I support the Academy of Dover’s charter renewal. Unlike the ridiculous sound off in Monday’s paper, which blamed the school for 4 children in special education, my children have done well. Of course my wife and I always educate our children from their earliest days, but they have been enhanced at the AOD.

My daughter had to have alternative schooling arrangements this year and tested 1 to 2 grade levels higher than her age. The point is that she was not harmed. Many other children have also done well. The proof is in the objective evaluations of the accrediting authority. Unlike those with a political vendetta, the out of state professionals made it one of the few charter schools in the state to be honored with accreditation.

Every parent knows where there children start and finish the school year because the school tests each child using the Iowa standardized tests (recognized as a national standard). The purpose is to see if the child is making progress during the school year. The teachers are held accountable for the aggregate advancement of the class. This accountability led to the replacement of a few teachers and much of the political vendetta and smearing of the school. Merit pay and teacher accountability are feared by the education establishment and quite frankly some will do and say anything to stop it.

Another problem with the school is that it is getting positive results. Let me repeat. A big problem with the school is that it is getting results with minority children. This school has eliminated the achievement gap in state testing with minority children. The school has one of the highest free lunch rates in the state, but it is well disciplined and meeting the same testing standards as the regular public school. (No, that is not the whole of the schools population, but it should be proud that well over 40% participate and it has no bearing on the quality of the students.) This is an embarrassment to educational establishment because it begs a question, what are they doing wrong?

Another problem is family involvement. Problem, yes well you see the problem with education is the detached parent the establishment tells us. Parents don’t care. At AOD parents are regarded as more than a fundraiser; they are partners. The result is they are involved. You think the school gets credit for

This little school should be featured as a success story. It implements many of the reforms the establishment says it wants. It has technology in the classrooms (with an amazing low computer /student ratio), it has award winning enrichment activities, it has a low student to teacher ratio, it has an extended school day and year, and it has very few (if any) serious discipline problems. Students go to school without fear the bully.

Did some management problems exist? Yes. Those have been resolved. The state of Delaware has many complex and arcane accounting procedures which are burdensome and counterproductive. It has caused problems even in the school districts which have full time people trained to deal with the Delaware system. The out of state management firm originally used by the school was good, but they never got Delaware’s system. Money would go to wrong accounts and bills would be late. One incident gave the appearance at one point that the school was missing money, but it turned out not to be. The problem is once that hits the papers images of a past charter school (and should I say a couple of school districts) come back to the public’s memory. That was not the presses fault; it is just the way it is. These problems have actually allowed the school to become stronger by assembling what I believe is now the most qualified board in the state. I would compare the knowledge and experience of this board to any school district.

Contrary to some analysis you may have read, the school is solvent. Once the rumors of closure are behind the school enrollment recruitment will start again. The biggest obstacle to enrollment is not the quality of the school, but uncertainty. I call upon the state board to ignore the politics and give the community choice in education. The school will rise and fall by its service to the children. Let that be the standard not how politically correct the school is.

David Anderson

Knights of Prosperity -- Movie Trailer

My daughter Rebecca appears in this trailer. I am hoping this airs. She appears in the Knights of Prosperity episode.

TECHNOLOGY ALERT from The Wall Street Journal.March 13, 2007

Viacom sued Google and its YouTube unit, claiming the popular video-sharing siteengages in "massive intentional copyright infringement." The suit seeks morethan $1 billion in damages, as well as an injunction. Viacom claims there arenearly 160,000 unauthorized Viacom clips on YouTube and said settlement talkswith Google have been "unproductive." FOR MORE INFORMATION, see:http://online.wsj.com/technology?mod=djemalert

Time to ban Human Cloning.



We are trying to make as big an impression as possible tomorrow (MARCH 13). Put on your finest and come out to Leg Hall in Dover for our 1:30 press conference. Our good friend, Joe Miro, would like to have 100 people behind him when we announce Delaware's first true ban on cloning.

We need as many people as possible to come tomorrow. If you are coming, invite some friends to ride with you.

There will be a short prayer service led by Rev. Kenny Foster, a pastor at Grace Presbyterian Church in Dover, following the press conference at the same location.

Bishop Saltarelli will offer Mass at 5 at Holy Cross in Dover.

Thank you.

Ellen Barrosse

A big victory for the right of self defense
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117346917183732456.html?mod=home_whats_news_us

6 inner city citizens sick of being sitting ducks to the gang bangers stood up for their rights with the help of the NRA. They won a big victory for common sense and self defense. The DC circuit court of appeals ruled the right to bare arms is an individual right and the D. C. gun laws are unconstitutional.

Join the NRA like I have. It is the black thing to do.

