In New York, I'm Deepa Fernandes.
Thanks to all of you who have generously pledged during the recent WBAI membership drive.
Unfortunately, the drive fell far short of its goal.
One cause was that our phone system was mysteriously disabled for several days.
For those of you who have not yet pledged,
you can still show your support to this listener-sponsored station.
More than 150 exciting premium packages will remain available until June 8th
for those with internet access.
Plus, you can always pledge online for generic premiums and basic membership.
To see the premiums list and for more information, log on to www.wbai.org.
That's www.wbai.org.
It's 7 o'clock on Wednesday and no, we have no idea what happened to the phone system either.
It's currently time for off the hook though. We might be able to provide a clue or two.
I hope they would.
Bondedly bound for the best expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Bondedly bound.
Bondedly bound.
Bondedly bound.
And a very good evening to everybody.
The program is off the hook.
Emanuel Goldstein here with you for the next hour or so.
We've been away for a couple of weeks, but now we're back and we've got a lot of catching up to do,
a lot of things to talk about, a lot of things have happened.
And Jeff, welcome. How are you?
Thank you. I'm doing fine.
Everything okay?
And Mike, congratulations on graduating from, what is it up there in Manhattan,
Columbia School of Broadcasting, is that what it is?
Something like that.
What do they call that place?
I'm not really sure.
Okay, well, we did quite well on the fundraiser two weeks ago.
Raising, I think, just shy of five grand, which is something like $4,500, something like that,
which is really good and impressive.
Unfortunately, the rest of the station didn't fare so well with the phones somehow getting cut.
It was pretty bizarre, I've got to tell you.
Every single phone line going into the station just did not work.
And you can imagine in the middle of a fundraiser, that's going to be a problem.
When did that start?
That started, I think it was a week ago Monday, and it lasted, actually lasted until, I think, Thursday.
The folks at AT&T really outdid themselves.
I'm not even sure who I should blame here.
If it's AT&T, Verizon, some other company, or maybe somebody here just unplugged something, I don't know.
But incompetence certainly was the word of those few days.
And it did make a big difference because we did not have the incoming capacity that we normally did.
So if there are BIA listeners out there who found themselves frustrated by not being able to reach anyone
and as a result didn't pledge, well, we do want you to please go through with that and pledge anyway
because we did fall short of our goal of what was happening.
But we must continue with what it is that we're doing here,
which is talking about the latest in technology and taking away freedom and stuff like that.
And actually, I've got someone on the phone now who is kind of an expert on that.
Laszlo joins us from somewhere, somewhere in the world.
Laszlo, are you there?
I'm an expert in taking away freedom.
No, you're an expert in documenting the taking away of freedoms.
Yes.
And we had a pretty big one taken away this last week.
Actually, you know, a lot of people have been freaking out over this whole FCC vote
where they basically said, you know, it's so unfair to these corporations to limit how many stations they can own
and how many newspapers they can own and things like that.
And in the interest of fairness, we're going to let them own everything.
You know, a lot of people are upset by that.
But I think the real damage was done back in, what was it, 1996 when deregulation pretty much, you know, came about
and Clear Channel started gobbling up everything in sight.
Now they own something like 1,200 radio stations throughout the country
and everyone's wondering why the same songs are being played everywhere and there's no choice and no diversity.
You know, I think the real damage has been done and this is just sort of icing on the cake.
And, you know, getting this reversed, you still haven't gotten the major part of it reversed and that needs to be done.
And maybe, okay, maybe now a door has opened.
Maybe people are seeing how bad this is.
I do see kind of a bipartisan effort to, you know, turn this around.
But it's got to go further than that.
You know, people have to get their hands on the air again.
The airwaves do belong to the public and, you know, that's something that seems to have been cast aside.
Yeah, you know, things are really messed up when Ted Turner and Trent Lott are against this.
Well, you know, Ted Turner actually I think is a bit of an idealist.
You know, he seems to, you know, believe in what it is he does.
I certainly don't agree with everything he does.
But I would be a lot more comfortable with, you know, him owning something like CNN than, say, Time Warner.
A lot more comfortable with that.
And I think, you know, there should be space for, you know, many, many people that have their own little mini broadcast empires, as it were.
Yeah, I mean, you are correct.
You know, a lot of damage was done years ago when they deregulated and allowed, you know, one company like Clear Channel to own 1,200 stations.
This also means, you know, maybe Pacifica could acquire 1,200 stations.
Wouldn't that be something?
Can you imagine 1,200 Pacifica radio stations throughout the country?
Okay, I know some people have fainted already.
Some people are just like rolling their eyes, having words.
Yeah, but imagine, okay, you might not, you know, believe everything that you hear on Pacifica.
You might not want to hear Pacifica all the time.
Imagine those of us who feel the same way about Clear Channel, how we feel, you know.
They're everywhere.
They broadcast their, you know, their music.
And that's really what it is, right, Laszlo?
I mean, if an artist can be made or broken by Clear Channel.
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, they are the Walmart of radio now.
They have such a stranglehold on whether artists make it.
It's unbelievable.
But even Walmart has a Kmart to compete, you know, compete against.
Well, sort of.
But who does Clear Channel have?
I don't know.
Kmart had Martha Stewart, but she's in trouble.
Yeah, it hasn't been a good day for her, has it?
But, oh well.
You know, this FCC ruling, it's kind of hard to wrap your head around
because some things you could say are good about it
and some things are just wrong for the public interest.
There is one good thing.
They did say that Fox can't buy CBS or NBC.
Well, were they going to buy Fox or CBS or NBC?
Well, I don't know, but they made a big firm stand
in saying that a major network cannot purchase another major network,
which would make you feel really good.
Didn't Fox buy UPN?
I don't know.
I think they did.
I think Fox owns UPN,
or at least has a majority share in it or something like that.
