Back of the Book — March 7, 2020


Well, it looks like our theme for this program really is going to be that humanity is doomed. Oh, Pollyanna will not like that. But we may also get into some other topics. I will try to update this Web page over the next fortnight.

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 March 11, 2020, at YWCA, 30 3rd Ave., between Atlantic Ave. and State St., Brooklyn, NY 11217.

The WBAI LSB met on Wednesday, February 12, 2020, at the YWCA at 30 3rd Ave., Between Atlantic Ave. and State Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217.

At this meeting the WBAI LSB tried to create a Program Director Search Committee, which would go through the entire process that would result in a short list of candidates for the position of Program Director at WBAI. Right now we have an interim Program Director. For various reasons some people couldn't deal with the parliamentary rules which govern how to do this. Most of the time allotted to this agenda item was used up in people complaining about their own lack of understanding of the rules of order. A substitute motion got a majority and became the main motion, and then the Chair began to equivocate as one person whose motion had been defeated tried to re-do the whole process. And the Chair let that person table the motion that was on the floor. After 46 minutes we had no resolution, and will have to try again at the next meeting. There were elections for the various PNB committees and task forces. public Comment followed, and then the task forces were populated. The LSB then went through a process where the Vice Chair read written questions to the General Manager about the budget and he answered as he could. I was called on to give a one minute report on what the local Finance Committee is! The General Manager gave the interim Program Director's Report and then we got to a short Treasurer's Report. Before the meeting I had put out a written Treasurer's Report for all to read. The Ad-Hoc Management Evaluation Committee was discussed for about five minutes and that was the end f the meeting.

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, then I could, and then I couldn't again. You can take a look at it and see if I've been able to post anything on it lately. There are still some limitations, but I am assured that I can plug in the archive blurbs that were lost in the latest upgrade.

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. Management has fixed some problems that we'd been having with the archives.

For programs before March 23, 2019, we're all out of luck. The changes that took place once WBAI Management took control of the WBAI archives seems to have wiped out all access to anything before that date in March. 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 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 some 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. There is sometimes a 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?

More to come.

Global Map of Locations with Confirmed COVID-19 Cases as of 11:00 AM ET March 6, 2020.

Of course we're going to talk about the epidemic that looks like it's going to become a pandemic quite soon.

The novel Coronavirus 2019 showed up in December 2019, in the city of Wuhan in Hubei province in the so-called People's Republic of China. The virus is officially named the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. The disease it causes is called COVID-19. As we go on the air the virus has infected over 100,000 people worldwide.

This thing is causing chaos around the world, as well as sickening so many people, and causing more than 3,400 deaths worldwide. This disease apparently is a real killer for the elderly. A lot of the anxiety being caused internationally about this disease is the result of people not seeing real leadership from the United States. In short, the Trump administration has blown it, putting the anti-science Vice-President Pence in charge of the nation's response to the health crisis.

Winter is nearing a close. The Vernal Equinox will occur late on Thursday night March 19, 2020, at 11:49 PM, just 11 minutes before midnight. And this weekend we'll go to Daylight Saving Time, which means that on Sunday sunset will occur at about five minutes to seven o'clock in the evening. Yeah, getting out of Winter is a good thing. I have a Web page with details about the seasons and sub-seasons here.

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 that no longer exists was the WBAI specific Goodlight Web based message board. It was sometimes referred to on Back of the Book as the bleepin' blue board, owing to the blue background that was used on its Web pages. This one had many people posting anonymously and there was also an ancillary WBAI people board that was just totally out of hand.

In June 2012, I ended up having to salvage the bleepin' blue board, and so I was the moderator on it for its last seven years, until it got too expensive.

Sometimes we used to 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 had become very infrequent. During the WBAI Coup of 2019, traffic picked up on that board again, for a while.

Back in the day it sometimes also got a bit nasty. All sorts of things used to happen on that 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.

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

A WBAI Listeners' Web page

WBAI Management's official Web site

Back to the Back of the Book page

Back to my home page.

The contents of this Web page are copyright © 2020, R. Paul Martin.