Back of the Book — August 10, 2019


It's Thursday afternoon, August 22, 2019, 17:27, and I've updated this Web page with a bit more about the FCC decision to allow companies like Verizon to just dump their long time customers who are still using copper wires to connect their telephone service. I have also made a note about the killer robots piece we'd hoped to cover on this program. We did pitch and raise some money on this program. There should be more updates coming to the Web page. The original top of this page follows the arrow. We have to pitch again, we hope that a bunch of you who listen to the program will pledge. Detail about that are below. There is just so much to talk about, and not that much time to talk about it. We plan to cover the sad current events and also touch on some subjects of scientific interest. I'll be updating this Web page over the next couple of weeks.

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

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 September 11, 2019, at a location to be announced. These meetings are usually supposed to start at 7:00 PM. A meeting previously scheduled to be held on August 14, 2019, was cancelled.

The WBAI LSB met on Wednesday, July 10, 2019, at 7:00 PM at the First Unitarian Church, 119 Pierrepont St, corner of Monroe Place, in Brooklyn, NY 11201, Brooklyn, NY 11201.

The LSB got some stuff done. The PNB had passed a motion alleviating the controversy involving standing committees and special committees. The LSB created some task forces or focus groups or whatever they want to call what in effect are ad-hoc or special committees.

At this meeting the LSB allowed for a Treasurer's Report. It didn't get disrupted this time. I put out a written Treasurer's Report for all to read.

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. For some time I was unable to post archive blurbs, but I've found that after this program I was finally able to do so, but only for this morning's program. I still can't go back and plug in any archive blurbs for the programs that are missing from the archive. We'll see how this works out.

This is a link to the latest version of the official WBAI archive. The archiving software appears to have been at least partially fixed. To get to the archive of this program you can use the usual method: 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 only this Back of the Book program. I expect that after next Saturday they'll have the pre-recorded program that's alternating with us now showing up there too.

For programs before January 26, 2019, you'll have to click on the same drop-down menu as above, which says Display, and find Specify Date, it's the second choice from the top. You are then given a little pop-up calendar and you can choose the date of the program there. Then click GO and you'll see a list of programs that aired on that date. For instance, the previous program will be under January 12, 2019. You'll just need to scroll to the 5 AM to 6 AM slot to get to us. For those previous programs you can get the audio, but nothing else, since I can't post anything to those pages anymore. Yeah, it looks like they'll have the alternating program's name prominently there, but if you have the right date it'll be our program. Good luck.

Since the General Manager has banned Sidney Smith from WBAI he's not alternating with us on the air. At this time there's a regular, pre-recorded, program in the alternate week's time slot.

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 Summer 2019, 'thon is happening right now. 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 and by the Nielsen ratings, which the station is now getting after years of not getting any ratings at all. I hope we raise some money for the station this time.

So for this WBAI Summer '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.

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.

killer_robots (165K)
Our Future Masters?

We had really wanted to talk about the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots on this program, but the pitching ate that time. We plan to raise the topic on the next program.

Pickles of the North will be talking about a unique spacecraft that did something interesting this past fortnight.

We plan to talk about the fight against corrupt cops and the corrupt movie industry 40 years ago. Yeah, it's about the movie Cruising.

The FCC and Verizon are in love.
The FCC and Verizon Are Sweethearts Now

So right after Pickles of the North and I get our phone service restored by Verizon the FCC makes a new rule that will allow Verizon to just dump copper based customers entirely within three years!

Verizon has an old, copper cable coming to our building, it's probably about 90 years old. The cable has lately started to fill up with water every time it rains. The cable maintenance guy told me that the repair had consisted of emptying the water out of the cable's casing. This has happened four times in the past three years, and every time it happens we lose our telephone service for months at a time.

The many techs who have come to visit us to confirm that we don't have phone service during these outages have told us that Verizon has been wanting to dump the copper connections entirely for years. Well, it looks like their foot dragging and attempts to get us to just not bother getting the phone service fixed can stop now. The next time that cable fills up with water I'm sure that they'll delay any repairs until they hit that three year mark and can tell us that they aren't in the business of selling us telephone service anymore.

Pickles of the North and I are going to have to start figuring out what to do when the telephone service we've been relying on for decades disappears. I want my landline!

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.

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 2019, 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

WBAI Listeners' Web page

WBAI Management's official Web site

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The contents of this Web page are copyright © 2019, R. Paul Martin.