We can make changes. Here is something from my recent activities in January I started a process. Here is a page of minutes from the Dover Human Relations Commission. We are currently getting a united front of community organizations formed so we can do a need assessment and get the resources needed to meet those needs.
For other community reactions click. http://www.newszapforums.com/forum4/24523.html

Comments from Members of Community: Commissioner Hoff allowed three minutes time for members of the public to state their interest or concern.

Commissioner Hoff received a letter from David Anderson addressed to the Commission requesting the opportunity to come forward to address the Commission on the issue of homelessness in Kent County.

David Anderson addressed the Commission by thanking the Commission for making the community a better place. Mr. Anderson’s proposal is to aid in betterment of the community. He stated the problem in particular is that Kent County has a problem with transitional housing. At the County level it is suggested: 1) get people together, 2) to assess the need, 3) and to find out what programs are going on. With some good going on, Kent County is experiencing severe cutbacks. A program that addresses the need for help paying utility bills is needed. He portrayed an example that if an individual is earning $7-$8 an hour and is faced with a layoff or divorce or illness, their life becomes in danger. Money for grants is needed for transitioning, i.e., help with an electric bill when keeping their housing is in danger. Mr. Anderson talks to people and everything seems to be on a dollar symbol. The Commission could serve as a point to gather people and compile an assessment to DHRC Mtg. MinutesJanuary 31, 2007Page 2 improve the standard of living. He requested that the Commission highlight the problem. Mr. Anderson composed a “Letter to the Editor” putting the issues of homelessness on the radar screen, and there was an outpouring of public response from about 100 individuals. Mr. Anderson further states that when people are alerted, they are interested. So far homelessness has been a silent issue. He feels that someone needs to take leadership and bring awareness and find a solution. He wants to define the problem and present the problem to the Joint Finance Committee. Furthermore, Mr. Anderson states that shelters are being lost and that homelessness is on the street, leading to the deterioration of the city. In conclusion, he feels that homelessness is the core of it. Commission Chair Hoff thanked David Anderson for his input.

Further public comment included: Speaker #1: He stated that he is a 46 year old recovering addict and a graduate of the House of Pride. He is presently working. Before he entered the House of Pride, he felt like leaving this world. He was raised by his mother with his father being absent from the home. He had become homeless. People were turning their back to him. He asked the state for help. He entered the House of Pride where he gained spirituality, set goals and learned how to live again. He stated that the House of Pride is a non-profit entity and asked for anyway possible to lend a hand. All he had known were the streets. He has attended the Mt. Zion church where Commissioner Johnson presides. The speaker noted that he doesn’t want to give up and that now he can live and leave the past being. He has led a rough life that included drink, drugs, stealing and that now he has turned his life around with no help except for the House of Pride. He is holding on and that’s all he has left.

Speaker #2: He stated that little resources are available and that state government needs to intercede with in-patient programs for substance abuse and asked that grants from the state be made available. He feels that with in-treatment there would be less crime. He states that “Gateway” in Delaware City has a two month wait. He lives on the streets and has to call Gateway every morning for help. He further reiterated a need for inpatient drug abuse treatment programs. He has been a heroin addict for 10 years and has seen problems like this in other states such as Maryland. In his opinion, Maryland has a good network but 90% of the crimes there are from drugs. He stated that only two facilities are available to him, the House of Pride and Gateway. He is requesting intervention for people who want and need help and said it is very hard to get into programs. He feels that the state should look into inpatient clinics for Delaware to be located in Sussex County, Wilmington and Dover. Commission Chair Hoff thanked the speaker for coming forward.

Speaker #3: He had come out of Baltimore City with a drug habit. He turned his life around at the House of Pride. He is learning to help deal with people that are homeless. He added there is no space available. When the facility is filled to capacity it is hurtful to turn people away. The homeless population needs help when there is nowhere to go. They need help to get space to help get people off the street. The House of Pride is volunteer run. Help is needed for the facility to run. There is no facility for women. The House of Pride only accepts men. There is only so much he feels can be done.

Speaker #4: He lives at the House of Pride. He is a college grad having attended grad school and earned his doctorate. He is doing very well. He was struck with dystrophy and has become depressed and despondent. He also is bi-polar. His life took a nose dive. A drug problem caused a loss of everything. He stated that homeless people are not bad people. For one reason or another they have lost everything. He states that it is easy to fall to the bottom of the social strata. It is difficult to pull out of this. Drug or alcohol or gambling or a run of bad luck or bad choices and one may be stuck on the bottom for the rest of their life. Personally he has been in the House of Pride program for one year and is facing many obstacles to see his way out.

Andersonian Principles

On God

1. God is the God of purpose, order, love, faith, hope, righteousness, and justice.
2. God is a good God. (Oral Roberts)
3. God does not care about fairness. Fairness is man’s substitute for God’s justice. (Steve Phillips)
4. God is patient.
5. God’s love is characterized by its redemptive nature.

