Invention, the gramophone.
Join Citizen Kafka and Curator Pat Kanti as they slowly peel back the layers of time to
enter the shrouded mists of the golden age of the gramophone.
Each week, the lost sounds of historic recordings from the far corners of the earth on the Secret
Museum of the Air.
Visiting hours, every Saturday from 9 to 10 p.m.
Remember, knowledge is power, thoughts have wings, and the Secret Museum is open this
Saturday at 9 p.m.
That's Saturday, 9 p.m., the Secret Museum of the Air.
9 p.m. Saturday.
9 p.m. Saturday.
On the March 4th edition of the Caribbean and Latin America Report, Jamaica reactivates
the death penalty, the relationship between crime and politics in Jamaica, and an update
on efforts for economic integration in the Caribbean.
That's Thursday, March 4th, 10 o'clock p.m., on the Caribbean and Latin America Report,
right here on listener-sponsored WBAI 99.5 FM.
Do you think about having some sort of a job, or did you know other Jewish girls who
were having jobs, like nose jobs?
Lots of Jewish girls have had nose jobs.
This friend of mine, she was quite a voluptuous girl with generous proportions, generous thighs.
This Monday on Soundscapes, explorations in radio sound and music, two radio features
exploring women's lives, jobs for the girls, or who do you see when you look in the mirror,
about cosmetic surgery, and After Row, projecting into the future when the U.S. denies abortion,
on Soundscapes, Monday, midnight, on WBAI 99.5 FM.
...a lot easier after that, but she still tells me that she worries that when she has
kids, they're going to have huge noses, and she'll be sort of found out...
And this is WBAI 99.5 FM, in New York.
It's time now for Off the Hook.
Unfortunately, we don't have our theme.
Our theme somehow got misplaced for this week, so we're going to have to just imagine that
we hear all the technical noises that we usually listen to.
But this is Off the Hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein, and live on the phone with us, is not fiber optic.
Okay, well, he did not call in then.
We'll have to get through to him later, but everything, everything is malfunctioning.
All around us, everything is malfunctioning.
It's truly incredible.
We're going to be talking tonight about the technical aspects of the explosion downtown.
What happened over the airwaves, particularly.
How many of you were glued to the TV sets, watching as things happened?
Some things went wrong.
Some misinformation was spread out.
Also, we'll be talking about the telephone system, how that survived, and how it didn't
survive.
What kind of effect it has on computer systems, and other things along those lines.
Let's take a look at a couple of related events.
This comes from MCI Mail, of all places.
This is a message that went out from MCI Mail.
Last week's explosion at the World Trade Center has caused serious hardship for many companies
that had offices there.
People who are working from the World Trade Center have had to leave their PCs, fax machines,
Intellix machines, etc., at their offices while the World Trade Center is repaired.
In an effort to help these people, we are making MCI Mail accounts available and are
waiving the $35 registration fee.
This will allow these people to fax, telex, and email from whatever PC or terminal they
may currently have access to.
These special accounts can be set up and running within 24 hours.
If you know of anyone who might benefit from this program, please use the new user command.
Type create using new user at the command prompt, or email their current name and phone
number to mailbox NY4LEADS, and we'll contact them immediately.
That's a message going out to all MCI Mail subscribers.
Of course, it doesn't really do much good for people who don't subscribe to MCI Mail
because they obviously can't mail to those numbers, but we'll give you some phone numbers
here.
This message came from two people, Gary Oppenheimer and Carol Hayes, from the sales office.
Their phone number there is 212-724-9785, and customer support can be reached over in
Baltimore at 301-695-5378, and, oh, maybe this is fiber optic now.
Let's see if he's there.
Is this fiber optic?
Yes, it is.
Ah, great.
Okay, we had a bit of a technical foul-up as usual, but that's just the way things go.
We're talking about the explosion and the effect on the telephone system.
Did you notice anything particularly unusual phone-wise?
Regarding what?
Regarding the explosion.
You mean this noise?
Huh?
You mean the noise on the line now?
No.
Were you listening to the program?
Sorry, I just tuned in.
Okay, well, we'll have to get back to it in a second.
Let me continue with this, and while he wakes up, we'll continue.
World Trade Center area, BBS hit by computer terrorism.
This is a virus alert.
As if there weren't enough problems in the World Trade Center area, it now appears as
if a new hard-to-detect computer virus has been uploaded to the Invention Factory computer
bulletin board system in the World Trade Center area.
