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 Fortunately, I rescinded that vow some 5 years later.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.

Mud

I was reading Thomas Watson's The Lord's Prayer this morning and looking at the very first phrase, "Our Father". Watson comments that all men can claim Him as Creator and Judge, but only His children can call Him Father. What's more, we are just "dust with sin mingled", and yet the Lord of Hosts gladly claims us as His own possession. I am trying to get my brain around this.

Reading the Puritans is like eating fudge -- the stuff is so rich it's hard to handle in large chunks.

Beginning Chinese

Here are my observations, after several weeks of "beginning Chinese":

1. The most common word in Mandarin is sh. Depending on inflection, this means "is" (sh.), the number 10 (sh!), or "to eat" (sh-), or maybe "to go" (sh) unless it occurs at the end of a word like -shi, meaning a master of something. Practice this.

Note: This is easily confused with the word s! which means "four".

2. The most common sound in Mandarin is /tchzz/. This is spelled ch, ts, z, zh, j, x, or q. I am not making this up. As a word, for example, j means "to eat" or "know" (with dao). I know I said sh means "to eat". It's the same thing.

3. You should not confuse the word ma (horse) or ma! (mother) with the word ma , which is a question word like the Candian eh? Questions in Chinese always sound Canadian, like "You are American, ma?"

4. You should always be sure to distinguish zhong! (the center of something) from zhong! (clock) and Zhong- (Chinese), not to mention zhong! which is the sound made by a gong. Gong however means "work".

5. You should always respond to comments about your excellent Chinese ("Knee pooting whah shoot the hen house!") with the modest statement, "Why, shoot the blue cow!", which means "I do not speak well."

6. It is rude to interrupt someone and say "Gesundheit" if they say cashew, which is a conjunction, "but"

7. Ta means he, she, or it. It's obvious if it's written.

8. Zi! Nar? means "Where?" Zi! Nar! means "Over there." Zi! Jar! means "Rat cheer."

9. Wo? means "I" but it can also mean "me", "my", or "mine". Women means "we" but it also means "us", "our", and "ours".

10. The number "two" is pronounced are? but you don't use it for people or beer.

11. If you have a Western name, you might be given a phonetic equivalent by combining Mandarin words to yield roughly the same sound. From the Chinese translation of the Bible, then, "John" naturally becomes Yue Han which seems to mean "monthly check" but sounds vaguely like "Johann". Likewise, "Caleb" becomes Jia Lei which appears to mean "Lord Buddha strangles" and doesn't sound like "Caleb" at all.

More helpful information to follow as we learn even more useful Mandarin phrases.

Busy, Busy, Busy

It has not been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, not this one. There have been several deadlines since the last post, including two articles for publication (my regular column in NCHE's Greenhouse Report and a revision of a previously published piece, to go in the Florida Parent Educators Association magazine, Agenda)

BTW, after much innocent merriment by my fellow board members, my column was given the name "Hal's About It" (I decided it was less edgy than "Hal, Caesar" or "What the Hal"). After cranking out about fifteen of these the past couple of years, I wonder if readers aren't asking, "Isn't there something better than this?" and finding the answer is, no, Hal's about it.

Anyway, the push to finish several projects in short order has left little time for blogging, other than a few posts at The Locker Room and a few news items for NCHE's statewide blog page.

Back at the ranch, we are making an effort to learn basic Chinese -- everyone over the age of two. Eldest son John and I are taking a "Chinese As a Second Language" class at the Raleigh Academy of the Chinese Language (meeting in a church every Saturday), while we're all reviewing the Pimsleur Method CDs and spending an hour on Sunday afternoons with a student from Shanghai, working on pronunciation and cultural questions.

Oh, and we have a student driver who just had braces removed, immediately after a week as a N.C. Senate page.

Just another week in homeschooling ...

Executive Session

Our family has been reading the Gospel of Mark for evening devotions the past few weeks. Something struck me anew this time and I've pointed it out to the kids.

In Mark 4:1-9, Jesus relates the parable of the sower (or the soil, or the seed -- all three are appropriate). He finishes, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." In verses 10-20, He explains the symbolism to His disciples, privately, because "to you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God." (v.11)

Unlike the multitude who walked away, we are invited to hear Jesus' private teaching. We modern Gentile believers, or anyone who cares to investigate, have the opportunity through the printed Word to receive the same revelation of this parable that Jesus reserved for the hand-picked inner circle of friends.

How incredible that is, and what a rebuke to us if we are slack in our study, or ungrateful for the invitation.

