SEPTEMBER 18, 2018


NEWS AND VIEWS


“A MARATHON AND NOT A SPRINT”

NORTH CAROLINA OFFICIALS ARE TAKING TURNS DESCRIBING THE DEGREE OF DAMAGE AND THE DANGERS REMAINING FROM LAST WEEK’S HURRICANE, AND THE ONGOING EFFORTS TO RESTORE NORMAL LIFE. MOST OF THE ROADS AT NEW BERN, NC, THE ORIGIN POINT OF THIS NEWS VIDEO, ARE STILL CLOSED INCLUDING ALL OF THE I-95 INTERSECTIONS, SO DON’T EVEN TRY TO GO DOWN THERE YET. THERE IS A DEATH TOLL IN THE 20S SO FAR. SOME PEOPLE JUST INSIST ON STAYING HOME “TO PROTECT THEIR PROPERTY.” THAT’S VERY HEROIC, BUT BASICALLY DUMB. FROM THE NEWS FOOTAGE, IT IS A TRUE INUNDATION, AND NOT “LOCAL FLOODING.” TO OBSERVE THE POWER OF NATURE, WATCH THIS FASCINATING BROADCAST. GO TO https://www.cbsnews.com/live/.


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-florence-remnants-still-threaten-carolinas-cape-fear-river-lumber-river-expected-to-crest/
CBS NEWS September 18, 2018, 7:18 AM
"I did everything I could": Mother recalls son being swept away as flooding grips North Carolina

It has stopped raining in the Carolinas, but the remains of Hurricane Florence are still creating danger. The swollen Cape Fear River reached nearly 58 feet on Monday and is expected to crest soon. It's already causing floodwaters to rush into downtown Fayetteville, North Carolina, which is mostly underwater, reports CBS News' DeMarco Morgan.

Hope Mills resident Brandon Plotnick is worried about the Cape Fear River's crest.

"I think people are getting complacent and that's dangerous," Plotnick said. "That's a lot of water and that water's gotta go somewhere."

Rescues continued Monday throughout North Carolina. Crews used boats to help evacuate people in Lumberton trapped by floodwaters.

"I thought we were okay until last night when the water just kept coming up and up," one Lumberton resident said.

The Lumber River in Lumberton is cresting, and will not go below major flood stage until at least next week. It was that same river that caused all of the massive flooding during Hurricane Matthew.

36 PHOTOS -- Hurricane Florence strikes southeastern U.S.

"Our biggest threat here in this area is the Lumber River rising," said Pembroke police rescue commander Matthew Locklear.

As the water rises, so does Florence's death toll, which nearly doubled on Monday to at least 32. Florence spun off a tornado that killed at least one person in Virginia Monday, when a warehouse collapsed. That storm system is now dumping rain on the Northeast.

Dazia Lee's 14-month-old son Kaiden Lee-Welch was killed after being swept away by rushing floodwaters in Union County Sunday night. Kaiden's body was recovered Monday.

"I was holding his hand, trying to hold him, trying to pull him up and it got to a point I couldn't hold on anymore and he let go," Lee said. "I did everything I could from the moment I was pregnant to the moment I lost him. I did everything I could as a parent to save him and protect him."

The Cape Fear River is expected to crest later today or Wednesday, but the river will not go below flood stage until at least Saturday. The rain may be over here, but Florence's grip is not.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.


THE CONFUSIONS OF WAR CAUSE ANOTHER DEADLY ERROR. LOOK AT THE STATISTICS GIVEN BELOW FOR CIVILIANS AND COMBATANTS KILLED BY RUSSIAN AIR STRIKES. THAT NUMBER IS TOO LARGE TO BE ERROR.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45563304
Russian aircrew deaths: Putin and Netanyahu defuse tension
SEPTEMBER 18, 2018 8 minutes ago

PHOTOGRAPH -- The Il-20 aircraft was returning to a Russian base on the north-western coast of Syria (file photo) GETTY IMAGES

The leaders of Russia and Israel have sought to defuse tension after a Russian plane was shot down by Syrian forces amid an Israeli air raid.

In a call to Vladimir Putin, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu expressed regret at the loss of 15 Russian personnel, but stressed again that Syria was to blame.

Mr Putin had earlier called the incident "a chain of tragic accidental circumstances".

The Il-20 plane was downed over the Mediterranean Sea on Monday evening.

What will be the fallout of the Russian deaths?
A tour of Syria - with the Russian military
Russia is supporting President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's civil war.

A case of diplomatic fence-mending

Mr Putin and Mr Netanyahu spoke by telephone on Monday, shortly after the Russian president had made his conciliatory statement in Moscow.

Mr Putin said at a media briefing: "It looks most likely in this case that it was a chain of tragic chance events, because an Israeli aircraft did not shoot down our aircraft. But, without any doubt we need to seriously get the bottom of what happened."

Mr Netanyahu addressed that issue in the telephone call, offering to provide "all necessary information" in the investigation of the incident, as well as expressing regret over the fatalities.

In the call, Mr Putin urged Mr Netanyahu "not to let such a situation happen in the future" and told him Israeli air operations breached Syrian sovereignty, Russian media said.

Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu had earlier said that Moscow "reserves the right to take further steps in response".

But Mr Putin said the "retaliatory measures" would be "aimed first and foremost at further ensuring the safety of our military personnel".

The BBC's defence and diplomatic correspondent, Jonathan Marcus, says the crisis will almost certainly blow over as Israel and Russia have a remarkably close relationship and Moscow has until now not interfered with Israeli operations.

What happened on Monday evening?

Russia's Tass news agency said an Ilyushin Il-20 reconnaissance plane had "disappeared during an attack by four Israeli F-16 jets on Syrian facilities in Latakia province".

Photos 'reveal' Russia jet damage at Hmeimim base
Why is there a war in Syria?

The downing was reported to have occurred about 35km (22 miles) from the Syrian coast as the Il-20 aircraft was returning to Russia's Hmeimim airbase near Latakia.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its aircraft were targeting Syrian military facilities "from which systems to manufacture accurate and lethal weapons were about to be transferred on behalf of Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon".

The Lebanese Shia militant group and Iran are both allies of the Syrian government. Israel has reportedly hit more than 200 Iranian targets in Syria over the past 18 months.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said some Israeli missiles did find the target and two people were killed on the ground. However, it could not confirm their identity and Syria has made no official comment.

How did the plane get shot down?

Both the Russians and Israelis agree it was Syrian anti-aircraft fire, although Syria has not commented.

