Back of the Book links for the July 2, 2016, program

This is our annual Christopher Street Liberation Day program. We'll talk about the march that we went to last weekend, and we'll talk about some LGBT history. We'll observe our usual traditions for this annual program. We also plan to talk about various other things, including the NASA Juno probe that will arrive at Jupiter on July 4^th. If we have time we may get to reading some mail on this program. Check back for updates.

The WBAI LSB was to have met on Wednesday, January 13, 2016, at 7:00 PM at the ARC Central Harlem Senior Center, 120 West 140^th St., New York, NY 10030, between Malcolm X and Adam Clayton Powell Blvd. in Manhattan.

The elections happened right before the meeting was scheduled to begin, and then I was assaulted by the Chair, and can there be a legitimate meeting when people have been driven out by violence?

Also, the lawsuit about the attempt to steal the 2015, WBAI Staff LSB election and keep WBAI representative off the Pacifica National Board went to trial on Friday, May 20, 2016. We are awaiting the judge's decision.

Even though those of us not in the so-called Justice & Unity Campaign haven't been attending LSB meetings due to the dispute about who's a member of the LSB and the denial of WBAI representation on the PNB I have put out more written Treasurer's Reports for all to read.

Some years ago the WBAI LSB voted to hold its regular meetings on the second Wednesday of every month, subject to change by the LSB, which gives us the following schedule:

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 is archiving the programs! WBAI has ~~permanently~~ switched to yet another new archive Web page! This one is more baffling than the previous one. We have to put archive blurb copy in before the program airs. The person in charge of the WBAI Web site says, “If you fail to create a playlist, your show may not show up in the archives at all.” So we made an archive blurb long before the program.

This is a link to the latest version of the official WBAI archive To get to this program you'll have to click on the drop-down menu, which says “Display,” and find Back of the Book on that menu. We're pretty early in the list, so it shouldn't be too difficult. Once you find the program name click “GO” and you'll see a list of programs, most of which are Back of the Book programs. I will see if this can be made easier to get to, but they've only recently implemented this new page and I haven't had time to see what I can do with it. Good luck.

Since the General Manager has banned Sidney Smith from WBAI there's no telling what's on in the alternate week's time slot anymore.

The Pacifica National Board (PNB) met in Washington, D.C. February 7-10, 2014. The big news from that meeting was that they mandated that there be no negotiations with the four candidates for the PSOA for 60 days. And this initiative appears to be dead, for the moment.

Given that the PNB has had a change in its membership that has affected the balance of power, this postponement of any negotiations may actually be a ploy by the people who want to sell WBAI to make that sale more likely. It is possible that a PSOA would allow WBAI to come back after a few years, but it would also not result in a big cash influx to the rest of Pacifica, and that is what some people at other Pacifica stations want. Well, things are pretty much up in the air with WBAI right now.

Chaos and fighting continues on the PNB and at the Pacifica National Office a number of workers have quit their jobs in disgust. The people who want to sell off WBAI started on their destructive path with the firing of the Executive Director at a critical time. The Executive Director, Summer Reese, said she had a contract with Pacifica and that the PNB can't just violate that and fire her the way that they did. So the Executive Director barricaded herself and the National Office workers in the National Office along with some supporters. Yeah, Pacifica got some great publicity from all of this.

The disputed Executive Director issued a press release giving her side of this episode. Here is her press release. Luckily for the Pacifica stations Ms. Reese worked to get the CPB filings done by the March 14, deadline despite having been fired the day before. Had she not done this work Pacifica, and all of its radio stations, would have been ineligible for CPB funds, which have been a significant part of every station's budget.

Bring Back Uncle Sidney!

Our friend, fellow WBAI producer and Saddle Pal Uncle Sidney Smith has been banned from WBAI by General Manager Berthold Reimers. The General Manager will not say why. He won't even tell Sidney why he's banned! This is grossly unfair to Sidney and constitutes abuse of Staff. Why did Berthold ban Sidney?

