At the end of the day I like to unwind with humor on my way home. I feel it is relaxing and a nice
way to decompress.

No Howard Stern though. At the hour I am driving home it is usually what I heard on the drive in that morning so it is nothing new. Besides, the humor I want to hear is those that make themselves the joke. OK, OK, you got me. Yes, yes, I know. Sal and Richard usually make themselves the joke but I want something a little different in the afternoon.
I like to listen for a few minutes to Sean Hannity or Michael Savage just to hear their ignorance, self-importance, and irrelevance. It's even better listening when they praise Demagogue Donald Trump (I really crack up!). Mind you this is not taking away anything from Rush Limbaugh, Mark Simone, and Mark Levin who are all good for a hardy laugh as well. If you think about it, all the forenamed are clowns without the makeup. And much more dangerous. 

But today was different. Today I did not need the radio blowhards to have me doubled over in laughter. No, today's guffaw was courtesy of UFT Solidarity's own Francesco Portelos by an email sent to yours truly.

As many readers of this blog recall, another layer of truth from the Portelos onion was exposed as we followed his haphazard travails at Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn last month.

As is our policy here at SBSB we allow anyone to post here with any comment as long as it does contain personal information about anyone nor advocates violence against anyone else. We even allow dissidents of the "Sparkles for President" movement post here. We don't stand on ceremony here nor do we become little whiny poo poo heads when negative commentary about myself, the blog, or people we support are chastised. Nor do we feel the need to block like little whiny poo poo heads when the same happens.

So yesterday, Francesco Portelos, Leader of UFT Solidarity posted and informed me, not directly, but it seems that the lawsuit he promised against me will not materialize. Instead he suggested mediation, (or was it meditation?) with the UFT facilitating.

One rule I live by is "It's not honorable to engage in battle with weaker opponents."

You're post, as well as all your many others, are filled with false statements and ideas you and MORE members have conjured up about me. Regardless, we have more than doubled in size since you began your defamatory crusade this past July.

How about this? Let's engage in meaningful mediation. I'll email [email protected] and you do the same. Then they'll contact both of us for a professional sit down.

In Solidarity,

Just a dad from Staten Island  

Weaker? I don't recall threatening lawsuits, besmirching  others families, haranguing on Facbook those that disagree with MORE or it's affiliates. I have always been of the belief that those who feel confidant in themselves do not need to bully or intimidate others who disagree with them or to do the same to be assured that their followes "toe the line."

But we are proud that UFT Solidarity has doubled in size. But one wonders. How many of these 40 some odd "members" are actually UFT members? Seriously, how many are UFT members that can be involved in voting in UFT elections and how many are sitting on the "Executive Council" of UFT Solidarity and are in decision making roles for UFT members? (is the guy who wore the Captain Picard uniform to the DTOE meeting considered a UFT Solidarity member or is he still with Star Fleet?)

We also take umbrage that it has been inferred that MORE has been behind or directing any posts on this blog concerning the posting of the superabundance of comedic material coming from the UFT Solidarity. Don Rickles wishes he had such sources!

I have digressed, no?

So today's comedy gold which came in an email from Portelos was welcomed.

Ready Peter? You down for this?

In Solidarity,

Francesco A. Portelos
Educator

www.XXXXXX​

UFT Presidential Candidate 2016
www.XXXXXXX

UFT Solidarity Caucus
www.xxxxxxx

​Don't Tread on Educators
www.XXXXX​

ATR Alliance
www.XXXXXXXX

www.XXXXXXXX

"The foundation of every state is the education of its youth." -

 Greek Philosopher Diogenes
   

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "XXXXXXXXXXX" @uft.org

>
Date: Jan 11, 2016 12:25 PM
Subject: RE: Meditation
To: "Francesco Portelos" <[email protected]>
Cc: 


Workplace dispute? This is not a workplace dispute. It's someone's hissy fit. This is about a someone who can't deal with the truth and is attempting, as only a true narcissistic can, to co-opt me, to schmooze me, and to try to neutralize the truth.

Hey, I was all for wanting to put aside issues and work it out. But that was six months ago! I made the offer of talking things out in the diner where Portelos felt the need to throw my 3020-a in my face. I tried several times throughout the summer, through a mutual friend, but it was to no avail.

What is in it for me to go through mediation. Nothing. It's done, get over it. I feel like an ex girlfriend that just can't get rid of her ex. Move one, find someone else!

