every valid committee in tax-supported institutions when it makes important decisions such as curtailing the First- Amendment rights of citizens takes committee notes. The Technology Depar tment must have followed this standard protocol. I would like to have a copy of those notes, please, that order the shutdown of free email speech in the public schools for me and teacher bloggers. Thank you.

May I add this question: where is a list on the school Web of people or organizations that the Technology Committee or other authority has deprived of free-speech rights by denying email access? Are these decisions all approved by the school boad? Thank you. lee

Hooper, I am proud of you. You managed to write something negative about the Hillsborough County School superintendent's greed despite your being a sap for the wiles of her girlfriend La Belle Dame sans Merci Faliero, about whom you wrote a troubadour's newspaper love song in times of yore.

Not so yore, however, as to render this volte face null. It impressed me.

Your fans, among which I number, feared the tenor of that besotted Faliero salute meant she had swished you away to her piney-woods elfin grot and that we would see nor hear Hooper again, what with the lady’s making sweet moan and other allurements of elfin grots in general and Faliero’s in particular.

We feared to find you far gone, alone in the wither'd sedge of Lutz or Seffner, accosting passers-by with, "Is this a planet to which none have gone before?" And "Tell me how to get back to the St. Petersburg Times dispensary."

Keep on the path to recovery. Take your vitamins plus anti-oxidants to dissipate the effluvia of elfin grots, floss twice a day, and avoid those fairy grots that imperil reporters from newspapers which have no counseling departments for staff who rank susceptible to La Belle Dame sans Merci types in this piney-woods venue if yokelism which immures us.

Your mother is proud of you. She has magneted that rebuke of Elia greed to the frig. That's what we mothers do when our children do us proud.

A fan,

lee drury de cesare

Scoring bonus points; a fashionable way to give

By ERNEST HOOPER
Published January 28, 2008

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Every time I say that a person makes a lot of money, one of my friends reminds me it's relative.

"We don't know their mortgage payment, their expenses or the challenge of their job."

He has a point. Still, a number of Hillsborough school district employees have expressed dismay about the $37,620 performance bonus that superintendent MaryEllen Elia recently received.

I won't say her total compensation of $290,620 is "a lot," but maybe she could find a way to symbolically share some of that bonus with the teachers and support staff. The perception that her wages are out of line with the rank and file needs to be addressed.

Teachers did receive pay increases, but an act of appreciation would mean, well, "a lot." ...