This is the Central Valley of California. It's HOT.
I was returning from the round of errands I had to run this afternoon, and thanking God that the air conditioner in the Prizm still works. It was, according to the temperature sensor in the car, 100 degrees.
As I stopped at the traffic light a few blocks from my home, a herd of teenagers jogged by, wet with sweat. Track team practice from one of the local high schools.
A hundred degrees. Asphalt road. Make the youngsters run for an extended period, sucking the fever-heat air (and the almond dust -- the air is filthy right now) into their lungs. This is going to make them better athletes.
Right.
If it's good for them to run, and perhaps it is, after a long day at school, why, then, is it not better for them to run at the start of the day, say between 6am and 8am, before school starts, and when the temperature is between 55 and 70 degrees?
Oh, well, the answer is simple, and utterly logical for the American educational system. No one wants to run that early, because it would mean having to skip television and go to bed at a reasonable hour. Coach wouldn't want that. Kids wouldn't want that. It's far more sensible to risk heat stroke.
And you can see, if they're that damned stupid about heat and heatstroke, it's no wonder the little morons can't read or do fractions by the time they graduate.
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