Web links related to the Back of the Book program of September 30, 2002


It's now Sunday morning 10/13/2002 08:14:20 and I'm declaring this page done. The big bylaws meeting starts today, see below. I covered the topics on this page on the program and got very nearly current with the mail. I've updated a couple of things below with more links and stuff. Don't be too bothered by tense changes caused by different parts of this page being written before or after the program.

Here is the latest on the saga of Pacifica. There was a big meeting of the interim Pacifica National Board September 20-22, in Houston, TX. It did NOT reach a decision on the bylaws of the Pacifica Foundation. They plan to have another meeting for this purpose on October 13-14.

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. Update As I'm preparing this Web page for tonight's program I have just gotten an E-mail saying that the bylaws information has changed. Here's the latest proposal, subject to change at a moment's notice, of course.

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 10:31 PM last night. The MP3 feed is now the preferred feed.

Hey, we're pitching on the next program October 13/14, so I hope folks get ready to help us out. If you're one of the many folks who records the program please consider staying up and pledging at about 10 minutes into the program or so. I have once again bribed high government officials to give many people a day off work on October 14th, so that they can stay up and pledge to the program.

I've been reading an on line book called The Early History of Data Networks. And if you click on the link you can read the entire thing too.

It's about communication at a distance, which most of us take for granted these days. It takes the subject from the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians to the early 19th Century. I hadn't known much about optical telegraphs before reading this on line book, but now I know what some odd looking structures are in some old paintings. A number of French landscapes show these optical telegraph relay stations.

A later part of this book may also explain what was going on in the beginning of the 1940, movie A Dispatch From Reuter's when a message gets sent over an electrical telegraph of a sort I'd never seen before. The mechanism in the movie may be the oddity known as Foy-Bréguet's Electrical Telegraph, which used electrical wires to manipulate a distant model of the optical telegraph. The graphic on that page appears to have some problems, so here is what that system looked like. This hybrid system did not last long. Of course I haven't seen the movie in about 30 years so it may have been the Wheatstone/Cooke telegraph that was used.

In a follow up to a cosmology topic I did on an earlier program, the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation has been found to be polarized. This probably means that the “inflation theory” of cosmic expansion right after the Big Bang really happened.

Interestingly, it was not the NASA MAP project that found this, although now we can expect that project to confirm and possibly refine the information from this ground based observation.

So we got through some mail on the program, but it was mostly the sort that the Post Office delivers. We did get to one E-mail, however, and here it is.

Subject: Banned
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 01:23:30 -0400
From: "ISENCA"
To: rpm@glib.com

Dear R. Paul.

I writing to you because I am one of your biggest fans; in fact as I write this note I am lisenting to Back of the Book on BIA 091602.

I worked for a BIG travel agency in Brooklyn. We have access to the internet in our computers, and of course;I added your site ( the very informative GLIB.COM) to the favorites feature of the Microsoft internet explore in my P.C.. Apparently the head quarters office monitors our web usage; because they banned your web site from the companys aces to the internet.

I think this is flattering to you. and I hope you get a kick out of this story.
Anyway, I love you and Pickes by default

always not being

Lots ofv love,,,,,,,

Isenca

PS. Please excuse the grammar an redaction

It's good to be banned! In any case I know that some filtering software keeps people from seeing some of my Web pages, or in some cases this entire site.

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.

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

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.

My voice mail number at WBAI is 212-209-2996. Leave a message.

You can also send me E-mail.



WBAI related links

Free Pacifica Web site

WBAI Listeners' Web page

WBAI Management's official Web site


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The contents of this Web page and subsequent Web pages on this site are copyright © 2002, R. Paul Martin