If public schools are not functioning in this country, then it is incumbent upon this country
to provide the materials necessary to transform the problematic present into a system of promise.
Anyone who questions the conditions of urban school districts should only peruse a copy
of Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities.
Schools shouldn't reproduce social and class inequities, but work to eradicate them.
If it fails to do this, then it merely reproduces the errors of the past and leaves serious
work undone for generations yet unborn.
From death row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are produced by Noelle Hanrahan for Prison Radio.
This is Free Speech Radio News. I'm Deepa Fernandes.
And it's just about three minutes after seven o'clock.
Time once again for a special fundraising edition of Off The Hook.
I couldn't get much worse. But if they could, they would.
On Diddley Bump, or the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood. On Diddley Bump!
And a very good evening to everybody. Program is Off The Hook.
Emanuel Goldstein here with you for the first time in quite some time.
Well, actually, first time in two weeks. It's just been crazy around here.
Preempted last week for the archive fundraiser.
This week, we have to do yet another fundraiser.
And the reason for that is because, well, the station's in really, really, really bad shape
as a result of the last couple of fundraisers.
Basically, it means that we're asking for help and we could certainly use
whatever help is out there from our loyal listeners.
If you're an Off The Hook listener and you didn't pledge the last couple of times
and you felt guilty about that, this is a way to redeem yourself.
Give us a call, 212-209-2950.
And we have the same premiums available as we did for the last fundraiser,
which we'll get into in just a couple of minutes.
If you remember where those are, if you heard the show online,
just give a call to that number, 212-209-2950.
We wouldn't ask if it wasn't really important.
We wouldn't spend so much time on this if it wasn't really important.
Unfortunately, I guess there's a number of reasons why this kind of thing happens.
Some of it is economy-driven.
Some of it is what's happening on air at the station
and what's happening off air at the station.
The thing is there's a lot of good things and a fair amount of bad things.
But the only way to really fix it is to help the station and make sure that we're still here
so we can fix it.
Jeff, welcome back.
Well, thank you.
It's been a while.
The good news for doing the fundraisers will be on longer tonight.
Who told you that?
No, we're only on until 8.
Okay, good.
Yes, no, it's a one-hour show.
We're on from 7 to 8 o'clock.
Mike, how are you?
I'm all right.
Jim, you're here too.
Yes, I am.
Did we just get all those calls?
That's pretty good.
People are calling in just for us.
I know two of those lights are broken, so that means we have three calls on the line.
Well, that's good.
That's good.
It's either that or everybody in the tally room is making personal phone calls now,
which I hope is not happening.
212-209-2950.
Okay, since we seem to have some kind of a listener base out there,
and it is very important to stress that we need that listener base
because without that we have nothing.
Yes, we can broadcast on the Internet, but you know what?
That's not the same.
It's not the same as having a 50,000-watt radio station in the middle of New York City.
By all stretches of the imagination.
Did that just appear there?
Yes.
Because I saw one right there too.
Ed, are you there?
Bernie?
You've got to watch that.
I did.
I saw one over there and over there at the same time,
so that means it must have jumped over.
We're having a technical problem here at the station, and it all involves Sprint PCS.
It does, because we've been trying to reach Bernie S.
like for an hour now, and his phone rings 20 times,
and then you get the Sprint PCS message,
and of course his phone doesn't ring at all if it's sitting next to him.
So we told him to call a special number,
and unfortunately I don't think he's going to be able to get through
because we have obnoxious people that are also calling the special number.
We should point out that number portability is now available.
That's what we want to talk about with Bernie.
You know what, I'm just going to try calling him one more time.
How about that?
I might put an end to all this.
Let's dial his number.
That's the sound of my finger hitting the phone rather hard.
Okay, and then we enter the special code,
and hopefully we'll get Bernie on the phone.
Enough of this nonsense.
He has a thing or two to say about number portability.
I read some of that, yeah.
Okay, that's one ring.
Oh, listen to that.
Whoa!
What was that all about, Bernie?
Oh, it's called feedback.
Well, I'm just glad we have your voice on the air,
because we've been going through hell trying to get it there.
I'm sorry you can blame Sprint PCS.
I do. I do and I will.
We have.
Yeah.
Now the reason for people to be portable with their Sprint PCS numbers to another carrier.
Well, Sprint PCS has been, I think, more vocal than any phone company
as far as keeping people from switching phone companies and keeping their number.
So you have to wonder why that is,
and I think we have a good explanation right here.
They have much to fear.
Yeah.
Well, good evening.
Good evening, Bernie.
And to Mike and to Jeff and to...
Jim, too. Why not?
To Jim. Hi, Jim.
It's Thanksgiving, you know.
Happy Thanksgiving.
So, okay, we just want to give out the phone number and give out the information
so people can call in while we're blabbering on about portability.
Basically, what we have, if you recall, the last fundraiser we had,
we got a fair amount of email afterwards.
We always do from people that want to pledge, you know, after we were already on the air.
And, of course, it's very hard to do that and get the same premiums.
Well, guess what?
Through the miracle of poverty, we were able to accomplish this
and offer the same premiums again after the fundraiser
because we had to extend the fundraiser.
Actually, Bernard White is here, and he has something to say about why this is.
Hi. I'm Bernard White, Program Director here at WBAI.
As you may have already heard, WBAI's economic health is not too good right now.
Therefore, we've planned a myriad of events to revitalize and heal ourselves economically.
Once the x-rays are fully developed, the total revitalization plan will be exposed.
Here is where you come in.
On Monday, November 24th through Wednesday, November 26th,
we will have three full days of fundraising entitled Thanks For Giving.
As you prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday, whether you celebrate it or not,
it is still a time when people and friends get together
to give thanks for just being able to get together.
It is important to keep us around so that we will be here to join you in future celebrations.
Call us at 212-209-2950 once the drive begins,
or go to the website at www.wbai.org.
Thanks for your support.
