Web links related to the Back of the Book program of June 28, 2010


Oh, it's Sunday evening, July 11, 2010, 18:24, and this Web page is finished. I've updated this Web page with a link to an entire Web page of photographs and commentary about the Christopher St. Liberation Day March and the information about the LSB meeting being apparently cancelled. Previously I've updated it with the information about the nomination phase of this election being extended. The original top of this page follows the arrow. ⇒ This will be our annual Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Trans Pride program. As an ancient, and grouchy, old militant gay activist I'll talk all about old stuff. And I'll get to more stuff as well.

Did you know that I've got a brief synopsis of many of the WBAI LSB meetings? Well, I do, and I've updated this stuff a bit pretty recently.

The next regular WBAI LSB meeting will be held on Wednesday, July 14, 2010 right now I'm no longer sure of the date, at 7:00 PM at a location to be announced.

The June 9, 2010, LSB meeting once again saw faction operatives being disruptive during the meeting. Here's a little bit about what happened at that meeting. One of the low lights of the meeting happened at the end when faction operatives slandered a woman who is active in WBAI governance. When that woman got up during the Public comment segment of the meeting to refute the lies Sara Flounders, a member of the “Secretariat” for the so-called Workers World Party, disrupted the meeting and shouted so that the woman couldn't be heard. The faction can't handle the truth.

At its January 21, 2009, meeting the LSB voted to hold its meetings on the second Wednesday of every month and/or the last Thursday of that month, subject to change by the LSB, which gives us the following schedule:

All of these meetings are set to begin at 7:00 PM.

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.

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. And you can see the status of the streams at any time by clicking here. The stream was working at 9:44 PM last night. They have switched the server from Virginia to Texas, so that may have something to do with various problems. They have a new Flash stream here, make sure you enable Javascript so it can work for you.

WBAI is archiving the programs! Just go here and you'll be able to listen to this program any time for the next couple of months. You may need to scroll up one line to see the audio archive. Let me know if you find this feature useful.

If you want to listen to any part of the WBAI archive click here to go right to the archives. 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.

You can also go here to subscribe to the podcasts of Back of the Book and Carrier Wave.

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 the archives have seen 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!

The Pacifica National Board (PNB) met in New York City from Friday July 23, to Sunday July 26, 2009.

The meeting was held at the Beekman Towers Hotel, 3 Mitchell Place, in Manhattan, a couple of blocks north of the United Nations.

There was an election going on in Pacifica, so there were a few candidates attending and speaking during the public comment sessions. Some disrupted the meeting.

Here's the Web page I did about this PNB meeting and the amazing things that went on at it.

And the PNB has also met in Houston from Friday October 9th, through Sunday October 11th. The official audio archive of that meeting is here. It was not disrupted as the New York meeting was, although some of the same miscreants got out there to say stupid things.

The new Executive Director of Pacifica, Arlene Engleheart, has appointed a new interim General Manager of WBAI starting February 1, 2010.

The Executive Director of Pacifica, Arlene Engleheart, appointed another new interim General Manager of WBAI on June 24. So far there's been a Staff meeting to introduce Berthold Reimers as the new iGM, but Pacifica Management has not issued anything in writing yet. When they do I'll post a link to it.

The 2010, Pacifica election cycle has begun. A National Election Supervisor has been hired, she is Renee Asteria. The official Web site is here.

The 2010 Local Station Board Elections Have Begun!

The Local Station Board (LSB) is the primary governance body for WBAI. When meeting as delegates the LSB members elect the Directors of the Pacifica National Board, which is the governance body for the entire Pacifica Foundation. The Pacifica Foundation owns WBAI.

Here is the official time table for this crucial election.

This election is crucial for the survival of WBAI and Pacifica. The Sixth WBAI LSB, which will be created by this election, will last for two full years. WBAI and Pacifica are in a precarious position right now as current interim Management attempts to reverse the death spiral that the station and the network have been in for years. If some bunch of chuckleheads gets a majority on the WBAI LSB they'll be able to change the composition of the Pacifica National Board and revert to corrupt, incompetent and malfeasant Management, they might even sell WBAI.

We need decent people on the WBAI LSB who will be interested in preserving the station, not in selling it or running it into the ground. I hope that the listeners will educate themselves about the candidates and vote for good ones.

The official Web page where you register to get a nomination package is here.

Pickles and R. Paul carrying the Bi-Request banner

Pickles of the North and R. Paul Martin Carrying the Bi-Request Banner at the 2010 Pride March

Well, it was another Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Trans Pride March on Sunday. Naturally I always refer to it all as Christopher St. Liberation Day, which is what it is. This day commemorates the Stonewall Riots of 1969, when gay people fought back against yet another awful bar raid.

Pickles of the North and I marched in it again.

This was a very truncated march. The city has new rules about these sorts of things and They now have a limit for the length of a march's route and also a time limit for how long it can last. So we lined up on E. 40th St. and kicked off at 12:30 PM, as opposed to being on W. 54th St. and kicking off between 2:00 and 2:30 PM.

Pickles of the North and I were all done marching at 2:14 PM. We're usually just starting out at that time! And we got to be on Fifth Ave. for the Moment of Silence at 1:00 PM for all of those who've died of AIDS. We were right by Marble Collegiate Church, where they tolled their bells for the minute. There was a second Moment of Silence at 3:00 PM, but we were not in the march anymore, although we were going through the Pride Fest. When I looked at my watch after we'd walked through the Pride Fest and while we were at the stage I saw that it was 3:08 PM I noticed that they hadn't observed the Moment of Silence at 3:00 PM.

So this was the shortest Christopher St. Liberation Day March ever, as opposed to the one 30 years ago which was referred to as “The Long March.” Oh, I plan to talk about that one tonight.

Here's a Web page I did with a bunch of photographs from this year's Pride March.

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.

My voice mail number at WBAI is 212-209-2996. Leave a message.

You can also send me E-mail.



WBAI related links

WBAI Listeners' Web page

WBAI Management's official Web site


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