Dangerous Reading

Nineteenth-century Presbyterian theologian R. L. Dabney wrote an excellent essay, "On Dangerous Reading", on the subject of indiscriminate or incautious literary exercise. That is probably one of the more prevalent problems in modern Christian culture, and I'd include unquestioning scans of the funnies or over-tolerant settings on the car radio in the mix.

That being said, there is a great deal of literature which is not explicitly "Christian" in content but can be incorporated into a Christian world view. Francis Schaeffer and more recently Doug Wilson understood the concept well and, as Schaeffer said, promoted artistic work which had not only a good message, but good art (much on Christian radio fails the latter test, as Schaeffer's son observed in Addicted to Mediocrity).

I started keeping a record of my reading several years ago when I wanted to ensure a proper, profitable, and God-honoring balance of my time in the library. Looking over last year's tally -- sixty-two books completed in the course of 2004 -- a few things show up:

The two "general nonfiction" titles were actually the two which have shaped my thought the most this year. Milton and Rose Friedman's market manifesto, Free to Choose, is somewhat dated, coming out just as the Reagan Revolution was dawning and reflecting the problems of "stagflation" and "malaise" which propelled him into office. As such, though, it clearly shows how much Reagan's policies improved economic life in America. Mitchell Stephens' study of the organizational nature of the homeschooling movement, Kingdom of Children, was recommended by a friend/attorney at HSLDA. Stephens' insights into the personality of both the right and left wings of the movement have helped me both to appreciate and to effectively interact with the full range of characters forming the homeschool community in our state. I have urged other leaders to read and see whether Stephens' observations hold true for them -- to me, they appear to be right on target.

I read twelve books of history or biography, all in the range of late-17th to mid-20th century (from The Diary of Samuel Pepys -- this is not one for the kids! -- to The Last Nine Days of the Bismarck). Two were standouts -- Joseph Ellis' Founding Brothers, and Hagedorn's The Roosevelt Family of Sagemore Hill. I am still collecting biographies of Theodore Roosevelt, and the latter was a good read on the trip to the Republican National Convention.

Eight were classed as "literature", or ten if you count re-reading Lewis' That Hideous Strength and move the Diary of Samuel Pepys out of the history column. I'm helping Melanie keep ahead of John's "great books" curriculum, which is no slight task, even though it was a good excuse to re-read Sayers' The Nine Tailors.

The balance of the list reflected, as much as anything, the presence of a two-year-old who didn't want to go to sleep at nights. I often found myself walking the floor carrying son David, and reading things which were (a) light enough to carry without straining my hand -- no Baxter's Christian Directory here -- and (b) light enough to read without straining my brain. These tended to be mysteries (Erle Stanley Garner, Rex Stout, and Josephine Tey), a fair sample of C.S. Forester (I found his non-Hornblower books more profitable, actually), and a smattering of P.G. Wodehouse, Garrison Keillor, P.D. James, and Louis L'Amour.

I plan to expand on 2005's reading more as I go along. Here's to good art, with a good message, and reading no more dangerous than Aslan, the "not tame" lion.

Among these are life

A couple of pieces on the question of life and protecting it showed up today -- Matt May in The American Thinker, and my friend Paul Chesser in the Washington Examiner.

Paul offers an interesting idea -- if historically pro-abortion politicians are serious about reaching out to the pro-life voters, why not use that leadership to encourage some dialogue between the two factions?

Setting aside the flawed logic that abortion should be rare instead of banned altogether, crisis pregnancy leaders should take pro-choicers at their word and propose a few ideas. How about an arrangement to work together? They could offer to create co-counseling teams to advise each of their clients, so that all who seek help would receive both points of view. Crisis pregnancy centers, which are collecting more and more ultrasound machines, could provide free sonograms for patients of both facilities, which few abortion clinics appear to offer. As it is currently, neither group would be constrained in how they advise. Both organizations would still distribute the supplies (condoms from Planned Parenthood clinics; baby clothes from crisis pregnancy centers) that they've always provided.

Of course the question before the house in some respects may not be when does life begin, but rather, when should we be allowed to end it? My own contribution is this -- What if we simply applied the same test to abortion that we do for causing death in self-defense?

I think most pro-lifers would concede at least that point; it would harmonize with the liberal abhorrence of death by [judicial] decree, and it would naturally exclude the sex-selection, personal convenience, and ex post facto contraception cases which both sides (officially) criticize.

