First: Stick a fork in me. The spring semester–my first semester of teaching a fully-online academic class–is over, my grades are in, and I have three weeks to beat things into shape before the summer term starts. Of course, this is my part-time job we’re talking about. Work at my “real” job goes on unabated. But it will be nice to have a little extra downtime. And I’m a sick enough individual to actually enjoy revising my course content in anticipation of the summer (and next fall). I’ll devote a few posts this week to online education in general and my experiences with it specifically.
Second: In addition to the usual freshman composition classes that I’ve taught for some time now, I’ll be teaching an section of American Lit. II this fall (1865-present). That’s going to be a blast, I think. I’ll post the reading list for comments and suggestions as soon as I’ve had time to rough one out (I’m still waiting on my books at the moment, though maybe I can find the table of contents online).
Third: I love music discovery services like Pandora and you probably do, too. The evil RIAA wants to shut internet radio down by forcing internet broadcasters to pay unreasonably high royalties. But you can help: savenetradio.org. Contact your senators. I did. The Wyden-Brownback Internet Radio Equality Act is a step forward. It could use your support.
I leave it to others to articulate why raising royalties is actually detrimental to artists. I’m supporting the bill for purely selfish reasons: because I seriously believe that Pandora and many other small-time internet radio services will go belly up if the Copyright Royalty Board‘s recent decision to hike rates goes into effect, as it is scheduled to, on July 15th, 2007.