Web links related to the Back of the Book program of May 13, 2002

Here is the latest on the saga of Pacifica. I have updated that page with stuff about the recent meeting of the interim Pacifica National Board in Los Angeles, CA, along with a couple of other items.

As we move into the next phase of the Pacifica Crisis some listeners are more convinced than ever that only open elections will provide a long range cure for the Pacifica Crisis. Here's an election proposal.

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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 10:29 PM last night. The MP3 feed is now the preferred feed.

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WBAI was having a “marathon” for this program. It was a difficult pitching shift. We'd gotten some pledges early on but not a lot, however in the last minutes listeners rallied and called in. We ended with $1,236 in pledges. Thanks to all who pledged, and please fulfill your pledge, and thanks also to all who worked tally for the program: Cerene, Seth and Pickles of the North.

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Pickles of the North and I went on a two day/one night trip to Atlantic City. It was good to get away, even for a very short time, from all of the stresses we've had lately. On the air I told the story of a wacky guy who was on our bus on the way down. Besides making a lot of grunting noises he also made a great many trips to the can. And after one he was wearing less clothing than he'd had on before! Oh the joy of vast expanses of exposed, hairy fat being paraded up and down the narrow aisle accompanied by about a hundred grunts per minute.

Atlantic City itself was okay, just what we'd expected. I'd been there before, in 1956! The famous Steel Pier just isn't what it used to be. I told the story of getting my parents to let me go on a ride there in 1956, the diving bell. I'd had visions of seeing all sorts of underwater life. In fact all we got to see was very murky water. Once we were submerged, I think it was to a depth of 50 feet, there was absolutely nothing to see. One more disappointment of my young life.

Hey, on this latest trip I got to sit in a Jacuzzi for the first time.

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The Supreme Court has demolished one of the outrageous parts of the so called Child Pornography Prevention Act which treated make believe images as if they were real. This thing was another assault on the first amendment by those who would control everything everyone sees and hears. The sort of “legal” reasoning that was used to arrive at this stupid legislation is symptomatic of the attempt by the right wing in this country to dismantle the First Amendment. Hell, this sort of thing could have made Michelangelo's statue of David illegal.

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I've talked on the program before about the accelerating expansion of the universe, which was discovered in 1998. There have been any number of challenges to this idea, and all have ended up strengthening the theory. Now some scientists are challenging this mysterious phenomenon by invoking an entirely unproven theory. We'll keep an eye on this one.

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In a much less complex astronomical phenomenon the planets are going to be lined up in an interesting way tonight. All you need for this is clear skies and good enough eyesight.

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There are a lot of issues that we can't 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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