Thursday, January 24, 2008

I always brake for grammar questions.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post " var YAHOO ...":

Shouldn't that say people "who" need you most?


Yes, one should use "who" because it is the subject of the subordinate clause and refers to "people." Did I mess up in this blog on this point? If so, where? Or are you asking a general question?

Since linguistics is an interest of mine, I read linguistics books all the time. I beat the editor of the North American Oxford English Dictionary recently on a question of absolute elements. If you took Latin (I did with Mr. Julius Steinberg at Hillsborough High School. We went all the way through Caesar's campaigns in Gaul.), you would remember this construction as "ablative absolute."

If you are interested in grammar, go to my NYT-DCPost blog "Grammargrinch.blogspot.com." I have another blog on Bay-Area publications' grammar-and-punctuation errors:TampabayGrammargrinch.com. The latest entries correct Paul Tash's grammar and punctuation and feature a whopping subject-verb-agreement error in the recent editorial endorsing Obama for president.


Obama is an excellent writer. Reading his Dreams of My Father shows how good he is. He overuses commas. This book--the proceeds from which he paid off his and his wife's student loans--shows he has a soul and a keen intelligence.


I decided to support him for president after I read his book despite my being a feminist. lee


PS: I ratted out the editor of the North American Oxford English Dictionary to the Oxford linguistics faculty. The little twit was a sexist smartass. lee



Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 5:43 PM


Thank you, Ms. Cobbe.

Mr. Davis I await your sending the data I asked you for to Ms.
Cobbe to convey to me. It is public information. The law says you provide it.

lee drury de cesare


The ten overpaid administrators below get enough loot to pay for 39 teachers. They do not bring the skills to the jobs to merit this extortion money. Connie Mileto's training was as a kindergarten teacher. Her relationship with Dr. Hamilton was La Mileto's trump card in getting a job that should have required a political science or psychology degree.


A personal relationship defines the way a kindergarten teacher got this plum job, not credentials and training. Dr. Hamilton's wife divorced him during this promotion sequel that ran from kindergarten to the halls of Tallahassee's legislature. The saga speaks volumes about the employment practices and the ethical level of the ROSSAC administration and the amount of control that the board has over Ms. Elia's administration.

Dr. Hamilton is the most egregious case of fraud on the taxpayers I have encountered. For years Dr. Hamilton held top positions in the administration. He bragged he was an "s.o.b. to work for." I always suspect a man that huffs and puffs like that suffers terminal erectile dysfunction and acute performance anxiety.


Hamilton dithered about leaving his post as second in command, where he had experienced his years of the glory of lording over the trembling minions in the schools who knew he had Ms. Elia's ear and could get them fired for a whiff of resistance to him.


I judge this great pooh-bah to have been a great fraud on the taxpayer. I don't think he wrote his thesis. I think he paid somebody to write it. My reason for this inference is that I asked him what his thesis was about at a Tiger Bay meeting. He said he didn't remember. Anybody who has written a thesis remembers it. A thesis requires a lot of hard work.


I have on my things-to-do list writing the president of Florida State to ask how he or whoever preceded him let Dr. Hamilton get away with submitting a thesis he did not write. I will present his writing as forensic evidence to the Florida State current president to prove that he was marginally literate.


This writing shows he did not know the difference between such homophones as "your" and "you're" and that a sustained piece of writing that he had a year to do that purported to outline for new board members their duties was not the work of somebody in possession of anything but marginal literacy.


Yet this guy milked top salary from the taxpayers for years and years. I will report into the Board of Governors, which controls the state university as well. Everybody knows NOVA turns out faux Ph.D.'s and Ed.d's. But the state universities so far have been free of the taint of being diploma mills. An inordinate number of the administrative bureaucrats of the state of Florida's educational administrative system have the dubious honor of holding NOVA degrees.