And thank you, Bernard, for stopping in and saying that to us.
The phone number to show you support, 212-209-2950.
Wherever Bernard goes, music just follows.
He has this little entourage of musicians that sort of play his theme wherever he goes.
It gets annoying on buses, but it works fine here on the station.
To go over the premiums we are offering,
if you recall, we played some tracks from the last conference that we had, H2K2,
back in July of 2002.
We had some really good speakers. We had Jello Biafra.
We had Mark from Negative Land.
Bernie, I believe you were there.
And you were there, and you too, and all of you.
And also Aaron McGruder was there, from Boondocks fame.
And we have video CDs, which basically are video discs that play in a DVD player,
and also on computers.
And they have, I believe, a total of eight of these VCDs that we're offering,
plus an off-the-hook T-shirt.
No one's wearing the off-the-hook T-shirt today.
Usually somebody comes into the station wearing the off-the-hook T-shirt.
It's really nice.
The lettering has the time, too, time and date of the show,
so that in case you forget, you can always just look at your shirt,
and that will tell you when we're on.
And this is the only way to get those VCDs, right?
That's right. That's right.
And all of that is available to you for a pledge of $125.
Or, for a pledge of $75, you can get a copy of Freedom Downtime,
as well as the off-the-hook T-shirt and a 2600 baseball cap.
Or, for a pledge of $50, you can get an extra-large.
I don't know why it says extra-large there.
But, yeah, the shirts are all extra-large size.
So, you know, it's an off-the-hook T-shirt for a pledge of $50.
I know, you know, you're going to say $50 for a T-shirt is expensive.
You're not pledging for the T-shirt. You're pledging for the radio station.
We're giving you the T-shirt because we're trying to say thanks.
And there are donations on our part to the radio station.
So, please, give us a call, 212-209-2950.
And at least we can cover some of this shortfall.
There's all kinds of scary things going on here as far as how much we're in the red.
And all kinds of things may have to be cut as a result.
The important thing is that the station itself not be cut
and that we have a voice to continue talking about things such as portability,
which, Bernie, you have information about this.
Oh, yeah, as people probably have been hearing in all the mainstream media.
As of November 24th, the FCC is requiring all wireless carriers
to allow subscribers to take their phone number with them to another carrier.
And if you're mad at your carrier, like I'm mad at Sprint PCS.
Oh, we all are.
And the company you love to hate.
But I'm sure Sprint PCS isn't the only wireless carrier.
I think, frankly, I think they all suck to various degrees.
Yeah, but Sprint, they put in that extra effort. They really do.
Yeah, little things like charging you to change phones,
charging you to pay the bill, things like that, you know.
It's bad.
But people who have decided to do this starting this week are running into snags.
I think the FCC had required the carriers to do this in a two-and-a-half-hour time window
to move your phone number from one carrier to another.
Well, people aren't able to do that.
It's taking some people days, and they're being told this could take a week, whatever.
Some people are wearing two phones on their belt just because they're in this transition period
from one carrier to another.
So it's not going as smoothly as people would like.
And, frankly, that upsets me because these carriers have been charging people
an ungodly sum of money to recoup their costs,
or supposedly recoup their costs for this portability.
I think Sprint charges now, they were charging 47 cents a month to every subscriber,
which, if you multiply it by the number of subscribers, comes to $100 million.
You have to multiply it to get the ungodly figure because 47 cents doesn't sound ungodly to most of us.
No, it's $100 million a year.
That's ungodly, yeah, no question about it.
And then they get more than double it.
Now it's a dollar-something a month they just raised this portability fee,
which you don't have a choice in paying or not.
It's just on your bill.
I think the big problem is the FCC fell on its face.
They did a good thing in requiring these carriers to provide portability to their customers' numbers,
but they didn't force the carriers to have any accountability with regard to recovering their costs.
They said the carriers could recover their costs for implementing this number of portability,
but they never said, oh, and you have to document how you arrived at these costs
that you're passing on to the customers.
And Sprint PCS hasn't ever documented to its customers, and I've talked to their press spokespeople,
they just don't come up with this stuff, why it costs $100 million or now over $200 million a year
to offer number portability to its customers.
Which basically means switching to a different phone company using the same number.
Yeah, I mean, what's the big deal?
It's covering the losses.
I think that's what it is, Jeff. I think that's exactly what it is.
So that's where the FCC failed, I think, in not requiring carriers to actually charge only what their actual costs are
in providing portability and not using this as an excuse to gouge them.
If the portability costs were built into the monthly fees,
to the monthly base rate charges that these carriers are advertising on national media,
like $29.95 a month or whatever for this plan, if it was built in, then there'd be some better competition.
But because these extra fees are tacked on on top of the monthly fee you're paying,
and because different carriers have arrived at different figures as to what they're passing on to the customer for number portability,
you really can't compare one carrier to the other as far as what you're paying a month,
because the carriers are not up front about what they're charging until you get the first bill.
So that really peeves me, frankly. Have you seen the flowchart, Emanuel?
No, I have not. I have not.
Oh, man.
Where can we see this flowchart?
Did I send that to you? I don't have that path in front of me.
Well, if you did, I didn't see it.
But is there a place people can go to? Or do you want to just describe it?
If you go to ctia.com, easy porting. Did you read that? It could be easyporting.com.
But if you go to ctia.com or ctia.org, that's the Cellular Telephone Industry Association.
That's sort of the mouthpiece for the cell phone industry.
You'll find a link on how to find more information about portability.
And if you look on that main page on the left, there's a link for behind the scenes of number portability.
And then you can download this PDF file that has this amazing flowchart that the CTIA cooked up.
Well, actually, they didn't cook it up.
But they're providing this flowchart of all the stuff they have to do behind the scenes
to actually port your number from one carrier to another, which is semi-complicated.
But frankly, they have computer software that does all this.
So it's not as complicated as it looks.