On people
1. Friendship is the elixir of life.
2. Love and loyalty are the twin pillars of great human relationships.
3. Don’t judge people by their worst moments.
4. Every person is both a hero and a zero so feed the hero.
5. Expect the best from people; they might live up to it.

On Bureaucracy
1 The most important point of filling out a form is filling out the form in good faith.
2. It is better to fill out a form wrong than not fill it out.
3. Bureaucracies reward promptness more than competence.
4. The fuel of a bureaucracy is paperwork. It is the basis for evaluation, decisions, and actions.

On economics

1. All life is economics or politics.
2. Economics is the science of human choice.
3. The invisible hand of the markets is superior to the visible hand of bureaucracy.
4. We make choices because we can’t have everything.
5. The principle of scarcity is God’s way of limiting our depravity.

On Business

1. The purpose of business is business (Milton Friedman).
2. Profit is profitable to society.
3. Any proper business is a service to society.
4. A business is part of the community and should act like it.

On Politics

1. Politics is the art of human influence between people.
2. All organizational relationships are political.
3. In politics, you have your word, your friends, and your principles. Don’t go back on any of them.
4. It is better to take a side than be left alone.
5. The only one who drives in the middle of the road all the time is a drunk.

A big cheer for International Women's Day is in order. I have often said America's original sin is racism. It is a scab blighting the otherwise beautiful American body of dignity for all. I would also add that world wide we are impoverishing ourselves by handicapping the human race by undermining the contributions of women. No wonder we cannot solve the great problems facing the human race. We are fighting with not only one hand tied behind our back, but one leg, one eye, one ear, and half our brain. Men have nothing to fear from women advancing in the world. We can benefit greatly.

The Scripture says two are better than one and a three fold cord is not easily broken. I will call therefore for men and women to join God's plan for humanity, and the three fold alliance will triumph.

I would expect this not to be one of my more controversial posts. In concept most people would agree with me. My wish is that I would see it put into action more. Men, how do you treat the women around you? Do you honor your wife, your mother, your female friends or female co-workers as equals?

I hope you are not on the wrong side of our societal hangups. Do you dismiss their ideas? Think they are more interesting as pictures because you don't have to actually hear them yap their nonsense--just enjoy look at their bodies?

Women are different from men in some ways (not just the obvious). Not greatly different, but enough to give us a synergy if we work together. That slight difference in perspective can give us a more complete picture. Women need to understand that men are invaluable as well. If we move beyond stereotypes and into unity, there is much we will achieve. Not the least of which is a happier personal life.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/INTERNATIONAL_WOMENS_DAY?SITE=DEWIL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

How will we get our power? The answer will have a tremendous impact for 25 years. Tonight’s PSC (Thursday’s) hearing is 7 p.m., Carvel State Office Building auditorium, 820 French St.
The best way to be informed is to show up.

On a related matter, my family is now taking advantage of the city's recycling program. There is no separation of recyclables except for glass. All others go together. It has no cost and is as simple as calling 736-7035.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Documentaries.

If Mark Twain were around today, I think he would amend his famous quip. From an Inconvenient Truth to anything by Michael Moore we are being subjected to hype and farcial evidence on a continuing basis to promote agendas. The half truth and emotion hype have replaced scholarship and logic. Now here is the granddaddy of them all--The Lost Tomb of Jesus. It is billed as the documentary which can change everything and if it were true it would. It is not. Most scholars came to the conclusion decades ago that this was not the Biblical Jesus.

Dr. Habermas just decimated this so called The Lost Tomb of Jesus documentary on his blog. I copied a few paragraphs to give you a taste of his work, but you need to follow the link.
http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/The_Lost_Tomb_of_Jesus/losttombofjesus_response.htm
"One of the leading Jewish archaeologists who worked on the burial site, Amos Kloner, did not link the tomb to Jesus at all and has declared firmly that this recent effort is totally off-base for a number of reasons. Virtually no other critical scholars have evaluated the evidence positively, while many have criticized the conclusions. Why is this the case? What are some of these scholarly reasons?
Why are the majority of scholars, both conservative and non-conservative, responding so negatively to the Jesus tomb hypothesis? For one thing, the generic names "Mary," "Joseph," and "Jesus" are among the four most popular names in the ancient Jewish world. For example, studies have shown that "Mary," or a derivative of that name, may have been used by one-quarter of Jewish women at his time! If we multiply this frequency of usage over the more than 100-year period of ossuary use (Ossuaries are "bone boxes" used to re-house the bones of the deceased.), there would be many, many people with these names and family connections. In addition, "Joseph" is only found in the tomb as a nickname, "Jose." And some scholars have said that the name "Jesus" in the inscription is unclear, and may actually be a different name. This alone would obviously change everything.
Of course, since these names were so common in that society, many individuals would be the son or daughter of others by these same names. For example, Richard Bauckham, perhaps the major scholarly source on this topic, has said that the name "Joseph" is written on 45 burial ossuaries and the name "Jesus" is found on 22 ossuaries. Even "Jesus son of Joseph" has occurred on ossuaries at least 3 or 4 times.
So how rare can a small group of burial boxes with biblical names be? And this is only one major problem among many (see the list above). These are some of the major concerns that critical scholars have had. Although we are only at an early point in the research, the consensus so far has been that this tomb is not Jesus' burial site."

