Back of the Book links for the March 7, 2026, program

I'm rushing to get this Web page done, as usual. Unfortunately, the WBAI Web site is malfunctioning and I can't get my full pre-program blurb posted. But we covered the below topics and more. I plan to update this Web page very soon. So it might be worth it to check back for any updates.

The next regular WBAI LSB meeting will be held Wednesday March 11, 2026, 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:

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.

We are in very late Winter now. The Vernal Equinox and Spring are only two weeks away! The Vernal Equinox will occur on Friday March 20, at 10:46 AM (ET). And Sunday morning at 2 AM we go over to Daylight Saving Time! I am so glad that we'll be doing that. The Sun will set at 6:55 PM (ET) on Sunday and get later until July. Huzzah!

It looks like the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, worked. We talked about this on the program when NASA was trying to hit an asteroid with a heavy piece of metal in 2022. Now we are getting the information that the asteroids Didymos and Dimorphos have been slightly deflected. Dimorphos is about 525 feet wide and it's a satellite of Didymos, which is about half a mile in diameter.

The pair of asteroids move in their orbit at about 76,000 miles per hour. The collision by DART increased that speed by about two inches an hour. That may sound hopelessly trivial but this is an important result because it proves that something can be done about an incoming asteroid. But you need to see it soon enough. So in that experiment NASA smashed a heavy probe into Dimorphos and relied on it's gravitational attraction to Didymos to move the entire binary system a bit. Those two asteroids posed no danger of a collision with Earth, which is good because if they hit the Earth they would have hit with enough power to destroy a city.

Another recently discovered asteroid, 2024 YR4, will come within 13,200 miles of the surface of the Moon in 2032. Will anybody be there to see it?

We always make note of the fact that we record this program on Friday evening or night and that anything that happens between the time we finish recording and when this program hits the air hours later can't be talked about on the program. Well, the last program was an excellent example of that.

Donnie Bonespur Trump started a war with Iran in the wee hours of last Saturday morning. The reasons keep changing. There was no planning for getting the large number of Americans who are at risk in the area out of there. The Trump administration apparently only started to think about it after the airports were closed and people tried to leave but couldn't.

The Dow dropped about 1,000 points. Oil and gas prices are rising. Trump says it's temporary. How temporary? He and his pals seem to not have planned very well for some aspects of this war he's started. Oh, but they say it's not a war, but a combat operation or something, very much like what Putin has done with Ukraine. Officially they've given what they're doing the butch name Operation Epic Fury. Trump said the attacks are military actions, not an act of war. Republicans keep trying to say that but they also keep calling it a war, as does Trump!

Trump's latest demand is for the Unconditional Surrender of Iran. Sounds like he's copying something someone told him about World War II.

As I said on the last program, and many times before, I have no problem with the actual killing of the Ayatollahs and their awful government. When these religious fanatics took over Iran in 1979, one of the first notable things they did was execute some gay kids for being gay. And they have done this ever since then. That government needs to be destroyed. But the United States of America has a Constitution which outlines how a war can be started and continued.

In a very sad note it turns out that the United States bombed that girls' school in Iran.

Does Trump have Alzheimer's disease? Reagan and Trump are both performative dolts who were used as puppets by the right-wing. Reagan clearly had Alzheimer's before he was elected to his first term. Trump shows symptoms and marks on his hands that might be from the infusion of medicine to slow his decline.

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.

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

A WBAI Listeners' Web page

WBAI Management's official Web site

Back of the Book — March 7, 2026