When I first saw this flowchart manual, the first thing that came to my mind is it looked very similar to the flowchart
that the Republicans cooked up to show how complicated Hillary Clinton's national health care program would be.
And to discredit it, saying, this is so complicated.
Look at this flowchart. Nobody could ever implement it.
But these people aren't trying to discredit it, are they?
Well, I think the carriers are not happy about this, frankly.
Well, the lesser carriers, the carriers who have the most to lose because they have bad customer service,
they have the most to lose and they have the most to gain from discrediting number credibility.
So anyway, go to ctia.com or ctia.org and look for a link for number portability.
Once you're there, go to another link that says behind the scenes,
and download this PDF file that has this amazing flowchart with no less.
I'm looking at it here. I printed it out.
It's no less than 50 steps in this flowchart, all kinds of triangles and circles and squares
that are involved in porting a number from one carrier to the other.
But again, it's misleading because computer software does this.
This isn't really people have to jump through all these hoops.
Let me ask you, did you file your application to change your phone company?
I'm seriously thinking about it, but I think the offers will get even better.
I think from what I've read and talked to people about,
the offers that the carriers are giving right now to keep you with them
and to prevent you from switching another carrier are not as generous as they will be pretty soon.
It's taken people far longer to switch from one carrier to the other now than it's supposed to be.
It's supposed to be two and a half hours.
But I think once it's simple and easy, which should be soon,
then I think the carriers will get even more desperate
and offer even better deals for the customers to stay with them.
So I'm waiting for those really good incentives maybe in a month or so to see what happens.
I imagine also that there's a lot of competition to get a representative these days.
Everyone's calling at the same time trying to switch their phone company.
It wouldn't surprise me that from what I've read online,
I think I read an article in the Wall Street Journal today,
that the customer traffic in the stores, the retail stores where the cell phones are sold,
is four times, roughly four times what it normally is.
That's pretty good.
But unfortunately these are people coming in to ask about portability
and then when they realize that this isn't going to be a simple process, they walk out.
Now here's a question I haven't heard anybody address.
If you have a cellular phone right now and you're not happy with who you're using and you want to switch,
who do you call?
Do you call the company you're with now or do you call the new company?
Who takes care of it?
Do you have to call both?
You've got to call them both.
Really? Okay.
Who do you call first then?
You call the new company.
You call the company you're doing business with now.
Okay.
And tell them to go to hell.
And tell them you want to switch.
Alright, whatever.
And then you call the next company.
They don't do that for you.
I'm sorry?
They don't do that for you.
They don't call the other company.
No, no.
They kind of make you jump through that hoop.
Well, I thought the 47 cents might have covered that.
Oh, now it's like over a dollar a month which is a sprint.
The important people to call are the new company because if you call your old company first and you cancel your service,
then you will no longer be eligible to port the number because you don't have the number.
Then you lose your number.
So now if you call them, how do you do it?
Do you call them and say?
You call the new company and the new company wants your business enough to help you along the process.
So you say start with the new company.
Start with the new company.
All the advertising, Radio Shack especially, says come in with your old number and we'll help you along.
Yeah, I think that's what's needed.
That does make more sense to me at least.
The reason I said you should call your current company first is just to find out if there's any penalties.
You should be aware if there's any penalties because a lot of these carriers have been doing over the past year or two.
They saw this coming because they've been fighting this for years in federal court.
Finally the carriers lost.
The CTIA took this issue to court and the companies lost in being able to stall this any longer.
So they've seen this coming and over the past year or two they've been doing their darndest to make people sign up for multi-year contracts
to make it difficult for them to switch over without having to pay a substantial penalty fee of maybe $150 or more.
So that's why you should call your current company first just to find out what this is going to cost you to switch.
Because a lot of people are locked into contracts they may not be aware of.
And they have to tell you the truth when you call them, right?
Well, they have to but who knows.
If you don't know what your penalties are or when your contract ends, which I never see written anywhere so that's very hard to ascertain.
It seems like they could make up almost anything and get away with it.
Well, I try to keep track of these things.
It would cost me $150 to move from Sprint PCS which is almost worth it.
One of the big selling points of Sprint PCS years ago, I started with them like a good five years ago.
I was one of their first customers in Philadelphia when there was nobody in the store all day long.
No contracts, that's our big selling point.
Well, OmniPoint was the same way.
After a while they started locking people into contracts.
OmniPoint was the same way and then they became VoiceDream and then T-Mobile.
Everybody has contracts these days.
It's an unfortunate reality of the cell phone business.
I wish it weren't true.
Well, you can get ripped off with these pay-as-you-go plans.
But you don't have a contract but you pay twice as much.
At least.
It's a question of how much it's worth.
Well, we'd like to know if any of our listeners have done this yet.
If they called on Monday or Tuesday or today and started the process of switching from one phone company to another.
And I'm not sure actually if this is extended yet to land-based lines.
I know that this also, you can take your land-based phone line and make that into a cellular number with the company of your choice.
I know there was a lawsuit filed to try and stop that.
Bernie, do you know anything about that?
Yes, the local exchange carriers locked that move to claim this was not fair.
You cannot take your mobile number and change it to a landline number yet.
That case was lost this week.
The local exchange carriers like Verizon or whoever your local phone company is wanted to say,
Hey, well, if you can take your home phone number and make it into a mobile number, you should be able to go both ways.
Which I agree with.
But suppose you're just tired of all this wireless nonsense and you're tired of drop calls.
You want to go back to that 5-9 reliability.
That's 99.999% reliable.
Which wireline service generally is.
You can't do that.
And I think you should be able to.
Back when I was studying telecom engineering in college, there was a formula you could use to calculate grade of service.
That is how long it takes for you to get a dial tone, the number of calls that are dropped, that sort of thing.
And those numbers are extremely low with wireline service.
And they're an order of magnitude lower than the problems you're going to have with any kind of wireless technology.
