Darkness

It's not a perfect summary of the day, but... (Jeff Hanisch, USA TODAY Sports)

Nothing is good anymore.  Even the slightly good things feel like they come at a cost.  Sean McKeon scored a touchdown to get Michigan on the board and cut the lead to...well, slightly less and he came away hurt after trying to avoid destroying someone on the sidelines.  That score came after Dylan McCaffery took two hits to the head, earning a pair of targeting penalties, one for each of Wisconsin's starting safeties and was later reported to be suffering from a concussion.

I really don't have anything to add.  It was awful to watch.  It was confusing to watch.  It was frustrating to watch.  And I don't see how it gets better, at least in the short term.  But for the first time, in a long time, I also don't know if it gets better in the long-term.  I know Michigan is never going to be Michigan again, the world has changed too much, the inherent advantages that Michigan once had are gone, and all that is left is a trophy case full of what once was and likely shall never be again.  But I don't want to accept this.  I feel like this isn't the way things should be and the denial of it shall stave off the encroaching despair as if positive thinking alone can make things better.

I'm not declaring myself done, I'm not writing off the season, I'm just over the line of thinking that Michigan will ever be the Michigan of the past once again because it won't.  We had our literal best shot at making that happen and it didn't happen.  There's no logical way forward that gets Michigan back there and at some point, the past is too far gone to recapture it again.  The new world is a harsh and unforgiving place and it cares not what has been before.

So cool, let's celebrate the sesquicentennial of College Football with the two oldest programs in FBS with a meaningless Big Ten noon game next week.  Maybe Michigan won't fumble on their opening possession this time.  That would be something.

Have You Seen Me Lately?

Like a Renaissance painting, one of the ones of horrible things. (Junfu Han / Detroit Free Press)

"Get away from me
This isn't gonna be easy
But I don't need you
Believe me
You got a piece of me
But it's just a little piece of me
And I don't need anyone
And these days I feel like I'm fading away
Like sometimes when I hear myself on the radio

Have you seen me lately?"

"Have You Seen Me Lately" by Counting Crows from the 1996 album Recovering the Satellites 

I wish I knew how to explain it, but then again, maybe I don't.  The price of knowledge is knowing, and I suspect that when confronted with the actual answer to how this happened, it would not make me any happier, any less confused, any more accepting of what actually happened on this day.  I can get mad at myself for once again allowing hope to creep into my soul, despite knowing well what has happened over the last two decades in this rivalry, but hope dies last.  Hope makes stupid choices because, without it, there wouldn't have been any reason to watch those seasons that are not so long ago.

I have seen suggested that Michigan is unable to get over the hump because the fanbase does not demand more of the players and coaches.  I've been trying to process that for hours.  I don't quite understand how Michigan fans failing to demand more of the players and coaches could lead to this series of results?  Would it be that we have failed to overlook systemic wrongdoing by members of our coaching staff just because they win games?  Would that be demanding more of our coaches?  Because I mean, I could see where one might think that could work.

That's really what bothers me.  As an adult, you can know just how truly unjust the world is, you need only be vaguely conscious to understand that life is not fair, that the good guys usually don't win, and that wrongdoing is rarely punished on a scale appropriate to the crime.  So if sports serve as a microcosm of life, it would only make sense that the same things would happen in the sporting world.  So it made it exceptionally difficult to hear the redemption narrative that Gus Johnson was trying very hard to peddle about Urban Meyer and Ohio State this season, that Meyer's health issues allowed those who wanted to do so to wrap them around the larger issues of Smith's systemic failure as a manager of personnel and present a veneer of "You have to applaud what the Buckeyes have overcome this year."  It was an insult to the spate of injuries Michigan suffered in the second half.

More than anything, it would have been wonderful to change all of the narratives, to make the declining empire notions tossed about seem laughable, but today was not only not that, it was just depressing as all hell.  I know damn well I should not care about this as much as I do, but I also know that this thing is a thread that has provided so many connections and moments of for me and for my family and friends.  It shouldn't matter and yet it does, and it brings me back to where we started today, I wish I knew how to explain it, but then again, maybe I don't.

See you in January.

