Back of the Book links for the December 6, 2004 program

It's Monday morning 12/13/2004 01:01:04 and this Web page is done. Better late than never! I had a problem with my Web host moving the servers last weekend and I didn't get to post this page then. But this time I've posted the entire thing all at once.

The WBAI Local Station Board (LSB) will meet next on Wednesday, December 15^th, at 6:30 PM at the Harlem State Office Building located at 163 W. 125^th St. in the 2^nd Floor Art Gallery, this is in Manhattan. The meeting will include Public Comment and is wheelchair accessible.

The elections for WBAI Local Station Board are over and the faction currently in charge lied and cheated its way to a majority on the WBAI Local Station Board. This is not a good thing. We'll see how it works out over the next few months.

As one of its last acts the old LSB lifted the secrecy from the executive session meeting of March 4, 2004. Here are the minutes of that meeting. The bottom line is that a prominent WBAI personality took the cash receipts of WBAI's Riverside 9/11 event and gave them to someone he knew. After the LSB began an investigation into this the money was returned to the station, eight months after it had been taken.

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.

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.

So WBAI Management has fired Gary Null. This was done on the same day that the faction currently in charge, an appendage of Management, won a majority in the LSB elections. Here's Management's statement about the removal of Gary Null from WBAI's air:

Statement on Status of Gary Null's Natural Living Program

As a consequence of on-air program schedule adjustments, Gary Null's Natural Living program will no longer be broadcast at noon on the weekdays.WBAI's management has offered Mr. Null the opportunity to broadcast his program daily at a mutually convenient time on Pacifica's Internet radio station which is streamed from WBAI's studios. Mr. Null has not yet responded to this offer.

The Management, WBAI/Pacifica Radio

Management's official statement is at odds with other statements from Management. What's really happening? The WBAI Program Director has exacted revenge on Gary Null, it's that simple. Management has been quoted as giving a different reason from the official one above for Null's permanent removal from the air.

Meanwhile, Gary Null has filed a “grievance” with the faction dominated fantasy union for Unpaid Staff at WBAI. We'll see what happens, but I think we already know how that's going to work out.

One of the questions is: was this just a single case of revenge or is this the beginning of a larger scale purge at WBAI?

There was no Web page for this program when the program aired. My Web host was moving servers over that weekend and nothing could be posted until the next week. So this whole Web page is going up much later than usual.

The Winter solstice will occur on Tuesday, December 21, 2004, at 7:42 AM (EST). For more information about seasons click here.

While watching 60 Minutes on December 5, I saw a piece they did on the “back door draft.” This is where people who'd thought that they were done with military service are suddenly dragged back through legal loopholes.

On 60 Minutes they were going over the situations of various people who'd been officers who were being forced back into active service and who were going to be shipped off the quagmire in Iraq.

If you were a military officer, and you do not resign your commission, you can be brought back in to active service in a “national emergency.” And this is exactly what's happening. I knew about this decades ago, but apparently a bunch of these officers didn't know about this little provision. Of course I was never an officer so I don't have to worry about such things.

Among those caught up in this back door draft were a woman who appeared to be a bit old for going into harm's way, a former chopper pilot who has a physical disability and a guy who is probably in his forties and is seriously overweight, maybe even obese. This last guy is going to be risking not only getting shot but having a heart attack from the heat and stress of dodging incoming ordnance. Just another way in which this war is a real mess.

And it is indeed ironic that a jerk who himself dodged military service in a war zone and didn't bother to show up for some of his National Guard duty is the one doing the back door draft and dragging these people off to a war zone.

Irene Elizabeth Stroud was a Methodist pastor and she was recently found “guilty” of living as an open lesbian. This is just right wing, anti-gay bigotry. Stroud was popular with the congregation, but the church pharisees found her guilty and removed her.

In better gay related news a 3 judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit found that colleges may indeed refuse to cooperate with military recruiters on the basis of the military's discrimination against people on the basis of sexual orientation.

There's evidence that the Sun had a close encounter with another star billions of years ago. This would account for the planetoid Sedna and for the sudden drop off of the Kuiper Belt at about 50 Astronomical Units out. Some asteroids in our Solar System may even be left over from the exchange of material with this other star. The Sun started out life in a star cluster of maybe 1,000 stars. If some of those traded asteroids could be found then it might be possible to learn more about that star cluster, most of whose former inhabitants are now scattered all over the galaxy.

Subject: vaughan meader
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 01:49:42 EST
From: John from Baldwin
To: rpm@glib.com

funny you should mention meader, R. Paul. He just died a few weeks ago. Oct. 30 he was 68

John from Baldwin

Subject: Vaughn Meader
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 20:15:27 EST
From: Sharon, the wicked witch of the East (Side)
To: rpm@glib.com

Dear Pickles and R,
I'm sure others will have let you know by now that Meader died a couple of weeks ago. He was 68, which means he was about 26 when he made the album. Lenny Bruce was right about his career, which totally crashed -- alcohol, drugs, and saddest of all, becoming a born-again Christian.

Are you going to the Isaac Newton exhibit at the New York Public Library? I haven't seen it yet but it sounds intriguing. It runs through February and best of all, it's free (I think). I'm old enough to remember when all the museums were free, or “suggested contribution.” Twenty bucks for the Museum of Modern Art? I don't think so.

Happy Newton's birthday, and all the other holidays in between.

Sharon, the wicked witch of the East (Side)

Subject: Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 02:49:06 EST
From: Tim
To: rpm@glib.com

By the way, Vaughn Meader died about a month ago. Around the same time, by chance, JFK's press secretary Pierre Salinger also died. He was metioned a few times on the First Family Albums. He moved to France because Bush became president. And a note to Sydney Smith; Tennessee Ernie Ford died over ten years ago, not long after he was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Sydney played some Ernie ford songs recently.

Subject: ms.Brown (read on air)
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 20:07:33 GMT
From: rich
To: rpm@glib.com

Hi R and Pickles
do you know of Cylvia Brown , she is the famous expert psychic who fortold sept 11, and is featured on Montell Williams show a couple times a month ,and has just written her 25th book ,she has also appeared on 'Unexplained Mysteries'of which i have wrote you about in the past ..... Her last appearance on Montell was rather strange ,a woman ,who's name she knew by just looking at her went into a transe and started speaking in a deep voice ,when questioned by Ms Brown it became clear that the woman was chanelling a ghost who presented himself as 'Charles'and said "he had unfinished business in this life"....Cynthia Brown then told him to go towards the light after a few moments the woman became normal again ...
She cautioned the audience: there are fundamental differences between ghosts and spirit guides and angels and that they should not be confused with each other then selected a particular one of her books that deals with a complete explanation of the differences between each of them......
In closing ,her seeings for the near future were
1. “don't go to India”
and
2. “something big is about to happen somewhere in the world in the near future”
what do you think....Uncle Sidney believes in angels ,according to ms.Brown some bad spirits try to trick people by pretending to be angels ,so i hope he's listening and takes caution....
Rich

Well, I don't believe in any of these silly things. But I must say that the warning that “something big is about to happen somewhere in the world in the near future” is probably a pretty safe bet. As it has been for the past several thousand years!

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.