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
DISCLAIMER: This is not an official Pacifica Foundation, Inc. website nor an official website of any of the five Pacifica Foundation, Inc. Radio Stations (KPFA Radio, KPFK Radio, KPFT Radio, WBAI Radio, WPFW Radio). Opinions and facts alleged on this site belong to the author(s) of the website only and should NOT be assumed to be true or to reflect the editorial stance or policy of the Pacifica Foundation, Inc., or any of the five Radio Stations (KPFA Radio, KPFK Radio, KPFT Radio, WBAI Radio, WPFW Radio), or the opinions of its management, Pacifica National Board, station staff, or other listener members.
Well, this is another close one. I just couldn't find a decent graphic for the main segment we did on the mirror satellites. I'll keep looking. Meanwhile I'm falling asleep again. I'll try to update this Web page.
You can now listen to this program on the official WBAI Archive.
The next regular WBAI LSB meeting will be held on Wednesday August 12, 2026, at 7:00 PM. That meeting will be held on ZOOM, even though ZOOM compromises privacy and security. We had one this past week and the LSB is going to try an experiment with breaking up the Public Comment session and putting one part earlier than usual in order to give the public more of a voice. I don't see this new way of doing it as really working out.
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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This week the Federal Communications Commission issued a license to a company called Reflect Orbital to send some test satellites into orbit around the Earth. The test satellite would use a 60-foot wide mirror to reflect sunlight back to Earth after dark. The satellite will be named Eärendil-1. It's a reference to a character in J. R. R. Tolkien's book The Silmarillion. That character is half elven and he sails the sea. He carries a jewel called a Silmaril, which in Tolkien's universe is the Morning Star, on his forehead.
The eventual goal, if this test satellite works out, will be to put 50,000 mirrors into space with the largest measuring 180 feet wide. Reflect Orbital says that the space mirrors would power solar farms, provide light for rescue workers and illuminate city streets. The satellites would orbit at about 400 miles above the surface of the Earth. The mirror is then supposed to bounce sunlight to light up an area of the Earth's surface that would be about about three miles wide.
If this sounds nuts it is. I recall an old science fiction story where something like this was used as a weapon in what was then a strange future. We're certainly living a strange future now.
It's being reported in The New York Times that Reflect Orbital is looking to place 1,000 large size satellites in orbit by the end of 2028.
Not everyone thinks that this is a great idea.
Astronomers especially are not pleased with the idea of having a night sky full of big mirrors reflecting the Sun's light from orbit. The American Astronomical Society, said in a letter from its director of public policy, Roohi Dalal, to the FCC that this scheme, Cannot be considered to serve the public interest,
and that, It is clear that the activities that Reflect Orbital is proposing will have an impact on the Earth environment, including on human health, agriculture and wildlife, in addition to astronomy.
In its order granting the license the FCC emphasized that it was allowing only, a single demonstration satellite,
but astronomers and others are not pleased. When the big mirrors are put in place years from now the article in The New York Times says that they'll produce as much light as 100 full Moons. That's a hell of a lot of light at night! And if you wonder how mirrors could be 100 times brighter than the full Moon it's because the Moon's albedo, it's reflectively, is very low, only around 1% of the sunlight hitting it gets reflected. If the Moon had a mirrored surface it would blind you to look at it. It'd be essentially as bright as the Sun itself. The full Moon looks very bright to us because it's embedded in the blackness of space.
Reflect Orbital's co-founder and chief executive, Ben Nowack, said he was, Grateful to the F.C.C. for recognizing the importance of testing novel technologies in space.
It's not just the astronomers who don't like this idea. Wildlife experts say that it's going to adversely affect animals, especially nocturnal ones, and other people are concerned that the enormous amount of light could distract aeroplane pilots flying at night. The change from night to day in some places might also affect the circadian rhythms of humans, animals and plants, causing confusion about when to wake and sleep, to bloom or to migrate. I wonder if Horseshoe crabs would be adversely affected by this?
So the Chairman of the F.C.C. Brendan Carr, is all hot to support space projects. Space projects are mostly good, but this thing sounds like a very expensive problem.
Dark skies are important.
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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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