Explosions near resort entertain 13

No injuries reported

(LITCHFIELD BEACH, S.C.) -- A series of explosions shortly after dark on Sunday left thirteen family members entertained, although two fell asleep during the incident. Shadowy figures seen moving about the area were not investigated and apparently no crimes were committed.

Following the News & Observer's article about fireworks safety -- and the legend on their graphic that only "safe and sane" fireworks were legal in North Carolina -- our family's annual visit to the Palmetto State resulted in the purchase and ignition of about $33 of apparently unsafe and insane projectiles. South Carolina still has the admirable rule that if you can buy it, you can shoot it off, which has made it the envy of small boys and scofflaws from all the surrounding states. And I had a bag full of just about everything off-limits in Tarhelia.

Spending $33 is pretty small potatoes, to be sure, but we were never a do-you-itself family when it came to fireworks (whether stemming from homes inside the city limits or a certain economy on the part of my parents, I don't know). Still, this was the first time we've done it "at home"; since my work schedule precluded staying up for the professionals on Monday, we decided to have our celebration a day early. There weren't any duds in the bag, either.

So where's the insanity? Near as I can tell, all the consumer fireworks have warnings actually written by English-speaking people (not true of every Chinese import), basically saying "Don't hang on to this when the fuse is lit" and "Explosions throw things and hurt people". Anything else we need to worry about?

Oddly enough, the one thing missing is the only thing which I have ever found to put my family in real and imminent danger -- not amateur pyros, but amateurs full of alcohol. The next group up the beach managed to tip over their mortar -- I am certain they were not shooting the two-inch, two-for-$12 variety I picked up, either -- and lay a nice trail of smoke up the dunes and under their deck. I didn't actually witness the moment of mayhem but I'd say they sure got their money's worth from that munition.

To be fair, their chrysanthemum shell which went off about twelve feet in the air (producing something which looked like a twenty-foot dandelion head sitting on the beach) may have been a fluke.

Maybe instead of restricting the sale of the fireworks, our own state could just make it a class two misdemeanor to shoot them off while pickled, or to utilize aerial displays as wannabe weapons of mass destruction. In other words, let's penalize the operator who behaves irresponsibly, not shut down the whole world over the possibility.

And next time buy more of the rockets with nose cones -- they were almost as good as the mortar.

Convention write-up in the July Carolina Journal

The July issue of the John Locke Foundation's Carolina Journal has my write-up of NCHE's annual convention, over Memorial Day weekend. The editors gave it the title "Homeschool convention packs them in", appropriate since there we had well over eight thousand people there.

The story's on pages 10-11 of the pdf version here.

Caffeirrhythmia

(n.) The attainment of perfect synchronization with the office coffee brewing cycle. This may be in phase at any point; for example, on Monday I personally made six pots of coffee during the day.

Given three pots of coffee of two varieties (but one pot marked and reserved for decaf), I wonder what the numeric representation of the system would be. I spoke with my colleague who manages that part of the break room yesterday and was told we are one of our coffee service's biggest clients. When I asked if that was we our company or we our floor, he said it was the 18th floor by itself. Altogether we go through about nine pounds a week, 2:1 regular to decaf, plus all the creamers, tea bags, and other associated flotsam.

A Definition of The State

Today is the 204th birthday of French economist Frédéric Bastiat, author of The Law and other works. The Foundation for Economic Education has Bastiat's 1849 essay "The State" online; he has nice things to say about the American Constitution in comparison with his own country's, but the rest of the essay sounds ominously current.

I wish someone would offer a prize—not of a hundred francs but of a million, with crowns, medals, and ribbons—for a good, simple, intelligible definition of the term, The State.

What an immense service such a definition would render to society!

The State! What is it? Where is it? What does it do? What should it do? We only know that it is a mysterious being; and, it is certainly the most petitioned, the most harassed, the most bustling, the most advised, the most reproached, the most invoked, and the most challenged of any being in the world. ...

Man recoils from effort, from suffering. Yet, he is condemned by nature to the suffering of privation if he does not make the effort to work. He has only a choice then, between these two: privation, and work. How can he manage to avoid both? He always has and always will find, only one means: to enjoy the labor of others; to arrange it so that the effort and the satisfaction do not fall upon each in their natural proportion, but that some would bear all the effort while all the satisfaction would go to others. ...