The Invention Factory BBS has a capacity of 300 simultaneous callers at 212-274-8110,
and was recently upgraded with a fiber-optic link to New York Telephone.
The Invention Factory is the largest BBS in the tri-state area.
The creation of computer viruses is considered by many to be an act of terrorism.
A computer virus could destroy a company's entire accounts receivable and payable database.
With no way of knowing who owes money to who, a company could very well go out of business.
These are frequently used in hospital patient rooms, including intensive care for patient
condition monitoring.
Lists of recalls of medical software and equipment is just one of the features of the Normandu
Newswire, newsgroup number 5 on the Invention Factory BBS.
The file with the virus recently uploaded to the Invention Factory BBS is called LAW22.zip.
The description with the file said, must reading for all patriots.
The only thing that saves some callers is the high level of sophistication of some of
the Invention Factory BBS subscribers.
In main message area message number 44856, a user discusses how he is involved in virus
research funded by government and some large corporations.
In main message area number 44857, the uploader of LAW22.zip states that he got it from a
BBS run by a friend who's both an electrical engineer and patent attorney.
There are probably copies of LAW22.zip now making their way to law offices and courthouses
across the country.
There is no telling what havoc will be created with court cases, but you heard it here first.
That's something that came out over the internet, a warning of possible viruses, or some people
consider it to be a terrorist attack of some sort.
It's interesting, very disturbing to see the kinds of things that are going on.
People are saying how incredibly easy it is to plant a bomb in a place like the World
Trade Center.
It's true.
Somebody can just drive in with a van loaded with explosives.
They thought they were plastic explosives at first.
Turns out it's just dynamite or the equivalent.
It's easy to do that.
It's easy to do a lot of nasty things.
You can apply this to computer systems and telephone systems as well because the same
mentality is there.
If you want to do it, you can cause all kinds of problems.
We were theorizing before about what kind of damage a bomb of that magnitude would do
in certain places, certain other places.
The horrible things that could have happened if, say, it were planted in the telephone
office building.
It could wipe out the entire nation.
The same thing, God forbid, if someone's beeper was affected either.
A lot of beepers went out too when the transmitters went out.
We'll be talking about that a little bit later.
The same thing can be applied in many ways to the telephone system, to the computer systems
out there.
If you want to, you can really foul things up.
The thing is, the way we've structured our society, the way we've structured our networks,
a lot of trust is inherently built into the system.
We believe that people won't do these nasty things and won't cause society to break down.
To a degree, you have to have an amount of trust.
To a degree, it's impossible to run these systems unless there is a certain amount of
trust.
It's impossible to run a society without a certain amount of trust.
There are times when that trust is certainly abused.
There are people that continue to make analogies between computer hackers and terrorists of
various sorts.
This is a perfect example of how such a thing is just not so.
We're talking about massive destruction.
Evil people doing very nasty things here.
Computer hackers are simply wandering around looking in places that they're not supposed
to be in, and that's also debatable.
However, when somebody takes that step and actually destroys something, well, then that's
different.
That's where you have to draw the line.
Okay, here's something that's rather interesting.
By the way, we'd like to hear from people who saw the television that day.
We'd like to hear from people, obviously, who were in the World Trade Center on that
day.
Tell us how things worked, what was going on in your mind, and what kind of problems
you may have experienced getting through to various people, various telephone problems.
Things you might have seen on the television that were wrong, and various other things
of that nature.
So, give us a call, 212-279-3400.
Hold on one moment.
Yes?
The phone is messed up.
The phone is messed up.
Well, now, do you wish to give us a more technical explanation?
Well, I was getting some static, and it was intermittently cutting you off, and it was
probably cutting me off from you hearing me as well.
Uh-huh.
So, I simply hung up and called back.
I see.
Well, you sound fine now.
That sounds clear at the moment.
Okay, clear as a bell.
Well, as long as we've got you on the line, why don't you tell us if you saw anything
that was kind of unusual that day on the TV set?
Also, if you noticed any telephone problems, or could theorize as to what kind of effect
an explosion like that would have in a different location, one of the primary switching centers
in this city?
Are there backups?
Things like that.
Well, if anyone recalls the outage that happened at Thomas Street, which is a pretty large
AT&T center at 33 Thomas Street, where, very simply, the power was cut off by Con Ed, and
the batteries kicked in.