So Your Program is Doomed?

DOOOOOOOOOOOOMED.

So your [CHOOSE ONE: once-proud / erratically successful / perennial also-ran / perpetual tire fire / Eastern Michigan] football program is struggling this year?

• Yes.  Oh sweet jebus, yes.
• Nope. Not sure why I'm taking this fake survey.

What do you propose to do about it? (CHOOSE ONE)

• Do nothing. ROLL TIDE.
• Do nothing. Mediocrity is an impossible dream.
• Insist "They just need more time!"
• MAKE 'EM RUN STEPS
• Fire a coordinator
• Fire the coach
• Fire the AD
• FIRE EVERYONE
• BURN IT TO THE GROUND AND SALT THE EARTH.

Do you have any coaching candidates in mind? (CHOOSE ONE)

• HAIL SABAN.
• An absurdly over-qualified alumnus who won't bother answering your phone calls
• Pipe-dream hotshot coach who'd be insane to leave behind his current success / low expectations
• Genius coordinator who's never been a head coach
• Up-and-coming mid-major / FCS coach with no big-time experience
• NFL retread
• NFL coordinator with no college experience in the past decade
• NFL position coach
• NFL position coach who flamed out as a college head coach (and may have slapped himself)
• Your current OC/DC on an interim basis
• Some guy who had one good MAC season
• Charlie Weiss

On a scale of Rodriguez at Michigan to Saban at Alabama, how good of a cultural fit is your dream candidate? (CHOOSE ONE)

• Rich Rodriguez / Michigan (2008)
• Charlie Weiss / Kansas (2012)
• Randy Edsall / Maryland (2011)
• Al Golden / Miami (2011)
• Brian Kelly / Notre Dame (2010)
• Brady Hoke / Michigan (2011)
• Chip Kelly / Oregon (2009)
• Nick Saban / Alabama (2007)

What is making you so angry? (Check all that apply)

• Lost to a rival
• Lost to most-hated rival
• Lost to a perpetual tomato-can
• Can't recruit
• Team is hemorrhaging players
• Fans treated like walking checkbook
• Insolvent athletic department
• NCAA violations
• Players put in danger
• Felonies
• Covering up felonies
• Oversigning
• PEOPLE KEEP TALKIN' BOUT THIS OVERSIGNIN', PAAAAAAWWWLLLL, BUT THEY JUS' JEALOUS!

Would you still be this angry if your team was winning? (CHOOSE ONE)

• No, obviously not, because *something* would be going better.
• No, because winning is the only thing that matters
• No, because my team is perfectly OK except they're terrible.
• Yes, because I am lying.
• Yes, because I don't like football.
• Yes, because I am an incendiary rage-bot. SOMETHING is going to set me off.

What kind of doomed is your program?

• EMU: As DOOMED as DOOMED can be. 
• Toledo: Once in a while we can win the MAC and get our coach a better job.
• Purdue: The Cure as a football team.  
• Indiana: Our greatest teams have the ability to beat almost anyone on any down, so they most often beat themselves. Otherwise a conference doormat. 
• Illinois: Once in a generation Rose Bowl, but usually Zooked. 
• Iowa: Real success every four years; otherwise losing to Iowa State. 
• Pitt: Crushing mediocrity with no hope is the norm forever, despite national championships not that long ago.
• Clemson: Perennial success, but never on a national title scale. See: Wisconsin.
• Notre Dame: We're living in the past, so the present is disappointing even when we're good.
• Texas: We have every advantage possible and are somehow terrible and in the middle of a gut-wrenching transition. See: Florida, Michigan (Michigan bonus: In our darkest hour, we hope to be Notre Dame.)
• Ohio State: Not quite a national title contender this year, but always a threat to win our league. See: Oklahoma
• Michigan State: Suddenly we're the pre-eminent program in our state for the first time in 50 years. Not anyone's default pick for a national championship team, but we have legitimate hope. See: Texas A&M, Stanford.
• Oregon: We don't really have a history, but we don't care because GOT MONEY and are successful now. We watched the first half of a video on the Miami Hurricanes, so we know this never changes!
• Alabama: Whether or not you choose to recognize it, we won every national championship since 1892. ROLL TIDE.

