Maine Currents

Producer/Editor/Host: Amy Browne
Some of the historic segments on today’s show were coproduced with Meredith DeFrancesco

NOTE: The time of the 9/11 vigil in Bucksport has been changed to 9:30

The 20th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy is this coming Saturday, so this week we take a listen back at how the WERU community responded, what was happening behind the scenes at the station in the hours and days that followed, and how our news coverage was impacted—and we’ll hear from David Weeda, one of the organizers of an event in Bucksport this coming September 11th.

We start with a chat with WERU’s General Manager Matt Murphy and Program Director Joel Mann

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 and Maine Currents, she 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 the First Place 2017 Radio News Award from the Maine Association of Broadcasters.

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Producer/Editor/Host: Amy Browne
Recorded by: Matt Murphy

Maine-based New York Times best-selling author Colin Woodard speaking in Blue Hill on June 24th, 2021, about his latest book, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood FMI: www.colinwoodard.com

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 and Maine Currents, she 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 the First Place 2017 Radio News Award from the Maine Association of Broadcasters.

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Producer/Host: Amy Browne

9 years ago we covered the removal of the Great Works Dam on the Penobscot River. It was one of the dams removed from the river as part of an effort that had taken years and much coalition building. On May 20th of this year, some of those involved in the Penobscot River Restoration project got together to talk about how the river ecosystem has changed over the years since the dams were removed. We’ll hear the panel, titled “Celebrate Progress for the Penobscot River” today, but first we take a quick trip back to June of 2012..

Panelists:
John Banks, Director, Department of Natural Resources, Penobscot Indian Nation
Laura Rose Day, Former Director, Penobscot River Restoration Trust
Kate Dempsey, State Director, The Nature Conservancy in Maine
Pete Didisheim, Advocacy Director, Natural Resources Council of Maine
Andy Goode, Vice President, U.S. Programs, Atlantic Salmon Federation

WERU thanks the Natural Resources Council of Maine for making the recording of the “Celebrate Progress for the Penobscot River” panel available for broadcast. It was edited by Amy Browne to fit this format and time slot.

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 and Maine Currents, she 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 the First Place 2017 Radio News Award from the Maine Association of Broadcasters.

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Producer/Host: Amy Browne

The group Maine Healthcare Action, affiliated with Maine AllCare, is working on a citizens’ referendum that would instruct the Maine legislature to enact universal health care. Along with a group of social work students from the University of Maine, they held an online town hall on the issue on April 22nd. With their permission, we bring that discussion to you today.

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 and Maine Currents, she 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 the First Place 2017 Radio News Award from the Maine Association of Broadcasters.

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Producer/Host: Amy Browne

We continue our series on racism and hate groups with a recent presentation sponsored by the Maine Multicultural Center. From their website: “The Maine Multicultural Center is a community-driven group representing Bangor-area business, cultural, and educational organizations. We promote community enrichment and economic growth by attracting, retaining, supporting, and integrating people of diverse cultures and backgrounds into greater Bangor.
Since Fall 2016, we have provided welcoming services for New Mainers, while celebrating and promoting the racial, cultural, and ethnic diversity that already exists in the region. The Maine Multicultural Center offers presentations, conversations, community and teacher workshops, a database of resources, and opportunities for those in and around Bangor to meet neighbors and new friends, whether they are recent immigrants or longtime residents.”

Presenter Dennis Chinoy is a cofounder of PICA (Power in Community Alliances), a group that focuses on economic and social justice. Among other things, PICA has been a driver behind the Bangor sister city relationship with Carasque, El Salvador, MOFGA’s partnership with farmers in El Salvador, and WERU’s sister station relationship with Radio Sumpul, a community radio station in that county – and Dennis Chinoy has played a role in all of those endeavors. His presentation last month, sponsored by the multicultural center, was titled “The Deep Roots and Bitter Fruits of White Supremacy”. It has been edited to fit in this time slot.

View the entire, unedited presentation here

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 and Maine Currents, she 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 the First Place 2017 Radio News Award from the Maine Association of Broadcasters.

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Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Today, nearly 2 months after the insurrection in DC, we’re talking with Andy O’Brien and Nathan Bernard, reporters for Mainer covering far right extremism and hate groups in the state.

Some of the articles discussed in this program, include:

Anti-Maskers Waging “Spiritual War” Statewide

Maine White Nationalist Charged in Capitol Attack Shares Racist Views of State GOP Leaders

Chief of Maine’s Capitol Police Radicalized by Far-Right Conspiracies

Disgraced Capitol Chief Abused His Power to Police Protests

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 and Maine Currents, she 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 the First Place 2017 Radio News Award from the Maine Association of Broadcasters.

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Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Today we bring you a panel discussion, “Being Black in Maine: Lived Experience and the Prospect for Change”, recorded on MLK Day 2021 via zoom. The speakers were Daryl Fort, leadership development consultant (moderator)’ Tonya Bailey-Curry, Clinical Social Worker at Bates College; Nancy Dymond, SAD 22 educator; Madison “Madi” Hemingway, UMaine Student; Ricky Hall, USDA/NRCS Civil Engineering Technician; and Tessa Solomon, UMaine student. The event was cosponsored by the UMaine Alumni Association and the Bangor Area Chapter of the NAACP

This recording was lightly edited to address audio quality issues in place.

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 and Maine Currents, she 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 the First Place 2017 Radio News Award from the Maine Association of Broadcasters.

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Producer/Host: Amy Browne

We’re joined once again by our Elections 2020 panel:
Professor Amy Fried, Chair of the Political Science Department at the University of Maine and columnist for the Bangor Daily News, former State Representative Ralph Chapman
Ann Luther, board member for the League of Women Voters of Maine, and host of the Democracy Forum here on WERU, and Will Hayward, Advocacy Program Coordinator for the League of Women Voters

We’ve invited them back to get their thoughts about what has been (and is) happening around the transfer of power in DC.

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 and Maine Currents, she 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 the First Place 2017 Radio News Award from the Maine Association of Broadcasters.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download