Web links related to the Back of the Book program of June 15, 2009


All right, it's Saturday night, June 27, 2009, 22:56, and this Web page is finished. I've added only a little bit on this page but I've written an entire separate Web page about the new High Line Park that Pickles of the North and I visited and talked about on this program. Previously I'd added the location of the next LSB meeting, along with a little bit more about what we did on the program. We also got through some of the mail on this program. And what follows is the original top paragraph of this Web page ⇒ Oh, we're going to talk about the below topics and more tonight. As per Pickles of the North's demand we are also going to try to get through a lot of the mail backlog too; maybe we'll get through all of it.

Did you know that I've got a brief synopsis of many of the WBAI LSB meetings? Well, I do, and I've recently updated this stuff a tiny bit.

There was a sudden Town Hall meeting held on Monday, April 13, 2009, at 7:00 PM at The Fortune Society, 630 Riverside Drive at 140th St. in Manhattan. Here's a flyer that was passed out at the event.

The next WBAI LSB meeting will be held on Thursday, June 25, 2009, at 7:00 PM, at the Judson Memorial Church Assembly Room, 239 Thompson Street in Manhattan.

There was a regular meeting of the WBAI LSB held on Wednesday, June 10, 2009, at 7:00 PM, in the community room of Cathedral Parkway Towers, 125 West 109th Street, between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues in Manhattan.

The faction that's rapidly losing its stranglehold on the radio station is going all out because their faction boss isn't around anymore. So the faction operatives on the LSB, and the crowd they'd brought to the meeting, the FoBs, once again disrupted the meeting.

And once again I'll say that I think that some of the people involved with that faction just have a driving desire to mistreat other people. And since that sort of behavior is in line with what the FoBs consider their political actions those miscreants get verbal support from the higher ups in that faction and so act out.

The faction operatives disrupted the meeting and delayed things and then complained about the meeting not getting to an issue they'd wanted to get to.

The 2009, WBAI LSB elections are under way at Pacifica. So for the next number of months we'll be seeing the FoBs trying to regain a majority on the LSB and the PNB in an effort to reinstall their faction boss and turn back the clock for WBAI and Pacifica, which would of course result in the destruction of both, which may be exactly their goal.

At its January 21, 2009, meeting the LSB voted to hold its meetings on the second Wednesday of every month and/or the last Thursday of that month, subject to change by the LSB, which gives us the following schedule:

All of 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.

WBAI has an official Web stream of what's on the air at any time! You can go here and pick which type of stream you want! If this stream isn't working let me know. The stream was working at 9:58 PM last night.

WBAI is archiving the programs! Just go here and you'll be able to listen to the program any time for the next couple of months. When you first go to the Web page you'll only see the WBAI programs for the past 7 days. If you want to see older programs you can click on one of the “See ALL Shows” buttons.

Back of the Book is now one of the programs that you can download, as well as listen to on line.

I'm glad to announce that with a new person doing the archives there have been some positive changes. In the table on that Web page Back of the Book and Carrier Wave are both in the Show column. The “Date and Category” column shows the date of the program. After the program I go in and write the details of the program and say which program it is. Of course I'd recommend that you just listen to both programs in this time slot!

The 2009 Local Station Board Elections Have Begun!

The Local Station Board (LSB) is the primary governance body for WBAI. When meeting as delegates the LSB members elect the Directors of the Pacifica National Board, which is the governance body for the entire Pacifica Foundation. The Pacifica Foundation owns WBAI.

Here is the official time table for this crucial election.

UPDATE: at its June 8, 2009, meeting the PNB extended the deadline for registering to be a candidate in this election. The new deadline is reflected below as well as the other changes in the timeline that the PNB approved.

Follow the links below to get the forms to become a candidate.

Here's a link to the official WBAI Web page for this election.

Here's a link to the Web page where you can download the forms to register as a candidate for the WBAI LSB.

Note that you need to register as a candidate by July 14th. If you want to run for election to the WBAI LSB you must register right away.

Why you should consider becoming a candidate for the WBAI LSB.

This election is crucial for the survival of WBAI and Pacifica. WBAI and Pacifica are in a precarious position right now as current Management attempts to reverse the death spiral that the station and the network have been in for years. If some bunch of chuckleheads gets a majority on the WBAI LSB they'll be able to change the composition of the Pacifica National Board and revert to corrupt, incompetent and malfeasant Management, they might even sell WBAI.

We need decent people on the WBAI LSB who will be interested in preserving the station, not in selling it or running it into the ground. Don't assume that someone else will step into the breach to save WBAI, please seriously consider registering as a candidate for the LSB today.

Our TV picture before digital conversion
Our TV picture 2 minutes before the end

All right, so we had to be somewhere that afternoon but we just had to watch the analog TV signal go away in real time.

So we watched Channel 7 right up until they threw the switch to dump us.

our TV picture after the digital conversion
The end of analog TV in America!

