Daily Archives: 08/12/2008

(Community Matters) Attended a lunch briefing during by Dr. Pat Forgoine, AISD Superintendent on How to Scale Academic Performance. We reviewed the success of an intensive initiative to improve student performance at Pecan Elementary – from a poor performing elementary school to a recognized school in just three years. Marie (the principal, apologies b/c I arrived a tad late and never caught her last name) described the metrics, frequent student assessment and team put in place. Pat recognized Marie’s talents and promoted her to Executive Principal so she can help principals at 6 other elementary schools similarly achieve. Excellent story and smart of Pat to systemitize this success. We also discussed the recently implemented merit compensation plan which distributed over $1,000,000 in performance bonuses this last school year. The session sponsored by Applied Materials and the KDK-Harman Foundation, both organizations important supporters of Pecan Elementary.

(Community Matters) $2million raised this weekend at the Equality California event in LA, including $500k from the Service Employees International Union, $250k from Teachers and $25k from AT&T. These monies to help fight the anti-gay marriage referendum.

(Community Matters) Hard to imagine Putin’s limits on Russia’s ambitions as a returning superpower. Aside from the world’s third largest army and second largest nuclear arsenal, he controls Europe’s access to natural gas and much of its oil. Flexing the bear’s muscle while all eyes on China – as was the person of our president playing a bit of a clown – doesn’t appear coincidental. Comparisons to German pride & nationalist fever after WWI troubling.

(Community Matters) This AAS story here sounds a lot like what happened to an Asian friend who was sitting on the hood of a car across the street from the Hancock HEB parking lot (finishing a conversation while leaving a party), about mid last semester. A masked man approached & robbed her and another friend.

(Community Matters) from Joshua Green’s article from this month’s Atlantic

Two things struck me right away. The first was that, outward appearances notwithstanding, the campaign prepared a clear strategy and did considerable planning. It sweated the large themes (Clinton’s late-in-the-game emergence as a blue-collar champion had been the idea all along) and the small details (campaign staffers in Portland, Oregon, kept tabs on Monica Lewinsky, who lived there, to avoid any surprise encounters). The second was the thought: Wow, it was even worse than I’d imagined!

Clinton ran on the basis of managerial competence—on her capacity, as she liked to put it, to “do the job from Day One.” In fact, she never behaved like a chief executive, and her own staff proved to be her Achilles’ heel. What is clear from the internal documents is that Clinton’s loss derived not from any specific decision she made but rather from the preponderance of the many she did not make. Her hesitancy and habit of avoiding hard choices exacted a price that eventually sank her chances at the presidency.

The internal discord over whether to attack Obama led some of her own staff to spin reporters to try to downplay the significance of her criticisms. The result for Clinton was the worst of both worlds: the conflicting message exacerbated her reputation for negativity without affording her whatever benefits a sustained attack might have yielded

On Super Tuesday, however, Clinton fell well short of projections, and according to NBC News, Obama finished the day having netted about 10 delegates and narrowed the gap. The slow-motion collapse of Clinton’s candidacy began to accelerate.

. . . but Garin convinced Clinton that if she committed several million dollars to his strategy, they would win Indiana, pull to within single digits in North Carolina, and live to fight on.

I want to turn this economy around. I want health care for every American. I want every child to live up to his or her God-given potential, and I want the nearly 18 million [sic] Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard, and no longer to be invisible.

(Community Matters) Interesting confluence of events and schedules.

(Community Matters) Very focused day today. From first stirring at 5 (slept a little late) until hitting send, then dashing off to Highway Home & Them auditions, was laser focused on our board packets for tomorrow’s Entrepreneurs Foundation board meeting. The rub is that I personally reconcile the organization’s books and cash flows prior to every board meeting. And, I review all quarterly metric reports on equity & cash grants, volunteerism, new initiatives (breast cancer project, affordable housing, a CSR conference, our 10th anniversary), fundraising and board development. Of course, Amanda, Alyson, Samantha and Marion each spend a lot of time getting us to this point. Nevertheless, takes a lot to wade through all the information to prioritize our 90 minutes and summarize the information for the board packets.

Guess I also spent a bit of time on Denver logistics. I won’t be attending the first night of the Convention but will arrive on Tuesday.

And, our second day of auditions for Michael Mitchell’s Highway Home & Them. Yesterday and this afternoon at Salvage Vanguard Theatre auditioning actors for two of the four parts. Also a bit of time in the theatre with Katie Pearl (our director) and Michael imagining how to use the space. We’re eager to get our set designer on board. After auditions, M, Katie and I back here for notes on the scripts, a light dinner and a bit of catching up. Broke about an hour ago. Tired but wired. So sorry I missed Steven’s cousins and their three, great kids at dinner tonight. I’ll make it up over swimming and dinner Wednesday.

(Community Matters) Andrew Sullivan:

Carter deeply weakened the US by fecklessness, naivete and inaction. Bush has weakened the US far more by fecklessness, naivete and extreme, ill-considered, badly managed action. The antidote to Carter was Reagan. The antidote to Bush is Obama