Besides, anyone who has any conversation that is more than 5 words with Portelos must have it with him if he is butt naked and accedes to a cavity search. And this just doesn't go for me or anyone else that Portelos deems unworthy. I'll bet everything that Portelos records and files away any and all conversations with UFT Solidarity members.

Exactly what is Portelos attempting to elicit? The only one I can think of is laughter, for I have laughed harder than I have in quite a long time since this afternoon.


This would be a good time to suggest that Portelos to look in the mirror, to self examine. But he can't. There is no introspection possible with him. The means justify the ends. There is a swath of destruction in his wake and it doesn't matter to Portelos as long as he gets the adulation, the attention, and the sycophants.

Say what you will about MORE. There are things I disagree with. MORE  has had growing pains and it was not pretty. But MORE has grown and has turned into a caucus with ethics, morals, and a true democratic spirit. No one person is bigger than MORE and MORE can and will survive if those who are running for MORE in the UFT elections are no longer involved. Can the same be said about UFT Solidarity? No.

UFT Solidarity is nothing but one person's vendetta against the UFT and how poorly he was treated by the NYCDOE. Guess what? There are worse instances of teachers being abused by the NYCDOE. It's time the tiny violin has been put away.

Watch what happens in May when the election results are announced. Prediction: Many, many UFT Solidarity members will see that Landru, oops, I meant Portelos was nothing but a false prophet that conned them.

They will finally be free.

So many times the following has happened to me. I am driving into the work in the morning and as I
get off the ramp from the Cross County Parkway onto the southbound Thruway in Yonkers traffic is backed up to either Yonkers Raceway or the Cross County Center.

I turn on Sirius traffic and here that there is an accident somewhere along the northbound Deegan and that traffic is backed up to Yankee Stadium or the Triboro Bridge. Worse, the cause for the southbound traffic is none other than Rubberneckers. People love just love to see a car wreck.

So of course there was that natural voyeuristic tendency to stop, look, and share the clown car wreck emanating from UFT when this email was passed to someone...(Click to enlarge)

The email claimed that the presumptive UFT president was no longer running under the more banner. OK, what to do?

That's where watching the clown car wreck comes in. Everyone wanted to check it out. Hey why not? Come on, anyone would have. Wasn't everyone's favorite scene in The Addams Family was when Gomez crashed his trains head on? Didn't we all get psyched when an episode came on in which we knew Gomez was going to crash his trains?

The email also had a link with a message that more or less had a paragraph added to it every 45 minutes. As if someone was bating (No typo). Kind of reminded The Crack Team of a Batman episode with Frank Gorshin as The Riddler.

Dear Union Brothers and Sisters,  

Our school system is under attack and our union has been compromised. I, XXXXXXX XXXXX, am just a father and educator from Staten Island. I did not know this attack existed because I too wore blinders and had my head in the sand. Now that I now, from being thrown in the fire, I cannot turn my back to it. We cannot ignore it.  

Through my own trials and tribulations and seeing and hearing about many others, I decided something had to be done. For a long time I felt that I could fix things situation by situation by being on the phone with members and exposing their attackers online. The influx was too great. We created groups for people who wanted to help and needed help. One of those groups is UFT Solidarity.  

Although many members told us that our methods helped them, creating blogs and Facebook pages was no real solution to the bigger overarching issues. We have great obstacles and the UFT leadership is one of them. We had to, and have to, change the UFT.  

The only group that opposed the UFT leadership was the Movement of Rank and file Educators (MORE) and they fell very short in representing members. That’s where we came in… UFT Solidarity. A real trade union party about real worker issues.  

To win positions where we can properly support members, we need to “step down” on all those who oppose us.


One, Solidarity was not formed in response to how they fell short of helping teachers but rather many, many issues. As for winning positions, just ain't going to happen

But early Tuesday morning I got several text messages with people commenting on the same source of a posting on the hijacked ATR Alliance Facebook page.

We found a mole in our UFT Solidarity group. History shows we don't do well with moles and we take care of them. Through some creative means we tricked these moles from MORE UFT group into thinking I was stepping down as the UFT Presidential candidate. We sent a fake email to the mole and then had a program track the email. The data shows that the email was bounced around over 358 times today alone! Imagine if that group spent that much energy and time into actually defending members, going after abusive admin, supporting ATRs and the non tenured termination epidemic? Maybe they would actually get votes and their members wouldn't call us for support. 358 responses talking about me stepping down in one day? Nice try, but I'm not going anywhere. This time next year, our team is going to run time UFT the right way and the membership will be better off.

