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You are so right, Hanna - this snow cancellation thing always drove me batty when we lived in DC, not merely because of what it said about our region's "toughness", but because of the scorn that those last-minute school closures - usually after one snowflake - always demonstrated for working women. Scrambling together last-minute childcare, and/or bringing your child to the office is just about possible for middle-class parents, but was a nightmare for people who didn't have the sort of jobs to which they could bring children, and didn't have the money for childcare.
So annoyed by this attitude did I become that at one point I found myself shouting down the phone at a spokesman for the Montgomery County School System, who was placidly telling me that the real problem was the buses, which couldn't possibly run in a light dusting of snow. So let everyone drive, I said. The spokesman responsded, with icy triumph, "not everybody, Ms. Applebaum, has a car."
Of course, those who don't have cars can't afford child care either. I was so annoyed I wrote a column about it.
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Yesterday, Obama insulted our fair city by saying we can't "handle" a little bad weather. His spontaneous outburst to reporters came because his daughters' school was closed yesterday after an ice storm. With all due respect, Mr. President, this is the problem with public officials sending their kids to private schools. The real story in Washington this year was how D.C. public schools, usually spooked by a light dusting, didn't close after Tuesday's snowstorm, thanks to the tough-it-out policies of Chancellor Michelle Rhee. This is a longstanding gripe of mine, how private schools, even ones located in D.C., following the weather guidelines in Montgomery County, Md., as if they float above the actual city.
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