Back of the Book links for the December 13, 2025, program

It's Tuesday morning, December 16, 2025, 09:36, and I've updated this Web page with the piece about the plan crash in Brooklyn 65 years ago today. Previously I'd added a small piece by Pickles of the North and I'd corrected some typos. More to come, and I don't mean more typos. All right, there will probably be more typos. The original top of this page follows the arrow. ⇒ We had to pitch a lot again, it's necessary to keep the station going. We covered the below topics and I plan to update this page pretty soon.

The next regular WBAI LSB meeting will be held on Wednesday January 14, 2026, at 7:00 PM. That meeting will be held on ZOOM, even though ZOOM compromises privacy and security. We had a meeting this past Wednesday night. The usual suspects ate meeting time up and I never got to give a Treasurer's Report. I slipped a bit of it into my public comments. We had elections, sort of, for the officers. No one else wanted to run for Treasurer so I'm in for another year, and the same was true of the Secretary position. For Chair and Vice Chair we had someone rub their irrationality over everything and we'll now have elections for Chair and Vice Chair and they'll have to be run consecutively because one person is running for both positions. Yeah, it's an example of a certain faction exploiting the aberrations of someone who can't really help herself.

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.

We've been talking for months now about Donnie Bonespur Trump's murder spree on the high seas. Now Trump is going after bigger, more profitable boats. He used the American military to capture a Venezuelan oil tanker on the high seas. When asked what becomes of her Venezuelan oil tanker he said, Well, we keep it, I guess. He's not going to capture any ships moving oil back and forth if they involved Russia or any of the countries that help Russia, to evade sanctions. He's not even going to seize any North Korea ships, either.

Last month a showdown was going on over a bill to fund the government for a few more months. Trump and the rest of the right-wing in Washington, D.C. had wanted to destroy the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, which enabled subsidies for health insurance for a great many people in America. But Senators who were in favor of the Affordable Care Act had kept the government shut down for weeks due to a Senate rule that requires bills to pass by a 60 vote majority. In an effort to keep health care from being gutted in America almost all of the Senators who were not aligned with Trump refused to vote in favor of the bill to re-fund the government for a few more months unless language were added to it that would keep the Affordable Care Act going. And then eight Senators caved, voted in favor of the overall government funding bill that de-funded the Affordable Care Act and let Trump restart his government. They did this in exchange for only a promise of a vote to renew the Affordable Care Act.

So on Thursday two attempts were made in the Senate to prevent the destruction of Affordable Care Act subsidies. Both motions failed . Those subsidies will now cease at the end of the year, which is only 2½ weeks away. Those eight Senators sold out millions of Americans for an empty promise. They let Trump get his government going again on the promise that they'd be allowed to propose a bill to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies. Now they've gotten that opportunity and to the surprise of no one who isn't an idiot they have failed to do anything good. This was such a predictable outcome.

Radio's Pickles of the North read a short story titled The Straw the Coal and the Bean by the Brothers Grimm.

Pickles here! Who doesn't love a silly fairy/folk tale, especially one gathered by the Brothers Grimm! Tales like the aforementioned The Straw, the Coal and the Bean, who end up being pals for a very short time after seemingly avoiding a violent fate. Violence, horror, calamity, those tales are full of all that good stuff. I remember when I was eight or ten it sure held my interest!

The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean

ONCE there was a poor old woman who lived in a village; she had collected a bundle of beans, and was going to cook them. So she prepared a fire on her hearth, and to make it burn up quickly she lighted it with a handful of straw. When she threw the beans into the pot, one escaped her unnoticed and slipped on to the floor, where it lay by a straw. Soon after a glowing coal jumped out of the fire and joined the others. Then the Straw began, and said: Little friends, how came ye hither?

The Coal answered: I have happily escaped the fire; and if I had not done so by force of will, my death would certainly have been a most cruel one; I should have been burnt to a cinder.

The Bean said: I also have escaped so far with a whole skin; but if the old woman had put me into the pot, I should have been pitilessly boiled down to broth like my comrades.

Would a better fate have befallen me, then? asked the Straw; the old woman packed all my brothers into the fire and smoke, sixty of them all done for at once. Fortunately, I slipped through her fingers.

My opinion is, said the Bean, that, as we have escaped death, we must all keep together like good comrades; and so that we may run no further risks, we had better quit the country.

