Back of the Book — November 4, 2017


Well, between idiots in Kenya going on about gay lions and idiots in Washington, D.C. getting indicted for acts against America, it's hard to think that there's any hope for humanity at all. On this program I plan to talk about my pre-draft physical, which happened 50 years ago. Of course there will be a lot of other stuff discussed and we will have to pitch as well. We hope you'll donate something to WBAI during this radio program.

Did you know that I've got a brief synopsis of some of the WBAI LSB meetings?

The LSB met on Wednesday, October 11, 2017. I made a written Treasurer's Report for that meeting, and was able to actually give a verbal one as well. You can read the written Treasurer's Report for June 14, 2017, here.

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 WBAI LSB meeting is scheduled to be held on November 8, 2017, at the Theater for the New City, at 155 First Ave. in Manhattan. The meeting is supposed to start at 7:00 PM.

Some years ago the WBAI LSB voted to hold its regular meetings on the second Wednesday of every 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.

Here is WBAI's current Internet stream. We can no longer tell if the stream is working without testing every possible stream. Good luck.

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.

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.

Things have improved this year on the PNB. I'll be trying to update my pages about all of this in the near future.

Bring Back Uncle Sidney!

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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The WBAI Fall 2017, 'thon is on. Management has moved programs around based on their evidence of having listeners, which is accomplished in the WBAI Managerial mind by how much the programs raise during these on-air fund raisers. I hope we raise some money for the station this time.

So for this WBAI Fall 'thon, if you can, please call 1-516-620-3602 during the radio program and pledge some amount of money to help keep Back of the Book on WBAI and help keep WBAI on the air. Remember, the phone pledge needs to come in while we're on the air for it to count, otherwise use the on-line method below.

Once again we're offering a premium! It's the official WBAI T-shirt for $65. Of course we'll be quite glad if people will donate just for the radio program. Hey, you could get more than one T-shirt, if you wanted.

If you want to pledge to the program via the Web while we're on the air, you need to go here and pick the amount you want to donate, then click on “Add to cart,” and then be sure to pick Back of the Book as the favorite show from the drop down menu. Otherwise your pledge won't be counted towards the program.

Now you can also go here and donate to the program. This is probably less cumbersome than the above method. Under the Support this show line there are options to become a BAI Buddy for this program, or to make a one time donation. Give it a try!

WBAI is fighting for its life right now, and the amount of money raised in this 'thon will be crucial for the station's survival.

Management tells us that any donations made either one time or as a BAI Buddy on this page will count towards the program. Please try pledging to that page if you're listening on the archive. Let's see what the folks who don't listen in real time can do!

The 'thon's goal as posted.
This Is The 'Thon's Goal

It was exactly 50 years ago today that I had to report for what was usually called in those days my army physical. It was actually the draft physical or the pre-induction physical. Oh, it was a very unpleasant experience. It was not, however anything near as unpleasant as the time I spent after I was drafted a little more than 10 weeks later.

Yes, I plan to talk about the awful experience.

Speaking of anniversaries, I've been a part of WBAI for 36 years, as of this month. I do not recall the exact day I joined the Gay Men's Collective at WBAI, but it was definitely in November 1981. Yeah, I'll have something to say about that, too.

In other anniversary news, it will be 100 years ago this coming Tuesday, November 7, when a bunch of thugs calling themselves Communists attacked the Russian Provisional Government and established the Soviet Union, one of the most murderous and oppressive regimes in history. I don't know if we'll get to that on this program.

trump_twitter_2017-11-02 (23K)

So a guy working at Twitter decided to strike a blow on his final day there. Well, at least we got a laugh out of it. Too bad Trump is too stupid to realize that he should just shut up.

Standard time returns tomorrow morning. The Sun will set tomorrow at 4:49 PM (ET). Ugh.

There's an idiotic bureaucrat in Kenya who is all up in arms about gay male lions. This moron wants to give the lions, who were photographed having sex with each other, counseling. Either that or he wants the demonic spirits removed from them. Wow, anti-gay bigotry really does make people even more stupid.

monarch butterfly at Coney Island.

Oh, it was late October and Pickles of the North and I were at Coney Island when we spotted this Monarch Butterfly making a pit stop at a flower. Well, we wish the Monarch Butterfly well on its long trip, but it's pretty late in the season to still be in Brooklyn, and a sudden downturn in the temperature could doom this one to not get any farther along its slight. Still, it was very nice looking.

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.

We like to stay interactive with our listeners. Here are the various options for you to get in touch with us.

You can also send me E-mail.

And now you can even reach me on Twitter Twitter logo


WBAI related links

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WBAI Management's official Web site

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