Russia said it was given less than a minute's warning by Israel ahead of the strikes, which was not enough time to get the military surveillance plane out of the way.

It also said the Israeli planes had "used the Russian airplane as a cover", putting it "in the line of fire coming from Syrian air defence systems".

Israel disputes this. In a rare statement detailing its operations over Syria, the IDF said: "The Russian plane that was hit was not within the area of the operation... when the Syrian army launched the missiles that hit the Russian plane, (Israeli) jets were already within Israeli airspace."

The Russian defence ministry said body fragments, personal belongings and the plane's debris had been found by search ships in the Mediterranean on Tuesday.

So who is to blame?

Israel was adamant. The IDF said: "Israel holds the Assad regime, whose military shot down the Russian plane, fully responsible for this incident."

The statement also laid blame on Iran and Hezbollah.

In his phone call with Mr Putin, Mr Netanyahu insisted that Israel would continue to target Iran inside Syria.

Russia and Turkey to create Syria buffer zone

In an initial statement, Russia said: "The Israeli planes deliberately created a dangerous situation for surface ships and aircraft in the area.

"As a result of the irresponsible actions by the Israeli military, 15 Russian servicemen have died."

A crisis that will blow over
Analysis by Jonathan Marcus, BBC Defence Correspondent

Russia is clearly angry. It has lost an aircraft and the lives of its 15-person crew. It needs to register its displeasure but is also reluctant to condemn its regional ally Syria.

Israel and Russia have a remarkably close relationship and a clear understanding about Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operations in the region. So might this episode change this?

I think that is doubtful. For one thing the air campaign in Syria is seen by Israel as a vital strategic necessity to thwart, as they see it, Iran's growing influence.

And for Russia to try to physically interfere with Israeli operations would go entirely against the policy pursued by Moscow up till now.

Read more from Jonathan
Why is a Russian aircraft in Syria?

Russia began military strikes in Syria in 2015 after a request from President Assad, who has stayed in power despite seven years of civil war which has so far killed more than 350,000 people.

Hmeimim is Russia's main base for air strikes on rebel groups in Syria - strikes that have enabled President Assad's forces to recover much lost ground since 2015.

Russia says its air strikes only target "terrorists", but activists have said they mainly hit mainstream rebel fighters and civilians.

According to The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, at least 7,928 civilians and 10,069 combatants have been killed in Russian strikes.

Russia has also suffered personnel losses, including the deaths of 39 people when a Russian military transport plane crashed as it attempted to land at Hmeimim in March.



THERE IS A TEN STORE MCDONALD’S STRIKE GOING ON NOW, AND IT IS RECEIVING SUPPORT FROM BOTH ELIZABETH WARREN AND BERNIE SANDERS. THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRATS SHOULD BE DOING AT LEAST ONCE A MONTH JUST TO KEEP THEIR ATTITUDES ADJUSTED, I THINK. GOOD GOING!

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/407292-warren-joins-sanders-boosting-striking-mcdonalds-workers
Warren joins Sanders in support of striking McDonald's workers
BY MEGAN KELLER - 09/18/18 04:39 PM EDT

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Tuesday voiced her support for McDonald's workers who are on strike to protest the fast food chain's response to sexual harassment in the workplace.

"I stand with @McDonalds workers who are striking today to protest sexual harassment on the job, and retaliation for reporting it," Warren tweeted.

"Low-wage workers are especially vulnerable to workplace discrimination and sexual harassment," she added. "It’s wrong, and it has to stop."

Warren's comments echoed those of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) from last week.

"Every single worker in this country has a right to a safe workplace where they will not be harassed, assaulted or punished for speaking up," the Vermont senator wrote on Twitter. "We all must stand with McDonald's worker who are bravely fighting back."

The strike, which is slated to affect McDonald's locations in 10 cities across the country, is backed by Fight for 15, a group working to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Fight for 15 and its principal backer, Service Employees International Union, have wrestled with their own allegations of sexual misconduct.

Multiple officials at the two organizations were accused of sexual misconduct last year, the Washington Free Beacon reports. Five were ultimately ousted.

SEIU spokeswoman Sarah Lonardo told the Free Beacon in an email that the union is "committed to ensuring that our own work environment reflects the same values that we fight for on behalf of all workers across the service sector."

"We are uniquely equipped to both continuously improve our workplace and forge ahead in fulfilling our mission to empower workers," she told the Free Beacon. "This includes supporting and standing with the brave women demanding a union and speaking out against the abuse, bullying, harassment, and discrimination at McDonald's."


THIS IS AN ODD LITTLE STORY. MAYBE IT WAS A VERY LOUD QUARREL? OR, MORE LIKELY, THEY WERE USING AN INTOXICANT, PERHAPS. POLICE DON'T USUALLY ARREST PEOPLE OR FORCE THEM TO OPEN THEIR TRUNK WITHOUT A REASON.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/406608-cruz-intern-arrested-near-capitol-for-unregistered-ammunition
Cruz intern arrested near Capitol for unregistered ammunition
BY AVERY ANAPOL - 09/13/18 05:25 PM EDT

PHOTOGRAPH – TED CRUZ © Greg Nash

An intern in Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) Washington, D.C., office was reportedly arrested on Capitol Hill this week for possessing unregistered ammunition.

U.S. Capitol Police told CNN in a statement that officers responded to a “dispute” between the intern, Scott Frantz, and another individual in Franz’s car near the Capitol.

Police found shotgun shells in the back of Frantz’s vehicle and arrested him, according to the report reviewed by CNN.

The 20-year-old was charged with possession of unregistered ammunition, a violation of D.C. firearm and ammunition possession restrictions.

An aide for Cruz told CNN that Frantz has been placed on leave. A spokeswoman for the senator said the office does not comment on “pending law enforcement or personnel matters."

The Hill has reached out to Cruz’s office for comment.


THE DEMOCRATS MAY BE OUTNUMBERED, BUT THEY ARE “HANGIN’ TOUGH!”

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/407296-kavanaughs-classmate-tells-senators-he-wont-testify
Kavanaugh’s ex-classmate tells senators he won't testify
BY MICHAEL BURKE - 09/18/18 04:39 PM EDT

The former classmate of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who was said to have been in the room when Kavanaugh allegedly sexually assaulted a woman decades ago, has told senators he will not testify at next week's hearing.

Mark Judge wrote in a brief letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that he "did not ask to be involved in this matter nor did anyone ask me to be involved."

"In fact, I have no memory of this alleged incident," he wrote.

