I hope that’s a relief.

It has to do with Craig’s List. Now, I have never used Craig’s List for anything. I say that with neither pride nor regret. Just the facts, ma’am. Just the facts.

Until a year or so ago, I gave Craig’s List no thought. It was just one of those things that was just there, and had nothing to do with me. Then I learned that there really was a Craig. A man named Craig Newmark. And I saw a YouTube presentation he made to some group here in DC, and decided to listen to it. I could have watched it, of course, but I was in my car, and I don’t drive a Tesla with an IMEX screen, so I had to be satisfied with the sound.

I learned a little about Newmark, that he was an engineer of some type, and that he had founded Craig’s List sort of as a lark, as a small way to bring community to his neighborhood, or to people he knew, or something like that. I learned it was a for-profit operation, and that Craig Newmark had made Millions (with a capital M) and was giving it away almost as quickly as it came in. I also learned that he was a character, a one of a kind character, who had been hooked on science fiction books since he was a kid, and who had grave forebodings about what Artificial Intelligence might bring us down the line. And I learned that he was funny, and had a self-deprecating sense of humor.

Last week, Craig Newmark spoke at a relatively small luncheon (maybe 75 people at the most) hosted by a friend of mine on behalf of Moment Magazine at the National Press Club here in Washington, and I went. Moment was presenting Newmark with an award of some sort. He was introduced by Judy Woodruff of PBS and interviewed by Robert Siegel, recently retired from NPR. I found it a lot of fun.

Going back for a minute to Craig Newmark and his particular “style” and brand of humor, I must say that it apparently is not for everyone. At least two friends at the session were not impressed by him at all. As one told me, “Craig is not on my list.”

Well, I dissent. Craig Newmark looks to me like someone I could be good friends with under other circumstances. He is about 10 years younger than I am (Craigis70), and a couple of inches shorter than I am (always a good trait in a friend, I think), and a few pounds heavier than I am, and slightly balder than I am and, besides that, he makes me look like a fashion plate. You can see the photo that I am including in this post, and you can ask yourself if you would dress like that going to speak to and pick up an award from Moment Magazine and its supporters. He, by the way, is a supporter of the magazine.

Robert Siegel was a great choice to be the interviewer. Not only does he have the perfect voice for anything (maybe other than opera, I don’t know) that requires a voice, but he is low key and seems to be actually listening to, and reacting to, the answers of the questions he poses. And, he is about as short as Newmark, so the stage didn’t tilt either way.

To learn more about Newmark, to get basic background, just go to Wikipedia. And, by the way, Newmark is a major supporter of Wikipedia, and a major fan (as am I), worried that Wikipedia is going to be more and more attacked by fake news sources and wants to make sure they have the resources to fight it.

Free, honest and truthful news is one of the aims of Newmark’s philanthropy, as are Veterans programs, cybersecurity, family leave support and environmental programs. He apparently donates, through his charitable foundation, between $50 million and $100 million a year.

So there was a lot of conversation about fake news, artificial intelligence, and in general the dangers of the modern world. There were also discussions of birds. Newmark is also a vocal birder – not that he hunts birds obviously, and he doesn’t photograph him as far as I know, he doesn’t paint or draw them. He just watches them and feeds them. He lives in Greenwich Village and he says that the variety of birds there is limited, so he spend a lot of time watching pigeons, many of whom are “regulars”, whom he can identify. He is particularly jealous of one male pigeon who is now on his fifth mate. He is jealous of him because he, as a bird, is so much more socially adept than Newmark is as a human being.

Craig Newmark seems like an accident. He was in high school, he says, the very definition of a nerd, with his pens in his short pocket, and became an engineer, working for IBM for 17 years (hard to imagine, that, IBM the white shirt company), starting Craig’s List for just a few friends, before it mushroomed. The idea that his service for his friends would grow into such a big business is hard to imagine, especially for Newmark.

Siegel asked him if he ever wanted to own a media company himself, rather than making contributions to so many others. “I don’t have that kind of money”, he said, “I’ve given all mine away.”