All it would require is the admission on the left that there are two people, not one, on the table. But that, I fear, would be too much to ask.

Homeschoolers are social! Page 1-A!

Some are finally beginning to get it. This story appears on the front page of the Durham Herald-Sun today (2/18/05)

Homeschoolers get social as more families go non-public

CHAPEL HILL -- Trash everything you think you know about homeschooling.

Forget the images of a small family sitting around a table, working out arithmetic problems. Toss out the thought of children whose only friends are their parents, brothers and sisters.

Today's homeschoolers say they are nothing like that.

A very positive article that interviews support group leaders in Durham, Chapel Hill, and Hillsborough. My own contribution followed the comments of Ingrid Towey, leader of the Christian Homeschool Association of Greater Durham:

... the Toweys' decision to home-school wasn't based solely on religion.

"I just thought it was the best thing for our children, to allow them to learn at their own pace," Towey said. "It allows them to bolster their weaknesses, and run with their strengths. Yet it very much feels like God has called us to home-school. He has enabled us to home-school."

But most families do home-school for religious reasons, more flexible academics or social concerns, said Hal Young, president of North Carolinians for Home Education.

"Most families, if you talk with them, will pick one as the main reason, but admit they've considered all of the above," Young said. "My wife and I are Evangelical Christians and want that to be reflected in our children's education, but we're definitely 'all of the above' in the fuller scheme of things."

More than two-thirds of home educators are involved in a state or local organization, or both, Young said.

"Home-schooling is an individual activity, but it's not solitary," he said. "The support is key."

Good enough to be everyday news

It is a sign of the maturing of home education in the public view when homeschoolers cease being human interest curiosities and move into the pages of the regular news. The basketball program of Forsyth Home Educators in Winston-Salem has made the transition: they are a regular item on the sports page of the Winston-Salem Journal, as in this matter-of-fact report from last Friday (2/11/05):

Prep Basketball Roundup
West's 32 points lift FHE to OT victory
JOURNAL STAFF REPORT

Boys
FHE 82, Stone-Eden 80 (OT): Kyle West scored 32 points, including the winning shot as the clock was winding down, as the visiting Forsyth Home Educators defeated Stone-Eden last night in a nonconference game.West hit a 10-footer in the lane with 1.2 seconds left in overtime. West also added seven assists.

Jake Claffee added 12 points and 10 rebounds for FHE (16-8), Colton Brown had 10 points and 12 rebounds, and Nathan Miller chipped in with 10 points.

Andrew Daniel led Stone-Eden (24-8) with 31 points, Hal Young scored 17, Joseph Daniel had 13 and James Fagge contributed 10.

Comment from Hal: I've never met my namesake in Winston-Salem, but I guarantee any scoring record he cares to set will never be challenged by my athletic prowess, past or present.

Young homeschool filmmakers praised at Festival

The November/December issue of Homeschooling Today includes a story by Carmon Friedrich documenting the first San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival, sponsored by Vision Forum.

Of the 130 film entries, 75 percent were submitted by homeschoolers: parents, children, or entire families together. First-time filmmakers competed with thouse who had been in the industry for many years. Thirty-eight semi-finalists were chosen in four main categories ...

This comment, though, caught my attention:

The youngest filmmaker, homeschooled Caleb McLeod Young, conceived the idea for his film, based on the book Christ in the Camp, when he was nine years old. With the encouragement of his family and the help of his homeschool history club, he made his five-minute film for $80. When the director of Time Changer, Rich Christiano, came to the podium to give a short speech, he pretended to take a call on his cell phone. "What, Lord?" he asked. "You want me to tell the folks you're more pleased with the nine-year-old who made Christ in the Camp than you are with Steven Spielberg?" The theater erupted in appreciative applause.

Caleb of course is my own son; the club is "Homeschoolers Unfolding History", a chapter of the N.C. History Museum's "Tarheel Junior Historians" organization, sponsored locally by the Public Library of Smithfield and Johnston County. The video was one of the 38 semi-finalists and was included in the "Best of Festival" DVD set.

Not being the youngest, perhaps, and having many worthy competitors in the young filmmakers category, my older son, John Calvin, has not attracted the same attention as Caleb. However, his HUH project, Independence Bound, was also honored as a semi-finalist and included on the "Best of" release, and both films are well-made, full costume presentations -- filmed at several historic locations around eastern North Carolina.

Dad's proud of both of them, of the Homeschoolers Unfolding History, and of Elaine Foreman, their sponsor at the library. Not to mention the regiment of mothers who sewed a closet full of Colonial garb (no coincidence that both of this year's productions are Revolutionary era, too).

