[00:11.220 --> 00:13.820]  And you're listening to Radio Station WBAI in New York.
[00:13.940 --> 00:16.300]  Time once again for Off the Hook.
[00:37.020 --> 00:38.960]  But I'll best expect the worst.
[00:39.640 --> 00:42.480]  I hope that's understood by making it more.
[01:42.650 --> 01:44.070]  And a good evening to everybody.
[01:44.070 --> 01:45.970]  The program is Off the Hook.
[01:46.970 --> 01:49.750]  Manuel Goldstein here with you on this Tuesday evening.
[01:49.930 --> 01:51.730]  Yes, this week the station is on the air.
[01:51.730 --> 01:57.010]  I suppose to last week at this time when we had a bit of a problem with the transmitter.
[01:59.330 --> 02:06.530]  And we are gathered here on this day one week before the...
[02:06.530 --> 02:09.450]  Is it one week before the Mitnick sentencing again?
[02:09.810 --> 02:10.810]  What do we have?
[02:10.830 --> 02:12.910]  Porkchop, what do you recall of this?
[02:13.050 --> 02:13.570]  Hello, world.
[02:14.550 --> 02:17.590]  Well, I recall that about a week and a day ago.
[02:17.650 --> 02:18.310]  It was last week.
[02:19.190 --> 02:20.110]  A week and a day.
[02:20.110 --> 02:21.810]  A week and a day ago it got postponed for two weeks.
[02:21.890 --> 02:22.850]  So it wouldn't be next Monday.
[02:22.970 --> 02:24.170]  It would be the Monday after that, right?
[02:24.850 --> 02:26.370]  It would be...
[02:26.370 --> 02:27.790]  Yeah, it's next Monday, wouldn't it?
[02:27.970 --> 02:28.750]  Would it be next Monday?
[02:28.890 --> 02:30.630]  August 9th, I think it was.
[02:30.690 --> 02:31.710]  Yeah, so it would be next Monday.
[02:31.810 --> 02:31.950]  Okay.
[02:32.130 --> 02:33.530]  So here we go all over again.
[02:33.990 --> 02:40.130]  We want to get people down there in the Los Angeles Federal Courthouse on Spring Street out there in Los Angeles.
[02:41.410 --> 02:49.970]  So please show up in great numbers and show that this kind of injustice just will not be tolerated.
[02:50.450 --> 02:53.750]  That's what we always are calling on our listeners to show up and demand.
[02:54.910 --> 03:04.370]  Kevin Mitnick, for those of you who may not know, a computer hacker who was arrested back in 1995 and has been held in prison ever since.
[03:05.210 --> 03:09.430]  No real crime has ever been defined.
[03:11.310 --> 03:13.450]  All kinds of nebulous crimes have been defined.
[03:13.530 --> 03:13.870]  Hi, Isaac.
[03:13.930 --> 03:14.190]  What's up?
[03:14.510 --> 03:15.610]  Oh, I'm fine.
[03:15.770 --> 03:15.910]  Yourself?
[03:16.050 --> 03:16.570]  I'm pretty good.
[03:16.630 --> 03:17.090]  I'm pretty good.
[03:17.090 --> 03:20.910]  It's been a hectic week as far as working on various projects.
[03:21.130 --> 03:21.710]  We've got an issue.
[03:22.370 --> 03:23.110]  Three things.
[03:23.270 --> 03:23.950]  Putting out an issue.
[03:24.210 --> 03:28.810]  Trying to organize the new HOPE Conference next summer.
[03:28.970 --> 03:29.730]  Summer of 2000.
[03:29.870 --> 03:30.290]  H2K.
[03:30.530 --> 03:31.830]  After the riots and everything.
[03:31.850 --> 03:32.390]  After the riots.
[03:32.610 --> 03:36.490]  And, of course, working on the film that we're hopefully putting out before that happens.
[03:36.490 --> 03:37.970]  The film called Freedom Downtime.
[03:38.050 --> 03:38.610]  Before the riots?
[03:39.190 --> 03:39.630]  No.
[03:39.790 --> 03:41.490]  Well, we have to finish it before the riots.
[03:41.650 --> 03:43.370]  It's being released after the riots, I believe.
[03:43.730 --> 03:43.890]  Okay.
[03:44.010 --> 03:44.150]  Yeah.
[03:44.310 --> 03:45.970]  Between the riots and H2K, perhaps.
[03:45.970 --> 03:47.310]  Yeah, that's what we're hoping for.
[03:47.390 --> 03:47.670]  That's good.
[03:49.210 --> 03:51.470]  Okay, so that's what we've been working on.
[03:51.770 --> 03:54.070]  Forkshop, actually, we've been working on a good deal of that.
[03:54.310 --> 03:54.930]  It's fun, isn't it?
[03:55.370 --> 03:58.730]  It takes a while, but you can definitely see it coming along.
[03:58.730 --> 04:01.170]  It's like giving birth for two weeks straight without stopping.
[04:01.310 --> 04:02.110]  That's what it's like.
[04:02.170 --> 04:04.910]  If you ever put out a film, this is the process.
[04:05.150 --> 04:06.330]  Oh, you'll never give an hour.
[04:06.450 --> 04:07.070]  Ah, more than an hour.
[04:07.230 --> 04:14.270]  Yeah, you have to sit around for hours and hours and hours trying to get the single shot just right and realizing that you don't have it yet.
[04:14.390 --> 04:14.930]  Get used to it.
[04:14.930 --> 04:16.270]  You'll be at it for a while longer.
[04:16.330 --> 04:17.850]  Well, we've been at it for a while already.
[04:17.950 --> 04:22.470]  Okay, well, just keep reminding yourself that this is only one-sixth done.
[04:23.970 --> 04:25.870]  If it's that much done, I'll be very happy.
[04:25.950 --> 04:28.230]  I don't think it's a 20th done.
[04:30.070 --> 04:38.210]  Anyway, anyone out there who is in the film distribution business, please let us know because we're already getting offers based on the DEF CON showing of the promo.
[04:38.390 --> 04:39.630]  Also, the audio correction.
[04:39.890 --> 04:40.950]  Oh, yeah, yeah.
[04:41.210 --> 04:42.090]  This is an important thing.
[04:42.150 --> 04:45.250]  We've got some audio that, quite frankly, is not up to par.
[04:45.370 --> 04:45.930]  No, it sucks.
[04:46.070 --> 04:47.010]  It's really bad.
[04:47.010 --> 04:47.990]  It's horrible.
[04:48.230 --> 04:53.750]  But we're told that there are people out there, audiophiles, if you will, who can make things...
[04:53.750 --> 04:54.910]  They can bring out sound.
[04:55.050 --> 05:01.250]  They can take a football crowd from 1950 and isolate a single conversation from a mile away.
[05:01.250 --> 05:02.730]  I've heard people can do this kind of thing.
[05:03.050 --> 05:05.010]  That's the kind of technology we need.
[05:05.350 --> 05:07.090]  That's how bad our audio is right now.
[05:07.230 --> 05:09.170]  So, yeah, we have to improve things.
[05:09.310 --> 05:13.890]  So, if you know of someone or if you are someone, email us.
[05:14.030 --> 05:16.470]  I believe the address is film at 2600.com.
[05:16.610 --> 05:17.050]  That'll work.
[05:17.190 --> 05:17.970]  F-I-L-M.
[05:18.230 --> 05:24.010]  And, of course, if you want to write to us on the net, just to the show, O-T-H at 2600.com.
[05:24.090 --> 05:29.850]  And, of course, if you just want to write to us, period, and not deal with the Internet at all, you can write to us here at WBAI.
[05:30.490 --> 05:31.530]  The program is Off the Hook.
[05:31.690 --> 05:36.270]  Care of WBAI 120 Wall Street, New York, New York, 10005.
[05:37.170 --> 05:37.910]  Well, there's voicemail.
[05:38.550 --> 05:40.490]  There's voicemail, too, but, you know, I forget the phone number.
[05:40.590 --> 05:41.390]  So, what did you bring that up for you?
[05:41.410 --> 05:42.150]  Do you have the phone number?
[05:42.290 --> 05:42.450]  No.
[05:42.590 --> 05:43.610]  Yeah, so you brought it up.
[05:43.670 --> 05:44.470]  You don't know the phone number.
[05:44.530 --> 05:45.630]  You forgot the phone number, too.
[05:45.730 --> 05:45.990]  Well, I thought you did.
[05:46.150 --> 05:46.630]  I thought you simply overlooked it.
[05:46.630 --> 05:47.590]  So, you put me on the spot.
[05:47.790 --> 05:49.510]  Hey, what's the capital of Albania, Isaac?
[05:49.630 --> 05:50.070]  Do you know that?
[05:50.230 --> 05:50.370]  Huh?
[05:50.610 --> 05:50.830]  Huh?
[05:50.950 --> 05:51.890]  No, you don't know that.
[05:52.110 --> 05:54.850]  That's why I didn't bring it up, because I knew you didn't know that.
[05:55.450 --> 05:55.730]  Okay.
[05:55.870 --> 05:56.410]  Thanks a lot.
[05:56.410 --> 05:57.610]  Thanks for making a fool of me.
[05:57.830 --> 05:59.490]  We're into national airwaves now.
[05:59.870 --> 06:00.710]  Thanks a lot.
[06:01.510 --> 06:02.230]  I'm sorry.
[06:02.330 --> 06:03.130]  I'm turning your mic down.
[06:04.090 --> 06:05.830]  You sit in the corner for the rest of the show.
[06:06.870 --> 06:07.330]  All right.
[06:07.550 --> 06:11.950]  We have some news items coming out of various places.
[06:12.330 --> 06:13.170]  The U.S.
[06:13.310 --> 06:19.750]  Senate's Judiciary Committee passed a bill on Thursday aimed at curtailing so-called cyber-squatting.
[06:19.830 --> 06:20.770]  You know what cyber-squatting is?
[06:21.470 --> 06:27.110]  Cyber-squatting is when you take out a domain name and you have no intention of using it.
[06:27.150 --> 06:29.450]  You just want to sell it to the people who you know will want to get it.
[06:29.610 --> 06:35.850]  Like, say, I take out www.barnesandnoble.com.
[06:36.830 --> 06:43.650]  Not wanting to use it for myself, but thinking that maybe if there's a company out there called Barnes & Noble, maybe they'd be interested in barnesandnoble.com.
[06:43.730 --> 06:47.390]  And then they'd come to me and I'd say, well, I don't know if I can give that up very easily.
[06:47.390 --> 06:56.030]  I really was looking forward to running my own barnesandnoble.com website, but I suppose I could give it to you if you, say, pay me maybe $250,000.
[06:57.170 --> 06:59.310]  And that's sort of how cyber-squatting works.
[06:59.470 --> 07:00.370]  It's very sleazy.
[07:00.650 --> 07:01.290]  It is.
[07:01.670 --> 07:02.410]  Very sleazy.
[07:02.570 --> 07:05.270]  It's not the kind of thing that I endorse at all.
[07:05.330 --> 07:09.930]  I endorse people taking out all kinds of names and using them for clever purposes.
[07:10.490 --> 07:13.250]  Like, say, Giuliani4Senate2000.org.
[07:13.650 --> 07:14.490]  Things like that.
[07:15.390 --> 07:16.850]  That's just one example of many.
[07:19.670 --> 07:21.090]  Many, many, many, many, many, many.
[07:21.230 --> 07:22.570]  We're not bashing anyone.
[07:22.710 --> 07:23.830]  We're letting them speak for themselves.
[07:24.070 --> 07:26.210]  But actually, we do have a Hillary site.
[07:26.350 --> 07:26.990]  You do have a Hillary site?
[07:27.110 --> 07:29.130]  And there will be some sparks going on that.
[07:29.250 --> 07:30.790]  Like I said, many, many, many, many, many.
[07:30.870 --> 07:32.530]  Are they going to, like, try and hack each other's pages?
[07:33.630 --> 07:34.590]  There'll be things like that.
[07:34.690 --> 07:35.550]  But, see, here's the thing.
