Back of the Book links for the July 19, 2025, program

It's Friday morning, July 25, 2025, 10:00, and I've updated this Web page a little bit with more of what we talked about on this program. If I can ever figure out how to make that photograph of Stonehenge look better I'll post the improved version up here. The original top of this page follows the arrow. ⇒ I fell asleep and woke up very late! This is some of what we did on the radio program. More to come.

The next regular WBAI LSB meeting will be held on Wednesday August 13, 2025, at 7:00 PM. That meeting will be held on ZOOM, even though ZOOM compromises privacy and security. We had a meeting this past week and there was a lot of talk about some internal Pacifica stuff that's going on. There may also be a new way for you to contact the LSB. I think it will be misused.

Some years ago the WBAI LSB voted to hold its regular meetings on the second Wednesday night of every month, subject to change by the LSB, so we have the following schedule:

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.

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.

Stephen Colbert and the entire Late Show are to be terminated next May. Donnie Bonespur Trump is gloating. On this past Monday night's program Colbert had called CBS' caving to Trump and giving him $16 Million for no good reason, a big, fat bribe. CBS has said that it is cancelling Colbert's show at the end of its season, next May. CBS Executives stressed, in the announcement, that the cut was Purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show's performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount. Well, I call that a big, fat lie.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, wrote on-line that, CBS canceled Colbert's show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16 Million settlement with Trump - a deal that looks like bribery. America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons. Oh, I think we already know that. But it's good to hear from an elected official about this. Many more should chime in.

And this happens a day after Congress, at Trump's insistence, had defunded NPR and PBS. Non-right-wing media in this country is obviously under attack from the billionaires and authoritarians. Given that the Pacifica Foundation, which owns WBAI and four other radio stations, is mentioned on p. 247 of that Project 2025 disaster I think we're in their sights too. There's probably a lot more to come with this.

I'm reading that the Justice Department has requested that the Louisville police officer convicted in connection with a raid that resulted in Breonna Taylor's death serve only one day in prison. Breonna Taylor is the woman who as asleep when in March 2020, the police did a no knock warrant at her home and her boyfriend thinking that they were intruders confronted the police and fired a warning shot from his legal gun. Cops shot back with a hail of bullets that were not aimed but were directed into the building. In November, a federal jury found Louisville police officer Brett Hankison guilty of violating Taylor's civil rights during that police action in which she was fatally shot.

U.S. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings is in charge of the case is going to have to rule on the government's request. Hankison's sentencing hearing is set for July 22.

Now Hankison did not shoot and kill Ms. Taylor, but he did fire blindly into her apartment. So the government under Trump is trying to set a precedent that police can get away with violating civil rights even if they're convicted of that crime. This would be a tremendously bad sentencing, if the judge goes along with it. It would embolden police all over the country to just do what they please. And it would also embolden the ICE agents, who can't even be identified because they wear masks, and who also carry guns.

R. Paul talked at length about a trip he and his male ex had taken to great Britain in 1975.

Here is a photograph I took of our time at Stonehenge. When I got the photographs out to scan some in I was disappointed to see that all of the 35 mm prints had faded pretty badly. I will see if theres some way I can use my very amateur skills to restore this one. Of course I may not be able to do it.

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.

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

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WBAI related links

A WBAI Listeners' Web page

WBAI Management's official Web site

Back of the Book — July 19, 2025