Similar situation that happened because there's a switching system in South Tower, the South
Tower in the World Trade Center, which is the one with the transmitter on top.
And there's a switching system that serves pretty much the whole World Trade Center.
And Con Ed turned off the power when the explosion happened for safety reasons.
And, of course, the batteries kicked in, and the batteries were actually able to be sustained
for the duration.
Oh, there's that static again.
Well, that static is inherent in the BAI phone system, unfortunately.
Am I still coming through clear?
You're coming through loud and clear.
Go ahead.
Okay.
Yeah, and the batteries were able to sustain the switching system for the remainder of
the day until Con Ed turned on the power later that night, which was probably sometime around
between 10.30 and 11 o'clock, which is when all the stations started returning on television.
And the thing I was mentioning to Emmanuel not long ago is if this person were to have
planted the same sort of bomb in, say, a location that would be particularly sensitive to the
phone company, like, say, for instance, the West Street Maintenance Operations Center,
which is only right across the street from the World Trade Center.
That's a pretty major center.
In fact, it's a pretty old building.
It's been there from the days since it used to be a lab.
It used to be considered part of Bell Labs, actually.
And there's also a number of switching systems in that building, which serve a very large
chunk of the area.
It's literally a huge office.
Anyone who's ever passed by knows what I'm talking about.
It's a very large building.
And if that building, for example, would have been bombed with a bomb such as this one,
it pretty much would have wreaked a lot of havoc in financial transactions in the World
Trade Center, and so on and so forth.
Well, now, I'd heard that buildings of that particular nature are meant to withstand nuclear
blasts.
Now, is that not so?
Well, I don't know.
I mean, I don't know anything particularly about the architecture of the buildings themselves.
But I would suspect they would have to be built rather sturdily, considering what their
purpose is.
But that would also have been true of the World Trade Center, the South Tower, although
they say there were some structural problems, I think I remember hearing.
But all in all, the building, the South Tower, was able to sustain the blast.
But it did blast through a good, was it three, four floors?
Do you recall?
I think I heard between four and six, actually.
But it varies.
Yeah.
Well, OK.
Well, you say, for instance, that the same sort of bomb were placed at the West Street,
New York Telephone Building.
The building would obviously remain standing, except it would blast through a good three
or four floors in that building, most likely.
And that would, no doubt, take out a number of switching systems.
So it's kind of, I don't know, unstable ground that we're on here, if there aren't sufficient
backup systems to take over in the event of something like that.
I'm getting cut off again by the static.
All right, what I'm going to try to do is give you a call.
All right, this is what we're going to do here.
Since the static is kind of unbearable, I will call you back.
So be prepared for that.
We have an appropriate bit of music.
You might ask, what kind of appropriate music is there for something like this?
Well, there's never anything particularly tasteful, I'll grant you that.
But there are particular songs that have to do with this kind of thing.
It's horrible when human beings resort to this type of barbarity.
But at the same time, we should kind of get caught up in what it's all about
and listen to another, oh, I'm not going to make excuses.
This is a song called Car Bomb.
We'll be right back.
3-2-1-0!
Car Bomb!
3-2-1-0!
Car Bomb!
Car Bomb!
3-2-1-0!
Car Bomb!
Car Bomb!
3-2-1-0!
Car Bomb!
3-2-1-0!
Now, the significance of that is that with this particular record...
No other possibility.
You got a bumper sticker that said Car Bomb on it,
and I guess you were supposed to put that on your car,
which made your car look like a car bomb.
Doesn't glorify it, so hold off on the angry phone calls and letters.
It simply is recognizing a reality of 20th century mankind.
Car Bomb by Negative Land, the band that loves to get in trouble.
It's another aspect to all of this.
And speaking of other things, first of all, we have fiber optic back,
I assume in a clear line?
Sounds clear to me.
All right, crystal clear.
Yeah, I don't know whether to blame New York Telephone or BAI
for the static that we've been having, but it's nice to have a clear connection.
Our phone number is 212-279-3400.
We'd like to hear people's experiences,
whether it was passively sitting at home watching the media
and seeing what they did,
or actually being actively involved in this somehow.
I noticed a lot of discrepancies,
that is until they all went off the air,
except for Channel 2, the only one that actually had a backup site
at the Empire State Building,
which I find kind of shocking
that New York City TV stations don't find it necessary
to keep backup sites.
