Web links related to the Back of the Book program of January 12, 2009


It's Sunday night, January 25, 2009, 19:21, and I've updated this Web page with several more bits. I'd previously posted the date and location of the next LSB meeting. This Web page is finished. Oh, my aching back! Well, at least that stealth guest we had on the last program won't be here for this one. We plan to talk about some things happening in the world, we want to get to some science subject and we really are hoping to finish off the mail backlog on this program.

Did you know that I've got a brief synopsis of many of the WBAI LSB meetings? Well, I do, and I've added one recently.

The next regular WBAI LSB meeting will be held on Wednesday, January 21, 2009, at 7:00 PM, at the Judson Memorial Church Assembly Room, 239 Thompson Street (just south of Washington Square Park, between W. 3rd & W. 4th St.), in Manhattan. First there will be a regular LSB meeting, then there will be a Delegates' Assembly meeting to elect members to the Pacifica National Board.

There were meetings of the WBAI Delegates' Assembly and LSB held on Wednesday, December 10, 2008, at the Judson Memorial Church Assembly Room, 239 Thompson Street in Manhattan

So this Delegates' Assembly was a continuation of the one that didn't get a quorum right before the last radio program on December 1st. This one was still short of a quorum and the time was approaching seven o'clock, when the LSB meeting was supposed to start. Also, this meeting was no longer relevant. The bylaws amendments that it had been supposed to deal with had a deadline for voting on them and this meeting was held after that deadline. So I suggested we start the meeting and adjourn it, which we did. Well, we got that out of the way.

The LSB meeting started minutes after the Delegates' Assembly adjourned and it lasted for quite a while, over 5 hours, but we got some things done.

The so called Justice and Unity Campaign operatives, aka the FoBs, had put out a call for all of their crazies to show up because I'd rightly referred to one of their disrupters as an asshole during the November 3, meeting. As it turned out most of their regular crazies didn't even show up for this meeting.

We held elections for the four officers of the LSB, and the same four officers as were elected in April got reelected.

We also elected members of the new Programming Committee and actually got a few other things done. We passed motions about the loan that Pacifica is seeking to take out on the building that houses sister station KPFK in Los Angeles. Basically, we want to know that Pacifica will be able to repay this loan.

This LSB meeting didn't end until 12:19 AM Thursday morning!

WBAI has a program schedule up on its Web site. The site has gotten many of the individual program pages together to provide links and such, so check it out.

WBAI has an official Web stream of what's on the air at any time! You can go here and pick which type of stream you want! If this stream isn't working let me know. The stream was working at 8:08 PM last night.

WBAI is archiving the programs! Just go here and you'll be able to listen to the program any time for the next couple of months. When you first go to the Web page you'll only see the WBAI programs for the past 7 days. If you want to see older programs you can click on one of the “See ALL Shows” buttons.

Back of the Book is now one of the programs that you can download, as well as listen to on line.

I'm glad to announce that with a new person doing the archives there have been some positive changes. In the table on that Web page Back of the Book and Carrier Wave are both in the Show column. The “Date and Category” column shows the date of the program. After the program I go in and write the details of the program and say which program it is. Of course I'd recommend that you just listen to both programs in this time slot!

So a guy named Brandon Darby has announced that he is an F.B.I. informant. Here's his open letter about it. This brings up the idea of folks who do stuff like this. We'll talk about it tonight, along with some old examples that we know a lot about.

Years ago I did some radio programs about the F.B.I. spying on the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) back in the '70s.

Here's a page about informants talking about GAA. What the first two informants say is a pack of lies. They're obviously doing something malicious, possibly to get lesser jail terms on some offense. The third guy is trying to refute what they say, and is probably more in the category of this Brandon Darby guy.

I see that on that page there's a broken link. Here is the current location of the ACLU on line pamphlet Know Your Rights.

And here's a page about an incident I was involved in where the F.B.I. allows an actual perpetrator of violence to set the tone as to what was going on.

I'll also be talking about some other ancient history that I think relates to this sort of stuff.

So I think that the bottom line is that you just have to watch out and never get involved with stupid stuff that someone could pin on you.

And about that project of posting all of the files that the FBI had on GAA, well I seem to have not completed that project. Maybe I'll get on it again though. Some innocent folks who were involved as victims of violence have passed away since I did that program 6½ years ago, so I should really just let their names be shown.

In the olden days people thought that a giant named Atlas held the Earth aloft. Well, maybe the Milky Way Galaxy, where we all live, read one of those old Charles Atlas ads that I used to see in the comic books and bulked up from a 97 pound weakling to something much larger.

The Milky Way is heavier than had been thought and it is spinning faster. We are now once again on a par with the great galaxy in Andromeda.

Hey, the Pacifica National Board did not vote to take on a one million dollar balloon mortgage this past week. Well, that's probably a good thing!

We talked a very tiny bit about a phenomenon called “blindsight.” This is something that's been observed in people who've had the part of their brain that processes what we consciously see destroyed but who can still sort of see. Experiments have shown that people who are blind from this sort of brain damage can navigate around objects and will feel apprehensive if they're shown a picture of someone making a menacing face. They can't consciously see images but the information that comes in through their eyes and down their optic nerve goes to some deeper parts of their brains and is subconsciously perceived by the person. There's more about the blindsight phenomenon here.

There are a lot of issues that are considered hazardous to talk about on the air at WBAI, even now that the gag rule has been lifted. However, there is the Internet! There are mailing lists which you can subscribe to and Web based message boards devoted to WBAI and Pacifica issues. Many controversial WBAI/Pacifica issues are discussed on these lists.

Probably the most popular list that's sprung up is the “NewPacifica” mailing list. This one is very lively and currently includes over 400 subscribers coast to coast.

Being lively, of course, it sometimes also gets a bit nasty. All sorts of things are happening on this list and official announcements are frequently posted there.

You can look at the NewPacifica list here, and you can join the list from that Web page too. If you subscribe to the “NewPacifica” mailing list you will receive, via E-mail, all of the messages which are sent to that list.

There is the option to receive a “digest” version of the list, which means that a bunch of messages are bundled into one E-mail and sent to you at regular intervals, this cuts down on the number of E-mails you get from the list. You will also be able to send messages to the list.

This list also has a Web based interface where you can read messages and from which you can post your own messages.

There is also the more WBAI specific “Goodlight” Web based message board. It is sometimes referred to on Back of the Book as “the bleepin' blue board,” owing to the blue background used on its Web pages. This one has many people posting anonymously and there's also an ancillary “WBAI people” board that's just totally out of hand. UPDATE: The bleepin' blue board has had to add a step for folks to get onto it because it's under attack by spambots. When you click on the above link you may be asked for a username and password. Type in Username: poster Password: enternow

When the computer in Master Control is working we sometimes have live interaction with people posting on the “Goodlight Board” during the program.

Our very own Uncle Sidney Smith, whose program Carrier Wave alternates with us, has a blog these days. You can reach his blog here.

My voice mail number at WBAI is 212-209-2996. Leave a message.

You can also send me E-mail.



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