A Figure of Eight Knot
Once again I'm fighting against falling asleep. These programs take up a lot of time. I'm only writing about one topic here, but we did more. I will try to get more of the topics we covered posted here as soon as I can manage it. I'm hoping I'll get caught up this week, so it might be worthwhile to check back for updates.
You can now listen to this program on the official WBAI Archive.
The next regular WBAI LSB meeting will be held on Wednesday November 12, 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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Years ago on the program we would now and again read a passage from a book called The Mistakes we Make © 1898, edited by Nathan Haskell Dole. I find it interesting to see what has changed in the time since that book was published. The little book had been seriously misplaced in the apartment for years, but we've found the book again and Pickles of the North chose a topic from it.
As in the past, quotations from the book are set off by a green background.
Bitter End. — We sometimes talk of carrying a feud out to the bitter end, and suppose that it is the same word used in the phrase, A bitter disappointment.
It was however originally a nautical term. The bitter's end is that part of a cable that, being coiled around the bites or bitts is left on board. Admiral Smythe is quoted as saying in The Sailor's Word Book
When a chain or rope is paid out to the bitter end, no more remains to be let go.
I already knew this term from my attempts to figure out knots. For some reason my brain just can't follow knots. By which I mean I can't easily envision them or figure them out. So some years ago I looked up the topic of knots on the Internet. In my reading I ran into the term The bitter end,
as it related to the end of a rope or cord that was not involved in the knot itself. I'd also seen the untied part of a knot called the free end.
Probably because of my inability to really understand knots I was only able to retain the knowledge of how to tie specific knots for some days, or a week. I couldn't remember much about them past that time. So my reading didn't give me a lot of enlightenment in terms of a facility with tying knots. And I could only reproduce knots from the books and Web sites I'd read when I was looking at a diagram or picture of the knot. I never really felt
the knowledge of how to deal with knots. I was able remember how to tie a simple knot called the Bowline knot
for some time. I can't do it now without looking at a diagram or picture of that kind of knot. But I can still do the Figure of Eight knot
to this day. So this part of the book that explained the term The Bitter End
was no great revelation to me. I do wonder about the intended meaning of the name of the nightclub in lower Manhattan though.
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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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