They're Going Anti-Trans
It's probably pouring rain out while people listen to this program as it airs. We talked about the mistake that Judge Engoron made when he trusted Donnie Bonespur
Trump to behave himself as he spoke as a part of the summation of the defense's case in his massive fraud trial in Manhattan. Trump should be held in contempt of court for that. All other judges in future trials should learn from Judge Engoron's experience with trusting Trump. Pickles of the North talked about watermelon ice
and how it affects the environment. We talked about the Ohio House of Representatives voting to override the Governor's veto of an anti-trans bill, with the Ohio Senate probably about to follow. We talked about the death rate from the COVID-19 pandemic. I plan to put a little more about what we did on this program up here, so check back for that update.
You can now listen to this program on the official WBAI Archive.
The next regular WBAI LSB meeting will be held on Wednesday February 14, 2024, at 7:00 PM. That meeting will be held on ZOOM, even though ZOOM compromises privacy and security. We had a LSB meeting this past Wednesday night. We had a minute of silence for Ralph Poynter who died in late December. We also determined who was going to run for seats on the Pacifica National Board from WBAI. This is actually very important stuff. I ended up giving a very fast Treasurer's Report which one operative of the so-called Justice & Unity Campaign tried to talk over as I began.
The Final results of all of the LSB officer elections we held last month are in.
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, so we have the following schedule:
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. Now I can again and there are a whole bunch of archive blurbs up there now.
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.
•
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?
•
A couple of programs ago we talked about the Republican Governor of Ohio Mike DeWine vetoing House Bill 68 that restricted medical care for trans youth and also banned transgender athletes from competing in school sports. Governor DeWine had actually listened to doctors and parents of trans kids instead of simply being a right-wing rubber stamp. Well, this past week the Ohio House of Representatives voted to override that veto by a vote of 65 to 28. There was chants of Shame!
from the gallery when they did that, and the live stream was cut at that point.
The Ohio Senate votes on it next. The bad guys need a three-fifths majority to override the veto. Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman has said that the Republicans will probably get that number of votes and so override the veto.
Rep. Anita Somani, who is a Democrat and who had been a gynecologist for more than 30 years, claimed her office received more than 1,500 E-mails in opposition to the bill. The Daily News quotes her as saying, Trust science, trust the families, the parents, the patients and the experts who have testified repeatedly that gender-affirming care is a continuum designed to help people achieve their authentic true self,
she added, It isn't up to the government to make these decisions, and we need to stay the hell out of the exam room.
It really is interesting how the current version of the Republicans is always whining about not having the government interfere with people's lives, but then they pass laws about what can go on between consenting adults in a bedroom and what people can do with their bodies.
If they override the veto that will make Ohio the 23rd state to have restrictions on trans-related care.
•
The CDC is once again putting out information on the death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic. They say that as of their last reading, the death toll in America from COVID-19 was 1,167,210. Which means that 2,092 people died from COVID-19 over this past week. So the death rate has held pretty much steady this past week, with only a small number more people dying this week than last week. Of course for those people who died, and their loved ones, that's a large number. The Winter season usually sees an uptick in infectious diseases. And some people are oblivious to COVID-19 because they think that the pandemic is over.
Some people are getting the flu and COVID-19 all at once. If you're an older person that can certainly be quite a trying experience, and it's also more likely to kill you.
The pandemic is clearly not over. Pickles of the North and I are still keeping our masks on. We're getting or have gotten our new shots, we don't want to get this disease.
•
Radio's Pickles of the North talked about watermelon ice and other things going on with ice. We also talked about the various names that people have given different forms of snow. We talked about how the different colors of ice relate to global warming.
•
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.
•
Back to the Back of the Book page
Back to my home page.
The contents of this Web page are copyright © 2024, R. Paul Martin.
