Back of the Book links for the August 16, 2025, program

It's Tuesday morning August 19, 2025, 04:36, and I've updated this Web page slightly w/ the link t the archive of this program and I've cleaned up some typos that has previously escaped my proof reading, and also escaped the spell checker of this rather old HTML editor that I use to create Web pages. This is some of what we covered on this program. It's a work in progress. I have a deadline looming and I can either spend another half hour on getting the text to line up as I think it should, or I can get this Web page posted before the program starts. I cannot do both. So do check back for the updates that have to come. And they should come pretty soon.

The next regular WBAI LSB meeting will be held on September 10, 2025, at 7:00 PM. That meeting will be held on ZOOM, even though ZOOM compromises privacy and security. We had an LSB meeting this past week. I got to give a Treasurer's Report, and I'll sort of give one in a couple of more weeks on the air. More about that next time. There was a lot of discussion about some people in Pacifica mistreating one of the Directors from WBAI. And they did mistreat him. So much for free speech.

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.

Pickles here, along with Achilles and Helen and Athena and the rest of them mythical mooks. Yes, I spent weeks reading for the first time The Iliad by Homer, the 1990, version from Penguin Classics translated by Robert Fagles.

R. Paul and I talked about the unvarnished depiction of the Trojan War in The Iliad versus the American iconography of violence, where people can get shot or stabbed and still get up with their body intact and working with just a bit of blood on their clothing to show for it. Good grief. Homer and the oral performers before him told about war like it is, human bodies cannot stand up to close combat with spears and bows and arrows and knives and emerge intact. You most likely died on the field of battle and whoever killed you tried to remove your armor before someone else tried to kill them. I read a quote about war in general, and one where King Menelaus (his wife was the one whom the Greeks were trying to retrieve, you know, Helen!) kills a Trojan defender called Pisander.

And the gods are the ones who set all of this carnage up, always interfering with humans. Like Shakespeare wrote in King Lear: As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport. Now we just have crooked politicians trying to do the same! And for contrast there is a lovely listing of nymphs and Nereids in the poem that I especially liked, comforting the hero Achilles' mother the goddess Thetis deep in the sea.

R. Paul here, stepping in to gild the lily. The translation of The Iliad that Pickles read from is from 1990, so it's under copyright. But Project Gutenberg has a number of translations of The Iliad that are free to read or download as you please because they are copyright free.

Here are the same passages, as far as we can determine, that Pickles read from her 1990, translation as they were rendered by major British poet Alexander Pope in his translation published in 1899.

From Book Ⅳ

Now shield with shield, with helmet helmet closed,
To armour armour, lance to lance opposed,
Host against host with shadowy squadrons drew,
The sounding darts in iron tempests flew,
Victors and vanquish'd join'd promiscuous cries,
And shrilling shouts and dying groans arise;
With streaming blood the slippery fields are dyed,
And slaughter'd heroes swell the dreadful tide.

As torrents roll, increased by numerous rills,
With rage impetuous, down their echoing hills
Rush to the vales, and pour'd along the plain,
Roar through a thousand channels to the main:
The distant shepherd trembling hears the sound;
So mix both hosts, and so their cries rebound.

From Book ⅫⅠ

Behold! Pisander, urged by fate's decree,
Springs through the ranks to fall, and fall by thee,
Great Menelaus! to enchance thy fame:
High-towering in the front, the warrior came.
First the sharp lance was by Atrides thrown;
The lance far distant by the winds was blown.
Nor pierced Pisander through Atrides' shield:
Pisander's spear fell shiver'd on the field.
Not so discouraged, to the future blind,
Vain dreams of conquest swell his haughty mind;
Dauntless he rushes where the Spartan lord
Like lightning brandish'd his far beaming sword.
His left arm high opposed the shining shield:
His right beneath, the cover'd pole-axe held;
(An olive's cloudy grain the handle made,
Distinct with studs, and brazen was the blade;)
This on the helm discharged a noble blow;
The plume dropp'd nodding to the plain below,
Shorn from the crest. Atrides waved his steel:
Deep through his front the weighty falchion fell;
The crashing bones before its force gave way;
In dust and blood the groaning hero lay:
Forced from their ghastly orbs, and spouting gore,
The clotted eye-balls tumble on the shore.
And fierce Atrides spurn'd him as he bled,
Tore off his arms, and, loud-exulting, said:

Thus, Trojans, thus, at length be taught to fear;
O race perfidious, who delight in war!

From Book ⅩⅧ

Far in the deep abysses of the main,
With hoary Nereus, and the watery train,
The mother-goddess from her crystal throne
Heard his loud cries, and answer'd groan for groan.
The circling Nereids with their mistress weep,
And all the sea-green sisters of the deep.
Thalia, Glauce (every watery name),
Nesaea mild, and silver Spio came:
Cymothoe and Cymodoce were nigh,
And the blue languish of soft Alia's eye.
Their locks Actaea and Limnoria rear,
Then Proto, Doris, Panope appear,
Thoa, Pherusa, Doto, Melita;
Agave gentle, and Amphithoe gay:
Next Callianira, Callianassa show
Their sister looks; Dexamene the slow,
And swift Dynamene, now cut the tides:
Iaera now the verdant wave divides:
Nemertes with Apseudes lifts the head,
Bright Galatea quits her pearly bed;
These Orythia, Clymene, attend,
Maera, Amphinome, the train extend;
And black Janira, and Janassa fair,
And Amatheia with her amber hair.
All these, and all that deep in ocean held
Their sacred seats, the glimmering grotto fill'd;
Each beat her ivory breast with silent woe,
Till Thetis' sorrows thus began to flow:

Hear me, and judge, ye sisters of the main!
How just a cause has Thetis to complain!

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.

Back of the Book — August 16, 2025