Category Archives: Uncategorized

(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 

(Community Matters) Super to see Austin’s John Arrow, CEO of Mutual Mobile at the top of the list.

(Community Matters) Best Rainey Street run down I’ve come across in Michael Barnes’ Out & About.

(Community Matters) Our government is indeed mining all digital content from all 9 major internet carriers, that’s access to emails, photos, video, google docs, dropbox content . . . I’m a bit overwhelmed and have to think more about it.

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.

The highly classified program, code-named PRISM, has not been disclosed publicly before. Its establishment in 2007 and six years of exponential growth took place beneath the surface of a roiling debate over the boundaries of surveillance and privacy.

WAPO Story

Powerpoint

today’s earlier posting: Can We Even Find Our Way Back

(Community Matters) Israeli Judge: ‘Some Girls Enjoy Being Raped’

GOP Congressmen on rape. Congressional hearings on birth control excluding testimony from women. Repeated, epidemic, sometime public, gang rapes in India. Epidemic sexual assaults in the US military and military leaders punishing victims, arguing for the right to “handle” and overturn prosecutions.

I’m sorta at a loss here; I imagine most are. Whiskey tango foxtrot is going on?

(Community Matters) I’m still receiving emails from parents and parties engaged with Southwest Key. The latest news of concern, which I have no way to verify but hope board members will, is that key employees are being given interests in closely held companies and family members being given jobs as a way to stymie dissent and stifle voices.

I hadn’t thought about board members being similarly conflicted and don’t imagine they’d allow this to happen.

I’m also hearing growing voices of dissent about the costs charged to Austin Prepatory School by SWKey and the singular control exerted by SWKey Founder, Juan Sanchez. 

earlier postings linked here:

More on East Austin College Prep & Southwest Key

(Community Matters) Bummed had to miss last night’s E&Y Entrepreneurs of the Year Awards, always a festive evening. Congratulations to all the finalists, and especially this year’s winners:

Paul Forster and Rony Kahan, Indeed

Glenn Garland & Jim Stimmel, CLEAResult

Dan Graham, BuildASign

Joyce McDonald, Frameworks (Social Entrepreneur of the Year, includes $100k Silverton Foundation prize)

Maryanne Guido, Guido Brothers Construction Co, San Antonio

Veronica Edwards,  InGenesis, San Antonio

(Community Matters) Richard Florida on the urbanization and globalization of startup cities.  Austin #11.

New York tops the list with 144, besting San Francisco’s 135. London is next with 90, followed by San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara (Silicon Valley) with 66, and Los Angeles with 64. Toronto and Boston-Cambridge tied for sixth with 34 each, Chicago is eighth with 31, Berlin ninth with 27, and Bangalore 10th with 26. Austin (23), Seattle (22), and São Paulo (21) each have more than 20 start-ups. Another 20 cities are home to 10 or more start-ups: Istanbul with 19; Vancouver and Moscow each with 17; New Delhi (15); Paris, and Atlanta with 14 each; Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, and Miami with 12 each; San Diego, Madrid, Singapore, and Sydney with 11 apiece; and Barcelona, Dublin, Tel Aviv, Dallas-Fort Worth, Mumbai, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, with 10 start-ups each.

(Community Matters) We’ve lost our balance . . . in national security monitoring. It’s not a surprise that the FBI, CIA and NSA overreach. I imagine it’s a rabbit trail and that there’s always further to go in the honorable quest to keep Americans safe and capture the bad guys.

In our War on Terror, Congress and the President overrode the checks & balances. And, it’s time to reign in our proclivity for overreaching. It’s a rabbit hole too easily traversed, and we could find ourselves so far inside we’d never get back – we’re pretty far. Politico: NSA sought all Verizon U.S. call records – foreign & domestic. 

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who both serve on the Intelligence Committee — have long contended that the federal government is using orders from the FISA court to engage in surveillance that would shock and anger many Americans.

“Not only are they intercepting call data into and out of the country, but they are intercepting all call data in the United States, which goes far beyond what the FISA Amendments Act allows,” Timm said.