Even if you had to keep it in New Jersey or something like that,
there still should be a switch,
maybe you just switch off to something else.
But instead, we were left in the dark.
If it wasn't for Channel 2, there would be no TV at all.
And that's when panic starts to set in.
You need to have a way of reaching people.
Probably, I would say the best job done was by WCBS Radio AM,
because they were able to calm down a lot of people in the building.
It really is essential to have communications open
and accurate information and calming voices to speak to you
when you're in a situation like that.
I can't imagine what it must have been like.
This is something from New York Telephone.
World Trade Center Crisis Update Number 3.
Attention World Trade Center customers,
we've just added 20% more capacity to meet emergency demand.
And Farber, perhaps you could critique this after I read it.
As of today, New York Telephone has installed additional
call forwarding capacity for customers from
World Trade Center buildings 1 and 2.
If your business is in the affected buildings,
most, if not all, of the telecommunications traffic
on your current lines can be rerouted to other locations.
As for your other options, you can order new voice and data lines immediately.
It sounds to me like they're cashing in on this.
Regular phone lines, T1s and T3s, all available.
Professionals from 9X Mobile Communications
are available to provide you with cellular service if you so desire.
Limited emergency office space is still available
at selected New York Telephone locations.
To arrange for new lines or a rerouting of current lines,
call your 9X Systems marketing account executive
or your New York Telephone business office.
To arrange for office space or cellular service,
come to our command center at 140 West Street,
open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily for the duration of the crisis.
Our emergency line at 212-890-2700 continues to operate 24 hours a day.
We've been able to maintain service to thousands of displaced customers.
We've installed...
I don't know how they can maintain service to displaced customers
when the customers aren't in the office in the first place.
But in any event, we've installed 1,700 new regular lines and 176 T1s slash T3s.
We've applied call forwarding and other features to 4,083 lines.
We've also placed 150 technicians in the immediate area
to expedite whatever else needs to be done.
Thanks to the flexibility of our network, the ingenuity of our technicians,
and the extraordinary determination of our customers,
business is as close to normal as can be expected under very adverse circumstances.
Where's the patriotic music? We need that.
Oh, well.
We will not, however, stand down from this emergency
until all our customers are back in their respective offices.
In the meantime, we'll keep you posted with further updates.
That's the latest from New York Telephone. Any comments on that?
Well, for all their huffing and puffing,
I don't understand a couple of the things that they're mentioning.
Why suddenly anyone would need or desire suddenly a T1 or a T3
just because there was an explosion.
It's not like they're doing anything differently.
I mean, this is what they're in the business of is selling these things.
They'd be able to subscribe to it anyways.
Right. Now, I don't think they're going crazy inventing new things.
They're just selling it to people that might need it a little bit more desperately.
Now, I didn't see any mention in there of something similar to what MCI Mail did
where they're not charging for installation, say, or just allowing things to happen.
I mean, it might be there, but they're not mentioning it.
Yeah.
And the other thing about the call forwarding,
are they simply giving everyone the custom calling feature, call forwarding,
in order to reroute their calls as they put it?
Or is there something else that they're doing?
They're not really being very specific.
Yeah. I mean, it's extremely easy to simply program a line to forward.
It's just typing something into a computer keyboard.
You don't have to install any equipment or anything like that.
They could do it very, very easily.
Something programmable, call forwarding would be nice,
but it doesn't really exist in New York Telephone, does it?
How is that?
Call forwarding that you can program yourself remotely.
Oh, remotely? No. As of yet, no such feature exists.
Yeah. Something like that would be great in a situation like this.
Again, those programmable features like Cable and Wireless' 800 service,
where you can actually call up and program it yourself.
Let's say you have a service like that going into the World Trade Center,
and obviously you couldn't get into the World Trade Center to do something on that particular phone.
You can call from any phone in the country
and simply program it to go wherever you want it to go.
It seems like a feature that should be introduced and should be available to everybody
because situations like this, you shouldn't have to pay for a feature.
It should be just part of phone service.
I think we've grown into that by now.
Yeah.
Any other insights into that?
Well, it sounded like a pretty noble statement anyway, all in all.
I really think that it's more hot air than anything else.
If it really is, as you suppose, that they're suddenly offering free installations on certain things,
I'm sort of puzzled as to why they'd suddenly offer free installation for digital carriers.
