Web links related to the Back of the Book program of March 17, 2003

Here is the latest on the saga of Pacifica. The big meeting of the interim Pacifica National Board was held March 7-9, in Los Angeles, CA, to discuss and possibly even pass the new bylaws for the Pacifica Foundation. Well, it was a big flop, the various schemers sank the bylaws again. I'll be updating this link over the next few days.

WBAI now has a program schedule up on its Web site. It's not completed yet, they still haven't gotten the individual program pages together to provide links and such, but it's a start and it's official. Here's a schedule made by a listener who has Web links for various programs and producers.

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Our colleagues from Off the Hook now have both a RealAudio streaming web cast operating, and a new MP3 stream both of which were working at about 10:27 PM last night. The MP3 feed is now the preferred feed.

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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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The 3^rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) is “constitutionally infirm,” which means that they do see it as an assault on the First Amendment.

This is a good thing, especially in these times when civil liberties in general are under assault by the American right wing. Consider how things would be if the Patriot Act, Patriot Act II and COPA were all to be applied to lots of folks at once. And then of course there's Carnivore and all of the other crap that's already operating.

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Scientists have found actual stardust in the Earth's upper atmosphere. They're able to see this stuff because of new instruments that can see extremely tiny bits of dust. We've known for quite a while that we were all made of stardust, but who knew such stuff was still accessible in the upper atmosphere?

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I spoke on the program about my thoughts on what was then the probably impending war. Of course this war has since started.

Unlike many at WBAI I am not sure about how I feel about it. On the one hand, that idiot Bush, who is not the President but is a usurper in the White House, is not to be trusted. I don't think he actually comes up with a lot of things, I believe that he is controlled by handlers. In other words, he is largely a puppet of those who own him. And I think that this entire affair with Iraq was handled badly on the diplomatic plane.

Of course Saddam Hussein is definitely a bad guy. He's head of the Ba'ath Party in Iraq. The Ba'ath party is equivalent to the Nazi Party of the old Third Reich. Now I'm not just getting into name calling here, I'm being serious. The Ba'ath party is a far right wing party based on “national socialism,” which is what the Nazis were. By the way, the Germans who ran the Third Reich did not call themselves Nazis nor refer to their political group as a Nazi Party. They identified their party as the National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei (NSDAP), which translates as the National Socialist German Workers' Party.

Hussein has been doing awful things to Iraqis for decades and he is a real monster, worthy of the appellation Nazi.

But the big thing I wonder about is if Saddam Hussein really does have the gas, germ and nuclear weapon materials he's been accused of having. If he does, then he indeed presents a danger to all of us. As I said on the air, I do not want another 9/11, and I do not want to die, and have Pickles of the North die nor you the listener die, because this Iraqi Nazi was left alone to do what he pleased.

So my personal jury is still out on this question of the war. I oppose some parts of it and think that it was started ineptly, but I wonder if in the end it's going to save my life. Of course it could just make the world a more violent place and could hasten some attack on New York that would kill me and you. I don't see any way to tell. Obviously there are already people around who want to kill all Americans and some demand that we all bow down to their various sects of Mohammedanism, which is not going to happen.

So right now I'm just not sure. I am open to events changing my mind about all of this, however.

As usual, what I say will probably get everybody angry at me. Let's hope that Operation Atlas, the New York City contingency plan for more police presence in the event of a war with Iraq, doesn't turn out to be our local nightmare.

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The Vernal Equinox, which signals the arrival of Spring, will occur this Thursday, March 20, at exactly 8:00 PM. For more see my Web page about the seasons.

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We also got to some mail on the program. As usual, we present the E-mail we read here. First we have an E-mail from Zigman who sent this via his cell phone.

In fact I saw one of these. It was really good. And Penn & Teller have a nice attitude towards this, er, used food of the male bovine.

And indeed Seth, who's a long time listener, supporter and correspondent to the program helped out a great deal during our February marathon. Thanks again, Seth.

Well, I'd thought that Mister Charm wasn't going to write to us anymore, but it looks like he has. Oh, the psychodrama!

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There are a lot of issues that are considered hazardous to talk about on the air at WBAI. But there is an Internet list called “Free Pacifica!” which you can subscribe to, and these issues are discussed there. If you subscribe to it you will receive, via E-mail, all of the messages which are sent to that list. You will also be able to send messages to the list.

If you want to subscribe to the “Free Pacifica!” list just click on this link and follow the instructions, and you'll be subscribed. Could open your eyes a little bit.

The above list has occasionally produced a high volume of E-mail because of the attention that these issues have drawn. If you would prefer to subscribe to a low volume list that only provides announcements of events related to these issues then subscribe to the FreePac mailing list.

Another 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. With that warning in mind, you can look at the NewPacifica list here, and you can join the list from that Web page too, although you'll have to deal with Yahoo! to do so.

There is also the more WBAI specific “Goodlight” Web based message board. This one has a great many people posting anonymously and there's also an ancillary board that's just totally out of hand.

The “Goodlight” Web based message board has expanded to cover all Pacifica stations.

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