"I am dissatisfied with the ratio between my labor and my pleasures. In order to establish the desired balance, I should like to take part of the possessions of others. But that is a dangerous thing. Couldn’t you facilitate it for me? Couldn’t you give me a good post? Or restrain my competitors’ business? Or perhaps lend me some interest-free capital, which you will have taken from its rightful owners? Or bring up my children at the taxpayers’ expense? Or grant me a subsidy? Or assure me a pension when I reach my fiftieth year? By this means I shall achieve my goal with an easy conscience, for the law will have acted for me. Thus I shall have all the advantages of plunder, without the risk or the disgrace!" All of us are petitioning The State in this manner, yet it has been proven that The State has no means of granting privileges to some without adding to the labor of others.

The State is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody.

Providential!

My wife and I encountered R.C. Sproul Jr.'s blog yesterday, and cruising the Internet with a sleepless baby tonight, I discovered he was writing an excellent essay on the thirteenth-floor phenomenon the same day I was. Neat.

Template change

Testing a different template today but still not 100% happy with it.

First articles in Carolina Journal

My first articles for Carolina Journal appeared in the May 2005 issue -- two of them:

"State abandons plan to move DNPE" (p.10) concerning the history of the separation between public and private education agencies in North Carolina. A near re-union was narrowly headed off this spring. Why interfere with an arrangement which has promoted this voluntary choice that collectively saves taxpayers over $980 million annually?

The story was picked up by the Johnston County Republican Party and posted on their website with permission

I also have the book review "The Essential Ronald Reagan: Lean yet true to his simple style" (p. 21) which I mentioned in an earlier post.

Puritan support for classical education

Here Richard Baxter (1615-1691) addresses the usefulness of liberal education:

Question 158. Should not christians [sic] take up with Scripture wisdom only, without studying philosophy and other heathens' human learning?

Answer. I have already proved the usefulness of common knowledge in my book called The Unreasonableness of Infidelity, part 2, section 23, page 163, to which I refer the reader; and only say now,

1. Grace presupposeth nature; we are men in order of nature at least before we are saints, and reason is before supernatural revelation.

2. Common knowledge therefore is subservient unto faith: we must know the Creator and his works; and the Redeemer restoreth us to the due knowledge of the Creator: human learning in the sense in question is also divine, God is the author of the light of nature, as well as of grace. We have more than heathens, but must not therefore have less, and cast away the good that is common to them and us; else we much not have souls, bodies, reason, health, time, meat, drink, clothes, etc., because heathens have them. God's works are honourable, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein; and physical philosophy is nothing but the knowledge of God's works.

3. And the knowledge of languages is necessary both for human converse, and for understanding the Scriptures themselves. The Scriptures contain not a Greek and Hebrew grammar to understand the languages in which they are written, but suppose us otherwise taught those tongues that we may interpret them.

4. The use of the gospel is not to teach us all things needful to be known; but to teach us, on supposition of our common knowledge, how to advance higher to supernatural saving knowledge, faith, love, and practice. Scripture telleth us not how to build a house, to plough, sow, weave, or make our works of art. Every one that learneth his country tongue of his parents hath human learning of the same sort with the learning of Greek and Hebrew; he that learneth not to read, cannot read the Bible. And he that understandeth it not in the original tongues, must trust other men's words that have human learning, or else remain a stranger to it.

(f.n. Pr 2-6; Ps 92:5-6; Ps 104:24-25; Ps 113:5-6; Ps 107:8, 15, 21; Ps 66:3-4; Ps 111:2-6; Ps 145:7-11, 17-19; Acts 2:6-9; Acts 21:40; Acts 24:2; 1 Cor 14:2, 4, 9, 13, 14, 19, 26, 27; Rev 9:11; Rev 14:16; Rev 5:9; Ps 19:1-3; Ps 94:10; Ps 139:6; Pr 2:1-4, 8-10,12; 1 Cor 15:34; Pr 19:2; Job 32:8; Job 38:36. Yet I refer the reader to my "Treatise of Knowledge", which showeth the vanity of pretended learning.)

