I’ve tried to register with your blog. No joy. Here’s my reply to your post. Let me begin by saying my 72-year old mother is living in a federally subsidized senior citizen home in Oakland. The Oak Center Towers on Market Street in Oakland.

There are three different federally subsidized programs that provide extremely low cost Internet access through the federal programs: E-Rate; ESEA Title II D; and LSTA. The only caveat is that internet access must comply with the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) by using Internet blocking and filtering to screen offensive pornographic content.

The Internet Blocking and Filtering software most used in fulfillment of the CIPA mandate are: Best N2H2; Cyber Patrol 6.1; Cyber Sitter 2003; Cybrary N Solutions; I-Gear; McAfee Parental Controls; Net Nanny; Web Sense; We-Blocker; Surf Control; and Content Barrier.

Plato’s Republic – Book VII, uses an allegory of a cave in which Socrates describes to Plato’s older brother prisoners chained to a bench in such a way as to limit their sight to the wall furthest from the cave's entrance. All these prisoners can see are shadows flickering on the back wall of a cave. This allegory delivers a simple message that our present condition is one of shadowy unreality and that the enlightened life awaits us if we are able to free ourselves from our chains and find our way to the upper world outside the cave into the blinding sunlight. Also, there is a message that the immediate, comfortable, and small world, which we see with our eyes, is a very limited one. Moving one’s eyes from the firelight to darkness one becomes temporarily blinded by the darkness. When moving one’s sight from the shadows into the light, one becomes temporarily blinded by the sudden increase in light. Symbolically, this represents any sudden movement from lightness to darkness or from darkness to lightness naturally involves being temporarily blinded. It is natural to be overwhelmed by changes in light.

What this allegory points out is that education is like sight. You can not make a blind eye see. Nor can you make someone learn just by teaching them. Education is like the quality of sight. It has to pre-exist.

The seniors you passionately plead for are like the prisoners in Plato’s cave. The light and shadows can be blinding.

If you want to come up with a solution for this problem, I will donate two days a week to solve this problem using the Oak Center Tower Senior Housing project in Oakland as a test bed, I will volunteer. I want to be a lawyer/educator.

I will deal with getting the data communication infrastructure in place at no cost (I’ll get everything donated) with the objective of providing community access to email, music, the Internet, on-line games like (non-gambling) black jack and personal banking. Seniors get ripped off and beat up when they go to the ATM machine downtown to see if their social security check posted. My 72-year-old mother has been robbed at an ATM.

I am not worthy to receive you, but only ay the word and I shall serve.

David P. Walker
(925) 376-5119