I don't see why an explosion would suddenly necessitate the companies
to suddenly have the need for digital communications all of a sudden.
It sounds kind of puzzling.
Unless, as you say, they're trying to cash in by making it sound like it's some special offer.
Well, these are the people that charge you for touch tones
and charge you not to have your name published in a book
and charge you a maintenance fee if you want a special telephone number, a monthly maintenance fee.
So it's possible that they could be trying to cash in on this as well.
But I'm not going to rush to judgment.
Okay, we're going to be taking phone calls in a moment.
First, this interesting story out of Long Island.
A Franklin Square man who apparently felt that the bombing of the World Trade Center
received more publicity than the millions dying of AIDS
has been arrested by Nassau police early yesterday after he called 911 twice
and made bomb threats aimed at the Trade Center and at Penn Station, according to authorities.
The man who, I'm not going to identify, and I'm also not going to give out his address,
which I don't see why newspapers have to do that.
What, are you going to go and visit him?
Well, anyway, the man was still on the phone with the second 911 operator
rambling about the AIDS crisis, according to police,
when a couple of police officers, who I'm also not going to identify because it's kind of pointless,
arrived at his home and charged him with falsely reporting an incident.
According to police, the first call to 911 came in at 4.03 a.m.,
and he was under arrest by 4.10 a.m.
All of this is thanks to the police department's enhanced 911 system,
which immediately traces the origin of calls within the county.
This is Nassau County.
The E-911 system, as it is known, was started in Nassau County about a year and a half ago,
and according to police captain William McHale,
it's extremely handy for people reporting false incidents like this man.
According to law enforcement, the man told the second 911 operator that his bomb threats were false,
but that he made them to bring attention to the AIDS crisis.
He continued to ramble on about the disease, one source said,
but he never indicated he was suffering from AIDS.
Nassau police said the number of unfounded bomb threats in the county
has increased since the bombing in Manhattan,
including three at Lord and Taylor in Garden City,
one at Nassau Community College.
It's incredible. It's like a disease itself.
The enhanced 911 system is being used to thwart pranksters such as this.
We take these things seriously,
and we will use whatever electronic means we have available
to identify the callers and take appropriate action.
Well, enhanced 911 is not available around here, as far as I know,
but it is available in Nassau County,
so be careful if you call the police and say something that could be misinterpreted.
Now, I imagine, Fiber, that if you call enhanced 911,
your whole address would show up on the screen immediately.
Is that how it works?
That's true, yeah.
The thing that bothers me the most, though,
is that they can install enhanced 911 in Nassau and Suffolk,
and yet we in the larger population of the New York City metropolitan area,
the five boroughs, we're using Stone Age technology, the basic 911 system.
I don't think it's installed in Suffolk County, though.
Okay. I remember hearing that. Either it was or it would be.
I think Nassau County got it about a year and a half ago.
I remember there was a big hullabaloo about that, about who's going to pay for it,
but it seems to be paying for itself now.
Yeah. But, yeah, that is true.
Not only does it receive automatic number identification,
but it also has a means to receive automatic location identification,
where it simply cross-references the number from ANI with a database
and pops up on the screen the name and address associated with the number.
Now, we're seeing a lot of uses of technology,
which could be potentially Big Brother-ish, such as enhanced 911.
I can't really think of any good arguments against that, though.
Another instance of technology coming to the rescue comes in the form of these video cameras
that may have actually recorded the van that had the bombs going into the World Trade Center.
And it makes you think. These video cameras are everywhere.
They're recording people left and right.
A couple of years ago, there was a case out in Suffolk County
where somebody who was accused of murdering his wife
was recorded at the local 7-Eleven buying plastic bags.
I believe it was plastic bags to wrap her body in.
And they had that on tape.
And it makes you wonder, you know, everything that we do is being recorded somewhere.
Is that what we want? Is that what we need in this particular point in time?
I mean, unfortunately, news events seem to be indicating that we do,
but I don't know if it's a road that we want to walk down without looking around us very carefully.
All right, let's go to the phones.
212-279-3400.
Give us your experiences, your suggestions or comments on the whole thing.
Good evening.
Hi. I have one question about TVs.
When the Trade Center TV transmitter was knocked out,
why only when you have cable do you get the TV stations?