But though none but proud fools will deny the need of that human learning which improveth nature, and is subservient to our knowledge of supernatural revelations, yet well doth Paul admonish us, to take heed that none deceive us by vain philosophy; and saith that the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God, and that the knowledge of Christ crucified is the true christian philosophy of wisdom. For indeed the dark philosophers groping after the knowledge of God, did frequently stumble, and did introduce abundance of logical and physical vanities, uncertainties, and falsities, under the name of philosophy, by mere niceties and high pretendings, seeking for the glory of wisdom to themselves; whenas it is one thing to know God's works and God in them, and another thing to compose a system of physics and metaphysics containing abundance of errors and confusion, and jumbling a few certainties with a great many uncertainties and untruths, and every sect pulling down what others asserted, and all of them disproving the methods and assertions of others, and one proving their own. And the truth is, after all latter discoveries, there is yet so much error, darkness, uncertainty, and confusion in the philosophy of every pretending sect, (the Peripatetics, the Stoics, the Pythagoreans and Platonists, much more the Epicureans, the Lullianists, and Cartesians, Telesius, Campanella, Patricius, Gassendus, etc.) that it is a wonder that any that ever thoroughly tried them, can be so weak as to glory much of the certainties and methods of any, which hitherto are so palpably uncertain, and full of certain errors.

We may therefore make use of all true human learning, real and organical, (and he is the happy scholar who fasteneth upon the certain and the useful parts well distinguished from the rest, and truly useth them to their great and proper ends): but niceties and fooleries which some spend their lives in for mere ostentation, and also uncertain presumptions, should be much neglected; and the great, certain, necessary, saving verities of morality and the gospel must be dearly loved, and thankfully embraced, and studiously learned, and faithfully practised, by all that would prove wise men at last.

(f.n. Col 2:8,9,23; 1 Cor 2:1,4-6,13; 1 Cor 3:19; 2 Cor 1:12; Job 28:28; Prov 1:7; Prov 9:10; John 18:3; Gal 4:9; Eph 3:10; 1 John 2:13,14; Col 1:9,27,28; Eph 6:19; 1 Cor 2:11; Col 3:16; Acts 17:18,19; Eph 4:18,19; Hos 4:8; Hos 6:6; Ps 119:99; 2 Pet 3:18; 2 Pet 1:3,5,8; Col 2:3; Col 3:10; Phil 3:8; Eph 3:19; Eph 1:17; Rom 1:20-22; Eccl 1:16-18; 1 Cor 8:1, 11; 1 Cor 13:2,3,8,9; Rom 2:20; James 3:13,14,17; Jer 4:22; 1 Cor 8:2)

Richard Baxter, A Christian Directory, "Christian Ecclesiastics", pp721-722 (Soli Deo Gloria reprint of the 1846 edition; some formatting changed for readability here)

Choose one and stick with it

Due to project deadline issues, this morning I find myself in the cubicle instead of the pew*. On the way in, I heard a pastor on the radio explaining the significance of infant baptism, which he had just performed.

"That's what baptism is about ... It's an outward sign of an inward conviction."

Granted; I just don't see how he can administer an outward sign to signify the Christian faith held inwardly by a baby who at the very least is not able to communicate a convincing testimony to this well-meaning pastor.

The "New Testament fulfillment of circumcision" is more convincing than this argument; if he's going to uphold paedobaptist practice, he ought not to borrow credobaptist explanations.

*So to speak. Our church has chairs, actually.

A few words on classical education

The reporter asked me about classical education and homeschooling; it's growing in popularity here in the Triangle, both at home and in the private schools.

Schools go back for future
'Classical' education pushed by new school, headmaster

By Kinea White - North Raleigh News - 6/10/05

Sic transit gloria mundi

This item fits into so many categories it's hard to specify.

Recently Human Events published its list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries, as suggested by their panel of scholars. Number three on the list (being edged out by his guru Marx and Ueberteufel Hitler) was Mao Zedong's infamous "Little Red Book", The Quotations of Chairman Mao Zedong.

