Back of the Book links for the January 14, 2008 program

UPDATE as of Sunday, December 30, 2007: The elections for the WBAI Local Station Board are currently on hold while a judge works out the details of the lawsuit brought by some members.

Because of the lawsuit nobody is sure what's happening now. Is the election over? Was the election extended? It's all going to depend on what the lawsuit determines.

The issue is to go before the judge on January 24, 2008. It is hoped that after that it will all be resolved. A complicating factor is that the Pacifica National Board will be meeting here in New York beginning January 25^th. Will WBAI be able to choose new Directors in time or will the current Directors, dominated by the faction currently in charge, continue no matter what?

If you are either a listener member or a Staff member of WBAI and you did not receive a ballot and/or you requested a replacement ballot then you need to immediately contact Frank LeFever Ph.D. and let him know if you didn't get a ballot and whether or not you got a replacement ballot. Dr. LeFever is unofficially collecting the information to see if there's a pattern to the ballot non-receipt phenomenon.

There has been a lawsuit filed about the way this election is being handled. The Court case is still ongoing. The temporary restraining order is still in effect. It's possible that some of the details regarding the election could change so you'll need to keep updated.

There's a regular LSB meeting scheduled for January 14^th at 7:00 PM, in Local 1199's Cafeteria , at 310 West 43^rd St. between 8^th & 9^th Avenues, in Manhattan.

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 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 under “Shared Timeslot Monday 1AM to 3AM” 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!

On the previous program we reported on a rumor that Nicole Sawaya, who had recently been hired as Pacifica's Executive Director was “in discussions” with the Pacifica National Board. We'd previously heard rumors that Ms. Sawaya had simply quit after about a month on the job.

It's looking now like there is a 0% chance that Asteroid 2007 WD₅ will strike Mars this month.

If you listen to the radio program on tape or via the Internet archives you probably won't be able to pledge during the program, but you can send us a check ahead of time. A regular one year membership is $25. So please send a check made payable to “Pacifica/WBAI” and send it to:

I should also point out that we'll need help answering the phones. This aspect of things now requires that you get your name added to a list so you can enter the building. So if you want to volunteer to answer phones for this 'thon you should call the Volunteer Coordinator at 1-212-209-2826. We always need more folks to answer the phones.

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 “Issues” forum of the bleepin' blue board is experiencing some problems at this time. The owner of the bleepin' blue board tells me that the problems are with the cgi scripts. So if you can't get onto the “Issues” forum look in the “WBAI People” forum until this gets fixed.

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.