[07:35.670 --> 07:35.830]  I don't know.
[07:35.910 --> 07:38.350]  Everybody, for some reason, I think this is a sexist type of a thing.
[07:38.750 --> 07:40.250]  Everyone calls Giuliani Giuliani.
[07:40.330 --> 07:42.150]  Everyone calls Hillary Hillary.
[07:42.710 --> 07:43.710]  First name, last name.
[07:43.810 --> 07:44.170]  You see what I mean?
[07:45.110 --> 07:48.430]  We have Clinton sites, because that's the name she's using, is Clinton.
[07:48.930 --> 07:51.070]  All right, so we don't call her Hillary.
[07:51.070 --> 07:54.510]  You usually think of the guy down in Washington who sleeps around and, like, kills people.
[07:57.190 --> 07:59.330]  I know that's kind of vague for Washington.
[08:00.570 --> 08:05.590]  Okay, well, we can give you an hour to discuss that some other time, I guess.
[08:06.130 --> 08:06.670]  Moving on.
[08:07.490 --> 08:09.390]  I'm sure you'll get lots of people following you on that one.
[08:09.410 --> 08:09.550]  Turn your mic down again.
[08:10.030 --> 08:11.550]  Yeah, turn your mic down for a little while.
[08:12.150 --> 08:15.210]  Okay, so anyway, now Congress is getting involved.
[08:15.750 --> 08:20.930]  There's a bill called the Domain Name Piracy Prevention Act of 1999.
[08:22.970 --> 08:25.130]  Yeah, so Domain Name Piracy Prevention...
[08:25.130 --> 08:35.370]  How could you vote against the Domain Name Piracy Prevention Act, as well as the Domain Name Privacy Prevention Act, which I'm sure they'd also endorse?
[08:35.770 --> 08:37.570]  It'll next be addressed by the full Senate.
[08:37.570 --> 08:40.270]  The bill passed by a voice vote with no dissenters.
[08:40.270 --> 08:49.610]  The legislation was sponsored by a bipartisan group that included Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, a Republican of Utah, who strongly criticized the practice of registering names in hopes of selling them.
[08:49.790 --> 09:02.530]  In many cases, the domain name that takes consumers to the Internet site and the graphical interface that greets them when they get there are the only indications of source and authenticity, and legitimate and illegitimate sites may be indistinguishable in cyberspace.
[09:02.610 --> 09:03.730]  Well, you know, that's sort of the point.
[09:03.930 --> 09:04.670]  Sort of the point.
[09:04.670 --> 09:09.570]  You know, when you are in cyberspace, pretty much anything goes.
[09:09.930 --> 09:11.530]  It's not like real life.
[09:11.710 --> 09:12.870]  So if somebody gets there for...
[09:12.870 --> 09:22.150]  A 12-year-old gets there first with, you know, and figures out a way to get a name before a big mega corporation does, he wins.
[09:22.330 --> 09:23.250]  Just the way it is.
[09:23.410 --> 09:24.570]  Look at some of the early names.
[09:24.650 --> 09:25.610]  Look at who has...
[09:25.610 --> 09:26.230]  What is it?
[09:26.570 --> 09:28.590]  Privacy.net and things like that.
[09:28.690 --> 09:29.630]  You know, people who are clever.
[09:29.630 --> 09:30.850]  People who got the names first.
[09:32.450 --> 09:34.930]  Thank God we got 2670.com before somebody else did.
[09:36.670 --> 09:40.990]  Anyway, so Congress is getting all involved in that.
[09:41.070 --> 09:41.550]  It's pretty silly.
[09:43.970 --> 09:45.070]  You had something, Isaac.
[09:45.390 --> 09:46.910]  Something involving John Markoff, I believe.
[09:48.630 --> 09:48.990]  Markoff?
[09:49.190 --> 09:49.830]  Yeah, John Markoff.
[09:49.870 --> 09:50.610]  My mic is still there.
[09:50.770 --> 09:51.370]  No, your mic's up now.
[09:51.490 --> 09:52.190]  John Markoff.
[09:52.490 --> 09:53.150]  John Markoff, yeah.
[09:53.350 --> 09:53.850]  Tell us about this.
[09:53.910 --> 09:55.350]  His little article on Fidnet.
[09:55.650 --> 09:56.930]  His big article is page one.
[09:57.150 --> 09:58.870]  Oh, well, you know, it's a little tiny article.
[09:58.870 --> 10:01.630]  Each one of the articles of John Markoff wind up with a lot of...
[10:01.630 --> 10:03.750]  Causing a bit of, yeah, a ruckus there.
[10:03.870 --> 10:04.570]  Yeah, quite a bit.
[10:05.190 --> 10:10.770]  Yeah, he had been passed some papers outlining a system known as...
[10:10.770 --> 10:12.610]  or to be known as Fidnet.
[10:13.130 --> 10:15.230]  The Federal Infrastructure...
[10:15.230 --> 10:16.970]  What the heck was the D?
[10:17.990 --> 10:18.990]  Something or other network.
[10:21.470 --> 10:35.330]  Regardless, he had reported that it would kind of be like the domestic version of the NSA, where they would be roving around the government sites looking for intruders, and they would expand into some certain private networks.
[10:36.370 --> 10:48.310]  It turns out, as reported by a UK paper, that he didn't quite read it too well, and that the GAS, the government...
[10:50.850 --> 10:51.330]  Geez.
[10:52.050 --> 10:54.030]  Why are my acronyms going out the window today?
[10:54.210 --> 10:54.810]  It's strange.
[10:55.270 --> 11:10.870]  At any rate, the GAS is supposed to be running it, and they're only supposed to be turning around and getting the FBI involved, the National Infrastructure Protection Council, the NIPC, which is a happy little FBI kind of group, when they notice something.
[11:10.870 --> 11:25.550]  So, just another example of our dear friend Mr. Markov taking a little grain of possible truth and blowing it way out of proportion and getting a lot of people overhyped about something that wasn't exactly that bad to begin with.
[11:26.190 --> 11:26.710]  Hmm.
[11:27.790 --> 11:30.810]  Now, I've been hearing reports that the government's backed off.
[11:30.810 --> 11:35.310]  Are those inaccurate as well, or based on the misconception that the article brought up?
[11:35.310 --> 11:42.990]  They had gotten a lot of flack from it, but they basically just kind of said, well, we're doing it anyway, folks, so get used to it.
[11:43.050 --> 11:43.250]  Mm-hmm.
[11:43.410 --> 11:46.870]  In, you know, typical government standing.
[11:46.990 --> 11:52.110]  There's another case, too, which comes out of Canada, sort of, involving a satellite phone company.
[11:52.350 --> 11:53.450]  I believe you have some information on that.
[11:54.030 --> 11:57.590]  Well, I was handed a printout, but it kind of got a little choppy.
[11:57.830 --> 11:58.010]  Uh-huh.
[12:00.030 --> 12:10.050]  FBI is trying to institute a particular provision where they are supposed to be able to tap digital communications.
[12:10.530 --> 12:10.870]  Mm-hmm.
[12:10.970 --> 12:20.770]  Um, and there's a couple of satellite companies who are somewhat on the out so far as wanting to comply, and they keep saying, yeah, we're going to comply with you real soon now.
[12:21.330 --> 12:28.950]  And, uh, well, they finally, the FBI finally just kind of said, all right, enough of this, and suspended their licenses.
[12:29.470 --> 12:30.930]  So this sort of got...
[12:30.930 --> 12:38.430]  Well, basically what it boils down to is this company from Canada wants to offer service in the United States, but they can't because they don't have the ability to monitor their users.
[12:38.590 --> 12:38.730]  Correct.
[12:39.130 --> 12:40.390]  I have a very simple question here.
[12:40.870 --> 12:46.930]  Now, this obviously is because of the problems with drugs and child pornography and terrorism that we have in this country.
[12:47.290 --> 12:49.410]  That's the excuse given in any event.
[12:50.050 --> 12:54.330]  What about Canadian drug dealers, Canadian child pornographers, Canadian terrorists?
[12:54.510 --> 12:54.850]  How do you...
[12:54.850 --> 12:56.910]  How did the Canadians spy on those people?
[12:57.250 --> 12:59.010]  And are they not spying on their own people?
[12:59.010 --> 13:03.410]  And if not, how can they possibly run a free society without spying on their own people?
[13:04.170 --> 13:05.070]  Ooh, that's really...
[13:05.570 --> 13:09.170]  I ask the tough questions, all right, but I expect some kind of an answer.
[13:10.170 --> 13:12.210]  Can't we just mark it as rhetorical and move on?
[13:12.530 --> 13:13.790]  You have no answer for me, do you?
[13:14.750 --> 13:16.330]  It would be a show of its own.
[13:16.450 --> 13:17.730]  Yeah, I guess so.
[13:18.690 --> 13:19.650]  That's the question, though.
[13:19.690 --> 13:20.190]  That's the question.
[13:20.290 --> 13:21.010]  Why are we so...
[13:22.730 --> 13:25.690]  We basically are obsessed with spying on our own people.
[13:26.070 --> 13:29.050]  You know, and I think we're very disappointed when we find that we're not that interesting.
[13:29.490 --> 13:29.910]  You know?
[13:31.370 --> 13:32.030]  I don't know.
[13:32.190 --> 13:32.550]  I don't know.
[13:32.610 --> 13:36.290]  We convince ourselves of all these problems, and I don't know.
[13:36.350 --> 13:37.710]  They just really aren't there.
[13:37.850 --> 13:38.830]  Here's a letter from a listener.
[13:39.370 --> 13:46.370]  Dear Off The Hook, you know, I hear you guys talk a lot about how you are running out of numbers and getting new area codes left, right, and center.
[13:46.590 --> 13:47.130]  Spelled center.
[13:47.550 --> 13:48.030]  R-E.
[13:48.830 --> 13:49.150]  Ooh.
[13:49.250 --> 13:49.790]  It's from Australia.
[13:50.210 --> 13:50.470]  Yeah.
[13:50.730 --> 13:55.070]  You know, here in Australia, we are running out of numbers, but we have less area codes than we used to.
[13:56.970 --> 14:00.770]  Basically, instead of new area codes, they moved over from a seven-digit number to an eight-digit number.
[14:00.950 --> 14:10.610]  For example, the West Australian number of 094329467 has become 0894329467.
[14:10.670 --> 14:11.410]  I don't know why the...
[14:11.410 --> 14:12.390]  Oh, they added an eight?
[14:12.650 --> 14:12.890]  Okay.
[14:13.510 --> 14:14.970]  They just arbitrarily added a number?
[14:15.170 --> 14:17.530]  Well, yeah, they just added a number to...
[14:17.530 --> 14:19.790]  You just kind of go into a hat and pull, ooh, eight.
[14:20.450 --> 14:26.190]  Well, that allows 0884329467 to be used for another exchange.
[14:26.450 --> 14:27.650]  Why can't you guys do that?
[14:27.930 --> 14:28.450]  Signed, Chris.
[14:28.730 --> 14:29.810]  Because that would be smart.
[14:30.050 --> 14:30.630]  That would be smart.
[14:30.730 --> 14:30.990]  We're the U.S.
[14:31.070 --> 14:33.710]  We totally, totally blew it with the area codes.
[14:33.910 --> 14:38.310]  I mean, I'm still imploring whoever is in charge here to just go back.
[14:38.410 --> 14:44.390]  Forget about all these stupid area codes, 732646, you know, whatever, whatever things they come up with.
[14:44.630 --> 14:47.830]  Let's just go back to the way it was before, add a digit to the area codes.
[14:47.830 --> 14:51.970]  We can all keep our nice, you know, geographically symmetrical area codes that way.
[14:52.530 --> 14:54.850]  You know, 212 can still represent the entire metropolitan area.
[14:54.970 --> 14:57.210]  It'll be a four-digit version and there'll be different ones.
[14:58.890 --> 15:01.870]  No one's going to remember where anything is really soon.
[15:01.950 --> 15:07.070]  Everyone's going to dial 10 digits to get to anyone else and you won't be able to tell where you're calling.
