Back of the Book — January 19, 2013


This may be our last radio program from the ass end of Wall St. It's certainly going to be one of the last two. We're not sure when the station will be moving its studios to the CCNY site, but we may be there for the next program. Meanwhile look around, and we'll be hoping to do our various topics below and more. We've also posted something below about the next 'thon, which we'll be participating in on the next program. And I hope as much as you do that I update this Web page soon.

The 2012 Local Station Board Elections Are Over!
And the results are in!

Here is the list of those elected in order of their finish:

Listeners

RUNNERS UP in order

Staff *

* Staff aren't allowed anymore to run as a part of the same slate as listeners, but the designations above show the affinities of the elected Staff.

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

The next regular WBAI LSB meeting is scheduled to be held on Wednesday, February 13, 2013, at a location to be announced.

There were meetings of both WBAI LSB and the Delegates' Assembly on Wednesday, January 9, 2013, at Alwan-for-the-Arts, 16 Beaver Street, 4th floor, in downtown Manhattan.

The LSB meeting met to mostly elect its officers for 2013. Here are the results of those elections:

Here are the Officers elected for 2013

The Delegates' Assembly met right after the LSB meeting in order to elect Directors from WBAI.

These are the WBAI Directors elected for 2013

At a previous meeting the WBAI 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 newly revamped Web site. The site has gotten many of the individual program pages together to provide links and such, so check it out.

Because WBAI was forced out of its studios by the flood waters' destruction of the building's electrical system we still have this alternate, temporary stream for the radio station! I do not know how long this emergency stream will be up for. If this stream isn't working let me know.

New WBAI stream! WBAI has put up an experimental stream for the Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. This is a brand new, experimental stream. So if you have one of those devices you might try the link out. And let us know how it works for you one way or the other. That way the folks implementing it can iron out any kinks in the system.

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. There is also another version of the archive here.

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. Or to see only the two shows in this time slot click here.

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

In the table on the archive Web page Back of the Book and Saturday Morning With the Radio On 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!

In the Summer of 2009, there was a Pacifica National Board meeting held in New York. 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, 2009. 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 Pacifica National Board (PNB) met in Manhattan the weekend of October 1-3, 2010. The audio has been posted for the first day of the meeting, the second day of the meeting and the third day of the meeting.

The 2012, Pacifica elections are over. I hope that none of you voted for the so-called “Justice & Unity Campaign,” aka the faction, candidates. We have the election results, and they are, for the most part, good. They're posted above.

We will be pitching on our February 16th, program. We'll be pitching as a part of the WBAI Winter 'Thon. We'll be hoping to raise enough money for the station to survive in our new split situation.

Usually we ask that people send us a check if they can't listen to the program live. However, WBAI is moving. We are not sure where the mail should be sent to in order that we might be able to get it on February 2. We will have a new address, and Management says that they haven't figured out how to handle the Staff mail with the new situation where the station is in two parts that are located miles apart. Where will our physical mail be sent? Well, as a result of that situation we figure that we should not ask anyone to send a check this time. But we will be pitching on the next program, maybe on the next two programs, and we hope that everyone who listens will pledge then.

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has had its big, final report done. The universe is 13.77 billion years old, and there's more. We plan to talk about this on the air.

Getting ID that anyone will pay attention to in the 21st Century is an adventure. We plan to talk about our recent adventures in the quest for ID for R. Paul on this program.

Presented without comment - for the moment.

the empty off of the Program Director
And Another One Bites the Dust

From: Berthold Reimers

Dear WBAI Family,

Program Director Chris Hatzis has moved on and is no longer associated with WBAI. Chris Hatzis began working at WBAI in June 1, 2012 and has worked closely with the staff to improve process and programming. We wish him well and we will do our best to fill out such an important position.

Meanwhile, I will do my best to help address any issue that Chris would usually take care off. For any programming issues, please e-mail: Berthold Reimers breimers62@earthlink.net, Kathy Davis Kdaviswbai@yahoo.com, Michael G. Haskins Mghaskins@yahoo.com, Reggie Johnson acidreg@gmail.com, Ife Dancy hiphoptakeover@yahoo.com, Tony Ryan soulcentralmusic@yahoo.com and Jennifer SindabJcsbelize@yahoo.com

Please note that WBAI Winter drive starts on Monday February 4, 2013 and I expect EVERY show to come up with its own premium as I want to go back to the idea that we are offering the content of the shows and not premiums. There will be a separate note soon addressing the fund drive obligations and responsibilities but I wanted to give you a head start.

I appreciate your support and understanding in these trying times.

Sincerely,

Berthold

Berthold Reimers
General Manager
WBAI 99.5 FM Radio

Sign on WBAI literature table:
We're Packing Our Stuff!

WBAI is definitely moving.

The building where WBAI has been headquartered since 1998, at 120 Wall St. got seriously compromised when the East River inundated its lower two floors as the result of the storm surge from Super Storm Sandy on the night of October 29, 2012.

We talked about the storm and all on a previous program. And we've noted that Pickles of the North, among others at WBAI and throughout 120 Wall St., has had trouble breathing at times owing to the mold and the biocide being used by building Management to try to fight the mold that resulted from the flooding of this 80+ year old building. Pickles has had to use her asthma inhaler on the air a number of times.

With Verizon unable to get the phone lines working again, and with the other problems the building is having, and with WBAI's lease expiring on December 31, 2012, the station is moving.

WBAI will be split in two. The official offices of the station will be located in free office space (for six months) at 4 World Financial Center and according to the General manager, “We are moving to the studios of WHCR at City College located at 160 Convent Ave., New York, NY.”

I cleaned out my locker at the station, I “packed my stuff” after our program of December 22, 2012. So I'm out of there. I'm hoping that the Unpaid Staff are going to be accommodated at these new locations. Right now we're not getting a lot of information from management. We do not know how we'll get our mail that's sent to the station. We are not sure about just how the studios at CCNY are going to be and we are not sure about that trek from the 137th St. subway station, up Vinegar Hill at 4:30 on Saturday mornings will be.

There are quite the number of uncertainties related to this move. Management hopes that with no office rent to pay for six months, and a studio rent that's around $30,000 a month less than what we're paying for space at 120 Wall St. that we'll be able to save enough money to have a load of dough when we have to move for real, probably in July. Yeah, let's cross our fingers over this one.

There are a lot of issues that are considered hazardous to talk about on the air at WBAI, even though the gag rule was lifted in 2002. 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.

One popular list the “NewPacifica” mailing list. Founded October 31, 2000, this list is sometimes lively and as of mid-2011, has 687 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 Saturday Morning With the Radio On 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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The contents of this Web page are copyright © 2013, R. Paul Martin.