E-MAIL CORRESPONDENCE OF MINE WITH 'TEXAS MONTHLY' MAGAZINE FOUNDER AND PUBLISHER MICHAEL R. LEVY THAT TRIGGERED A SURPRISING REJECTION LETTER TO ME FROM MR. LEVY

----- Original Message -----


From: "Michael R. Levy"

To: "John K McMillan"

Cc: sabatino@austinisd.org

Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2007 5:18 AM

Subject: RE: reply to House Chairman Eissler re: Proposed 'Vocabulary Word of Day' Sign

Mr. McMillan:

While I appreciate that these issues are important to you, they are not appropriate for my attention and consideration, so I would appreciate  your not referencing or cc'ing me in any future correspondence on these matters.

I hope that you understand.

And I do wish you well.

Sincerely,

Michael R. Levy





-----Original Message-----

From: John K McMillan [mailto:jkmcmil@texas.net]

Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2007 12:28 AM

To: sabatino@austinisd.org

Cc: Michael R. Levy

Subject: Fw: reply to House Chairman Eissler re: Proposed 'Vocabulary Word of Day' Sign



Dear Public Information Coordinator Melissa Sabatino at Austin Independent School District central administration offices, I hope very much that the following E-mail correspondence of mine relating to the proposed "Vocabulary Word of the Day" project at AISD campuses (please

see the very last letter, below, for which I have not yet received any reply letter from Superintendent Forgione) will also be of interest to yourself and your AISD colleagues.

Sincerely and Best Wishes,

Stephen F. Austin High alumnus John Kevin McMillan of Austin.

Phone: (512) 342-2295.


cc: Mr. Michael Levy, Founder and Publisher, "Texas Monthly" magazine,  Austin.



----- Original Message -----

From: "John K McMillan"

To: "Rob Eissler"

Cc: "Superintendent Forgione"

Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 7:13 PM

Subject: reply to House Chairman Eissler re: Proposed 'Vocabulary Word of Day' Sign

To: House Education Committee Chairman Rob Eissler, Texas House of  Representatives, Texas Legislature.

June 4, 2007

Dear Education Committee Chairman Eissler,

Thank you for your very kind interest in this proposed new year-round educational display for each of Austin Independent School District's school campuses.

I am hopeful that with help from local and state financing and private foundation support, this type of educational offering can become a year-round feature at all or many other public school campuses throughout Texas as well.

 Incidentally, Chairman Eissler, I have decided to share your nice reply letter (see below) to myself with Superintendent Forgione of Austin Independent School District. I still have not received any reply E-mail letter or reply letter from Superintendent Forgione about this matter, but I'm hopeful he will eventually extend that type of simple courtesy to this particular taxpaying and gainfully employed resident of his public school district in Austin.

Thank you again for your nice reply E-mail letter to myself. Your thoughtful reply letter brightened my day considerably.

Sincerely and Best Wishes,

John Kevin McMillan, a Stephen F. Austin High (AISD) alumnus and University of Texas at Austin alumnus.

11411 Research Boulevard, Apt. 325, Austin, Texas, 78759.

Phone: (512) 342-2295.

E-mail: jkmcmil@texas.net

cc: Superintendent Forgione, Austin Independent School District Central Administration offices, Austin.

Senator Florence Shapiro, Distinguished Chair of the Senate Public Education Committee of the Texas Senate.

Mr. Chris Barbee, a conscientious and polite former work supervisor of  mine at the newspaper in El Campo who is the people-friendly and education-minded managing editor of "The El Campo Leader-News" newspaper in El Campo, Texas, in Wharton County.

Texas Education Agency Commissioner Shirley Neeley, TEA state agency headquarters, Austin.

Mr. Michael Levy, Founder and Publisher of "Texas Monthly," who  has kindly written and sent me two friendly reply E-mail letters of his own on behalf of his Austin-based statewide magazine in the last several days.

Mr. Fred Zipp, Managing Editor, "The Austin American-Statesman", Austin.