[15:07.130 --> 15:16.690]  And you're already seeing the problems because people have to call the Bahamas and they don't realize they're calling something that has a surcharge on it because calling a certain country in the Bahamas can cost $9 a minute if they decide that.
[15:16.690 --> 15:20.370]  Well, do we really need to peg down geographic location with a number anymore?
[15:20.830 --> 15:21.950]  It seems like we have to.
[15:21.950 --> 15:22.650]  Think about the internet.
[15:22.890 --> 15:30.350]  You have IP numbers that can be, you know, one number up could be here across the city or the next block up could be in California.
[15:30.350 --> 15:32.030]  Isaac, let me ask you a very simple question.
[15:32.170 --> 15:34.390]  When's the last time you woke somebody up with a piece of email?
[15:35.730 --> 15:35.970]  True.
[15:35.970 --> 15:38.210]  You ever try calling somebody in Hawaii when it's 5 a.m.?
[15:38.210 --> 15:39.570]  There's also a long distance on the internet, too.
[15:39.710 --> 15:46.050]  Yeah, well, the thing is when you actually call somebody on the phone, it's a good idea to know where you're calling just for all kinds of reasons.
[15:46.290 --> 15:48.930]  So you could say, oh, how's the revolution going in Idaho?
[15:49.150 --> 15:50.550]  You know, or something like that.
[15:50.790 --> 15:53.850]  You know, so you can basically have something to talk about.
[15:53.990 --> 15:55.270]  Email is very impersonal.
[15:55.350 --> 15:56.370]  You just send something.
[15:56.490 --> 16:00.430]  It's like a broadcast and they reply to it, but they don't reply in real time.
[16:00.770 --> 16:01.910]  You know, they reply when they feel like it.
[16:02.770 --> 16:04.330]  Yeah, but it's not interactive.
[16:04.530 --> 16:05.590]  My point is it's not interactive.
[16:05.750 --> 16:07.430]  You don't know where it's actually going.
[16:07.690 --> 16:12.010]  Someone might reply, you know, to your email from the Dry Tortugas because that's where they happen to be picking it up from.
[16:12.030 --> 16:13.390]  You don't know exactly where they are.
[16:15.050 --> 16:17.210]  It just tends to be except with cell phones, of course.
[16:17.390 --> 16:19.290]  It tends to be in a geographical location.
[16:19.670 --> 16:26.810]  Okay, but I can definitely see numbers and identifiers starting to pull away from actual geographic location.
[16:27.770 --> 16:29.970]  It just kind of doesn't really make a difference.
[16:30.050 --> 16:32.970]  I guess it seems that way, especially when we're traveling all over the place.
[16:33.070 --> 16:38.050]  But I always like to think that we'll still maintain some semblance of location.
[16:38.230 --> 16:38.730]  The zip code.
[16:39.550 --> 16:40.470]  The zip code, yeah.
[16:41.190 --> 16:42.430]  Come on, that should make you feel better.
[16:42.590 --> 16:44.690]  Well, yeah, except if you don't call people by the zip code.
[16:45.190 --> 16:48.150]  Mail people by the zip code, which goes back to that whole impersonal email thing.
[16:48.170 --> 16:50.930]  Speaking of the mail, speaking of the mail, guess what I got in the mail this week?
[16:51.070 --> 16:51.370]  A bill?
[16:51.730 --> 16:52.790]  No, my passport.
[16:53.010 --> 16:54.010]  My passport showed up.
[16:54.350 --> 16:55.190]  Now, this is...
[16:55.190 --> 16:55.410]  Yay!
[16:56.250 --> 16:57.870]  I even called to make an appointment.
[16:58.130 --> 17:00.550]  Okay, I was all set to do this as I agreed.
[17:01.110 --> 17:01.130]  Did you cancel it?
[17:01.130 --> 17:01.590]  Of course not.
[17:02.010 --> 17:02.750]  Well, they'll yell at you.
[17:03.570 --> 17:04.730]  You know, I don't care.
[17:04.950 --> 17:05.550]  Let them yell.
[17:05.670 --> 17:07.810]  You know, they haven't yelled at me because they don't call me.
[17:07.870 --> 17:08.670]  They don't tell me anything.
[17:08.770 --> 17:09.670]  They have never...
[17:09.670 --> 17:10.510]  Actually, that's not true.
[17:10.510 --> 17:13.650]  They contacted me once only a few days before the passport arrived.
[17:13.730 --> 17:16.090]  I found out all this after the show last week.
[17:16.230 --> 17:16.790]  Somebody was listening.
[17:17.390 --> 17:18.550]  Well, no, it had nothing to do with that.
[17:18.610 --> 17:23.070]  In fact, I don't think it had anything to do with the congressman I wrote to either because the date of the passport...
[17:23.070 --> 17:23.970]  I wrote to all of them.
[17:24.110 --> 17:26.230]  You wrote to all of them, but all the local ones, yes.
[17:26.610 --> 17:28.210]  And I also wrote to the Department of State.
[17:28.210 --> 17:29.710]  I also wrote to the U.S.
[17:29.970 --> 17:30.290]  Consulate.
[17:32.150 --> 17:32.470]  Yeah.
[17:32.610 --> 17:32.790]  Cool.
[17:33.150 --> 17:34.510]  I mailed a lot of letters out.
[17:34.870 --> 17:40.150]  The thing is, I spent $60 mailing these letters overnight with return receipt requested and all that kind of thing.
[17:40.150 --> 17:41.250]  All right, well...
[17:41.250 --> 17:46.710]  And I got all my return receipts so they all got their letters but I haven't gotten a single reply from any of them because I want to know what happened.
[17:46.850 --> 17:51.350]  I want to know why it took two months to get an expedited passport and why they refused to give it to me in the first place.
[17:51.450 --> 17:52.130]  Did you get both of them back?
[17:52.170 --> 17:52.710]  Ruined my...
[17:52.710 --> 17:53.050]  Yeah, I did.
[17:53.170 --> 17:53.790]  I got my old one back.
[17:53.870 --> 17:54.770]  Ruined my entire summer.
[17:54.870 --> 17:55.950]  I was supposed to be in Europe right now.
[17:56.030 --> 17:57.910]  I was supposed to be at the German hacker thing.
[17:58.670 --> 18:00.730]  There's a German hacker event going on right now.
[18:00.850 --> 18:03.670]  It's a total eclipse of the sun on August 11th I wanted to see.
[18:03.830 --> 18:04.410]  Yeah, that would have been cool.
[18:04.410 --> 18:05.370]  Yeah, that happens every day.
[18:10.150 --> 18:11.890]  Hot, humid New York for the whole summer.
[18:12.390 --> 18:13.810]  Well, that's where I would have been.
[18:14.230 --> 18:26.210]  Well, the point is the point is I got it but a couple of days earlier I also got a request for my birth certificate saying we cannot process without any reason we cannot process your renewal without your birth certificate even though I'd already sent my old passport.
[18:26.810 --> 18:27.570]  No explanation.
[18:27.750 --> 18:30.830]  Just we need that birth certificate and a couple of days later I get the passport anyway.
[18:31.030 --> 18:33.690]  So some shenanigans are going on over there.
[18:33.850 --> 18:35.530]  So I'd like to know what that was all about.
[18:35.650 --> 18:36.950]  I'd like to know why they delayed this.
[18:37.270 --> 18:38.770]  I paid for something to be done in a week.
[18:38.770 --> 18:39.710]  It took two months.
[18:40.630 --> 18:41.770]  In all honesty...
[18:41.770 --> 18:49.730]  I have my passport that's great but I'm not satisfied because I paid a lot of extra money and I had to cancel a lot of plans so you guys down there you tell me what that was all about.
[18:49.930 --> 18:50.410]  I'd like to know.
[18:50.570 --> 18:57.250]  In all honesty I've never heard of anybody having so many problems with the State Department before.
[18:57.410 --> 18:59.090]  I've never had to deal with the State Department before.
[18:59.230 --> 19:00.790]  Outside of communists trying to get in.
[19:00.810 --> 19:03.290]  I'll tell you this I'm going to avoid all dealings with them in the future.
[19:04.390 --> 19:06.470]  Ten years from now I guess I have to renew my passport again.
[19:06.570 --> 19:07.830]  Maybe I should start the paperwork now.
[19:09.630 --> 19:10.130]  I don't know.
[19:10.350 --> 19:11.650]  Just like date it way in the future.
[19:11.650 --> 19:15.450]  Thanks to all the listeners though who had suggestions, helpful suggestions.
[19:15.870 --> 19:22.050]  Only a couple of nasty suggestions but you know most of them were very helpful and as it turns out it just happened to happen anyway.
[19:22.290 --> 19:28.030]  Maybe it was just complaining a little bit before the show last week because it was waiting for me in the mailbox when I got back.
[19:28.350 --> 19:28.550]  Cool.
[19:28.870 --> 19:29.330]  Kind of weird.
[19:29.510 --> 19:30.210]  Kind of scary actually.
[19:30.310 --> 19:32.390]  It's almost like someone drove out there and just dropped it off.
[19:32.390 --> 19:34.530]  I'm telling you somebody might have been listening.
[19:35.110 --> 19:38.170]  You think they drove out and dropped it off because it was already in the mailbox.
[19:38.530 --> 19:39.750]  Well, you never know.
[19:40.830 --> 19:41.450]  They are the government.
[19:41.730 --> 19:42.290]  Yeah, that's true.
[19:42.530 --> 19:43.030]  That's true.
[19:43.170 --> 19:43.790]  That's pretty scary.
[20:01.340 --> 20:10.820]  Well, it's been a quiet week at Lake Pacifica where we had a bit of a crisis going on over the past couple of weeks.
[20:11.020 --> 20:24.960]  Probably the most intense crisis of I'd say the 50-year history of the entire organization threatens to threatens to knock the whole thing awry.
[20:26.580 --> 20:27.360]  That's right.
[20:27.920 --> 20:30.500]  Stations being boarded up, shut down.
[20:31.240 --> 20:35.140]  The Berkeley station KPFA shut down three weeks ago.
[20:35.440 --> 20:36.480]  Still off the air.
[20:36.580 --> 20:40.100]  Now, the interesting thing, a couple of really interesting things have been going on.
[20:40.740 --> 20:47.660]  There was a demonstration on Saturday in Berkeley 15,000 people showed up.
[20:47.860 --> 20:49.060]  Can you imagine that?
[20:49.240 --> 20:55.200]  15,000 people showed up to protest what happened to the Pacifica station out there.
[20:55.300 --> 20:57.760]  Now, we're Pacifica station in New York City.
[20:57.920 --> 20:59.300]  Berkeley's a lot smaller than New York City.
[20:59.440 --> 21:02.300]  So if anything happens to us, I expect 100,000 people out there.
[21:03.260 --> 21:13.940]  And it's good, too, because we're right on Wall Street, so when you come to protest for us, you can just continue for the rest of the day and go to any multinational corporation you want and make a full day of it.
[21:14.020 --> 21:15.600]  They're all conveniently located.
[21:15.680 --> 21:23.520]  Maybe that's why we moved down here in the first place, so that when this does happen, people can save some money by protesting several things at once.
[21:25.460 --> 21:32.060]  And we're right on the East River, too, so we can hang out at the seaport afterwards and go get some fries or something.
[21:32.060 --> 21:32.980]  It's a very scenic protest.
[21:33.160 --> 21:35.900]  It's a very nice time of year, too.
[21:36.240 --> 21:37.100]  Wonderful time of year.
[21:38.020 --> 21:46.220]  But what's happening there is really disturbing, it's really depressing, and it's also very inspiring.
[21:46.880 --> 21:57.580]  In fact, one thing that's come out of this, and it's going to sound very surprising to almost everybody listening, is that I've never been as proud as I am now to be part of Pacifica.
[21:57.760 --> 21:58.240]  Never.
[21:59.340 --> 22:06.460]  You might think I'm on some kind of drug to be saying that at this time, but how can I be proud to be part of Pacifica, all the crazy things that are going on?
[22:06.520 --> 22:08.880]  Well, here's how you have to look at it.
