All right, it's Sunday evening, January 11, 2009, 19:57, and this Web page is done. In addition to the below stuff we got through a lot of the mail backlog. And we had an uninvited, stealth guest on this program: the Norwalk Virus. This radio program ends 2008, for us. We talked about our big northern trip over this past week, plus we really tried to get through all of the mail backlog.

Did you know that I've got a brief synopsis of many of the WBAI LSB meetings? Well, I do, and I've added one recently.

Even though it lasted for almost five hours the last LSB meeting did not get around to setting a meeting date for the next LSB meeting. When we figure out when and where this next LSB meeting will be held, it'll be in January, I'll post the information here.

There were meetings of the WBAI Delegates' Assembly and LSB held on Wednesday, December 10, 2008, at the Judson Memorial Church Assembly Room, 239 Thompson Street in Manhattan

So this Delegates' Assembly was a continuation of the one that didn't get a quorum right before the last radio program on December 1^st. This one was still short of a quorum and the time was approaching seven o'clock, when the LSB meeting was supposed to start. Also, this meeting was no longer relevant. The bylaws amendments that it had been supposed to deal with had a deadline for voting on them and this meeting was held after that deadline. So I suggested we start the meeting and adjourn it, which we did. Well, we got that out of the way.

The LSB meeting started minutes after the Delegates' Assembly adjourned and it lasted for quite a while, over 5 hours, but we got some things done.

The so called Justice and Unity Campaign operatives, aka the FoBs, had put out a call for all of their crazies to show up because I'd rightly referred to one of their disrupters as an asshole during the November 3, meeting. As it turned out most of their regular crazies didn't even show up for this meeting.

We held elections for the four officers of the LSB, and the same four officers as were elected in April got reelected.

• Chair: Mitchel Cohen
• Vice Chair: Andrea Fishman
• Secretary: Gail Blasie
• Treasurer: R. Paul Martin

We also elected members of the new Programming Committee and actually got a few other things done. We passed motions about the loan that Pacifica is seeking to take out on the building that houses sister station KPFK in Los Angeles. Basically, we want to know that Pacifica will be able to repay this loan.

This LSB meeting didn't end until 12:19 AM Thursday morning!

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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WBAI has an official Web stream of what's on the air at any time! You can go here and pick which type of stream you want! If this stream isn't working let me know. The stream was working at 9:10 PM last night.

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WBAI is archiving the programs! Just go here and you'll be able to listen to the program any time for the next couple of months. When you first go to the Web page you'll only see the WBAI programs for the past 7 days. If you want to see older programs you can click on one of the “See ALL Shows” buttons.

Back of the Book is now one of the programs that you can download, as well as listen to on line.

I'm glad to announce that with a new person doing the archives there have been some positive changes. In the table on that Web page Back of the Book and Carrier Wave are both in the Show column. The “Date and Category” column shows the date of the program. After the program I go in and write the details of the program and say which program it is. Of course I'd recommend that you just listen to both programs in this time slot!

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What is this? And why did it almost do in R. Paul?

What you're looking at in the photograph at the right are the steps of a rectory building. Pickles of the North and I went up to visit her parents, my in-laws, for the Isaac Newton's birthday celebrations of December 25th. I think the in-laws call it something else.

Pickles' father arranged for us to stay at the rectory of the local church while we were up there. And the photograph is of the entrance to that rectory. Note the decorations garlanded along the hand rail. Note the snow and ice.

Well, we stayed there for a few days, and then on the Saturday before this radio program we were scheduled to come back. So we were getting out of the rectory that morning, but it had rained in the wee hours of the night before. The steps were icy.

The cab that was to take us to the train station had arrived and Pickles got her boots on first and went out to it.

So I got out of the rectory, closed the door and then Pickles and the taxi driver were shouting to me to be careful on the icy steps. Pickles came over and took one of the bags I'd been carrying. I held onto the railing and walked down the steps very slowly.

The decorations on the railing made it a bit difficult to hold on easily. I couldn't just get a good grip and run my hand down the railing because of the decorations, which I think included light bulbs. So I had to loosen my grip, move my hand along the railing and reestablish my grip.

Well, at one point my feet just went out from under me. It was a rather spectacular slip and fall accident on the icy steps. I knew that it wasn't a trivial fall right away. I couldn't move at first, and I slid down the steps to that little landing you can see in the photograph. Oh, the pain.

I'd thought that my kidney had taken the brunt of the fall. So I was concerned about that. Pickles wanted to call an ambulance, but we had to get to the train, which was going to leave in less than an hour and a half.

Our Uninvited, Stealth Guest
Photo Credit: F.P. Williams, U.S. EPA

So we got me off those icy steps and, with Pickles' help, I was able to limp into the taxi cab. Walking at all was a very big problem. I faltered a number of times and nearly fell down. But I felt around and figured that I hadn't broken any bones. the enormous amount of pain was still in that area around the kidney.

And so we had a painful 11 hour train ride down to Penn Station. And was I ever glad that they had elevators to the subway platforms there!

On the air we talked about this a little bit and then I got sick on the air. Both Pickles and I had thought that this was the result of the trauma from the fall. We were both still worried about my kidney.

As it turned out I was nauseous because both Pickles and I had contracted the Norwalk Virus, we suspect it was from something on the train, possibly the ice.

So during this radio program I had to step out for a little while and Pickles had to take over, while still worrying about me.

It has since been established that the trauma was actually to my lower back. And we're looking to see if there is permanent damage.

Oh, I don't think I really want to go to the North Pole in the winter again soon!

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We noted on the air that the United States electoral college had voted for Barack Obama for President in December, and that's actually the election that counts. So he is officially elected.

On the air we talked about how everyone gay, lesbian, bisexual or trandgendered will be treated to this sky pilot Rick Warren preaching away at Obama's inauguration. This Rick Warren character has said that two persons of the same gender marrying is like incest, polygamy or child molestation. Gosh, I know I'll just feel so good with that Warren bigot up there.

Warren was a campaigner for the notorious Proposition 8 in California which amended the state's constitution to outlaw same gender marriages. We also mentioned on the air that California Attorney General Jerry Brown has filed suit to declare Proposition 8 null and void for being an assault on civil rights.

And Rick Warren has been praised for having done good things around the AIDS epidemic in Africa. But when you look at it some things do not seem so great. Warren's main tool in his alleged anti-AIDS campaign has been a Ugandan sky pilot named Martin Ssempa. This Martin Ssempa guy has held mass burnings of condoms in the name of Jesus. I don't see how that helps the fight against HIV and AIDS. Ssempa along with Warren support abstinance-only initiatives to stop the spread of HIV infection.

Martin Ssempa has also gotten his pals in the Kampala press to publish the names of people whom Ssempa claims are homosexuals in the big newspaper there and he's called for these people to be imprisoned for homosexuality! In addition Martin Ssempa is alleged to have told Dr. Helen Epstein, who is a public health consultant, that a coven of witches was meeting under Lake Victoria. Dr. Epstein also said that Ssempa was just paranoid about gay men and lesbians.

So this is the great work that this Rick Warren guy is doing in Africa around HIV and AIDS. Doesn't sound so productive to me.

Warren also has some best selling self help book out there. I wonder if some idiot in the Obama campaign read this sky pilot's book and just decided that he'd be a great part of the inauguration because he's somewhat famous? And did that person really investigate Rick Warren and his claims and statements? I sure hope that this blunder wasn't Obama's.

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Pickles here. I spent a good deal of the program worrying about R.Paul and his infirmity, and was very thankful Uncle Sidney was there to help take care of him! The washrooms for the station are pretty far away from our on-air booth.

We discussed some facts about calendars and time keeping in general. In the 21^st century, we have agricultural calendars, commercial calendars and religious calendars. It was hard hammering out something everyone could use and live with; days got added and left off and it got pretty confusing for a time. So we have people today observing different calendars for different needs, and it works out!

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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. UPDATE: The bleepin' blue board has had to add a step for folks to get onto it because it's under attack by spambots. When you click on the above link you may be asked for a username and password. Type in Username: poster Password: enternow

When the computer in Master Control is working we sometimes have live interaction with people posting on the “Goodlight Board” during the program.

Our very own Uncle Sidney Smith, whose program Carrier Wave alternates with us, has a blog these days. You can reach his blog here.

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