Web links related to the Back of the Book program of February 11, 2008


It's Friday, February 22, 2008, 20:53 and I've updated this page to reflect the latest communication from the Elections Supervisors about the WBAI elections process. I should be updating this page again soon. Arrrgghh! We're pitching again! And it's cold out! What a shocker for mid-Winter. We'll probably be frozen by the time we get into the radio station tonight. We plan to get to the below stuff and more. I'll probably be updating this Web page over the next number of days. and I'm just glad that we can in fact have a Web page up tonight.

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

UPDATE as of Friday, February 22, 2008: The deadlines for the elections for the WBAI Local Station Board have been extended by the Elections Supervisors. They've been announcing that the ballots would be counted on February 23, for the past 3 weeks, but they have now extended that deadline to Saturday, March 15, 2008. If you've got a ballot send it in immediately.

If you didn't get a ballot and would like to get a replacement ballot you need to contact Local Elections Supervisor Dale Ratner via E-mail or by leaving a message at 212-209-2828. The Local Elections Supervisor says, “Ballots must be mailed in on Friday, March 14th, 2008.” I'll assume that this means that they must be mailed in by that date. Since they'll be counting the ballots on March 15, I would suggest that you mail your ballot in well before March 14.

If you've already asked for a replacement ballot you should be getting one in the mail very soon. But, 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 Mitchel Cohen and let them know if you didn't get a ballot and whether or not you got a replacement ballot.

You should either mail your ballot in immediately or, as the Local Elections Supervisor says, “There will be another ballot drop off day at the station on Friday March 14th, 2008.” The Local Elections Supervisor has not given us any more information than that. When I get more information I'll post it.

There has been a lawsuit filed about the way this election is being handled. Here is a posting about the details of the case. Obviously some of the details regarding these elections could change yet again so you'll need to keep updated.

There's a regular LSB meeting scheduled for February 20th at 7:00 PM, in Local 1199's Cafeteria , at 310 West 43rd St. between 8th & 9th 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 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. It was working all right at 11:35 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 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!


Bob Santucci
19??-2008


This past fortnight we received the sad news that WBAI producer Bob Santucci had passed away.

Bob had an association with WBAI going back 25 years. I remember him playing one of the lead roles in the radio play The Bruces which aired on WBAI back in 1982.

In later years Bob was a part of several programs at WBAI, including late night programs such as Weaponry. Bob did a number of one-shot music programs and fill-ins on WBAI, and last year he was given a regular late night time slot to do a Doo-Wap show. He was very thrilled to be doing that.

Years earlier Bob had also been a member of the New York City Gay Men's Chorus, and had participated in a number of other gay groups.

We'll all miss Bob. He was a nice guy, he really wanted to do radio and he brought a unique perspective to all of the music shows that he did.

We're pitching on this program!

We hope that you'll pledge to WBAI while Back of the Book is on the air.

A regular one year membership is $25. But there are some premiums available for larger donations. Just ask about the available premiums when you call in.

We hope that everyone who listens pledges by calling 1-212-209-2950 during the program! And if you think we don't really need the dough just listen to what the Chief Financial Officer of Pacifica has to say.

Update: The good news is that we raised a total of $1,115 in pledges on this program. The bad news is that it looks like we're going to have to pitch again during the next program on February 24/25. We'll try to make this not a tedious pitching program.

The big computer problem I had for the last program has been partially solved for this one. I have probably 6 more weeks of trying to get software and utilities installed on this thing. Oh, it's an old beast, all right. If I'm lucky I'll get about 80% of what I had back. And finding the old software is a problem too. I have it around here but I just can't find it, or I just can't find the right version.

Part of the problem I have is that you just can't get software that will run on an old machine with Windows 98SE anymore. So if I can't find it around the house I'm out of luck.

This will be a continuing saga for me over the weeks, and possibly months, ahead.

This Web page marks 10 full years of my putting Web pages up for the individual radio programs. And you can view them all here!

And if we have time I'll be talking about efforts to understand what the hell dark energy is. The fact that the expansion of the universe is accelerating was discovered only 10 years ago.

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.

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.



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 © 2008, R. Paul Martin.