Thoughts for the Day, November 20, 2023: Thanksgiving week begins

Since this Thanksgiving week, the following is a perfect way to start the week.  

Per multiple news outlets today, Michigan senior running back Blake Corum, has used the Name Image and Likeness money he has earned to help those in need in Ypsilanti. Yesterday, he donated 600 turkeys.  Corum’s 3rd Giving Back 2 Give Thanks — the 2 represents his jersey number — was again in partnership with Washtenaw My Brother’s Keeper (WMBK), which secured sponsorship for 600 gallons of milk.

In addition, Corum announced a toy drive on Dec. 9 at Somerset Collection in Troy from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. to benefit Detroit Rescue Mission Ministry. Corum said quarterback J.J. McCarthy and other players will join him for the toy drive. If you bring a toy, you can take a photo with the players.

Among the messages Corum hopes Giving Back 2 Give Thanks provides is the belief that one person and the groups, no matter how small, can make a difference.  See my Orchid of the Day and Quote of the Day.

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 I want to share an article sent to me by a reader of this blog.  I found it to be a different way to look at things as we try to deal with the “stuff” we are faced with daily. Here are excerpts from the article.

Slack Tide by Matt Labash. The news is so bad anymore. So now what?  The hard truth of the matter is that the world has always been a bleak place for those who choose to see only its bleakness…As the criminally undervalued wise man, Garrison Keillor, recently put it: “With cable news, print, news networks, websites, millions of podcasts, we are the most communicative people on earth; it’s no wonder we’re so sick of each other.”

Because we spend so much time ingesting bad news, it’s no great mystery why so many people come to resemble it:…and come to regard our fellow humans as suspicious characters and potential agents of pain….if you’re waiting for the world to go right to be happy, you’re going to be waiting a long, long time. Because something in it is always malfunctioning…

When I’m feeling the never ending despair about the world at large, I savor enough small moments in my own small world to cancel it out….Like I did when I came home from fishing the other day…. opened my laptop, and was confronted by a photo slideshow of … Israelis and Palestinians holding and burying their dead children…Instead of feeling revulsion for what those parents are going through, and looking away, take it on the chin right there with them. Let their pain become yours. Which helps us remember that we’re human, and that people we hate (or think we do), are too…..Pain visits us all. Sometimes in dramatic fashion (bombs dropping on your house, terrorists invading your sanctuary, slaughtering your family), sometimes in undramatic fashion (wasting away from a slow-boil disease in an old folks’ home). Either way, no one here gets out alive. Which isn’t a good enough reason to hate life. But for us to love it all the more while we have it. 

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After yesterday’s snagging of a victory from the mouth of a defeat, I have now purchased my tickets for the Lion’s bandwagon.  In the closing seconds of the game as the camera panned the Bear’s sideline and focused on the face of Bear’s quarterback Justin Fields, I saw in his face, the face of former Lions’ players and fans.  A face that had disbelief written all over it.  A face that was trying to understand how his team, which had a 12-point lead with less than four minutes remaining in the game, could allow the Lions to score 17 points to turn a sure Bear victory into a Lion victory. It was a face that we have known all too often in the last 60 years. For the second week in a row, it was the faces on the opposite sidelines who showed the pain of losing a game they should have won.

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Last week, I gave Michigan’s offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore, the Onion of the Day, following his dropping two F-bombs, and a s**t, on a live national television interview with Fox Sport’s Jenny Taft following Michigan’s victory against Penn State.

Following this week’s game Moore got a “do over” with Jenny Taft following Michigan’s victory on Saturday over Maryland.  Moore started off his interview by telling Taft, that if he got another chance, he promised his mom and grandma he wouldn’t swear this time.  Taft just smiled at Moore as the interview continued.

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Quote of the Day: “This is not about me. I didn’t set this all up. It took a lot of us. This event, even though it’s called the third-annual BC2 Give Back 2 Give Thanks, so many people made this happen. It’s more about a small group in a community that wants to make a difference and we all come together and make a difference. A small group can change the bigger picture for sure, and I feel like that’s what we’re doing.” Blake Corum.

Orchid of the Day: Blake Corum, Michigan senior running back, See the above story.

Onion of the Day:  The Detroit Pistons who have now lost 10 in a row. It is a good thing the Lions and Michigan are winning to deflect the publicity from the Piston’s disappointing start of the season.

Question of the Day: Michigan enters the game against OSU as a four-point favorite.  Michigan is 5-5 against the spread this season. OSU is 6-4 against the spread this season. Who will you take?

Image/Video of the Day: I love this advertisement.  John Travolta doing what he does best.

https://youtu.be/gQJ6Xc93-wY?si=pYRmHHqEXQU4TWXv