March Madness

The Toyotas are running amuck and the Greeks, who gave democracy to the world, are watching their economy collapse. Ominous signs are everywhere: it's the hungry and bitter who touch off panic and rioting in the streets, and if a bold gesture of confidence is not made soon the world will race off like a Prius with a stuck accelerator and a full charge. Eighty years ago the defeated hauled wheelbarrow loads of disgraced currency to the marketplace to barter for a loaf of bread, a madman saw this and blamed the Jews, and soon the whole world was in flames.

It's different now, we say. There are controls in place. Still the madmen lurk with their cries for purity and revenge. Cleanse the world of infidels and we'll have a thousand years of peace. The promise is always hollow, for the poor and hungry will swallow a lie and call it hope. The world races on and the false pundits find someone new to blame. Be afraid for a world where reason gives to panic and then panaceas, where sharp-tongued men in crisp shirts feed eager crowds a diet of catchphrases and quick-witted lies.

In America this week the offices and shops will be abuzz with new energy. The copy machine will be whirling and flashing like a nickel slot machine in the frenzy of an Elks convention. Energetic clusters will gather around desks, and the air will be filled with bracketology and inevitability of a bracket buster in the five-twelve seed. "I had it," comes a smug voice from accounting, the guy who smirks behind his coffee cup and always seems to have the answer to 29 down. It will be a week of sneaking into the breakroom and lost productivity, of buzzer beaters and Cinderellas gone home. I don't care for the March Madness. The best players leave early for the league and the story lines are too short. It's too prepackaged. The enthusiasm is all for TV, the basketball head masks and painted faces, the index fingers thrust into the air. The images are stale. I don't have a bracket in the office pool, and couldn't tell Duke from Dusquesne.

I won't watch a minute of this but millions will, and it's amazing to me we can get so excited about this while the world is shaken off its axis, and the founders of democracy lose theirs. Erin Andrews makes her living on sex appeal and tight skirts, but the idea of someone watching her leaves her tearfully outraged. The tears, I suspect, are for loss of control of her brand. The world is hurtling along like a Prius doing 90 miles an hour uphill with the brakes on, and the official story is that it's all a hoax.