Ms. Alberta Phillips, Editorial Page Writer, "The Austin American-Statesman," Austin.

Mr. Richard Oppel, Editor in Chief, "The Austin American-Statesman," Austin.

Mr. Arnold Garcia, Editor of the Editorial Page, "The Austin American-Statesman," it being my hope that Mr. Garcia will not regard my stated concerns about obscene speech in Austin, Texas, that I've shared with yourself, Chairman Eissler, as being another example of the type of citedly unjustifiable "whininess" attributed to myself by Mr. Garcia that he complained about to me in a reply E-mail letter addressed and sent to myself on November 30, 2006, the text of which I have kept on file and in my computer system as well, Mr. Garcia's exact words to me in that reply E-mail letter having been: "Don't waste my (Mr. Arnold Garcia's) time with any more of your whining. Clear enough?"

"Dallas Morning News" Editorial Page Editor Keven Ann Willey.

"Dallas Morning News" Editor in Chief Bob Mong, who has sent me several polite E-mail letters from Dallas in recent prior years.

Chancellor Bob McTeer of Texas A&M University System, a State of Texas-owned university system whose very distinguished General Counsel, Mr. Delmar Cain, in the late 1990s chose to write an entire two-page memorandum addressed to another Texas A&M System official on the subject of whether the Texas A&M University System could justifiably offer myself, John K McMillan of Austin, any legal assistance of any type in response to my own written complaints to Texas A&M officials about obscene verbalized communications allegedly victimizing myself in Austin, Texas, with that two-page A&M System memorandum about myself in that context having been included in an official response to an Open Records request of mine that  Texas A&M University officials in College Station provided me in a recent prior year.

State Comptroller Susan Combs, State Comptroller's Office, Austin.

Texas Attorney General Gregory Abbott, Office of the Attorney General of Texas state agency, Austin.

Colonel Thomas Davis, Texas Department of Public Safety state  agency headquarters in Austin, Texas.

Austin Police Chief's Office, Austin.

City Attorney David Smith, City of Austin, Austin.

 Travis County County Attorney David Escamilla, County Attorney's Office, Austin.

Travis County District Attorney Ronald Earle, DA's Office, Austin.

Travis County Judge Sam Biscoe, Travis County Government, Austin.

University of Texas System Chancellor Mark Yudof, UT System Administration, Austin.

News Editors, "The Houston Chronicle," Houston, Texas.

News Editors, "The Dallas Morning News," Dallas, Texas.

News Editors, "The San Antonio Express-News," San Antonio, Texas.

KVUE Television News Editors, Austin.

Fox 7 Television News Editors, Austin.

 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Rob Eissler"

To: "John K McMillan"

Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 11:18 AM

Subject: RE: note to House Committee on Public Education re: Proposed 'Vocabulary Word of Day' Sign

John: I like your idea as well as your indefatigable persistence.

I will admonish any who perceive it as illusory.

It is a daunting task, but it should result in a decrease in profanity.

Sincerely,

Rob Eissler


---Original Message-----

From: John K McMillan [mailto:jkmcmil@texas.net]

Sent: Mon 6/4/2007 9:41 AM

To: Rob Eissler

Cc: Bill Zedler

Subject: note to House Committee on Public Education re: Proposed 'Vocabulary Word of Day' Sign

Dear House Committee on Public Education Chair Eissler and Vice Chair Zedler, I hope that your House Committee will be interested in the following public-policy letter of mine to Superintendent Forgione of Austin Independent School District.

Sincerely and Best Wishes,

former education-beat newspaper reporter John Kevin McMillan of Austin, Texas.

Phone: (512) 342-2295.

 ----- Original Message -----

From: "John K McMillan"

To: "Superintendent Forgione"

Cc: "AustinHighPrincipalHudson"

Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2007 12:13 AM

Subject: 6-3-07 Proposed 'Vocabulary Word of Day' Sign

To: Superintendent Forgione,

Central Administration Headquarters

Austin Independent School District,

Austin, Texas.