Christine Blasey Ford has said that Judge was in the room at a high school party in the 1980s when Kavanaugh held her down on a bed and tried to remove her clothing.

Grassley on Monday announced that the Judiciary Committee would hold a public hearing with Kavanaugh and Ford to discuss the allegations.

Judge said in his letter to Grassley and Feinstein that he doesn’t recall the party that Ford has described.

“More to the point, I never saw Brett act in the manner Dr. Ford describes,” he wrote. “I have no more information to provide the Committee and I do not wish to speak publicly regarding the incidents described in Dr. Ford’s letter.”

After Judge’s letter became public, Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) said the Judiciary Committee should subpoena Judge, which would force him to appear in front of the committee.

"You can count on the fact that that letter, his response, is going to be entered into the record by someone, and that needs to be tested as well," Jones said on CNN's "Situation Room."

"If he doesn’t want to do it and they’re gonna go forward with this hearing, they need to subpoena him, let him say that and let some senators or someone cross examine him," Jones added.

Senate Democrats earlier Tuesday called on Judge to testify at the hearing scheduled for Monday.

“Let’s not rush the hearings,” Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor. “Let’s not repeat the mistake made in the Anita Hill hearings. Let’s call the relevant witnesses, not just the two selected by Chairman Grassley who did not want to call the hearings to begin with.”

“How could we want to get the truth and not have Mr. Judge come to the hearings and be asked questions?” Schumer added.

Democrats on the Judiciary Committee also wrote in a letter to Grassley on Tuesday that there are “other relevant witnesses who should be questioned under oath, in a public setting.”

“This includes Mark Judge, who Dr. Blasey Ford identified, and others that might be identified through the FBI’s investigation or subsequent due diligence by the Committee itself,” they wrote.


Senate panel formally postpones Kavanaugh vote
BY JORDAIN CARNEY - 09/18/18 04:29 PM EDT

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday formally postponed a vote on Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination, canceling a meeting set for later this week where a vote was initially expected to happen.

Staffers for Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent out a notice that the Thursday business meeting had been canceled. The Senate is expected to leave town for the week on Tuesday.

The delay for a vote to advance Kavanaugh's nomination was widely expected following allegations from Christine Blasey Ford, a professor who alleges that Kavanaugh held her down and tried to remove her clothes at a party in the early 1980s when both were in high school.

Kavanaugh has denied the allegations.

Grassley announced this week that Kavanaugh would testify before the Judiciary Committee for a second time next Monday, days after the initial committee vote was scheduled.

Grassley has yet to say when the Senate panel will now vote on Kavanaugh's nomination.

The chairman declined to comment when leaving a closed-door meeting of Judiciary Committee Republicans on Monday night. Grassley also dodged questions about it on Tuesday morning during an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

Kavanaugh's nomination first appeared on the Judiciary Committee's agenda roughly a week after the initial round of hearings took place.

President Trump on Tuesday ramped up his defense of Kavanaugh amid the allegations, saying he "is not a man who deserves this."


BLASEY FORD AND ANITA HILL – “... SEXUAL HARASSMENT CLAIMS WERE OFTEN NOT CONSIDERED SERIOUS MATTERS.” THIS STATEMENT IS THE KEY TO NOT ONLY THIS STORY ABOUT A WEALTHY AND IMPORTANT MAN SEEKING HIGH OFFICE, BUT TO THE THOUSANDS OF OTHER SIMILAR OCCURRENCES AS WELL THAT HAPPEN EVERY DAY BETWEEN THE MUCH LESS POWERFUL PEOPLE.

RECOMMENDED MOVIE: “THELMA AND LOUISE.” NEAR RAPE IS AS TERRORIZING AS RAPE, AND A FIFTEEN YEAR-OLD GIRL ISN’T READY FOR ANYTHING LIKE THAT, IF THEY EVER WILL BE. SOME HAVE NEVER EVEN BEEN KISSED AT THAT AGE. THE FIRST KISS SHOULD BE TIMID AND GENTLE, AND GIVEN WITH A SMILE BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE WHO REALLY DO LIKE AND TRUST EACH OTHER.

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/17/648783307/from-anita-hill-to-christine-blasey-ford-the-similarities-and-differences
Kavanaugh Allegations Recall 1991's Supreme Court Scandal, With Key Differences
September 17, 20183:33 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
Nina Totenberg

PHOTOGRAPH -- Anita Hill, then a professor at the University of Oklahoma law school, testifies in 1991 that she was sexually harassed by then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. AP

Professor Christine Blasey Ford came forward on Sunday for the first time telling her story alleging that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually attacked her 35 years ago when the two were both in high school.

So how is this different from the sexual harassment allegations made against now Justice Clarence Thomas by law professor Anita Hill in 1991 at his confirmation hearing?

I know because I was there. I broke the story and then watched in amazement as events unfolded.

There are big differences and similarities in these two events.

First, the differences

Hill and Thomas were adults: Hill's accounts involved events that she said took place over a prolonged period of time in an employment setting when she worked for Thomas at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

While there was no touching involved, Hill said Thomas had eight years earlier first tried to date her, and when she declined, he subjected her, over a long period of time, to sexually explicit and sometimes bizarre sexual comments.

Article continues after sponsorship

Physical attack: Ford's allegations, first reported with her name attached to them by The Washington Post, involve a single sexual attack — a very physical attack — that she said took place at an unsupervised teenage party, where high school kids were drinking.

POLITICS -- Kavanaugh Vote Faces Potential Delay As GOP Plans Investigation Of Assault Claims

Ford charges that a "stumbling drunk" Kavanaugh, who was 17 at the time, attacked her 36 years ago, when she was 15. She said Kavanaugh was one of four boys at a private party of teenagers with no parental supervision.

She alleges that when she went upstairs to go to the bathroom, Kavanaugh and another boy, Mark Judge, pulled her into a bedroom and locked the door. According to Ford, Kavanaugh then jumped on top of her, tried to take her clothes off, and when she tried to scream, put his hand over her mouth and turned up the music. She said was able to free herself when Judge jumped on the bed, too, sending the three tumbling, giving her a chance to run into the bathroom and lock the door.

Both Hill and Blasey Ford took professionally administered polygraph tests and passed. But while Hill told several friends contemporaneously about what was happening to her on the job, Ford said she told nobody. She told The Washington Post she was terrified to tell her parents that she had been at a party where teenagers were drinking.

"I'm not telling anyone this," she recalled thinking. "This is nothing. It didn't happen, and he didn't rape me."

