Bonus posting from the Social Gospel Blog with Minister Paul J. Bern

Six Days Without Internet: What It’s Like

Economic Inequality and Age Discrimination in the 21st Century

by Minister Paul J. Bern

I live in an apartment building 2 miles from downtown Atlanta built for seniors, the disabled and the homeless. We get a discounted rate for our rent and electric bills. We also had free Wi-Fi for internet access, up until this past week when it was inexplicably shut off without warning. That was this past Thursday, November 16th. At first I thought the internet was down, so I patiently waited until the following morning before I reported it. I waited all morning Friday, but hours later I still had no Web connection. When I checked back after lunch, I discovered that all the company employees all had internet, but the residents did not. That’s when I signed up for internet service on my own for the first time in over 5 years.

Access to the Web Is a Basic Human Right

The way that the residents’ internet access got abruptly shut off has really been bothering me, Here we are, one of the most vulnerable of citizens, the elderly, disabled and retired (I fall into the last two categories), and we get our internet taken away unfairly…