[22:09.980 --> 22:11.280]  We were in our 50th year.
[22:11.700 --> 22:15.140]  KPFA was founded back actually in 1948, put on the air in 1949.
[22:16.080 --> 22:18.440]  We just celebrated our 50th anniversary here in New York.
[22:18.600 --> 22:28.020]  I remember going to the church over the spring, seeing a lot of the listeners that came.
[22:28.240 --> 22:29.700]  to celebrate the 50th anniversary.
[22:29.900 --> 22:37.740]  A lot of the producers was a place to really celebrate the past and the present, and I'm sure a lot of the future as well.
[22:38.520 --> 22:44.260]  A lot of the future was probably in that building to pay tribute to Samori, our late program director.
[22:45.880 --> 23:06.300]  And you realize in a situation like that just how important the place really is, how important the whole organization is, what we've done over the years, whether it be Amy Goodman getting almost killed in Indonesia, covering a story, whether it's Robert Knight talking to Manuel Noriega and the height of the Panama crisis,
[23:06.700 --> 23:22.060]  whether it's the many, many things that the station uncovers, that Pacifica Network uncovers, having to do with tenant rights or hacker rights even, or all kinds of things that just no one else ever talks about.
[23:23.120 --> 23:26.440]  And that, that is what Pacifica is.
[23:26.940 --> 23:27.800]  It's us.
[23:28.100 --> 23:29.340]  It's all of us together.
[23:29.360 --> 23:30.660]  It's us 15,000 people.
[23:31.120 --> 23:32.280]  It's the people listening.
[23:32.420 --> 23:33.160]  It's the people at the church.
[23:33.160 --> 23:34.340]  It's the people everywhere.
[23:35.920 --> 23:38.740]  So we can't let that disappear.
[23:38.740 --> 23:42.640]  We can't let that just be taken.
[23:43.420 --> 23:50.760]  Because we are all part of that organization and that organization is, is an amazing accomplishment over the last, the last 50 years.
[23:50.960 --> 23:58.980]  So it's ironic but not surprising that the, uh, the biggest, the biggest crisis to face us comes from within.
[24:01.140 --> 24:13.900]  But I think when you get a lot of people responding, when you get a lot of people actually speaking up and not being afraid to stand up and, and, and challenge something that's unfair, that's something to be proud of.
[24:13.980 --> 24:19.740]  And that's something to definitely talk about and to, uh, and to spread.
[24:22.200 --> 24:24.780]  A lot of, uh, very weird things are going on.
[24:26.020 --> 24:30.660]  Right now, in fact, I was just listening to KPFA right before I came over here a couple hours ago.
[24:30.880 --> 24:45.300]  Unless anything has changed, they're still playing recorded music, which, from what I understand, and again, a lot of this is, uh, is unconfirmed because there's really no way to tell, but what I understand is being piped over ISDN lines to the transmitter being piped from Houston,
[24:45.500 --> 24:46.640]  from the, the Houston station.
[24:47.240 --> 24:51.420]  Now, you may have read in the papers, and this, this has gotten an awful lot of media play.
[24:52.460 --> 25:03.180]  Um, one very interesting thing, though, if you read the Associated Press, the Associated Press ran a story saying that more than 1,000 people showed up for this demonstration on Saturday, which is true.
[25:03.340 --> 25:06.380]  15,000 people showed up, so that's considerably more than 1,000 people.
[25:06.380 --> 25:07.540]  But, it was a typo!
[25:07.760 --> 25:09.560]  It was a damn typo!
[25:09.680 --> 25:11.120]  They left out a zero!
[25:11.760 --> 25:15.940]  It was supposed to say more than 10,000 people showed up, but instead it said more than 1,000.
[25:16.080 --> 25:16.540]  And guess what?
[25:16.660 --> 25:21.660]  The Associated Press is the main supplier of news to every newspaper in this country.
[25:21.900 --> 25:27.860]  Yes, the good old Democratic USA has one news source that everybody quotes verbatim.
[25:28.180 --> 25:29.000]  So, guess what?
[25:29.060 --> 25:33.140]  History has been rewritten, and that rally on Saturday only had about 1,000 people.
[25:33.640 --> 25:34.720]  See how easy it is?
[25:34.760 --> 25:35.940]  See how easy it is to control things?
[25:36.480 --> 25:37.540]  We've known this for years.
[25:37.700 --> 25:38.820]  We've talked about this on this show.
[25:39.020 --> 25:40.680]  We've been the victims of it many, many times.
[25:40.680 --> 25:44.660]  It's just kind of ironic to see it be thrown in our face yet again on such a massive scale.
[25:44.840 --> 25:57.140]  How many of you out there, and I know we have listeners all over the country right now and all over the world, in fact, how many of you saw a newspaper article talking about that demonstration that said more than 1,000 people showed up when it was actually more than 10,000?
[25:57.200 --> 26:06.720]  Now, how many of you saw the correction the next day also on the same page that the story ran saying, whoops, we were wrong, we undercounted by 9,000 people.
[26:06.920 --> 26:07.740]  We are so sorry.
[26:07.960 --> 26:09.960]  Here's a big headline to make up for it.
[26:10.540 --> 26:12.220]  Now, I don't think they even ran a correction.
[26:12.540 --> 26:13.380]  It's old news.
[26:13.480 --> 26:14.840]  Yesterday's news, nobody cares.
[26:15.660 --> 26:17.060]  But people remember.
[26:17.580 --> 26:19.620]  People remember small versus big.
[26:20.100 --> 26:22.620]  The important thing to remember is that this was big.
[26:22.940 --> 26:24.360]  This was extremely big.
[26:24.360 --> 26:27.620]  big, and it meant a lot, and it was very inspirational.
[26:27.620 --> 26:32.040]  It's for that reason that I say I'm proud to be part of all this, because that is what this is all about.
[26:32.940 --> 26:40.420]  Not people meeting in secret and deciding the fate and having all kinds of conspiracies going.
[26:40.560 --> 26:41.820]  That's not what it's all about.
[26:41.960 --> 26:42.620]  Remember that.
[26:43.260 --> 26:46.280]  That's what we have to overcome.
[26:47.700 --> 26:51.200]  A couple of interesting things being passed, a lot of interesting things being passed over the net.
[26:51.260 --> 26:53.980]  Way too much for us to talk about in the time we have.
[26:54.860 --> 27:02.320]  But basically, a press release today that came out of KPFA, or some members of KPFA, actually.
[27:02.440 --> 27:04.380]  It's kind of hard to define what KPFA is.
[27:05.040 --> 27:06.460]  I'll just read the first paragraph.
[27:07.520 --> 27:14.680]  KPFA staffers showed up to their boarded-up station only to be met with management's refusal to allow repair of the station's transmitter.
[27:14.940 --> 27:17.720]  Despite orders to staff to return to the station by 2 p.m.
[27:17.780 --> 27:24.140]  Monday, only 10 people were allowed in the building because Pacifica has not yet repaired damage to the station that occurred during its watch of the premises.
[27:25.700 --> 27:37.340]  So, while you may have read the story saying that the station was open again to the staff, yeah, the station has been open to the staff, but the transmitter is still being run by somebody else.
[27:37.520 --> 27:41.620]  And that's apparently why there has been no live programming on that station.
[27:43.000 --> 27:44.740]  Now it's going into the fourth week.
[27:46.520 --> 27:53.220]  So it's a real tragedy because if you listen to that station, if you ever listen to that station, they had so many really cool programs on.
[27:53.860 --> 27:55.740]  And the folks at Negative Land did a show there.
[27:55.920 --> 28:00.380]  I don't know if you guys are familiar with Negative Land, but talk about media hacking.
[28:00.560 --> 28:02.840]  These guys are the champions.
[28:04.200 --> 28:12.680]  They've messed with the media so many times that there's a big asterisk next to their name in everybody's contact list, I'm sure.
[28:13.140 --> 28:15.240]  They had many similar programs to us.
[28:15.480 --> 28:20.980]  A lot of programmers that are basically literally out in the street right now, waiting to get back in when you get back on the air.
[28:21.200 --> 28:22.240]  We have to support that.
[28:22.360 --> 28:24.300]  Everybody has to support community radio nationwide.
[28:24.920 --> 28:30.680]  There's a station in Philadelphia a number of years ago, WXPN.
[28:30.840 --> 28:31.920]  I don't know how many people remember this.
[28:32.260 --> 28:33.420]  This is quite a story.
[28:33.640 --> 28:45.460]  In the 1980s, a leader with a market share consciousness was brought in to manage the University of Pennsylvania's FM station, WXPN.
[28:45.660 --> 28:55.200]  He succeeded in enlarging the station's audience with more mainstream and light programming and a sharp drop in controversial public affairs material.
[28:56.000 --> 29:00.600]  He terminated Pacifica News, substituting for it, All Things Considered.
[29:01.220 --> 29:03.360]  Yeah, wonderful program from NPR there.
[29:03.740 --> 29:04.240]  All Things Considered.
[29:04.320 --> 29:11.760]  Even though, even though that program was already available in Philadelphia and Pacifica News was only heard on WXPN.
[29:12.640 --> 29:21.780]  In this guy's mission statement, he indicated that news and public affairs should elicit a positive response, calling to mind happy hour news on commercial broadcasting.
[29:22.240 --> 29:26.160]  And of course, if you ever listened to Pacifica News, you know it's not exactly happy news.
[29:26.320 --> 29:27.580]  It's realistic news.
[29:27.820 --> 29:31.320]  It's all kinds of factual things, things you won't hear anyplace else.
[29:32.020 --> 29:36.880]  Might not be quite what you want to hear, but it's stuff you won't hear anywhere else.
[29:37.020 --> 29:37.740]  Let's put it this way.
[29:37.900 --> 29:42.160]  We don't have sports scores and traffic reports, things like that.
[29:42.460 --> 29:44.900]  All Things Considered met the Standard Better Than Pacifica.
[29:45.680 --> 29:51.260]  WXPN's market-oriented leader quickly became a popular consultant to other stations eager to increase market share.
[29:51.520 --> 30:05.880]  An important place has been carved out for such realists who are practical and are prepared to compromise on matters like admission of advertising and the need to attract larger audiences and tone down controversial programming in order to facilitate fundraising.
[30:06.580 --> 30:19.860]  When combined with a contempt for those over 50 white folks who listen in protest and for free speech and the democratic rights and traditions of the workforce, this can lead to a desire to dissolve the people and to a seriously dysfunctional management.
[30:20.320 --> 30:29.300]  And WXPN, incidentally, was a station... I believe it's hooked up to Temple University down there in Pennsylvania.
[30:29.560 --> 30:34.620]  So if I'm confusing another station, someone please let me know, but I think it's the same station.
[30:34.620 --> 30:40.920]  And they, at one point, were broadcasting a speech by Mami Abu-Jamal.
[30:41.560 --> 30:47.900]  The administration of that college heard that and really went ballistic.
[30:47.900 --> 30:56.460]  They terminated the feed completely and they barred Pacifica from ever airing a program on their network again, just because of that.
[30:56.700 --> 31:01.060]  So you see how tenuous the whole radio station situation is.
[31:01.820 --> 31:06.040]  It really is open to the whim of the licensee.
[31:06.720 --> 31:08.160]  And that's true in commercial radio.
[31:08.300 --> 31:08.860]  We see it all the time.
[31:08.980 --> 31:10.980]  We just don't care about it with commercial radio.
[31:11.240 --> 31:15.660]  You know, one day K-Rock is playing progressive music, then the next day they're playing country.
[31:16.060 --> 31:17.880]  It's like, oh well, who cares?
[31:20.700 --> 31:27.280]  So that's pretty much the way of the world, as far as that goes.
[31:28.520 --> 31:33.940]  Some 50 demonstrators chanted for free speech radio in front of KPFK, that's the Los Angeles station.
[31:34.120 --> 31:42.500]  Former KPFK broadcast journalist, talk show host, and Golden Mike winner Gil Contreras met with reporters from Spanish TV.