Just because of the nature of radio and oversubscribing the service like these carriers are prone to do.
Our phone number is 212-209-2950 to make a pledge.
212-209-2900 if you have something to say on this subject.
But if you find this conversation interesting and invigorating,
makes you think about doing certain things or tells you things you didn't know about,
please consider making a contribution to the radio station so we can continue to have conversations like this well into the future.
We wouldn't be having a fundraiser at this particular time of the year if we weren't in dire straits.
And we certainly are.
212-209-2950, we really would like to light up that switchboard as much as possible.
We're up to $375, which we want to thank people for their support in getting us that high.
We're only on until 8 o'clock tonight.
So if you're going to call the pledge during Off the Hook, now is the time to do it.
And, again, we have several premiums.
We have the enhanced video CDs, I guess you call them, plus Off the Hook T-shirts for a pledge of $125.
We have Freedom Downtime and the 2600 cap and the Off the Hook T-shirt for a pledge of $75.
The Off the Hook T-shirt, a pledge of $50.
We also have WBAI special commemorative CDs, the best of WBAI.
We're going to be playing a track from that in just a few minutes.
That's also with a $50 membership.
There's all kinds of things that you can get.
The important thing, though, is that you want to keep the radio station going, keep us on the air, keep 99.5 commercial free in New York City for as long as we humanly possibly can do.
That's the best way I can phrase it.
I know it seems like we're asking for money all the time, and, unfortunately, that's a result of things not working out yet.
We have to bring in more funds.
We have to keep the place alive, and once we do that, we can improve it.
We can keep things in a participatory democracy type of style, which is what this place is all about.
It's still in the building process, but we need those calls, 212-209-2950.
Again, if you have commentary, please give us a call, 212-209-2900 on this particular topic.
We're also going through some other news items as well.
I don't know if you guys heard about this one concerning – remember Al Jazeera was hacked a number of months ago, I believe in the spring when the war started.
Well, this actually happened earlier this month.
A web designer was sentenced to community service for hijacking the website for the Arab satellite news channel Al Jazeera
and redirecting its traffic to a site showing a U.S. flag and the words, Let Freedom Ring.
John William Racine II, 24 years old, was ordered to perform 1,000 hours of community service and pay $2,000.
He pleaded guilty in June to felony charges of wire fraud and unlawful interception of an electronic communication.
Now, my question here, if this guy had done this to, say, Yahoo or CNN or something like that, do you think the penalty would be the same?
That was the question I was going to ask.
Oh, well, you can answer it now.
If I was going to ask it, it's obviously because I don't know the answer.
Well, I guess nobody has an answer then.
I would guess that the penalties would have been a little stiffer.
A little stiffer. I think we'd be talking multiple years in prison, maybe being categorized as a terrorist for messing with the infrastructure.
But when you hack Al Jazeera, gee whiz, that's just a slap on the wrist.
Now, don't get me wrong. I don't think anybody should be going to prison for this kind of a prank.
And it was a prank, you know, redirecting it someplace else.
I was going to say this is a surprisingly fair sentence.
It's a fair sentence for the crime, but that sentence would not be carried out if it was an American company that had a lot of bucks behind it.
It's a fair sentence for the wrong reason. That's the point.
Yeah. I thought that's a good way of putting it.
Yeah, it is a fair sentence for the wrong reason because Al Jazeera is seen as the enemy here, even though they're just a media outlet.
This kind of sentence is passed down.
It had to be something. It had to be something.
It was basically the minimal possible sentence.
If this was the same sentence for everything, I still think it would have an effect of people not doing this as much.
But because of the way it is right now, it's sort of encouraging this kind of behavior.
If anything, I think it sets a precedent which might be useful for a defense attorney defending a hacker who might have done this to some U.S. website
to argue before the judge that, Your Honor, we have a precedent here where someone did this and this was the sentence.
We can only hope that the judge will look at this and say, yeah, these other sentences are really way out of line.
But it could be good in that respect.
Well, I'd like to see if somebody uses that as a defense.
So whoever is out there hacking sites, when you get caught, if it's an American site, use this as a defense.
Let us know how it turns out. We're curious.
Also concerning Al Jazeera, this person was looking at their website.
I doubt he's on all kinds of lists now.
He saw an article for a 10-gram camera-equipped helicopter developed by Japan's Psycho Epson.
That's right, the printer company.
In the article, they describe ways this remote-controlled helicopter can be used to scope out natural disaster areas to look for survivors in precarious situations.
However, my concern is an agency in our government getting a hold of these and using them to investigate suspicious people or get-togethers.
This would be much worse than the proposed facial recognition cameras mounted on city streets because of their mobility.
As stated, the helicopter is 10 grams and 70 millimeters high.
The company, however, is still looking for a sufficiently small battery to power the units.
And if you want to see this story for yourself, get ready, because here comes the URL.
http://english.aljazeera.net
Capital N, capital R, lowercase e-x-e-r-e-s, uppercase 9-d-a-7-b-c-b-0-7-5-7-5-4-7-a-6.
That's uppercase.
I'm not finished yet.
It's all uppercase from here on.
8-f-e-6-f-8-0-2-c-9-a-4-8-9-b-a.htm, htm being lowercase.
Or you can go to Epson.com and in their search field type in helicopter.
You know, that might be best.
I think this technology has to evolve to a state where I never have to say something like that ever again.
You lost me after the first zero.
Well, there'll be questions later.
212-209-2950 is our pledge line, and I see there's one call on that line right now if I believe how many of those things are broken.
It's so pathetic here that even the machine that tells us how many lines are lit, that's broken.
We really have to get together and start fixing things and making sure everything is working properly.
But most importantly, we have to keep the radio signal out there.
212-209-2950.
Yes, Bernie.
Jeff would appreciate this, being an educator himself.
I don't know if you folks have heard about the high school teacher that was recently arrested by the Transportation Security Administration going to an airport.
