Alabama Eagle Soars

The first radio station to agree to air Public Service Announcements (PSA's) for OurFinest.Org is Eagle 102.3 FM broadcasting from both La Grange, Georgia and Roanoke, Alabama.

Thus begins our mass media broadcasting venture aiming at reaching hundreds of millions of Americans by creating gripping radio and TV spots and sending them to the nation's 10,000
radio stations. The goal is to duplicate the impact of a multi-million dollar radio and TV broadcasting campaign.

Today, I went to www.newslink.com where they list all the nation's radio stations by state and by format. I began with the first state in the alphabet: Alabama. By the time I had emailed the first four talk stations, I heard from Eagle 102.3 suggesting that I send them spots in mp3 format.

Here's an example of the 30-second spots we are going to produce.

"If you are the kind of American who feels a thrill of pride when Old Glory parades by, imagine how it feels to stand amongst young warriors who cannot yet stand on their artificial legs but straighten their battered bodies and raise an arm in a crisp military salute, some of those salutes missing a hand. Hello. This is Doctor Mark and it is my privilege and honor to lead OurFinest Dot Org, a nonprofit devoted to serving those who survived battlefield wounds. Their dream is our mission. We help them rebuild shattered lives. If you would like to express your pride and appreciation to these wounded warriors, please visit W W W Our Finest Dot Org."

I want to express publicly my appreciation to Nate at Eagle 102.3 for being the first to step forward to help our fallen and forgotten heroes get the support they deserve.

Eagle 102.3	Eagle 102.3
	P.O. Box 1429	P.O. Box 710
	LaGrange, GA 30241	Roanoke, AL 36274

They bled for you

I have always been totally tongue-tied when it comes to asking for money. I suppose it comes from generalizing from how I feel when I get panhandled.

I don't know if it's because I'm basically selfish or suffer from some other character flaw, but I tend to feel antagonized when people shove a hand palm up into my face. Who are they to presume to demand that I give them some of my money?

Knowing the resentment that I feel when tin cups get rattled at me, I have been extremely reluctant to ask others to sacrifice some of their wealth.

Until now.

Now, I regard myself as a hyperactive money vacuum cleaner frantically sucking up any and all donations and -- regardless of my unworthy stinginess in the past -- without a trace of guilt. If someone is offended, as I have been in the past, I can honestly say that I don't care.

The difference is that I totally believe in what I want to do with this money:

1) help wounded warriors build a great new life, and
2) found a wonderful new charitable business that creates revenue that can be used to help wounded warriors, and
3)simultaneously marshal resources to be used to establish history's greatest school.

I'm out to save western civilization and in the process help wounded warriors.

I have a very clear vision of a new paradigm for education and a fairly clear idea about how to go about this.

The first step is to help wounded warriors. This is where all of my time and energy is going to go now. In the process, I am going to build relationships with two wonderful kinds of people. First, the warriors themselves. What a privilege to be able to associate with men like this!

Second, the people who are willing to reach into their own pockets and hearts and help these injured troops. To me, they are second in merit only to those in the first category.

Out of these relationships is going to arise a community of pragmatic idealists, people who yearn for a better world and who are determined to do something to bring it about. These are the people who are going to save civilization by transforming education.

One of the great ironies of human progress is that things get better because people organize to make them better. But then the organization gets pulled away from its central mission by the ineluctable tendency to serve its own selfish interests. And then they function as the enemy of the very progress they exist to create. Thus, the major barrier to genuine educational reform is the educational bureaucracy itself. The past becomes the enemy of the future.

So when I talk about creating the greatest schools in all of history, I am not talking about something that is going to take place within the existing educational system. Someone once said that education is too important to leave to educators.

Definitely true.

Civilization is going to be saved by ordinary people without fancy degrees and letters after their name. It will be saved by a combination of common sense and extraordinary technology.

To return to my main point, the extraordinary community of ordinary people that is coming together to help wounded warriors, once solidly established, will provide a platform that can be used to create a national, then international, chain of self supporting learning centers which will ultimately provide a world class college education to everyone who wants to earn it.

The school will employ best practices from the fields of knowledge management, state of the art computer and communicatiosn technology, and innovation-fostering ideas and ideals from the best of modern management science and leadership training.

This is going to happen. It is going to happen, because it has to happen. America is in dreadful trouble and the most troubling part of this danger is that so few people realize how dire is the jeopardy in which we find ourselves.

But all of that is down stream. Right now, I just want some of your money! Help me help the brave and beautiful young people who fought and bled for our freedom. No matter what you think or believe about the wisdom of the war itself, tens of thousands of worthy young men need your help.

I humbly beg you to go to www.ourfinest.org and make a donation. Maybe God won't strike you dead if you fail to donate at least $100, but it pays to be on the safe side. If you cannot afford $100, how about $20?

Thanks for reading our blog. Please post a comment, whether positive or negative. And come back, I promise not to try to shove my hand in your pocket every time!

Best,
md

recruiting talent

I'm about to head out to New York City to meet with Herb London, president of the Hudson Institute. A great man and the most distinguished academician that I know, he has implied that he is receptive to the idea of heading the board of directors of OurFinest.Org.

My goal is to get his name on an agreement today. This would be a great enhancement of our credibility. It would also mean a real boost in my confidence, knowing that he would lead the team that would scrutinize my proposed plan of operation. I have an endless supply of innovative ideas about how to promote the effort to help our injured soldiers and ultimately expand our efforts so as to provide a dirt cheap top flight college education to all who hunger for knowledge.

But these ideas are not all necessarily practical. I have more courage than sense, but I'm sensible enough to appreciate the value of some prudent, conservative thinkers on the team.

Helping our heroes

This blog is about wounded warriors: young men whose bodies and lives have been shattered by war.

They get incredible medical care, the world's finest. Thanks to modern medicine, 90% of those wounded in war survive. That's the good news.

The bad news is, of course, that they survive with devastating injuries: missing hands and arms and legs, dreadful disfiguring burns, life-disrupting brain trauma.

The even worse news is that while the dedicated people at Walter Reed and other U.S. government medical centers give these wounded troops wonderful medical care, that's all they do. Once they are discharged from the hospital, they are virtually abandoned.

They are left largely on their own to try to build a new life. Their bodies are torn apart, their minds and spirits bruised and battered.

Yesterday, they were strong, healthy members of a fighting force. Today, they are cripples, racked by pain, doubt, and fear.

They face their greatest battle today, one whose challenge surpasses that of the battlefield. The same courage that sustained them in battle can sustain them.

And so can we.

I am one of a group of ordinary Americans who are not going to let these fallen heroes struggle on their own. We are organized as Our Finest.Org, a non-profit tax-exempt corporation whose sole mission is to help our wounded warriors rise up and build a great new life.

Here you will find their inspiring stories and get a behind the scenes view of our efforts to help them.

Once discharged, these heroes are forgotten. But not by us.

We believe that the American public -- once they understand the real facts -- will not allow those who sacrificed their healthy bodies for the cause of freedom to struggle alone.

They stood up for us. We shall stand behind them.

Our non-profit operates with complete transparency.

Unfortunately, there are some bloodsucking veterans organizations out there which solicit money and spend little of it to actually help our fallen soldiers. We intend to provide perfect accountability and share openly with anyone interested just what we're doing and why and how. So in addition to updates from the battlefield, you will find here stories about our efforts to help.

And you are encouraged to share your viewpoint. We exist to serve the wounded warrior and will be responsible to the American public for our stewardship.

Have a look at our website: www.ourfinest.org

Mark Draper, Ph.D.
CEO