As everyone must know by now the FCC had all TV broadcasting go from the analog signals that they've been broadcasting regularly since 1947, to this new Digital TV deal. And to make it more fun the TV stations are even broadcasting at different frequencies now.

On this program we'll talk about our experiences with this brave new TV world, and how it's pretty stinky for us so far.

Yes, we only get TV over the air, as the Existential Void meant for it to be received. No, we're not getting cable.

I did mention on this program that the only thing that I think is good about the new digital channels that we're getting was the traffic cams on Channel 25.2! I find it fascinating to look at them on TV. They're even more fascinating on TV than watching similar cams on the Web.

Southern terminus of the new High Line Park

So last week they opened the new High Line Park in Manhattan. Pickles of the North and I went to see it on June 12th, right after we watched analog TV go away and after we were late for lunch with my male ex.

We took a lot of photographs of, and from, the new High Line Park while we were up there. I have posted a separate Web page with those photographs of the High Line Park here.

On the program tonight we plan to talk about our walk along the High Line and I'll also be talking about some of my adventures on and under the old High Line when it extended well south of Gansevoort St. and wasn't a fancy and trendy new place at all in those days.

We noted that this is, so far, the wettest, coolest, gloomiest Middle third that we can remember! We were looking forward to the warm, sunny days that usually accompany the Middle Third. but the month of May and the first half of June have been downright dreary!

The Summer solstice is approaching! It will occur on Sunday, June 21st, 2009, at 1:45 in the morning. I have more details about the seasons and sub-seasons here.

Pickles of the North talked about “Manhattanhenge,” a phenomenon that happens when the Sun is directly aligned with the street grid of Manhattan. Two of these “Manhattanhenge,” days have already ocurred. The next two will occur on Saturday, July 11, 2009, at 8:25 PM EDT, and Sunday, July 12, 2009, at 8:25 PM EDT.

For more about this whole thing see Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson's article about it here.

Our next program, in the wee hours of June 29th, will be our annual Lesbian/Gay?Bisexual/Trans Pride program. We'll be marching in the march on Sunday afternoon and will drag our tired selves onto the air to prattle on about it. I'm sure I'll yack about the olden days of the gay liberation movement.

If you want to find out more about the march, of attend it, you can visit the Web site of the official group that runs it.

Zelda, June 1, 2009

After the last program Pickles of the North and I went looking for the exact location from which a poster for a movie had been photographed in 1950. Of course lower Manhattan has changed just a bit in the past 59 years and it was hard to figure out exactly where the actress had been posing when the publicity photograph had been taken. Our journey was not helped by my mistaking the building at 20 Exchange Place for the Bank of New York building at the front end of Wall St. I also had thought that the photograph was taken from where the South Street Seaport is now located. We wasted some time discovering that I was wrong on both counts.

Interestingly, just the day before our own Uncle Sidney Smith, whose radio program Carrier Wave alternates with ours in this time slot, had posted some shots he had taken from almost exactly the same place on his blog!

Well, after wandering around we couldn't find the location, but we'll probably look for it again, however by the time we got to Battery Park Zelda the wild turkey was down from her nightly roost and was pecking around the Parks Dept. building in the playground there waiting to be fed. So we got a shot of her.

Zelda can be hard to photograph. Of course I'm no photographer, so maybe if I had some idea of what I'm doing she might not be so hard a subject. You don't want to get too close and frighten her but you also don't want to be so far away that the Canon A580 point and shoot camera that I use will have a problem focussing on her. Well, above is our latest shot.

There are a lot of issues that are considered hazardous to talk about on the air at WBAI, even now that the gag rule has been lifted. 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.

Probably the most popular 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 and official announcements are frequently posted there.

You can look at the NewPacifica list here, and you can join the list from that Web page too. If you subscribe to the “NewPacifica” mailing list you will receive, via E-mail, all of the messages which are sent to that list.

There is the option to receive a “digest” version of the list, which means that a bunch of messages are bundled into one E-mail and sent to you at regular intervals, this cuts down on the number of E-mails you get from the list. You will also be able to send messages to the list.

This list also has a Web based interface where you can read messages and from which you can post your own messages.

There is also the more WBAI specific “Goodlight” Web based message board. It is sometimes referred to on Back of the Book as “the bleepin' blue board,” owing to the blue background used on its Web pages. This one has many people posting anonymously and there's also an ancillary “WBAI people” board that's just totally out of hand. UPDATE: The bleepin' blue board has had to add a step for folks to get onto it because it's under attack by spambots. When you click on the above link you may be asked for a username and password. Type in Username: poster Password: enternow

When the computer in Master Control is working we sometimes have live interaction with people posting on the “Goodlight Board” during the program.

Our very own Uncle Sidney Smith, whose program Carrier Wave alternates with us, has a blog these days. You can reach his blog here.

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

You can also send me E-mail.



WBAI related links

WBAI Listeners' Web page

WBAI Management's official Web site


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The contents of this Web page are copyright © 2009, R. Paul Martin.