Good Football in Our Great State

It's been a month since I posted last and because I was posting so much on football, I wanted to do a season wrap-up now that the Spartans, Wolverines and Lions are all done playing.  My plan was to post a few links and make a few comments for each team but as I curated some reading material, it became evident that there was a lot more to be said about the Wolverines.  So just a couple links for the good guys and a bunch of links for the bad guys.  Did you think this would be unbiased?

The Lions

This season, my dad started DVR'ing the Lions games.  For me that says it all.  Before 2011 he watched exactly one half of one NFL game per year, the second and third quarters on Thanksgiving.  Just enough to make a few comments about the long-term patheticness of the team.  I saw many people join the Lion bandwagon in a big way on Facebook too... not to criticize either my FB friends or my dad.  I think it says a LOT that so many people still care, at all.

So now that the season is in the books what's next?  Some guy at ESPN says "the Lions have earned themselves big boy treatment".  Fair enough.

The Spartans

Well, it was a great season for the Spartans and their fans.  I won't go too much into it but as ESPN B1G blogger, Adam Rittenberg, points out: keeping their defensive coordinator, Pat Narduzzi, is a good indication that the program is headed where it wants to go.  Agreed.

The Wolverines

You can't argue that the Wolverines didn't have a successful year.  But as DFP columnist Michael Rosenberg points out, it was just one of those years where everything went their way. Rosenberg: For Michigan, an honorable end to lucky season

Not many people outside of Ann Arbor were too high on the Wolverines (and Hokies) selection to the Sugar Bowl.  Rittenberg says that the game diminishes the league's aspirations of being perceived as equal to the SEC.

Some dude from Fox Sports takes it a step further, calling it a fraudulent bowl game.  Another writer from CBS Sports basically says the same thing. Comparing the game to a puppy falling down the stairs.

This is the one that gets me.  All this talk of "Is Michigan Back?".  Granted, much of it is prompted by the media who think it's a great story line. And when asked if they're back, the players have little choice on how to respond... Coach Hoke finds a way to turn it on its ear a bit by saying that "Michigan never left".  But where is it that Michigan Football is back too (or never left, depending on whom you ask)?  Why not acknowledge the hard work and fortuity that lead to a surprisingly successful season and let the winning speak for itself?  It is this sense of pre-destination or responsibility or entitlement to greatness that people outside of the Michigan fold really detest.  But I guess it's also what draws many people to the program... and gets them into games like the Sugar Bowl.

Smoking is bad for you (and other tidbits)

Check out the new look of cigarette packs:

A little while back the "Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act" was passed.  The law enabled the Federal Drug Administration to more strictly regulate the cigarette industry.   The teeth of the law (among other things) require FDA approval for such modifying words as "light" and "mild", ban flavored tobacco in anything defined as a cigarette and require tobacco packaging to cover 50% of the front and rear of the pack with warnings such as the one seen above. Or this one:

*Smoking also kills puppies.

The thing about the flavoring was aimed to eliminate flavored cigarettes that would appeal to children such as root beer, grape and bubble gum.  This part of the law however also banned blended cigarettes containing ingredients such as cloves and other niche varieties of cigarettes clearly not geared towards children.  There was one flavor of cigarette however that wasn't banned.  Mint.  Yes, menthol cigarettes somehow passed muster as unflavored.  Whatever.

I find these new warnings extremely insulting.  It's no secret that the law has increasingly infringed on business' right to sell an otherwise legal product through regulation and taxation.  (I recently learned that a pack of smokes in NYC will set you back $12. Twelve bucks!)  But these new warnings clearly indicate that anything is fair game.  As a consumer and an American though I don't want to be treated like a freakin baby.  If something is legal, let me buy it and enjoy it how I want, free of guilt-trips and gross-outs.  Why can't all this effort spent on de-incentivizing cigarette use (E.G. scare tactics, exorbitant taxation, etc) be spent on incentivizing non-use?

Let me get this disclaimer out there.  I don't smoke.  It never really did anything for me.  Occasionally, I'll bum a smoke, smoke it half way and remind myself that I'm not missing anything.  The lingering odor of cigarette smoke in my parents' garage reminds me of the holidays and fresh cigarette smoke in a hot car takes me back to summer visits at my grandparents.  One of my grandmothers died of lung cancer at 75.  It's bad, for everybody.

*Although cheese steaks and combos killed this guy.