Whether to cancel school on a cold day may seem like an easy decision. When it’s very cold, school should be canceled, right?

It’s often not that simple.

School administrators must consider a number of factors before canceling a school day.

And despite Borderland’s reputation for being bold in the cold, other school districts also wrestle with the issue.

For example, Minneapolis Public Schools and Anoka-Hennepin Schools were closed on Wednesday due to extremely cold temperatures and wind chill. And just across the river, the St. Paul Public School District kept its schools open, with classes as usual on Wednesday. Absences were excused.

Parents playing armchair quarterback on this one does no one any good. After all, any parent may keep their child home from school for any weather-related issue without penalty to the student.

For some parents, keeping children at home isn’t a concern. Their child may be old enough that an adult isn’t needed to stay with them; a parent or other adult relative may be available at a moment’s notice; and there’s plenty of food and warmth there.

For other parents, however, finding out their child has no school to go to is a problem. They may have no one available to watch their small child and they cannot skip work; they may count on the public school system to provide a meal for their child because there is not enough food at home; and their home may not be safe for a children to stay home alone during the winter.

School District 361 in International Falls delays the start of classes when the temperature and wind chill combine to equal to 50 below zero or colder. It closes schools using a three-part system that considers road conditions, visibility and actual air temperature.

In Borderland, we may take for granted that everyone has the appropriate cold-weather clothing, parents who make sure their children are safely dressed, and enough food, warmth and supervision at home.

That’s just not the case.

When school is in session, but parents believe it’s just too cold to send their kids to school, we encourage them to to keep them home. It’s OK to do that and arrangements for such instances should be made ahead of time.

But when school is in session and even on a very cold day it offers a warmer, safer, healthier place than home to be, we are glad parents have that option.

To the editor,

On Dec. 19, my husband, John Wenberg walked into the Rainy Lake Medical Center Hospital, International Falls, with a slight pain in his upper right chest and sweating above his lips.

A nurse took him back to a room and he collapsed from a massive heart attack. What ensued next was the most amazing thing I have ever seen: The nurses called code blue and staff came from all over the hospital and began working on him. It was as if someone were choreographing a perfect ballet. The doctors and nurses worked tirelessly to bring him back to life. They were then able to send him by ground ambulance with two of the very competent paramedics we have available in this wonderful community. From here he went on to St. Mary’s Hospital in Duluth and their staff took over his care.

Our family is so grateful to the amazing doctors and nurses we have at our local hospital. We feel we are so lucky to have such a great staff and facility in our small town. It does not get any better than this. It was a true Christmas miracle.

Pamela Wenberg

International Falls, MN

I woke up this morning to the news of the terrorist attack on the Charlie Hebdo Magazine office in Paris. Twelve people were killed and eleven wounded, including two of my French cartoonist friends, Tignous and Wolinski. Cartoonists around the world are grieving.

Americans treat editorial cartoons as a trivial daily joke in the newspaper — in France, editorial cartoons are loved and respected. The Louvre has a branch museum devoted to cartoons; imagine if the Smithsonian had a cartoon museum, that’s the way cartoons are revered in France.

“Charlie Hebdo” is a silly name; it is a weekly magazine filled with editorial cartoons, easily found on news stands everywhere in France. “Hebdo” means “weekly” in French, and “Charlie” comes from France’s love for the comic strip “Peanuts” and Charlie Brown — therefore “Charlie Hebdo.” The top cartoonists in France vie to be on the pages of Charlie Hebdo.

There are cartoon festivals all over France — the best one for political cartoonists is in the small town of St Just le Martel; I’ve been attending for years, along with other cartoonists I syndicate. The townspeople pitch in to throw a festival for the editorial cartoonists every year; villagers put cartoonists up in their homes, and they award a live cow to the “Humor Vache” cartoonist of the year. One greatly respected winner of the cow was Georges Wolinski, a brilliant cartoonist with a masterful loose, swishy, wordy style, highly respected by the French. We were fellow cow winners, having a beer together last October; it is hard to imagine that he is gone.

