Opinion: Letter

Herald blind on snow

You completely missed the mark with your editorial on Wednesday�s snowstorm (�Just another day,� Feb. 7). It was smug, dismissive and completely out of touch.

Describing the situation on campus as an �inconvenience� for students with disabilities and commuters was the understatement of the year. No one who uses a wheelchair or other mobility device could have gotten around campus. Bus riders were stranded for hours as Metro service deteriorated into chaos.

Indeed, in your lead story (�Students grumble, UW eventually cancels classes,� Feb. 7) you mention that the University of Wisconsin most recently closed Dec. 3, 1990 � the last time it snowed this much in one day. Under identical circumstances, then-Chancellor Donna Shalala felt it appropriate to cancel classes. What changed between then and now?

Edgewood, MATC and UW-Whitewater closed Wednesday. There was no shortage of reports on how the storm had slowed down and would park itself over the area. It was by any measure an extraordinary weather event.

The administration should not have opened campus. They deserve to be criticized for that decision, and you deserve to be criticized for supporting it.

Daniel Bush

Master of Public Affairs Candidate

La Follette School of Public Affairs

University of Wisconsin-Madison

[email protected]

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3 older comments

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the cb told you so

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Forward!, On Wisconsin!… unless it snows?

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Snow and Ice and Slippery Commutes, Oh My! Snow and Ice and Slippery Commutes, Oh My!

Did you shovel out your sidewalk… and the old lady’s next door, Daniel? Did you check on her and get her groceries, like a good neighbor should in adverse times? Or were you too busy with Public Affairs and Public Complaining to perform your personal civic duty of shoveling a sidewalk and offering help to a disadvantaged soul?

Adversity - Embrace It!!! You have a long life of it ahead of you…… You might as well engrain the self-respecting habit of ‘Deal With It Now’ and save yourself from a pathetic life of whining, unmet expectations, and ‘being a victim’.

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