Item: President Reagan said that communism would be relegated to the ash heap of history. Mao's public image hasn't reached that stage yet, but in the rapidly-westernizing Shanghai, it's made it to the side streets. Mao only appears on kitschy wrist-watches and other souvenirs in the street markets, with the single noticeable exception of his portait in Tiananmen Square -- and Beijing is not Shanghai.

Likewise his book -- there's no shortage of original copies, in stacks alongside the fake ancient coins, made-yesterday antique knives, and other trinkets. I was quoted 100 RMB, about $12.50, for one, and snorted at it -- I offered 10 RMB, we settled on 25 RMB, and I still overpaid. IOW the first edition of this monstrosity -- you can't call it a "best seller" if it's given away, can you? -- can be had for about $3 if you don't haggle too hard.

Item: Over here, apparently, there's more demand. Amazon this morning had several used copies for sale, starting at $45 and on up to $75.

Gimme a break. I wouldn't give you $20 for the entirety of Chairman Mao Thought, let alone the Reader's Digest edition.

Interview with a veteran home educator

The June issue of Carolina Journal includes my interview with Gray Sullivan, a long-term homeschooling mom in Goldsboro, whose oldest son Micah graduated with honors from N.C. State this May ... just in time for Gray to begin homeschooling her youngest child, her six-year-old daughter. And she's totally committed to the whole exercise -- the article is "The Pursuit of Happiness, At Home", on pages 8-9 here.

I've known the Sullivans for a number of years and they are truly terrific people. I'm glad I got to shine a spotlight on them for a bit -- they have been an example and encouragement to so many people.

Fear of death and the conservation of numbers

I mentioned that the word "four" in Mandarin, sì, is very close in pronunciation to the word "death", sǐ. This is deeply rooted in their culture -- to the point that it is bad form to give a someone a gift with four of something; sets of things like tea cups more often had six rather than four items. I've heard that phone companies offer discounts to subscribers who accept numbers with a 4 in them.

(FWIW you don't give a clock to somebody either, because "give a clock" - gĕi jĭ shí zhōng - is close in pronunciation to "attend a burial" - chū xí zàng lĭ. Watches, however, are okay. But that's another story.)

The apartments where we stayed in Shanghai were a vivid illustration of four-phobia. I couldn't figure out why the elevator buttons didn't line up properly -- they didn't seem to be multiples of anything, and I always had to search to find the right button. I suddenly recognized why -- not only did they omit the 13th floor, like many older American buildings do, but also the 4th, 14th, and 24th floors.

So when you stood on the nominal 26th floor of this building, you were actually only twenty-two stories above the street. And inside, there was no apartment "4" on any floor -- 1-2-3-5-6-7.

It reminded me of the passage in Hebrews, which says that He [Christ] also Himself likewise partook of the same [flesh and blood nature]; that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death … and deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. (Hebrews 2:14-15) It was palpable over there.

Until I was free of that same fear, I didn't realize how great a burden it was to carry.

For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21)

On math education

In a discussion of Nickels' Mathematics: Is God Silent?, I turned up this paragraph in the author's story of how the book came about:

I transferred to Fresno State College for my final two years. Although I still got As in every math class, my professors drilled me in dry formalism semester after semester. As the course material advanced beyond differential and integral calculus, it seemed like I had entered into an n dimensional domain of transcendent abstract analysis, aimed not at the Elysian fields of delight, but at the specter of the null and the void. These spiraling integrations into the void numbed and dizzied my mind. The phrase – integration into the void – was coined by the great 20th century Christian apologist Cornelius Van Til of whom we will hear more about later. I still managed, in 1973, to receive my undergraduate degree in mathematics (graduating summa cum laude – which proves that getting good grades does not mean that you have been properly educated). On graduation day I made an internal vow, “I will never open another math book again as long as I live.” Fortunately, I rescinded that vow some 5 years later. My response to four years of university training is a sad commentary on the state of university education then and, even more so, today.

Exam results

We're back and basically recovered from the jet lag -- the west-to-east travel is awful though the effects don't set in immediately.

Re: the crash course in conversational Mandarin, I'd have to say it was a success. The Chinese, particularly in Shanghai, told us we had very good pronunciation ("Perfect Beijing" they said). One indication of it was that when they got over the initial shock, they assumed we must be fluent and therefore launched a full salvo of Mandarin our way.