One of the other things that they ruled is that
now a newspaper can own a TV station and radio stations in the same market.
And so the word on the street is that newspaper publishing companies
are going to start buying TV stations
because they'll be able to just repurpose content.
They'll be able to take their stories, dumb them down,
get a talking head, and blah, blah, blah.
They did.
It's kind of funny watching.
Watching the radio's reaction to all this.
Mel Carmesan, if you know who he is, he's the head of Viacom.
He said that the ruling actually infringes on our First Amendment rights.
That's the First Amendment rights of Viacom.
They think that the rules should be expanded
and they should be able to own more radio stations.
Well, Bernie has sent us a couple of quotes about this,
and I think they're pretty apropos.
This is Senator Conrad Burns, Republican of Montana,
several years ago talking about the idea
that the government should open the FM broadcast band
to low-power community-based radio.
His reaction to that?
I've had all the diversity I can stand.
And then Michael Powell, son of Colin Powell, the FCC chairman, said this.
The night after I was sworn in,
I waited for a visit from the angel of the public interest.
I waited all night, but she did not come.
The market is my religion, he said,
and I still have had no divine awakening,
and no one has issued me my public interest crystal ball.
I know some volunteers who would be happy
to bring the public interest crystal ball right down to him in D.C.,
and tell him what that entails,
because the FCC certainly has not fulfilled their obligation.
Not to say that everybody in the FCC agrees with Michael Powell.
The vote, I believe, was 3-2, Laszlo?
Yeah, that's correct.
In fact, the two Democrats that voted against this
were asking Congress for help in repealing it.
And I don't think that any legislation is going to make it through.
I mean, they can scream and yell about it,
but I don't think the House would pass anything
that would repeal this back to 35%.
I mean, one of the big things that did pass
is a broadcaster can own stations that reach 45% of citizens.
So one company can own 45% of what Americans see on TV.
But this is different than a network being able to reach, say, 98% of the people.
You know, a broadcast network.
Correct.
What is actually the difference in that?
The actual station as well as the content?
Well, yeah, it's owning stations and markets.
That's what's being opened up,
is actually owning stations in individual markets.
Individual stations are highly profitable.
And they want to be able to go in, one company,
go in and buy affiliates in all these different markets.
Affiliates, it's kind of like the car dealership model
where it's the guys that own the car dealership
versus the people that make the cars.
In a lot of situations, you have the NBC versus their affiliates.
So now we'll just cut the affiliates out
and just start buying those stations up
so you can run whatever you want.
Just to look at the Associated Press story on this vote that happened,
I believe it was on Monday, correct?
Was it Monday this vote took place?
Yes.
Okay.
Our actions will advance.
I love the revisionism here that Michael Powell has undertaken.
Our actions will advance our goals of diversity and localism.
He said the old restrictions were too outdated to survive legal challenges
and the FCC wrote rules to match the times.
The FCC said a single company can now own TV stations
that reach 45% of U.S. households instead of 35%.
The major networks want the cap eliminated
while smaller broadcasters said a higher cap
would allow the networks to gobble up stations
and take away local control of programming.
The FCC largely ended a ban on joint ownership of a newspaper
and a broadcast station in the same city.
The provision lifts all cross-ownership restrictions in markets
with nine or more TV stations.
Smaller markets would face some limits
and cross-ownership would be banned in markets
with three or fewer TV stations.
The agency also eased rules governing local TV ownership
so one company can own two television stations in more markets
and three stations in the largest cities,
such as New York and Los Angeles.
The FCC kept the ban on mergers among the four major TV networks,
ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox.
I guess that explains how Fox can own UPN
since UPN isn't considered a major TV network.
The more you dig into this order, the worse things get, said Michael Copps,
one of the commission's Democrats.
He said the changes empowers a new media elite
to control news and entertainment
and that is somebody from the FCC speaking there about that.
Fellow Democrat Jonathan Adelstein, also from the FCC,
said the changes are likely to damage the media landscape for decades to come.
They say the new rules mean a single company can own in one city
up to three TV stations, eight radio stations,
the cable TV system, cable TV stations,
and the only daily newspaper.
Well, gee whiz, I think it's a question of trust, don't you?
I mean, do you believe what these people have to say or not?
And if you believe them, then they should be the only source that you get.
I mean, the media is already a disaster in this country.
Yeah, but I mean, it's sort of like Pravda now.
It's like only one source of news, only one source of TV and radio.
If we keep this up, we can become Italy.
Yeah, well, Italy, the leader of Italy also owns most of the media.
Berlusconi, who's the prime minister of Italy, owns all the media,
so, you know, anyone running a campaign to nominate Rupert Murdoch.
Yeah, and, you know, unlike here, though, I think people are more up in arms over there.
I would guess that something's going to change there sooner than something's going to change here.
Well, they also have porn stars in government, don't they?
Yeah, they do, they do, and I think that adds something to the whole mix there.
As far as the challenge to this,
a bipartisan group of U.S. senators opposed to the television networks expanding their reach
expressed confidence they had the votes to roll back a rule adopted by the FCC on Monday.
You don't think that's true, Laszlo?
No, I don't think it's going to happen.
Well, okay.
We'll just have to wait and see, I guess, you know, see what happens as far as this goes.
Laszlo, tell us something about the radio world, you know, about how this has affected things in radio.
Well, I mean, radio has been a mess for five years anyway.
Radio stations now are basically like an MP3 player with an enormous antenna.
DJs are a thing of the past in a lot of markets, and, you know, it's getting watered down.
And I think listeners notice, so revenue drops, so they get more and more desperate for revenue,
and it's kind of this, like, continuous ugly cycle.
I personally know a lot of people that have worked in radio that finally just got out and gave up.
Aren't you one of them?
Well, no, actually I'm not.