He was, I guess, a math teacher, and he had a sharp protractor and a compass, you know, these things you use for geometry and algebra, that sort of thing.
They accused him of being affiliated with this terrorist group called Algebra.
That's very funny, Bernie.
You know, I'm saying I generally pick up all the teacher stories.
I missed this one, but now I know why.
You were lucky.
In the November 18th edition of the New York Times, this is, a reader writes in to tell us this.
See, nothing escapes our readers and listeners.
The New York Times Crossword Puzzle had a six-letter word for computer troublemaker.
Yes, you guessed it.
Hacker.
Yeah.
New York Times Crossword Puzzle.
You know, I had an interesting experience.
I saw Bernie S.
Well, that's always an interesting experience over the weekend.
But while driving back, Mike, you were with me.
We did a little experiment with the E-ZPass.
And guess what?
We put the E-ZPass in the back seat, you know, based on the thing in Metropolitan Diary a couple of weeks ago
where the UPS truck apparently triggered it while carrying it someplace.
And it didn't work.
It didn't work when it was just a few feet away from the windshield.
So now I have to call E-ZPass and work something out.
But apparently that's an urban legend.
If anybody knows differently.
You should know that the UPS truck's roofs are made of fiberglass.
And the roof of your vehicle, I know for a fact, is made of metal.
And that's going to block the radio waves better than fiberglass.
But what about the window?
Well, if you have a window, it's not going to be blocked.
Window glass does not block radio waves.
Metal does.
Well, can't the radio waves still get to the E-ZPass receiver through the window?
Well, no.
If you look at it, they're very directional because the frequencies that these things use are, like, thousands of megahertz.
It's an up or down thing.
If you look, when you go through an E-ZPass lane, you'll see there's, like, a flat panel antenna pointing almost straight down at the vehicle.
And if it has a clear shot of the E-ZPass transponder in your car, it'll ping it and get the idea of it.
But if it's underneath, if your E-ZPass transponder is underneath some metal, like the roof of your vehicle, for instance,
it's not going to be able to ping it.
But if it's under the roof of a fiberglass UPS truck, it's going to be able to ping it
because fiberglass does not block radio waves like the metal roof of your car does.
And if it's in an envelope and with a whole bunch of other packages?
If it's a metal envelope, yes.
But if it's a paper envelope, it won't matter because radio goes through paper like nothing.
Why do they have fiberglass roofs on UPS trucks anyway?
To let the light in.
I have no idea.
To let the light in.
It lets the light in so the guys can see the boxes.
Saves money on lighting the interior.
Not plexiglass, fiberglass.
Oh, boy.
Okay, so now I've got to get a UPS truck and try this all over again.
No, it's translucent.
And it saves weight when they're carrying all those boxes around as well.
No, they're brown on top.
Well, maybe I can get a fiberglass vehicle and just try it that way.
All right, if you get a Corvette, I think Corvettes have a fiberglass body.
All right, anybody out there driving a Corvette,
just throw your E-ZPass into the back seat and try to get through the lanes.
Tell us what happens.
We're curious.
Okay, this person writes in, I just discovered Off the Hook a few weeks ago.
I first want to thank you for putting the MP3 archives online,
and thanks very much to Jens for doing this for us every week.
I work the graveyard shift at a boring job
and have been downloading past episodes,
filling up my iPod, and listening all night long.
I have a question about the archive CDs for sale.
That's right, we have archive CDs for sale on our website,
and I have something to say about that in just a moment.
It says they're real audio and my iPod can only play MP3.
Since MP3 files are available to download,
is it possible to buy the CDs with those files instead?
Well, actually, those CDs are old.
In 1997, we made those things,
and we just have a whole lot of them left over.
And they only have real audio format.
They don't have MP3s on them.
What you should probably do is wait a little while longer
because what we're going to be having as of next year
is a DVD version, DVD audio, or just a DVD with files on it
that should have everything from 1988 to 2003.
I think it will all fit on one DVD, and that will be in MP3 format.
And what country code?
What country code?
DVD?
Well, I mean, this will play everywhere because it's not video,
so you don't have to worry about that.
Check our website for announcements on that.
Yeah, it's amazing what the technology allows you to do these things.
Every off-the-hook show on a single disc?
On a single disc, yeah.
That's hundreds and hundreds of shows, right?
I think so. It seems to go on forever.
Yeah, I think we've done hundreds of shows by now.
Our pledges have gone from $375 to $0.
I don't know if people called in and took back their pledges,
or maybe we just need to add the calculator over there a little more.
Ah, okay.
Pledges are coming in.
212-209-2950.
It's my personal goal to get over $1,000 for this hour,
and I think that would be a good contribution for us
considering this wasn't a scheduled fundraiser.
It's a minithon, an emergency minithon, I guess is the best way to phrase it.
And we certainly need as much help as possible with keeping this place going.
What is the phone number?
For the pledges, 212-209-2950.
And, again, we're offering all kinds of interesting things for your entertainment
involving hackers in the hacker world, H2K VCDs, off-the-hook T-shirts,
Freedom Downtime videos, all kinds of collections for pledges between $50 and $125.
Of course, you can pledge any amount.
You're not restricted to those.
The important thing is to support the station.
Pledge whatever you can afford.
We also have this special CD here,
and I'm going to play a piece of this right now.
This is kind of the best of WBAI.
WBAI has been around for a long, long time, from 1960,
and we hope to be around for at least that long into the future.
There's a real need for voices like this.
There's a real need for all kinds of subversion over the airwaves,
which is what we try to bring you 24-7.
To do that, though, of course, we need listener support.
Since we don't have commercials, you might have noticed that.
We haven't broken for commercials, and we never will.
That's our goal here at the radio station.
But WBAI has a long and sordid history,
and I guess one of the things I'd like to play right now is a piece of that history.
This, let's see, what are we going to listen to right now?
Did that actually move on its own?
I think it did.
