Music execs are still reeling from Radiohead’s figurative finger in their proverbial eye—essentially an industry end-run that lets listeners decide how much they want to pay for the band’s new release. The reasoning is sound. At the end of the day, the band will make as much, if not more, than what they would have pocketed had they trusted distribution to a major label.

Similarly, UC Berkeley has just put a free fall course catalog online as well—hundreds of lectures hosted on YouTube and ready for everyone’s edification. MIT also offers up free courses, giving anyone with online access the opportunity to indulge in their own Good Will Hunting moment. No tuition required.

Check out Physics for Future Presidents:

The quality of content available online runs the gamut from sublime to ridiculous, and while traditionalist critics are quick to claim that online outlets simply give hacks a larger audience, the Web is also clearly evolving into a great leveler—a means of education and entertainment courtesy of well-respected players who want people to experience their products and services. It’s an investment in awareness that offers tremendous benefits to Web citizenry and payback in visibility and credibility for purveyors.

Today’s rhetorical question: How do you get to be a highly paid, high-power CEO and not know how to use email?

Spirit Airlines CEO Ben Baldanza is mulling that one over as negative spin caused by his customer-dissing missive works its way around the Web. A pair of passengers were irked that a three-hour delay caused them to miss a concert in Atlanta.

They were hoping Spirit would pick up the tab for the tickets and hotel room, renumeration that would have set the company back a bit less than four hundred bucks—probably lower than greens fees for one of the boss’ golf outings.

The couple took their complaint one step further by emailing Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza directly. But here’s the thing…they also copied several other Spirit employees on the complaint.

That’s when the email-challenged CEO hit “reply to all” in his response.

And his reply?

“We owe him nothing as far as I’m concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He’s never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny.”

Ben, here’s my new Spirit slogan suggestion:
Spirit—We Cost Less and Couldn’t Care Less

If you have Spirit slogan ideas, let’s hear them here.

The folks who brought us Band-Aids and baby oil have a bone to pick with the world’s most recognizable relief organization. Johnson & Johnson doesn’t think that the Red Cross has rights to its . . . er . . . red cross.

As explained by Brandweek:

In the suit, J&J asked the court to force the Red Cross to have “all licensed products with the red-cross emblem destroyed and to permanently enjoin all sales of products bearing the emblem on first-aid, safety-preparedness and related products.”

The Red Cross CEO, Mark Everson, called the action “bizarre” and “obscene.”

Johnson & Johnson claims to have been sporting the image since the late 1800s, which makes it boss of the cross. Next, they plan to go after M*A*S*H reruns (that thing was everywhere!) and maybe they’ll take on the Swiss flag, because they’re not fooling anyone just because they’ve reversed the colors.

Let’s do the math: Classic household brand in just about everyone’s medicine cabinet targets an organization that spends most of its time filling sandbags and collecting blood donations. Someone over at J&J has been snorting the talcum powder.