Thoughts for the Day, December 2, 2024: Justice is no longer blind.

You cannot make this up.

Our current president pardons his son, who is a convicted felon. Our future president is a convicted felon on 32 counts. FUBAR.

Justice used to be blind, it is not anymore.

You cannot outrun your fork

Last Wednesday, while sitting in the parking lot waiting to visit my cardiologist, Dr. Kim Eagle, I encountered an article from the Washington Post about exercise and weight loss. Here are the first four paragraphs from the article.

When Herman Pontzer began studying the metabolisms of the Hadza, a tribe of modern hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, for a 2012 study, he assumed they’d be incinerating calories like a furnace. They were in almost constant motion — walking, jogging, tugging and lifting all day long.

But when he and his colleagues compared the Hadza’s typical daily energy expenditure, controlled for body size, with that of your average couch potato office worker back in the United States, the totals were nearly identical.“That was unexpected,” said Pontzer, now an evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University and author of the 2021 book “Burn,” about the science of metabolism.

The findings were so surprising that he wound up developing a new theory for how we use calories — called the “constrained total energy expenditure model.” It suggests that our bodies and brains can rejigger how many calories we burn — recalibrating within a narrow range — by slowing or shutting down some biological operations if we’re especially active, keeping our total calorie burn at the same level.

“We’ve done studies where we look at people who are really active,” including runners racing across America, Pontzer said, “and people who are really sedentary, and actually they’re burning the same number of calories,” which helps explain why people rarely lose much weight with exercise, even as the exercise makes them healthier.

After I finished reading the article I emailed it to Dr. Eagle and then went into my visit, which went great.

When I got back to my daughter Katy’s house, I checked my email, and I had this response from Dr. Eagle after reading the article. “You cannot outrun your fork”, which is something he has been telling me for years. As much as I don’t want to believe it, it is true.

Flag planting

The last Saturday in November has been called “Rivalry Day” because it is the day when most teams are matched up with their biggest rivals. The games are played with a little more emotion and a lot more intensity. The testosterone and adrenaline are off the charts. For many teams, a win can make their season, and a loss can break their season, regardless of how the rest of the season has gone. When the game is over the emotion is hard to shut off, which leads to some ugly situations as we saw on Saturday.

In addition to the Michigan/Ohio State game, three other games ended with ugly scenes on the field as the victorious visiting team tried to make claim for their new territory by planting a flag in the home team’s midfield emblem.

This is not a new occurrence, but it should be the last time we ever see such a thing. It has no place in sports. It is time for the conferences, the A.D.s, the coaches, the team captains and the universities to end this practice and any similar practice. U of M and OSU have been fined $100,000 each for the players’ action following the game. I am not sure this will be enough of a deterrent. Players need to be held accountable. Coaches need to be held accountable.

It leads to my Question of the Day. Since college football players are getting paid, why don’t they act like professionals?

Youth and Growing Pains

Jahmyr Gibbs and Jamison Williams are extremely talented football players for the Detroit Lions, but they keep reminding their coaches that they are still young and do things that must have their coaches scratching their heads. Their actions in the last week are perfect examples.

Jahmyr Gibbs inadvertently posted the code words to more than a dozen of the Detroit Lions' drop-back protections on social media last week, but Lions coach Dan Campbell said he's not worried about any advantage that gives future opponents.

“I don't really give a crap," Campbell said Monday in his weekly radio interview on WXYT-FM (97.1). "If we’re going to lose because of code words then we’re not good enough anyway. So, I think we’ll just post the whole fricking playbook out there and every code word we’ve got. And it doesn’t matter. It’s not going to hurt us; it won’t affect us and it’s all good."

And then there is Williams. In the fourth quarter of the Lions/Bears game on Thanksgiving, Willams was tackled as he was going out of bounds, which resulted in him doing a somersault on the Bears’ sideline, which probably resulted in the Bears’ players using some trash talk. Williams, rather than just walking away, decides to toss the ball into the face of a Bears player right in front of the official and in view of the entire television audience. This resulted in a 15-yard penalty, which prevented the Lions from getting a first down and missing a 48-yard field goal.

After getting an earful on the sidelines from receiver coach Antwaan Randle El, Williams playing time was limited for the remainder of the game. Williams apologized to the Lions players following the game and Head Coach Dan Campbell said the problem has been addressed with the team.

Williams is a very talented football player, who can help the Lions win a Super Bowl, but he needs to grow up. After missing his first year because of injury, he has been suspended twice in the last two years for his behavior off the field. The Lions believe in Williams’ character, but that belief is getting tested too many times.

Football is a collision sport

The Lions continue to be reminded of the dangers of football on a weekly basis as injuries are taking a major toll on the team.

Detroit has 18 players currently on injured reserve, with 13 of those on the defensive side. Four of the five linebackers who were on the roster for the first game of the season are injured and unlikely to play again this season.

Fortunately, the Lions have built a team that has depth and has created an atmosphere where the next player does his job. As the 11-1 Lions enter this stretch drive, they are going to be tested like they have not been tested to date. The good news is that the offense is mostly intact, and that should scare the hell out of the rest of the league.

Michigan vs Ohio State as only Mitch Albom can describe it.

From Albom’s article on Sunday following “The Game”.

On a bracing cold afternoon when Ohio State, at 10-1 and ranked No. 2 in the nation, and Michigan, at 6-5 and ranked somewhere between “Why” and “Bother?”, the Wolverines marched into Columbus like the fiercest theater critic at the biggest box-office play.

Simply. Not. Impressed.

The Wolverines shut down an Ohio State offense that had been averaging five touchdowns a game, holding them to 10 points. Time after time, Ryan Day’s team tried to run into the mouth of the Michigan defense, and time after time, the Wolverines spit them back, squashing a top-flight rushing attack to just 77 yards and demoralizing it with every forced punt.

The only lead OSU had was 3-0 in the first quarter. Once Michigan turned a terrific interception by Aamir Hall into a short-field touchdown drive with 12:37 left in the half, it never trailed again.

Never trailed again? THIS Michigan team? Against THIS Ohio State team?

That’s about what they’re saying in Columbus right now.

Maybe with a few more $%#@# expletives.

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Quote of the Day: “That's who we are, so we don't really need to talk about it. That's how we're built. We don't talk about toughness. We don't talk about that. How we're built in the weight room, what we do on the field, physicality, how we practice, that's just who Michigan is. We don't really need to talk about it.” U of M head coach, Sherrone Moore.

Orchid of the Day: Sherrone Moore, U of M head coach. He did a masterful job of keeping the game close and playing to U of M’s strengths.

Onion of the Day: Ryan Day, OSU’s head coach. Not for what happened during the game, but for just standing there and not going into the scrum after the game to get his players under control. He can be seen asking one of his players, what happened? It was a very bad look, especially considering that Moore was right in the middle of it trying to get the Michigan players under control.

Question of the Day: If college football players can be paid to play, why can’t they act like pros after the game?

Video of the Day:

Michigan Wolverines vs. No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes Highlights | FOX College Football