Well, the way that the cable companies pick up the stations,
and this is something that I've just found out myself,
I assumed, and I guess this is true in some places,
that they simply pick up a, you know, they have a big TV antenna up on a huge pole somewhere.
This is the way it used to be.
And they would pick up the regular VHF and UHF TV channels.
But in other cases, increasingly, they pick up direct microwave links
or even things coming off transponders of satellites.
Those are not affected because they don't necessarily transmit in the same place.
They don't have to be on top of the World Trade Center.
You don't need height to transmit to a satellite.
So since the distance might not sound all too different.
Well, I've been hearing these tones now for years,
and I can't recall ever hearing much of a diversity in them.
If there's anybody out there that knows about this
or anybody that can just translate MF tones by ear,
this would certainly be a good thing to apply your talents to.
But, yeah, they do use that kind of signaling,
but I just don't think those tones are real.
Yeah, I know.
All right. Any other questions?
I hope you do. Thanks, Manuel.
Okay. Thanks for calling.
All right. Let's see if anybody else has any World Trade Center stories or comments.
Good evening.
Good evening.
I was talking to one of the operators down by the World Trade Center.
They told me that two of the trunk lines went down.
I call up for information on a regular basis,
and normally what I do is I go to the operator
and ask for a supervisor to get 10 area codes at a shot
rather than do an operator by appointment.
Are you there?
Yeah.
Okay.
And they wouldn't give it to me,
and it's happened to me a few times in the past.
And normally I ask for a manager, and they go all flustered,
and they give it to me.
And I got a manager on the line,
and she confirmed that they were down to only two trunks,
and that was why they couldn't be tying up supervisor services
for 10 area codes at a shot.
That kind of makes sense.
It's very possible that if the trunk lines were run underground,
which is very likely, that they were affected by the blast.
Tell us something about that service.
What does that wind up costing to do that?
What, the operator by appointment?
Operator by appointment and the other thing you were describing
where you get 10 area codes at once.
Well, what they do is they do it with my job,
so I give them my business phone number.
But from what I'm able to understand,
because I've asked them a couple of times,
how do you know I'm giving you the right number?
They don't according to what they say.
So if somebody wanted to,
they could probably give anybody's number
and run ridiculous phone bills up on somebody
and probably without any accountability.
That would be something if that's actually possible.
Is this just regular information that you call to get this?
Yeah, I call 411, and then I ask for a supervisor.
And after I get the supervisor, I say I'd like to get 10 area codes.
Nine times out of 10, it's not a hassle.
All they ask for is the number I'm calling from.
I give them the number.
Then they give me 10 or more,
depending on who the operator is, I guess.
Now, if they are using the same system,
when you call information,
you ask for a couple of different phone numbers.
They say, well, there's an additional charge.
I need to know what your phone number is.
I gave them an eight-digit phone number the other day,
and they took it.
So they obviously don't know what your phone number is.
I've asked them that if they knew that I was giving them the right number.
I mean, when I first started doing this a while back,
I asked them on several occasions.
And I've given them wrong numbers.
But, like, you know, if I did, like, one extra area code,
so it wouldn't be like I wouldn't be giving anybody any type of big charge.
See if they would catch it.
And they didn't.
And I told them, look, I gave you a wrong number.
You're going to have to change it.
And I gave them the right number.
But they didn't know anything until I said that, you know,
this is the wrong one.
Well, I mean, if you were to, say, give the number for the phone company,
then you could be assured that nobody is getting charged for this.
No one's getting a big phone bill,
because the phone company won't bill themselves.
That's not a suggestion.
That's just an observation.
Of course.
For informational purposes only.
Pretty much.
Yeah.
Entertainment as well.
All right.
Thanks so much for the insight.
Thank you.
Okay.
Fabio, are you aware of that service?
I had never heard about it before.
But it is a fact, and it always has been,
that ANI is not delivered to directory assistants.
Why do you suppose that is?
I don't think there's really a need for it.
Everyone just dials 411, and they get charged every time they dial it.
After this show, there might be a need for it.
But we'll just have to see about that.
All right.
Good evening.
You're on.
Yes.
I have two ridiculously simple questions to ask.
Okay.
Can you warn your listeners about not ordering services from New York Telephone
unless they make sure they're available in their calling area first?
Well, what happens if you do?
Do you get penalized in some way?
Well, actually, yeah.
I ordered two services from New York Telephone.
