‘March Madness’
Don Coldsmith, Syndicated Columnist
Monday, March 9, 2009
MARCH IS HERE again, a sort of mixed blessing. It’s a month of contradictions. A promise of spring, but likely to turn on us in a last vicious blast to remind us not to get too confident. Mother Nature seems to explain to us that she’s still in charge.
Julius Caesar was warned about the Ides of March by an oracle or fortune teller. He was the victim of a political assassination on March 15, which is apparently the meaning of “Ides.” At least, he escaped half of March that year.
March is characterized by extremes. Those who make their living outdoors are hindered considerably by weather. What needs to be done and sometimes MUST be done, is often prevented by the unexpected. Snow, ice, rain, sand, wind — working fields and planting can’t be done because the ground is frozen — then a warm day or two and the same jobs are prevented by mud.
Of course, there’s a “March Madness” on television and we could stay inside and watch that. Basketball is almost as exciting as watching mud dry. But why not give each team 100 points, let ’em play three minutes and be done with it? (Just kidding my friends who are athletic supporters a bit, here. I know that would upset the entire economy).
March is enough to drive us a little crazy, though.
Anybody else think that the weather has become sort of weird in the past year or two? The weather patterns are shifting and changing and the weather oracles are constantly revising the forecasts. Actually, meteorologists do an outstanding job. Their equipment and communications are improving rapidly. It’s their interpretations which vary a little, sometimes. So, they don’t always agree, but they come closer to accuracy all the time. Fifty years ago it was pretty much of a guess and we just accepted what we got. But I’m sure March does drive weather men/women mad. Is it better communication, or really a climatic change?
But because we’re people, we have opinions and don’t agree on things. Not just weather people, but experts in other fields. Economic, for instance. No two of these experts seem to agree on anything. Raise taxes, lower interest rates, vice versa, do both, do neither — there’s a saying that if you have two economists in a room, there will be a minimum of three opinions on the economy. Has it occurred to anyone that if such experts were really experts, they wouldn’t have to make a living arguing about which way to do it? They’d quietly make their own fortunes, unnoticed by the experts with all the theories. (Another thought: Maybe, that IS going on, unnoticed. Hmm — ).
Our culture does things in some odd ways. Scientific medical decisions are now made by people with degrees in business, accounting and law. Or, take almost any profession: Teachers know how to teach, but are prevented from doing so by being forbidden to discipline. Even a parent who physically corrects his or her own child in a public place is quite likely to be busted for child abuse.
Or, jury selection — the accused deserves a “jury of his peers,” I read somewhere. “Peers” means equals, doesn’t it? Then why is jury selection based on first eliminating all prospective jurors who have any such connection at all, or could possibly contribute any knowledge or expertise to the subject at hand?
Why is an architect’s pay basically linked to cost, rather than economy? His fee will be higher for a more expensive structure, of course. The builder, on the other hand, bids on the basis of how cheaply he can put it together. Isn’t this backwards, somehow? In a way, both have a conflict of interest as a built-in part of their jobs.
Maybe that’s true in all jobs. It would all be easier if we didn’t have so many people in other jobs telling everyone else how to do theirs. Including me, of course. But it’s March, and we’re all a little crazy.
See you down the road.
Author and columnist Don Coldsmith lives in Emporia.