Back of the Book — April 27, 2024


Well, I'm rushing to get this posted. We did spent most of the program on a single science topic. I will try to get this Web page filled out a lot more later on. 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 May 8, 2024, at 7:00 PM. That meeting will be held on ZOOM, even though ZOOM compromises privacy and security. At the April 10, LSB meeting we had a lot of obstruction. There are people on the LSB who are intent on making everything take much longer than it needs to. There was a humorous note at the end of that most recent LSB meeting: late in the meeting, toward the end of a roll call vote, the Secretary paused for a bit, and then said that her cat had peed on her laptop keyboard.

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.

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?

sars-cov-2 with Guy Fawkes mask
Reduced Death Rate

The CDC Web site says that as of their last reading, the death toll in America from COVID-19 was 1,189,603 which is only 612 deaths from COVID-19 over this past week, quite a drop.

The pandemic is not over. Pickles of the North and I are mostly still keeping our masks on. We're going to get our Spring booster shots soon, we don't want to get this disease.

We're in mid-Spring right now. The exact minute of mid-Spring will occur on May 5, at 03:52 AM. And if this is mid-Spring then the Middle Third is not far away! In fact it starts next Wednesday. Our next program is scheduled to be on May 4. Yes, Star Wars day. It had looked like we were going to be preempted on that date, but we are now told that we're on. You can find out more about when the seasons and sub-seasons occur by going here.

CMB
Map of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

We spent most of this program talking about a new development regarding research into dark energy.

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.

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

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