Sixty Years Ago Today I Got One of These
Here is some of what we talked about on this radio program. I was sadly surprised to see Rachel Crotto's obituary in Chess Life magazine this past week. I still remember her as a teenager. She was a good kid. I also went on at length about going to register for the draft exactly 60 years ago on this day. There's more I want to post up here, I just have to find the time to do it. I hope to add some more of what we did on this page. So it might be worthwhile to check back for an update. You never know.
You can now listen to this program on the official WBAI Archive.
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.
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:
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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Rachel Crotto
1958-2025
I saw in Chess Life magazine this week that Rachel Grotto had passed away. I knew her when she was a child chess prodigy. She was a lesbian. She was a Women's International master. In 1973, at the age of 13½ she became the youngest woman, up to that time, to compete in the Women's United States Chess Championship. She tied for first in the 1978, U.S. Women's Championship and won clear first in the 1979, U.S. Women's Chess Championship becoming the United States Women's Chess Champion with a score of 10½ points out of of 11. Rachel and I competed in the Manhattan Chess Club Championship one year in the '70s. The game ended in a draw, but I think she was distracted by the fact that I was this somewhat visible gay activist at the time.
Rachel Crotto was a good person and even though I haven't had anything to do with chess for decades, and I haven't been in contact with Rachel in the time I've been away from chess, I always liked her. She died too young.
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Sixty years ago today I registered for the draft, as required by law. While sitting in the building in downtown Brooklyn where I had to g to register I saw a kid whom I knew from elementary school there with his father. They were arguing with the clerks. They were saying that he didn't have to register since he was born elsewhere. I remembered that he had been an electronics whiz as a kid and that he was from Argentina.
Back in the '60s especially kids under the age of 18 would get phony draft cards so they could drink alcohol, the drinking age in New York was 18 then. I remember a kid in high school who was one f the ons who could put you in touch with someone who could get you a forged draft card. I wasn't interested, so after a while he stopped pestering me while he got paid off by other boys.
So I registered for the draft, and then about 2½ years, or exactly 869 days, later I got drafted at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn. I was not pleased.
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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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