We all love Parmigiano Reggiano, but can I gently say that it’s kind of distasteful for all the cheese folks to mourn the tragedy of the loss of all those Parmesans and not mention that people died in the Italian earthquake. Just saying….
Our thoughts in San Francisco are with those folks who suffered loss in this disaster. We’ll worry about Reggiano prices later.
Gordon ("Zola") Edgar 
thank you for bring a moment of ‘reality’ to this situation. Loss of life vs. shortage of your favorite cheese?
Amen, says this atheist. I had an argument on Facebook about this very thing. A “friend” was asking why there hadn’t been more discussion about the pending rise in price of Parm-Regg, and she called me out by name. My response was pretty much what you wrote in your post up there. She was offended by my response — defensive, really — but I meant no judgement, just a reality check. First-world concerns… Plus, there’s always Grana Padano, which is one of the world’s underrated cheeses…
Yeah, I had a facebook argument about it as well. It surprizes me actually. Of course it is our job to worry about prices. But showing respect to the dead and suffering publicly supercedes business concerns, for a bit of time at least. I felt like I was just trying to help the cheese community not look like insensitive jerks but people are, of course, free to go ahead and look like jerks if they choose. Most people in our world, it should be noted, did not need a reminder.
This person wasn’t a member of the cheese community, not that that automatically makes her any better or worse. I’m not going to look for reasons to pat ourselves on the back, but it often seems like our cheese colleagues, with few exceptions, have their priorities straight. And those that don’t almost have flashing neon signs announcing their crappy behavior. “LOOK! I’M A JERK!”