I still have a nationally syndicated radio feature about technology.
Is it syndicated on Clear Channel too?
I am on some Clear Channel stations, which is kind of hysterical.
The other thing that's interesting about all this is kind of what Jelly B. Offer said,
is to fight the media, you've kind of got to become the media.
And I was driving in Brooklyn the other day, and I was listening to XM Satellite Radio, which airs The Technophile.
That's your show?
Yeah, and I was listening to CNN, and they were going through some mindless story,
and they said, we'll be back right after this.
And then it cut to me complaining about the CAPS system that they're installing at airports,
you know, that does a criminal background check when you check in for a plane.
Right, the new color code system.
Yeah, and I was like, wow, this is legit.
I'm on after CNN.
And it occurred to me, this is what Jelly B. Offer is talking about.
It's exactly what you've done, is have the radio show on BAI, the magazine,
is to start writing and talking to people about this kind of stuff.
Because if you kind of just surf the net and complain a lot, rather than make your voice heard,
I mean, write letters to local newspapers and cry out about this stuff.
It's the only way that anything's going to change.
Even a group of 15 people with picket signs outside an FCC office someplace,
that will get news crews down there.
That will get publicity.
That will get more people looking at what you have to say.
So don't think just because you can't get 10,000 people massing around something
that your voice doesn't matter.
It does.
People do pay attention to people who speak up.
And I think the trick that they've been pulling on us for all these years
is that so many people don't speak up.
Well, in this case, over 500,000 people emailed or sent postcards into the FCC,
and the overwhelming majority was against the changes.
And they obviously didn't pay too much attention to it.
Okay, but those 500,000 people are still out there someplace,
and they can still raise quite a fuss.
They can do all kinds of things locally and nationally.
And I think that's the next step that has to be taken here.
If you have a clear channel station or a station that's owned by other stations in your area,
you need to call up and complain about that
and let them know you're not happy with that situation.
I mean, I don't know.
Are we saying that a rollback to pre-1996 rules is what is needed?
Are we saying that we need better legislation as far as how these stations are governed
and how the voice of individuals can be heard over the airwaves?
We have to sort of decide what it is we want.
I mean, I can tell you what I want.
I think that there should be a station like WBAI in virtually every community,
every major city certainly,
and there should be a station like this that's reachable to people throughout the nation.
And where do these stations come from?
Well, I think as part of their public service,
companies like Clear Channel that own over 1,000 radio stations
should give something back to the community.
So if you have, say, seven radio stations in a city,
you give one of those back to the community
and open up the doors and have people do what they want,
have them organize their own station, a non-commercial station kind of like this.
And I think that's definitely mandated by the people.
And one of the arguments that people gave in support of these changes was,
well, you know, there used to be only three networks,
and now people have all kinds of news sources.
But I was looking at the ratings for cable TV during the war on Iraq,
and I'd never seen this in the ratings,
but the top ten shows that were watched for a week period were Fox News.
Yeah, yeah.
They had the top ten slots.
And it was like everybody was getting their information from Fox News.
Well, they're fair and balanced.
Yes, they are fair and balanced.
What, did I say a joke? Did I say something funny?
Fair and balanced. Fox, fair and balanced.
That's what they say on all the posters.
Yeah, I know. I see those at the train stations.
It says fair and balanced journalism.
And I would love to get a head count of how many of those people actually went to journalism school.
Yeah, well, that's something.
All right, well, Leslie, you want to stay on and take some phone calls a little later?
Sure.
Okay, great. What else do we have in the news?
Well, what color are we at now? We're still at orange?
Orange in the city, yellow for the nation.
I thought we were orange for the whole nation.
No, that changed.
No, it changed to orange, didn't it? From yellow to orange.
Since we've been on, they actually rolled it back.
Since two weeks ago, it went back to yellow. I missed a color.
Yes.
You're kidding me. Wow, how did that happen?
Well, it was probably raining. You didn't see it.
I'm paying attention to these things, too. Are you sure?
Yeah, it happened.
What, Leo's saying it happened? No, I'm really not sure.
All right, wait. How do we find out? No, no, no, no.
Look on the Internet. The Internet knows everything.
I don't trust the Internet. I don't trust the Internet.
Lazlo, hopefully we won't lose you here. We're going to try to make a phone call, okay?
Hang on. Got dial tone? All right.
Hold the phone, will you? Thank you.
Because we have to press these buttons really hard.
You know what number I'm calling.
Okay, now I enter my special code with the tone.
Okay, I'll mute that.
What's it called again, the alert color?
I'll figure it out.
The White House, how may I help you?
Yes, hi. I was hoping you could help me.
I need to know what color the alert system is at right now.
No, sir, the offices are closed right now.
We wouldn't have that information at the switchboard.
Do you know what color it is, though? Is it orange or yellow?
It would be on the website, sir. We don't have that information in front of us.
So you don't actually know yourself?
Not the switchboard, no, sir.
Okay. All right. Well, thanks anyway.
You've got to wonder, if the White House switchboard doesn't know what color it is,
why should I know what color it is?
Why should anybody know what color it is?
You just did that to feel better.
I didn't know what was going to happen.
John Ashcroft is on his way over.
I'm sure he is, but he's been trying to find this place for years.
Hasn't succeeded yet.
Okay, I'm going to have to believe you.
Okay, you pulled up a web page?
Threat advisory elevated.
Yeah, but you could have gone to like a Google cache or something.
It's possible.
Anything's possible with the Internet.
Information can be manipulated.
All right, yellow. So that changes everything, doesn't it?
What do we do now?
But not here. We're still orange in the city.
Well, I don't understand how the city can be a different color.
The whole thing.
You know what, Jeff? Prove that.
Prove that we're orange in the city.
Is there a site that says that?
Is there a number I can call to find out if we're orange?
