1.Just before I turned 59 years old in 2013, I went blind in my right eye. See the photo of me here. And see the images of my eyes here. The one with the valley in it is the eye I can see with. The one with the hill is the one with which I cannot see clearly. Life is short. I will eventually go blind in my other eye. For now, I can still read. Like a cyclops, with one eye. But not like Dr. Cyclops. LOL. I figure if I can read print with one eye, you can read it with two. And I read print on paper even though it is easier for me to read a pdf because I can enlarge the font size and because of the LED screen lighting. Of course, I htink it is best to read a paper copy and have a digital version online to consult. I generally read with my laptop open so I can look up words I don't know or find out infomration about questions I may have. Yet I prefer to read print on paper rather than electronic documents because the former is a codex, a random access machine, and far superior to online documents, all of which are scrolls, the storage device the codex replaced thousands of years ago. Kindles and other ebooks have no page numbers. Although it is possible to annotate online documents, it is much easier to annotate a paper document and to remember what you annotated or underlined. You can even take longer notes on the flyleaves of a book. Some electronic documents have one advantage over paper documents: you can search a pdf or a kindle for a particular word or phrase and find it immediately. An electronic document that has been scanned from paper cannot be searched, however. See John Stewart on the invention of the book (if you can find the episode, please let me know) and medieval monks discovering the book.

2. I teach because I love teaching. I have designed lots and lots of new classes. Like most public universities UF does not pay its faculty well. Most faculty at UF go for years without raises (not even cost of living raises). I am making $3,700 in 2013 more than I did when I came here in 2003. When I was hired, I was told that as a full professor, that I could apply for an SPP award of a nine percent raise after teaching here for seven years. I was also told when I was hired that if I was a productive faculty member, I would get the raise. Guess what? I am a productive faculty member. The Dean of CLAS even said so in his letter of 2011 recommending me for the award and the raise. However, President Machen informed me that my "application was not successful." That was it. I applied again the following year. The Dean recommended me again in his letter of 2012. I got the same result. No award, and no raise. After that, the program for the raise was closed. So I could not reapply. I say all this to make it clear to you that I teach as well as I can because I feel a responsibility both to you, the student, and to the texts and films we discuss in class. Just because the UF admin basically says FU to the faculty, I do not feel any less responsible to you. (I do not say "FU too, UF.") Of course, I would love to be paid more. But I am in this job because I love doing it and because I don't want to do anything else. My responsibility has its limits, however. You the student share the same responsibility to the texts and films that we discuss in class that I do, and you, like me, are also responsible for preparing for class discussion and for participating in it. I want to teach students who feel responsible for their learning and who want to learn. I do not want to teach students who do not want to learn or who are content remain sitting silent in class throughout the semester like uninspired bumps on a log who only contribute negatively, even if they do not know it, by bringing the mood of the class down.

A little about my Dad and his Dad.

My Mom endorsed me!