But after going through psychotherapy, she came to understand the events that night as trauma with lasting impact on her life. She did not tell anyone the details of that night until 2012.

The #MeToo movement: Hill's allegations occurred in 1991, when there was no #MeToo movement and, indeed, sexual harassment claims were often not considered serious matters. When I first learned of Hill's charges back then, most of the Democratic senators I talked to did not want a public airing of her charges, believing that, as one put it, "This is not a silver bullet."

The makeup of the Senate: At the time of the Hill allegations, there were no women on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and only two women in the U.S. Senate — Republican Nancy Kassebaum and Democrat Barbara Mikulski.

When my story broke, a group of female House members marched over to the Senate to urge their colleagues in "the other body" to investigate, but they were, as one put it to me, "totally dissed" by the senators.

POLITICS -- NPR/Marist Poll: 1 In 3 Americans Think A Foreign Country Will Change Midterm Votes
POLITICS -- NPR/Marist Poll: 40 Percent Of Americans Think Elections Aren't Fair

Today there are no female Republican members of the Judiciary Committee, but there are four Democratic women, including ranking member Dianne Feinstein, who was elected the year after the Hill-Thomas hearings, in what came to be known as "The Year of the Woman."

Moreover, today there are 23 female senators, nearly a quarter of the Senate. And there is an activist #MeToo movement.


Irin Carmon
✔
@irin
Anita Hill was questioned by an all white male bipartisan panel. This is what it looks like now:

Irin Carmon
✔
@irin
On the left, every GOP member of the Judiciary Committee who could be asking questions of Kavanaugh or Ford about sexual assault. On the right, the Dems.

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Now for the similarities

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh reacts as he testifies Sept. 6 before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Alex Brandon/AP

Desire to avoid the spotlight: In both cases, the women did not initially want to go public or be identified by name as an accuser. Ford first reported her charges to The Washington Post tip line in July and to her congresswoman, Anna Eshoo, and to Feinstein. She signed the letter, but asked for confidentiality. She did not want to go public with the accusation and be the focus of public attention.

Feinstein honored Ford's desire for confidentiality and did not inform other senators about the allegation. But last week The Intercept, an online magazine, printed some details of her allegation, without naming Ford, and the hunt was on to find her.

POLITICS -- Calls Grow To Delay Kavanaugh Vote After Accuser Goes Public

At that point, Ford decided she was losing the privacy she had sought to protect and that it was time to go public, which she did in an interview in the Post. She has also said she is willing to cooperate with the Judiciary Committee.

Both Hill and Blasey Ford are professors: Both Hill and Blasey Ford have advanced degrees and are well-respected by their colleagues. Hill was a professor at the University of Oklahoma law school (and is currently teaching at Brandeis).

Blasey Ford is a psychologist and biostatistician affiliated with Stanford and Palo Alto universities. She earned her master's degree from Stanford and her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California.

Both told the committee of their allegations in advance of the nominees' hearings: Like Ford, Hill first informed the Judiciary Committee of her charges well before the hearings on Thomas' nomination were to begin in 1991. But she didn't want her identity revealed, and then-Chairman Joe Biden didn't pursue the matter. Some of his Democratic colleagues, however, urged him to at least send the FBI to interview Hill and Thomas, which he did.

The matter seemed to end there, but was quickly revived.

On Oct. 1, 1991, the Judiciary Committee voted 7-7 on the nomination but reported it without recommendation to the Senate floor. And I, after a lot of tire-kicking, finally learned of Hill's identity. After checking out her reputation and background, I contacted her, but she didn't want to talk — unless I got a copy of the affidavit she had given the Judiciary Committee.

By Oct. 4, I had the story, but I couldn't get Biden to call me back. I did something then that I would never do today in the era of instant communication: I waited, still trying to reach him, to no avail.

Finally, on Oct. 6, with a detailed Hill interview in hand, corroboration from some of her friends, and at least one senator on the record, the story aired on NPR.

Two days later, with fax machines virtually vaporizing on Capitol Hill, Republican leader Bob Dole of Kansas decided to cancel the vote scheduled for that day. He no longer had the certain votes to win confirmation, and he and Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine agreed to a postponement and a second hearing to begin three days later.

The hearings lasted for three days, often into the very late hours of the evening. They were brutal for both the accuser and the accused. But because they were scheduled so quickly, there was not enough time for the usual investigative work that might have been done.

And at the end of the day, the country was divided along he-said, she-said lines.

There were three corroborating witnesses the Democrats had, who would have testified about conduct similar to what Hill alleged. But Biden did not call them to testify, a step he has now said publicly that he regrets.

Categorical denials of the allegations: Both Thomas then, and Kavanaugh now, vehemently denied the allegations against them. Thomas called the second hearing on his nomination "a high-tech lynching."

Kavanaugh has flatly and categorically denied Ford's allegations. "I have never done anything like what the accuser describes — to her or anyone else," he said in a statement. But he said he is "willing to talk to the Senate Judiciary Committee in any way the Committee deems appropriate," to "refute" the allegation that he said "never happened."

The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have now asked the White House to have the FBI investigate Ford's charges. Last week, the FBI said it had simply referred the matter to the White House, as an update to Kavanaugh's background check.

Democrats want more now. They want the FBI to question Ford, Judge and others at the party that night. They want an examination of Ford's psychiatric notes that the Washington Post has reported corroborate that she discussed the alleged attack in couples therapy with her husband in 2012. And they want time to pursue other leads, if they exist.

Confusion about how to proceed: The Ford allegations, like the Hill allegations, have caused great angst among senators about how to proceed. The pressures are different today than they were 27 years ago when Thomas was ultimately confirmed by a two-vote margin.

Republicans, who accused Hill of everything from "erotomania" to just being a liar, this time don't want to look insensitive and incurious, but they want their nominee confirmed quickly. And they see a very big difference between a drunken teenage party, where memories are dim if they exist at all, and sexual harassment charges on the job.

As for Democrats, well, they wish things had been done a little differently this time, too, and that all this were not occurring at the eleventh hour.


“WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES ONE OR TWO WEEKS MAKE WHEN YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT A LIFETIME APPOINTMENT?” NOW THAT’S A VERY GOOD QUESTION, I THINK. THE REPUBLICAN HASTE IS CLEAR. I DO HOPE THAT THE VERY INTELLIGENT SENATOR FLAKE, AND PERHAPS THE TWO REPUBLICAN WOMEN WHO SEEM TO CONSIDER KAVANAUGH’S CHARACTER AND STABILITY TO BE IMPORTANT, WILL VOTE TO HOLD OFF UNTIL AFTER THE ELECTION. FULL FBI INVESTIGATION WILL, HOPEFULLY HAPPEN, TOO.

