Around Town 2/13/24: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

Legislative public hearings today, and an event in Blue Hill.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Outside the Box 2/13/24: “Lightning Rods”

Producer/Host: Larry Dansinger

About the host:
Larry Dansinger (no pronouns) of Bangor came to Maine in 1974 and has been here ever since. Some of Larry’s activities since then: Done community organizing on numerous issues through INVERT and then Resources for Organizing and Social Change (ROSC), committed civil disobedience several times, grown a garden yearly since 1977, joined various food cooperatives and two men’s groups, refused to pay federal income taxes for war, lived on a community land trust for 23 years, and met a wonderful partner whom Larry has loved for over 40 years. Larry has produced Outside the Box features on WERU since 2007 and continues to look for unique ways of seeing almost any problem or situation.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

A Word in Edgewise 2/12/24: A Sanskrit Dictionary & Abe Lincoln . . .

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The Nature of Phenology 2/10/24: Food Caching

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark

Are you a larder hoarder or a scatter hoarder?

Photos, a full transcript, references, contact information, and more available at thenatureofphenology.wordpress.com.

About the host/writers:
Joe Horn lives in Gouldsboro, is Co-Founder of Maine Outdoor School, L3C, and is a Registered Maine Guide and Carpenter. He is passionate about fishing, cooking, and making things with his hands. He has both an MBA in Sustainability and an MS focused in Environmental Education. Joe can be reached by emailing [email protected]

Hazel Stark lives in Gouldsboro, is Co-Founder and Naturalist Educator at Maine Outdoor School, L3C, and is a Registered Maine Guide. She loves taking a closer look at nature through the lens of her camera, napping in beds of moss, and taking hikes to high points to see what being tall is all about. She has an MS in Resource Management and Conservation and is a lifelong Maine outdoorswoman. Hazel can be reached by emailing [email protected]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Earthwise 2/10/24: How February Got Its Name

Producer/Host: Anu Dudley

About the host: Rev. Dr. Anu Dudley is an ordained Pagan minister and a retired history professor. She continues to teach classes, including the three-year ordination curriculum at the Temple of the Feminine Divine, and others such as History of the Goddess, Paganism 101, Ethical Magic, and Introduction to the Runes. Currently she is writing a book about how to cast the runes using their original Goddess meanings. She lives in the woods off-grid in a small homesteading community in Central Maine.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The Cosmic Curator 2/10/24: Heaven and Hell are Within You. Choose Wisely

Good Morning, People! This is your cosmic curator, Tom Yaroschuk, with a look at the stars for the week of February 10th and the days ahead…

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Justice Radio 2/8/24: Are Prisons the Answer? – Are Prisons Public Housing?

Host/s: Catherine Besteman
Production Coordinator: Daria Cullen
Other credits: TECHNICAL SUPPORT – Aaron Pyle | MUSIC – Samuel James
Justice Radio is a WMPG production

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

This week: Host Catherine Besteman and special guest, Maine State Representative Grayson Lookner, as they talk about whether prisons are public housing?

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download