At 6:30 I got up to let Ulysses out. He didn’t want to go.

The thermometer read -12 degrees.

By the way. Now – three hours later – it says  -14 degrees.

Up until yesterday afternoon CPS boss Barbara Byrd-Bennett and Mayor Rahm Emanuel (who was vacationing in the South Pacific with his family) were saying the schools would be open. Faculty and staff were expected to show up for work. Parents could choose to have their children walk Safe Passage Routes, past their now-closed neighborhood school, in temperatures that are life-threatening.

At a press conference of all City department heads, minus the Mayor and BBB, citizens were told to stay indoors.

When asked where Byrd-Bennett was, a city official claimed she was checking on school boilers. With a straight face.

It took the Chicago Teachers Union and its President Karen Lewis to talk sense and light a match under…