Back of the Book — April 6, 2019


So we're still having to use two computers to do things. My migration to a new computer that has Windows 10 on it is not going so smoothly. I am still trying to find out how to migrate all of my HTML editor's add-ons that I've created over the years to the new computer. Well, this will be z real learning experience. We plan to get to the below topics and more. We plan to celebrate Spring in our traditional way, which we forgot to do on the last program, and I will try to update this Web page soon.

Did you know that I've got a brief synopsis of some of the WBAI LSB meetings?

The LSB tried to meet on Wednesday, August 8, 2018, but it failed to achieve a quorum. I made a written Treasurer's Report for that meeting, but was not able to actually give a verbal one as well. You can read the written Treasurer's Report for August 8, 2018.

I have also posted a whole lot of the minutes of the Pacifica National Finance Committee. I'm a member of that committee because I'm the WBAI LSB Treasurer.

The next WBAI LSB meeting is scheduled to be held on April 10, 2019, at the Actors Fund Arts Center, 160 Schermerhorn St., Brooklyn, NY 11201. The meeting is supposed to start at 7:00 PM.

Some years ago the WBAI LSB voted to hold its regular meetings on the second Wednesday of every month, subject to change by the LSB, which gives us the following schedule:

All of these meetings are set to begin at 7:00 PM.

The Pacifica elections are over, for now. The next set should start up within weeks! Yeah, more of this crazy election stuff. The elections are over and the independent listeners and Staff came out well in it. I'll update this Web page with the results very soon. The good news is that the good guys won a majority on the WBAI LSB.

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.

Here is WBAI's current Internet stream. We can no longer tell if the stream is working without testing every possible stream. Good luck.

WBAI is archiving the programs! WBAI has permanently switched to yet another new archive Web page! This one is more baffling than the previous one. For some time I was unable to post archive blurbs, but I've found that after this program I was finally able to do so, but only for this morning's program. I still can't go back and plug in any archive blurbs for the programs that are missing from the archive. We'll see how this works out.

This is a link to the latest version of the official WBAI archive. The archiving software appears to have been at least partially fixed. To get to the archive of this program you can use the usual method: you'll have to click on the drop-down menu, which says “Display,” and find Back of the Book on that menu. We're pretty early in the list, so it shouldn't be too difficult. Once you find the program name click “GO” and you'll see only this Back of the Book program. I expect that after next Saturday they'll have the pre-recorded program that's alternating with us now showing up there too.

For programs before January 26, 2019, you'll have to click on the same drop-down menu as above, which says “Display,” and find Specify Date, it's the second choice from the top. You are then given a little pop-up calendar and you can choose the date of the program there. Then click “GO” and you'll see a list of programs that aired on that date. For instance, the previous program will be under January 12, 2019. You'll just need to scroll to the 5 AM to 6 AM slot to get to us. For those previous programs you can get the audio, but nothing else, since I can't post anything to those pages anymore. Yeah, it looks like they'll have the alternating program's name prominently there, but if you have the right date it'll be our program. Good luck.

Since the General Manager has banned Sidney Smith from WBAI he's not alternating with us on the air. At this time there's a regular, pre-recorded, program in the alternate week's time slot.

Things have improved this year on the PNB. I'll be trying to update my pages about all of this in the near future.

Bring Back Uncle Sidney!

Our friend, fellow WBAI producer and Saddle Pal Uncle Sidney Smith has been banned from WBAI by General Manager Berthold Reimers. The General Manager will not say why. He won't even tell Sidney why he's banned! This is grossly unfair to Sidney and constitutes abuse of Staff. Why did Berthold ban Sidney?

There's a posting here about it. More to come.

So Donnie Bonespur Trump is now saying that the United States of America is full, that there's no more room here for anyone new to come to this country. A statement like that certainly helps to indicate that there really is something seriously wrong with this guy. And there are professionals in the mental health field who are definitely of that opinion.

Meanwhile he stepped in and stopped his crony and underling Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos from defunding the Special Olympics. Yeah, even the Republicans screamed about that. They could see their seats in the House and Senate dissolving with that one.

We plan to talk about Japan's Hayabusa2 space probe bombing asteroid Ryugu. A peaceful bombing, it was.

The country of Brunei has enacted a law that will punish same gender sex by death! The same law is supposed to punish adultery with death as well, but we know that such a law would only be enforced against women who can't afford to get out from under it somehow. We know that in other nation states that practice this type of superstition based discrimination men just say they didn't do it. Women who are not married but who are pregnant get punished, including getting stoned to death. What a backward, bigoted place.

There are a lot of issues that are considered hazardous to talk about on the air at WBAI, even though the gag rule was lifted in 2002. 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.

One open list is the 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. The bleepin' blue board had to add a step for folks to get onto it because it was 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

UPDATE: In of June 2012, I ended up having to salvage the bleepin' blue board, and so I'm the moderator on it now.

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 Saturday Morning With the Radio On used to alternate with us, has a blog these days. You can reach his blog here.

Sidney is also posting occasional podcasts these days at the Web site he's established.

One formerly popular mailing list is the “NewPacifica” mailing list. Founded October 31, 2000, this list has been moribund for a couple of years due to de facto censorship by the group owner. As of February 2019, it had 696 subscribers coast to coast, but postings on it are very infrequent now.

Back in the day it sometimes also got a bit nasty. All sorts of things used to happen on this list and official announcements were 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.

We like to stay interactive with our listeners. Here are the various options for you to get in touch with us.

You can also send me E-mail.

And now you can even reach me on Twitter Twitter logo


WBAI related links

WBAI Listeners' Web page

WBAI Management's official Web site

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The contents of this Web page are copyright © 2019, R. Paul Martin.