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/18/649085712/democrats-want-fbi-to-investigate-kavanaugh-allegations-it-likely-wont
Democrats Want FBI To Investigate Kavanaugh Allegations. It Likely Won't
September 18, 201810:01 AM ET
Tamara Keith 2016 square
TAMARA KEITH

PHOTOGRAPH -- Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Patrick Leahy (seated) with Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley.
Alex Wong/Getty Images

When Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, announced a hearing for next Monday to air a decades-old sexual-assault allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, it didn't end the debate over how the Senate should handle the charges.

It intensified it.

Democrats are calling for a full FBI investigation of the allegation before a hearing, saying Monday is too soon.

"I'd have the professionals go in there, seek corroborating evidence, talk to the people involved, certainly talk to the third person who they claimed was there and that hasn't been done," Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, a long-time member of the Judiciary Committee and a former chairman told NPR's Morning Edition. "This might take a week or two to get all of this together, but what difference does one or two weeks make when you're talking about a lifetime appointment."

POLITICS -- Kavanaugh And His Accuser To Appear Before Senate Judiciary Committee

Republicans and the Trump White House argue that isn't the FBI's role. The Justice Department seems to agree. In a statement, a Justice Department spokeswoman said the FBI — which has added a letter from Christine Blasey Ford to Kavanaugh's already completed background report file — had already done all it was going to do, because "the allegation does not involve any potential federal crime."

"The FBI does not make any judgment about the credibility or significance of any allegation," the statement reads. "The purpose of a background investigation is to determine whether the nominee could pose a risk to the national security of the United States. The allegation does not involve any potential federal crime. The FBI's role in such matters is to provide information for the use of the decision makers."

Grassley was more definitive in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt Tuesday morning.

POLITICS -- Who Is Christine Blasey Ford, The Woman Accusing Brett Kavanaugh Of Sexual Assault?

"The FBI investigation of Judge Kavanaugh is closed," he said. "The FBI is not doing any further investigation."

Blasey Ford has accused Kavanaugh of a sexual attack when they were both in high school. She sent a letter to her congresswoman, Rep. Anna Eshoo, in July, which made its way to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. Blasey Ford asked for confidentiality, and the allegation was not made public — until this past weekend.

That's when she came forward for the first time publicly in an interview with The Washington Post. She detailed her memories of incident, saying that Kavanaugh pulled her into a bedroom along with another boy, then allegedly groped her, trying to remove her clothing and put his hand over her mouth to muffle her screams.

Kavanaugh responded through the White House with a categorical denial.

POLITICS -- Democrats Refer Kavanaugh Allegations To FBI, Deepening Divide Over His Nomination

"This is a completely false allegation," he said. "I have never done anything like what the accuser describes—to her or to anyone. Because this never happened, I had no idea who was making this accusation until she identified herself yesterday. I am willing to talk to the Senate Judiciary Committee in any way the Committee deems appropriate to refute this false allegation, from 36 years ago, and defend my integrity."

And he will do that in a scheduled hearing Monday, in what Democrats worry will be a replay of another he-said, she-said exercise in 1991 when Anita Hill came forward with sexual harassment allegations against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.

Democrats complained that there was not a thorough FBI investigation of the allegations that took place, and no major witnesses other than Hill and Thomas who were called. Monday's planned hearing seems to be following a similar pattern.

Grassley told Hewitt Tuesday that, "Yes," there will only be two witnesses Monday. "We've got two people involved," Grassley said, "and two people ought to be able to present their stories and then we'll have to be the jury."

Grassley added, "Accusers deserve to be heard and, after they're heard and we also have a responsibility to hear judge Kavanaugh, and I want to hear from Dr. Ford, and she deserved to be heard, because these are serious accusations."

POLITICS -- Battle For The Senate: Candidates In Key Races Respond To Kavanaugh Allegations

Grassley said it isn't even 100 percent certain at this point whether Ford or Kavanaugh will testify first, though he is inclined to have Ford go first.

On Morning Edition Tuesday, Leahy, D-Vt., suggested that another man who was allegedly in the room at the time of the encounter be called before the committee.

There were other potential witnesses who came forward before the Hill-Thomas hearings, and then-Chairman Joe Biden declined to let them testify, something he now has said publicly he regrets.

Democrats would argue that other witnesses could provide context, verify or refute parts of the stories that either person tells. For example, a friend and neighbor of Blasey Ford's told the San Jose Mercury News that Blasey Ford told her of the incident in 2017 before Kavanaugh was nominated.

The paper reports:

"It's been difficult for Blasey Ford over the years, [Blasey Ford] told [Rebecca] White, because the judge's name would come up as 'a super powerful guy and he might be a contender for a Supreme Court position one day.'"

Grassley told Hewitt that he has not heard from Blasey Ford yet, saying the committee has reached out to her.

"We still haven't heard from Dr. Ford, so do they want to have the hearing or not?" Grassley said.

Blasey Ford's attorneys told NPR's Morning Edition and other outlets that Ford is willing to testify.

Grassley told Hewitt he hoped the hearing wouldn't devolve into a circus-like atmosphere. The days of Kavanaugh confirmation hearings were often interrupted by protesters, and Republicans accused Democrats, especially those possible 2020 presidential candidates, of grandstanding.

"I'd like to see 21 members of our committee listen patiently to both witnesses," Grassley said, "and kind of act like a jury and then wait until you hear all the evidence, and then make your mind up afterwards. And I'm going to be respectful, and I hope my colleagues will be too."

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Grassley also couldn't answer whether each senator will get one or two rounds of questions. He said that hasn't been worked out, and pointed to the Democrats, noting that there hasn't been a lot of cooperation from Democratic staff.

Hewitt asked if there was any thought of having a female lawyer or someone like former Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire come in to do the questioning since there are no Republican women on the Judiciary Comittee.

"You're raising legitimate questions that are still on our mind," Grassley said, "and so these details are still being worked out."

All that's certain at the moment is that a hearing is scheduled for Monday, and that both Kavanaugh and Blasey Ford have been invited and have expressed an openness to participating to publicly tell their side of the story.

For Republicans, who wanted Kavanaugh confirmed in time for the start of the new Supreme Court session, beginning Oct. 1, a week or two would throw that timeline off. More importantly, Republicans want him confirmed before November's elections in the off chance that Democrats take control of the Senate.