NCHE in The Old Schoolhouse

Just received our copy of The Old Schoolhouse winter '05 issue and find NCHE represented in several places --

• Two photos of the NCHE Conference leading the article "The Value of Homeschool Conventions" by Amelia Harper and Deborah Wuehler, page 86
• Quotes from our conference VP Nancy St. Marie ("The 'best' conference is the one that meets the needs of the homeschoolers who attend. The best measure of this is that the [NC] conference is still growing and growing ... ") and my wife Melanie ("Over the years, the families that I have seen succeed at homeschooling are those with deep roots -- a strong philosophical and spiritual basis for their homeschooling. Convention is where you get that ...")
• Another photo of the NCHE Conference book fair on page 92, with the article "A Look Behind the Scenes of A Homeschool Convention" (Rhonda Barfield)
• Although it's not identified as such, the comments of filmmaker Rich Christiano in Amelia Harper's report on the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival (p. 56) refer to my 9-year-old son, Caleb, who directed one of the films in the competition.

(Amelia, btw, is an NCHE member living in Nashville, N.C., and the Media Editor of TOS.)

(Also btw, NCHE members can receive a 50% discount on The Old Schoolhouse magazine.)

NCHE in the News 2/2/05

Parents face school choices
Tours, open houses clarify regular public, magnet, charter, private options

Story by T. Keung Hui -- Raleigh News & Observer

Parents are sorting through the advantages and disadvantages of traditional and magnet public schools, charter schools, private schools and home schooling. Many schools are or soon will be accepting applications, and some want parents to make their decision by the end of this week. ...

Home schooling grows

Another nonpublic school option is home schooling, which is gaining in popularity. Hal Young, presidents of North Carolinians for Home Education, said various curricula and computer programs on the market are helping parents operate home schools.

In the Triangle, many support groups can provide parents help and offer youths extracurricular activities.

Young also said home schooling can be one-tenth the cost of sending a child to a private school, a key consideration when a family has multiple children.

"The major thing is, you're taking responsibility for your child's total educational experience," he said. "It takes a lot of time and a great deal of commitment."

So what about socialization?

The North Raleigh edition of the News & Observer included this interesting report Friday:

No home court advantage:

Undefeated home-schoolers are showing they can hang with high schools

They assumed they were playing a team with no home, no student body, no real practice facility. In the world of high school basketball, it is easy for private schools to schedule a game with a home-school team and expect a notch in the win column.

But the Raleigh Hawks have schooled the competition this season.

The Hawks, after dismissing the Lighthouse Eagles 88-76 on Tuesday night, in one of their few games against another home-school team, improved to 16-0 with one game left in their regular season. ...

Later this month, the team will head to the North Carolina Home Educators State Tournament in Greensboro, where they've finished second the past two years. Of the dozen home-school basketball teams in the state, eight make it to the state tournament.

(Actually, it's the "North Carolina Homeschool Basketball Tournament", which is sponsored by North Carolinians for Home Education. There will be twenty-six teams there, not just eight, competing in boys' and girls' varsity, JV, and middle school brackets. And they're not there to socialize, you understand -- just planning to play some serious ball in Greensboro.)

Here's to the players, parents, and coaches, showing once again you don't have to have government funding or institutional backing to make a mark in your chosen field. Or court.

If P then Q

The leaders and my fellow bloggers at the John Locke Foundation's blog The Locker Room have discussed the questionable value -- if not legality -- of incentive plans offered by every level of government to woo Dell Computers to North Carolina.

Now that the state, Forsyth County, and Winston-Salem have allocated megabucks of incentives for Dell's new plant -- over $37 million of it local -- the Winston-Salem Journal reported Sunday that modification to a high school next to the plant site could cost as much as an additional $4.4 million:

About $900,000 of that money would be the direct cost of creating a new driveway system to get students onto campus off of Glenn Hi Road and closing the entrance from Union Cross Road. Officials with the computer company have said they want to keep students off the road that Dell trucks will use every day. The other $3.5 million would be used to undo some of the damage done to the campus by the road.

The new driveway would go through at least one fully lighted and irrigated football field, would destroy some tennis courts and would put the entrance of the school far from the principal's office.

A $5.6 million capital spending plan for the school has already swelled to $7.9 million due to inflation and "computer changes". Some on the school board are not happy, calling increased expenditures "not fiscally responsible."

RTWT …