We're going to play a piece of track number two here of this CD, The Best of WBAI,
Say It Loud, New Songs for Peace.
Is that the?
No, that's a different CD, isn't it?
Okay, that's a different CD.
I'm sorry, I've got two CDs mixed up here.
This CD is The Best of WBAI for a pledge of $50.
You'll get all kinds of memories of the radio station,
including something like this.
Why would you like that?
I think it's great.
One of the things lacking in radio today is humor.
WBAI is as guilty as any other station in this respect.
The humorists seem to have all gone uptown to television.
Where are those wonderful programs of yesteryear?
Well, I don't know.
You've done some very strange things on the radio, and I don't.
Well, I apologize.
I don't want to judge you solely by the past.
Yes, that's true.
I was not aware of these things which you just brought to my attention,
and I'll certainly be more careful in the future
to try and protect my interests and the interests of America and democracy.
WBAI
Our thanks to the Marine Corps Band for that stirring interlude.
This is listener-sponsored radio in New York, WBAI 99.5 FM.
WBAI, you're on the air. I keep...
Yeah, hello?
Hi.
Yeah, I'd like to make a statement.
Let's turn on the radio here.
And I'd like to say that I think that it's an outrage
that these pathetically sick and unnatural creatures
have this constant, tremendous publicity
over the communist-controlled mass media
and to pollute the civilization of the United States
and all the minds of the people.
It's almost constant publicity over the radio.
About to go on the air, reaching out to our secret listeners,
secretly bringing them a warning over the secret air
into their secret ears.
Where am I?
You're on the radio
You're on the radio
What an opportunity to be valuable to
the people who should mean a lot to you
I'm talking about all your secret friends over the airwaves
You're on the radio too
Yeah, that's a piece of the WBAI Best Of CD.
That's for a pledge of $50.
You'll get, I guess, about 70 minutes worth of memories like that.
And that's a pledge of $50.
212-209-2950.
We also have another CD that is the one I mixed up first.
This is the Say It Loud.
All kinds of different musical pieces.
Unfortunately, they're written on the CD, so I can't read them.
But I can play you a brief excerpt from Michael Moore.
Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward.
I don't have any conclusions here,
but as a citizen I'd like to ask a few questions.
And that's a question I'd like answered.
What are the financial connections between
the Bush and the Bin Laden family over the years?
Now what's that all about?
Because if you go to the BBC website,
you'll see a story that starting in 1995,
the Taliban first sent a delegation to Houston
to meet with oil company executives
while George W. Bush was president.
What's that all about?
Well, they were there to discuss the building of a pipeline
across Afghanistan, the UNICAL pipeline.
Who's going to help build the pipeline?
Halliburton.
Who's the head of Halliburton?
Big Dick Cheney.
Now what's that all about?
Big Dick Cheney.
Now what's that all about?
Okay, you'll hear Michael Moore like you've never heard him before
with that CD.
All kinds of interesting...
Let me actually eject the CD so I can tell you what else is on it.
Michael Moore and Ed Asner,
all kinds of other people like Lily Tomlin and Huey Newton,
Dr. Helen Caldecott.
The Polemic Consortium presents Say It Loud,
new songs for peace.
So if you're interested in what's going on around the world,
that's one of the possibilities.
It's not an off-the-hook premium.
It's a WBAI premium.
It just goes to show you how many different things we have.
So 212-209-2950,
please show your support to the radio station by pledging,
and you'll get something nice.
One way or another, you'll get something of interest.
Isn't that right, Bernie?
Very true.
A lot of good stuff.
I thought it was...
I thought it was interesting for the egregious error Michael Moore makes
where he says that in 1995, when George Bush was president...
1995, it was good old Bill Clinton.
Wasn't he talking about the oil company...
down there?
Do you want me to play it again?
No, no, no.
We can debate this later.
Buy it as a premium and find the errors for yourself.
Get it back into the case here.
All right.
I've succeeded in doing that.
212-209-2950.
No calls on the line, and we're up to $425,
which means we only made $50 since the last time we stopped for this kind of thing.
So we need to get that up to around $1,000.
We only have about 16 minutes left,
so please give us a call, 212-209-2950.
Now, we also have, in addition to the portability issue,
we have a new spam issue.
And, Bernie, I think you know something about this too.
There's some kind of a bill that's been passed.
Yeah, Congress passed this anti-spam bill,
which is just really pointless.
It's not going to accomplish...
You know, it's one of many kinds of pieces of legislation
that politicians can use to say,
I voted for this, I'm in favor of this.
It's like, I'm in favor of outlawing the law of gravity
so we can fly around without having to pay money.
You know, it's just stupid.
You're not going to be able to stop spam by passing a law.
It's just as simple as that.
Yeah, I mean, it seems like they're trying to overregulate these issues
that really can't be regulated.
This one person writes in,
by placing a ban on all spam email while not clearly defining what spam is
could lead to all sorts of confusion.
What happens when someone plays a joke on someone
by sending them a mock advertisement or a parody that resembles a sales pitch?
The recipient could simply have them thrown in jail.
In America, no one thinks anymore.
If there is an annoyance in our life, we just create a patch to cover it up
rather than get to the root of the problem.
The internet is a great medium,
but it is becoming ruined by people who insist on passing laws.
You can't pass laws when it comes to technology.
You have to fight on an even technological level
or else the problem you are trying to get rid of will resurface
and bite you in the ass.
And I think that's very well phrased.
It's exactly the issue here.
One of the bad things about this law manual is
there's no real enforcement provision provided.
It doesn't specify where the money and resources are going to come from
to enforce this law.
Even if that were allocated, which it hasn't been,
a lot of the spam originates from overseas
and it could easily be routed through an overseas website
where U.S. law has no jurisdiction.
So, another thing it says,
it uses the term of art,
clearance conspicuous identification.
It says that any spam message sent to you,
like unsolicited advertising message,
must have a clearance conspicuous identification.