[31:43.380 --> 31:50.340]  I resigned from my position as a reporter and morning news anchor in the newsroom in protest of the cancellation of my afternoon drive time talk show.
[31:51.220 --> 32:03.500]  Contreras told reporters, there is a distinct movement by the general manager at KPFK to turn what was once progressive alternative radio into moderate Anglo-male, ethnically clean talk radio.
[32:07.120 --> 32:08.520]  It's really something.
[32:09.780 --> 32:13.540]  And some more words from someone I really respect a lot.
[32:13.640 --> 32:20.520]  And if you're lucky enough to get this radio station out of Bridgeport, Connecticut, WPKN, they've been airing Pacifica News forever.
[32:22.240 --> 32:26.100]  And they're basically one of these radio stations that just will survive anything.
[32:27.100 --> 32:29.240]  Their campus was taken over by Moonies.
[32:29.580 --> 32:30.020]  That's right.
[32:30.100 --> 32:33.160]  The University of Bridgeport was bought by the Reverend Sun Yon Moon.
[32:33.760 --> 32:38.500]  Now, can you imagine what would have happened to that radio station had there not been a strong community interest?
[32:39.360 --> 32:49.900]  Because one of the things you hear a lot on a non-commercial band, and I think this is horrendous, is religious broadcasting all the time, 24-7, powerful, you know, the voice of God type of thing.
[32:50.340 --> 32:58.600]  And the reason is, religion has money, but they're also non-profits, so they qualify to be in the non-profit part of the dial, and they can afford it at the same time.
[32:58.960 --> 33:01.340]  So when you hear religion on the radio, think about that.
[33:01.440 --> 33:03.940]  That's why you're hearing it, because they got the bucks.
[33:05.160 --> 33:07.100]  And, like it or not, they're selling a product.
[33:08.980 --> 33:15.160]  Harry Minot, the general manager over at WPKM, has a few slogans.
[33:15.480 --> 33:21.260]  A few slogans that I think we can we can all use, we can all learn from.
[33:22.260 --> 33:27.760]  Little mistakes add up to big errors, and are never seen as mistakes at the time.
[33:29.320 --> 33:32.180]  Money must never be allowed to call the shots.
[33:33.840 --> 33:37.040]  Smaller is better, because smaller is sustainable.
[33:38.940 --> 33:42.940]  Artists and persons of passion must have freedom to do their best work.
[33:44.560 --> 33:51.160]  And from Ralph Waldo Emerson, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
[33:54.930 --> 33:56.310]  How true that is.
[33:59.490 --> 34:05.390]  And, finally, this from another Pacifica station, KPFT in Houston.
[34:05.390 --> 34:11.350]  This is the station that is currently piping a signal towards KPFA, if reports are accurate.
[34:11.790 --> 34:18.370]  From a former program director, as a former program director at that station, I have an intimate knowledge of just what's going on.
[34:18.930 --> 34:27.510]  The record here speaks for itself and paints its own picture as to who and what is being served by the Pacifica Five-Year Plan, as it's so called.
[34:29.170 --> 34:32.250]  KPFT's locally produced news programming has been completely eliminated.
[34:33.050 --> 34:35.550]  Midday public affairs programming no longer exists.
[34:36.050 --> 34:42.710]  There is no longer a single public affairs program rooted in the Latino community, a community that makes up fully a third of Houston's population.
[34:42.710 --> 34:51.630]  The Persian program, founded by anti-Shah, anti-Khamani activists, was eliminated at a time when there was imminent danger of war between Iran and U.S.
[34:51.750 --> 34:53.210]  imperialism, as the U.S.
[34:53.270 --> 34:54.590]  had warships in the Persian Gulf.
[34:55.110 --> 35:03.490]  The Arabic Hour, one of the most intellectually respectable programs on KPFT, was eliminated during Desert Shield, as the U.S.
[35:03.570 --> 35:08.510]  prepared to go to war against Arab Iraq to seize strategic control of the world's oil supply.
[35:09.930 --> 35:12.030]  Gay programming has been significantly cut.
[35:12.250 --> 35:13.790]  It's been depoliticized.
[35:13.890 --> 35:15.410]  It is no longer the force or the threat.
[35:15.490 --> 35:22.830]  It was when KPFT volunteer programmer Fred Pies, a high-profile gay activist, was murdered by Houston police.
[35:23.690 --> 35:30.950]  Lesbian programming has been driven off the air, including Breakthrough, a hugely popular program that was one of the station's highest revenue generators.
[35:32.130 --> 35:34.930]  There is now one hour of feminist programming each week.
[35:35.150 --> 35:37.910]  Peace, Pipes, and Visions, the Native American program is gone.
[35:38.950 --> 35:40.690]  The atheist program is gone.
[35:40.870 --> 35:42.330]  The Vietnamese program is gone.
[35:42.470 --> 35:43.610]  The Chinese program is gone.
[35:43.770 --> 35:45.150]  The Pakistani program is gone.
[35:45.430 --> 35:49.510]  Only one black program remains today at KPFT and an African music program.
[35:49.930 --> 35:52.790]  Variety in musical programming has been dramatically curtailed.
[35:53.270 --> 36:09.470]  While there has been an increase in overall listenership for the station, what they're listening to is a homogenized blend of NPR-style talk programs with a kind of country music format that bears no resemblance to the kind of programming the original Pacifica mission statement required.
[36:09.730 --> 36:11.530]  The Music of India program is gone.
[36:11.710 --> 36:15.750]  After 19 years of service, there is not a single Asian program left on KPFT.
[36:16.290 --> 36:19.770]  Gary Coover's brilliantly produced Celtic music program.
[36:21.450 --> 36:26.690]  Shepard's Hay has fallen because Gary stood up and spoke out against the changes.
[36:26.850 --> 36:28.850]  Indeed, all organized opposition was crushed.
[36:29.350 --> 36:31.770]  KPFT once broadcasted in eight languages.
[36:32.310 --> 36:35.410]  Today, the trend is English only.
[36:37.890 --> 36:41.230]  So, folks, the danger is everywhere.
[36:42.370 --> 36:45.130]  Commercial radio has changed over the past decade.
[36:45.350 --> 36:47.930]  Non-commercial radio has changed in the last decade.
[36:48.130 --> 36:51.350]  And it seems even that Pacifica has changed in the last decade.
[36:51.510 --> 36:53.970]  But it doesn't have to.
[36:55.890 --> 37:01.850]  Because where this goes, where we go, what we do is something that we all have a say in.
[37:02.150 --> 37:03.590]  And that's something we can never forget.
[37:03.690 --> 37:04.770]  We can never give up.
[37:04.890 --> 37:08.810]  We can never say that we are not part of Pacifica because we are.
[37:09.730 --> 37:11.390]  We control what we do.
[37:11.510 --> 37:12.450]  We control what we air.
[37:13.130 --> 37:15.110]  And we must never forget that.
[37:17.330 --> 37:20.950]  We have a letter from a listener.
[37:22.650 --> 37:30.370]  Dear Off The Hook, I really love the wonderful work that you and all the people at WBAI do for us because without shows like yours, all we would have left is commercial radio and commercial TV.
[37:30.750 --> 37:31.610]  Well, don't forget the religion.
[37:31.750 --> 37:32.310]  We have that, too.
[37:32.930 --> 37:35.830]  Now, I am upset because I no longer can get Democracy Now!
[37:35.890 --> 37:39.910]  programs online from the WebActive website because of recent problems at KPFA.
[37:40.610 --> 37:52.050]  I was wondering if you or someone you know might be willing to approach WebActive who is actually owned by real networks and who claims to serve people who, like me, listen to online radio programming like WBAI's Democracy Now!
[37:52.910 --> 37:53.730]  through the internet.
[37:54.650 --> 38:01.090]  I think that because WebActive is owned by real networks, they must actually be budgeted to record and post radio programs like Democracy Now!
[38:01.230 --> 38:01.650]  online.
[38:01.870 --> 38:03.270]  This is what they seem to claim.
[38:03.470 --> 38:08.570]  So I would think that they might actually be willing to pay some sort of compensation to someone for providing them with the Democracy Now!
[38:08.610 --> 38:10.970]  program on a temporary basis from WBAI itself.
[38:11.490 --> 38:13.690]  Well, this is not about money.
[38:14.310 --> 38:18.810]  That's something people really have to say and continue to say.
[38:18.930 --> 38:19.810]  It's not about money.
[38:20.190 --> 38:21.970]  It's about getting the information out there.
[38:22.390 --> 38:24.810]  And yes, there have been problems getting the Democracy Now!
[38:24.890 --> 38:26.150]  program onto the net.
[38:26.790 --> 38:41.470]  And the reason given, if you go to the Pacifica web page, you'll see a message from WebActive saying that since March 31st, there's been a growing dispute between Pacifica Station KPFA and its parent organization, the Pacifica Foundation.
[38:41.670 --> 38:42.610]  The Democracy Now!
[38:42.670 --> 38:47.090]  programs that you normally hear on WebActive originate from the KPFA broadcast of the show.
[38:47.430 --> 38:50.970]  As a result of the dispute, WebActive has not received recent Democracy Now!
[38:51.090 --> 38:55.010]  broadcasts from Pacifica, including the July 14th program, which covered the situation.
[38:56.030 --> 38:58.350]  WebActive cannot provide us visitors with Democracy Now!
[38:58.370 --> 39:00.150]  if Pacifica does not provide the broadcasts.
[39:00.330 --> 39:02.110]  We apologize for the inconvenience.
[39:02.670 --> 39:13.870]  So basically, the way I read this, if somebody supplies them with these programs, then they'll be able to put them up on the web, and then everybody will be able to hear them.
[39:14.270 --> 39:22.290]  What's odd about it, though, is that if you look at the schedule, you'll see that there were two days after KPFA was shut down that there are Democracy Now!
[39:22.470 --> 39:23.130]  programs available.
[39:23.850 --> 39:30.010]  So I'm not quite sure where they got those from, or if there is another supplier, but it's not a hard thing to do.
[39:30.130 --> 39:36.290]  It's not a hard thing to supply somebody with a cassette tape or encode it yourself and get the word out to lots of people.
[39:36.410 --> 39:43.610]  There are people right now volunteering to put various radio stations onto the net so that the whole world can hear what's going on, and it really is fascinating.
[39:43.770 --> 39:44.870]  The net has changed everything.
[39:44.990 --> 39:54.790]  The net has been an organizing point and no small factor in getting 15,000 people out there the other day, or 1,000 people if you look at the Associated Press.
[39:55.450 --> 40:02.050]  Whatever it was, it was significant, it was inspiring, and in my opinion, it was the future.
[40:04.250 --> 40:09.130]  That's the news from Lake Pacifica, where all the listeners are important.
[40:09.410 --> 40:13.990]  Their programmers are progressive, and the future is way above average.
[40:18.350 --> 40:20.890]  Now, we have no time for music, though, because we have to take phone calls.
[40:21.110 --> 40:22.650]  212-209...
[40:23.370 --> 40:24.890]  Who put the phone all the way over there?
[40:25.470 --> 40:26.490]  How am I supposed to reach that?
[40:26.590 --> 40:27.070]  Hold on a second.
[40:31.990 --> 40:33.150]  212-209-2900.
[40:35.710 --> 40:38.490]  Now, the lines with the tape over them, those are the lines I'm not supposed to touch.
[40:40.950 --> 40:44.690]  Alright, I don't really know, but there's something wrong with our phones, perhaps.
[40:49.300 --> 40:50.560]  Okay, are we ready?
[40:51.400 --> 40:52.560]  Ready for the first phone call, Isaac?
[40:53.560 --> 40:54.720]  Porkchop, you ready for the first phone call?
[40:54.820 --> 40:55.280]  Let's go.
[40:55.660 --> 40:56.580]  Alright, well, here's the thing.
[40:57.200 --> 41:03.200]  To avoid the situation that we get into week after week, it's been going on for years, one of you has to pick a number.
[41:03.920 --> 41:04.420]  Not me.
[41:04.740 --> 41:06.400]  Okay, you've been very bad at it.