Yeah, all right. You know what?
I'll be prepared next time.
I think we're yellow.
I think we're totally yellow in the city.
You can behave that way, too. That's fine.
All right. We can relax, but not that much.
Does New York City have a website?
NYC.NY.US?
Come over and look it up if you want. Feel free.
All right. So we're yellow.
I guess I feel safer then, right?
Sure. Don't feel too safe.
All right. So what else has happened in the last couple of weeks?
I've got all kinds of news stories here and letters from people who have written to us.
Oh, here's something on the alert system.
Arizona may ignore next orange alert.
Well, I can sort of see why.
This comes from the Arizona Republic.
Yeah, you're right. Look at this.
I didn't look at this first paragraph.
As the nation lurches from orange to yellow on the terror alert scale for the fourth time,
Arizona officials are considering not following the federal moves in the future.
It creates incredible problems, overtime, financial, functional, said Frank Navarette,
the state's homeland security director.
He's the homeland security director saying that.
It's not quite to the point where it creates havoc, but it's quite disruptive.
It creates incredible problems, but not havoc.
Apology accepted.
Navarette said that if a recommended security increase is based on threats specific to certain cities
or parts of the country, such as the coasts, Arizona might not need to implement the heightened level.
I believe that based upon our own intelligence of the mindset that we don't have to follow suit.
On the other hand, he said some specific locations within the state may be at orange,
even though the rest of the state and country is at yellow.
Right.
The designations are based on chatter about specific types of targets.
You know, what if they use sign language instead of this chatter, you know, to communicate what they're doing?
Or what if they just sort of use telepathy?
It's still communication.
The homeland security advisory system shall be binding on the executive branch
and suggested, although voluntary, to other levels of government and the private sector.
That's according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Officials in Charlotte, North Carolina, and its home county of Mecklenburg declined to go to orange
until the war in Iraq, according to reports in the Charlotte Observer.
It would not be the first time that Arizona asserted its independence from the pack.
The state also declines to move to daylight savings time years ago.
Independence, man. They're going to want that next.
Better believe it.
Oh, okay, so it's voluntary.
I say we make New York green again, you know?
I'm still waiting for some, either the whole country or some part of it, to be a color other than orange or yellow.
Yeah, like blue?
Blue, green, red.
Red, yeah.
Well, you won't hear about it from us if it's red.
Does that mean, though, that somebody, I mean, who is it that declared New York to be orange?
It wasn't the Department of Homeland Security. It was something local.
I believe, I thought it was the Department of Homeland Security.
How could they declare something local?
Because they basically base it on that chatter.
You know, they basically realized that there are targets that were considered.
Well, I mean, what I'm saying is if—
But it was the Memorial Day weekend.
If locally, if locally, a city can opt to stay yellow,
couldn't a city locally also opt to go to red if they feel like it?
Why not?
I mean, you know, there must be one of these insane towns out someplace with about, you know,
13 people that live there where they can do this.
They can say, we're going to be red, or we're going to be green, you know?
And all these places that are objecting, that are saying that we're going to prosecute people
who enforce the Patriot Act, which I think is great,
they ought to do this, too, just to show how stupid this system is.
It really is a stupid system.
I think there are some places in Oregon that are operating as if it were red.
They're constantly armed and ready.
Well, you know, walk around the streets of New York.
You'll see, you know, troops walking around now.
But they've changed from camouflage to the blue, and they're not carrying the guns.
Well, they're in the laundry.
No, they are carrying the guns.
Not in front of the bank up the street.
I just walk by.
I check every time I come.
Okay, but that's one block.
That's one block.
Go by Grand Central Station.
Go by, we were driving around Chinatown one night, and three different occasions,
we saw about maybe six or seven soldiers with a cop in tow.
Or maybe the cop was leading.
I'm not sure.
But they were just sort of, like, walking down the street.
It looked really creepy.
You know, like the city was under occupation.
I don't know what they were looking for in Chinatown, but I don't think they found it.
What did you find here?
It's the New York State website, which is state.elevated.
Okay.
The United States is currently at elevated.
New York State is currently at elevated.
New York City is currently at high.
Now, the weird thing is New York City's website is nyc.gov,
which must be the only city with a .gov domain.
But what does it say?
It's like a tourist information website.
Okay.
Tourism.
Man, who's thinking about tourism in a time like this?
Okay.
Any other stories we need to talk about before we open up to the first?
Wait.
So if we're at orange all the time, then New York City shouldn't change
when the rest of the country goes to orange, right?
Right.
Yeah.
We didn't, I don't think.
We didn't go to red.
We stayed orange.
We stayed orange.
Right.
So any extra paranoia is unjustified just because the rest of the country changes.
Weren't we yellow at one point?
Because I do remember the soldiers in Grand Central without guns.
Yeah, but I think we were orange.
They just didn't have guns.
We weren't orange plus.
Either they didn't have guns or they didn't have them in hand.
Yeah.
When the National Guard first showed up in the streets of New York,
they did not have guns, and that changed.
I don't know when that changed.
It changed very subtly and quietly, but it definitely did change.
Now, maybe after the show we can go wandering around
and see if these people are armed,
and if we were really daring, see if the guns are actually loaded.
But I don't know.
I don't know if they've ever been fired.
I don't know if anything has actually occurred with these people.
I'd love to hear from listeners who might have heard something else.
But, again, there's a lot of controversy about this.
It definitely reminds me of when I was in a Middle Eastern country
and they were rebuilding from a civil war.
It looks exactly the same.
Yeah.
Imagine if there was actually something like a civil war around here.
What kind of armaments you'd be up against.
Unbelievable.
Yes.
There's a weird new, these new anti-terrorist rules,
anti-terror rules coming into effect in New York City,
where the Staten Island Ferry, when you go there in June 2004,
you'll have to walk through a metal detector and a bunch of other weird things.