The last job Dr. Hamilton held was one Ms. Elia created for him and put his name on it before the job went on the books a staff member told me. There was no advertising of it. Ms. Elia's arrogance is such that she doesn't even pretend to carry out the board members' ridiculous claim of equal-employment-opportunity. They, of course, did not object to this boutique job for Hamilton while he dithered about retiring. It paid $140,000 a year: top salary for an administrator.


This great fraud on Florida education finally exited the scene as Exhibit Number One of what is wrong with the ROSSAC Robber-Baron-administrative record nine months into his special, no-competition job. That dithering-time contract milked a final approximate $105,000 from the taxpayers with the board sitting deaf and dumb and not doing diddly to prevent it.


I wager the board could go the way of the bustle for all the good it does the taxpayers. Its members are too gutless or too complicit to challenge Elia's wrongdoing. The board members perjured themselves on equal-employment opportunity because they were too gutless or too indifferent to it to challenge Ms. Elia's overriding all civilities of employment protocol to put her buddies or her buddy's protégée into jobs that pay four times what a beginning teacher makes.


Such is the obscene spoils system that rules the county schools. lee






----- Original Message ----
From: Linda
Cobbefont>
To: lee decesarefont>
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 4:29:29 PM
Subject: Re: public information

The salaries appear after their names below.

Linda Cobbefont>
External Communications Manager
Office of Communications
Hillsboroughfont> County Public Schools
901 E. Kennedy Blvd.
Tampa, FL 33602
813-272-4602
813-272-4510 FAX

WRITTEN COMMUNICATION
Florida has a very broad public records law. Most written communications (including e-mail) to or from public employees are public records available to anyone who asks. Your e-mail communications and your e-mail address may therefore be subject to public disclosure.


lee decesarefont> <lee_decesare@yahoo.com> writes:
Deputy Superintendent Ken Otero $140,141.76
Pay for 4 teachers
Deputy Superintendent / Chief Human Resources Officer Dan Valdez $140,829.92
Pay for 4 teachers
Assistant Superintendent for Administration Lewis Brinson $129,272.88
Pay for 4 teachers
Chief Business Officer Gretchen Saunders $127,370.32
Pay for 4 teachers
Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum & Instruction Michael Grego, Ed.D. $132,835.12
Pay for 4 teachers
Chief Facilities Officer Cathy Valdes $131,054
Pay for 4 teachers
Chief Government Relations Officer Connie Milito $127,370.32
Pay for 4 teachers
Chief Information & Technology Officer Jack Davis $129,920.56
Pay for 4 teachers
Assistant Superintendent for Student Services & Federal Programs Gwen Luney $129,272.88
Pay for 4 teachers
Communications Officer Stephen Hegarty $101,038.08
Pay for 3 teachers

Ms. Cobbe: May I have the current salaries of the above individuals?

I recall when examining Jack Davis's personnel file that he had no degrees, credits, or training in technology.

My recollection says also that his initiation into head of technology occurred coincident with the teachers' computer salary disruption when the administration introduced the emergency measure of allowing teachers to borrow a replacement salary from the credit union.

Teachers, not the administration that made the error, I also recall, paid the interest on this borrowed money if they needed salary replacement because of the technology breakdown in Mr. Davis's department.

I send this email to Mr. Davis for him to correct me if I am wrong on any point cited above. He will, I request, convey that credentials information and any other data regarding this query to you along with the information of where he got his terminal degree and in what area. You will forward these data to me, please. Thank you.


lee drury de cesare

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "'monster.gostats.com';_goa=401613;_got=1;_goi=1;_g...":

I may be 100% incorrect, if so, I apologize in adavance, but is this the same guy that openned Sickles and lasted one semester? Instead of being fired because of incompetence he quickly became the Y2K compliance guy and was moved away from cameras and parents.

Publish this comment.

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Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 3:39 PM

Give me more context. I don't know which guy you refer to. Which post is the person alluded to? lee


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sorry about being so vague. I was writing about Davis.