Berkeley- After a brief interval of being able to conduct business due to the voluntary exit of the remnants of the Siegel/Brazon faction from the February 10 board meeting, the respite ended on Thursday February 16. Four hours of chaos ensued. Despite the able chairing of newly-elected chair Jonathan Alexander, the angry former minority put on a show, displaying their ample ability to interrupt, bully, shout, scream and disrupt. The board took two votes of almost no consequence, one to revote on acceptance of the affiliate director vote tally that includes the votes of WBAI's directors that had been excluded, and one to postpone discussion of a bylaws conflict. Not much for four hours of work. The comparison to the productive meeting on February 10 is striking. 
A tentative count (don't quote us on this) over the course of 4 hours and 17 minutes is: 78 points of order, 55 points of information, 38 points of personal privilege and 6 different challenges to the chair. While we would normally try to provide a more extensive summary reel, since it is a little hard to listen to, we are providing a five minute clip, which pretty much sounds like all the other 4 hours and 12 minutes. The full audio is available for streaming or download at kpftx.org. A Mozart sonata would have improved things immensely, but no such luck was to be had.
An executive director report was provided by new interim executive director Bill Crosier, but the national board couldn't be bothered to hear it. You can read it here.
The new board majority will have to re-establish order at the next board meeting, which is currently scheduled for the evening of February 24.
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Chris, can you or someone else help me out. I went to amazon.com to buy a copy of Robert's Rules of Order so I could play along with the PNB dysfunctional family feud, however, they don't stock the Cerene Roberts version of the book. does anyone know where I may find a copy?
ReplyDeleteSDL
Many have tried to obtain that, but she claims it to be proprietary information. Not even extreme waterboarding has produced a copy, so far.
DeleteWhat about the audio version for the hearing impaired by Adriana Casenave?
DeleteSDL
It's unreliable, at best. Broken English will translate, but the nearly pulverized stuff found under Cerene's skullcap is not even suitable for loose interpretation. Let me point out that I have this on somewhat shaky authority, but the same source was right regarding the hollowness of Reimers' cerebral cavity.
DeleteI could barely listen to the 5 minutes posted. What strikes me, in addition to the obvious dysfunction, is the twisted mentality of the participants (with the exception of the chair, who seemed to be trying to inject some sanity into the proceedings). What sane person would want to participate in 4 hours of this? I am reminded of Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Anyone says he or she wants to be on the PNB should be disqualified, because wanting to join this circus is proof of serious mental illness.
ReplyDeleteI fully agree: In the immediate aftermath of the sharp shift in ‘mission’ dictated fully forty years ago people with actual interest in radio and/or real talent simply went elsewhere, and from that point on, really, WBAI no longer drew any real talent – or, to be more precise, it drew very, very little real talent and what little it did draw quickly recognized the need to move on.
DeleteThe long, ugly process has been sustained, I suppose, by virtue of the simple fact that WBAI had inherited an enormously valuable resource, its signal, with a reach on the order of something like 20,000,000 souls.
In ancient times, when standards were high, when someone of no talent protested that they deserved air time because they ‘had an audience’, the standard reply was that anyone simply mumbling incoherently or mindlessly reading the phone book would find an audience – the question was whether or not they did good radio, irrespective of audience.
Fortunately other works of Lous Schweitzer, eg, the Vera Institute, have proven more successful in the long run.
This one, WBAI, met its de facto death long ago, it’s simply had one fuck of a long death rattle – sample Fass or very nearly any other random sample of air, if there’s any doubt as to that point.
~ ‘indigopirate’
I thought this meeting was brilliant in terms of efficiency of communications. With everyone talking at the same time, it only took 4 hours to get all the words out. Think about it -- if they all took turns and strung all those words out end-to-end, it would easily have taken 10 or 12 hours to emit that quantity of verbiage.
ReplyDeleteAnother minor thought about efficiency, they should use abbreviations and acronyms. Point Of Order could become POO, etc.
Jim
Pacifica being a communication-based organization, you ought not be too awed by the PNB's 4 hours of back and forth, but I grant you that they deserve kudos for so seamlessly mixing in left, right, up, down, and sideways expressions.
DeleteIt was a major pileup, but nobody got hurt.
The POO idea is a good one—most will be POO POO, which is perfect!
Or when they feel confused or limited to the magick words that Robert's allows, they might ask for a Point Of Something...
ReplyDeleteImagine in your mind's ear -- Mr. Chair I have a P-O-S .....................
Jim
Jim, I have actually heard that!
DeleteYou two (only commentators here ) deserve some prize.. for willingness two listen to what is barely, or not, tolerable when in-person drama... or it is less entertaining or tolerable to listen..without being able to participate in theatrics either !
ReplyDelete