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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Nearly every American born in the 1960s knows what this picture is:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><img width=365 height=278 style='width:3.802in;height:2.8958in' id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image003.jpg@01D66D5F.662A57A0"><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>They might even know a few lines of the jingle, but I think of it when I see my son’s Zoom classroom. It creates a matrix of images, in that case with about 30 students rather than these nine thespians (couldn’t the L crowd come up with a name that doesn’t rhyme with thespian?) Many here probably used Zoom or Google Meets recently.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Today we learn that the high school choir and band classes are going ahead over Zoom. If you have used that technology, you already know there is an inherent latency which makes it impossible to do anything in unison, even reciting the scout oath. The whole thing turns into chattery chaos. But… the show goes on. It will be the Brady Bunch Choir, which may never actually get a chance to meet face to face and can’t actually sing together.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I noticed something interesting: South Dakota, which is a very open-minded state, didn’t do all that much with covid restrictions in general, did go ahead and close the schools back in March, and kept them closed. Now we hear they will stay closed in the fall in SD, completely.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The covid deaths per capita is about 260 per million in California and about 160 per million proles in South Dakota, which makes those two outfits nearly comparable (because there is a lot of uncertainty about the numbers reported in both places (and the SD numbers include the reservations (which follow their own whims on how the medicine man does his business.))) SD schools will stay closed. In California the decision is mostly at the county health department level.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Meanwhile… in the SF Bay, we have a mixed bag. Our schools are partially re-opening next week, as are the schools in the next town to the north, for cases where it can be plausibly argued the student is better off on a possibly dangerous campus than their alternative. I know of at least four cases where I would argue the student damn is better off being physically present on that campus next week.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The whole Zoom business, oy vey, better than nothing but that isn’t really school. Still, I am in favor of keeping that campus mostly closed for now. We can choose to go to a rogue business staying open in spite of the governor’s and county’s orders, but that’s the business owner’s decision and our choice to patronize them or not. The students are required to go to school if the school is open. So… I agree with the advisory committee plurality: stay mostly closed for now.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Suggestions welcome, on this forum or offlist.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>