This proposal pleased both the others, and they set out together. Before long they came to a little stream, and, as there was neither path nor bridge, they did not know how to get over. The Straw at last had an idea, and said, I will ?throw myself over and then you can walk across upon me like a bridge. So the Straw stretched himself across from one side to the other, and the Coal, which was of a fiery nature, tripped gaily over the newly-built bridge. But when it got to the middle and heard the water rushing below, it was frightened, and remained speechless, not daring to go any further. The Straw beginning to burn, broke in two and fell into the stream; the Coal, falling with it, fizzled out in the water. The Bean, who had cautiously remained on the bank, could not help laughing over the whole business, and, having begun, could not stop, but laughed till she split her sides. Now, all would have been up with her had not, fortunately, a wandering tailor been taking a rest by the stream. As he had a sympathetic heart, he brought out a needle and thread and stitched her up again; but, as he used black thread, all beans have a black seam to this day.

The photograph on the right was taken by the Federal Aviation Administration. It shows part of the crash site at Sterling Place & 7^th Ave. in Park Slope, Brooklyn on the morning of December 16, 1960. The tail of the United Airlines DC-8 is on 7^th Ave. just off Sterling Place. United 826 crashed after having collided with a TWA Lockheed Super Constellation over Staten Island. The TWA Super Constellation disintegrated and fell onto Staten Island. The United DC-8 flew intact but fatally damaged for about 90 seconds before it crashed on Sterling Place.

I remember that going to school that morning. The weather was alternating between snowing lightly and sleeting. I was in the Eighth Grade in St. Francis Xavier School located in the middle of the block between 6^th and 7^th Avenues, with the school entrance located on President St. and the schoolyard extending to Union St. Our classroom was on the top floor of the building and we had a clear view to the northeast.

We were in class as usual when there was a tremendously loud noise right over us. It was the sound of jet engines very nearby. From the sound I could hear that the plane was going roughly north of us. I had a hard time focusing my eyes on the plane because my eyes were bouncing around from the volume of the noise. And then the United DC-8 crashed a few blocks away. There was a burst of flame and within a second or so the sound of the crash. A ball of flame turned into a rising cloud. As usual with things bursting into flame there was a mushroom cloud. My first thought was that maybe World War Ⅲ had just started. The Cold War was in full effect at that time; we had Civil Defense drills where we would take cover from the nuclear bombs by standing in the stairwells. But I realized that a nuclear device would be much bigger and I figured a jet plane had indeed crashed blocks away.

We could see that the roofs of the brownstones where the plane had crashed were all on fire. It was one long fire that extended for a good portion of Sterling Place. I learned that day that a large fire viewed from a distance can look exactly like a small fire that you might see if some paper were burning in an ashtray. I had seen fires simulated in movies and I'd always thought that they looked phony because they looked like a special effect fire done with miniatures. What I saw that day changed my mind.

The classroom was in chaos for a couple of minutes. Another teacher from across the hall came in to see what had happened; he had a hard time keeping the boys in his class from coming across the hall to look out our classroom windows to see what was going on. The sound of the jet engines right overhead and the explosion had gone through the entire building. The teacher, Brother Christopher, O.S.F., soon got everybody under control and we immediately began to say a rosary for the people who were killed and injured.

We were warned by an announcement from the principal that we were not to go look at the site of the crash during lunch. So on that day very few boys actually ate lunch at all. Some ate a perfunctory lunch in the basement of the school and then ran off to 7th Ave. and Sterling Place to see what was happening. Many of us just ditched lunch entirely and made like we were going home for lunch that day. Of course we just went to see the crash site.

There wasn't much to see from a couple of blocks away. But the tail of the United DC-8 was dominating 7^th Ave. The fires were out but police and firemen were all over the place. Later we learned that six people on the ground had been killed, two of them had apparently been in a car on 7^th Ave. when the tail section had crashed down on it. Every boy who had a watch kept an eye on it. Or he got the time from others because we all knew that we had to make sure that we got back to school on time. None of us were supposed to be near the crash site, after all.

Within minutes after we got back to class mothers started pouring into the schoolroom. Quite a number of the boys who usually went home for lunch hadn't gone home that day. Their mothers had heard about the plane crash and when their kids hadn't come home for lunch as usual some of them started to panic. Brother Christopher had to deal with all of this, he would admonish the boy in front of his mother and the class for causing his mother such distress. Some boys had both Brother Christopher and their mothers castigating them at the same time. One mother started yelling at her son in English and finished up in some rapid Italian before slapping him across the face quite hard. Then she hugged him and continued scolding him in Italian.

There was speculation that the pilot of the United DC-8 had been trying to crash land on the meadow in Prospect Park. The plane had missed St. Francis Xavier School and also a couple of other schools to our north. I remember my mother saying that night that if the plane had slammed into our school that there would be a lot of families having a very bad Christmas that year.

The TWA Super Constellation had crashed in Miller Field, an open space in Staten Island. An 11 year old boy had survived the Brooklyn crash and was rushed to Methodist Hospital on 7^th Ave. but he died the next day. Everyone else in both planes had died in the crash itself. All together 134 people died from this accident 65 years ago this week.

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.

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Back of the Book — December 13, 2025

The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean