Apple has launched something called iTunes U. Not sure I like it, but we have crossed another line. We know you can get a degree on-line, but now your degree will be portable; get it on an iPod. You can now listen to lectures on your iPod, and, I suppose, the degree will be an iBA. Not that I don’t like my iPod; I just finished listening to Huck Finn, and it was either lighting out for the Territory or listening to Tom Sawyer. I chose the latter. Listen to this, as Tom reflects on his captivity:
"Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost plank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged."
I get the same way facing the laundry on Monday mornings.
But it is lovely, the i-Pod, having someone telling you a story, right into your ears. However, there are readers and readers, and some do a grand job, while others, well, are regretable. Watch for Patrick Tull, who we find the best. His Pickwick Papers is pure delight.