Web links related to the Back of the Book program of June 6, 2005

It's Sunday night 6/19/2005 22:09:41 and this page is not done yet, I'll be finishing it up very soon though. Does Pacifica have an Executive Director or what? That's one of the questions we'll be asking tonight. We'll also cover the below topics and probably some more. We'll try to get through the mail as well. Check back for the inevitable updates.

A regularly scheduled WBAI Local Station Board meeting will be held on Saturday, June 25^th, at 2:00 PM, location to be announced, but probably outside of Manhattan.

Did you know that I've got a brief synopsis of almost every WBAI LSB meeting so far? Well, I do. And I'll be updating it soon.

At the May 25^th WBAI LSB meeting the new General Manager showed up and was a big improvement over what we'd had.

During public comment a number of people spoke about their disagreement with former WBAI General Manager Don Rojas' having fired Robert Knight as Rojas was leaving! There were also complaints about Program Director Bernard White removing Knight from his unpaid program Earthwatch a couple of days later.

It seems like the faction, having gotten a majority on the LSB and having made their on-air pronouncements are trying to avoid having the LSB report on the air anymore. They probably don't want anyone who's not in their faction on the air to contradict their lies.

The new General Manager said that we were probably not going to make the marathon's goal of $1.1 million by the May 28^th deadline, and noted that we'd never made our goal in the usual 18 days allotted for a 'thon and that we have to accept reality that we can't just keep extending these 'thons. Of course she only became the interim General Manager after the 'thon was already in progress. She got all of this dumped in her lap.

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.

The Executive Director of the Pacifica Foundation, which owns WBAI, tendered his resignation on April 1, effective June 1. Now he's saying that he isn't really resigned yet! Hey, what the hell is this then? Jeez, talk about trying to hang on!

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 were operating at 9:21 PM last night. Apparently the problems encountered with the stream for our last program have been fixed.

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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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Well, some scientists in Vienna, Austria have found that they can change the sexual orientation of the fruit fly by changing one gene, called fru. Well, humans are more complex than flies, and I think that sexual orientation in humans is something that's just not fully understood at all. But maybe there's something genetic related to it.

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Meanwhile in Switzerland other scientists are finding that the chemical oxytocin can break down barriers to trusting others — without any reason for being so trusting. They say that this couldn't be used to dupe people, but I don't necessarily trust that judgement.

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The Summer Solstice will occur on Tuesday, June 21, 2005 at 2:46 AM (ET). More here.

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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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