Back of the Book — November 13, 2021


It's Monday, November 15, 2021, 16:28, and I've added a few things that we did to this Web page. It's almost finished now. The original top of this page follows the arrow. So here's our first draft of a Web page. We covered the below topics and more on this program. I plan to get this We page updated very soon, so check back for those updates.

You can now listen to this program on the official WBAI Archive.

Did you know that I've got a brief synopsis of some of the WBAI LSB meetings? Well, I do, and I've recently updated some of that.

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 Monday, November 29, 2021, it will probably be held as a teleconference meeting, as the 29 previous public meetings were because of the pandemic. This will be an executive session meeting, and so will be closed to the public. This will also be the last meeting of the Eleventh WBAI LSB, although arguably the Delegates Assembly of December 8, will be the truly final meeting of the Eleventh WBAI LSB.

The WBAI LSB met on Wednesday, November 10, 2021.

The LSB meeting occurred more than a week after the Pacifica/WBAI elections were over. So there was no posturing for the sake of an imminent election.

The LSB's Program Director Search Committee has been going on for a long time. That committee is a special committee, according to Robert's Rules of Order, so when the WBAI LSB transitions from the Eleventh LSB to the Twelfth LSB the Program Director Search Committee will automatically cease to exist. So the LSB voted to hold an executive session meeting on November 29. At that meeting the LSB will hear about the recommendations of the Program Director Search Committee and will in all probability rubber stamp them. Of course there will be debate and talk for a couple of hours.

In an odd move the LSB was also asked to hold a Delegates Assembly to vote on some bylaws amendments. And that Delegates Assembly is to happen on December 8, 2021. That's the same date that the new WBAI LSB is to be seated. So people voted to have the Eleventh LSB meet as a Delegates Assembly and then adjourn that meeting and have the first meeting of the Twelfth LSB right after it.

I said during the meeting that this would put the legitimacy of those bylaws amendments in jeopardy because the time for the LSB meeting is the same as the time for this Delegates Assembly. Well, we'll see what happens, I suppose. The vote on handling the Delegates Assembly this way was 10 for, 3 against and 4 abstentions. I was one of those who voted No.

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, with the vote to hold an executive session and a Delegates Assembly we have the following schedule:

All of these meetings are set to begin at 7:00 PM. Yes, the two meetings of the Delegates Assembly and the new LSB are scheduled for the same time. Yeah, details. The twelfth WBAI LSB will be seated at some time on December 8, 2021.

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. As of November 2020, Back of the Book airs weekly.

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?

The WBAI LSB held a meeting this past Wednesday, November 10. It had been supposed to be the last meeting of the Eleventh WBAI LSB. Well, it was a meeting, but it wasn't the last one of that LSB.

The next WBAI LSB meeting is scheduled to be held Monday, November 29, 2021, at 7 PM on ZOOM, even though ZOOM compromises privacy and security. This will be the final meeting of the Eleventh WBAI LSB. It will also be held in executive session.

And then the WBAI LSB passed this Motion: (Mitchel Cohen) The 11th LSB approves of a Delegates Assembly meeting prior to the coming into existence of next LSB. (Passed 10 for, 3 against, 4 abstentions). So the Eleventh WBAI LSB voted to not cease to exist on December 8. So the Eleventh WBAI LSB will meet as a Delegates Assembly at the time set for the Twelfth WBAI LSB to hold its first meeting and seat its delegates. This is for the purpose of voting on some bylaws amendments that some people are bringing from the PNB. I had suggested to the people in favor of doing this that this maneuver could make their bylaws amendments vulnerable to challenge. They are not concerned.

autumn_leaf_3c (4K)

It's Autumn, in fact it's mid-Autumn as this radio program airs. And last weekend we went back to Standard Time. The Sun now sets at around twenty minutes or more to five o'clock in the afternoon. I find the very early sunsets of this time of year depressing.

We're actually in the second half of Autumn now. And the Winter Solstice will arrive in less than six weeks from now, on Tuesday December 21, 2021, at 10:59 AM (ET). I keep a chart of the seasons on this Web site.

A lunar eclipse.
A Lunar Eclipse

Pickles of the North talked about the partial lunar eclipse that will happen this coming week.

Pickles here! During the program I talked about the coming of a rare kind of lunar eclipse on November 18-19, depending on where you live. An almost total partial lunar eclipse will begin around 1 AM (ET) on the 19th for folks in the tri-state area. About 98% of the Moon's surface will be covered by the earth's shadow, something that last occurred on February 18, 1440, according to the Web site timeanddate.com. The Moon should be quite a sight as it appears to change color!

I remember a lunar eclipse from my youth when the Moon was a very vivid deep red — wow! If weather permits, this eclipse should be spectacular! And this particular kind of almost full partial lunar eclipse will not occur again until February 8, 2669, so try not to miss this one in case you are busy for that particular millennium!

A poppy symbol
The Poppy As Symbol

Pickles of the North also talked about the history of the poppy as a symbol.

Pickles here again! R.Paul and I talked about Armistice Day and the origin of the poppy as a current symbol of Veterans' Day in the United States and Remembrance Day in Great Britain and some other parts of the world.

A teacher and lecturer from France named Anna Boulle Guerin was responsible for convincing her country's government and those of countries which fought beside the French during the Great War, later called World War One, to sell cloth poppies to raise money for veterans in need, and for the impoverished families of those soldiers lost in the war. She was inspired by the immensely popular poem In Flanders Fields written in 1915, by Doctor John McCrae, when he was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in France. Madame Guerin was successful in having the poppy adopted as an official symbol in 1921, and for the past one hundred years it remains as a fund raiser and a remembrance of those who perished in World War One and all subsequent wars.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
 That mark our place; and in the sky
 The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
 Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
            In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
 The torch; be yours to hold it high.
 If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
            In Flanders fields.

John McCrae

This past week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has issued an administrative injunction temporarily blocking the release of White House records sought by a House committee investigating the January 6, insurrection. The information sought by the Congressional Committee was supposed to have been delivered to them on Friday, November 12. So Trump has gotten this stall in. Oral arguments will be held on Trump's lawsuit on November 30.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan had rejected Trump's arguments this past Tuesday, saying, Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President. She again denied an emergency motion by Trump this past Wednesday. What's happening is that he's trying to run out the clock in hopes of having a Republican majority in the House that would dissolve that committee and sink its investigation.

Steve Bannon behind bars.
Lock Him Up!

Speaking of the January 6, 2021, insurrection, over 650 miscreants have been arrested so far. Unfortunately, the sentences that have been handed down so far have been mere slaps on their wrists. As we've previously noted, the House of Representatives has voted to hold Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress. It would take a lot of time before he could end up in a cell though. However, we heard as we prepared this program that a grand jury had indicted Steve Bannon.

There are reports coming out that various right-wing Congress members met with some of the future insurrectionists before January 6, and they promised them effective immunity from prosecution. And at least one may have been giving the insurrectionists instructions on the weak points of the Capitol Building's security arrangements.

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.

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

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