I'll be spending all day on a script, trying to not think much about Hurricane Sandy or the election. I can't do anything about either of those things and they both depress me.
I feel sorry for my friends — or anyone — in the path of "Frankenstorm." I expect most folks will be fine but to be evacuated from your home or to sit and wait in it for this monster to plow through must be so unsettling and upsetting. The sheer thought upsets me and I'm sitting here, about as far from Sandy as you could be and still be in the continental United States.
I sometimes wish our country was as concerned with protecting us from natural disasters as it is from possible foreign invasion. Maybe some of that money we're spending to defend ourselves from the Soviet Union could be put to better use prepping for things like Sandy and being ready to rebuild as necessary after the destruction caused by him or her. (I just realized I don't know if Sandy is named to be male or named to be female. Are we talking Sandy Koufax here or Sandy Duncan? Neither's that appropriate for something this scary. I can imagine people who'd refuse to evacuate for Hurricane Sandy who'd commence frantic packing if told they were in the path of Hurricane Brutus or Hurricane Hulk.)
(I just checked and Sandy is female as in Sandy Duncan. They alternate genders and the storm before her was Hurricane Rafael and the one after is Hurricane Tony. Hurricane Tony is probably going to be a hurricane that drops by, tells you you've got a nice place here and says, "We wouldn't want anything to happen to it now, would we?")
It's tempting to play politics with this thing…and indeed, we already have the obligatory Public Scold telling us Sandy is God's way of punishing us for Gay Rights. Hey, maybe it's His way of reminding us we need to do something about Climate Change. That would at least be more or less On Topic. And one could argue convincingly, I suppose, that it's the ideal time to dredge up the clip of Mitt Romney insisting we get rid of FEMA and let this kind of thing be handled by the states or, better still, the kind of private enterprise that firms like Bain Capital could manipulate. I just don't have the stomach for that debate at the moment. I'd hate to think anyone was sitting, hoping FEMA will botch things as badly as it did Katrina, so that a case could be made against another federal agency.
Anyway, I have to put all this stuff out of my mind today and I'm kind of posting this so I can stop thinking about it. Depending on the topic, blogs can be handy for that kind of thing. But to all who are having their lives wrenched by Sandy, know that you have a lot of folks outside its path who are hoping for your best possible outcome. That may not help much when your roof is leaking or your block is flooding but it's about all we can do right now. Wish we could do more…a lot more.