Then again, this new allegation has already cast a massive shadow over Kavanaugh's nomination. Kavanaugh's supporters in the Senate and the White House question Democrats' motives, suggesting all they really want is to delay a confirmation vote.

"He wasn't going to vote for Brett Kavanaugh to be on the Supreme Court in the first place," Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, said of Leahy, who appeared before her on the PBS NewsHour Monday night. "A lot of people in the Senate weren't going to vote for him anyway."

Still, Conway and other Republicans are going out of their way to say they want Ford and Kavanaugh to be heard.

"It's good to hear from both the accuser and the accused here," Conway said, "and allow the Senate to weigh what they learn in those exchanges, along with the mountain of other testimonial evidence and other statements of support and endorsements of Brett Kavanaugh by the women he's known all throughout his life.


THIS VANITY FAIR STORY IS A LITTLE ON THE LENGTHY SIDE, BUT IT OPENS UP A WORLD THAT I’VE NEVER EXPLORED BEFORE – THE LANDSCAPE OF THE COMPUTER WORLD. WHAT’S INSIDE YOUR COMPUTER, AND THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE WORLD WIDE WEB? SEE ALSO: www.w3.org/.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/the-man-who-created-the-world-wide-web-has-some-regrets
“I WAS DEVASTATED”: TIM BERNERS-LEE, THE MAN WHO CREATED THE WORLD WIDE WEB, HAS SOME REGRETS
Berners-Lee has seen his creation debased by everything from fake news to mass surveillance. But he’s got a plan to fix it.
BY KATRINA BROOKER
AUGUST 2018

For people who want to make sure the Web serves humanity, we have to concern ourselves with what people are building on top of it,” Tim Berners-Lee told me one morning in downtown Washington, D.C., about a half-mile from the White House. Berners-Lee was speaking about the future of the Internet, as he does often and fervently and with great animation at a remarkable cadence. With an Oxonian wisp of hair framing his chiseled face, Berners-Lee appears the consummate academic—communicating rapidly, in a clipped London accent, occasionally skipping over words and eliding sentences as he stammers to convey a thought. His soliloquy was a mixture of excitement with traces of melancholy. Nearly three decades earlier, Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. On this morning, he had come to Washington as part of his mission to save it.

At 63, Berners-Lee has thus far had a career more or less divided into two phases. In the first, he attended Oxford; worked at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN); and then, in 1989, came up with the idea that eventually became the Web. Initially, Berners-Lee’s innovation was intended to help scientists share data across a then obscure platform called the Internet, a version of which the U.S. government had been using since the 1960s. But owing to his decision to release the source code for free—to make the Web an open and democratic platform for all—his brainchild quickly took on a life of its own. Berners-Lee’s life changed irrevocably, too. He would be named one of the 20th century’s most important figures by Time, receive the Turing Award (named after the famed code breaker) for achievements in the computer sciences, and be honored at the Olympics. He has been knighted by the Queen. “He is the Martin Luther King of our new digital world,” says Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation. (Berners-Lee is a former member of the foundation’s board of trustees.)

BERNERS-LEE ALSO ENVISIONED THAT HIS INVENTION COULD, IN THE WRONG HANDS, BECOME A DESTROYER OF WORLDS.

Berners-Lee, who never directly profited off his invention, has also spent most of his life trying to guard it. While Silicon Valley started ride-share apps and social-media networks without profoundly considering the consequences, Berners-Lee has spent the past three decades thinking about little else. From the beginning, in fact, Berners-Lee understood how the epic power of the Web would radically transform governments, businesses, societies. He also envisioned that his invention could, in the wrong hands, become a destroyer of worlds, as Robert Oppenheimer once infamously observed of his own creation. His prophecy came to life, most recently, when revelations emerged that Russian hackers interfered with the 2016 presidential election, or when Facebook admitted it exposed data on more than 80 million users to a political research firm, Cambridge Analytica, which worked for Donald Trump’s campaign. This episode was the latest in an increasingly chilling narrative. In 2012, Facebook conducted secret psychological experiments on nearly 700,000 users. Both Google and Amazon have filed patent applications for devices designed to listen for mood shifts and emotions in the human voice.

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For the man who set all this in motion, the mushroom cloud was unfolding before his very eyes. “I was devastated,” Berners-Lee told me that morning in Washington, blocks from the White House. For a brief moment, as he recalled his reaction to the Web’s recent abuses, Berners-Lee quieted; he was virtually sorrowful. “Actually, physically—my mind and body were in a different state.” Then he went on to recount, at a staccato pace, and in elliptical passages, the pain in watching his creation so distorted.

This agony, however, has had a profound effect on Berners-Lee. He is now embarking on a third act—determined to fight back through both his celebrity status and, notably, his skill as a coder. In particular, Berners-Lee has, for some time, been working on a new platform, Solid, to reclaim the Web from corporations and return it to its democratic roots. On this winter day, he had come to Washington to attend the annual meeting of the World Wide Web Foundation, which he started in 2009 to protect human rights across the digital landscape. For Berners-Lee, this mission is critical to a fast-approaching future. Sometime this November, he estimates, half the world’s population—close to 4 billion people—will be connected online, sharing everything from résumés to political views to DNA information. As billions more come online, they will feed trillions of additional bits of information into the Web, making it more powerful, more valuable, and potentially more dangerous than ever.

“We demonstrated that the Web had failed instead of served humanity, as it was supposed to have done, and failed in many places,” he told me. The increasing centralization of the Web, he says, has “ended up producing—with no deliberate action of the people who designed the platform—a large-scale emergent phenomenon which is anti-human.”

The original idea for the Web was born in the early 1960s, when Berners-Lee was growing up in London. His parents, both pioneers of the computer age, helped create the first commercial stored-program electronic computer. They raised their son on tales of bits and processors and the power of machines. One of his earliest memories is a conversation with his father about how computers would one day function like the human brain.

As a student at Oxford in the early 1970s, Berners-Lee built his own computer using an old television and a soldering iron. He graduated with a first-class degree in physics, without any particular plans for his future. He subsequently landed a series of jobs at different companies as a programmer, but none of them lasted long. It wasn’t until the early 1980s, when he got a consulting position at CERN, near Geneva, that his life began to change. He worked on a program to help nuclear scientists share data over another nascent system. At first, Berners-Lee quaintly called it “Enquire Within Upon Everything,” named after a Victorian-era domestic handbook that he had read as a child.

tim berners-lee
Berners-Lee at cern, outside Geneva, Switzerland, 1994.
Photograph © 1994–2018 Cern.