REPOST: Here's my cat, still napping in the baby bouncer

DEJA VU BONUS: This video features my stepnephew:

HOCKEYBEAR thought real friends would have stayed

1/11/2013 – Alaska 5, Michigan 4 – 7-8-4, 5-7-3-1 CCHA
1/12/2013 – Alaska 4, Michigan 1 – 8-8-4, 6-7-3-1 CCHA
1/13/2013 – Michigan 53, Ohio State 56 – 16-1, 3-1 Big Ten

Photo by Paul McCarthy via alaskananooks.com

YOU CAN'T GO ON. YOU'LL GO ON.

Yost Arena getting pretty empty. Fans making there way to the exits as the 'Nooks lead 4-1.
— Nanooks Hockey Blog (@NanookHockey) January 13, 2013

Primeval forces of destruction like me do not usually have Twitter accounts. HOCKEYBEAR remembers many æons ago in Internet time, when there was something of a fad among commenter trolls that they weren't really "trolling," they were engaging in a "sociological experiment." Of course, I scoff at this notion — these so-called experimenters did not collect the required informed consent forms, did not follow the principles set forth in the Declaration of Helsinki, and did not publish their results in any peer-reviewed publications. However, the term came to mind as HOCKEYBEAR watched the Michigan fanbase melt down this weekend, and it wasn't the good kind of meltdown that destroys evil planets.

HOCKEYBEAR finds foot-ball and basket-hockey to be inferior to ice hockey, but I support Michigan in their endeavors in those sporting competitions because the human I force to write tweets for me supports Michigan in those sports. My human found it most strange that I required him to root for my Nanooks and against the Wolverines this past weekend. However, small humans of Michigan, he recommends you try it sometime. Pick a team that's not a huge rival that you're somewhat partial towards — for some of the posters on this most excellent blog, this team could be EMU, or Oklahoma, or Missouri — and don't just wish them well when they're not playing your Wolverines. Root for them to beat your team and see what it's like to be an outsider looking at how Michigan fans behave. HOCKEYBEAR was sometimes impressed, but sometimes I was also very, very ENRAGED.

Michigan fans expect a lot from their teams and are right to be disappointed by this weekend's hockey and basket-ball defeats. Michigan fans are lucky to have some of the most educated and well-reasoned blogs and forums of the Internet, and I am IMPRESSED at how well you self-police against the infinity of human stupidity. Even HOCKEYBEAR has problems policing that. It is good to have high expectations and demand that athletes that represent your school be the leaders and best. HOCKEYBEAR expects this of the Nanooks; HOCKEYBEAR expects it of every school, really.

I am going to quote what I wrote in my hockey series preview on Yost Built: "I am INFURIATED that the Michigan 'faithful' are so willing to abandon their team during a down season, by which they mean a season where the Wolverines might not make the tournament that my 'nooks have made ONCE."

It is one thing to be disappointed when your team doesn't meet expectations. It is another thing to abandon them and disrespect them and write things like "What a shame it would be to waste time on these [delete] [revise] [delete again] fellows when the basketball team is such a joy." This is especially true when your team is not a professional team. Support your team through thick and thin. You are lucky that most of your times are good times. You are disappointed because your foot-ball team went 8-5. You are frustrated that your hockey team might not make the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1990. You are upset because your basket-ball team lost for the first team all season. (How quickly you forget that it wasn't that long ago that you were very happy that your basket-ball team won the NIT.)

Last Stands

This post has everything to do with college football and nothing to do with college football all at the same time.

My grandfather is buried at Fort Custer National Cemetery near Augusta, Michigan.  He served as a medic during World War II and is interred there in honor of his military service.  Fort Custer National Cemetery is a part of the Fort Custer National Military Reservation, which was used during World War I as a mobilization facility and as a camp for German POWs during World War II.

