Sniveling Students Solved Nothing

* As Richard Rodriguez wrote recently in the Opinion section, the Northridge earthquake is a middle-class calamity, and I cannot think of a better example than at that bastion of middle-class higher education, Cal State Northridge.

After President Blenda Wilson put her reputation on the line by announcing the earliest possible resumption of classes, and then moved heaven and earth to marshal all possible resources and all available manpower to that end, how did the students react? They whined and complained: “What about me--my classes--my parking?”

They actually had the audacity to block nearby residents’ driveways when common sense, if they had any, would have told them that anyone living in proximity to the campus had probably suffered damage and loss and certainly didn’t deserve that added aggravation.

Since their mall-crawling has been greatly limited, why didn’t some of those superannuated adolescents sit down in front of their PCs, which they claim they can’t live without, and devise a car pool or van pool scheme that might ameliorate the campus parking situation? Then they could have contributed something to the renewed university community, which President Wilson, the administration and the faculty are working so hard to build, instead of sniveling and expecting the adults to wipe their noses.

LIN SCHONBERGER

West Hills