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The Minnesota Timberwolves traded Kevin Garnett to the Boston Celtics today for, according to the Star Tribune, "Al Jefferson, swingman Gerald Green, point guard Sebastian Telfair,
center Theo Ratliff and at least one high draft pick to Minnesota." Bye Bye KG; you were the only reason I ever wanted to watch the Wolves.
Kevin Garnett Highlight Reel
This was the Play Of the Day (POD) for our Saturday pickup touch football games on July 21, 2007:
Rob Wilson gets Play Of the Day for going up and coming down with a pass that was fought over by two other players. The defender on the play was perfectly positioned to break up the play and got his hand on the ball to knock it away. But Wilson and his teammate KT went up for the ball at the same time as the defender, with both clamping onto the ball, as well. As they came down, it was KT and Wilson who had the ball and both were still fighting for it, not realizing that they were teammates. After a moment of struggle, KT realized who Rob was and let go of the ball so Wilson could take it to the house.
Special mention has to go to Delicious for his body of work on Saturday. Not only did he catch numerous balls by finding the open spot in the zone, he threw a handful of crucial blocks to spring teammates for scores or long gains and he picked off a few balls as well, scoring on one of them.
This was the Play of the Day for our Thursday evening pickup touch football games on July 19, 2007:
Maurice got Play of the Day last Thursday for putting himself in a position to make a great play. On forth and long, his quarterback heaved the ball long and high and the defender looked to have an easy pick but he mis-timed his leap and instead of coming down with the ball, tipped it instead.
Seeing he had no play on the ball, Maurice positioned himself close enough to catch the defender had he intercepted the ball but far enough away to make a play for the tip, which he did, easily, and turned to dash to the end zone for a score with the defender never having a chance to catch him.
I had a bit of culture shock this morning when I opened up the Strib and discovered three–three!–football stories in the sports section. Training camp is just around the corner, so it’s time to start talking NFL football again!
The biggest news, of course, is the news of Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick‘s indictment on federal charges related to dogfighting.
Man, did the Falcons make the wrong bet. Packing Schaub off to Houston doesn’t look like such a smart move after all. So the Falcons are almost certainly in the market for a quarterback and guess who would become suddenly available but one former Viking and current whiner to the press, Daunte Culpepper.
My money’s on Daunte going to either Atlanta or Jacksonville.
My buddy Rob Bauer decided to lend a helping hand to the Falcons organization by remixing their logo to more accurately reflect the franchise’s image. Go Atlanta Fighting Dawgz!
Pretty good, huh? Email me at deerickson@gmail.com if you’ve got any graphics work you need done, and I’ll hook you up.
This was the Play of the Day (POD) for our Saturday pickup touch football games on July 14, 2007:
Dave From The Block gets Play of the Day for an amazing play that could have been split in two and either half could have won POD. From deep in their own territory, Dave’s quarterback lofted a long pass down the right sideline at around the fifty yard line. Dave was in position, but so was his defender. The ball was coming down on the out-of-bounds side of the sideline and was slightly underthrown.
Dave reached out with his right hand and tipped the ball up and over the defender and further downfield, maneuvered around his defender, and reached out with his left hand to tip the ball back into his arms.
But Dave was not done. Not by a long shot.
After reeling the ball in, he slanted across field to the left sideline, found a blocker and slowed to follow for several yards until the blocked defender got an angle on him, then cut to the right downfield and, seeing his defender closing in, with an effort worthy of Randy Moss himself, no-look pitched the ball behind his back to an oncoming James, who took it in stride to the end zone.
Okay, this is not actually David Strom playing a surprisingly good acoustic version of one of my favorite hip hop songs, Outkast‘s Hey Ya, but it sure looks like him. And, by the way, Strom’s last name is particularly appropriate for this video.
For those of you who are not Minnesotans or are Minnesotans who don’t pay attention to our state’s public affairs or politics, David Strom is the spokesman and president of the conservative, no-new-taxes-despite-our-crumbling-infrastructure Taxpayers League of Minnesota.
Strom can often be seen on television on KSTP TV’s At Issue public affairs program and on Twin Cities Public Television’s Almanac program.
Strom blogs at his Our House blog. Anyway, as I said, this is not David Strom. It is actually Mat Weddle of Arizona band Obadiah Parker. But the thought that immediately popped into my head when I first saw the video was of Strom. Judge for yourself:
And, for comparison, the original Outkast Hey Ya music video:
I was delighted to read the New York Times article about psychology professor Drew Westen‘s new book, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.
In a nutshell, Westen’s argument is that Democrats lose elections because they make the fatal mistake of trying to appeal to the electorate’s reason, rather than their emotions. Democrats present their case with facts and logic while Republicans say that something just feels wrong or right.
The contrast between the two approaches is evident in their candidates. For the past two presidential elections, the Democrats ran two wooden candidates with little emotional appeal in Al Gore and John Kerry who both nevertheless nearly won (and a lot of people believe they did win).
Both Gore and Kerry should have crushed George W. Bush, but they failed because they failed to push the electorate’s emotional buttons. The Bush camp, on the other hand, presented their candidate as an ordinary guy with whom you’d like to share a beer. The Bush camp succeeded in putting a dress on Kerry and portraying him as an effeminate wimp, eliciting an negative emotional reaction from a public scarred by 9/11. And the Bush camp pushed the emotional fear button every chance they got by raising the terrorist threat level every chance they got.
It is telling that the last Democratic president fully understood this. President Bill Clinton famously said, "I feel your pain." President Clinton, then and now, frames issues in emotional and moral terms; Republican proposals and ideas "are just plain wrong."
At the end of the day, Republicans simply understand marketing far better than do Democrats. Any student who’s taken Marketing 101 should be able to explain to you that at the end of the day, people make purchase decisions based more on emotion than on facts or logic.
It’s a point I’ve been shouting for years to any Democrat who would listen. The Democratic Party needs to seriously recruit marketers into their campaign infrastructure.
This was the Play of the Day for our Thursday evening pickup touch football games on July 12, 2007:
James took the Play of the Day yesterday with a patented James play. Catching a short pass in the left flat, and with a defender approaching from that side of the field, he slanted to the right sideline with that defender in hot pursuit. With the defender closing in and seemingly forcing him out of bounds, James stopped on a dime just short of the sideline and cut back to the middle of the field using the momentum of both his pursuer, and a second defender who had come to offer support, against them and raced untouched to the left corner of the end zone for a score.
Americans United For Change is running a tough ad targeting Senator Norm Coleman as Congress approaches another debate on funding the Iraq war.
If I was running against Coleman, I’d create a line graph that tracks Coleman’s public statements, Bush‘s approval ratings, and the casualties of US soldiers in Iraq. I’d be willing to bet that Coleman’s positions change as the other two lines change.
Here’s the ad:
Michael Vick