Some takeaways from this rant.  History? Can one year constitute a history? And how are moles taken care of? This sounds as if the author (**wink wink** **nod nod**) has watched one too many James Bond movies or seen too many Batman TV shows. We here at SBSB believe it is the latter.

So it would be safe to assume that the minions you sycophantically are part of UFT Solidarity are like the minions of Penguin when taking care of a mole? Wearing bowler hats, black turtle necks, with silly little names embroidered on the front? Of course, the dude who dresses as Captain Picard doesn't have to get all silly like that.

But, what is disturbing is that the emails were tracked. Now don't worry. That someone felt that their time was best served by tracking if the emails were opened or not? There are programs to see if one read or opened an email, but to know what was written in the body of the email. No. Can't happen. We here can attest to that in some of the email responses what was written was so funny it would make Rodney Dangerfield appear boring.

 But the 358 responses? Sure, probably that many, but that's how many hit on the link, you know, to see the clown car wreck. Just put the StatCounter code on your website or blog and you are good to go.

Sure, why not look? It 99% known it was a spoof. 

And if there were people that were had for a brief moment or two, so what? Big deal. UFT Solidarity keeps being had by itself day in and day out. But keep it coming, everyone enjoys a good joke. 

But what is disturbing is the fact that emails were traced, followed, etc... Think about it. Are members, and there are dissenters, of UFT Solidarity having their email monitored? And if not what is to stop it in the future? Has anyone who has contradicted UFT Solidarity publicly ever been "talked to"?

Better yet, this question should be answered. If anyone dares to speak out, truly speak out, what is the chances that that person can have happen to them what has happened to others who dare not toe the official party line with UFT Solidarity? Can their lives be upended as well?

Was this Nixonian dirty trick approved by the UFT Solidarity social media committee or the UFT Solidarity social media committee? Or was this authorized by a committee of one?

UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos
UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos UFT Solidarity Francesco Portelos

Last night, The Crack Team had its weekly meeting by conference call. Sparkles was initiated into The Crack Team and we commiserated with our media consultant. The consultant shared that with months to the UFT election, that "less is more" (Pardon the pun), when it comes to writing about UFT Solidarity. He said that we were writing about UFT Solidarity just for the sake of it, and should only report on UFT Solidarity when its comedic stylings are ripe with material. Little did we know here at SBSB that the so called moratorium would last less than 24 hours.

Late this afternoon  UFT Solidarity wrote on one of its many websites a treatise entitled; "Issues at Your School” – An email no NYC principal wants to receive." After reading this rant and laughing our asses off for about a good 3 hours we sat down and decided to write a response to the comedy piece.

After giving the reader what we we already know how principals destroy careers, how principals start a false paper trail, false OSI charges, etc... UFT Solidarity then went on to share all the wonderful things this leader can and will do. We sat there mouths agape.

So what is a member under attack to do? Well, luckily we live in the age of technology and have come up with some tools to fight back. This is how it works, and it does work. (Not all the time but it’s getting better.)

There are so many, many things a member under attack can do. Yes, fight back and defend yourself. Yes, file a FOIL, record the principal, report the principal, call the media. But not every solution works for every problem. The thing is to have enough emotional intelligence to know when to use that hammer and when to use that chisel. One also needs to know when to fall back and regroup and come back in a different way. That is what a person with a high EQ can understand and do. 

Yes, we live in a great age of technology. But technology don't mean a thing if you ain't got the ability to prove it and to back it up. 

At UFT Solidarity, we have collaborated on an email we send to administrators who are bullying and harassing our members.

Oooh. Scary stuff. 

 The email is written in a way where we let the administrator know that the members in their school and not sitting ducks and will have support.

As reported here the other day; 

One SBSB groupie who is high within Tweed shared with The Crack Team that these so called emails are seen as a circus act, along with walking around the halls at 65 Court St and 52 Broadway telling people that UFT Solidarity is watching.  

Basically UFT Solidarity is being mocked amongst administrators city wide. No one at UFT Solidarity is being taken seriously according to our sources. 

 

We let the administrator know that we are educating their staff on how to fight back and encourage them to support and not continue their attacks.

We here at SBSB are looking into reports that several principals (Who do not know the humor behind The Emails in Brooklyn have peed themselves upon receiving The Email. We are looking into reports of one principal in Queens who pulled her hair out, screamed, tore off her clothes and left her building shrieking once she read The Email. Some reports have said that she has sold her house, legally changed her name, and has moved to a lean-to deep within the Adirondacks.  

What we hope, or assume, happens is that that the administrator sends it to their superintendent and DOE lawyers. 

 

 We here at SBSB hope they do too.