Alan Arthur Katz was WBAI's Web master for several years. He was the brother of WBAI's interim Development Director Andrea Katz.

He had suffered a heart attack in February of this year. A few days ago he passed away from combined respiratory and heart complications. He was 68.

Around WBAI he was mostly unseen, doing his work from home a lot. He was responsible for WBAI's new front Web page, the new Archives page, and a number of other pages throughout the WBAI Web site.

A memorial foundation has been established to grant LGBT photography students funding for tools and supplies. In lieu of flowers, the family is asking that donations be made to the Alan Katz Memorial Photography Grant.

He is survived by his sister Andrea Katz of NYC, NY, nephews Jaime Manzone of Tokyo, Japan and Benjamin Manzone of Brooklyn, NY, close friend Lee Keeney of Canton, Pa, and great-nephew and great-niece Sena Manzone and Mia Manzone of Tokyo, Japan.

The Stonewall is Now a National Monument

The 47th annual Christopher Street Liberation Day march, aka the LGBT Pride “Parade,” was held on Sunday, June 26, 2016. Pickles of the North and I were there. Here you can see the epicenter of the entire day, the Stonewall Inn. This is actually the second, at least, incarnation of the Stonewall. The space had been occupied by a bagel restaurant for a while and various other businesses. And two days before the march President Obama designated the Stonewall Inn as a U.S. National Monument. Yeah, we've certainly come a long way from the riots of 1969, when Richard M. Nixon was President.

Yes.

And another artifact of the movement coming a long was is that the 2016, march was front loaded with politicians and corporate groups. There were no corporations marching in 1970. Of course there was no presidential candidate marching in the march in 1970, either.

A Message From an Onlooker

This message of course relates to the mass murders in Orlando only two weeks before the march.

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I've spoken on a previous program about the Gay Activists Alliance ZAP of the New York City Marriage License Bureau many years ago. Well, Pickles of the North has found that Randy Wicker, who used to do a radio program on WBAI, has posted videos of that action on YouTube. If you look closely at the third part you will see someone who's much shorter than anyone else, and who has long, curly hair. That's me. I used to say that I had the most famous back of the head in the movement, because that's all that cameras ever saw of me. And if you keep your eyes peeled you can even see a face shot of me, for a fraction of a second, in that final segment.

GAA zap of the NYC Marriage License Bureau - June 4, 1971 - Part 1

GAA zap of the NYC Marriage License Bureau - June 4, 1971 - Part 2

GAA zap of the NYC Marriage License Bureau - June 4, 1971 - Part 3

Oh, and wait till you hear who one of the parties looking to get a marriage license that day was!

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Jupiter
photo credit: NASA

We plan to talk a little bit about the Juno probe that will achieve a polar orbit around the planet Jupiter on Monday, July 4, 2016. The Juno spacecraft will become the fastest human made object, after it starts to swoop in close to Jupiter. It's orbit will be quite eccentric and at closest approach Juno will be moving at about 129,000 mph.

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The Web page for our previous program has been updated.

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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 open list is the 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. The bleepin' blue board had to add a step for folks to get onto it because it was 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

UPDATE: In of June 2012, I ended up having to salvage the bleepin' blue board, and so I'm the moderator on it now.

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 used to alternate with us, has a blog these days. You can reach his blog here.

Sidney is also posting occasional podcasts these days at the Web site he's established.

One formerly popular mailing list is the “NewPacifica” mailing list. Founded October 31, 2000, this list has been moribund for a couple of years due to de facto censorship by the group owner. As of early 2015, it has 693 subscribers coast to coast, but postings on it are very infrequent now.

Back in the day it sometimes also got a bit nasty. All sorts of things used to happen on this list and official announcements were 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.

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We like to stay interactive with our listeners. Here are the various options for you to get in touch with us.

You can also send me E-mail.

And now you can even reach me on Twitter

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WBAI related links

WBAI Listeners' Web page

WBAI Management's official Web site

Back to the Back of the Book page

Back to my home page.

Back of the Book — July 2, 2016

Bring Back Uncle Sidney!