Dave Kearns

Take away two bad play calls by Mack Brown & his staff and Texas    is the National Champion football team.

Bad call #1 – the shovel pass at the end of the 1st quarter. Not only was this (obviously) something that the freshman QB wasn’t adept at, but even if it hadn’t been intercepted it would have gained little and exhausted most of the time left on the clock. Either run out the clock and re-group, or take a chance going deep where a pick-off wouldn’t have much chance of being returned all the way.

Bad call #2 – Of course, Garrett Gilbert wouldn’t have been put in the position of attempting that shovel pass if the Longhorn brain trust hadn’t stupidly tried to use Colt McCoy of a QB line buck on the first series of downs!

The Texas team would have won in a walk if it wasn’t for their own inept coaching staff.

I’ve lost some of my blind faith in the Red Sox, it seems, since I haven’t actually lived in New England in almost 40 years. But the Sox are still leading the league, the division (and, of course, the Yankees) and it’s almost a week into September! It might be too soon to crow, but the Magic Number web site will let us know just when the party can begin. And, hey, how ’bout that no-hitter that the kid, Clay Buchholz, threw the other day? Even those hockey mad folks in Regina, Saskatchewan stopped to pay attention.

I usually admire the stuff my friend Kim Cameron writes, and his posting on Andrew Keen’s book, The Cult of the Amateur, is mostly right on target. But Kim does repeat that truly awful identifier “citizen journalist.”

All journalists are citizens! I know many journalists, and every single one of them is a citizen of some country – most are US, Canadian or UK citizens, but I’ve known French, Italian, Brazilian and Australian journalists, also.

Most are also professional journalists – they make their living as journalists. Some are non-professional journalists – they make their living doing something else. People who do something for fun, or for the love of it rather than getting paid for it are called “amateurs” or, perhaps, “hobbyists.” (usually “hobbyist” is reserved for those things that no one gets paid to do and the “hobbyist” designation denotes some stature for the individual within that community, though)

I’ve never heard of “citizen golfers” or “citizen painters” or even “citizen politicians” they’re all called amateurs and so should those who practice journalism without a paycheck.

“Amateur” can be a term of derision when used by a professional. It shouldn’t be, and we should think less of the professional who uses the term this way. But torturing the fine word “citizen” to mean something entirely beyond it’s definition is not the answer.

It’s August. Know how I can tell? It isn’t the heat (it’s been one of the coolest summers on record here in the bay area). All I have to do is look at the baseball standings – the AL East to be exact. You know it’s August when the Red Sox lead begins to drop like a dot com dog food stock. From leading the majors in winning percentage (and holding an 11-game lead on the Yankees), the crimson hose lead has dropped to a meager 4 games over the bronx bums. It’s a long way from here to October, but baseball is a very traditional game – and tradition says my Yankee-loving neighbor will be holding the World Series party this year…