Digital Divide; Rewild & Land Islands

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

     Greetings from St. Gallen, in some play room just below a McDonald's.

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DIGITAL DIVIDE

    "Digital divide" isn't on McFedries' site (Jargon File), but had lots of hits on usenet.  Someone should check Nexis to see who coined it.
    Bill Gates announced yesterday that he is giving one billion dollars to minority students to close the "digital divide."  The story is in the International Herald Tribune, but probably everything else as well.

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REWILD & LAND ISLANDS

    From the International Herald Tribune, 17 September 1999, pg. 3, col. 2:

_Bold Plan Seeks To Put_
_Wild Back Into the West_
    The plan is audacious and controversial: A growing group of American Environmentalists wants to provide corridors linking the many wilderness areas across North America, preserving ecosystems and allowing animals to roam unhindered for hundreds of miles.
   (...)  He and other organiyers, including David Foreman, co-founder of the radical environmental group Earth First, say that current wildlife preserves are too small and scattered to allow natural processes, such as the roaming of native animals.  Such "land islands," some studies say, can promote genetic inbreeding and speed extinctions.
   The WIldlands Project, which is supported by grants from environmentally minded companies and foundations, is already working to stitch together some wilderness areas.  The goal is even more ambitious, however: to "rewild" parts of the West...