"Sighting the Enemy" is an equestrian monument of George Armstrong Custer in his boyhood hometown of Monroe, Michigan, honoring his service for the Union Army during the United States Civil War.  Standing in the heart of downtown Monroe, it is 14 feet tall and was dedicated in 1910 by President Taft himself.  Monroe also has a Custer Airport and a Custer Elementary School, one of the largest in the state of Michigan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Custerstatue.jpg

There are six counties in the United States named for George Armstrong Custer, along with two villages, a city, and an unincorporated town.  The US 85th Infantry Division was nicknamed the Custer Division, named for the Fort where it initially mustered during World War I.

George Armstrong Custer rose to prominence during the Civil War for his effectiveness as a cavalry commander, rising to the rank of (brevet) major general.  He was present at Appomattox as a part of the Union delegation that received Lee's surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia.  Custer, however, is best known for leading his U.S. 7th Cavalry unit into an ill-advised attack on the Lakota and Cheyenne, ending in a slaughter at the Battle of Little Bighorn, losing 268 men and seeing another 55 wounded.

Custer's action has been both seen plainly, such as by President (and legendary General) Grant: "I regard Custer's Massacre as a sacrifice of troops, brought on by Custer himself, that was wholly unnecessary – wholly unnecessary." and romantically, most famously by the  Anheuser-Busch company's advertising campaign, showing "Custer's Last Stand" as a part of the larger narrative of the Indian Wars and the efforts to tame the frontier.

In the succeeding 135 years since Little Bighorn, Custer's legacy has been discussed, debated, revised, revised again, and still unsettled.  Some would like to see Custer's name wiped off the map, forgotten, shamed, erased from history.  Others want to honor Custer not for the end of his life, but for what he did before his completely fatal lapse in decision making,  Others see the memorials and encomiums as a chance to be reminded of the whole of a man's life and legacy, as a chance to discuss the past, to understand the circumstances, and know that decisions have consequences.

After all, just because you have sighted the enemy doesn't mean you know how to deal with it.

D.B. Does Dallas

The firestorm of rage that erupted after the Marching Band announced it would be not accompanying the football team to the Cowboys Classic has now metastasized into an inferno of anger directed at Dave Brandon over the terms of the agreement to appear in the Jerrydome. Not only does it appear that there will be sufficient revenue to pay for the MMB to make the trip to Dallas, it appears that there will not be sufficient revenue to justify sacrificing a home game to the Cowboys when a home-and-home with Alabama was a possibility.

If only there were a movie in which the protagonists needed to raise money in order to participate in the pageantry of football in Dallas, Texas that we could compare this unfortunate situation to! In fact, due to a recent Ontario Court of Appeals ruling, we can modestly propose that Deborah Benton had a pretty good idea and that making up the revenue shortfall is as simple as renting a building in Windsor. However, in Dave Brandon's athletic department, we stoop only to metaphorical prostitution, not literal.

So, as a service to the athletic department and the marching band, we suggest some options for raising additional revenue, after the jump.

One without the other

I'm confident that a donor, or many hundreds of donors, will make #MMBtoDallas happen sometime in the next few months. But even if it happens, I'll always remember Dave Brandon and the AD's decision to turn the MMB's 115-year presence at Michigan home* games into a matter of practicality rather than necessity. It never should have come to that.

Michigan vs. Army in Yankee Stadium, 1950

* whatever you want to call this, it's not a 'standard road contest.'

Wisconsin 51, Michigan 34

Sweet zombie Jesus, that's ugly. Thank goodness we can put this season to bed. This season will be remembered for home losses to the likes of Northwestern and Minnesota and showers of bricked threes. I'd also like to extend my thanks to the Big Ten Network, which eliminated so many chances for me to bear witness to this torture. Yikes. (The Game's live-blog)

WTI: Fell on Black Days

Craig:	Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to WTI: Fell On Black Days Edition.
Craig:	So first up today is our assessment of this past week's MMB show, and our look ahead to this week.
Jeremy:	Let's start where they start: Pregame.
Jeremy:	The drum major caught the goalpost toss this week, but the team apparently didn't see it.
Geoff:	That's the trouble with them being in the tunnel.
Jeremy:	As for the backbend, all I'm going to suggest is that he keep the hat on this week.
Geoff:	My mom is still worried that he's going to break his neck one of these days.
Craig:	He does look like the drum major yearling. Of course, I say this as someone who WOULD break his neck if he tried that, so here's to hoping practice makes perfect.
Jeremy:	I think they added Calyptors in the stands this week (that's the calypso version of the Victors), and the quadridirectional Let's Go Blue, which was a great touch.
Geoff:	Agreed. I like Calyptors a lot. Of course, I like the Hoover Street Rag (the Dixieland jazz version of the Victors) better, but it's a much tougher song.

