| 22 March 2006 Brackets There is a basketball festival going on. You must have heard about it somewhere along the line, even if you are not a fan. Everyone across the land filled out the ladder chart of the brackets, hoping for a big payoff in the office pool. The NCAA tournament is scheduled at just the right time to keep our minds off the troubling month of March, in which the winds roar, and the snow just will not quite go away. The field of teams was cut by two thirds over the weekend, and I was drawn to the television and then stuck to it, like an insect on a pest strip. The games came in a kaleidoscope; every time there was a break in one game the cameras shifted to another arena, other colors on the baggy jerseys and the elongated young men. By the time this frenzy is over, and I think it will be over soon, the worst blasts of March will be gone and we can greet spring with the Masters golf tournament. The frantic motion of indoor round-ball will be replaced by gentlemen outdoors in short-sleeves among the magnolias, and the guilty feeling of gaining video access to the fulsome private course at Augusta National. My son does not care about how the NCAA's March madness turns out. All our teams, even our traditional hated rivals, have been vanquished and sent home to await the Masters. But I bet he will get sucked in at the last, as 16 teams yield eight winners, and then the Final Four and finally the Championship game. It happens to me every year, and I always start out distracted and confused. But it is good to have something to divert attention from the crisis de jour. Things came to a head as the winter season deepened and darkness filled the land. Between the war, and the terrorists, and NSA and the Iranians I was becoming overwhelmed. How could I do justice to worrying about the energy crisis if I was concerned about the Bird Flu? How could I parse out some time for angst about the cyclonic track from West Africa, and the impact of the lashing storms on the Gulf States? The climate change could be irreversable soon. What about the incompetence in the government, in the FBI and FEMA and even the agencies we have never heard of? What the hell is going to happen when we all retire at once and our children laugh at us when we insist on our benefits? I have a conference call in the morning with my associate out West, to plot the agenda of the day and ensure our efforts are coordinated. It is an early call, but it makes sense for business. I figure what is good for business must be good for our personal mental health as well. We resolved in a morning call last year that we would establish just one thing to worry about each day, establish it as the Main Enemy, and concentrate on it really hard. Contemplate with vigor, gnaw at the problem, until all the aspects have been explored and made us bored. It is a challenge, I will give you that, but they expect us to care about over fifty basketball teams at once, and select the winner from the field before the first game has even been played. To bring order to the process, and to eliminate inefficiency, we established crisis brackets, with regional playoffs. The energy sector is a favorite, since it is so monumentally stupid. The petroleum industry is always popping up since there is so much greed soaked in the black crude. I am always tempted to start worrying about the ring of oil executives who run the land. Thankfully, my friend keeps me focused. “$200 dollars a barrel,” she said decisively. “But don't concentrate on the Wyoming Cartel and the energy Realists. They are dinosaurs and will join the ones far underground soon enough. Worry about capitalizing alternate fuels, pebble reactors, and birdstrikes at the windfarms.” “That is just going to get me going on the migratory wildfowl and the bird flu,” I said. “And the fact that our response has to be coordinated between Health and Human Services, Agriculture and the Interior Department. The interagency process is dysfunctional. And Interior is headed by Gale Norton, and she is a lame duck!” I could hear my voice rising. She apparently looked at her brackets, since there was silence on the speaker phone. “There is no point in worrying about that. It will waste energy. According to my notes, Secretaries Johanns, Norton, and Leavitt had a joint press conference on Monday. They said the highly pathogenic virus will arrive in the US this year, but it will take six months to get a vaccine.” “So you are saying not to worry about it until the Fall?” “That is what the smart money says. Unless you have a little tickle in the back of your throat. Incubation is around twenty-four hours, so we can talk about it tomorrow if we need to.” “The Iranians?” I asked. “Years away from a reliable weapon. Don't waste the emotional capital.” “The Kids?” I asked tentatively. “Always ungrateful. They won't figure that out until it is too late and they have kids of your own. Fact of life. Not worth the energy.” “Energy?” “Yep. You got it. And the Vice President, if you want.” Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra |