Partway Through the Elipse
This Web page was posted long after the radio program aired. Usually I post the program's Web page before we head in to do the program, and then I'll sometimes update it. I really should always update it, but it doesn't work out that way. The reason why we didn't post this Web page before the program was because our Internet Service Provider, Verizon, did not repair a non-functioning cable until well after the program. So we dealt with the below topics on this program.
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Here is WBAI's current Internet stream. We can no longer tell if the stream is working without testing every possible stream. Good luck.
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WBAI is archiving the programs! WBAI has permanently switched to yet another new archive Web page! This one is more baffling than the previous one. We have to put archive blurb copy in before the program airs. The person in charge of the WBAI Web site says, “If you fail to create a playlist, your show may not show up in the archives at all.” So we made an archive blurb long before the program.
This is a link to the latest version of the official WBAI archive To get to this program you'll have to click on the drop-down menu, which says “Display,” and find Back of the Book on that menu. We're pretty early in the list, so it shouldn't be too difficult. Once you find the program name click “GO” and you'll see a list of programs, most of which are Back of the Book programs. Good luck.
The archive for the July 1, 2017, Back of the Book program never made it to the archives. All of the early Saturday morning programs that day did not get archived. So I have cobbled together an archive which I have posted here. For legal reasons the little music that was in the program had to be taken out, and mostly replaced with a short beep.
Since the General Manager has banned Sidney Smith from WBAI there's no telling what's on in the alternate week's time slot anymore.
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Things have improved this year on the PNB. I'll be trying to update my pages about all of this in the near future.
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Our friend, fellow WBAI producer and Saddle Pal Uncle Sidney Smith has been banned from WBAI by General Manager Berthold Reimers. The General Manager will not say why. He won't even tell Sidney why he's banned! This is grossly unfair to Sidney and constitutes abuse of Staff. Why did Berthold ban Sidney?
There's a posting here about it. More to come.
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We were all lucky in that we had good weather for the solar eclipse on August 21st. Here in Greater New York it was a partial eclipse, in other places it was a total eclipse. And there will be another one in seven years. Pickles of the North and I went to Coney Island to view this partial eclipse. There is more open space there than on any city street, there were fewer distractions and we were able to sit at a picnic table in Seaside Park and get ready for it.
Here you can see the best photograph I was able to take during the entire event. Pickles of the North and I had brought along some special viewing devices, you can't really call them glasses, they're made of cardboard and a thin, plastic film, that allowed us to look right at the eclipse without risking being blinded by what Sun was still showing. I made photographs with the camera lens shooting directly though the glasses
, and I made some photographs by shooting an image of the eclipse that was reflected in a small mirror. I forget if this is a mirrored image or not. Of course even with shooting a mirrored image I had to use the eclipse glasses
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Pickles of the North was really pleased that we were able to sit down at a picnic table, with the smells of the Summer beach wafting over us, and just have the fun of watching just about the entire eclipse. We got to see it approach, reach and then recede from the 71% coverage of the Sun.
In the photograph I'm wearing those special Sun-viewing glasses that we got from Astronomy magazine years ago. They really came in handy this time. We each had a pair.
A while after the eclipse had reached its maximum and was receding we had a little lunch right there, very appropriate for folks sitting at a picnic table in Coney Island. It was our eclipse banquet.
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On the afternoon after our last program a bunch of right wing groups, including neo-Nazis and self-described White Supremecists, staged a demonstration to Unite the Right
in Charlottesville, Virginia. The night before they had a march through the University of Virginia campus with marchers carrying tiki torches and chanting slogans including, blood and soil,
an old Nazi chant, and You will not replace us,
interspersed with racist and anti-Semitic chants.
After the Saturday afternoon rally one neo-Nazi purposely drove his car into a dense crowd of counter demonstrators, killing one young woman and injuring 19 other people.
When the moron in the White House finally made some comment on this entire despicable set of actions by his supporters he said that the blame for the killing, injuries and violence was, on many sides.
We really have to be wary about this like this. The Weimar Republic of Germany was roiled by many years of political violence, armed fighting in the streets of the cities, and assassinations before Adolph Hitler emerged as the main beneficiary and eventually ended the Weimar Republic and replaced it with his own Third Reich. Yes, it could happen here.
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On the last radio program we did we were talking about the new guy, Anthony Scaramucci who had been appointed as White House Communications Director and who was to report directly to that fool Donald Trump. Well, he didn't last long.
Another White House departer since our last radio program was that awful person Steve Bannon. I think that a whole lot of people were glad to see him go. The above mentioned Anthony Scaramucci has reportedly differentiated himself from Steve Bannon by saying that that, I'm not Steve Bannon, I'm not trying to suck my own cock.
Yeah, great people in the Trumpian cesspool.
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After the eclipse viewing I took a shot of this late-in-the-season sunflower. There are a whole lot of sunflowers growing along the edges of the Coney Island Boardwalk.
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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 open list is the 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. The bleepin' blue board had to add a step for folks to get onto it because it was 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
UPDATE: In of June 2012, I ended up having to salvage the bleepin' blue board, and so I'm the moderator on it now.
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 used to alternate with us, has a blog these days. You can reach his blog here.
Sidney is also posting occasional podcasts these days at the Web site he's established.
One formerly popular mailing list is the “NewPacifica” mailing list. Founded October 31, 2000, this list has been moribund for a couple of years due to de facto censorship by the group owner. As of February 2017, it had 696 subscribers coast to coast, but postings on it are very infrequent now.
Back in the day it sometimes also got a bit nasty. All sorts of things used to happen on this list and official announcements were 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.
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The contents of this Web page are copyright © 2018, R. Paul Martin.
