Around Town 9/24/24: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

News and upcoming events.

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

Around Town 9/23/24: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

Ann Luther of the League of Women Voters Downeast talks about their resources for voters– including an upcoming presentation with Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows.

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

A Word in Edgewise 9/23/24: Sliding by Betelgeuse, Prufrock, & Moderate Maine Color . . .

Producer/Host: R.W. Estela

Hi, I’m RW Estela: Since 1991, I’ve been presenting A Word in Edgewise, WERU’s longest-running short feature, a veritable almanac of worldly and heavenly happenings, a confluence of 21st-century life in its myriad manifestations, international and domestic, cosmopolitan and rural, often revealing, as the French say, the more things change, the more they stay the same — though not always! Sometimes in addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives, in this age of vagary and ambiguity, when chronological time is punctuated elliptically, things can quickly turn edgy and controversial, as we search for understanding amid our dialectic. Tune in Monday mornings at 7:30 a.m. for an exciting journey through space and time with a few notable birthdays thrown in for good measure during A Word in Edgewise . . .

About the host:
RW Estela was raised as a first-generation American in Colorado by a German mother and a Corsican-Basque father who would become a three-war veteran for the US Army, so RW was naturally a military brat and later engaged in various Vietnam-era civil-service adventures before paying his way through college by skiing for the University of Colorado, playing Boulder coffeehouses, and teaching. He has climbed all of Colorado’s Fourteeners; found work as an FAA-certificated commercial pilot, a California-licensed building contractor, a publishing editor, a practitioner of Aikido, and a college professor of English; among his many interdisciplinary pursuits are the design and building of Terrell Residence Library (recently renamed the Terrell House Permaculture Living & Learning Center at the University of Maine), writing Building It In Two Languages (a bilingual dictionary of construction terminology), aerial photo documentation of two dam removals (Great Works and Veazie) on the Penobscot River, and once a week since 1991 drafting an installment of A Word In Edgewise, his essay series addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives — and WERU’s oldest continuous short feature. When pandemics do not interfere, he does the Triple Crown of Maine open-water ocean swims (Peaks to Portland, Islesboro Crossing, and Nubble Light Challenge) and the Whitewater Downriver Point Series of the Maine Canoe and Kayak Racing Organization. RW is the father of two and the grandfather of three and lives with his partner Kathleen of 37 years and their two Maine Coons in Orono.

Democracy Forum 9/20/24: Propaganda: Is This For Real?

Host: Ann Luther, League of Women Voters of Maine
Production Assistance:
Joel Mann

Democracy Forum: Participatory Democracy, encouraging citizens to take an active role in government and politics.

This month:
We want to talk about propaganda: its manifestations in U.S. history and currently, its hallmarks, its sponsors, its uses and effects.

Guest/s:
Michael Franz, Professor of Government and Legal Studies at Bowdoin College, and co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project. www.bowdoin.edu/profiles/faculty/mfranz/index.html
Jason Stanley, the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy, Yale University, and author of the new book, Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future. campuspress.yale.edu/jasonstanley/

To learn more about this topic:
Visit LWVME.org

About the host:
Ann Luther currently serves as Treasurer of the League of Women Voters of Maine and leads the LWVME Advocacy Team. She served as President of LWVME from 2003 to 2007 and as co-president from 2007-2009.

Around Town 9/20/24: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

Carter Newell is kicking off what he hopes will become an annual event – and a fundraiser for the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, and he’s here to tell us more
 
FMI: 
International Maritime Film Festival / Oystermen concert: www.maritimefilmfestival.com/tickets

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

Creative Maine 9/19/24

Producer/host: Adina Salmansohn
Other credits: Theme music written and performed by Ariel Chapman.
A Hall Day Fanfare by Stephen Troy, performed by the R.B. Hall Day Massed Band.
Greeting to Bangor by R.B. Hall, played by The Bangor Band.
76 Trombones, arranged by J. Bocook, played by The Bangor Band.
 
A monthly show exploring Maine‘s culture, art and crafts that enrich our lives and bring us joy.
 
This month:
Listeners will learn about the Ten Bucks Theatre in Bangor/Brewer, as well as RB Hall Day,a special annual Maine celebration of community bands.
Guest/s:
Natalie Lisnet and Jesse Speed of Ten Bucks Theatre www.tenbuckstheatre.org
Colleen Sweetsir, [email protected] , www.bridgetoncommunitybnd.org
David Watts, www.mainepops.org
Bath Municipal Band, bathband.org
 
About the Host:
Adina Salmansohn started learning to play the trombone at the age of 8.  Her undergraduate years were at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Robert F. Boyd of the Cleveland Orchestra.  After returning to her native New York, she played freelance in the NY Metro area, including multiple orchestras, big bands, and a 17 year stint with The Soundview Brass Quintet, which she founded in 1980. In addition, she had a busy career as an arts administrator, directing and teaching in Community Arts schools, light opera companies, and season programming for other non-profit organizations. Adina founded the Hudson School of Creative Arts in inner-city Yonkers, NY.

After her second child was born, she returned to school, and earned a degree in Culinary Arts from the Culinary Institute of America. Her family then moved to the Chicagoland area, where she became Principal Trombone of the Skokie Valley Symphony Orchestra, and also served as a board member and Personnel Manager for many years.  In that time, she also taught Culinary Arts in high school.  She earned a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies from Northern Illinois University in 2018. Upon retirement, she and her husband moved to Orland, Maine;  she came out of retirement to teach the JMG program at Bucksport High School.  She  joined the Bangor Band in 2018, where she plays euphonium.  She is in her second year as a Board Member at Large for the Bangor Band.

Climate & Community 9/19/24: Climate Leadership at 79 with Kathleen Sullivan of Freeport Climate Action Now (Part 2)

Host: Johannah Blackman

Description: Climate & Community speaks with Kathleen Sullivan, a founding members and co-leader of Freeport Climate Action Now (Freeport CAN) about her experience getting involved with climate action in her late 70s. In the second part of this conversation, Kathleen reflects on what advice she would give to others looking to get involved in climate action later in life, challenges to climate action as an older person, and the work for Freeport CAN. Read more about Freeport CAN at freeportcan.org.

About the Hosts:
Johannah, Brianna, Tanvi, Gus, Corey, and Beth are the team at A Climate to Thrive, a nonprofit working to build a model of community-driven, solutions-focused climate action. Since its origins around a potluck table as concerned neighbors gathered to take action on climate change, A Climate to Thrive, or ACTT, has been supporting solutions on Mount Desert Island and beyond since 2016. Learn more at www.aclimatetothrive.org.