Why are they warning us a year in advance?
Because if you ever go on the Staten Island Ferry,
when the doors open up, 2,000 people just walk right in
and the ferry leaves two minutes later.
With these rules in effect,
getting on the ferry will now take about probably over an hour for each person.
That's insane. That's totally insane.
There are so many places you can walk through with a crowd of people.
Say a mall, for instance.
Thousands of people can walk into a mall
and one of them could have a pipe bomb strapped to them.
Are they going to put metal detectors in front of malls now?
Where do you stop?
Well, that's the weird thing.
These rules do not apply to the subway.
Only to the ferry.
The day I have to go through a metal detector to get into the subway,
that's when I buy my tickets to Europe one way.
Cash, too. Why not?
Just to drive them nuts.
Probably swim faster than waiting the hour.
All right. What's our phone number again? It's been so long.
212-209...
2-900.
2-900. Thank you. It's been so long.
I wish we were on the air last week.
We could have told people about the FCC thing before it happened.
It would have done a bit of good,
but still, it would have been kind of nice to get BIA listeners totally angry about this.
But what are you going to do?
Any comments, Laszlo, on any of this?
I'm currently at Blue.
You're at Blue? Okay.
Yes.
All right. Well, hopefully you'll be happy at Blue.
I think it's because he's a summer, so that works for him.
All right. Let's take some phone calls,
and hopefully we won't lose Laszlo on the way.
And good evening. You're on Off The Hook?
Yeah. Hi. Emmanuel?
How are you doing?
Good. Yourself?
I'm okay.
You know, a little worried about things, but other than that, I'm fine.
I'll let you worry for the rest of us.
Okay.
Can you use any beta tapes?
Beta...
You mean personally, can I use any beta tapes?
Yeah.
While you're getting rid of some?
Yeah.
Lots. You know, the new ones, like the real excellent quality that...
Is this Beta SP or Consumer Beta?
It says Beta BCT-30K.
Uh-huh. These are for, like, the old consumer decks from back in the 80s and things?
Yeah.
Okay. How many do you have?
A few dozen.
A few dozen.
I would imagine someone at 2600 might be interested in that,
at the 2600 meeting or something.
You might want to come by...
Okay.
...on Friday.
Okay.
You know where it is?
Yeah.
At the Citicorp Center or Citigroup Center, and just bring them with you.
I guarantee somebody will take them.
Okay.
All right?
Will do.
All right. Thanks.
Thanks.
Might be the security guard that takes them, but, you know, somebody's going to take them.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Yes. I'd like to mention about the FCC ruling.
Now, you see...
Okay. Go ahead. Mention something.
It's on topic.
It's going to be quick.
It's on topic, but I have an issue here, Rebel. I have an issue.
Okay. You can talk about your issue after I talk.
Oh, how nice. Thank you.
Thank you for giving me the permission to talk about my issue.
All right. FCC ruling is going to make it more...
No. I've got to talk about my issue now.
Rebel, you recruited me for the Army Reserves.
Do you know that?
And I know it was you, so don't bother trying to deny it, because I got...
I called the staff sergeant after they called me 5 million times,
and I asked for a description of the person who said they were me,
and they described you to a T.
Now, you have two ways to go here, Rebel.
You can explain why you did this, or you can deny doing it and be forever banished from the radio program.
So it's your choice now to either explain to us why you felt it was necessary to recruit me for the Army Reserves,
or just deny it even though I know it was you, and then I can never trust you again.
So what's it going to be?
After I mention about the FCC ruling...
No, no, no, no, no. Rebel, you must do this first.
You must do this first.
Okay. All right. Well, I guess I'll do it backwards then.
You do everything else backwards. Do this backwards. Go ahead.
Um, the, um, let's see.
Go on. Tell us why. That's all we want to know.
Um, when you go into a store, it says, we support our troops,
and if the employee doesn't put that there, they get fired.
What does that have to do with me being volunteered against my will for the Army Reserves?
I'll tell you what. You think about that, all right?
And we'll talk to you at a future time, and maybe you'll have an answer.
But that's all we're going to talk to you about.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Oh, hey. How are you guys doing?
I'm doing good.
Um, I did want to ask a question, actually, to your friend, I forgot his name, who's on the phone.
Laszlo.
Laszlo. He works for XM.
The dream would be that XM would become so popular that, you know,
these big, giant ClearCom corporations would have to shed these, you know, terrestrial stations.
Do you think that's possible?
And I'm going to hang up the phone, and, you know, you guys can talk if you know what I'm talking about.
Are you asking if it's possible that satellite radio will become so popular
that terrestrial stations will have to be shut down?
No, that they would actually, that like a, you know, ClearCom or Clear Channel would, you know,
let them go back to the public because they'd be losing revenue on those stations
because they'd be losing listenership.
Well, it's possible, but it's quite inexpensive to run a radio station now.
I mean, what's interesting to me is in this economy, which is a disaster,
these FCC rulings allow more consolidation, which means more people are getting fired.
But satellite radio, to me, and I'm not just saying this because I'm on it occasionally,
is kind of an answer to, for people that are upset at what radio has turned into.
That being said, satellite radio is still not the answer, especially since you have to pay money for it.
And especially since it's owned by General Motors, DirecTV, and...
And Clear Channel.
And Clear Channel.
Yeah, exactly. They're all in there.
But, you know, it's like saying that a CD player is the answer to the problems of radio.
It's not radio. It's not the same thing. In fact, they're forbidden from doing anything local.
It doesn't replace local radio. It's just another way of listening to music or something.
So do you think it's possible that there would be a Pacifica on, say...
Well, that's my major problem with XM.
How does Pacifica, how does a local station like BAI or FMU or a station like that,
how do they get onto this particular thing?
Do they have to be part of it? Do they have to be owned by it?