It doesn't give examples,
but one example might be like it starts with ADV,
meaning advertisement or something like that.
But this law, this legislation,
doesn't specify what the clearance conspicuous identification should be
and it forbids the Federal Trade Commission,
who's supposed to oversee this,
from clarifying that part of the law,
what clearance conspicuous identification means.
So, this is so vague and so worthless.
It's pretty dangerous too.
I do not want somebody regulating
how I address mail to somebody on the internet.
I don't go out spamming people,
but if I want to forward an advertisement to somebody
to show them something,
I don't want to have to risk prosecution for that.
I also want to be able to put ADV in my subject
without something else happening.
There's all kinds of possible ways
that this could be used against non-spamming people.
So, I think there's another solution we have to look for.
Some people tend to think that,
and I'm somewhat in agreement,
these laws against content
are just a foot in the door
or a camel's nose under the tent, if you will,
to justifying monitoring all email traffic, period.
At least openly.
We know it's done covertly,
but openly monitor all this stuff
so they can identify who the spammers are.
But meanwhile, they're going to know
what you and I are talking about each other
unless we're using encryption.
Yeah, sending encrypted mail is a real danger.
I'm sure they're going to regulate that at some point.
That's probably next.
All right, let's take some phone calls.
212-209-2900 is our phone number.
212-209-2900 for listeners out there
who want to contribute to the conversation.
And for those who want to contribute to the radio station,
please call 212-209-2950
because that enables people to call the other line
and enables us to spout forth
with whatever we have to say for this particular radio program.
And again, you can also write to us, oth at 2600.com.
Jeff, do you want to pick a line?
Sure.
All right, be careful.
All right.
And good evening, you're on the air.
Jeff, you weren't careful. Look what you did.
Look what you did. Okay, try another one.
And good evening, you're on the air.
Go ahead.
Blow me.
You know, Jeff, I'm going to give you one more chance.
All right, go ahead.
And good evening, you're on the air.
All right, Jeff.
Clearly, clearly...
He came on at the end.
He came on at the end, but he was in a wind tunnel.
All right, I'll give you one more chance.
This is it, though. This is it.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Hey, Emmanuel. What's going on?
How are you doing?
Good.
Had anybody call in about the portability issue?
You're the first.
I turned in a little late, and I wasn't sure what the topic was.
Well, we've talked about it, but what's your impressions of it?
Well, I was on the phone with a buddy of mine who works in the cellular industry.
He said Singular and AT&T are having problems following through, apparently.
I guess Verizon originally said 3 hours to 48 hours, and now they're saying 48 to 72 hours.
So it looks like there's apparently some companies that either don't want to comply,
or I'm not sure what the problem is.
But there is a particular problem with Singular and AT&T, apparently.
And the law says they have to do it in, what, 2.5, Bernie?
That's what I read. It should be 2 1⁄2 hours.
Wow.
Really? Well, apparently...
Big difference.
It's probably just Verizon tech people on the phone that are saying unofficially 72 hours.
But the reason why I was calling was about the video CDs you guys are selling?
Uh-huh.
Yeah, we're giving them as gifts, technically.
Well, yeah, I know the ones from the last Hope convention.
Those are in press. They're on CD-R, right, I'm assuming?
Yeah.
Okay, somebody had said before, I don't know who it was,
about playing them on consoles like PlayStation 2 and Xbox.
Those systems don't play video CDs.
Okay, I don't have one of those systems, so I couldn't say yes or no.
They'll only play an MPEG-2 DVD off the shelf.
I think maybe you can run Linux on a PS2 or you can mod an Xbox,
and you can play just about anything you want to.
But off the shelf, they won't play video CDs.
And neither will some older DVD players,
unless they, you know, the newer ones that play MP3s and can read CD-Rs.
But even some older ones won't.
Some really old ones, possibly not.
Every computer that I've used that has a CD-ROM drive will play this.
That's the other thing.
I have old systems going back to old PCs running 95.
Even with an old version of Windows Media Player,
you don't even have to install software.
You just go in and the AV, I think it's sequence file, SEQ,
and right-click on the .dat file and do open with.
Media Player won't be associated with anything.
It's a .dat extension.
But even old computers will play them.
You might not be able to do them full screen.
Well, if anyone has any problems with them,
just write to us, oth2600.com.
I'm just saying, if they can't get their DVD player or their console they wanted,
their old PC will be able to play the thing.
Right.
And I just wanted one more comment on the Off the Wall last week.
That's a different radio show, though.
I know, I know, I know.
But I always enjoyed the music you play,
but I was a little mildly upset that you played some Postwaters Floyd.
Well, I'm sorry to disillusion you like that,
but that's something to bring up on the other radio show.
It's not that it's bad music.
It's just I think it's kind of motivated by greed and things like that,
and there's just a few members of the band kind of profiting off the name.
But that's just my opinion.
Okay, well, we're going to leave it at that.
We're going to leave it at that
because we don't want to get into a whole Pink Floyd debate here.
And thanks for your call.
Let's go up here now.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hi, I'm calling to explain why I'll never pledge to the station.
Sure, go ahead.
It's because you have that scumbag Mumia Al-Jamar on the news,
and also your show is good content,
but could you guys just pull your crap together
when you're reaching for tapes and other stuff?
You just waste time.
Well, now hang on a second.
I think you raised a couple of interesting points here.
First of all, okay, we could sound a little bit more professional.
I'll give you that.
But this is not a professional radio station.
Most people here are not paid.
We're amateurs.
How long have you been doing the show, Emmanuel?
I've been doing this show since 1988,
but I still haven't quite mastered reaching across a console for a tape.
That's not one of the things that training really covered.
What I try to cover are the issues,
and I think that's what we're doing here.
If we're not discussing the issues properly,
that's something I really think we should devote attention to.
As for Mumia Al-Jamar, you may not agree with the guy,
but it's an alternative commentary of sorts.
