Tigers injured safety Zac Etheridge visits teammates | Ledger-Inquirer.com
I remember when Zac laid there on the field, temporarily paralyzed as a result of his head and neck being accidentally rattled hard by Antonio Coleman and Rodney Scott.  I was scared.  I was truly scared that I had seen something horrible.  I was afraid for Etheridge's well being and future.  Seeing these pictures and this article on his long, yet optimistic road to recovery has assuaged whatever worries I had.  Honestly, this should brighten up your Wednesday morning a little bit.  Godspeed, Zac.  It's not often that a guy can tear ligaments in his neck and crack a vertebra and handle it as well as you seem to be.

SEC preview I CBSSports.com
HEY LOOK OVER HERE!  Pay no regards to that flaming helicopter tailspinning down into a canyon of magma.  I've got something which will cheer you up or, at least, distract you: basketball!  These next few links are basketball previews and prognostications from various media outlets.  Now, if you'll go back to my self-pitying diatribe from yesterday, you'll know not to put too much stock in whatever it is the media says will happen, but that doesn't make their thoughts uninteresting.  CBS' Gary Parrish, a fan of loosely fastened collars and mousse, says we'll finish 2nd in the West and make our first trip to the big dance since 2002.  Oh, and this link has a video. 

SEC preview: Experience, talent to highlight league | FOX Sports
FOX, the great conservative evil-hate juggernaut, has said that,

Ole Miss needs to stay healthy. Guards Chris Warren, Eniel Polynice and Trevor Gaskinsall were out for either the entire season or the majority of it. With the trio healthy, the Rebels could win the SEC West.

I agree.  I also get the feeling that the guy who wrote this is assuming that Mississippi State's superstar recruit Renardo (RETARDO lmao!) Sidney won't be cleared, as he has the Rebels atop the West. 

The country's top backcourts in 2009-10 | FOX Sports
The Rebels come in at #12, only behind Kentucky in the SEC.  The author mentions John Wall, a Wildcat freshman who was one of the nation's top high school point guards a year ago, as reasoning behind this ranking.  While Kentucky could certainly have one of the nation's best set of guards by the end of the season, the Rebels can certainly boast the conference's best in terms of actual collegiate experience and success.

Students Need Chant to let South Rise | Some Moron from Hattiesburg
I confessed to a good FotC last night with regards to an addiction I have: I cannot avoid confronting and calling out idiots.  I know we've all advocated the idea of letting this issue die on The Cup, but then one of the dumbest letters to the editor of the Hattiesburg American ever publishedin the last few weeks pops up and restirs my pot.  Look at this:

In this time when our state should be seeking every means to improve our image and economic level, it is asinine that a university administration seeks to ban use of chants or cheers to rally our future leaders around the positive values in our state.

Yeah, nothing stimulates a state's economy like chanting "The South Will Rise Again" at the end of a fucking song during a fucking football game.  Every time I hear those students chant, I can just smell the greenbacks flowing into the state's budget.  And, to a significant majority of people (I'm talking all over here), the term hardly beckons images of the "positive values in our state," nor is that really the motive of the chanters.  And then, there's this: 

 [W]hy not hire administrators who are more interested in our state's future...encouraging the desire to improve our state.

No wonder Mississippi is the lowest state in economic opportunities!

I'll never get this.  This guy truly believes that the Ole Miss administration's discouraging of a slew of stupid students from screaming a chant used by the Ku Klux Klan is detrimental to the economy of the state of Mississippi.  I bet this guy reads his horoscope every morning on the way to his acupuncturist.

Take a dozen people who are adamently for the chanting of TSWRA.  Put them in a room.  Watch their interactions and record their conversations for, say, thirty minutes.  Then do the same for people who are adamantly against the chant.  Once you've done this, compare the two and tell me which of those groups is going to do more to help the State of Mississippi.  Let's look at some folks against this chant: your faithful bloggeurs here; Dan Jones (OMG HE IS A FASCIST), the former chairman of the American Heart Association; Shepard Smith, the highest paid person in cable news; and the Associated Student Body which, ideally, is a collection of the most driven and forward thinking students on campus.  Now, the folks for the chant: a bunch of idiots on facebook and some white supremacists. 

Okay, I'm moving on before I give myself a damn aneurism. 

University Merger Talks | The Clarion Ledger
With the budget crisis Mississippi has seemingly been going through for as long as I can remember somehow getting worse over the last couple of years, talks of merging The Valley with Delta State and The W with Mississippi State are becoming more widely accepted.  I doubt it happens because the consolidation of a few useless schools with a few more-useful schools in order to create an overall efficient academic system would make sense, and Mississippi government doesn't allow sense-making.  It's in the state Constitution or something.  Oh, and being how this is a Clarion Ledger article, the comment threats are a regular treasure trove of bizarre hyperbole, misspellings, subtle racism, bizarre uses of syntax, and logical fallacies.