Digital divide

The Detroit Digital Justice Coalition will provide "interactive, multimedia workshops designed to demystify, engage and inform the community about issues of Internet use and ownership, providing the tools allowing communication to be more easily recognized as a fundamental human right."

Sounds good to us.

The free event will be held from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, June 12, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. The museum is located at 4454 Woodward Ave. in Detroit.

Among other things, workshop participants can learn to build their own synthesizers and learn how to repair a PC-style computer with salvaged parts. Information on digital justice and technological resources throughout the metro Detroit region will also be available. There will also be a screening of the film The Internet is Serious Business, as well as opportunities to "learn about the impact of technology on your communities and the possibilities that that technology presents."

In a similar vein, the Detroit Justice Coalition will be participating in the 12th annual Allied Media Conference being held June 17-20, 2010, in the McGregor Conference Center (495 Ferry Mall) on the campus of Wayne State University in Detroit.

According to info posted on the website alliedmediaconference.org, the conference — which this year will be held just in advance of the U.S. Social Forum here, which attracts the same sort of lefty activists — will feature more than "100 workshops, panels, film screenings, art and music events, strategy sessions, the AMC Media Lab and bowling."