You don't like it, you listen to something else.
What's the big deal?
Who's next, OJ Simpson?
You going to have him on?
If he has something intelligent to say, but I don't think that's going to happen.
Well, I can tell you this much.
The free stuff, this free speech stuff,
and the constitutional rights,
even though you guys do nothing for the Second Amendment,
that's what I listen to the station for.
But with this whole far-left crap,
and all this other Marxist crap,
until they drop that, which they never will do,
you'll get nothing from me.
I'll just continue to listen for free.
Well, that's fine. You have that right.
But are you saying that it has to be exactly the way you want it,
or you don't want it to continue at all?
Is that what you're saying?
Basically, yeah.
I'd rather you just sell the station and close it,
because all this far-left crap...
You can become Country Music 99.5 then, or something.
Works for me.
All right.
Well, thanks for your opinion.
All right. Have a good one.
As you can see, folks,
that's another opinion out there.
Do you agree with that? Fine.
Don't call the station.
Don't support the station.
And we will be Country Music 99.5 at some point.
But if you feel differently, call and pledge.
212-209-2950.
And we can continue to have conversations like that,
as well as alternative commentaries,
as well as people fumbling for tapes,
and whatever other noises you might hear on this radio station
that don't really fit the mold of professional radio,
nor should it.
212-209-2950.
Jim, you've got a comment.
I've got to answer that guy,
and I'm sorry that you cut him off.
I didn't cut him off.
It says we're off the air in five minutes,
so I have to move on.
Okay. Okay. Quickly.
First of all, I'm so right-wing on this station
that I'm practically...
Yes, we all know you're right-wing. Okay.
All right.
But I'm here because it's a way to counteract
some of the leftism in other parts of this show
and this station, okay?
Mm-hmm.
I agree with, you know, his distaste for Mumia Al-Jamal,
but that doesn't mean that I don't find something useful
in this station.
And number two, two and three,
two, if he hates this station so much,
why does he even bother listening to our show
if he doesn't like...
Well, he likes our show.
He doesn't like us fumbling for things,
but he likes the show.
No, but the point is this.
He likes the information.
He's being a hypocrite.
He won't contribute because Mumia is on,
and yet he'll listen.
He's being a free rider.
Well, you know, okay.
He's like a guy that jumps the turnstile.
I'm not going to say someone
that doesn't contribute is a hypocrite.
You know, there might be all kinds of reasons
for not contributing.
In this case, he is.
But, yeah, if the sole reason you're not contributing
is because you heard something you disagree with,
you know, we wouldn't get any contributors
if that was the case,
because I have so many things
in this radio station I disagree with.
I pass people on the hallways I disagree with, you know.
We have different viewpoints and everything.
That's the beauty of it,
the fact that we have hundreds of people in this place
expressing different views.
When one view becomes, you know,
the only one expressed,
that's when we're in trouble,
and I don't think you're going to ever have that
as long as we have the station run
in a free and open way.
I would like to make an argument
for turnstile jumping myself.
Don't.
Finally and quickly.
Let's do that next week.
Sorry, Bernie?
Or for bent MTA.
This guy is kind of like someone
who listens to the show for free.
It's like bending an MTA card
to get a free fare.
Or MetroCard.
Or MetroCard, excuse me.
Okay, we're opening up a whole kettle of worms here.
And just quickly,
he must listen to something else, okay?
Some network.
Does he like everything on there?
Does he like everything that the sponsor or show he likes?
Well, I'll tell you what he's doing.
He's paying for that station
because he doesn't have a choice, you know.
Any commercial station,
you're paying for that station.
They don't ask you.
They take it from you.
Every time you buy something,
you're paying for their advertising.
That's how it works.
Well, he's gotten a rise out of us,
and I refuse to let him get any further rise.
I will never think of him again.
But I want to thank him
because he's brought in a lot of calls.
So as you can see, it works, you know.
It's karma.
And thank you.
Thank you very much.
212-209-2950.
You still have a couple of minutes left
to support us,
to bring in some calls for this radio station.
The personal computer show is up next.
Next week, we're on regular time slot,
regular show.
And hopefully, this station will be in better shape.
We'll let you know.
Good night.
Give me back my broken neck
My mirrored room, my secret lab
Lonely here, there's no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
Over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby
That's an order
Danger
Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that's left
Stuff it up the hole in your culture
Danger
Give me back the burning mall
Give me style and say pop
I've seen the future, brother
It is murder
Danger
Things gon' slide
Slide in all directions
And nothing
Won't be nothing
You can't measure anymore
The blizzard
The blizzard of the world's
Crossed the threshold
And it's overturned
The order of the soul
When they said
Repent
I wonder what they meant
When they said
Repent
I wonder what they meant
When they said
Repent
I wonder what they meant
Give me back the burning mall
Give me style and say pop
Give me Christ or give me Hiroshima
Danger
Destroy another, feed us now
We don't like children in and out
I've seen the future, baby
It is murder
Danger
Things gon' slide
Slide in all directions
Won't be nothing
Nothing you can't measure anymore
Hi, I'm Bernard White, Program Director here at WBAI.
As you may have already heard, WBAI's economic health is not too good right now.
Therefore, we've planned a myriad of events to revitalize and heal ourselves economically.
Once the x-rays are fully developed, a total revitalization plan will be exposed.
Here is where you come in.
On Monday, November 24th through Wednesday, November 26th,
we will have three full days of fundraising titled Thanks For Giving.
As you prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday, whether you celebrate it or not,
it is still a time when people and friends get together to give thanks for just being able to get together.
It is important to keep us around so that we will be here to join you in future celebrations.
Call us at 212-209-2950 once the drive begins or go to the website at www.wbai.org.
Thanks for your support.
Hey, we're always happy to support you, Bernard, here at WBAI New York, 99.5 FM.
And it is a wonderful Wednesday evening, November 26th, 2003.
And you are now listening to The Personal Computer Show.