Please take the time to go to the link to the petition about the Pacifica gag rule.

So I've been downloading a ton of stuff from the news group alt.binaries.sounds.radio.oldtime, which is obviously the place where people put recordings of old time radio programs for the perusal of the general public. Maybe I'm even overdoing it by now. I did a segment on this on a previous program. Lots of interesting stuff, but it can eat your life, or at least your on-line life.

I've set up a calendar with an entire year's Back of the Book programs marked on it. Please let me know if you like this format better than the old one where I put about three months of listings up at a time. Or let me know if you prefer it the old way, too.

I'm still concerned about the “Platform for Internet Content Selection”, commonly called PICS. The imbeciles who invented it have their own brief on it. In my opinion these geeks are politically naïve and are endangering the freedoms many of us have come to accept as normal in cyberspace.

After you put the PICS code (the mark of Cain?) on your Web site you enable various pieces of software, known derogatorily by many of us as “censorware,” to evaluate your site and decide whether or not to block it from being viewed by people who are using censorware to oversee what sites their browsers can open up. Censorware is touted as something to protect children, but some governments are trying to use it, or a souped up version of it, to block some Web sites from being viewed by entire nations!

A guy named Dan Tobias has a Web page spoofing one of the most egregious of the censorware products “Cybersitter”. He also has some more serious links at the bottom of that page.

Cybersitter blocks sites like that of the National Organization for Women, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and others which have information in favor of civil rights for gays, lesbians and bisexual people. Of course there's nothing pornographic on any of these sites, they're just political. PICS and censorware suddenly don't seem like such great alternatives to government censorship, as some would have us believe. The group PeaceFire has had some run ins with Cybersitter.

Just for the hell of it I found myself looking up WBAI's statistics from the FCC.

• Call Letters: WBAI.
• Frequency: 99.5 FM
• City of License: New York, NY
• Transmitter Location:40° 44' 54" N., 73° 59' 10" W.
• Transmitted Power: 4300 Watts
• Antenna height: 415 meters
• Owner: Pacifica Foundation
• This FCC Record was last updated January 28, 1998

What the hell is this 4,300 Watts stuff? It must have been one of those times when we were operating at 40% power. We usually operate at 9,600 watts, which is equal to 50,000 Watts owing to the antenna height.

Here's some E-mail we got from a listener who wants you to take a look at her Web site.

There is a thing called “The Gag Rule” at all Pacifica stations which prevents producers from talking about internal matters on the air. Well, it doesn't prevent all producers. Some of the bigger deals get away with it. People who aren't big deals in the eyes of Management, however, can be, and have been, removed from the air and banned from Pacifica stations for violating the gag rule.

Those listeners with Web access to this and other sites can learn about the things which have been going on over the past few years at WBAI and the other Pacifica stations. But most listeners do not have this access and are completely in the dark about the threats posed by Pacifica and WBAI Management to the radio stations. Please take a look at the petition to rescind the gag rule and consider “signing” it as per the instructions provided.

As mentioned on the last show, Elmo is trying to set up a Back of the Book mailing list. He sent instructions for joining it on the last program, and he's got some more hints below:

There are a lot of issues that we can't talk about on the air at WBAI. But there is an Internet list called “Free Pacifica!” which you can subscribe to, and these issues are discussed there. If you subscribe to it you will receive, via E-mail, all of the messages which are sent to that list. You will also be able to send messages to the list.

If you want to subscribe to the “Free Pacifica!” list just click on this link and fill out the form, and you'll be subscribed. Could open your eyes a little bit.