[41:06.500 --> 41:10.640]  Every time you pick a number, we get him on the line, so Porkchop, I think this is your week to pick a number.
[41:11.380 --> 41:12.020]  Perfect average.
[41:13.040 --> 41:14.160]  You picked him, too, haven't you?
[41:14.540 --> 41:15.460]  I haven't picked him yet.
[41:15.680 --> 41:16.060]  Oh, you haven't?
[41:16.200 --> 41:16.740]  No, not yet.
[41:16.900 --> 41:17.780]  Okay, then go ahead.
[41:19.520 --> 41:19.840]  Alright.
[41:20.080 --> 41:20.800]  Number from 1 to 10.
[41:21.280 --> 41:24.560]  I'm taking these pieces of tape off because I don't think they're relevant anymore.
[41:24.780 --> 41:25.080]  What mic am I?
[41:25.340 --> 41:25.860]  I'm mic 4.
[41:26.020 --> 41:26.740]  Let's try 4.
[41:27.300 --> 41:29.540]  You think because you're mic 4, that 4 is going to work, huh?
[41:29.540 --> 41:30.700]  Anybody with a 4 has got to be good.
[41:31.560 --> 41:31.880]  Alright.
[41:32.520 --> 41:33.460]  I don't have a 4.
[41:33.560 --> 41:34.180]  It's your funeral.
[41:35.400 --> 41:35.720]  Great.
[41:36.000 --> 41:36.360]  Good evening.
[41:36.480 --> 41:36.980]  You're on the air.
[41:38.420 --> 41:41.140]  Yeah, Manuel, what's going to happen if BAI goes off the air?
[41:41.180 --> 41:43.200]  Are you going to put a show live on the web?
[41:43.920 --> 41:45.160]  Oh, I'm not going to think.
[41:45.220 --> 41:46.340]  I'm not going to think along those lines.
[41:46.520 --> 41:49.060]  I mean, I mean, that's what is most likely what's going to happen.
[41:49.060 --> 41:50.980]  I mean, it's only...
[41:50.980 --> 41:52.460]  Listen, listen, listen, listen.
[41:52.620 --> 41:58.500]  You have to think very positive and not say what's going to happen if...
[41:58.500 --> 42:02.600]  BAI is not going to go anywhere because we have people like you there to support us.
[42:02.900 --> 42:07.920]  And we have people like the hundreds of people here at the radio station that put in hours of work every day.
[42:08.200 --> 42:11.680]  Yeah, I'm hopeful, but it's really getting more depressive because, you know...
[42:11.680 --> 42:17.260]  Okay, but how do you react to things, to depressing things in society?
[42:17.540 --> 42:20.820]  Do you just accept them, or do you try to change them?
[42:21.380 --> 42:22.560]  No, you try to change them.
[42:22.660 --> 42:25.720]  I mean, but, you know, you have things that fall back on also.
[42:25.920 --> 42:27.960]  Well, you see, this is not really the commercial world.
[42:28.120 --> 42:29.900]  Your voice really does make a difference here.
[42:30.160 --> 42:30.520]  I see.
[42:30.740 --> 42:36.160]  So you can't call a commercial radio station and say, hey, you know, you're playing things I don't like.
[42:36.180 --> 42:37.440]  I'd like for you to play this instead.
[42:37.940 --> 42:39.460]  You think that's going to make any difference?
[42:39.460 --> 42:43.280]  No, of course not, because their values are dictated by the commercial world.
[42:43.420 --> 42:44.080]  Ours are not.
[42:44.680 --> 42:46.920]  And that's what makes this place so amazing.
[42:47.040 --> 42:48.540]  And that's why we've survived so long.
[42:48.600 --> 42:50.440]  And that's why I think we're going to survive this as well.
[42:50.640 --> 42:56.020]  But it's only if people don't accept inevitability of something that's awful.
[42:58.440 --> 42:59.580]  Yeah, sure, up to this demonstration.
[43:00.320 --> 43:03.100]  Isn't this all awfully frustrating, too, so...
[43:03.100 --> 43:07.920]  Well, I'll tell you, if you were in Berkeley last weekend, I don't think that would have felt frustrating, seeing so many people show up.
[43:08.480 --> 43:11.840]  And I think it really sent a strong message, and it made me very proud.
[43:13.080 --> 43:22.140]  Yeah, I listened to the stuff on Real Audio, how they take that guy off, Bernstein off, in KPFA, and that was...
[43:22.140 --> 43:23.200]  That was pretty dramatic.
[43:23.480 --> 43:26.320]  I mean, we're in a police state already.
[43:26.540 --> 43:30.980]  I mean, we're run over by some corporate elitists.
[43:31.960 --> 43:33.660]  It's absolutely disgusting.
[43:33.660 --> 43:41.320]  Well, you know, I like to avoid giving, you know, labeling people with certain images, elitist, police state, things like that.
[43:41.680 --> 43:45.300]  I mean, people basically are affected by society.
[43:46.460 --> 43:49.160]  Sometimes we lose our way a little bit and start doing...
[43:49.160 --> 43:50.000]  They're experiments.
[43:50.140 --> 43:55.360]  I don't know if you've ever heard of these experiments, where they put people in a room, and they say, you're the captor, you're the captive.
[43:55.920 --> 43:58.880]  And the person has to prevent the other person from escaping.
[43:59.380 --> 43:59.580]  All right?
[43:59.940 --> 44:13.160]  And it's been shown, time after time, that the person who is the captor inevitably develops various mannerisms that people in that real position in life have.
[44:13.160 --> 44:16.760]  In fact, they even inflict physical harm on the person if they try to escape.
[44:16.800 --> 44:17.260]  And this is...
[44:17.260 --> 44:17.920]  It's just...
[44:17.920 --> 44:19.000]  It's a role-playing game.
[44:19.000 --> 44:20.920]  But we fall into it so easily.
[44:20.920 --> 44:23.460]  And I think we have to recognize that.
[44:23.700 --> 44:30.080]  If we see people falling into something, we maybe should stretch out a hand and try to bring them back to sanity.
[44:30.440 --> 44:31.040]  You know?
[44:31.160 --> 44:36.680]  Rather than just throw out the rhetoric and condemn people and label them in certain ways.
[44:37.460 --> 44:38.100]  I mean...
[44:38.100 --> 44:40.280]  I mean, look at the Telecom Act of 1996.
[44:40.780 --> 44:41.000]  Mm-hmm.
[44:41.280 --> 44:42.400]  I mean...
[44:42.400 --> 44:43.920]  I mean, it's absolutely disgusting.
[44:44.320 --> 44:46.080]  I mean, they're just gobbling up stations.
[44:46.580 --> 44:47.500]  I mean, look...
[44:47.500 --> 44:48.600]  Where's the variety at?
[44:49.280 --> 44:50.760]  Yeah, you're referring to the...
[44:50.760 --> 44:54.940]  to the deregulation that allowed for companies to own massive amounts of radio stations.
[44:55.100 --> 44:55.500]  And now we have...
[44:55.500 --> 44:57.800]  Yeah, we have a maximum of eight stations in the market.
[44:58.240 --> 44:58.620]  Uh-huh.
[44:58.760 --> 44:59.640]  And now it's...
[44:59.640 --> 45:01.000]  Now it's something like...
[45:01.800 --> 45:05.000]  Total 400, 500 stations, I think AM, FM Corporation owns.
[45:05.580 --> 45:06.300]  It's disgusting.
[45:06.400 --> 45:06.940]  It really is.
[45:07.520 --> 45:08.920]  Of course, now you don't have to...
[45:08.920 --> 45:12.860]  You don't have to just buy off, you know, hundreds of stations to get your record played.
[45:12.960 --> 45:13.840]  You can just buy off one person.
[45:13.960 --> 45:16.360]  What is the point of owning so much stations?
[45:16.560 --> 45:18.220]  I mean...
[45:18.640 --> 45:19.000]  Money.
[45:20.760 --> 45:21.920]  Power, it's control.
[45:21.940 --> 45:22.300]  Yeah, power, money.
[45:22.500 --> 45:25.500]  Yeah, well, it's control over what people hear, what people think.
[45:25.640 --> 45:29.380]  I mean, why is there only one source of news for most newspapers, the Associated Press?
[45:29.380 --> 45:31.980]  Why did that story go out and rewrite history?
[45:32.500 --> 45:33.640]  You know, it's...
[45:33.640 --> 45:37.380]  It's so much easier when there are so few points of control.
[45:38.480 --> 45:40.540]  I remember years ago...
[45:40.540 --> 45:41.220]  I don't remember this, actually.
[45:41.300 --> 45:44.760]  I remember hearing about it years ago when New York City had like a dozen newspapers.
[45:46.000 --> 45:51.340]  And, yeah, it was a form of anarchy, I suppose, but it was also a lot of variety out there.
[45:52.420 --> 45:54.520]  And that's what used to be on the FM dial.
[45:54.780 --> 45:57.480]  It used to have a lot of variety going down the FM dial in New York.
[45:58.000 --> 46:02.140]  Now I just hear a lot of the same stuff, different places.
[46:02.140 --> 46:04.900]  Yeah, I heard the station...
[46:04.900 --> 46:07.440]  I don't want to pick on K-Rock too much, but, you know, they can afford it.
[46:07.820 --> 46:09.240]  I can pick on them if I want to.
[46:11.280 --> 46:14.500]  They basically were saying how their New York's...
[46:14.500 --> 46:15.140]  No, it wasn't K-Rock.
[46:15.260 --> 46:15.540]  I'm sorry.
[46:15.600 --> 46:16.340]  It's the other one.
[46:16.520 --> 46:20.680]  It's 104, the classic station.
[46:20.880 --> 46:21.120]  Was it?
[46:21.420 --> 46:22.060]  Weeby 104?
[46:22.660 --> 46:22.960]  No.
[46:23.420 --> 46:25.660]  Or am I just like years in the past?
[46:25.900 --> 46:29.460]  There was a Weeby 108 in Connecticut a bunch of years ago.
[46:29.480 --> 46:30.280]  I don't know if that's the same one.
[46:30.360 --> 46:31.980]  But, no, Q104 it used to be.
[46:32.140 --> 46:32.720]  Q104, yeah.
[46:32.740 --> 46:33.900]  I don't think it's called Q104 anymore.
[46:34.020 --> 46:34.380]  I don't know.
[46:34.480 --> 46:35.920]  You see, all their slogans are lost on me.
[46:36.000 --> 46:40.660]  But they're a classic station now, and their slogan is New York's only classic rock station.
[46:40.820 --> 46:42.460]  And I was like, why do you need a second one?
[46:42.680 --> 46:44.380]  It's like, they're the same song.
[46:44.480 --> 46:46.760]  Why would you need a second station playing the same song?
[46:46.820 --> 46:47.700]  Oh, classic rock.
[46:47.820 --> 46:48.060]  Yeah.
[46:48.260 --> 46:49.400]  It's really silly.
[46:49.580 --> 46:54.960]  I thought you meant classical music, which has really got me confused because I know where the classical music is on the dial.
[46:54.960 --> 46:56.360]  Well, it's funny because that used to be a classical music station.
[46:56.480 --> 46:57.440]  It used to be WNCN.
[46:58.000 --> 47:03.320]  And I don't know if anybody remembers when it turned into WQIV for a little while, which was a hard rock station, turned into that for like a year.
[47:03.600 --> 47:05.900]  And then the listeners bought back the station.
[47:06.060 --> 47:07.040]  But that didn't last too long.
[47:08.000 --> 47:08.320]  Yeah.
[47:08.560 --> 47:09.700]  There's a lot of history in New York radio.
[47:09.860 --> 47:10.620]  Somebody should write a book.
[47:11.060 --> 47:11.660]  All right, let's go over here.
[47:11.720 --> 47:11.980]  Good evening.
[47:12.060 --> 47:12.500]  You're on the air.
[47:13.160 --> 47:13.540]  Oh, great.
[47:13.700 --> 47:13.880]  Thank you.
[47:13.920 --> 47:14.500]  A couple questions.
[47:14.740 --> 47:14.880]  Yes.