"Wǒ shuō de bù hǎo -- Wǒ huì shuō yī diǎn pǔtōng huà!"
"I do not speak well -- I can speak [only] a little Mandarin!"

It was amusing how startled the Chinese were when an American spoke Mandarin to them, even a short sentence like, "Excuse me, do you speak English?" The reaction was as if they'd reached down to pet the dog and the dog had said, "Good morning, sir!" in perfect Chinese. I suspect they have non-Asian foreigners mentally filed in the "Other" category, and while they didn't ignore us -- no, definitely did not -- they don't expect to interact with us much unless they're selling something or curious about the children.

John in particular held his own quite well. It was common to turn around from a museum exhibit or a street vendor to find John, a good eighteen inches taller than anyone nearby, explaining our family to a circle of admiring Chinese. Melanie also did very well bargaining with vendors and "good-willing" with the baby.

My own biggest adventure was negotiating the purchase of a euphonium in a Shanghai music store with the help of a calculator and Langensheidt's dictionary. ("New?" ... "No, sample." ... "I understand ... Case? Box?" ... "Wait …")

The downside for me was the experience of almost total illiteracy. Other than signs in pinyin and a few in English, there was little recourse to the printed word. I haven't felt this stupid since I was in kindergarten. In Europe, even if you don't speak the local language, you can usually take a guess based on cognates, Latin roots, or shared structures. Not in China -- you not only have no common language, you can't even guess a pronunciation from the characters on the sign.

I don't think we were alone in this, though. In fact, it seemed like the Chinese were often arguing among themselves over something or another. Melanie is convinced that they don't share a common language, either.

Fifty hours and a final exam

Is it possible to learn to speak Chinese in a week?

I doubt it, but my son John and I are finishing up a fifty-hour experiment in Mandarin immersion -- thirty hours of instructional CDs , ten hours in the classroom, and ten hours of tutoring with a Shanghainese college student. It's spread out over ten weeks or so, but the total is just over a week.

Observations: While the grammar is simple -- the verbs don't conjugate and the nouns are the same regardless of number or gender -- the pronunciation has been a puzzlement. The use of four major tones as well as a neutral or flat tone, plus an umlauted /u/, mean that Mandarin has in effect thirty vowels -- at least, the way I see it. This straightforward exchange illustrates the challenge:

"Shì sì suì? Haíshì shì shí sì suì?" -- "Bu shì, shì sì shí sì suì, keshì shì sĭ."

Translation: "Is it four years old? Or is it fourteen years old?" -- "No, it is forty-four years old, but it is dead."

The pronunciation sounds something like "Sh-ss-sw? High sh-sh-ss-sw?" -- "Boo-sh, sh-ss-sh-ss-sw, k'sh sh-ss." Granted, this is a tongue twister even for the Chinese, but for an American, distinguishing the difference between "shì" (to be) and "shí" (ten), or between "sì" (four) and "sĭ " (dead), takes a new level of concentration. And this doesn't even begin to address the written characters - if it weren't for the romanized "pinyin" I'd be totally illiterate.

Final exam starts soon. Results will be posted afterward.

Books on China

I've been trying to catch up some on the Far Eastern side of history and culture, but with mixed results.

The Cambridge Illustrated History of China - author?. John Hood at the John Locke Foundation loaned me his copy; somehow I knew someone up there could recommend a history. A thorough overview of the country; amazing how much I simply never heard of, and interesting to consider how long China has been a nation -- National Geographic compared the Han Dynasty with the roughly coincidental Roman Empire, but there's not a comparable entity in European history. The absence of a timeline, anywhere, was perplexing, though; it would have been helpful for me if there were more crossreferences to Western history, to highlight the advances in technology which didn't reach Europe for centuries after the Chinese put them in practice.
Art: Good / Message: Neutral / Kids: One or two illustrations may be problematic / Read more: Possibly.

