Franz Kafka
It's Tuesday morning, September 17, 2013, 08:38, and I've updated this Web page with the video I shot of the waterfall at the Hoyt St. subway station last week. The original top of this page follows the arrow. ⇒ This is our 27th anniversary program! We'll celebrate in most of the usual ways, and we'll bring you some new stuff into the bargain. I have more to post on this Web page, too. So check back in for those updates.
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.
I have also posted a whole lot of the minutes of the Pacifica National Finance Committee. I'm a member of that committee because I'm the WBAI LSB Treasurer.
The next regular WBAI LSB meeting is scheduled to happen on Wednesday, October 9, 2013, at 7:00 PM at a location to be announced.
The WBAI LSB met on Wednesday, September 11, 2013, at Alwan-for-the-arts, 16 Beaver Street, 4th floor, in downtown Manhattan.
We had a short Treasurer's Report at this meeting but I had posted a written Treasurer's Report for this meeting. The faction played around and wasted time, preventing us from even completing the General Manager's Report, much less ever getting to vote on the WBAI FY14 draft budget. Well, they voted against the budget last year and they've stopped the LSB from even getting to a vote on this year's budget. I made a motion to censure one of the faction operatives who was disrupting the meeting, and that motion got passed.
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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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Oh, a mere week from tomorrow the Summer of '13, will be over. Well, it just won't do to have Summer last all year long around here. We all must abide by the dictates of the tilted Earth.
In accordance with the way things are the Autumnal Equinox will occur on Sunday, September 22, 2013 at 16:44 (ET), that's 4:44 PM for those of you not living on 24 hour time.
For more on the seasons and sub-seasons look at my Web page about all of that.
Well, I'll miss the Summer, but September and October aren't usually such bad months. I prefer the Middle Third, but this is all better than the Miserable Third which encompasses November through February. However, we must always remember the cheerful aphorism, “Every day above ground is a good day.” That even applies when we're not as warm as we'd like to be.
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And this is the 27th Anniversary program of Back of the Book!
It is indeed a surprise that we have gotten this far.
We plan to do the traditional reading of “Before the Law” by Franz Kafka. There's another translation of this fable or parable, as they call it, on this Web page.
We are hoping that we can have more anniversaries, and of course we're hoping that WBAI will survive into the future. We're hoping that the next time we pitch that folks will remember how much they like WBAI and will pledge to keep it going.
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It has been announced that the Voyager 1 Spacecraft has entered interstellar space. This is the first human made thing to go interstellar, if you don't count all of our radio and TV, etc. broadcasts, the earliest of which are getting to be close to 100 light years away by now.
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So Pickles of the North and I went to the WBAI Staff meeting on Thursday, the night after the LSB meeting. We were about to rush up the stairs at the Hoyt St. IRT station to get to the new WBAI headquarters at 388 Atlantic Ave. when we were met with this waterfall on the steps of the Hoyt St. station.
Here's my somewhat shaky 49 second video of this. It was a pretty fierce downpour.
Yeah, we ran out into it, and got wet.
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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.
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The contents of this Web page are copyright © 2013, R. Paul Martin.
