Back of the Book — November 24, 2012


This page was updated on Wednesday, December 5, 2012, 04:07, with more information on the next LSB meeting and Delegates' Assembly, and the bylaws amendments we'll be voting on at the Delegates' Assembly, and more about the elections. More updates to come. The original top of this page follows the arrow. ⇒ Oh, the surviving turkeys are getting ready to bolt to another planet. could that planet be Mars? Well, all this and more on tonight's program. I'll get this page updated one day.

Did you know that I've got a brief synopsis of some of the WBAI LSB meetings? Well, I do, and I've recently updated all of that.

The next regular WBAI LSB meeting is scheduled to be held on Wednesday, December 12, 2012, at Alwan-for-the-Arts, 16 Beaver Street, 4th floor, in downtown Manhattan. A Delegates' Assembly will precede the LSB meeting. The Delegates' Assembly is scheduled to start at 6:30 PM and will meet to consider the bylaws amendments to the Pacifica bylaws. Actually, the Pacifica Web page about these amendment is all screwed up with a popup menu that will not go away. So I've posted those amendments that the Delegates will be voting on on December 12, here: bylaws amendments December 2012.

The WBAI LSB attempted to hold a regular meeting on Wednesday, November 14th, 2012, however the venue was unavailable due to damage from super storm Sandy.

At a previous meeting the WBAI 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 newly revamped Web site. The site has gotten many of the individual program pages together to provide links and such, so check it out.

Because WBAI has been forced out of its studios by the flood waters' destruction of the building's electrical system you will need to go here to listen the temporary stream for the radio station! This emergency stream should only be necessary for maybe another week at most. If this stream isn't working let me know.

New WBAI stream! WBAI has put up an experimental stream for the Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. This is a brand new, experimental stream. So if you have one of those devices you might try the link out. And let us know how it works for you one way or the other. That way the folks implementing it can iron out any kinks in the system.

WBAI is archiving the programs! Just go here and you'll be able to listen to this program any time for the next couple of months. You may need to scroll up one line to see the audio archive. Let me know if you find this feature useful. There is also another version of the archive here.

If you want to listen to any part of the WBAI archive click here to go right to the archives. 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. Or to see only the two shows in this time slot click here.

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

In the table on the archive Web page Back of the Book and Saturday Morning With the Radio On 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!

In the Summer of 2009, there was a Pacifica National Board meeting held in New York. Here's the Web page I did about this PNB meeting and the amazing things that went on at it.

And the PNB has also met in Houston from Friday October 9th, through Sunday October 11th, 2009. The official audio archive of that meeting is here. It was not disrupted as the New York meeting was, although some of the same miscreants got out there to say stupid things.

The Pacifica National Board (PNB) met in Manhattan the weekend of October 1-3, 2010. The audio has been posted for the first day of the meeting, the second day of the meeting and the third day of the meeting.

PNB Chair Summer Reese has been appointed interim Executive Director of the Pacifica foundation, which owns WBAI. Press relese here.

The 2012, Pacifica elections are under way! The deadline for getting your ballot in is December 18, 2012. Haven't gotten your ballot yet? Call 866-720-4357 to get one. For more information Click here.

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Macy's Balloon Inflating

Pickles of the North went to see the annual inflating of the balloons for the Macy's thanksgiving Day parade again this year. She says that there was a tremendous press of people there this year. As this activity gets more publicity it gets more crowded, which doesn't necessarily make it more fun.


cooked turkey
Our Turkey

And at the Martin manse we sat down to this turkey that Pickles cooked. We had Mister and Missues Satan, aka Maxwell J. Schmid and Ratgirl of the West, over for Thanksgiving dinner this year.

Maxwell gave me a present: a game called Rage. So if this Web page never gets updated, blame Maxwell!

The New York Daily News is reporting that NASA has announced that it will have a big announcement about discoveries on Mars “in several weeks.” The newspaper is speculating that they may have detected methane levels in the planet's atmosphere that could indicate life on the planet. I guess we'll see.

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 popular list the “NewPacifica” mailing list. Founded October 31, 2000, this list is sometimes lively and as of mid-2011, has 687 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 Saturday Morning With the Radio On 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 © 2012, R. Paul Martin.