The Beat Goes On

From: lee de cesare [mailto:tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 1:25 PM
To: 'maryellen.elia@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'april.griffin@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'susanvaldes@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'candy.olson@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'jack.lamb@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'carol.kurdell@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'jennifer.falliero@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'doretha.edgecomb@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Dan'; 'Lewis.Brinson@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Gretchen.Saunders@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Wynne.Tye@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Cathy.Valdes@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Connie.Milito@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'David.Steele@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Gwen.Luney@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Stephen.Hegarty@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Emily.mcbryar@sdhc.k12.fl.us'
Cc: 'marilynbrown@tampatrib.com'; 'letitiastein@sptimes.com'; Angie Manteiga (amanteiga@lagacetanewspaper.com); 'patrickmanteiga@lagacetanewspaper.com'; 'renee.briggs@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Arlene.Babanats@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'adm@sticksoffire.com'; 'Anna.Brown@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Bonnie.McDaniel@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'BobbW8@aol.com'; 'Bonnie.Guertin@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Bradley.Woods@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Brent'; 'briggs@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Colleen.Faucett@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Cindy.Malone@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Dan.Valdez@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Terry'; 'Dave.Burgess@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Edward H. Stein'; 'Emily.mcbryar@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Eric.Cantrell@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Edith.Lefler@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Elizabeth.Calleri@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Elizabeth.Calleri@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'goader@es-kay.net'; 'genesiudut@lagacetanewspaper.com'; 'Gary.Hocevar@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Gina.Becker@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Holly.Saia@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'HeavenNeil@hccfl.edu'
Subject: FW: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room

Couch] New comment on This and That.

Ms. Elia:

I have had several blog readers write me that you curse out underlings in your office and use the “f” word lavishly during these sessions.

I have also had people tell me in person that this is your wont.

I would like to know if these reports of your verbally abusing employees in your charge during office discussions be true.

If so, stop it right now. No employee deserves to be berated with expletives during interviews with the school superintendent.

The breadth of the English language is sufficient for you to express your ire in standard English.

If I continue to hear that you are cursing at employees in your office with gutter expletives, I will bring this issue up in a public board meeting and demand that the board deal with it in the name of the public that the board members represent.

Lee Drury De Cesare

From: Anonymous [mailto:noreply-comment@blogger.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 12:46 PM
To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com
Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on This and That.

From: Anonymous [mailto:noreply-comment@blogger.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 9:47 PM
To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com
Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on The Beat Goes On.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Beat Goes On":

Many ROSSAC supervisors whisper about Elia's gutter mouth. She is as raunchy and foul mouthed as they come. Sailors would blush! Add to that her mullet hairstyle, and you've got total white trash.

Publish this comment.

Reject this comment.

Moderate comments for this blog.

Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 6:47 PM

If you hear something over and over again as I have this potty-mouth rumor, there must be something to it. If I get no response from Elia or the board by next board meeting, I will pose the question publicly. lee

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "This and That":

Did you watch how Elia boohooed about how people can write whatever they want on blogs and it doesn't help the children at tonight's board meeting? As if she cares about the children. She just cares about getting good press. Children aren't reading blogs about the school district. They are reading more interesting things. She is just upset she can not find out who the anonymous posters are so she can punish them or get back at them. It is an irrational need to control everything.



Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 6:34 PM

From: lee de cesare [mailto:tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 12:45 PM
To: 'april.griffin@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'susanvaldes@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'candy.olson@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'jack.lamb@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'carol.kurdell@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'jennifer.falliero@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'doretha.edgecomb@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Dan'; 'Lewis.Brinson@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Gretchen.Saunders@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Wynne.Tye@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Cathy.Valdes@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Connie.Milito@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'David.Steele@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Gwen.Luney@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Stephen.Hegarty@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'Emily.mcbryar@sdhc.k12.fl.us'; 'renee.briggs@sdhc.k12.fl.us'
Cc: 'letitiastein@sptimes.com'; 'marilynbrown@tampatrib.com'; Angie Manteiga (amanteiga@lagacetanewspaper.com); 'patrickmanteiga@lagacetanewspaper.com'; 'William Birdsall'
Subject: monkey bi

Ms. Kurdell: Yesterday was my first time to see you chair a meeting. I commend your control of the agenda and your expeditious moving of it forward. I condemn your abuse of my First Amendment Rights and will protest anybody’s trying to shut up a citizen and evade his or her Constitutional right to criticize the government.

