He Never Knew What Hit Him, Will We?
It's Saturday afternoon, March 13, 2021, 14:57, and I have updated this Web page with the raw audio of the program. The program did not air, as you can see below. The original top of this page follows the arrow. ⇒ Here's some of what we talked about on this radio program. The Neanderthal and geomagnetic piece seems poignant to me. I really do hope that I can get around to updating this, and other, Web pages soon.
The audio file had been received by the Operations person on duty and had been put into the rotation. At about five o'clock Saturday morning the host of the program that aired from 2 AM to 5 AM said that the computer was down and he didn't have the password for it.
Since we're pre-recording the program during this pandemic I have the raw audio for this program. It's a bit different from what would have aired. It's in mono, not stereo and since it's the raw audio it just has us talking. The music beds that had been mixed in to the program that had been prepared for air can't legally be played on my Web site. So you'll hear some short tones replacing the music.
This is the second time that Back of the Book has not been aired, even though the program was there, in the past four months. We await WBAI Management's determination regarding how it will not happen a third time.
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 on this Web site. 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 Wednesday, April 14, 2021, it will probably be held as a teleconference meeting, as the 12 previous public meetings were because of the pandemic.
The WBAI LSB met on Wednesday, March 10, 2021.
The LSB spent quite a bit of time on a motion regarding something I can't talk about on the air or even on this Web site, for now. But you'll hear about it on the air at some point, just not from me - until later.
Before the meeting I had 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.
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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. 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 another program in the alternate week's time slot.
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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?
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We talked about Neanderthals. We've seen a report that some scientists are thinking that the Neanderthals died out about 42,000 years ago during the Laschamp Event, as it's called. The Laschamp Event was a geomagnetic excursion. The Earth's magnetic poles flipped, but the flip failed and it didn't last. The Earth's magnetic field was in the throes of reversal for approximately 440 years, with the transition from the normal magnetic field lasting about 250 years. The reversed field was 75% weaker than what had been normal before the Laschamp Event, whereas the strength dropped to only 5% of the current strength during the transition. This would have let more cosmic rays hit the surface of the Earth and this caused climate change and the upper atmosphere ozone levels deceased allowing more intense UV to hit the Earth's surface. Scientists are studying a kauri tree uncovered in New Zealand for more evidence about this event. That kauri tree lived for almost 2,000 yeas and died during the reversal. The whole period is being called the Adams Event or the Adams Transitional Geomagnetic Event in honor of science fiction writer Douglass Adams. This whole event is also blamed for the disappearance of Australian megafauna. If the magnetic field weakness did indirectly kill them the Neanderthals could never have seen it coming. Were they somehow informed about it they could not have understood. Maybe this is something to keep in mind.
We talked about recent research that may indicate that Neanderthals could speak to each other.
We also talked about the South Atlantic anomaly. Satellites get killed by it. Space walks are not done when the space station's going over it.
The Earth's magnetic field has been weakening for about 200 years. Will it flip in another 150 years or so or is the next flip a very long time from now?
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Arrests of the January 6, insurrectionists continue. On the previous program we talked about The Federal Bureau of Investigation arresting one Federico Klein, who was a Trump appointee to the State Department, on a charge of assaulting federal law enforcement personnel during the insurrection on January 6. In a further development this past week U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui denied Klein the option to post bail and called his behavior on that day Extremely concerning.
So that idiot is staying in jail.
That other high-profile insurrectionist idiot who was dressed up in horns and face paint and who called himself the QAnon Shaman,
and whose real name is Jacob Chansley was also denied pre-trial release this past week.
Senior Judge Royce Lamberth wrote a 32-page opinion denying the motion by Chansley's defense counsel that Chansley be let out. The judge ruled that the QAnon nutcase's mother can't be relied upon to vouch for her son, who reportedly lives with her in Arizona, if Chansley is set free.
A good part of why Chansley's motion got dismissed by the judge is that Lamberth reportedly concluded from the currently streaming 60 Minutes+ interview that Chansley's claims that he participated in the insurrection at the Capitol that left five dead at the behest of then-President Trump indicates he might do something like that again if he's set free. The judge, who was appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan, said that In his interview with 60 Minutes+, defendant stated that he does not regret his loyalty to former President Trump.
On his decision Judge Lamberth also wrote, Such media appearances are undoubtedly conducive to defense counsel's fame. But they are not at all conducive to an argument that the only way defense counsel could privately communicate with his client is if defendant were temporarily released. Given defense counsel's decision to use what could have been a confidential video conference as a media publicity stunt, that argument is so frivolous as to insult the court's intelligence.
So that fool will also stay in jail until he's tried, and I hope he also gets the maximum sentence of something like 20 years or more in federal prison.
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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 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.
There used to be a number of mailing lists related to Pacifica and WBAI. Unfortunately, they were all located on Yahoo! Groups. When Yahoo! Groups was totally shut down in December 2020, all of those mailing lists ceased to exist. One year earlier their file sections and archives of E-mails, had been excised leaving only the ability to send E-mails back and forth among the members. Now it's all gone. Older Back of the Book program Web pages tell a little more about those lists.
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