A number of years ago, when the Northeast was shut down for about a month by a huge blizzard followed within two weeks by an equally gigantic ice storm (I'm sure you remember, Phil), the governor's office shut down everything but emergency services. Most businesses were asked to cut their hours or close for part of the week to conserve power, because conditions were so frigid. The public schools, all the way up to the university level, were closed by government order, and the state police asked all motorists to stay off the roads unless they absolutely had to go somewhere due to treacherous ice and two-foot snowdrifts. In the middle of all this, the principal of a local private school was featured in the newspapers because the school refused to close. "Our kids want to come to school," he was quoted as saying. Mind you, this is not a neighborhood school, but one that drew students from all over the county because it was supposed to be so good. No busses: the parents drive their kids there.

He was the subject of several scathing letters to the editor, the gist of which was, "If you're so smart, why don't you have the sense to listen to the police when they tell you it's too dangerous for your students to be out on the roads? Do you think they're telling you this just for kicks?"