It would be nearly a decade before Berners-Lee refined the technology, renamed it, and released the Web’s source code. When it first appeared in an academic chat room, in August of 1991, the significance of the moment wasn’t immediately obvious. “No one paid much attention,” recalls Vinton Cerf, who is recognized as being a co-inventor of the Internet—atop which the Web sits—and is now chief Internet evangelist at Google. It was an information system that used an older software known as Hypertext to link to data and documents over the Internet. There were other information systems at the time. What made the Web powerful, and ultimately dominant, however, would also one day prove to be its greatest vulnerability: Berners-Lee gave it away for free; anyone with a computer and an Internet connection could not only access it but also build off it. Berners-Lee understood that the Web needed to be unfettered by patents, fees, royalties, or any other controls in order to thrive. This way, millions of innovators could design their own products to take advantage of it.

And, of course, millions did. Computer scientists and academics picked it up first, building applications that then drew others. Within a year of the Web’s release, nascent developers were already conceiving of ways to draw more and more users. From browsers to blogs to e-commerce sites, the Web’s eco-system exploded. In the beginning it was truly open, free, controlled by no one company or group. “We were in that first phase of what the Internet could do,” recalls Brewster Kahle, an early Internet pioneer who in 1996 built the original system for Alexa, later acquired by Amazon. “Tim and Vint made the system so that there could be many players that didn’t have an advantage over each other.” Berners-Lee, too, remembers the quixotism of the era. “The spirit there was very decentralized. The individual was incredibly empowered. It was all based on there being no central authority that you had to go to to ask permission,” he said. “That feeling of individual control, that empowerment, is something we’ve lost.”

The power of the Web wasn’t taken or stolen. We, collectively, by the billions, gave it away with every signed user agreement and intimate moment shared with technology. Facebook, Google, and Amazon now monopolize almost everything that happens online, from what we buy to the news we read to who we like. Along with a handful of powerful government agencies, they are able to monitor, manipulate, and spy in once unimaginable ways. Shortly after the 2016 election, Berners-Lee felt something had to change, and began methodically attempting to hack his creation. Last fall, the World Wide Web Foundation funded research to examine how Facebook’s algorithms control the news and information users receive. “Looking at the ways algorithms are feeding people news and looking at accountability for the algorithms—all of that is really important for the open Web,” he explained. By understanding these dangers, he hopes, we can collectively stop being deceived by the machine just as half the earth’s population is on board. “Crossing 50 percent is going to be a moment to pause and think,” says Berners-Lee, referring to the coming milestone. As billions more connect to the Web, he feels an increasing urgency to resolve its problems. For him this is about not just those already online but also the billions still unconnected. How much weaker and more marginalized will they become as the rest of the world leaves them behind?

We were now talking in a small, non-descript conference room, but Berners-Lee nevertheless felt called to action. Talking about this milestone, he grabbed a notebook and pen and started scribbling, slashing lines and dots and arrows across the page. He was mapping out a social graph of the computing power of the world. “This is maybe Elon Musk when he is using his most powerful computer,” said Berners-Lee, drawing a dark line at the top right of the page to illustrate the dominant position of the C.E.O. of SpaceX and Tesla. Lower on the page he scratched another mark: “These are the people in Ethiopia who have reasonable connectivity but they are totally being spied on.” The Web, which he had intended as a radical tool for democracy, was merely exacerbating the challenges of global inequality.

When about a fifth of the page was covered with lines and dots and scribbles, Berners-Lee stopped. Pointing to the space he’d left untouched, he said, “The goal is to fill in that square. To fill it up so all of humanity has total power on the Web.” His expression was intent, focused, as though he was calculating a problem for which he did not yet have the solution.

“I dumped a little code I had for doing things with email messages,” Berners-Lee typed one afternoon this spring, as he posted some code in a chat room on Gitter, an open platform frequented by coders to collaborate on ideas. It was a few days before Mark Zuckerberg was set to testify before Congress. And in this obscure part of the Web, Berners-Lee was busy working on a plan to make that testimony moot.

THE FORCES THAT BERNERS-LEE UNLEASHED NEARLY THREE DECADES AGO ARE ACCELERATING—MOVING IN WAYS NO ONE CAN FULLY PREDICT.

The idea is simple: re-decentralize the Web. Working with a small team of developers, he spends most of his time now on Solid, a platform designed to give individuals, rather than corporations, control of their own data. “There are people working in the lab trying to imagine how the Web could be different. How society on the Web could look different. What could happen if we give people privacy and we give people control of their data,” Berners-Lee told me. “We are building a whole eco-system.”

For now, the Solid technology is still new and not ready for the masses. But the vision, if it works, could radically change the existing power dynamics of the Web. The system aims to give users a platform by which they can control access to the data and content they generate on the Web. This way, users can choose how that data gets used rather than, say, Facebook and Google doing with it as they please. Solid’s code and technology is open to all—anyone with access to the Internet can come into its chat room and start coding. “One person turns up every few days. Some of them have heard about the promise of Solid, and they are driven to turn the world upside down,” he says. Part of the draw is working with an icon. For a computer scientist, coding with Berners-Lee is like playing guitar with Keith Richards. But more than just working with the inventor of the Web, these coders come because they want to join the cause. These are digital idealists, subversives, revolutionaries, and anyone else who wants to fight the centralization of the Web. For his part, working on Solid brings Berners-Lee back to the Web’s early days: “It’s under the radar, but working on it in a way puts back some of the optimism and excitement that the ‘fake news’ takes out.”

timeline of the web

Photographs by Alfred Pasieka/Science Photo Library/Alamy (2014); From Getty Images (2001); From Hulton Archive (1971, Computer), by Pedro Ladeira/AFP (2013), Maurix/Gamma-Rapho (2016, both), Michael A. Smith/The Life Images Collection (1981), all from Getty Images; By Frank Peters/Shutterstock (1996); By Fototeca Gilardi/Superstock (1971, Worm).

