Risk Headlines on Opening Day

Now that baseball's back in full swing, we can focus our attention on topics that make for the good water cooler banter. Let's see, we can start by discussing baseball's big steroid bust in the majors as well as the minors, who might win the American League East, whether Mark McGuire should be elected to the Hall of Fame, or Jose Canseco's next career move. Ah, nothing like the great American pastime to create a diversion from the events that can really creep up on us, without our noticing anything.

I mention this only because today, April 5, 2005, after getting my first good baseball fix since last year's fall classic, I happened to stumble upon the following headlines - all in the span of about five minutes:

• Manitoba braces for a new flood season
• US holds massive terror exercise
• 9/11 report calls for new ideas on tower safety
• At least 2,500 were killed in Indonesia quake
• U.S. launches avian flu vaccine trial
• N Korean bird flu 'different'

That's six big risk-related headlines all in one day - when it comes to adjusting corporate strategy to address areas such as business continuity and emergency management, now sounds like as good a time as any to 'play ball'.