Craig:	I was impressed with our mobile fanfare unit deployments this week.
Geoff:	Fanfare band actually came down my aisle for once.
Craig:	I'm getting the unique experience of six games in six different sections this year, so I am seeing what happens.
Jeremy:	The stadium tour package?
Geoff:	It's cheaper than the bowl trips from the Alumni Association.
Craig:	I have a joke there, but I like my tickets from the Alumni Association, so...
Geoff:	Halftime now? I liked the Beach Boys show a lot, and the Nix arrangements were good.
Jeremy:	I liked it. The Nix arrangements sound livelier. And the annual crowd favorite DANCE(!!!) featured the only wave of the day.
Craig:	I really liked the sound, but next time, I demand mobile theremin.
Geoff:	We did have a couple of clarinets run into each other. Oops. One of them started marking time early and got run over.
Jeremy:	If you're reading this, kids, write your moves on your music.
Jeremy:	They made the shape of a surfer on a surfboard, and even had the arms move for balance -- but the stadium cams never caught it! So that's my only complaint: Get the big screen cameras to show the full band shot when it's a recognizable shape.
Geoff:	Agreed. It's hard to tell what some shapes are unless you're on the press box 40 in Row 60.
Jeremy:	I think they made a T-bird logo too, but that may just be my Rorschach analysis.
Geoff:	As you can see, I made it to practice before the game. Boerma seems to run a tight ship there.
Craig:	Great photos on that Geoff. I must say that, even as someone who rocks the shorts whenever possible, the band could not look goofier at practice.
Jeremy:	C'mon, black shoes and socks with hats and plumes are what the college crowd loves these days.
Geoff:	The hats are weird, granted, but everything else is standard issue for a workout. And anyone who's ever seen pregame knows what a workout that is.
Craig:	Well, on the plus side, the hats with plumes are a much better look than some of the hair styles rocked by the college kids today.
Geoff:	You just want them to get off your lawn.
Craig:	Grrr!
Craig:	[shakes fist]
Jeremy:	Saturday's halftime show is Guitar Hero.
Craig:	I demand Monkeywrench!
Jeremy:	Iron Man (longer version of stands tune), Sweet Child o' Mine, Killer Queen, and Freebird.
Craig:	Note to self: Bring lighter.
Craig:	Note to self: Have lighter confiscated.
Jeremy:	However, they're not making any references to guitar hero other than the songs. No guitars, no ovals running across the field, no synchronized bobbing to the beat.
Craig:	No Joel Zumaya cameos.
Jeremy:	My friend Bill suggested they form a guitar on the field and play decently, with occasional mistakes, then rotate the guitar shape vertically and just explode with sound. But alas.
Jeremy:	This is obviously the annual student-focused show, and it seems like they're stopping short of completely grabbing the students.
Craig:	Yeah, but you know, it's really hard to grab the students completely.
Jeremy:	They did pretty well with the Patrick Stewart, Monty Python, and Video Game shows.
Craig:	True that. So we'll see...
Craig:	Now, onto a new segment for WTI: Our roundtable question. Every so often, we'll take on a question from the realm of college football that has no consensus in conventional wisdom. And while I'd like to say this is coming from nowhere, well, we know better...
Craig:	This week's topic: Is it OK for fans to boo college athletes? Gentlemen, your thoughts. Obviously there is no right answer, and we'd love to hear from our commenters on this as well...
Jeremy:	I boo opposing teams all the time. But as for booing my own team, no, under no circumstances.
Geoff:	I won't give people grief over doing it, because I've done it on a few occasions, but I don't like it. You don't help anyone.
Craig:	I don't like it, but it does leave fans powerless to express their displeasure with things such as the coaching staff or the playcalling...It's not like people can hold up Wile E. Coyote style signs to to explain whom you are booing at.
Jeremy:	I'll certainly complain up a storm, but I'll keep it to the people around me. The players need to hear my support.
Geoff:	One condition I'd want to apply is that you don't earn the right to boo anybody if you haven't been loud when you're supporting the team.
Jeremy:	I think staying quiet and letting the opponents' cheers come through works well enough. Oregon players were feeding off our booing, trying to pump up (or tear down?) the crowd to get more.
Craig:	So you're saying that withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy.
Jeremy:	The marching band conditioning probably helped me, as they were always very strict about not booing or swearing, and staying positive.
Jeremy:	My grandfather staring at me in icy silence often changed my behavior far quicker than yelling at me would've.
Craig:	Can we call the players by their middle names?
Geoff:	Not anymore, now that the free programs are gone. Does anyone know what happened there?
Craig:	We were counterpunted?
Jeremy:	Surely they weren't driven out of business by the not-free programs.
Geoff:	Counterpunt must have been too busy defending players arrested in t3h bestest offseason EVAR.
Craig:	Ahh yes...The harbinger.
Geoff:	Our cynical tailgate partners think that the university wanted to increase sales of the big glossy programs and kicked them out.
Craig:	It's not the least likely idea I have heard.
Craig:	Well gentlemen, shall we wrap this up? This week is Notre Dame...and I'd like to get my hate on, and I am sure I will at some point Saturday....
Jeremy:	I love this week when the anger goes beyond just wanting to win because it's an actual, hated rival.
Geoff:	Yeah, but for me the opponent has become so much less important than this team finding its way again.
Craig:	Agreed on both counts.
Jeremy:	For me, this is about kicking sand in the face of another down program.
Craig:	Which would have the advantage of hopefully righting the ship?
Geoff:	Hopefully we see some spark out there. Or Mike Hart is going to explode in a fountain of rage.
Jeremy:	If they kept a mic and camera on him for the whole game, I'd buy a pay-per-view feed.
Craig:	110%. You could pay for the new basketball practice facility with that money.
Geoff:	Mike Hart doesn't put money in vending machines. He just slips through the cracks in the door.
Craig:	Mike Hart gives you the whole nine yards, but that is only after you presume he has been stopped for a loss of three.
Geoff:	Mike Hart goes through 30-40 pairs of gloves a game because he's physically incapable of letting go of the football.
Craig:	Mike Hart hates Liberty Mutual because he doesn't understand about "The Part Where You Let Go" .
Geoff:	I think I'm spending all of tomorrow thinking up more of these.
Craig:	I think we all should...
Craig:	And with that ladies and gentlemen, we call it a night. Good luck and go blue!
Jeremy:	Please. Please Go Blue.

