Web links related to the Back of the Book program of October 9, 2006

We're going to go on about a whole bunch of topics tonight, some science and some politics and all sorts of stuff.

The next WBAI Local Station Board meeting is scheduled for October 11, 2006, at 6:30 PM, 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 update them from time to time.

The WBAI LSB held an “emergency” meeting on September 7^th to pass the station's FY07 budget. At some point I'll do a Web age about that. The budget passed. It'll probably be rejected by the Pacifica CFO and the PNB.

The WBAI LSB was supposed to have held a regular meeting on September 13, but we were unable to get a quorum. Not enough LSB members showed up so all we could do was decide to meet in October. Folks are wasting our time again.

Meanwhile, Greg Guma, the Executive Director of the Pacifica Foundation has issued a statement about all of this stuff regarding the WBAI interim General Manager. Click here to see the text of Mr. Guma's statement. I've added my own comments about his statement click here to see my comments.

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. His 6 month “suspension” is now in its 18^th month.

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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There is a new, official stream for WBAI! You can go here and pick which type of stream you want! If this stream isn't working let me know.

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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. This feed was working at 11:05 PM last night. 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. NOTE: The archives have not always been behaving properly of late. They have been fixed, but we can't guarantee their condition. If Back of the Book isn't archived this time I'll post an archive myself. Also note that they have been calling the Back of the Book archive the Carrier Wave archive. You should go by the date of the program until this gets rectified.

NOTE:The archives screwed up on July 31, so I've posted an archive on another Web site. Just go to this link to download the audio archive of the July, 31 2006, radio program. I've stripped out the music in order to keep it legal.

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The WBAI Fall 'thon will be happening between October 4^th and October 28^th. We will be pitching on the next program. So please start thinking about making a donmation to the station and supporting Back of the Book. If you're one of thoe folks who record the program and listen to it later on please consider sending in a check to support the station and the radio program. You can send the check, made out to “Pacifica/WBAI” to:

R. Paul Martin
% WBAI
120 Wall St. 10^th floor
New York, NY 10005

Of course if you're going to be listening when we're pitching on October 22/23, we hope that you'll pledge then.

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As we get ready to post this Web page we hear that North Korea has announced that they have in fact set off an atomic bomb. Well, we'll have to see what happens with that.

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We're going to talk about this thing with Congressman Foley, of course. The Republicans are scrambling now, all right.

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And they've passed that bill, S.3930, that gives the Bush administration the power to try war criminals without the need for courts or habeas corpus and to use torture on them to get information out of them. It also pre-pardons President Bush and all of his pals for any war crimes they may commit. Huh? Can that be right? Would Congress have really voted for such a thing?

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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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