🚀 go-pugleaf

sigh, John, how closed minded of you.  give Johnny access to the
internet and he might want to learn to read and write in order to
argue with cynical "old timers" like us and other folks discussing
this issue.  (how many years in this industry before one can be a
crotchety old timer anyway? ) the state needn't give out T1s.  9600
baud modem chips(ets) will be $1 each soon enough, and ISDN & switched
56 offer great low cost connectivity options.  and pacbell residential
isdn tariffs include free calls!  there will be no shortage of
connectivity options for anyone who wants it, soon enough.

remember that truth is stranger than fiction - the corner payphone
might have a computerfaxmodem on it, although legislators might force
high tech future phones to have pulse dialing!

the cost of getting connectivity into schools needn't by taken up
by the state.  some companies and individuals donate services and
equipment to this cause, no public dough required, John!!!!

giving internet access to Joe on the Street or Joe in the Slammer or
the Single Welfare Mom needn't be a negative situation like our
current welfare setup is.

John! *you* could do this too with all your telecom resources
yet another way to save taxpayer money for other tasks or less
taxes.  are you spending any of your own time or money helping any
schools in your area with computer/network/telecom expertise? will
you wait for the govt to throw in some $$ before you step in as a
consultant perhaps?!!!  ;) 

all this argument about whether to put internet in schools
is an academic^2 issue - Captn Jean Luc Gore has said MAKE IT SO!  

now that we see private companies, Al Gore, and our state official
crew planning and executing getting the "INFO HIGHWAY" into every
public school in the state of california, we can perhaps talk to some
folks who could benefit NOW and help lots of people much sooner(women
and children) before this generation of children grows up...  put the
internet into a few full prisons.  reading postings green card
lawyers has got to be more interesting than the other activities that
take place in prisons.  

while you argue about whether it is a good idea to get the internet
into poor neighborhoods as a potential positive & learning influence,
others can applaud that such is now planned regardless of your
argument.  thanks partly to Clinton and Gore.  unfortunately, Tipper
might want to censor it all...

personally i have pen pals under the age of 13 in Russia.  i would
like to email the students and computer staff across the
street in East Palo Alto - they across the street.  

but it is easier for me to email Russian schoolchildren than our own
California children.  our CA children could benefit from the internet
and communicating with both helpful community volunteers and
arguing perhaps with folks like yourself!

now for a newer (etc) idea.
 know you are thrilled already, fellow libertarians and gnu people:

in order to talk to the missing but alive role models and male
breadwinners from the poor neighborhoods, there is the next option...

let's get the internet into the prisons - that is where the only men
who can make a difference NOW are - our legislators and laws only
get worse as the Russians gain freedom and we lose ours - 
prisons will continue to get overcrowded.  what
better way to talk to all these gentlemen at once.  if they got a
chance to read backwards ideas like the allegedly libertarian hoopla
you spout below, they might stop doing crimes and read and write and
be real Fathers to their Children, so that the children too may speak
out against your anti-progress stance now or in 20 years.

let the prisoners buy the cpu time & teeny 56k bandwidth on the cheap
with their laundry $.  or better yet make it available for free.

it needn't cost any more money to the state - the cost of one machine
or set of freeweights for those 16 inch biceps prison dudes would buy
an isdn connection and a cheap host & bunch of dumb terminals.

political correctness is neither political nor correct.

rms or other gnu-oids do you have any comment?  is this issue relevant
to gnu charter?  do we need a GNINFORMATION HIGHWAY?

/eli -- all disclaimers apply, these are my personal opinions.

*******************

 john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes:

   Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom.tech,alt.dcom.telecom
   Path: cronkite.cisco.com!ames!hookup!swrinde!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!library.ucla.edu!csulb.edu!csus.edu!netcom.com!netcomsv!zygot!john
   From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon)
   Organization: Green Hills and Cows
   References: <2sdp5u$qv2@ionews.io.org>
   Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 21:43:15 GMT
   Lines: 38
   Xref: cronkite.cisco.com comp.dcom.telecom.tech:4811 alt.dcom.telecom:6248

   In article <2sdp5u$qv2@ionews.io.org> ndallen@io.org (Nigel Allen) writes:

   >You've all seen posts here and elsewhere from someone who lives or works
   >in an unfashionable part of town and can't get ISDN or (a few years
   >ago) call forwarding or (in rural areas) a non-party line so that they
   >can use a modem.

   My neighborhood is surrounded by some of the most upscale real estate
   in the San Jose area. Homes on Dry Creek road are literally "estates".
   The Willow Glen district has some of San Jose's oldest money. The east
   Campbell area can only be described as "upper middle class". We are all
   served by SJ14, which up until less than three years ago was operating
   a huge two-marker #5 crossbar. In other words, for these "unfortunates"
   (including myself) there was no Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, or Call
   Anything. On the other hand, ISDN was readily available on the east
   side (high Latin concentration), downtown (not exactly the Ritz), not
   to mention the tract housing areas in the heart of Silicon Valley.

   Please explain how it made sense to offer ISDN to the subsidized
   housing people before even offering basic calling features to the
   citizens with some disposable income?

   >Of course, there are some long-term advantages to society in general 
   >to providing kids from poor families with better facilities 
   >to learn as opposed to doing other things to relieve bordeom.

   Absolutely agreed. But no one needs a connection to the ISH to learn
   basic skills such as reading, composition, basic math, etc. And these
   are the skills that are conspicuously missing in today's marketplace.
   A few books being made available would not hurt, nor would some other
   more conventional trappings of information dissemination.

   Until Johnny learns to read and write (and maybe even think), he does
   not need a T1 connection to the Internet.

   -- 
    John Higdon  |    P.O. Box 7648   |   +1 408 264 4115     |       FAX:
    john@ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | 10288 0 700 FOR-A-MOO | +1 408 264 4407