A homeless person pulled in off the street would do a better job than your immediate predecessor, Jennifer Falliero. This ditzy board member thinks that when she gets a gavel in her hand that she is the Annie Oakley of the podium and can gavel down or kick out anybody on or off the podium who displeases her.

I want you request that you watch that Dr. Lamb does not shut off debate of issues that embarrass the administration. As a veteran administration board toady, Dr. Lamb jumps in and calls the question to cut off debate inconvenient to the administration’s goal to cover up how the schools are misrun so that citizens won’t know what’s going on. You have shown a tendency to support this malignant practice as well.

After reading the boxes of Erwin court files in the Public Affairs office, I am sure board members used this cover-up maneuver in various ways during the Erwin outrage twenty years ago. Three that sat and let the administration crucify Mr. Erwin still reside on the board: you, Dr. Lamb, and Ms. Olson. You three should be ashamed of yourselves for participating with Dr. Lennard and his administrative thugs in the abuse of a school employee who wouldn’t shut up about the schools’ being robbed by their employees and perhaps some board members suborned by payoffs by greedy contractors who built shoddy new schools that leaked and had multiple substandard flaws but got top tax money anyway. The board then as now pretended not to know what was going on and stamped the contractors’ invoices.

Presently, Dr. Lamb cuts off debate to free the administration from scrutiny, and the chair has let him from ignorance of Roberts Rules, I infer, or from a desire to protect the administration's incompetence.

An expert on Roberts Rules says this on call-the-question matter:

This [call the question] is more a matter of parliamentary procedure than of correct English, but people are generally confused about what “calling the question” means. They often suppose that it means simply “let’s vote!” and some even imagine that it is necessary to call for the question before a vote may be taken. You even see deferential meeting chairs pleading, “Would someone like to call for the question?”

But “calling the question” when done properly should be a rare occurrence. If debate has dragged on longer than you feel is really warranted, you can “call the question,” at which time the chair has to immediately ask those assembled to vote to determine whether or not debate should be cut off or continue. The motion to call the question is itself not debatable. If two-thirds of those voting agree that the discussion should have died some time ago, they will support the call. Then, and only then, will the vote be taken on the question itself.

Potentially this parliamentary maneuver would be a great way to shut down windy speakers who insist on prolonging a discussion when a clear consensus has already been arrived at; but since so few people understand what it means, it rarely works as intended.

Chairs: when someone “calls the question,” explain what the phrase means and ask if that is what’s intended. Other folks: you’ll get further most of the time just saying “Let’s vote!”

I would also like to request that during your chair tenure that you discourage members from using the Roberts hillbilly locution of “I make a motion that….” The correct formula is “I move that….”

If a board member needs help with Roberts Rules, he or she can query Mr. Gonzalez. If Mr. Gonzalez does not know Roberts Rules down cold, that is yet another reason to repeat my recommendation to fire him.

Pax Vobiscum,
Lee Drury De Cesare

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Mr. Brooks, See Me in My Office After Class":

[You need one of those tough public-school teachers of the sort that teach in Hillsborough County while enduring the abuse of a thuggish administration and lackadaisical school board. This pedagogical stalwart of literacy would teach you grammar, punctuation, and how to write pellucid prose.]

The clause "that teach ..." modifies "sort". Period goes inside quotation marks. Sort Use quotation marks for a word used as a word. is singular. "Teachers" is the subject. "Of the sort" is an adjectival prepositional phrase that modifies "teachers." The adjective clause also modifies "teachers," so the verb of this subordinate clause agrees with "teachers."

