Back of the Book links for the September 2, 2002 program

Here is the latest on the saga of Pacifica. There was a big meeting of the interim Pacifica National Board in June in Berkeley, CA. I have a link to notes from a listener who was there.

As we move into the next phase of the Pacifica Crisis there are various elements that would like to simply replace the previous group of hijackers with themselves and/or their pals. But some of us are more convinced than ever that only open elections will provide a long range cure for the Pacifica Crisis. Here's a link to the various election proposals.

Here's the WBAI schedule. Don't blame me if it's not accurate, I didn't make it up I'm only relaying it. Here's a schedule made by a listener who has Web links for various programs and producers.

Our colleagues from Off the Hook now have both a RealAudio streaming web cast operating, and a new MP3 stream both of which were working at about 8:41 PM last night. The MP3 feed is now the preferred feed.

This is the 16^th anniversary of Back of the Book! Sixteen years is quite a record for a program at WBAI, especially a biweekly program. I'll of course be talking about this tonight, along with the usual Kafka reading. You can follow along by going here.

There has been a genetic study that seems to show that language may have been the real thing that made us all human, as we know it. This research involves topics of interest to several different disciplines

And of course we got through some mail on this program. Some of the mail arrived in envelopes, but some was E-mail, and we present that here. Fernando seems to be trolling us again. I redacted this letter on the air, but I figure the E-mail treatment may as well be fulsome.

Subject: Complaint Regarding A Commercial.
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2002 21:54:06 -0700 (PDT)
From: Fernando
To: rpm@glib.com

Dear R.

I have written to you previously. I am interested in getting your take on two commercials that have been airing on television recently. Both are for the same thing. They get aired often. Do you watch “Hill Street Blues?”

One starts out with a teen-age kid getting ready to go out. He is filthy and disgusting with weird piercings and a long effeminite pony tail. He is dressed in a black shirt that has safety pins running up one sleeve and as he dresses, he is listening to a loud racket that is supposed to be heavy metal music. After he gets dressed like a slob, he leaves his room and before he leaves his house, his mother questions him about his plans. Then, she irresponsibly ALLOWS him to leave looking as he does like a filthy bum.

In the other commercial, a young girl dressed in trampy clothing and behaving in a sluttish manner at some hippie party that I belive is called “a rave.” She slips into the ladies' room where she calls her mother on her cel phone and asks to stay an extra hour which her mother allows. Both commercials close with the dangerously naive phrase, “Let your kids be who they are, but know what they're doing.” This is stupid and frivilous.

In my day, only pirates, gypsies and men of a questionable nature wore earrings. The mother in the first commercial is a fool if she thinks her son isn't going to go right out and take drugs. In the second commercial, the mother is simply putting her daughter up to be drugged and raped.

These commercials are terribly irresponsible and should be off the air. The boy in the first commercial should NOT have been allowed out looking like a bum as he did. First, if he aspires to a particular appearance, that of a junkie, he is most likely involved in the activities associated with that appearance. Secondly, he will reflect badly on the parents. My kids will wear the clothes that I pick out for them. If I ever dressed as slovenly as this kid did, my mother would have boxed my ears. Have you seen these commercials, R? If so, what did you think of them?

I doubt you'll agree with me, but children must be monitored as much as possible. The imbisilic notion that children have to be trusted is foolhardy and the popular arguement that sex and drugs are activities that “They're going to do it anyway” is an excuse lazy irresponsible parents use to give up and not do what they are supposed to. Parents today are more concerned with their own dramas and with committing adultery. If my daughter attempted to act like the girl in the second commercial I would call her a tramp and tell her to go sell her wares on the corner.

The only way to insure proper behavior in your children is to limit their options. Nowadays you have to know what they are doing constantly and if they find themselves with an unoccupied moment, they will get high on reefer. Dating practices MUST be monitored from beginning to end even though that idea is unpopular nowadays. Whem I have children, I will allow my son to date in order to foster his normal development but my daughter will not be allowed to date until she is eighteen. I don't believe it is proper for a young girl to be allowed out to be groped and pawed by bastards like a cheap tramp in a dirty saloon. In my day, girls who went out with men unaccompanied were talked about and I have to consider my reputation as a parent. I think this is a priority MOST contemporary parents have lost sight of. The Sixties generation has warped parenting perhaps irrevokably.

Please offer me some hope here, R. I look forward to hearing your commentary.

Fondly,
Fernando
Florham Park, NJ

Next we have something that relates to some comments I'd made about a certain late Antarctic explorer, and the E-mail Fred sent then.

Subject: Correction
Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2002 15:53:59 -0400
From: fred
To: rpm@glib.com

Dear R. Paul:
I am sorry. You were right and I was wrong. The South Pole explorer was Robert Falcon Scott and not Winfield Scott. I recently saw a cable television show on the subject and could have sworn that it was Winfield Scott. Sorry.
Fred

Next we have an E-mail from one of our younger listeners. Egad! Will we lose him to school now? As I said on the air, I've been told that I'm a genius to 12 year olds, but by 20 it's all over. So I guess that at 14 Dan is at an age where he figures I'm not that dumb yet.

As for running for General Manager of WBAI, I don't think that's going to happen. First of all, the two finalists are already chosen, and second of all the faction that's got this process fixed would never choose me as General Manager.

Subject: R. Paul for President!
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2002 15:33:59 EDT
From: Dan
To: rpm@glib.com

Dear R. Paul and Pickles of the North:
In a world of uncertainty, your show is a durable oasis of free thought and intelligence. I can identify greatly with many of your experiences, since I am a 14-year old high school sophomore at a catholic high school in New Jersey. I, too am taught by the Christian Brothers, but my experiences are much different from the frightening situations you have described. Enough about me, however. Mr. Martin, I have a serious proposition for you: Please run for Station Manager. Hopefully, it isn't too late, but we need someone with both experience, intelligence, and sensibility in that office. If you decide not to run, for whatever reason, I'll more than glad to accept Mike Feder (who agreed with me about Michio Kaku's possible (yet not probable) run for President of the United States back in 2000 on the Goodlight Board), but I'm sure he'd agree that if you were running, he'd vote for you, too.

Best Regards,
Daniel

P.S.-Start a Back of the Book Reading Club. Thanks to "Pickles" for her book about Las Vegas. I got it from my local library and read it instead of my summer reading for school. A monthly book segment would be great. Thanks again.

There are a lot of issues that are considered hazardous to 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.

The above list has occasionally produced a high volume of E-mail because of the attention that these issues have drawn. If you would prefer to subscribe to a low volume list that only provides announcements of events related to these issues then subscribe to the FreePac mailing list.

Another list that's sprung up is the “NewPacifica” mailing list. This one is very lively and currently includes over 400 subscribers coast to coast. Being lively, of course, it sometimes also gets a bit nasty. All sorts of things are happening on this list. With that warning in mind, you can look at the NewPacifica list here, and you can join the list from that Web page too, although you'll have to deal with Yahoo! to do so.

There is also the more WBAI specific “Goodlight” Web based message board. This one has a great many people posting anonymously and there's also an ancillary board that's just totally out of hand.

The “Goodlight” Web based message board has expanded to cover all Pacifica stations.