I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me

We pulled into the Blue Lot at the stadium a little before 9:30 on Saturday morning, tailgated until 3:00, and then went in. When we were on defense, I yelled so loudly that the 9-year-old kid in front of me in the Brady jersey first covered his ears with his hands, then switched seats with his dad. Then his dad covered his own ears with his hands. When Oregon made it 25-7, I was in agony. When they made it 32-7, though, it stopped hurting. The game's importance just dropped away from me and I fell into the bitter sarcasm familiar to all Lions fans.

I came to the realization that I just can't put the same emotional investment into this team that I usually do. The Year of Infinite Pain is still fresh in my mind, and I know that I wasn't always pleasant to be around then. I don't want to know what I'd be like when faced with this season's Year of Impossible Torment if I took every loss as hard as I did then.

I'm not abandoning the team. I'm going to show up to nine games this season where I'll cheer loudly enough to distress small children, but I can't put as much of myself into this as I usually do. I still care, and care deeply, but I'd rather not be an alcoholic by December and I don't need the little black raincloud of despair following me every day. I probably won't be as vigilant in keeping up with all of my blogroll, and there's no way I'm reading the collective rending of garments in the game day open threads. Perpective is what I'll be striving for.

Of course, all of this detachment is going out the window as soon as the team shows some signs of life, only to kick me to the curb the next week.

I went up to Wazoo Records for the first time in a while on Saturday and bought The Sunset Tree, which has a line I like in it, even if applied under very different circumstances.

There will be feasting
and dancing
in Jerusalem next year.
I am gonna make it
through this year
if it kills me.

Step back off the ledge, people.

The Mountain Goats – This Year

Laundering the season through pop culture references

Fictional characters express it better.

Threat Level: Midnight.

Losing to Appalachian State: Taking my heart and dropping it in a bucket of boiling tears.

Losing to Oregon: Someone else hitting my soul in the crotch with a frozen sledgehammer.

Losing to Notre Dame (should it happen): A third guy walks in and starts punching me in the grief bone, and I'm crying, and nobody can hear me, because I'm terribly, terribly alone.

I kept thinking about this yesterday, but I'm not sure whether Michigan is Farmer Brown or Flight 430:

Gam zeh ya'avor

So, like most of you, I returned to work today, a workplace full of Spartans with verbal stings, and Wolverine fans looking for answers. In both cases, I had no real words for them. All I could think of was a story that I looked up to comfort me...

One day Solomon decided to humble Benaiah ben Yehoyada, his most trusted minister. He said to him, "Benaiah, there is a certain ring that I want you to bring to me. I wish to wear it for Sukkot which gives you six months to find it." "If it exists anywhere on earth, your majesty," replied Benaiah, "I will find it and bring it to you, but what makes the ring so special?" "It has magic powers," answered the king. "If a happy man looks at it, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy." Solomon knew that no such ring existed in the world, but he wished to give his minister a little taste of humility. Spring passed and then summer, and still Benaiah had no idea where he could find the ring.

On the night before Sukkot, he decided to take a walk in one of the poorest quarters of Jerusalem. He passed by a merchant who had begun to set out the day's wares on a shabby carpet. "Have you by any chance heard of a magic ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted wearer forget his sorrows?" asked Benaiah. He watched the grandfather take a plain gold ring from his carpet and engrave something on it. When Benaiah read the words on the ring, his face broke out in a wide smile.

That night the entire city welcomed in the holiday of Sukkot with great festivity. "Well, my friend," said Solomon, "have you found what I sent you after?" All the ministers laughed and Solomon himself smiled. To everyone's surprise, Benaiah held up a small gold ring and declared, "Here it is, your majesty!" As soon as Solomon read the inscription, the smile vanished from his face. The jeweler had written three Hebrew letters on the gold band: gimel, zayin, yud, which began the words "Gam zeh ya'avor" -- "This too shall pass."

At that moment Solomon realized that all his wisdom and fabulous wealth and tremendous power were but fleeting things, for one day he would be nothing but dust.

At a time when everyone either wants to take their shots at us, or we look at each other for answers that none of us have, however much we profess otherwise, just remember, we'll know a little more Saturday, and a little more after that. Until then we just need to remember, this, too, shall pass.

Black is white, up is down

Buried in the hysteria, the smug, self-satisfied mockery, and the hindsight-based smarm of every comment thread on every UM blog today comes this, from Calvert at Maize n' Brew:

What the events of today should have shown to everyone is that the perceived dominance of the BCS conferences is nowhere near as great as those conferences and their media spokesmen want you to believe. The gap in talent has been shrinking at an alarming rate. It was only a matter of time before a title-caliber BCS conference team felt secure enough, as Michigan did this year, to put a top non-BCS conference team on their schedule and have it bite them in the ass. Michigan, the Big Ten and the BCS conferences actually started believing their own propaganda, forgetting that dominance isn't something that is given to you...it is something you have to earn every single day. Oklahoma forgot that in January. The Wolverines forgot it today and they will be paying the price for their incompetence and arrogance for a very long time.

The Appalachian States, the New Hampshires and the Boise States of the world can no longer be treated with contempt, scorn and ridicule by programs that simply assume are their betters without being asked to prove it on the field. The Mouse has Roared...and it is far too late to call the exterminator.

"I could have conquered Europe, all of it, but I had women in my life."

Also, the drum major dropped the goalpost toss.

Beat the Buckeyes.