I ordered the call return, you know,
in case somebody calls and I don't make it to the phone
because I've been getting a lot of crank calls,
and I was thinking that would help me out.
Right.
Star 69.
Yes.
And it does not work in my area.
It does not work from very many areas in New York,
and I'm stuck with a five-year plan.
They're giving me a lot of hassle about getting out of it.
A five-year plan for what?
I beg your pardon?
A five-year plan, did you say?
Yes.
They sign you up at a special rate for five years,
and if you remove the service from your line before the five years are up,
there's a penalty.
There's a financial penalty.
Yeah, but if you don't get the service,
how can the five-year plan be in effect?
That's what the contract is.
I mean, if you guys haven't heard about it,
I can show you a copy of my bill and the contract.
Where are you located?
I'm in Queens.
Oh, okay.
But that's not really why I called.
I'm going to call in for a couple of weeks.
Okay.
For a simple reason.
I need or I'd like you to tell me the numbers,
A, to make my phone dial to check and see if the service is working,
and there's a number to give me the number back that I'm calling from.
Okay.
Well, the second one we can help you out very quickly.
That's 958.
That'll tell you your phone number.
Sometimes 511 works as well.
Getting your phone to ring back is a bit trickier
because sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
It's universal in Queens.
Is it universal?
Yeah.
It's all the same.
Okay.
Then what is it?
Yeah.
The first 0 and then the last 4 digits of your phone number.
Okay.
And then you'll get another dial tone back again.
Okay.
Then you flash the switch hook briefly,
and then you'll hear a high-pitched tone.
Then you hang up the phone, and it'll begin to ring.
Okay.
Then to make it stop, simply pick it up and hang it up again.
It's as simple as that.
It's beautiful, in fact.
You know, your program is one of the reasons why I fund BAI.
Okay, great.
Well, glad to hear it.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks for calling.
We are out of time.
It's time for the news, and we won't be back next week
because Fiber and I will be in California
at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Convention
standing up for the rights of the common people
for access to computers and telephones and things like that.
And we'll report back.
We'll report next week, but we'll report back in 2 weeks.
And, you know, hopefully by then
there'll be a verdict in the Steve Jackson trial.
There really should be by then.
And we'll bring you all the other bits of information
as it comes in.
If you have something that you want to communicate to us
that you weren't able to get through on the air tonight,
by all means write to us at off the hook,
care of WBAI, 505 8th Avenue, New York, New York, 10018.
Fiber, thanks for being on the phone with us.
No problem.
Talk to you again sometime.
And, well, we don't have our theme, as I mentioned before,
so we're going to play a public service announcement,
and then we will go into a rebroadcast of the evening's news.
This is WBAI, New York.
This is Malika Lee Whitney inviting you to join me
and a host of special guests for Shelf Life,
March 1st through 4th, 4 to 4.30 p.m.,
over WBAI, New York, 99.5 FM.
The series features women's works
and will include selections from Erratique Moi,
Black Erotica, edited by Miriam de Costa Willis,
Reginald Martin, and Roseanne P. Bell.
That's Shelf Life, March 1st through 4th,
4 to 4.30 p.m., over WBAI, New York, 99.5 FM.
You bring me joy
When I'm down
Oh, so much joy
When I lose my way
Your love comes smiling on me
I saw your face
And then I...
In celebration of Women's History Month,
the Women's Resource Center of New York, Incorporated
presents the 1993 Women's Film Festival
on Friday, March 5th, from 1 to 11 p.m.
and Saturday, March 6th, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
at the New York Society for Ethical Culture,
64th Street and Central Park West.
Among the 30 films to be screened
are the early films from the film festival
are the early films of Julie Dash,
director of Daughters of the Dust,
a short film about Sweet Honey in the Rock,
and Maria's Story, a film about a 39-year-old mother
who became a leader in El Salvador's guerrilla movement.
For more information, call 212-875-8533.
That's 212-875-8533.
♪♪
♪♪
Good evening and the news tonight.
Two years after the police beating that sparked the uprising in L.A.,
what, if anything, has changed?
A medical plan before Congress
would have Uncle Sam pay the health care bills.
And in New York, the World Trade Center
won't be open for at least a month
and will also have the latest on the investigation
into the cause of the explosion.
With these and other stories, I'm Laura Seidel in New York
with Verna Avery-Brown in Washington,
and this is the news for Wednesday, March 3rd, 1993.
