Obviously, I don't need to tell you about the horrible storm and its aftermath

Holy cats, y'all.  I confess that I thought the storm, Hurricane Sandy, was going to be the bajillionth false alarm the 24-hour news cycle mutants had thrown at us in the past few years.  Keep in mind, I'm the guy who refused to leave the house for most of a Saturday because I thought I was going to see a tsunami hit Hawaii and then it was just some mildly choppy waves.  That was a tremendous let down.

In retrospect, that probably doesn't make me sound like a good person, and I probably could have kept that to myself.

But Sandy was and is all too real.  I don't need to tell you that.

I am a little disappointed that somehow Disney buying Star Wars seems like bigger news than the potential weather-related damage to our economy, infrastructure and political system, but: priorities, I guess.


That said, weather and where it manages to hit is a funny thing.  I'm not saying I'm not freaked out by Sandy.  I am.  I really, really want for you guys to give to The American Red Cross, if you have anything that looks like a few spare bucks, or even if you can't afford it.  You probably still have a roof over your head and do not have four feet of water in your living room (and I'm guessing you have electricity).

But I am saying that every year the American South and Mid-West gets smacked around by horrible weather, killing all sorts of people, leveling towns and communities that don't have news anchors living in them, and it's a puff-piece on the evening news.

I'm not saying what has happened on the East Coast isn't newsworthy, isn't terrifying and doesn't have massive implications, but...  so is it also a tragedy and no joke when a trailer park gets hit, or Florida is digging out from yet another town getting flattened.

Who is going to be the person who says that we shouldn't rebuild New York or Newark or Hoboken if its just going to flood again, just like they said about New Orleans?

Let's make a promise to ourselves that for every Facebook or Twitter post we make about Disney and Lucasfilm, we'll give $10 to the Red Cross, and for every comment we leave on the topic this week, we'll donate $5.