The subject of your response was not really where I was going here, but I realize that you are actually responding to the ongoing cage match about prisons etc. over on CE. Tom got a reply there from you, and this is one belongs to me.

Thank you. Sincerely.

Where I was going here, besides the remarks on censorship, is my concern over the technology gap between the well-off and the, for want of a less direct term, poor.

When faced with a funding crisis in our library system, one of our county commissioners said that the libraries didn't need more computers or more after-school and weekend hours for access to them because a kid who didn't have a computer could go to the neighbor's house and use theirs. Ahem. He apparently has no idea what the income level in that kid's neighborhood might be. However, the poor generally don't vote.

We consider ourselves pretty lucky at my library: when push comes to shove, most of the people in our service area who can afford it will give the children a quarter. Even so, we are now cannibalizing our tech center for CPUs to replace the public internet access computers because we can't afford to buy new ones. No more tech classes, and only four work stations are available in there for online exams for continuing ed students. I will have to cancel the home schoolers' database and internet workshop this August and offer appointments for individuals on public workstations instead.

The rural problem is acute. An encounter I had after a meeting at school has stayed with me for several years. The mom and dad of a struggling 7th grade boy had appealed for some way that their child could stay after school to work on the computers there. They both worked, and could only afford one car, so once their son came home on the bus to his home miles from town, he was basically stranded without a way to complete his homework, because he was expected to use a word processing program and they had no computer. He didn't work fast enough to complete it during school hours. The after-school activity bus was only for kids who were enrolled in supervised activities, and working in the computer lab was not included. I suggested he come to the public library, which has evening hours, and is only 4 easy blocks from the school, but we had no public transportation to get him home. Still don't. Since then, due to funding issues, the afterschool hours have been cut by 1/3.

Kids like that boy are exactly the ones who need our help, but everything becomes an obstacle, especially for the families. We had been hoping to set up a series of service kiosks with a couple of computers in the fire halls in more remote rural areas -- fire halls because there's always someone there, and they are open most of the time. But funding cuts from local government, which is hard-pressed by state funding cuts, which is hard-pressed by federal funding cuts, mean that we can't help the people who need it. Those plans remain plans, while we tread water just to remain afloat. And all these folks want is a way for their kids to advance.

Equal access isn't just about censorship. Censorship is driven by differing combinations of fear, self-righteous zealotry, and ignorance. Censorship certainly affects equal access; not everyone can drive to a university to see a copy of a book that was banned by their local school board. But it's more than that. Equal access is hampered by poverty and isolation, two conditions that also make literacy a problem. How can you do well in school if the things you are expected to use are beyond your reach? This is the real meaning of the technology gap.

Well. The plans are still only plans, but they are still there. We're ramping up the fundraising again. And we can squeeze a nickel better than any organization I know. But childhood's window is a narrow one, and once it's closed, it's closed forever. How many kids do we miss in the meantime?