Monthly Archives: June 2013

(Community Matters) not that there aren’t vulnerabilities, there definitely are, including Europe, a softening SE Asia and a looming GOP manufactured debt limit crisis . . .

The NYSE 1929 to June 12, 2013

The NASDAQ 1979 to June 12, 2013

The S&P 500 1980 to June 12, 2013

(Community Matters) I’m not gonna automatically believe reports about what Snowden is or isn’t doing, has or hasn’t done. Not saying our gov’t or the US intelligence community is running a disinformation campaign, but we’ve been known to do this.

The South China Morning Post published another article early Thursday morning local time about its exclusive interview with Edward Snowden, the person responsible for leaking top-secret information about the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance programs. The Post reported that Snowden said that the U.S. government “had been hacking into computers in Hong Kong and [in China] for years.”

(Community Matters) Edward Snowden, the young man who divulged the NSA’s broad data collection on American’s telephone calls, emails, dropbox and google docs, being described by David Brooks. Brooks description of Snowden as beholden to the CIA and Booz Allen for the “breaks” they gave him even after he failed to graduate from high school, community college or university . . . forgive me, but I doubt either the CIA or Booz Allen were giving the man a break. I find it hard to believe they didn’t employ him because he was smart and because they thought they were getting more than they were paying. The condescension in Brook’s column reminds me of a recent conversation where a friend derided a government official as someone “who’s never made more than $150k” in their life – openly suggesting that this was evidence that this person wasn’t worthy of government authority. I still feel bad for not speaking up against this comment, as if I didn’t say anything while someone said something derogatory against someone for the color of their skin or because they did or didn’t have a penis.

Amy Davidson in The New Yorker does well at taking on Mr Brooks point by point.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: ‘I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things’ – video

(Community Matters) Was just discussing the efficacy of this a few weeks ago – Blue Birds, Red Birds, Yellow Birds. NYT: Grouping Students by Ability Regains Favor in Classroom

And, I acknowledge the risks. Growing up, I’d always been in the advanced groups until the fourth grade when a reading teacher put me in the second group. My mother found this unusual so met with the teacher. My last name suggested to the teacher I might not be up to speed in reading. I was returned to the accelerated group and made an A.

(Community Matters) Steven and I have been talking about this for a couple of years now – not only farming but butchering, baking, fishing . . . the migration by smart, well-educated, success-driven young people to these vocations. That they can make a decent living selling their wares in Central Texas is encouraging.

AAS story Loans helping new, urban-area farmers (pic by Ralph Barrera, AAS) 

Coupled with our interest in farmers and artisans is an interest in cooperatives. There’s a resurgence in this business organization structure in our country, and there’s organized opposition by big banks and other businesses against them as their market share increases. Steven serves as treasurer of the Wheatsville Coop board. I’ve recently offered to engage with UFCU.

(Community Matters) 

(Community Matters) WSJ: Truth About Millennials: Less Entitled and More Cynical than You Think.

(Community Matters) Lori Hawkins in the AAS: Capital Factory: Center of Austin’s startup scene

(Community Matters) The birds, squirrels and I expectantly await the ripening of our apples. The birds are winning the figs.

(Community Matters) As my daddy reminds me, there’s always another side to every story, and I haven’t heard from EACPA or SWKey directly. So, I post the comments I receive acknowledging we’re hearing just one side. If SWKey or EACPA would like to comment, I’m happy to hear. Over the years, I have spoken to a dear friend who was a board member who wasn’t so happy that I was making comments – and who I note didn’t stay on the board too long after I suggested he research the matter rather than chew me out for asking, – a former development consultant (almost ditto), and this week reached out directly to another insider.

I received the following note yesterday:

06/07/2013 at 12:07 PM

Hello,
I am a former high level administrator at EACPA. I have reviewed the school’s charter many times. The charter does specifically state that no outside entity (i.e. Southwest Key) may have anything to do with the management of the school. In fact, the charter states that the school may not have a management company at all. All school matters must be run by school employees. Having seen the bills many times, I can tell you that Southwest Key charges the school management fees. I can also tell you that the school board members, not the school administrators, are ultimately responsible for this violation of the school charter. It is also true that Southwest Key manages grants awarded to the school and acts like they are their own. It is true that Dr. Sanchez’s wife, who does not work for the school, runs the school grants. Finally, I know from current and former school employees that Dr. Sanchez is no longer even on the school board but he is still making hiring, firing, and financial decisions for the school. School officials are sharing confidential information with Southwest Key and the school board is complicit in allowing Southwest Key to profit from state education dollars by overcharging the school and profiting from the school’s lease agreements.
Hope this helps

| 06/07/2013 at 2:20 PM

(Community Matters) The Economist on immunotherapy in fight against melanoma.

Earlier post

(Community Matters) “My sources confirm that the NSA did not have direct access or any special instant access to data or servers at the PRISM targets, but instead had to send requests to the companies for the data.”

Tech Crunch’s Josh Constine on how tech companies might be curtailing, rather than enabling, unlimited government access to internet data by requiring tight scope and extracting and forwarding only specific targets’ data http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/08/cooperation-methods-protected-innocents-from-prism/

Earlier yesterday, Tech Crunch founder Michael Arrington pointed out in his blog, Uncrunched, that tech company denials were finely worded, in some cases exactly worded. http://bit.ly/18d0klD