 June 3, 2007


Dear Superintendent Forgione,


As a clean-talking and law-abiding descendant of the Reverend William Brewster, who was the head chaplain on the Mayflower, I am very dismayed by the widespread evidence of vulgar or obscene or profane or scatological language being verbalized these days in Austin by youths who attend a public school of Austin Independent School District.


 I would like to suggest that Austin Independent School District,  with help from your conscientious Board of Trustees, consider requiring each and every school campus of Austin ISD to establish a "Vocabulary Word of the Day" sign to be situated indoors near each of the primary entrances to each of those public school campuses of your school district.

The highlighted word---"sagacious," for instance---might be followed by a concise definition of the word and a sample sentence designed to illustrate proper use of that word in everyday writing or conversation.

The intent of the "Vocabulary Word of the Day" year-round tradition for each and every public school campus of Austin ISD would be to politely remind all students enrolled at an AISD campus that they should strive to expand their vocabulary and make greater use of clean and incisive and
wholesome and polite and philanthropic vocabulary words that can enable them to communicate better in all aspects of their lives.

 The National Honor Society and other student groups, such as the Student Council, at each campus could be invited to submit proposed vocabulary words to be included in that year-round indoor exhibit greeting any and all students of Austin ISD campuses.

The "Vocabulary Word of the Day" exhibit could help all AISD students to achieve a higher verbal score on their Scholastic Aptitude Test than they otherwise might have had.

The year-round vocabulary-word exhibit would also help to remind all AISD students that language skills and literature as fields of study and career fields as well are very important.

That type of public statement is crucial for AISD, it seems to me.  In recent years, there appears to have been a very harmful imbalance at AISD schools  in favor of math and science as the leading priorities in public  school education, while the Humanities and Government and public speech and communications and journalism fields appear to have been  woefully neglected
in Austin public schools.

 The "Vocabulary Word of the Day" exhibit might also help to remind  all  AISD students of the supreme importance of civility and polite obedience of the law at all times. And that, in turn, can help to reduce the crime rate by Austin-area youths as well as the high-school dropout rate by AISD students.

Finally, Superintendent Forgione, I am very hopeful that private foundation support and possible donations to AISD from local business owners toward this type of annual display sign inside each public school in Austin would help to make this proposed project as inexpensive as possible for AISD taxpayers.

 I am very hopeful that you will like this tentative proposal, and I  hope to hear from you soon about this suggestion for AISD.

Sincerely and Best Wishes,

John Kevin McMillan, former Salutatorian of Stephen F. Austin High School and president and founder of the Austin-based and currently one-member (myself) and non-proselytizing Progressive (Prohibitionist) Religion.

Home mailing address: 11411 Research Boulevard, Apt. 325, Austin, Texas, 78759.

Phone: (512) 342-2295.

E-mail: jkmcmil@texas.net

cc: Stephen F. Austin High School Principal John Hudson, Stephen F. Austin High School, Austin.

Dr. Shirley Neeley, Texas Education Agency Commissioner, TEA state agency headquarters, Austin.

Texas State Comptroller Susan Combs, whose state agency in Austin might also like the idea of promoting a "Vocabulary Word of the Day"  year-round indoor exhibit inside each of the public primary and secondary schools throughout Texas.

State Senator Kirk Watson, Texas Senate, Texas Legislature, Austin.

State Rep. Donna Howard, Texas House, Texas Legislature, Austin.

Congressman Michael McCaul, United States Congress.

Austin City Council Member Betty Dunkerley, City Council, Austin.

Austin Mayor Will Wynn, City Hall, Austin.

Texas Governor Rick Perry, care of a cited E-mail address for a very distinguished and conscientious attorney, Ms. Chelsea Thornton, who is employed in the Office of General Counsel for the Governor's Office in Austin.

Texas Attorney General Gregory Abbott, Office of the Attorney General, State of Texas, Austin.

University of Texas at Austin President William Powers.

Texas A&M University Chancellor Bob McTeer.

Austin Community College President Stephen Kinslow.