Now that the North Koreans have given up their nukes and hurricane victims are finally out of the Gulf Coast, it’s time to talk about what’s really important.

What happened to Tom and Katie?

Just as Tom Cruise’s top-of-fold canoodling with his surprised other half was the main topic at cyber water-coolers, the couple disappeared. It can’t possibly be because both of their summer movies are already on Pay-per-View and firmly away from box office number-watchers, can it? There’s got to be an explanation for why they are no longer talking to the media about a fiery love every blasted day. I demand an investigation.

Hurricane Katrina was a news story of unbelievable proportions and it wiped away all news of our favorite couple. Is it possible something terrible has happened to them? Should we be concerned?

What about Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards? All summer long they were at each others’ throats, threatening a loud, media-centric divorce. Yet during the very week both of their TV shows premiered, they somehow worked out the hoopla that kept them so publicly apart during those television critic’s weeks when everyone vies for a place in the keyboards of powerful reporters. Did Sheen and his bride learn about how powerful love is while watching the South’s catastrophic events? We enquire—and we want to know!

Let’s feel bad for poor Renee and Kenny, the one couple who made so much noise it nearly drove Katrina from the front page. They were married a few months ago just as her movie, Cinderella Man, came on the scene; the duo fell apart as soon as it was obvious CM was a box office stinker. In hype, Hollywood style, the general rule of thumb is that a celebrity marriage lasts as long as it takes a movie to get to DVD. Like “buy on rumor; sell on the news” it’s “marry on theatrical release; divorce for the DVD.”

Renee broke up with her country-singer husband by annulling it—this rarely happens and so the news was aflutter. Her “friends” told an eager press that Kenny was a horrible, controlling husband, a good spin for a lyricist who is hot-headed and Chevy-driven.

But soon there was more. Kenny Boy has stopped touring, so many of the now-bored country Web sites said the marriage collapsed because, horrors, he’s gay! Our Renee, who’s no press fool, jumped in and explained (after at first demurring) that it’s because she was so darn “surprised” to discover that he abhorred kids. Yeah. That explains it.

Meanwhile, a storm destroyed an entire region and almost no one reported how married TV actor Matt LeBlanc was sweet enough to phone in that he got caught with a stripper at a nightclub in (hold your breath) Las Vegas. How could this not be top-of-mind? A man with a failing sit-com about a lady’s man apologizing profusely about how he almost touched another woman! We should be paying heed. Remember this, uh, happened a few weeks before his series—it’s called Joey and airs on NBC Thursdays at 8…—is given a reprieve to keep LeBlanc gainfully known.

Hurricane Katrina was horrible in every way. Yet I wonder if after those first weekends its word of mouth has dropped. Is it still in our consciousness like before? Is it keeping butts in seats? And, hasn’t it kept us away from what we really need to know?

I noticed how the Emmys made it to the front page with some absolutely tremendous news about “Raymond”—there’s a spin-off in the works! And the hold-your-breath TV season is underway. Kate Moss has been dropped by Chanel and H&M for her coke habit, but her wedding is still underway!

We’re getting our priorities back in line. But first, what happened to Nick & Jessica? I heard they were fighting again.

RLM’s CEO Laermer is author of the media guide Full Frontal PR from Bloomberg Press. He hopes Renee is okay.