\PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

This, like some of my other posts, will indicate that I have too much time on hands in retirement.

The coronavirus deal, with its social distancing, not to mention the risk of a “shelter in place” order, only adds to my down time.

Almost as I write the word risk, we now have close to a “shelter in place” order in Oregon, though Governor Kate Brown and Portland mayor Ted Wheeler won’t use the term, which, they say, is very confusing. But, so is the term they use — “Stay Home, Stay Healthy.”  However well-intentioned Brown and Wheeler are in the current unpredictable environment, their phrase doesn’t serve clarity.

We may know more by next Monday when Brown, Wheeler and others roll out more details.

So, that said, I have been thinking about strange stuff in the “era” of coronavirus. Here are examples:

WHAT DOES SHELTER IN PLACE MEAN? For me, the question came to a head with decisions in California to impose “shelter in place.”

In the old days, “shelter in place” tended to mean that there some kind of disturbance outside, sometimes with guns, and, for safety, you should stay in place.

Today, the term has been expanded to apply to coronavirus restrictions, but the term strikes me as a bit of a euphemism. Plus, we still don’t have a good idea of what is allowed during a “shelter in place” and what is not allowed.

And, who enforces the order? The governor in California asked citizens to abide by it, but who knows if they will.

WHAT DOES “EQUITY” MEAN FOR CLOSED SCHOOLS/Early on, when schools closures were announced, many of us thought students would still “be in school at home with laptops,” especially as teachers were trained to teach on-line.

No.

Here’s why according to a story from the Oregonian newspaper:

“Oregon schools will not replace the weeks of traditional classroom instruction students are missing with online classes or another substitute while schools are shuttered until April 28.

The reasons why boil down to two words: Access and equity.

“’Protecting student rights has to be front and center during the conversation about distance learning,” Marc Siegel, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Education, told The Oregonian/OregonLive. ‘You cannot open a brick-and-mortar school in Oregon unless it is accessible to every student in their school district. The same rules apply to an online school.’

“The state’s public schools are not equipped to do that for special education students, those who speak English as a second language, students who lack computers or Internet access and others with special circumstances during the shutdown, he noted.

“’Our students with disabilities and specialized needs, by law, require specially designed instruction,’ Siegel said. ‘If a school opens to serve its community’s students, it must be able to provide those specialized instruction services.’”

There you have it – access and equity.

Upon reflection, the notion becomes a bit more understandable, but when I first heard about this from my daughter who works in a school in Woodinville, Washington, I couldn’t believe it.

I can now.

WHICH TAKES PRECEDENCE: RESPONDING TO THE HEALTH EMERGENCY OR SAVING THE SAGGING ECONOMY? That question is beginning to be asked by some who are wondering if the U.S. economy will survive.

Perhaps it’s not the best source – not perhaps, it is not – but here is what one of my golfing buddies from the California desert said when he heard about the California “shelter in place” directive:

“We are at the point where the cure is worse than the disease.”

The Wall Street Journal is a better source and here is the way editorial writers put it yesterday:

“Yet (a word which meant editors were not opposing general social distancing moves), the costs of this national shutdown are growing by the hour, and we don’t mean federal spending. We mean a tsunami of economic destruction that will cause tens of millions to lose their jobs as commerce and production simply cease. Many large companies can withstand a few weeks without revenue but that isn’t true of millions of small and mid-sized firms.”

With all of this at stake – health and the economy — I’m just glad I am no longer in a state agency position in Oregon where I would have to contribute to what clearly are life and death decisions every day, if not every hour.

I also just read a column by one of my favorites, Peggy Noonan, who writes for the Wall Street Journal. She echoed a sentence that has been my solace, at least partially, through all of this:

“A general attitude for difficult times? Trust in God first and always. Talk to him.”