Here is a link to find out about two documentaries which stand up to peer review standards on the subject of the Resurrection of Our Lord. http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/177722359.html

Want more?

Ten Reasons Why The Jesus Tomb Claim is Bogus
Leading Scholars Say Discovery Channel 'Documentary' Makes for Good TV, Bad History and Bad Science

http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/457272336.html

Illegal immigration the new slave trade? You look at people being forced into sex for housing. People being smuggled in trucks. Big business would rather hire cheap labor with no references than Americans looking for work. Maybe we should approach this as a civil rights issue.

Generations ago, my ancestors were brought over to Americans wouldn't do. What eventually broke slavery was the fact the working class realized slavery was devaluing labor and depressing wages. The Free Soil and Liberty parties were absorbed into the new GOP.

We need more immigration, but our current illegal problem is creating an underground of second class people who are being exploited. Opposing this is the pro-civil rights position.

Toward a pro-growth environmental policy

We can deal with these issues without a sense of panic. If we panic, we do things which create other problems which may be worse than the original. Poverty is the real crisis in the world and environmentalist solutions will create more of it. It is nice for the rich Europeans and Americans to worry about such things while people suffer in the 10/40 window from their policies. Environmentalism is the new colonialism. It does not have to be that way.

A sound sustainable ecology benefits all of us. We can have a clean ecology and a growing economy with protections for property rights.

Here are my top ten economically sound environmental solutions.
10. More Nuclear power -- clean air and cheap power (no net CO2 either)--put the waste back in secure locations in the ground like the site in Nevada.

9. Make it a national energy priority to find the better battery. The biggest problem with solar, hydro, and wind power is that we can not store huge amount of electricity for long.

8. Zealously guard our water supply. Give foreign aid credits to poorer countries which must be redeemed for clean water programs. It would save more lives and increase productivity more than anything.

7. Tie a portion of Farm Aid to sound environmental practices such as run off prevention.

6.Give Investment tax credits for green R & D programs and exempt them from AMT.

5.Include a basic environmental protocol in any trade agreement, for replenishing trees, clean water infrastructure, scrubbers.

4.Biofuels--mandate all new cares to be duel burning and give tax credits if for factories retooled in America --regardless of manufacturer.

3.The next generation of infrastructure should include more mass transit. We subsidize roads why not tracks.

2. Encourage Energy Smart homes with interest rate credits.

1. Push develop of clean trash to steam. Slow down the landfill crisis and generate cheap energy.

Have we found a sensible middle ground here?

There are Lies, Damn Lies, and Blasphemy.

At least the DaVinci Code hid behind the label of fiction. Titanic film maker James Cameron is attempting to pawn his trash piece as fact. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/305771_tv02.html

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1595232,00.html

There are so many obvious problems with his theory. The DNA evidence he claims does not hint that the body belongs to Jesus our Lord, but that the husband and wife found likely had the son buried there. If Jesus merely retired and had a family, the apostles would have been laughed out to the temple as kooks. The Sanhedrin would have merely said go to the suburb of Jerusalem and ask him what he thinks. The translations he claims are not agreed to by most scholars which is why this was not considered an important find in 1980. There is more to discuss and this will be continued after the broadcast Sunday.

News from the Sudan from Dr. Frist

My trip to Darfur is on my mind. The humanitarian situation there remains on the brink of crisis.
I am including links for two of my blog posts related to my trip into Darfur and a link to some video as well. See below.
Looking back, America was late in responding to Rwanda's call for help, the UN was late and close to an estimated 800,000 Rwandans died. Two hundred thousand have already died in Darfur. No more should die. Let’s mobilize to end it.
I encourage you to comment on my blog and let me me know what you think.
My blog post "In Sudan" provides background information on my trip. To view this blog post, please click here.
My blog post "Humanitarian Situation On Brink Of Crisis," discusses a deadly new trend in Sudan. To view this blog post, please click here.To view a video clip from my trip to Darfur, please click here. More to follow in the days ahead... Bill Frist, M.D.