Bullets of a few truths, maybe not so universally acknowledged

• During Sebastian Thrun's recent "aw, we were just kidding about MOOCs" statements (see Jonathan Rees and Historiann), someone, somewhere, called them "correspondence courses." Sinclair Lewis is rolling in laughter from beyond the grave.  
• The fact that MOOCs ended up catering to, basically, the Honors Students of the Internet rather than people struggling with jobs and difficult lives caught the MOOC cheerleaders totally by surprise.  Who could have predicted that people with great internet access, lots of success in previous academic settings, and time on their hands would gain the most from those courses? Apart from every blogger, ever, and everyone who doesn't teach at Princeton or Stanford, apparently no one. 
• Speaking of "difficult lives," four things from the news this week:
• Dow is over 16,000, twice what it was in 2008 when there was some blip of a recession somewhere, but that's all over and no one is hurting now, says the Wall Street Journal, except maybe some cranks and whiners who don't have jobs, which is totally their own fault. (I'm paraphrasing.) 
• Standard & Poor's 500 is close to a "perfect 10," which means that all 10 industry groups closed 10% higher.  American workers? Not so much. 
• Over in the other America, Wal-Mart advises food stamps and its employees hold food drives for other workers--because they are not paid a living wage. 
• Wal-Mart's CEO makes yearly as much as 796 Wal-Mart employees.  As Jean Hagen says in Singin' in the Rain, "put together!" Costco's CEO makes 48 times his workers' wages, which are actually living wages and come with benefits.  This is a big reason why I shop there almost exclusively, actually, except for independent markets. 
• "You've had a chance to look at papers graded both ways, with typing and with handwriting, so which do you want for this one? Show of hands?" A lot for typing, because as one put it, laughing, "you have terrible handwriting." I said, "but I thought it was fabulous," and we all laughed.  I'm going to miss this group of students. 
• I just want to be done with this book manuscript. I just want to be done.