Web links related to the Back of the Book program of February 13, 2006

Well, it's Sunday night 2/26/2006 20:42:16 and this page is very slightly updated. I plan to update it more. Let it snow! We have news of a brief takeover of the city below, and we're going to talk about various things, but we are mainly going to ask you to support this radio program and this radio station tonight by calling in at 1-212-209-2950 to pledge.

The next WBAI Local Station Board meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, February 15^th, 2006. at 6:30 to elect Listener & Staff Members to the Pacifica National Board Committees will be held at the Brooklyn Neighborhood Office of the Legal Aid Society, 111 Livingston St., 7th Floor, Brooklyn. Take the 2, 3, 4, 5, to Borough Hall, or A,C,E,F to Jay St./Borough Hall or the R to Court St. in Brooklyn. The location is wheelchair-accessible and public comment is welcome.

Did you know that I've got a brief synopsis of some of the WBAI LSB meetings? Well, I do. And I'll be updating it soon.

The January 10^th, Delegates' and LSB meetings were held in Brooklyn. The faction currently in charge showed up en masse very late and so the first of the two meetings began three quarters of an hour late! The very predictable elections for Pacifica Foundation Directors took place and the faction sent its choices in and the rest of us sent Patty Heffley.

We also still have the issue of the member whom the faction has illegally suspended. The faction allowed him to vote in the Delegates' meeting, which they'd denied him in the past, but they wanted him to go away for the LSB meeting. A number of us pointed out that his six month suspension was in its eleventh month, but the faction likes to use their majority to exact revenge on people for their faction boss so the faction refused to allow him to be a participating member.

The guy who always denounces me denounced me, along with another Staff member who's demanding fiscal accountability at WBAI. He seems to have backed off some of his charges since the last Finance Committee meeting. Perhaps he's starting to realize that I'm telling the truth about the faction.

I have written a statement about the constructive removal of a LSB member and sent it to the PNB, the WBAI LSB and various public mailing lists and bulletin boards.

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.

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Our colleagues from Off the Hook now have both a RealAudio streaming web cast operating, and a new MP3 stream. The MP3 feed is now the preferred feed. Both feeds were working at 10:29 PM last night.

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The Pacifica Foundation, which owns WBAI, has revamped its Web site and now has something called the Pacifica Lounge where you can post messages about Pacifica, WBAI and other Pacifica radio stations. This may be a good thing, and of course there are other, long term fora in which to participate.

WBAI also has a forum on its Web site now. You have to register to post messages, but anyone may read the messages.

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WBAI is now archiving the programs! Just go here and you'll be able to listen to the program any time for the next couple of weeks. Unfortunately, Back of the Book is not one of the programs that you can download, you can only listen to it on line. But maybe someone will change that at some point. Update: the archives have been screwed up for some weks now and this program wasn't archived. So I've done an archive of the air check myself and posted it on another site. Note that I've had to strip out the music portions for copyright reasons.

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Al Lewis, who did a program on WBAI, passed away this past fortnight. I didn't know him very well, but we'd met and talked a few times. There are some questions about his age and some other things. We'll try to fill out this remembrance of him as we get more information.

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We are pitching tonight! It's very important that we raise a good amount of money tonight so if you can please pledge when we start begging on this program. Help keep Back of the Book on WBAI and help keep WBAI on the air!

In the photograph you can see the Saddle Pals, R. Paul, Uncle Sidney Smith and Maxwell J. Schmid as we took over the City of New York recently.

Yes, we actually took over the entire city. But we gave it all up because we wanted to pitch! That's right, we wanted to pitch and get you to support our radio programs and WBAI. So we just gave the city back to the morons who are currently running it. Well, running New York City also got boring, but we mostly gave it back so we could pitch!

The phone number for the pledge line is 1-212-209-2950. Please call in and pledge. It's $25 for a regular one year subscription, but we'll take more. Additionally, there are premiums that you can get if you pledge more. Ask the volunteers take the phone calls about the premiums.

So please do call and pledge. We will really appreciate it if you do.

UPDATE: We raised $1,635 pitching on this radio program. Thanks to all who pledged and thanks also to those who did Tally and took the calls. And if you pledged please remember to fulfill your pledge when you get the bill for this 'thon.

Oh, yeah. Here are some of the photographs we have from our wedding. I'll be adding more as I get the time and I'll be labelling them better and probably cropping them so that you can fit them into your browser.

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We're going to talk about freedom of speech and some things going on in the world around that during this radio program. We'll see if we can avoid getting in trouble with our free speech!

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And we'll also talk about the Snow Moon, which is happening as we try to dig out or through the snow storm we just had!

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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.

And then there is the historic “Free Pacifica!” list, which has been used to help organize resistance to Pacifica Management hijackers since the mid-90s. It's become a low volume mailing list because it's been eclipsed by some of the newer, more technologically advanced, lists. Just click on this link and follow the instructions, and you'll be subscribed. This is a mailing list only, it doesn't have a digest option nor does it have a web interface.

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