The Cosmic Curator 11/11/23: Let Go

Good Morning, People! This is your cosmic curator, Tom Yaroschuk, with a look at the stars for the week of November 11th and the days ahead.

Well folks, it is Veteran’s Day, a most solemn day. So let’s not forget to honor the service and sacrifice of our men and women in the armed forces…

About the Host:
Tom Yaroschuk is a Vedic Astrologer. His intention is to help people understand their karma and the issues they may confront to cultivate more fulfilling lives. Tom is writing a memoir of the spiritual lessons derived from his work in a Homeless Day Center in between a career as an award winning television and documentary producer.

Let’s Talk About It 11/10/23: Man Growing Up With a Violent Father

Producer/Host: Patrisha McLean
Production Assistance:
Tammy Oropesa
Music:
Jackie Lee McLean

Let’s Talk About It: Conversations with Survivors of Domestic Abuse

Guests:
Commissioner of Corrections, Randall Liberty

Topics include: 
How growing up with a violent father impacts boys and men.

About the host:
Patrisha McLean is the founder/president of Finding Our Voices, the grass roots survivor-powered non profit organization breaking the silence of domestic abuse one conversation and community at a time all across Maine.

Around Town 11/10/23: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

Guest: Matt Murphy, WERU General Manager

About the host:
Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

Theme music: BreakBeat Chemists I, 2015
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License

Common Ground Radio 11/9/23: Beekeeping in Maine

Host: Caitlyn Barker
Editor: Clare Boland

Common Ground Radio is an hour-long discussion of local food and organic agriculture with people here in the state of Maine and beyond.

This month:

Beginner beekeeping strategies, winter beekeeping in cold climates, pest control, resources for beekeepers, climate change and how it impacts beekeeping.

Guest/s:
Peter Cowin
Amy Nickerson

FMI Links:
Upcoming beekeeping workshop: www.beekeeping247.com/beginner-beekeeping-workshop-nov-2023
Beekeeping 24/7 website: www.beekeeping247.com/
The Bee Whisperer Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/thebeewhispererandthequeenbee

About the hosts:
Holli Cederholm has been involved in organic agriculture since 2005 when she first apprenticed on a small farm. She has worked on organic farms in Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Scotland and Italy and, in 2010, founded a small farm focused on celebrating open-pollinated and heirloom vegetables. As the former manager of a national nonprofit dedicated to organic seed growers, she authored a peer-reviewed handbook on GMO avoidance strategies for seed growers. Holli has also been a steward at Forest Farm, the iconic homestead of “The Good Life” authors Helen and Scott Nearing; a host of “The Farm Report” on Heritage Radio Network; and a long-time contributor for The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener, which she now edits in her role as content creator and editor at MOFGA.

Caitlyn Barker has worked in education and organic agriculture on and off for the last 17 years. She has worked on an organic vegetable farm, served on the Maine Farm to School network, worked in early childhood education and taught elementary school. She currently serves as the community engagement coordinator for MOFGA.

Justice Radio 11/9/23: Are Prisons the Answer? RJ Responses to Sexual Harm

Host/s: Leo Hylton
Production Coordinator: Daria Cullen
Other credits: TECHNICAL SUPPORT – Lucas Brown and Sarah Johnson | MUSIC – Samuel James
Justice Radio is a WMPG production

Justice Radio: Tackling the hard questions about our criminal legal system in Maine.

This week: Leo Hylton and special guests Carlee McCollow, a clinically informed Restorative practices facilitator, and Kage Johnson, Youth Justice Liaison and Sexual Harm Response Design Lead at Restorative Justice Institute of Maine, talk about restorative justice responses to sexual harm, what brought them to this work, what services and supports currently exist, and what they would like to see in the future.

Guest/s:
Carlee McCollow, Restorative practices facilitator
Kage Johnson, Youth Justice Liaison and Sexual Harm Response Design Lead at Restorative Justice Institute of Maine

FMI:
www.rjimaine.org/staff
www.linkedin.com/in/carly-mccollow/

About the hosts:
The Justice Radio team includes:

Leo Hylton is currently incarcerated at Maine State Prison, yet is a recent Master’s graduate, a columnist with The Bollard, a restorative and transformative justice advocate and activist, a prison abolitionist, and a Visiting Instructor at Colby College’s Anthropology Department, co-teaching AY346 – Carcerality and Abolition.

Catherine Besteman is an abolitionist educator at Colby College. Her research and practice engage the public humanities to explore abolitionist possibilities in Maine. In addition to coordinating Freedom & Captivity, she has researched and published on security, militarism, displacement, and community-based activism with a focus on Somalia, post-apartheid South Africa, and the U.S. She has published nine books, contributed to the International Panel on Exiting Violence, and received recent fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations.

MacKenzie Kelley is a formerly incarcerated woman in long term recovery. She is a teachers assistant for inside-out courses through MIT. MacKenzie works at the Maine Prisoner Reentry Center as a reentry specialist, peer support and recovery coach. She is the program director for Reentry Sisters, a program designed to assist women reentering the community from prison.