[47:15.120 --> 47:22.280]  The sound, that broadcast that comes over saying this is a test of the emergency broadcast system, I believe that's...
[47:22.280 --> 47:22.980]  Is that FEMA?
[47:24.120 --> 47:24.860]  Who's saying this?
[47:24.960 --> 47:25.160]  Yeah.
[47:25.340 --> 47:26.220]  You know when you hear that...
[47:26.220 --> 47:28.200]  EBS is under FEMA control.
[47:28.240 --> 47:29.060]  Well, it's not EBS anymore.
[47:29.180 --> 47:29.680]  It's EAS.
[47:31.140 --> 47:31.900]  I have these...
[47:31.900 --> 47:32.420]  I don't know.
[47:32.520 --> 47:34.400]  Has anybody ever actually heard an EAS alert?
[47:35.480 --> 47:36.420]  A real one or a test?
[47:36.420 --> 47:36.840]  A real one.
[47:37.000 --> 47:37.900]  Or a test, even.
[47:38.180 --> 47:39.480]  I've heard the test many times.
[47:39.640 --> 47:39.780]  Yeah.
[47:40.000 --> 47:42.640]  There's this weird kind of fax type of tone.
[47:42.780 --> 47:42.860]  Yes.
[47:42.860 --> 47:44.560]  Which I want to translate those tones.
[47:44.680 --> 47:45.660]  I want to see what's going on.
[47:45.900 --> 47:56.120]  What I'd like to know is if the idea of that is so that in the event of an emergency, whoever is doing the broadcast, the EBS can interrupt all the radio stations and tell you what to do and where to go and all that.
[47:56.300 --> 47:58.100]  Not only that, but cable TV systems.
[47:58.240 --> 47:59.720]  Not the channels, the entire system.
[47:59.740 --> 48:00.780]  The entire network, yes.
[48:00.780 --> 48:06.420]  I mean, being, you know, the anarchic station as it is, what if you don't comply with that test?
[48:06.760 --> 48:07.780]  You don't have a license.
[48:07.780 --> 48:09.520]  I imagine there are all kinds of penalties now.
[48:09.560 --> 48:16.580]  You see, the thing with EBS, if you ever listen to the old EBS announcements, this station in voluntary compliance with the FCC.
[48:16.860 --> 48:18.020]  EBS was voluntary.
[48:18.240 --> 48:19.220]  EAS is not.
[48:19.220 --> 48:19.780]  No longer voluntary.
[48:19.840 --> 48:22.180]  EAS can override your signal.
[48:22.400 --> 48:24.020]  They can take over your signal.
[48:25.840 --> 48:26.280]  Okay.
[48:26.620 --> 48:29.340]  And that's the scary part there, that they can just cut in.
[48:30.040 --> 48:31.620]  Another question about KPFT.
[48:32.080 --> 48:32.180]  Mm-hmm.
[48:32.180 --> 48:38.920]  The changes that you mentioned about the Gulf when they took off the Arabic programming, was that, you're talking about 1992?
[48:39.840 --> 48:44.200]  I believe that was during Desert Shield, so that would be 1990, wouldn't it?
[48:45.080 --> 48:47.460]  And that kind of change happened then?
[48:47.980 --> 48:49.780]  Apparently, this has been going on for some time.
[48:50.140 --> 48:51.360]  Changes don't occur overnight.
[48:51.520 --> 48:52.500]  Changes occur gradually.
[48:52.500 --> 49:01.460]  I mean, that's what's kind of shocking me about it, that the person that now was at that station, is this the same person that went over to Berkeley this week?
[49:02.280 --> 49:04.900]  I'm not sure about who did what when.
[49:04.900 --> 49:08.760]  I'm trying to avoid personalities here, only because I don't think that's relevant.
[49:08.760 --> 49:12.940]  I think what's relevant is where people are going as a group.
[49:13.100 --> 49:18.720]  And I think we're definitely heading somewhere as a group, and sometimes it's not quite the right place, and we have to check that.
[49:19.760 --> 49:25.680]  Everybody assumed when Reagan got elected that we were all just going to go to hell in one year.
[49:26.460 --> 49:27.660]  It took longer than that.
[49:27.820 --> 49:29.180]  It took 20 years.
[49:29.900 --> 49:30.720]  Well, we're on the way.
[49:30.800 --> 49:31.380]  We're well on the way.
[49:31.540 --> 49:35.220]  It's kind of amazing to me that it has been building up for so long, and nobody's...
[49:35.220 --> 49:40.780]  I mean, if anything, I would have hoped that we would have had a Serbian program on this year.
[49:40.980 --> 49:45.900]  I mean, I thought that we're supposed to be the voice of the alternate voice.
[49:46.120 --> 49:50.060]  Well, you know, I think it's really up to the people to decide, what kinds of programs they want to do.
[49:50.260 --> 49:55.680]  If a bunch of Serbians came to the station and said, hey, we want to do a program, I'll bet we'd have a Serbian program on the air.
[49:55.760 --> 49:56.980]  I don't see us stopping them.
[49:57.160 --> 49:59.440]  We had a program council, but that's something I don't know about.
[49:59.760 --> 50:03.620]  One in seven stations now are religious programming, not counting shortwave.
[50:03.820 --> 50:04.080]  Really?
[50:04.440 --> 50:04.580]  One in seven.
[50:04.920 --> 50:08.340]  And if you include shortwave, it's one in 3.8.
[50:09.120 --> 50:09.880]  And the last thing is...
[50:09.880 --> 50:11.560]  There's a lot of lost souls out there, I guess.
[50:11.780 --> 50:12.220]  Oh, wow.
[50:12.420 --> 50:13.140]  Oh, my God.
[50:13.380 --> 50:17.320]  A lot of broke radio stations who need to get the funding.
[50:17.320 --> 50:19.460]  We need some anti-religion programming.
[50:19.540 --> 50:20.040]  That's what I think.
[50:20.500 --> 50:21.820]  The anti-God, the anti-Christ.
[50:21.960 --> 50:24.500]  Well, I mean, how many atheist programs are out there?
[50:24.660 --> 50:25.280]  How many?
[50:25.460 --> 50:25.640]  Really?
[50:26.680 --> 50:27.560]  I've never heard one.
[50:27.660 --> 50:28.360]  There was one just canceled.
[50:28.520 --> 50:30.180]  There was one canceled in Houston, yes.
[50:30.280 --> 50:32.700]  But, I mean, there should be things like that.
[50:32.840 --> 50:37.720]  If you go to a TV station and say, I want to do a Sunday morning atheist show, do you think they're going to accept you?
[50:38.300 --> 50:38.860]  Probably not.
[50:39.020 --> 50:39.740]  But it's a good idea.
[50:39.740 --> 50:51.040]  It's also a good idea that we need the radio guide and not just the TV guide because, you know, the whole point is that people don't listen to enough radio is partly that it doesn't have the same kind of promotion as TV.
[50:51.340 --> 50:51.620]  That's true.
[50:51.800 --> 50:52.700]  There's never been a radio guide.
[50:52.880 --> 50:54.400]  Most stations, though, don't have programs.
[50:54.520 --> 50:56.060]  They just have formats, unfortunately.
[50:56.240 --> 50:59.340]  But there are enough stations out there including the college stations that do have programs.
[50:59.400 --> 51:03.180]  And yes, it would be nice to have some sort of compact guide that included everything.
[51:03.320 --> 51:04.940]  Maybe somebody could throw something together on the net.
[51:05.300 --> 51:05.680]  Uh-huh.
[51:05.840 --> 51:06.080]  Yeah.
[51:06.260 --> 51:07.320]  Last question I have.
[51:07.720 --> 51:17.500]  Last question is, do you know about this graffiti layer that there's supposed to be a program where you can sort of overlap someone's website?
[51:17.820 --> 51:18.080]  Oh, yes.
[51:18.240 --> 51:18.720]  I've heard about that.
[51:18.820 --> 51:19.700]  What's the name of that again?
[51:19.820 --> 51:25.920]  It's basically some company that allows you to put comments on websites, but actually you're putting comments on their site.
[51:25.980 --> 51:26.160]  Right.
[51:26.500 --> 51:33.240]  And anybody who goes to their site and types in the URL of the site that you've commented on will see your comments.
[51:33.480 --> 51:36.060]  You're not really doing something to the site itself.
[51:36.160 --> 51:36.360]  Oh.
[51:36.760 --> 51:41.540]  But you just kind of it's sort of like a another location where people can comment on it.
[51:41.680 --> 51:43.500]  It's really nothing all that unusual.
[51:43.800 --> 51:44.040]  Yeah.
[51:44.220 --> 51:45.900]  I thought it was a lot more...
[51:45.900 --> 51:50.200]  All the copyright lawyers are, of course, going crazy over it, but I don't think there's anything they can do.
[51:50.380 --> 51:51.380]  You guys haven't heard about this?
[51:52.240 --> 51:52.600]  No.
[51:52.900 --> 51:56.520]  I thought that you would go to the website and then see it, but it wasn't harming the page.
[51:57.240 --> 51:59.720]  You'll see it if you go to the other...
[51:59.720 --> 52:00.440]  The other way.
[52:00.500 --> 52:01.460]  I'm not exactly sure how it works.
[52:01.540 --> 52:02.260]  I've never used it myself.
[52:02.480 --> 52:04.620]  It requires you to download the program.
[52:04.760 --> 52:06.640]  If somebody out there has the name of the company, please call in.
[52:06.880 --> 52:07.240]  Okay.
[52:07.360 --> 52:08.300]  Thanks for the call.
[52:08.400 --> 52:10.720]  212-209-2900 is our phone number.
[52:10.820 --> 52:11.660]  GSA, by the way.
[52:11.920 --> 52:12.440]  What about GSA?
[52:12.620 --> 52:13.980]  General Services Administration.
[52:14.240 --> 52:14.660]  What about them?
[52:15.320 --> 52:16.580]  I'd said GAS before.
[52:16.980 --> 52:18.440]  I'm having a very bad day.
[52:18.620 --> 52:19.560]  I suggest that people visit...
[52:19.560 --> 52:23.460]  Don't say anything else because if you have to correct yourself, you'll have to break in on the next show to do it.
[52:23.580 --> 52:24.560]  By the time you remember it.
[52:24.560 --> 52:28.160]  I just suggest everybody go to hackernews.com and read the thing for themselves.
[52:28.860 --> 52:29.560]  Don't listen to me.
[52:29.620 --> 52:29.820]  Good evening.
[52:30.000 --> 52:30.340]  You're on the air.
[52:31.200 --> 52:32.220]  Thank you, gentlemen.
[52:32.540 --> 52:33.660]  Now, I have a question.
[52:33.880 --> 52:35.060]  This is Wayne from Manhattan.
[52:35.600 --> 52:35.700]  Hello.
[52:36.020 --> 52:37.500]  You've already mentioned the guy's name.
[52:37.620 --> 52:39.100]  To thine own self be true.
[52:39.320 --> 52:40.100]  Who said that?
[52:40.680 --> 52:41.940]  To thine own self be true.
[52:42.320 --> 52:44.020]  I feel like I'm back in school now.
[52:44.840 --> 52:45.740]  Who said that?
[52:45.860 --> 52:46.800]  Well, think of the Scarlet Letter.
[52:46.800 --> 52:47.860]  Shakespeare said that, didn't he?
[52:48.260 --> 52:48.680]  Pardon?
[52:48.860 --> 52:50.380]  Didn't Shakespeare say this above all else?
[52:50.380 --> 52:51.460]  To thine own self be true.
[52:51.740 --> 52:52.280]  Now, let's stick to the thing.
[52:52.520 --> 52:53.240]  It sounds like Shakespeare.
[52:53.500 --> 52:55.540]  You didn't say Shakespeare's name yet tonight.
[52:55.540 --> 52:57.100]  You did say this man's name.
[52:57.760 --> 52:58.060]  Okay.
[52:58.060 --> 52:59.200]  To thine own self be true.
[52:59.320 --> 53:01.280]  Let me prompt you.
