Thanks, KG

A belated post, but KG was an amazing, exciting player and an intriguing person, and a very big reason why I followed the NBA in the 1990s and 2000s.

I don't have much more to say than that.

Britt Robson's fitting tribute...
https://www.minnpost.com/sports/2016/09/true-grit-kevin-garnett-greatest-timberwolf-who-ever-lived-passes-baton

And some analysis of how he changed the definition of greatness...
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/kevin-garnett-was-the-nbas-future/

Why I Love World Cup

Costa Rica! Fantastic! Fans of England, Uruguay and Italy barely acknowledged your presence in the group. I am guilty of this personally and I apologise. You proved us wrong. Well done. 
- An English Soccer Fan

What other professional sporting event features this kind of magnanimity?

QOTD

Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan. --Tom Landry

I don't like football and I despise the Cowboys, but this quote has real wisdom.

Kind of Mind Blowing, Actually

She may not have won the gold, but McKayla Maroney is still pretty amazing. In the same vein, check out these videos from NYTimes.com. The animated gif above and these videos lead me to ask, is there an upper limit to athletic achievement? Do physics and the human form eventually collide to say, 'this far, this fast, and no further, no faster?'

FWIW: An Open Letter to Gov. Mark Dayton

Dear Governor Dayton:

I admired your tenacity in facing the Republican legislature during the Minnesota state government shutdown. Although I was disappointed that you had to make so many concessions to end the stalemate, I respected your reasons for doing so: to protect and serve the greater good for Minnesota.

There is another fight in Minnesota looming in which the greater good is at stake: stadium financing. I urge you to change your stance on public financing of a Vikings stadium. You must oppose it, I beg.

Study after study after study (c.f., Robert Baade, Phil Porter, Frank Rashid, etc.) have consistently demonstrated that investing in professional sports does nothing to promote jobs or economic growth in the at-large community. In these difficult times, we here in Minnesota simply cannot afford to waste public money on such dubious investments. We need to make sound investments in jobs, education, infrastructure, and affordable, accessible healthcare.

There is a moral issue here, bigger than state pride in a professional sports team, and far more important than anyone's re-election prospects. The stadium must not be financed by public money. We must end the cycle of corporate blackmail, and spend limited resources in ways that reflect our values as Minnesotans.

Take a stand against publicly-funded stadiums, for the good of Minnesota.

Please consider my request.

Thank you.

Respectfully,

(me)

Out of the Woods

In relation to the news cycle, I am as old as a dinosaur and as slow as a snail, but now that I am back to writing, I cannot resist the urge to comment upon Tiger Woods' domestic problems. My initial reaction to all of this was pretty typical for me: "this is nobody's business" and "why must I once again be subjected to 'news' of a celebrity's personal foibles?"

The episode sits squarely at the top of the three-headed monster of race, sex, and class, however, and as such, it demands a bit of attention. Thankfully, coverage that I have seen has been devoid of overtly racial themes. That said, I have been made aware that person(s) known to me, big fans of Mr. Woods prior to the scandal, have made comments about black men, apparently fishing for permission to cast the conversation about Tiger into a racial one. Repugnant, to be sure. But how isolated was that attempt? Probably not as rare as one would hope.

Part of the reason I had to comment upon this story is that I cannot avoid it. Yesterday afternoon in the grocery store checkout line, I was visually assaulted by the tabloids - Us Magazine proclaimed: Mistress: Tiger Woods Told Me He "Wasn't Happy at Home With Wife"; while In Touch screamed: Tiger Tells His Mistress: I WILL LEAVE MY WIFE FOR YOU. The People magazine cover was the worst: Tiger's Wife: Inside Elin's Nightmare. All of these headlines demonstrate a prurient interest in Tiger's exploits, to be sure, but they also reveal gender politics of what I thought was a bygone era. Here in these salacious quotes is writ large: infidelity on the part of a man justifies domestic violence on the part of a woman. Is this the 21st century?

Let's go to Dubai. Why Dubai? It turns out that the richest athlete in history, like every other rich man that walked the earth before him, could not accumulate that kind of wealth without some kind of devilry. The one golf course in the world that bears Tiger Woods's name sits in that desert city; an unnatural oasis that uses four million gallons of water per day, to say nothing of the rest of the city, its appalling labor practices or its centrality to the international sex slave trade.

Nation writer Dave Zirin calls Tiger to task for this and for his corporate deals with Chevron as well. Zirin put it best when he said, "Woods has every right to keep his personal problems personal. But when he makes deals that benefit dictatorships and unaccountable corporations, all in the name of his billion-dollar brand, he deserves no privacy."

Last night my mind wandered to Tiger and his all of this recent media attention as I watched The People Speak. Muhammad Ali, one of the most famous athletes of his time, went to prison and was stripped of his title rather than fight in Vietnam, a war to which he objected. Contrast that to Woods, who would rather collect another few million than come out against barbaric labor practices, child sex slavery, or toxic polluters.

While he's taking time off, presumably to repair the damage he did to his family, Mr. Woods might consider rethinking all of his priorities and reflecting upon what truly makes a life well-lived.

No Uglies, Please

Apparently Ashlee Simpson and Milli Vanilli aren't the only ones who do it. The plucky, cute nine-year-old who performed "Ode to the Motherland" during the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics was just pretending! But here's the real kicker - she wasn't lip-syncing to her own voice, because it wasn't even her voice to begin with!

The girl who actually sang the song was deemed too ugly to perform, so they put a prettier girl on stage. Said the show's musical director: "[she] was used [in place of the actual singer] because it was in the best interests of the country." Wow. Talented enough to sing in front of the entire world at nine years old, but told she's too ugly to be on stage? Sign this poor girl up for therapy.

I Watched It

I hate football, I find it to be pretty dull on the whole: an anemic twelve minutes of action, dotting the landscape of a sixty-minute contest, drawn out over an interminable three-and-a-half-hour broadcast. And my a-hole stepdad, an ex-Marine, was a huge fan, even played at Michigan. Yes, that Michigan. He was a recovering alcoholic and a habitual gambler. That pretty much guaranteed my lasting distaste for the sport.

Needless to say, I haven't watched a Super Bowl in many, many years. But for some reason I did tune in last night, and saw the better part of the game, including all of the final quarter. I must admit, last night's fourth quarter was exciting by any measure of any sport: lots of action, plenty of lead changes, some big plays, and a dramatic finish. Even some douchebaggery! But the dude who caught the fuckin ball with his fuckin head is the fucking man. Tip o' the hat to you, Tyree! You and Eli are kings for a day.

I suppose Super Bowl XLII defined what makes football exciting to fans.

A Sad Day For Baseball

George W. Bush called Barry Bonds' indictment for lying about steroid use "a sad day for baseball." I wonder what he'd call lying about yellow cake uranium.