Digital Divide

so close and yet so far It's in everyone's interest to pull the stragglers aboard the high-tech express, but only education will keep them there

To understand how infinitesimally narrow the digital divide can be, you need only enter the Emergency Housing Consortium's homeless shelter in San Jose, Calif., on a school night. Walk past the guard at the reception desk, down past the rows of slightly musty bunk beds, past the red-eyed guys slumped in front of a tiny TV screen filled with colored snow. Just as your heart starts to sag with despair for the human condition, though, stop and take a peek through the locked door on the right. The contrast couldn't be starker. You see a brilliant white computer lab with state-of-the-art...

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