An unvarnished blog that dips into the past and comments on the present of WBAI-FM, a once significant, intelligent New York radio station that for years has suffered chronic abuse from within and now nears extinction. Your comments are welcomed and will not be censored.
Has Reimers been replaced? Heard the Great Lies in History pack premium on the drive home. Battlehsip Maine, Pearl Harbor. Gross inaccuracies and overstating the obvious! I loved history since I was old enough to read, and the stuff they stiff they are talking about was openly presented to me by my history teachers going back to junior high! Of course, the premium pack has a bunch of generalizations so gross, they are bordering on falsehoods! There are so many great history books ( David Halberstam's Korean War Historical dethroning of Douglas Macarthur comes to mind) that would be of great interest to BAI's audience, and instead they keep on pitching video drivel for the lazy reader. I am just wondering, how aware is Blosdale that the stuff she is pitching is propagandistic hogwash?
ReplyDeleteI am told that Blosdale is known as "Queen of the Truthers" around KPFK. I think she and Bates are cut from the same cloth. Today, I heard Bates say that WBAI "brings you a different truth." Can there be more than one that qualifies as such? :) He was pitching a Kennedy Assassination DVD with a twist I had not heard before: Not only did the shot not come from the School Depository, it came from the grassy knoll, which is often theorized, but the new wrinkle Bates gleefully announced is that George W.. Bush was one of the shooters on that knoll.
DeleteI suppose we will one day have another George W story—it will find that Martha's husband died from a rare case of wood poisoning, having swallowed his teeth.
After months of following the WBAI saga, all I can say is let it go. One of Pacifica's own founders committed suicide; the two WBAI "self-help" hosts killed themselves earlier this year; and Null nearly overdosed on his own snake oil, with a bevy of lawsuits following from among injured listeners. As a listener of WPFW in Washington, D.C., I listen amused to screeds on the Illuminati, UFOs, black helicopters, chemtrails, the evils of Manning Marable, and the coming solar flares that will wipe us out (which will certainly arrive in 2011) on a daily basis, with a smattering of Stan Getz between segments. I'm not trying to troll the thread, but merely point out facts.
ReplyDeleteI am afraid that most of us identify all too well with the description you give. Well, these days we aren't getting too much Stan Getz, but one host has an affinity for Prez—great if you're up at 6 AM, Saturdays. The solar flare wipeout has been delayed, but Gary Null is keeping track,
DeleteI think most of the topics covered are very important, the unbeliveable power of the mainstream media, chemtrails, Monsanto, Fukushima etc. That is the reason d'etre for BAI.
ReplyDeleteGotta say I miss Andrew Philips, he almost made me call in and pledge... Now I am holding off until there is a clear direction and competent personnel in place.
I'm curious to your reference to Tony Bates as having "engaged in witnessed sexual harassment at the station."
ReplyDeleteI've heard rumors, but in making inquiries over the allegations I'd heard, it became clear that they were invented and malicious. So not sure what you're referring to here.
Mitchel
I give you two names, Mitchel, but I understand there are more: Prairie Miller (victim), Reggie Johnson (witness). Reimer's reaction was, as I understand it, to fire (or suspend) Reggie, but the union came to his rescue.
DeleteOf course, I wasn't there, so this does not have the implied veracity of a first-hand account, but you are around these people, so I hope you take a closer look. The old "malicious and made-up" story is to be expected, especially when we consider the internal WBAI situation and the accelerating desperation.