Do they have to pay them a huge amount for the privilege of reaching people?
It's no longer airwaves that are open to the public.
You have to pay this corporation for the right to use their equipment.
I will use XM when it becomes open to the public, like the radio waves are supposed to be.
Yeah, I've actually spoken to the guys at XM about putting Pacifica on there
because Sirius, which is the competition, simulcast NPR,
which is kind of ridiculous considering that you can be in a cave in the middle of Minnesota
and there's a repeater for NPR.
That's true.
What did they say when you talked to them about Pacifica?
Oh, they were interested in it.
Really?
Yeah, but see, here's the other funny thing about satellite radio.
The first people that are into it are truck drivers
because they want something to listen to besides static,
which is a lot of what they get while they're on the road.
Right.
Hey guys, I'm going to hang up.
Okay.
So they have a pretty conservative initial early adopter core audience.
Well, where is it written that truck drivers have to be conservative?
I'm not saying they are, but all I know is I've said a few things
that have received emails from truck drivers asking to meet me at a truck stop
so they could beat me senseless.
Well, in my experience, truck drivers, there are some that are like that,
just like there are some in any group that are like that,
but I think they're as diverse as almost anyone else.
But how are you going to ever find that out unless you start programming something different?
There are a couple of liberal programs on AM that you can hear occasionally,
and they get good response as well as bad response.
I just think the people who are on the conservative side tend to speak louder
and more insistently, and they give the impression that there are more of them.
I don't think it's really that cut and dry.
No, I mean, it's not the case.
If you look at the number of people combined that voted for Gore and Nader,
I mean, it's the majority of people in the United States.
So clearly there's a minority that's conservative that is—
The majority of those that bothered to vote.
Yeah, there's a lot of people not voting at all.
But, you know, is that a reason not to program something
because they're afraid they're going to get people upset?
A good radio is when you get people upset, when you get people thinking
and reaching for the phone and calling in and spouting their various views.
That's what radio should be about, not just calling to say you agree.
Well, a lot of people enjoy television and radio that they can nod their head to
because it's safe and it's simple.
A lot of people do, but a lot of people also enjoy things that make them think.
And that's what we seem to have a real lack of in this country
on both television and radio, programming that makes you think,
makes you angry or happy or, you know, just makes you question your own value system.
You know, I think despite these rules, there needs to be more enforcement
of rules for public service campaigns.
I was talking to Bernie about this this week,
and if you remember radio and television a few years ago,
you used to see public service announcements,
you used to hear actual coverage of political events.
There'll be a debate now, and hardly any network covers it.
And I think more than the ownership, I mean, regardless of the ownership,
if you had laws that were enforced that said that political conventions had to be covered,
debates have to be covered, there has to be X amount of public service broadcasting,
but every radio station I've ever worked at does all their public service stuff
between 5 and 7 o'clock on Sunday morning, when nobody's listening.
I happen to be listening then, though. That's a funny thing.
I'm tuning up and down the dial hearing all these programs,
and it's almost like they are serving the public then.
Well, that's because that's right before you go to bed, because you're a bat.
Well, well before then, anyway.
Okay.
But, you know, it's interesting. I think it also affects the way that these things work.
For instance, I think our government system, the way the Senate, the way the House works,
it's boring. I think, you know, there's not enough conflict, there's not enough argument.
And I look at other countries. I look at England, I look at Canada,
I look at, you know, almost every other country seems to have direct debate,
seems to have people, you know, jumping up and down on the floor
and really passionate about what it is they believe in.
I watched something the other night on one of my Canadian channels from British Columbia
that basically it showed the British Columbia house or whatever they call it over there,
and these people were really like at each other's throats.
I had no idea what they were talking about, but they were passionate about some local issue.
And you had all kinds of diversity up there.
You had people in turbans with Indian accents who were elected representatives.
I can't imagine that here.
You had people representing all different kinds of communities,
and they were all, you know, arguing about this one issue.
It was fascinating to watch. It really was.
It got me interested in something that I, you know, absolutely had no, you know, knowledge of.
And that kind of thing is covered there.
That kind of thing is encouraged there, and I think it leads to more debate, more dialogue.
And here I think we just sort of, you know, we kind of avoid that.
We kind of avoid talking about anything that might be controversial.
We just want to hear our music.
We just want to, you know, get through the day and, you know, stay at condition yellow
and not have any controversy.
And more people can name the two finalists on American Idol than can name their senator.
Exactly, or even their state capital or another state's capital or another state, you know.
All these things that we just kind of encourage not to know about.
And, you know, I'm not sure how it works up in Canada as far as broadcasting,
but I don't think they have the problem of, you know, a particular company owning a huge amount.
I know there are companies that own stations that have affiliates, but it's different up there.
What goes on is that imagine the Fox station here in New York being able to cancel a program
that is not canceled in, say, Philadelphia or Los Angeles.
You know, they have more autonomy.
They're able to do things on a local level.
They start their own mini-networks.
For instance, there would be like a New York network, a New York network of TV stations
that air their own programs and, you know, have their own way of doing things.
It's completely different than the way New Jersey does it, you know.
We don't do things like that here.
The Canadian newspaper industry, on the other hand, is incredibly consolidated
in the hands of one company whose name I forget.
But this one company owns all or substantially all of the major daily papers in Canada
with the predictable homogenization of viewpoints on the editorial pages and so on of those papers.
Now, do they have as few daily papers as we do?
Are they experiencing a death of that?
I'm not sure of the details.
Maybe one of our Canadian listeners can fill us in on that.
We have mail from a Canadian listener here.
I just started listening to Off the Hook from the 2600 site archives.
I love the cause and the information that is discussed.
I would pledge money, but my dad said no.
Oh, boy. I wish I could listen to it.
