R. Paul Gets Shot Up
Well, I'm in a big rush. I fell asleep, couldn't stay awake, and I lost time to work on these things after the program was posted. We covered the below topics, and the Europa Clipper piece took up as lot of the program. I plan to update this page pretty soon, so check back for the updates.
You can now listen to this program on the official WBAI Archive.
The next regular WBAI LSB meeting will be held on Wednesday October 9, 2024, at 7:00 PM. That meeting will be held on ZOOM, even though ZOOM compromises privacy and security.
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.
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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. 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. Good luck.
Since the former General Manager banned Sidney Smith from WBAI he's not alternating with us on the air. As of November 2020, Back of the Book airs weekly.
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Program Note:According to FCC regulations §399. Support of political candidates is prohibited on WBAI, No noncommercial educational broadcasting station may support or oppose any candidate for political office.
Yeah, this is a problem, and that's why we are not able to mention things like the political conventions that have gotten a ton of attention all over the world. We can't even suggest that certain politicians should go to jail. If we're still around on November 9, 2024, we'll be able to mention all of this political stuff again.
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Pickles of the North told us about the weekly waste water figures. SARS-CoV-2 is a little bit more prominent. She also reported that a couple of hundred people died of influenza this past week.
Pickles of the North got her new booster vaccination against COVID-19 a couple of weeks ago and she also got her flu shot, and this past week R. Paul got his flu and COVID-19 vaccinations at the V.A. Hospital. Ready for the Autumn/Winter season, we hope.
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NASA's Europa Clipper probe has issues with its MOSFETS. They are in danger of getting fried, or of having their measurements and data corrupted by the intense radiation that exists in the vicinity of Jupiter. Europa is one of the four big satellites of Jupiter. It was discovered in January 1610, along with the other three largest satellites of Jupiter by Galileo Galilei. It's famous in science fiction circles for being the body that whatever the entity is that controls things in the two stories by Arthur C. Clarke tell the Earth people, ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS — EXCEPT EUROPA.
ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.
In real life it's interesting because it appears to have a huge ocean beneath its thick crust of water ice. Given that it's liquid water, and that the icy surface of the satellite is covered with long, brown streaks there has been speculation for decades that there may be life in that global sea under the ice. Any life there would most likely be microbial.
on the program we talked about NASA having a problem with the MOSFETS in the Europa Clipper that is scheduled to launch on October 10. There is concern that they may have trouble functioning in the extremely high radiation levels around Jupiter. Scientists at NASA have come up with what they're calling a Canary Box
that will be bolted onto the Europa Clipper. Bolting something onto an already finished high precision instrument platform like the Europa Clipper just sounds awful to me. Anyway this box, named after the caged canaries that miners used to keep in mines to alert them to any methane gas leaks before the gas could overcome the minder, is supposed to keep NASA informed about the state of the MOSFETS that are actually working as part of the probe. I really hope things work out with this, but we have to wait and see.
The Europa Clipper, which has cost about $5,000,000,000, is supposed t get to Jupiter by using gravity assists
and is supposed to arrive at its target in 2030.
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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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