[53:01.460 --> 53:02.600]  The Scarlet Letter.
[53:02.780 --> 53:03.660]  Ralph Waldo Emerson?
[53:03.900 --> 53:04.240]  Correct.
[53:04.240 --> 53:04.620]  Okay.
[53:05.060 --> 53:06.080]  Yay, I got it right.
[53:06.420 --> 53:06.720]  Bye.
[53:08.420 --> 53:09.540]  What just happened here?
[53:10.080 --> 53:11.820]  I feel like I just took a final exam.
[53:12.240 --> 53:12.920]  You pass?
[53:13.080 --> 53:13.540]  I don't know.
[53:14.280 --> 53:14.760]  Let's go over here.
[53:14.820 --> 53:15.640]  Good evening, you're on the air.
[53:16.660 --> 53:17.600]  Hello, speak up.
[53:17.700 --> 53:18.420]  Yes, go ahead.
[53:18.840 --> 53:20.540]  Finally, I didn't think I'd get on.
[53:20.900 --> 53:24.220]  Hi, Emmanuel and guest or the other guy, I don't know his name.
[53:25.100 --> 53:26.220]  Porkchop and Isaac over there.
[53:26.420 --> 53:27.220]  Porkchop and Isaac.
[53:27.320 --> 53:27.900]  Hi, you guys.
[53:27.900 --> 53:34.680]  I wish, you know, frankly, there are a handful of BAI programs that are suitable to me now.
[53:34.860 --> 53:37.040]  I think it's already happened here.
[53:37.380 --> 53:43.020]  When all those changes were happening, I very seldom can say anything on the air.
[53:43.160 --> 53:47.920]  And the kind of things that I say would be the very kind of things that would be cut off the air.
[53:47.920 --> 53:51.520]  And I don't think it's necessarily not money.
[53:51.740 --> 54:01.020]  I think the money of people who have it is why Pacifica wants to be a big conglomerate the way the others are.
[54:01.160 --> 54:05.940]  Why would they have this goal to have some central station in D.C.?
[54:05.940 --> 54:08.260]  Why did they change democracy now?
[54:08.380 --> 54:12.680]  And now that they even had democracy on now, they're editing democracy now.
[54:12.840 --> 54:20.400]  The point is, this malaise, this middle of the road is where the money is.
[54:20.540 --> 54:26.760]  And I'm sorry, I think making that zero AP, that is really disgraceful.
[54:26.920 --> 54:31.320]  What the heck kind of news service makes a serious error like that and doesn't correct it?
[54:31.460 --> 54:33.220]  That's suspicious to me, Emmanuel.
[54:33.220 --> 54:36.520]  See, it may be where the money is, but it's not where the passion is.
[54:36.640 --> 54:41.060]  And I think what we have to recognize is that we have the passion and we have to exercise it.
[54:41.180 --> 54:44.800]  I know we do, but I think the AI is already a middle-of-the-road station.
[54:45.040 --> 54:50.380]  You are an unusual... You are an unusual... You know, I say... I don't meet my friends.
[54:50.380 --> 54:52.240]  I was supposed to be at a film thing today.
[54:52.440 --> 54:53.400]  Plus, there are meetings.
[54:53.420 --> 54:56.600]  I wanted to tell the public, we're having save-the-station meetings.
[54:56.640 --> 55:00.840]  And I don't like to say it on the air because I don't want the wrong people to hear it.
[55:01.800 --> 55:02.700]  How truly?
[55:02.940 --> 55:05.860]  Because we are... We were not treated well.
[55:05.940 --> 55:07.960]  And we're always the ones outside.
[55:08.260 --> 55:08.740]  We were outside.
[55:08.740 --> 55:14.640]  From the hacker perspective, okay, we've been having meetings in public areas now for over 10 years.
[55:14.640 --> 55:15.940]  And we had the same concern.
[55:16.020 --> 55:18.700]  What happens when the federal authorities hear about this?
[55:18.700 --> 55:19.720]  We're going to get the wrong people.
[55:19.840 --> 55:28.600]  But, you know, you need to take that chance because the benefits of getting other people to show up and the benefits of having openness far outweigh any risk.
[55:28.600 --> 55:30.680]  And that risk has to be confronted head-on.
[55:30.940 --> 55:34.980]  You are already in an elite situation because you can get on an Internet.
[55:35.260 --> 55:38.300]  Those of us that can't do that, we are nobodies.
[55:38.540 --> 55:39.280]  We're peons.
[55:39.980 --> 55:47.200]  And those of us without money... And, for instance, the money I used to contribute to the station, I would have wanted BAI to be more local.
[55:47.200 --> 55:52.160]  We should have monitored a lot of things here in this country that Samoree never paid attention to.
[55:52.300 --> 55:57.420]  We should have known, as the former caller said, that that happened way back at the Gulf War.
[55:57.420 --> 55:59.300]  We needed to know this.
[55:59.500 --> 56:03.860]  And just because people show up, Emanuel, doesn't mean they're going to pay for things.
[56:04.120 --> 56:13.140]  Once we can pay for our own station and keep our own license, I don't believe that the government's going to help us, Emanuel.
[56:13.380 --> 56:15.800]  That's why we need you and that man's question.
[56:15.960 --> 56:16.920]  What will happen?
[56:17.060 --> 56:20.500]  Will you still be on the Internet if BAI goes by the wayside?
[56:20.520 --> 56:23.900]  Because I don't have the faith in BAI as I do in you.
[56:23.900 --> 56:28.720]  I have more faith in the hackers and in you than I do with the station.
[56:28.840 --> 56:32.040]  Well, the thing is, you have to consider yourself a part of BAI.
[56:32.140 --> 56:36.100]  And you have to work towards change of things that you feel are not right.
[56:36.100 --> 56:43.800]  You're going to obviously disagree with other people, but you can't give up and say, I'm not part of this organization, it's going to hell, and there's nothing I can do about it.
[56:43.920 --> 56:46.040]  In the middle of the road, listen to the programming.
[56:46.040 --> 56:47.940]  It's so average and boring.
[56:48.060 --> 56:52.240]  Well, that's not true of, I would say, the majority of our programming.
[56:52.400 --> 56:54.280]  It's really cutting edge there.
[56:54.500 --> 56:56.740]  Compared to 10 years ago, there's no comparison.
[56:57.020 --> 56:57.680]  Well, I don't know.
[56:57.760 --> 56:59.140]  I didn't listen as much 10 years ago.
[56:59.260 --> 57:05.500]  But I think if you leave your radio on for the next 24 hours, you'll hear some pretty cutting edge stuff that you won't hear on an NPR station, for instance.
[57:05.500 --> 57:10.840]  I do, and I'm saying I hope you have an alternative for those of us if VAI goes the way.
[57:11.000 --> 57:13.460]  Because they're definitely intent on selling stations.
[57:13.460 --> 57:14.700]  I guarantee you that.
[57:14.940 --> 57:16.300]  They're going to sell stations.
[57:16.460 --> 57:18.720]  Let me just address that, because we really have to go now.
[57:18.820 --> 57:26.340]  But that prospect was brought up a couple of times to different people in Berkeley and in New York as well.
[57:27.180 --> 57:32.200]  And a couple of times people said, well, why don't we just get together and buy the station ourselves?
[57:32.500 --> 57:36.260]  And the overwhelming response to that was, wait a minute, we already own the station.
[57:36.280 --> 57:37.600]  The station is for the people.
[57:37.720 --> 57:40.100]  The people have been keeping it on the air for these many years.
[57:40.220 --> 57:42.700]  So how can anyone say they're going to sell it?
[57:42.760 --> 57:43.420]  Who has the right?
[57:44.000 --> 57:49.440]  And I think when you look at it in that way, it suddenly becomes a lot more talk and a lot less threat.
[57:50.740 --> 57:52.080]  But you have to be consistent.
[57:52.240 --> 57:53.580]  Let's take one more quick phone call.
[57:53.680 --> 57:53.940]  Good evening.
[57:54.100 --> 57:54.700]  You're on the air.
[57:55.980 --> 57:56.300]  Hi.
[57:56.640 --> 57:56.900]  Hi.
[57:57.000 --> 57:57.400]  Speak up, please.
[57:57.480 --> 57:57.560]  Hi.
[57:57.620 --> 57:57.920]  Good evening.
[57:58.040 --> 57:59.720]  Yeah, Danny from Manhattan here.
[58:00.460 --> 58:01.540]  Just a few quick things.
[58:01.540 --> 58:05.620]  First on that AP story, which had the wrong number of the demonstrators.
[58:05.880 --> 58:07.960]  It may have been an honest mistake, maybe not.
[58:08.080 --> 58:10.140]  But generally, the AP is pretty good.
[58:10.140 --> 58:16.380]  If you send them a note and can actually point out where they were wrong, they tend to send a correction out.
[58:16.560 --> 58:17.580]  Obviously, it's not going to help.
[58:17.580 --> 58:21.860]  I know they've been sent a note, so what I'm asking now is, has anyone seen the correction?
[58:22.360 --> 58:22.580]  Yeah.
[58:23.200 --> 58:26.660]  It may be on a regional level out there, so I wouldn't necessarily see it.
[58:26.780 --> 58:33.240]  The other thing is, the group you were thinking of that throws the overlay on the webpages is a company called Third Voice.
[58:33.540 --> 58:33.740]  Okay.
[58:33.840 --> 58:39.800]  And as you described, you go through the Third Voice software, through their proxy, before you get to the final page.
[58:40.260 --> 58:43.720]  So it's the Third Voice location that has the extra comments.
[58:43.720 --> 58:46.660]  Okay, you have one second left, and then we're out of time.
[58:46.780 --> 58:46.920]  That's basically it.
[58:47.060 --> 58:48.000]  Okay, thanks for calling.
[58:48.160 --> 58:48.240]  Take care.
[58:48.440 --> 58:57.340]  A couple of websites for people interested in following this whole drama, which is really fascinating, and I think it's a lot of what radio is all about, and we should take a keen interest in it, all of us.
[58:58.920 --> 59:02.300]  www.savepacifica.net has a lot of really interesting links.
[59:03.680 --> 59:06.200]  www.rearradio.org has a lot of audio links.
[59:06.700 --> 59:12.560]  And, of course, if you want to write to us, oth at 2600.com, send us an email, let us know what you think of things going on.
[59:13.040 --> 59:14.720]  And we'll be back again next week.
[59:15.020 --> 59:23.980]  I say that with confidence, because we operate in an open society here at WBAI, and hopefully that will remain for many years to come.
[59:23.980 --> 59:24.580]  I think it will.
[59:24.900 --> 59:27.020]  And we'll see you next week with another edition of Off the Hook.
[59:27.080 --> 59:33.880]  We'll have more information on the Kevin Mitnick case, and on other things in the technological and hacker and free speech world.
[59:34.120 --> 59:35.100]  It's Emmanuel Goldstein.
[59:35.180 --> 59:35.600]  Have a good night.
[59:36.980 --> 59:41.140]  The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
[59:42.560 --> 59:46.660]  I cut myself off shaving, now I can't make a cough.
[59:47.300 --> 59:51.940]  It couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
[59:52.200 --> 59:54.840]  Bumbin' Le Bon for the best, expect the worst.
[59:55.500 --> 59:57.340]  I hope that's understood.
[01:01:02.820 --> 01:01:12.580]  Forging Peace in Guatemala, a video documentary on the peace process in Guatemala will be screened on Tuesday, August 3rd, from 6.30 to 8.30 p.m.
[01:01:12.960 --> 01:01:14.960]  at the Downtown Community Television Center.
[01:01:15.160 --> 01:01:17.040]  That's at 87 Lafayette Street.
[01:01:17.320 --> 01:01:22.900]  Featured speaker Raul Molina, Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs of the New Guatemala Democratic Front.
[01:01:23.160 --> 01:01:24.300]  Forging Peace in Guatemala.
[01:01:24.300 --> 01:01:24.440]  And, thank you, guys.
[01:01:24.460 --> 01:01:24.980]  And, thank you.
[01:01:24.980 --> 01:01:25.020]  Thank you.