The Art of War - Sun Tzu. An ROTC friend loaned it to me in college; this time I borrowed from the corporate library. A rediscovered classic; the anecdotes added over the centuries are sometimes better than the original text. My favorite this reading is "the doctrine of the sheathed sword" -- the successful general will find a strategem leading to victory without a fight. A little tiring to read but not overlong.
Art: OK / Message: OK / Kids: OK / Read more: ??

The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck. An excellent example of good art, mixed message. Peasant farmer Wang Lung raises his family to the first levels of landed prosperity through hard work and patient suffering. He has a basic sense of shame and pity, exhibits the Confucian virtue of filial piety, and shows a general unexamined sense of ethical behavior; if Francis Schaeffer had been Chinese, he would have called this "the Confucian memory". Wang's gentleness toward his profoundly handicapped daughter ("My poor fool"), in a time when she might have simply been killed off, is a highlight.

On the other hand, Wang worships idols of clay; winks at infanticide; enriches himself with stolen goods; consorts with a prostitute and eventually buys one as a rival to his longsuffering wife O-lan; entices his troublesome uncle and aunt into opium addiction; and generally makes an idol of his land. The ambiguous ending suggests his financial success has led his sons away from his own basic virtues, and Wang Lung's decline into adultery, while reminiscent of David's, dwells too much and too long on his lusts.
Art: Excellent / Message: Mixed / Kids: No / Read more: Maybe

Judge Dee at Work - Robert van Gulik. Five short stories about 7th-century magistrate in China, solving local crimes and administering rough justice. No Brother Cadfael, this - nearly every woman in the book is a "courtesan", though that fact is treated as stage dressing generally. How prevalent that was in historical context I don't know but it pushes this lower on the message side. Judge Dee is fair enough as a jurist but the dialogue is implausible and the style is tiresome.
Art: Fair / Message: Fair / Kids: No / Read more: No

Now that you mention it

I started the evening commute yesterday with a conference call on my cell phone , with six other people, and found myself on the same cell phone at 11:45 p.m., talking with a freelance writer in Hawaii who wanted to know about North Carolina's statutory attendance laws. This article showed up in the morning e-mail, and while it's nothing new it was certainly well-timed. Northern China, here we come.

The essence of the man

The Heritage Foundation send my wife and I a signed copy of Lee Edwards' new book, The Essential Ronald Reagan, as thanks for help with a local project. This is a short (155 page) overview of Reagan's life, including in the introduction both the North Carolina turnaround in his 1980 presidential bid and the worldwide response to his death in June 2004, by a long-time biographer of the president.

I have a longer review being considered by a state news magazine, but I can say one of the most impressive things I learned about Reagan is that the "intellectual lightweight" reputation was totally an invention of a hostile media. Reagan was actually very well-informed, a voracious reader from the start, but a genius at distilling complex issues into a few key principles. This gave him a clarity of thought and expression that more "nuanced" commentators disdain as shallowness, while in fact it was part of his strength.

An excellent book with an interesting critique of other works on Reagan, including Edmund Morris' authorized biography, Dutch (Edwards found it disappointing).

Oh, it's nothing, just a little typhoid

With a trip to China coming up, various experts recommended I get vaccinated for hepatitis A, a tetanus booster, and most interesting, typhoid fever. That last vaccine comes in a couple of forms, either injectable or oral. Due to the number of victims and relief workers connected with December's tsunami, we've found a shortage of typhoid vaccine in the U.S., and I've ended up taking the oral form. The relevant detail about that is that unlike the injectable vaccine, this is a live product -- genetically defused, sort of, so I don't get The Full Experience, but nevertheless, a low-grade typhoid infection.

The side effects can be "mildly" unpleasant, but it is typhoid, after all. The package insert says

The overall symptom rates from both studies when vaccinated with capsules were combined and shown to be: abdominal pain (6.4%), nausea (5.8%), headache (4.8%), fever (3.3%), diarrhea (2.9%), vomiting (1.5%) and skin rash (1.0%).

Well, call me statistically significant. All I can say is that when one quarter dose produces a reaction within the hour (the oral vaccine is four capsules taken over six days), I'm sure glad I'll have some immunity to the real thing when I get there. Meanwhile I'll just have to deal with "mild flu-like symptoms" for a few days.

Don't tell my office mates.