Zoe Brokos (she/her) is the executive director of the Church of Safe Injection, a comprehensive harm reduction program that operates in Southern and Central Maine. Zoe is a person who uses drugs, a mom, a wife, and has led harm reduction programs in Maine for 15 years. She is part of the Maine Drug Policy Coalition, sits on the board of Decriminalize Maine and joined Justice Radio to promote compassionate conversations and drug user-led advocacy efforts that focus on evidence-based, public health responses to the housing and overdose crises in Maine.

Marion Anderson: Before joining The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls in January of 2022, Marion worked as a harm reductionist, housing navigator, certified intentional peer support specialist, CCAR recovery coach, and a re-entry coach for a diverse range of non-profit organizations.

Charlotte Warren is a former State Representative. She served on the Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee for eight years – six as the house chair. Warren previously served on the Judiciary Committee and as the house chair of Maine’s Mental Health Working Group and the house chair of the Commission to Examine Reestablishing Parole. Previous to her time in the legislature, Charlotte served as Mayor of the city of Hallowell.

Linda Small is the founder and executive director of Reentry Sisters, a reentry support organization specializing in a gender-responsive and trauma-informed approach for women, serving Maine and beyond. She is a Project Coordinator for the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition. Linda serves on the Maine Prison Education Partnership board at UMA and the New England Commission for the Future of Higher Education in Prison through The Educational Justice Institute at MIT.

Around Town 11/9/23: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

Guest: Lisa Savage

UPDATE 12/7/23: WERU received the following corrections from a spokesperson for bluShift Aerospace:

“A few corrections to your program: Sascha Deri grew up in Orland, Maine, the back yard of WERU (not Massachusetts as stated by Savage) He actually had to leave Maine in order to find work and brought his business here intentionally as a way to create local jobs. Also, bluShift’s rockets are between 20 and 80 feet long — much smaller than rockets used to carry heavy payloads into space. They run on non-toxic biofuels and will carry small satellites known as cubesats into low orbits around Earth. The noise associated with bluShift launches would be no greater than the typical foghorn on the coast of Maine and would last for only six seconds at a time.”

About the host:
Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

Theme music: BreakBeat Chemists I, 2015
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License

Talk of the Towns 11/8/23: Elected: What Is It Like to Serve as a Member of Local Town Government

Producer/Hosts: Ron Beard and Liz Graves
Theme music for Talk of the Towns Theme music for Talk of the Towns is a medley from Coronach, on a Balnain House Highland Music recording.

Talk of the Towns: Local Community concerns and opportunities

This month:
– What are some of the differences and commonalities of these forms of governing: selectboards, town and city councils?
– What motivated our guests to seek an elected position in their community, what do they find satisfying about that role, what are some of the challenges?
– What are some of the issues and concerns in Belfast, Blue Hill and Bar Harbor, and what is the role of elected officials in dealing with them?
– How does what used to be known as “common civility” play out in your community… how does your selectboard or council manage dialogue with citizens? Have you any techniques or projects that have improved public discourse?

Guest/s:
Jill Goldthwait, former Council Member, Town of Bar Harbor
Eric Sanders, Mayor, City of Belfast
Jim Dow, Selectboard member, Town of Blue Hill

FMI: 
www.cityofbelfast.org
bluehillme.gov
www.barharbormaine.gov

About the hosts:

Ron Beard is producer and host of Talk of the Towns, which first aired on WERU in 1993 as part of his community building work as an Extension professor with University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Sea Grant. He took all the journalism courses he could fit in while an undergraduate student in wildlife management and served as an intern with Maine Public Television nightly newscast in the early 1970s. Ron is an adjunct faculty member at College of the Atlantic, teaching courses on community development. Ron served on the Bar Harbor Town Council for six years and is currently board chair for the Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor, where he has lived since 1975. Look for him on the Allagash River in June, and whenever he can get away, in the highlands of Scotland where he was fortunate to spend two sabbaticals.

Liz Graves joined Talk of the Towns as co-producer and co-host in July 2022, having long admired public affairs programming on WERU and dreamed of getting involved in community radio. She works as the Town Clerk for the Town of Bar Harbor, and is a former editor of the Mount Desert Islander weekly newspaper. Liz grew up in California and came to Maine as a schooner sailor.

Around Town 11/8/23: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

FMI:

LD1111 Work Session: legislature.maine.gov/billtracker/#Paper/1111?legislature=131
 
 
“CRISIS IN MIDDLE EAST: AN UPDATE ON ISRAEL, PALESTINE, AND THE KEY ISSUES” with Alex Grab, Professor Emeritus of History, The University of Maine
 The program in the Bangor Room is scheduled for 12:30-1:45 and will probably continue until 2:00 p.m. Those using the Zoom will be able to access the above link starting at 12:25. The program will begin at 12:35.
maine.zoom.us/j/81882242696?pwd=UlBqYjd4RFVHQll1cDE4QS80azhaQT09

About the host:
Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

Theme music: BreakBeat Chemists I, 2015
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License