It’s still the early days for Solid, but Berners-Lee is moving fast. Those who work closely with him say he has thrown himself into the project with the same vigor and determination he employed upon the Web’s inception. Popular sentiment also appears to facilitate his time frame. In India, a group of activists successfully blocked Facebook from implementing a new service that would have effectively controlled access to the Web for huge swaths of the country’s population. In Germany, one young coder built a decentralized version of Twitter called Mastodon. In France, another group created Peertube as a decentralized alternative to YouTube. “I resent the control corporations have over people and their everyday lives. I hate the surveillance society we have accidently brought upon ourselves,” says Amy Guy, a coder from Scotland who helped build a platform called ActivityPub to connect decentralized Web sites. This summer, Web activists plan to convene at the second Decentralized Web Summit, in San Francisco.

Berners-Lee is not the leader of this revolution—by definition, the decentralized Web shouldn’t have one—but he is a powerful weapon in the fight. And he fully recognizes that re-decentralizing the Web is going to be a lot harder than inventing it was in the first place. “When the Web was created, there was nobody there, no vested parties who would resist,” says Brad Burnham, a partner at Union Square Ventures, the renowned venture-capital firm, which has started investing in companies aiming to decentralize the Web. “There are entrenched and very wealthy interests who benefit from keeping the balance of control in their favor.” Billions of dollars are at stake here: Amazon, Google, and Facebook won’t give up their profits without a fight. In the first three months of 2018, even as its C.E.O. was apologizing for leaking user data, Facebook made $11.97 billion. Google made $31 billion.

For now, chastened by bad press and public outrage, tech behemoths and other corporations say they are willing to make changes to ensure privacy and protect their users. “I’m committed to getting this right,” Facebook’s Zuckerberg told Congress in April. Google recently rolled out new privacy features to Gmail which would allow users to control how their messages get forwarded, copied, downloaded, or printed. And as revelations of spying, manipulation, and other abuses emerge, more governments are pushing for change. Last year the European Union fined Google $2.7 billion for manipulating online shopping markets. This year new regulations will require it and other tech companies to ask for users’ consent for their data. In the U.S., Congress and regulators are mulling ways to check the powers of Facebook and others.

But laws written now don’t anticipate future technologies. Nor do lawmakers—many badgered by corporate lobbyists—always choose to protect individual rights. In December, lobbyists for telecom companies pushed the Federal Communications Commission to roll back net-neutrality rules, which protect equal access to the Internet. In January, the U.S. Senate voted to advance a bill that would allow the National Security Agency to continue its mass online-surveillance program. Google’s lobbyists are now working to modify rules on how companies can gather and store biometric data, such as fingerprints, iris scans, and facial-recognition images.

The forces that Berners-Lee unleashed nearly three decades ago are accelerating, moving in ways no one can fully predict. And now, as half the world joins the Web, we are at a societal inflection point: Are we headed toward an Orwellian future where a handful of corporations monitor and control our lives? Or are we on the verge of creating a better version of society online, one where the free flow of ideas and information helps cure disease, expose corruption, reverse injustices?

It’s hard to believe that anyone—even Zuckerberg—wants the 1984 version. He didn’t found Facebook to manipulate elections; Jack Dorsey and the other Twitter founders didn’t intend to give Donald Trump a digital bullhorn. And this is what makes Berners-Lee believe that this battle over our digital future can be won. As public outrage grows over the centralization of the Web, and as enlarging numbers of coders join the effort to decentralize it, he has visions of the rest of us rising up and joining him. This spring, he issued a call to arms, of sorts, to the digital public. In an open letter published on his foundation’s Web site, he wrote: “While the problems facing the web are complex and large, I think we should see them as bugs: problems with existing code and software systems that have been created by people—and can be fixed by people.”

When asked what ordinary people can do, Berners-Lee replied, “You don’t have to have any coding skills. You just have to have a heart to decide enough is enough. Get out your Magic Marker and your signboard and your broomstick. And go out on the streets.” In other words, it’s time to rise against the machines.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misidentified Solid. It is a platform, not a software.

A version of this story was published in the August 2018 issue.

BERNERS-LEE BIO

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tim-Berners-Lee
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
BRITISH SCIENTIST
WRITTEN BY: Michael Aaron Dennis
AS OF SEPTEMBER 18, 2018

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, (born June 8, 1955, London, England), British computer scientist, generally credited as the inventor of the World Wide Web. In 2004 he was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and the inaugural Millennium Technology Prize (€1 million) by the Finnish Technology Award Foundation.

Computing came naturally to Berners-Lee, as both of his parents worked on the Ferranti Mark I, the first commercial computer. (See computer: The first stored-program machines.) After graduating in 1976 from the University of Oxford, Berners-Lee designed computer software for two years at Plessey Telecommunications Ltd., located in Poole, Dorset, England. Following this, he had several positions in the computer industry, including a stint from June to December 1980 as a software engineering consultant at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory in Geneva.

While at CERN, Berners-Lee developed a program for himself, called Enquire, that could store information in files that contained connections (“links”) both within and among separate files—a technique that became known as hypertext. After leaving CERN, Berners-Lee worked for Image Computer Systems Ltd., located in Ferndown, Dorset, where he designed a variety of computer systems. In 1984 he returned to CERN to work on the design of the laboratory’s computer network, developing procedures that allowed diverse computers to communicate with one another and researchers to control remote machines. In 1989 Berners-Lee drew up a proposal for creating a global hypertext document system that would make use of the Internet. His goal was to provide researchers with the ability to share their results, techniques, and practices without having to exchange e-mail constantly. Instead, researchers would place such information “online,” where their peers could immediately retrieve it anytime, day or night. Berners-Lee wrote the software for the first Web server (the central repository for the files to be shared) and the first Web client, or “browser” (the program to access and display files retrieved from the server), between October 1990 and the summer of 1991. The first “killer application” of the Web at CERN was the laboratory’s telephone directory—a mundane beginning for one of the technological wonders of the computer age.

From 1991 to 1993 Berners-Lee evangelized the Web. In 1994 in the United States he established the World Wide Web (W3) Consortium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Laboratory for Computer Science. The consortium, in consultation with others, lends oversight to the Web and the development of standards. In 1999 Berners-Lee became the first holder of the 3Com Founders chair at the Laboratory for Computer Science. His numerous other honours include the National Academy of Engineering’s prestigious Charles Stark Draper Prize (2007). Berners-Lee is the author, along with Mark Fischetti, of Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web (2000).

Michael Aaron Dennis


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN -- The European Organization for Nuclear Research (French: Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire), known as CERN (/sɜːrn/; French pronunciation: [sɛʁn]; derived from the name Conseil européen pour la recherche nucléaire), is a European research organization that operates the largest particle physics ...

PHOTOGRAPH -- The statue of Shiva engaging in the Nataraja dance presented by the Department of Atomic Energy of India