First, to Mark Beavis with news headlines.
U.S. airdrops of humanitarian supplies over Bosnia continue
despite hints yesterday that they had stopped.
Muslims in eastern Bosnia are reportedly coming under heavy attack
from Serbian forces and are fleeing the area.
Over 10,000 people have left Bosnia since Sunday.
White House communications director George Stephanopoulos
says the U.S. is pushing for a diplomatic solution.
We're working with our allies on a draft presidential statement
that would call for a halt to the violence in eastern Bosnia,
reemphasize that we need safe passage for all humanitarian supplies,
and call for all parties to return to the negotiations.
Talks on Bosnia are taking place at the United Nations.
Peter Klein reports Bosnia's Muslim-led government
may be open to a U.N. military plan.
President Izbekevic expressed anger over yesterday's Serbian attacks
on two east Bosnian towns.
He said he would consider signing a ceasefire
if U.N. forces took control of all heavy weapons.
The secretary general said he would personally favor peace enforcement.
The topic the Security Council and the joint U.N.-E.C. negotiators
Cyrus Vance and Lloyd Owen are discussing today.
Muslims, Serbs, and Pro-Ots are also discussing this afternoon
how to draw the future map of Bosnia, dividing territories by ethnicities.
This week's talks are the first serious round of negotiations since early January,
and the secretary general said he will try to keep the leaders in New York
for at least another week.
For Pacifica Radio, this is Peter Klein.
In Somalia, two American soldiers were killed today.
One died after his truck struck a landmine, another when his truck crashed.
And two Marines are facing hearings on whether they used excessive force
when they shot and killed one Somali and wounded another.
The standoff in Waco, Texas, continues.
Religious cult leader David Koresh says he did not fulfill his promise
to surrender yesterday because God told him to wait.
And U.S. government agents say they intend to wait out the situation.
No assaults on the compound are planned.
U.S. agents now point to a new reason why four of their colleagues were killed
and 15 injured in Sunday's shootout.
Previously, the agents blamed being outgunned.
Now they say the heavily armed religious cult was informed of the raid by a phone call.
Without the element of surprise, the U.S. agents maintain the raid was bound to fail.
Sixty members of Congress are asking the FBI to look into chemical attacks
on women's health clinics.
Democrat Nita Lowey of New York.
The attacks simply involve an injection through a syringe,
spray butyric acid,
and spread noxious fumes that cause thousands of dollars of damage to clinics
and has caused illness among clinic workers and patients
when they enter the facility after such an attack.
Last year, nearly 50 clinics reported being sprayed with noxious chemicals,
shutting many down for as long as a month.
President Clinton vows he'll trim more waste in government in six months
with a new program headed by Vice President Al Gore.
Americans voted for a change last November.
They want better schools and health care and better roads and more jobs,
but they want us to do it all with a government that works better on less money
and is more responsive.
The American people may not know specifically how to do it,
although many of them have good particular ideas.
Any suggestions may be sent to Vice President Al Gore
or called in on toll-free phone lines.
German police have raided over 60 apartments of suspected right-wing extremists,
seizing weapons and ammunition.
Fifty people have been detained by German authorities.
The sweep comes on the same day that a German man was sentenced
to two and a half years in prison for throwing a firebomb
during last year's riots outside a refugee center.
Congressional members have proposed two health-related bills.
One creates universal health coverage in two years through a single-payer system.
Another would raise the current federal tax on cigarettes from 24 cents a pack to a dollar.
The money from the tax would pay for health care.
And Albert Sabin, the developer of the oral polio vaccine, died today of heart failure.
Sabin's vaccine helped to virtually wipe out polio in the industrialized world.
Sabin was 86 years old.
And those are the headlines. I'm Mark Beavis.
The twin towers of the World Trade Center will be closed until early April.
The tentative timetable was announced by officials of the Port Authority,
the agency run by the states of New York and New Jersey,
which owns the 12-million-square-foot complex,
the second-largest building in the world.
At a news conference today,
top Port Authority executives defended the safety precautions
built into the 110-story structures
and described the massive repair operation that must be undertaken
before the complex is reopened.
Paul DiRienzo has the story.
Obviously, we have learned some lessons.
The Port Authority staff who were in the building
suffered the same problems that everyone else did leaving that building,
and I think that leads us to want to reevaluate all of the systems in the building.