Back of the Book — July 25, 2026


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Most of this program did not air. It had been posted, and downloaded. For some reason it was never put in the queue to air. I'm trying to find out why.

Oh, it's been a struggle to get this program produced. If you listen you'll hear why. We talked about more than what's here. I hope to put more on this Web page soon. Oh boy, the next program will start August.

The next regular WBAI LSB meeting will be held on Wednesday August 12, 2026, at 7:00 PM. That meeting will be held on ZOOM, even though ZOOM compromises privacy and security. We had one this past week and the LSB is going to try an experiment with breaking up the Public Comment session and putting one part earlier than usual in order to give the public more of a voice. I don't see this new way of doing it as really working out.

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.

Here is WBAI's current Internet stream. We can no longer tell if the stream is working without testing every possible stream. Good luck.

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.

Below is the only part of this program that was actually broadcast.

Pinky Lee
Pinky Lee Would be a Better President

Trump, desperate to have anything to distract from the Epstein files, has something new now. He was verbally attacking Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff at a speech in Georgia this week when he said, He reminds me of Pinky Herman, and then he asked the crowd, Did you ever see Pinky Herman? It took Trump about 15 minutes to get the name of Pee Wee Herman right later on, provably with a lot of help from his aides. Some are saying that this is another reason to consider invoking the 25th Amendment.

sleepy_trump_head_only_from_January_23_2017 (10K)
25th Amendment!

It's been noted that if Biden had done this the right-wing would have gone nuts about it.

I'm wondering if this blunder was an artifact of his early life. There used to be a guy who hosted a couple of kids shows in the '50s. His name was Pinky Lee. Pinky Lee's second kids' show in 1957 introduced Gumby. Pinky used to invoke the claymation Gumby on his show by chanting, Zappa-Zoo, Zappa-Zoo I'm looking for Gumby, how about you?

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.

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 Twitter logo


WBAI related links

A WBAI Listeners' Web page

WBAI Management's official Web site

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