DETROIT -- Andy Winnie had it all worked out. Thanksgiving dinner would be moved to Friday, so the family could make its annual pilgrimage to Thursday's Detroit Lions game.

Three weeks ago, Winnie punted. His heart wasn't in it. Not to watch these 0-11 Lions, not this year.

"It's just hard, with all the things going on in life, to watch the Lions be so pitiful," said Winnie, an owner of an advertising agency. "I'm a season ticket holder and I can't even give away my tickets. You need tickets to the game?"

It is hard to imagine, without the arrival of locusts, a city having a worse year. The economy is in a tailspin, the former mayor is in jail and the auto executives are a punch line because they went to Congress to plead poverty and arrived aboard separate private jets.

Retired laborer Bob Holmes said over a beer on an afternoon raw with sleet, "There isn't any upbeat to be had."

Certainly not at Ford Field, where the lowly Lions of the National Football League offer their fans scant refuge from the economic storm. More metaphor than football team, the squad has been suffering so long that even some Detroiters are saying it is time to let the Thanksgiving day game be played somewhere else.

Once, the sentiment would have been sacrilege. What sports-minded citizen doesn't remember being a kid and knowing the Lions were playing the Packers, the Bears, the Vikings, while the turkey was in the oven? Whatever the outcome, it felt like a contest.

"To be honest with you, they deserve to get pulled" from playing on Thanksgiving, said Ford dealer Buzzy Holzer, who once sold cars to players on the team and used to pay $10,000 a year for four season tickets on the club level. "This year, I boycotted the Lions and I'm so glad. I've got tickets for Thursday's game and I'm debating whether to go."

His calculations are not helped by the fact that the Lions' guest is the Tennessee Titans, who enter the game with a 10-1 record, tops in the American Football Conference.

The way some people talk about football and the economy in the same breath, it can be hard to know which one they're referring to.

Is it the team that has lost 18 of its last 19 games and has won just one playoff game since 1957? Or is it the city that is hemorrhaging jobs and hope as its manufacturing core splinters?

"It's like there's a black cloud over their heads. Whatever they say, it doesn't seem to work," said Dave Stronski, a bartender at Nemo's, across the street from half-demolished Tiger Stadium in the Corktown neighborhood, where the Lions also played for 36 years. He was talking about the Lions.

'That's Why God Invented Gravy'

There is a very good chance it will be bland.

And you will enjoy it anyway.

The most common compliment bestowed on the person who has sweated over the turkey since before sunrise is this:

"It's so moist!"

The second most popular:

"I love your gravy!"

And the third?

"The stuffing is scrumptious!"

But the meat itself?

"A lot of people want bland, soft, wet meat. That's what they grew up on," said Christopher Kimball, publisher and editor of Cook's Illustrated and host of "America's Test Kitchen" on PBS.

Everyone who cooks turkey -- and one survey found that 97 percent of Americans will today -- seems to have something up his or her sleeve to battle blandness.

"The secret is stuffing," said Camille Klinker of Gambrills, who was picking up a matched pair of organic birds at the Whole Foods in Annapolis yesterday.

"And cooking slowly so there's moisture still left," added her husband, Richard. "If it's too dry, you let it go too long."

Terry Phillips-Seitz of Crownsville is a turkey connoisseur who confesses to trying a Caribbean turkey recipe that he found in The Washington Post a few years ago. Now he's convinced that a deep-fried bird is the best bet.

"It's juicier," he said. "Now, two days later, it doesn't taste a bit different, but when you serve it on Thanksgiving, everybody loves it."

The man standing at Phillips-Seitz's elbow as he perused the Whole Foods turkeys yesterday probably knew more about the birds, and what makes them bland, than anybody in town.

"It's bland if it was frozen six months ago and given the industrial treatment," said Mike Cleary, mid-Atlantic research and development chef for Whole Foods. By coincidence, Cleary was in the store shopping for Thanksgiving dinner.

"A turkey that never walks on land and lives in a building with 10,000 other turkeys and never sees the light of day and always eats the cheapest feed, it's going to be bland," Cleary said. "If it walks on land and mimics the diet it would eat in the wild and more or less has a life before you slaughter it, it's going to have flavor."

It is commonly held that a fresh turkey is going to be better than a frozen bird, but it's equally common to find that people who share that turkey tip have no idea why. Cleary can explain.

"When a turkey is slow-frozen, and most of them are, tiny little icicles form in the meat," he said. "And as you thaw it, the icicles have expanded the meat to form pathways for moisture to escape. That doesn't kill the bird, but if you brine it, that adds some aromatics back into the meat."

You don't need to brine a fresh bird, Cleary said. And if you've got a formerly frozen bird that wasn't brined in the oven, not to worry, Kimball said. You will succeed as a turkey chef if you follow his simple formula.

"Buy a frozen Butterball and roast it at 325 [degrees], just like it says on the package," Kimball said. "Butterballs are injected with brine. If you want a bland moist bird, the Butterball is for you.

"Anyway, that's why God invented gravy."

Kimball says slathering the bird in salt pork will give it flavor because salt pork actually has flavor, while turkey, the breast in particular, has little more appeal than, say, warm cardboard.

Although Kimball does not applaud bland turkey, and says his will not be bland, he invokes the iconic French chef to argue that a bland meat is not necessarily a bad meat.

"A classic French chef would say that some foods are there for the texture, as a base for the sauce or the gravy," he said.

He points to beef tenderloin for illustration.

"The real grain-fed stuff has no flavor," he said. "But most people don't like grass-fed beef because it's chewy and it's very tangy. Americans don't want chewy. They want tender and moist."

And that will be the standard of success at many a Thanksgiving table today: "Moist."

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a warning yesterday to state and local officials about "uncorroborated but plausible information" received in late September that al-Qaeda might have discussed targeting New York City transit systems, DHS and New York police spokespeople said.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says there's a slight increase in bank robberies around New York City this year. But he says it's not because of the economy -- it's because banks are lax on security.

Kelly says he plans to meet with the New York Bankers Association next week and will set up meetings with major banks around the city to discuss how to better secure the institutions.

Kelly says the majority of the robberies occur when an unarmed suspect hands a note to a teller, who then hands over cash.

He says robberies can be curbed with common sense practices -- like ensuring security cameras are focused and setting up more secure barriers between the tellers and the public.

Jordan Fired, Tapscott to Take Over (Updated)

The Wizards have relieved Coach Eddie Jordan of his duties. Jordan was informed of the decision this morning around 8 a.m. shortly after he and his wife, Charrisse, handed out Thanksgiving turkeys to the needy at a team-sponsored charitable event. Associate Head Coach Mike O'Koren was also let go.

Ed Tapscott, who had carried the title of Director of Player Development but traveled with the team and essentially served as an extra assistant coach, takes over on an interim basis. The team is practicing right now.

The Wizards are off to a 1-10 start and hit rock bottom with Saturday night's 122-117 loss to a short-handed Knicks squad that was without its two leading scorers and used seven players. The Wizards rank near the bottom of the league in several statistical categories and have only one player (Antawn Jamison) who is performing anything close to a high level.

How much of the poor start can be attributed to Jordan is highly debatable. Injuries to Gilbert Arenas and Brendan Haywood left him without his best player and best center. Veteran guard Antonio Daniels has been limited to six games due to a right knee injury and the rest of the team's veterans -- players like Darius Songaila, Etan Thomas and Andray Blatche -- have performed at a subpar level.

The Pentagon has banned, at least temporarily, the use of external computer flash drives because of a virus threat officials detected on Defense Department networks.

While defense officials would not publicly confirm the ban, messages were sent to department employees informing them of the new restrictions. As part of the ban, the Pentagon was collecting any of the small flash drives that were purchased or provided by the department to workers, according to one message distributed to employees.

Workers are being told there is no guarantee they will ever get the devices back and it is not clear how long the ban will last.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman would provide no details on the virus Friday, but he described it as a "global virus" that has been the subject of public alerts.

"This is not solely a department problem, this is not solely a government problem," Whitman said.

The Pentagon has acknowledged that its vast computer network is scanned or probed by outsiders millions of times each day. Last year a cyber attack forced the Defense Department to take up to 1,500 computers off line.

Officials said then that a penetration of the system was detected, but the attack had no adverse impact on department operations.

However, military leaders have consistently warned of potential threats from a variety of sources including other countries -- such as China -- along with other self-styled cyber-vigilantes and terrorists.

The issue has also been of concern at the Department of Homeland Security. A September audit by the DHS Inspector General recommended that the agency implement greater procedures to ensure that only authorized computer flash drives or other storage devices can be connected to the network there and that an inventory of those devices be set up.

DHS agreed with the recommendations and said some of that is already being done. DHS also said more software enhancements are in the works that will provide more protection.

SAVANNAH, GA (WTOC) - A suspect wanted for a shooting at Savannah State University is in custody and the campus is no longer on lockdown.

Police say the suspect, Devon McIntosh, was found by a police dog hiding inside the trunk of a car which was parked on campus.

The shooting happened sometime around noon and the campus was quickly put on lockdown.

According to campus officials, two students who knew each other, got into an altercation in the University Commons. One student pulled out a gun and shot the other one in the arm and abdomen. The wounded student was taken to the hospital and is in emergency surgery.

The campus was on lockdown for several hours as police searched for the shooting suspect, who was later identified as McIntosh. They say he has an apartment on campus which police have searched and located a weapon.  

Students on campus told WTOC they learned about the reported shooting through the campus alert system. Students can sign up for the alerts. The school put out text messages to students and sent voice mail messages to their dorm room phones.

The messages told students there was a report of a shooting in the Commons housing. They were urged to stay where they were on campus:

"SHOOTING CAMPUS SHOOTING REPORTED. CAMPUS IS ON LOCKDOWN. Keep doors closed and locked till further notice. Thanks for your cooperation."

One student WTOC spoke with was one of several hundred in SSU's student center. She told us, "Many students felt more secure with the campus on lockdown. We'd rather it be that way than people not caring about student safety."

She learned about the lockdown through other students on campus who had signed up for the school's alert system.

"I saw a lot of students walking around campus at first," she said. "Many were going back to their rooms."

Students and vehicles are now being allowed to leave.

School officials say Friday afternoon, evening and Saturday classes have been canceled.

The State Department called on Iran on Friday to pony up any information it has on a former FBI agent who vanished there last year.

Christine Levinson, wife of Robert Levinson, went to Tehran last year to try to learn her husband's fate.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack urged Tehran to share "any and all information" about Robert Levinson, who disappeared from Iran's Kish Island over 19 months ago.

"The U.S. Department of State remains committed to determining Mr. Levinson's whereabouts, and returning him safely to his family that includes seven children, one grandchild and a second grandchild on the way," McCormack said in a statement.

Senior administration officials say the United States is increasing pressure on Iran to provide information on Levinson's whereabouts. Several officials have said they suspect Iranian authorities are holding Levinson in a jail inside the country.

However, they stress they have no information confirming their suspicions and have consistently voiced frustration with the lack of developments in the case.

"Some people suspect he is being held by the Iranian government, but nobody knows that for a fact, or we would be saying that," one senior State Department official said. "We all agree the Iranians are not putting forth 110 percent effort to find this man."

Levinson is a retired FBI agent from Coral Springs, Florida. After leaving the agency, his wife says, he worked as a security consultant specializing in cigarette smuggling.

Last week, Undersecretary for Political Affairs William Burns, the State Department's third-ranking official, met with Levinson's family, and earlier this fall, the State Department sent a diplomatic note to Tehran through the Swiss government, which represents the U.S. interests in Iran in the absence of an American diplomatic presence in the country.

In September, Christine Levinson flew to the United Nations in New York to ask questions about her husband.

She sought a meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was at the United Nations for the U.N. General Assembly. But Ahmadinejad declined to meet with her.

Last year, she traveled to Iran to try to retrace her husband's steps. Back then, Iranian officials told her they would investigate and report back to her. She still hasn't heard a word.

The State Department and FBI have denied he was working for the government and has demanded that Iran free Levinson -- if it is holding him.

Levinson says her husband suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure and has offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to his safe return.

Last year, CNN reported that Levinson met with Dawud Salahuddin, an American fugitive who lives in Iran, shortly before his disappearance.

Salahuddin -- known in Iran as Hassan Abdulrahman -- converted to Islam and was given refuge in Iran after admitting in interviews to killing Ali Akbar Tabatabai, a former Iranian diplomat under the shah, in Maryland in 1980.

Salahuddin said he was detained by Iranian officials in plain clothes and taken away from the room he shared with Levinson to be interrogated about his Iranian passport.

When he was freed the next day, he said, he was told by officials that Levinson had returned to Dubai.

Senior administration officials have told CNN that they think Salahuddin met with Levinson, but do not believe him to be a credible source of information on Levinson's whereabouts.

McCormack said the State Department is trying to keep the public aware of the case in the hopes of finding a fresh clue about Levinson's whereabouts.

"We're always looking for ways to maybe break loose that vital piece of information or the vital lead that may help us," McCormack said.

He asked anyone with information about his case to contact the State Department or the Levinson family via their Web site.