 

In turn we hope that the superintendent and lawyers respond to the administrator with something like this:

 

We went into the future and got an actual copy of the email supers and lawyers sent. Thos remarks are in red.

“Oh no. We have seen these before and it can get ugly. It's that putz again. Expect there to be Freedom of Information Law requests on your records such as time cards, financial records and emails. They even obtain video surveillance footage. Don't worry, time cards, financial records, emails, videos. Only factual stuff is FOILable and we can hide it well unless we are SUED and there is Discovery. Your staff is probably already secretly recording you. Don't worry, not many know about this We are told that the most amount of people that show up at a UFT Solidarity rally or meeting, is 12 people.  Expect stories of you to be added to social media with comments being added by staff, students and parents We are more concerned that blogs, Twitter accounts, and FB groups, like NYC Educator, Ednotes, Chaz, South Bronx School, NYCDOENUTS, Mindy Rosier, Patrick Walsh, James Eterno, The New York Yankees, Barney Fife, Fonzie, RushIsABand, MORE, Scooby Doo, Sparkles, or anyone else other than UFT Solidarity . You will be added to their Administrator’s in Need of Improvement (ANOI) list online if you have not been already. You probably will be added to  uftsolidarity.org/anoi. Don't sweat it, not many read it. Expect them to launch investigations on anything you have done that violates a chancellor’s regulation, policy or law. You are going to be indulged with investigators being sent from anonymous calls Investigators will be coming. We welcome investigators. Some putz is sending us emails. Finally, expect a group of their members and your staff and students, albeit small, to be outside your school with flyers and signs. We are awaiting an influx of 5 people to picket. If you have not bought a Costco size bottle of Tylenol, then we suggest you do that.” Hey, let's go have a beer and some wings.


Really? This is what we want to lead our union? For one to get what one wants you need to schmooze, to glad hand, to work behind the scenes. Yes, there are principals that need to be investigated, recorded, etc... But there are much more good than bad. I hope there are. This is so wrong in so many ways that only someone who is living in the past, and only is late to the game because of a tantrum for not getting the desired position will continue. 

Hey, let's not mention the possibility of not only The Email writer being hit up for harassment, but for the person who The Email was written at the behest (Without their knowledge) of being hit up too. Worse, this is a extremely negative reflection upon the teachers of New York City. How dare UFT Solidarity decide for others to take our fate out in UFT Solidarity's own war of revenge? 

And here is the template of The Email


Principal X,

Unfortunately your school has come to the attention of our teacher advocacy group. Apparently there are allegations of harassment and unwarranted attacks on educators at your school. As you could imagine, an atmosphere of workplace bullying and harassment is not conducive to a nurturing learning environment for our students.

Just as a courtesy, we are letting you know that we are educating your staff members with information on how to defend their careers so they may continue to instruct and nurture students to their fullest potential. Those tools can be in the form of legally audio recording, using the Freedom of Information Law to obtain information necessary to prove their allegations against you, organizing rallies and creating various social media articles.

Perhaps your best recourse would be to speak with the superintendent, your senior field counsel and Borough Support Center representative, to figure out ways to support educators rather than treading on their careers.

Thank you.
Sincerely,
UFT Solidarity

AH! We already know that one unassuming teacher lost her job due to this and another unassuming teacher might be in deep sh**.


If you don’t believe me, then you can perform an internet search on many of the administrators we have listed on our ANOI list. You can ask Principal Micheaux and AP Martinez of the Bronx. Ask Principal Adonna McFarland or Principal Namita Dwarka. Our list is over 100. Namita Dwarka and her school has been on the cover of the NY Post the last three days. The brave people responsible are UFT Solidarity members and supporters who have been following our playbook.

Oh please, ANOI is not an original idea. Yes, we have said it is a good one, but no back patting please. And please don't think only UFT Solidarity led the way. 

My sleeves are rolled up and we are ready to increase our work this September.

Sleeves rolled up? Why are long sleeves being worn in summer especially when it has been 90 degrees plus for the last week? Would not the Sipowicz style short sleeve dress shirt be more apropos. Yeah, but then one couldn't use the cliche "my sleeves are rolled up." 

Our ATR Alliance group is also growing and becoming more knowledgeable. A similar letter is being drafted for ATR Field Supervisors.

ATR Alliance group which was bogarted and bastardized. Yeah, we are sure the ATR Field Supervisors must be quaking in their shoes.

What's that? This just came into the SBSB newsroom. Hordes of ATR Field Supervisors have suddenly resigned due to fear of getting The Email.