The Charlie Hebdo cartoonists are a diverse group of charming characters; they are the heart of the French cartooning community. There are not a lot of editorial cartoonists. We get to know each other; the murders are a blow that strikes close to all of us.

The Charlie Hebdo artists were energized and incensed by the Danish Muhammad cartoon fracas a few years ago. French cartoonists have a macho attitude, seeing themselves on the front lines of a free speech debate. One Charlie Hebdo issue, touted as “edited by the Profit Muhammad” had all blank pages. One Charlie Hebdo cover featured a drawing, by French cartoonist “Luz” of the magazine’s publisher/cartoonist “Charb” having a sloppy kiss with a Muslim Man, under the headline “L’Amour plus for que la haine” or “love is stronger than hate.” Charb was among those killed in the terror attack.

Terrorists have no sense of humor. Cartoons loom large in the Arab world, typically on the front pages of Arab language newspapers. It is no wonder that our cartoons seem to bother the terrorists more than our words. Sitting behind a beer with Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, the talk often turns to Islamic extremeists and their assaults on press freedoms. No one can doubt that editorial cartoonists are leading the fight for press freedoms now.

Today we are are grieving, but as we move forward, I hope that our cartoons won’t be chilled by these murders and that the cartooning community will step up to this challenge with even more brilliant and insightful work — I’m sure the French cartoonists will do that; they are my heroes.

Cagle is an editorial cartoonist who runs the CagleCartoons.com newspaper syndicate distributing editorial cartoons to more than 850 newspapers around the world including the paper you are reading now; he is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society. Comments may be sent to editor@cagle.com.

A local official in the state of Maryland might need to rethink his strategy for keeping his name out of print.

The name Kirby Delauter was published Tuesday in newspapers, websites, news and opinion blogs and seemingly every corner of the Internet after he threatened to sue his local newspaper if it dared to publish his name without his permission.

Mocking messages filled Twitter with the hashtag (hash)kirbydelauter, which was trending among the top 10 most popular subjects in the U.S. on Tuesday evening. A Google search for the name Kirby Delauter on Tuesday evening turned up more than 37,000 results.

The trend began after the Republican Frederick County Councilman told a Frederick News-Post reporter in a Facebook post: “Use my name again unauthorized and you’ll be paying for an attorney.’’

The paper responded by ridiculing his demand.

“I just don’t know how to respond to a request that stupid,’’ Terry Headlee, managing editor of the 33,000 daily circulation newspaper, told The Associated Press on Tuesday in a telephone interview.

The News-Post did respond by posting an advance look at its Sunday editorial on the newspaper’s website. It pointed out that Delauter’s demand ignores, among other things, the right of a free press guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.

But the newspaper could not resist mining the rich opportunities for sarcasm that Delauter’s demand offered.

There was the editorial’s headline: “Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter.’’

And the body of the editorial, describing the laughter that his demand provoked and exploring the ways The News-Post might henceforth refer to Delauter without using his name. Perhaps “K-- — D-------.’’ Or “Councilman (Unauthorized).’’

Capping it off, the first letter of each paragraph spelled out: K-I-R-B-Y-D-E-L-A-U-T-E-R.

Delauter, a general contractor, didn’t respond to telephone and email messages from The Associated Press.

News-Post county government reporter Bethany Rodgers — the subject of Delauter’s ire — tweeted that the councilman didn’t mention his sudden notoriety during opening comments at a council meeting Tuesday.

Delauter had objected to a recent story by Rodgers that said Delauter shared another councilman’s concern about a shortage of reserved parking spaces for councilmembers at the county office building. Delauter wrote in his Facebook post that he had refused to be interviewed for the story because Rodgers had misrepresented his comments in the past.

Headlee said it’s the newspaper’s job to hold elected officials accountable by name for their words and deeds.

“If he doesn’t want to be held accountable, he needs to seriously consider whether he’s cut out to serve the public,’’ Headlee said.

Even if Delauter does sue, a lawsuit wouldn’t likely go far.

Washington Post blogger Eugene Volokh, who teaches free speech law at the University of California in Los Angeles, wrote online Tuesday: “In our country, newspapers are actually allowed to write about elected officials (and others) without their permission.’’