The USNS Harvey Milk (T-AO-206)
It's Monday morning, June 9, 2025, 10:50, and I've updated this Web page with a link to the archive and with a piece from Radio's Pickles of the North about the recent trips about town that she talked about on the program. The original top of this page follows the arrow. ⇒ Pride month came under immediate attack by the right-wing creeps in the government this week. The Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is going to remove Harvey Milk's name from the ship that was named after him in 2018. And actor Jonathan Joss was shot and killed by a nasty neighbor who is reported to have been yelling homophobic slurs at him right before the shooting. The U.S. Park Police are closing off Dupont Circle to the celebrants at the World Pride event in Washington, D.C. this weekend. We also talked about other things, like a giant pigeon on the High Line that Pickles of the North will write about up here soon, so check back for the updates.
You can now listen to this program on the official WBAI Archive.
The next regular WBAI LSB meeting will be held on Wednesday June 11, 2025, at 7:00 PM. That meeting will be held on ZOOM, even though ZOOM compromises privacy and security.
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:
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.
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Here is WBAI's current Internet stream. We can no longer tell if the stream is working without testing every possible stream. Good luck.
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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.
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the U.S. Navy to rename the ship honoring late gay activist Harvey Milk. He did this at the start of Pride Month. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Hegseth's action is a, Shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American Dream.
Harvey Milk, was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, and he was California's first openly gay elected official. He was assassinated inside San Francisco City Hall on Nov. 27, 1978 after he'd helped pass a city ordinance banning discrimination in housing and employment based on sexual orientation. Harvey Milk the United States Navy, but resigned with the rank of lieutenant junior grade in 1955 after being questioned about his sexual orientation.
The USNS Harvey Milk was christened in San Diego in 2018.
Nancy Pelosi said, Harvey fought for the dignity and worth of every person,
and added, In San Francisco, we take great pride that our Harvey's name adorns a mighty ship among a new class of Navy vessels - named for the conscience of the Congress, John Lewis - which honors titans in the fight for freedom.
I wonder if they'll get around to renaming that entire class of ships now because they're names after a black legislator?
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An actor named Jonathan Joss who had played a lot of roles on TV and in the movies and who is probably best known for doing the voice of the character John Redcorn on the animated TV show King of the Hill and for playing Chief Ken Hotate in the live action sitcom Parks and Recreation was killed this week. He was gay. He and his husband had gone to look at their house in San Antonio, TX which had been burned down recently and a neighbor named Sigfredo Ceja Alvarez who had always been hostile to them confronted them and is reported to have yelled violent homophobic slurs
at Joss and his husband before shooting and killing Joss.
I was really taken aback when the San Antonio police had issued a statement that, Despite online claims of this being a hate crime, currently the investigation has found no evidence to indicate that Mr. Joss's murder was related to his sexual orientation, SAPD investigators handle these allegations very seriously and have thoroughly reviewed all available information.
How could it not be a hate crime? Well, on Thursday, Chief William McManus acknowledged that the police department's statement had been a mistake, saying We simply shouldn't have done that.
Adding, It was way too early in the process for any statement of that nature to be issued.
And then he said, We understand that many in the LGBTQ+ community are feeling anxious and concerned. A lot of it has to do with that premature statement that we released, and again, I own that. Shouldn't have done it.
Duh! Of course this was a hate crime!
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Pickles here! This week I went on two strolls in Manhattan, first with Lulu of the Far South, and then with M of the M and Ms. One morning Lu and I decided to stroll through Times Square before heading out in search of sale shoes for Miz Far South's tiny doll-like feet! We easily found a place to sit and marveled at how relatively empty things were there, thanks largely to what the Daily News is referring to as the Trump Slump,
due to all the instability and fear created by the economic and immigration policies of this cruel and corrupt administration. Phew. Far fewer tourists, far fewer people wearing costumes posing for pictures than you'd see on a beautiful day in June. One of the Minnie Mouses zoomed up on us when we got up to leave and it took both Lu and I flinging our arms up to stop Minnie from hugging us. Man, I know people are desperate to make a living, especially since many of the costumed folks are undocumented and their job opportunities suck, but you just don't do that! New Yorkers pretty much live by the credo Hands off the merchandise!
You can't undo that reaction, it's a survival technique.
Then on a June afternoon, M and I climbed up the steps to the High Line to see the giant pigeon statue. It was boiling hot up there, not a lot of trees growing in that section of the elevated park - phew! But we found a bit of shade to sit in, and gazed upon the Great Pigeon. We watched passers-by doing all kinds of silly poses in front of the pigeon statue while their companions took their pictures. Still, far fewer folks than usual. I was hoping a pigeon might land on the Big One while we were there, but no soap! Maybe the pigeons are steering clear of it because it's taboo to poop on their pigeon god! Or maybe the statue is too hot for their little pigeon feet to roost upon.
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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 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.
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.
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.
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