I wish I could listen to it live on a radio out here in Alberta.
Well, I understand we're broadcast on shortwave as well.
So what's the frequency of that?
7415.
7415.
WBCQ.
That's a station out of Maine, I believe.
That reaches most of North America and I think some of South America, too.
So if you have a shortwave radio, you can listen to us live in that manner.
I have been on the hack freak scene for almost a year now,
and your show is a great source of information.
If my school hadn't blocked most of the sites that are inappropriate,
I would have been to 2600 a long time ago.
Well, that's great to hear.
And, of course, a lot of people from Tofield, Alberta, Canada,
a lot of people have 2600 blocked at their schools and libraries and things like that.
But, you know, a lot of times all you have to do is ask them to unblock it
and sometimes that will work.
Maybe he can work a deal with his dad where he'll cut the grass
and then he can pledge next time.
Do they get grass in Alberta?
Sure.
All right, I'll take another phone call.
And good evening. You're on the air.
Yes, good evening.
How are you doing?
All right, Manuel and your guests and so forth, all of the listeners.
You know, I was down at the Drop the Rock rally,
and it was a big turnout, so that's good.
The point is this, that I brought up on Al Lewis' program about a year ago.
Okay, listen, this is about this program.
You always talk about different programs.
You were talking about controversial radio,
and I was cut off by Al Lewis.
He said, is that the only thing you have on your mind?
Okay, promise me this.
You're going to call Al Lewis and tell him that I cut you off, okay?
That's what we call cross-promotion.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Every year, it's the same thing with him.
Since the 80s, this guy's been calling up,
complaining about other shows on this station.
Go ahead. You're on the air.
Yes, good evening.
I wanted to get your comments on the lack of privacy
and the special cookie that Google uses to track your URL requests
and also suggest that people consider using allthereweb.com to do searches.
Another comment on the mention of the armed troops patrolling our streets and subways
and whether anybody has gone up to one of them and asked them a question
regarding if they were given an order that violated the Constitution,
would they arrest the officer that gave an illegal order?
I don't know anybody who's gotten them to speak.
Oh, really?
I don't know if they're permitted to speak,
but that's a very interesting question.
Do they have any actual conscience themselves?
They come from the community. They must have something.
I saw one guy talking to a girl one day down at Penn Station.
Really?
Yes.
He was impressing her with his armaments.
Shedding her right up.
I've seen soldiers hitting on women at Penn Station as well.
Really?
Yes.
That's a very frightening thought.
Wow.
Not hitting them, but…
No, no.
Wow.
Well, I know they have keys to those little utility closets in the subway.
I saw one of them opening a door to one of those little rooms,
and I don't know what he was doing in there.
But the fact that they have keys inside the subway system
makes me wonder what's going on in there.
Maybe they store their machine guns inside utility closets,
which would be phenomenally stupid.
But that's interesting.
I don't know much about the Google thing.
Does anybody here have information about that?
There's a cookie that lasts until 2038.
It's the only cookie like it.
And it tracks everything and sends every URL you look for
back to their server with that cookie, which is machine-specific.
So I've been using All the Web.
I've stopped using Google.
The other one is All the Web?
Yes.
Alltheweb.com?
Yes.
Okay, well, we'll look into that.
All right.
That was the president of All the Web.
Thank you, sir.
Mike, you're holding your head as if it's in pain.
Is there a problem with that particular scenario that Google is watching?
Well, you can block the cookie.
How do you block the cookie?
It's easy in Mozilla.
It may not be so easy in other web browsers.
What's easy in Mozilla is stopping those pop-under ads.
I realize because my Mozilla crashed the other day and I had to reinstall it,
but there was a period of time where I had to use Explorer in the meantime
while I was waiting to fix Mozilla.
And every site I went to had pop-under ads.
I just could not believe how many of those ads that were coming across
are blocked by Mozilla because there's a little checkbox there to say,
you know, stop unauthorized window opening.
It might not be Mozilla's fault because there's also spyware that just. . .
Well, nothing is Mozilla's fault.
I like Mozilla for that.
That's my point.
I mean, some of Mozilla's might not be the one that's blocking it.
I mean, there's spyware that when you launch. . .
Listen, listen, listen.
I checked the box on Mozilla.
It stopped happening.
I think Mozilla's doing it.
I don't know.
I unchecked the box.
It'll happen again.
Are there different types of spyware that just pop up when you run Internet Explorer,
make like different ads pop up?
Okay.
Should I do the DVD thing or?
Yeah, do the DVD thing real quick.
Okay, there's a website called. . .
Let's see.
It's called nerd-out.com.
And what they do is they have listings of DVD players
and how to disable regional coding on them and macro vision.
Now, why you want to disable regional coding
because DVDs from different countries. . .
What's the website again?
nerd-out.com.
nerd-out.com?
Uh-huh.
All right.
They got a forum and a couple of other things on the site.
Okay.
I see Apex info pages and all kinds of things about how to fix your DVD player.
Yeah, and they got some good ones.
I just want to mention one of them.
Mention one of them.
It's the Digix Media DV-288 player, which sells for like $45.
DVD player sells for $45?
Mm-hmm.
And ShopRite, which is a supermarket.
So that's also very weird.
That is weird.
Although I haven't seen a ShopRite in a long time, but never mind.
Basically, you want to get the one, not the Q1 2003 version,
of the DV-288 Digix Media DVD player.
Uh-huh.
There's new units and old units.
The new units have a serial number that begins with DV-288,
and you open up the disk tray and push the following buttons on the remote control.
Okay, everyone pay attention now.
1, 3, 6, 9, 8, 8, 8, 8.
Then a new menu item will appear,
and you can go there and change the regional settings.
Do you have to do this every single time?
Do you want to watch a DVD or change it forever?
No, this is actually forever, but you can always change it back.
