Giving hurricanes and tropical storms people names is probably the worst idea since sliced bread (Everybody says sliced bread was a good idea, but was it?...). I mean when I hear that Hurricane Nancy is bearing down on Louisiana all I can think is "Oh those poor people, the Speaker of the House is paying them a visit" (It's horrifying, I know). So why not switch to a better way of identifying those zany hurricanes and tropical storms (A way that won't strike fear into the hearts of every man, woman and child in a state). As usual, I don't just complain about something without offering a solution, so here's my idea. What we need to do is name hurricanes and tropical storms after movies, preferably those that people actually know. Imagine turning on the news and hearing:Anchor: "Tonight at midnight hurricane Return of the Jedi will hit every theatre in New Orleans (Too soon?)."
See, you feel much more at ease about a hurricane hitting. Sure you may have 100 mph winds and catastrophic damage but at least you can rest assured knowing it's named after a movie. The beauty of this idea is that if somebody doesn't like Star Wars (They're losers...) there are plenty of movies to name them after. Also, you can get rid of the arbitrary numbers system for telling how bad the storm will be. So instead of the storm being a Mach 5 hurricane (Obviously I am not really sure how they rate hurricanes) you judge it by how much money it made at the box office (So if it's named after a James Cameron film, GET OUT!!...on the other hand, if it's a movie that starred John Travolta you're safe. Battlefield Earth anyone??). It's brilliant and fool proof (No comment...)!
Russ VanAllen
The world is a better place with me around.
