Back of the Book links for the May 3, 2025, program

We talked about the Trump administration and the terrible things it continues to do. Human rights and the rule of law obviously mean nothing to Donnie Bonespur Trump and the sycophants he surrounds himself with. We talked about the doctored photograph that Trump claims is proof that the illegally imprisoned Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a member of the violent gang MS-13. We talked about federal agents raiding the apartment of an innocent mother and her daughters and putting them out in the street in a rain storm in their underwear, and then taking away everything in the apartment. We also celebrated the Middle Third starting again and Pickles of the North read a story from the Brothers Grimm that she believes has relevance to our times. I plan to update this Web page a little bit more so you might check back for those updates.

The next regular WBAI LSB meeting will be held on Wednesday May 14, 2025, at 7:00 PM. That meeting will be held on ZOOM, even though ZOOM compromises privacy and security. We had an LSB meeting this past Wednesday night, April 9, 2025, and it was dominated by the actions of the Pacifica National Board (PNB) in having a California judge allow a a certain faction to hijack the Pacifica bylaws! ore to come.

Some years ago the WBAI LSB voted to hold its regular meetings on the second Wednesday night of every month, subject to change by the LSB, so we have 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. For some time I was unable to post archive blurbs, then I could, and then I couldn't again. Now I can again and there are a whole bunch of archive blurbs up there now.

This is a link to the latest version of the official WBAI archive. The archiving software appears to have been at least partially fixed. To get to the archive of this program you can use the usual method: 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 only this Back of the Book program. Management has fixed some problems that we'd been having with the archives.

For programs before March 23, 2019, we're all out of luck. The changes that took place once WBAI Management took control of the WBAI archives seems to have wiped out all access to anything before that date in March. You'll have to click on the same drop-down menu as above, which says Display, and find Specify Date, it's the second choice from the top. You are then given a little pop-up calendar and you can choose the date of the program there. Then click GO and you'll see a list of programs that aired on that date. For those previous programs you can get the audio, but nothing else, since I can't post anything to those pages anymore. Good luck.

Since the former General Manager banned Sidney Smith from WBAI he's not alternating with us on the air. As of November 2020, Back of the Book airs weekly.

The Daily News is reporting that an ICE raid of 20 armed federal agents from the U.S. Marshals Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI took place in Oklahoma recently and the agents forced a woman and her daughters out in the rain in the middle of the night in just their underwear. The people ICE was after didn't live at that address anymore. ICE reportedly took everything in the apartment, including the families money. And ICE left no receipt regarding anything they took, which sounds a lot like stealing.

In an interview on KFOR it was reported that as the agents left, one one of them said to the mother, I know it was a little rough this morning, The mother said, A little rough? You literally traumatized me and my daughters for life. This sounds like police state tactics perpetrated by police state mentalities.

The Middle Third has arrived in 2025! This is a joyous event. Even the machinations of the burgeoning authoritarian state that's threatening to destroy the United States of America can't stop it.

The Middle Third consists of the months of May, June, July and August. It's 123 days long. It encompasses most of the Summer season and it's the warmest time of the year. The Sun doesn't set until after seven o'clock in the evening. It's my favorite time of the year.

Pickles of the North tells me that the photograph is of lilacs blooming. She took that photograph.

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If you get this same E-mail do not follow the instructions on it. Do not open that attachment. It's not really a .PDF file. It's malware and will cause you great harm. Also, do not contact the sender about it. If you do that will mark you as a sucker and they'll try and try again to compromise your security. You could lose your life saving, or your identity if you even let these criminals know that you're naive enough to engage them in any way.

ABC News reporter Terry Moran interviewed Donnie "Bonespur" Trump this past week. In the interview Moran brought up the issue of Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia who was deported to that notorious prison in El Salvador in March. The United States government has agreed in court that his deportation was an, administrative error. But in the interview Trump insisted that Mr. Garcia has knuckle tattoos proving that he's a member of the violent street gang MS-13 with ties to El Salvador. Well, the consensus is that the tattoos have been digitally edited into the photograph. They're phony. Other photographs do not show those tattoos. Trump, of course, insists that the doctored photograph is definitive proof that Mr. Garcia was a MS-13 gang member. An immigration judge ruled in 2019, that Garcia could not be deported because of the danger to his life if he was sent to El Salvador. And on April 10, Trump's own Supreme Court with a two thirds majority far right-wing majority ruled unanimously that Abrego Garcia's removal to El Salvador was illegal. But there he sits.

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 that no longer exists was the WBAI-specific Goodlight Web based message board. It was sometimes referred to on Back of the Book as the bleepin' blue board, owing to the blue background that was used on its Web pages. This one had many people posting anonymously and there was also an ancillary WBAI people board that was just totally out of hand.

In June 2012, I ended up having to salvage the bleepin' blue board, and so I was the moderator on it for its last seven years, until it got too expensive.

Sometimes we used to have live interaction with people posting on the Goodlight Board during the program.

There used to be a number of mailing lists related to Pacifica and WBAI. Unfortunately, they were all located on Yahoo! Groups. When Yahoo! Groups was totally shut down in December 2020, all of those mailing lists ceased to exist. One year earlier their file sections and archives of E-mails, had been excised leaving only the ability to send E-mails back and forth among the members. Now it's all gone. Older Back of the Book program Web pages tell a little more about those lists.

Back of the Book — May 3, 2025