And on the older version, which is marked in the serial number with the letter YE,
you open up the disk tray and push the following buttons on the remote control.
20110.
The words Set OK should appear on the screen, and the player should be region-free.
Okay.
Well, and again, that site is nerd-out.com,
and you can find all kinds of ways.
You know, I'm noticing a lot of people, a lot of DVDs are coming out that say region is all.
You know, it's no region coding existing on it, which I think is a great thing.
And the region-free DVD players are getting easier to find.
There's even a store in New York that sells them openly.
In fact, I imagine there are several stores that do that.
So hopefully this whole region-coding nonsense won't be a thing of the past.
It is fun, though, when you go out of the country to actually buy DVDs from other regions
just to bring them home and play them.
Yeah, yeah, things you never would have bought ordinarily.
Exactly.
Someone's profiting from that, you know.
There are also a couple of websites that you can buy devices that have been released in Japan
that have not been released here, because, you know, Japan gets all the cool stuff first.
That's true.
Sometimes they get all the cool stuff, period, and we never get it.
Let's take another phone call.
Good evening. You're on Off The Hook.
Oh, golly, I didn't think I'd ever get on.
Well, you did.
Okay. I'm calling because I always wanted to know why it's so easy for all these big companies,
media companies, to be able to purchase all the stations that they do have.
Is it that someone makes an offer that they can't refuse?
How does it work, Laszlo?
Duckets.
Dinero.
Cash, yeah.
Yeah, I guess money talks.
They sell their souls when they do things like that.
They say money is more important than a great.
Well, you know, something about radio, and of course Pacifica is a big exception to this,
but unlike any other business, figuring something new out, doing something in a different way,
that's taboo. You don't do that. You do it like everybody else does it.
You program a radio station like every radio station in the country.
You don't take chances. You don't try doing it a different way.
You don't play music that no one else is playing.
And as a result, you have this sound that simply is the same,
no matter what part of the country you're in, and it's not exciting at all.
So there's no imagination.
So I imagine that's why they would sell to the highest bidder without any thought whatsoever.
Well, they do want to control the entire planet.
By control of the media, you're able to do all sorts of manipulations.
Yeah, I mean, look at what's been going on with the war stuff.
Clear Channel was leading demonstrations for the war,
even though probably most of their listeners were against the war, I would imagine.
But still, you would never hear about that.
You wouldn't hear the news saying certain things are going on if they didn't approve of it.
You wouldn't hear certain artists if they didn't pay them a certain amount to be played on their radio stations.
And also, Clear Channel runs concert venues, so they're controlling a lot.
Do you find it amazing that Michael Powell said the other day that
we started investigating this 16 months ago,
yet this has just come out in the last two months on the radio here?
If it was 16 months ago that they started this, this should have been out in the open
and people would have been prepared with a fight against the takeover by all the media.
And how would they have found out? Through radio?
Yeah, but it's like 16 months he said we started this.
But I mean, there's a reason why this news hasn't been spread around except on stations like BAI,
because it's not in the interest of those stations to let people know about this.
Right, but even WBAI didn't start saying anything until about two months ago.
And that was surprising because I listen religiously to your radio
and I just didn't hear anything about it.
Well, I guess that simply indicates that we need more help.
We need more people out there investigating and giving us stories and working here.
I'm sure also that you know about Cisnero owning all the media in Venezuela and Conrad Black.
Have you ever heard of him?
Actually, no.
He's like the big, big, big cheese who owns practically everything
and no one ever hears about him, but I shouldn't say no one,
but that people do know about this individual.
This is in Venezuela?
It could be Canada and UK where he owns it or else controls all the big cheeses in all the countries.
Interesting.
He calls all the shots.
Conrad Black, eh?
Conrad Black is his name.
And also another thing, I think there is a gag order at WBAI to speak about the Illuminati
because they are the ones who are calling all the shots.
They are the Illuminati Zionist Judeo-Messianic Babylonian brother of the Python that comes right out of Shuma.
Well, that was one hell of a merger there.
Yeah, that's a big secret society and the Illuminati are the ones at the top of the pyramid
and they control the ones below them who control the ones below them.
It's all a pyramidal effect, you see, but they always put people in positions of power
and they never lose those positions.
If they get found out, they just get boosted up to another higher rank.
Remember the movie Z, way back in 69?
Wow.
You know?
Wow, indeed.
I think the Masons are running WBAI.
Yes, well, who do you think the Freemasons are?
The continuation of the Knights Templars.
Okay, you know what?
This is getting too weird for me.
I just want to get one more phone call in here, but thanks for that call and good Lord.
I mean, you know, we were having a good discussion there and all of a sudden we were into all kinds of Illuminati conspiracy things.
What happened there?
We're not supposed to talk about that.
I need a drink is what I need.
Let's take one more phone call.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Go ahead.
Hi.
Yeah, you sound like you're coming from a different planet.
I'm calling from the wireless center here and it's in reference to your cell phone.
No, no, no.
Yeah, I'm sorry too.
Let's take one more phone call.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Go ahead.
How you doing?
Okay, make it quick.
Yeah, a couple things on that comment on Michael Powell.
I understand there were a half a dozen public meetings that the FCC had and he didn't attend any of them, the meetings.
And he also resisted calls for more discussion and a later vote on this, which might have actually changed things.
That's true.
Very true.
Listen, sir, we're out of time.
Sorry we had to cut you off.
Okay, thanks.
But call in next week and we'll talk some more.
Thanks everybody for taking part in this.
We'll be back again next week, another exciting edition of Off the Hook.
Come to the meetings this Friday all around the world.
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Ah, yes.
WBAI New York 99.5 FM.
Yes, that was a great show.
I always listen to it.
And stay tuned for the amazing personal computer show coming up next.
And today, right away, right now.
Wednesday, 2 p.m.
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