Find yourself a pedagogical stalwart of literacy to teach you grammar. You are free to issue insults, but you must not copy mine. If you do, give me credit with attribution and quotation marks. Think up your own insults. This skill is a whole subgenre of the high exercise of satire.

Publish this comment.

Reject this comment.

Moderate comments for this blog.

Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 7:44 PM

From: Anonymous [mailto:noreply-comment@blogger.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2008 6:46 PM
To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com
Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on This and That.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "This and That":

I posted to you yesterday and told you that I had information that April had been part of securing a resolution on the issues with the Alafia Principal. Please check out the following link:

http://blogs.tampabay.com/schools/2008/12/alafia-principa.html

It would seem that it is possible to fight out of the public view and still secure wins.

Publish this comment.

Reject this comment.

Moderate comments for this blog.

In some recent post you called me "codger." I can't be a codger. That's a guy. I can be a hag, a witch, or a bitch.

You have every right to hold April as your ideal. I think more on the lines of Madame Cure for the hero category. But you have no right to appear on my blog unless I allow you to. You must start writing better. If you want to insult me, you must be more artful. I won't publish any more clumsy, sophomoric insults. My blog has a standard to maintain. lee

Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 3:46 PM

I am not impressed. My understanding is that April and Pole Girl Falliero teamed up for some project that involved the Alafia situation. I think their work was more to get the administration and board off the hotseat with the parents and press than to help the parents rid the school of Smith.

I believe the Alafia parents were grateful for Smith’s resignation. But I don’t think April and Falliero were working for them and the children primarily. I think they were working for the board’s reputation and to protect the administration—especially in Jennifer’s case. She owes the administration for its support of her and the firing of Marc Hart in the adultery saga she started with him on school property.

My assessment of the board is that its members are self-involved and chiefly want what’s good for them such as April’s off-schedule trip that violated the new trip rules that followed the public’s discovering that the board members had raped the budget to frolic around on tax money. I await April’s doing something for the teachers and students. lee

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Mr. Brooks, See Me in My Office After Class":

[You need one of those tough public-school teachers of the sort that teach in Hillsborough County while enduring the abuse of a thuggish administration and lackadaisical school board. This pedagogical stalwart of literacy would teach you grammar, punctuation, and how to write pellucid prose.]

The clause "that teach ..." modifies "sort". Period goes inside quotation marks. Sort Use quotation marks for a word used as a word. is singular. "Teachers" is the subject. "Of the sort" is an adjectival prepositional phrase that modifies "teachers." The adjective clause also modifies "teachers," so the verb of this subordinate clause agrees with "teachers."

From: Anonymous [mailto:noreply-comment@blogger.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 10:46 PM
To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com
Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on The Beat Goes On.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Beat Goes On":

["Of the sort" is an adjectival prepositional phrase that modifies "teachers." The adjective clause also modifies "teachers," so the verb of this subordinate clause agrees with "teachers."] You are right; “teachers” is not the subject but the object of the preposition “of.” The adjective clause modifies “teachers,” so the verb must agree with “teachers.”

If you're going to play that illogical game, look further Use "farther" to refer to distance. back. "Of those tough public-school teachers" modifies "one". A period goes inside quotation marks.

Why are you so splenetic about discussing grammar? I can see being riled up about injustice, but this is mere grammar. Besides, you need help from me or somebody in punctuation and in other areas. You don't know where to put end punctuation in sentences ending in quotation marks; and you don't know the use of quotation marks. You also have "farther" and "further" mixed up. You have found a grammar--moi-- expert on a blog that you can use to help you with your grammar-punctuation problems. I thought your insult showed a tired lack of wit. lee

You need one ... that teaches ...

["Teachers" is the subject.]

The hell it is! What is "teachers" doing in the sentence? What verb is "teachers" the subject of?

You want an original insult? You do for grammar what Yoko Ono did for the Beatles.

Publish this comment.

Reject this comment.

Moderate comments for this blog.

Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 7:46 PM