The Cosmic Curator 7/13/24: Easy Does It

Good Morning, People! This is your cosmic curator, Tom Yaroschuk, with a look at the stars for the week of July 13 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.

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Let’s Talk About It 7/12/24

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

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

He strangled her, tried to smother her, forced her at gunpoint to take a bottle of sleeping pills and a judge lowered his bail so he could be released from custody.

Topics:
1. Domestic violence murder hidden as suicide
2. Puffball sentencing of domestic abusers
3. Reckless Maine judges

Guest:
Anonymous

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.

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Justice Radio 7/11/24: Are Prisons the Answer? – Martina and Devon of Collective Justice

Host/s: Catherine Besteman
Production Coordinator: Daria Cullen
Other credits: TECHNICAL SUPPORT – Aaron Pyle 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: Don’t miss Catherine’s interview this Sunday, 5/5 at 1:30pm with Martina Kartman and Devon Adams, cofounders of Collective Justice, as they talk about what their organization does, how and why it was founded, what it offers to those who have caused or experienced harm, and if something like this can be replicated in Maine.

Guests:
Martina Kartman and Devon Adams, cofounders of Collective Justice.

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.

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Climate & Community 7/11/24: Illustrating Healed Relationships with Water with Maisie Richards (Part 1)

Host: Brianna Cunliffe

Description: Climate & Community speaks with illustrator and designer Maisie Richards on her work helping communities visualize a future where we move towards a healthier relationship with our rivers and with the cycling of water that connects us all.  From specific projects related to dam removal to working with students thinking about biodiversity to collaborating with Penobscot colleagues to check the influence of western scientific biases in representations of landscapes, Maisie’s work strives toward expanding our imagination, and demonstrates the power of art in drawing us with excitement and hope towards the kind of world we want to create. Our conversation will continue next week.  For updates on current projects, you can follow her at www.instagram.com/roundwaterdesign/ and to learn more about her work, visit  www.maisierichards.com/.

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.

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Talk of the Towns 7/10/24: A Conversation About Artificial Intelligence in Our Lives

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

Talk of the Towns: Local Community concerns and opportunities

This month:
– What do you understand the term artificial intelligence (AI) to mean?
– How do you understand AI already in use? How do you encounter it?
– How have you made use of AI in your work and creative life?
– What do you understand about concerns about AI… either addressing current or potential applications?
– What are the most useful ways you have encountered to address some of these concerns?
– What do you see as the potential of AI
– Helping government better serve citizens and communities?
– Helping with collaboration and understanding among people?
– Helping people and institutions work through conflict?
– Helping with learning (at any age)?
– What might be some helpful ways of thinking about developing and using AI going forward?
– What can we learn from human experience with other technology and scientific advancement as we ride the wave of AI?

Guest/s:
Gray Cox, professor of philosophy, College of the Atlantic, author of Smarter Planet or Wiser Earth? : Dialogue and Collaboration in the Era of Artificial Intelligence, published by Quaker Institute for the Future, 2023.
Nina Barufaldi St. Germain, business owner, writer, artist.
Gregg TeHennepe, Senior Director, Computational Sciences, Jackson Laboratory.

FMI:
barharbor365.substack.com writing with Nina Barufaldi St. Germain.
graycoxhomepage.wordpress.com more from Gray Cox.
www.jax.org The Jackson Laboratory.

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.

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World Ocean Radio 7/10/24: Plastic: Cycle and Recycle

Host: Peter Neill
Producer: Trisha Badger

ABOUT THIS EPISODE
How old is water? Where on earth is it found? How is it circulated, cycled, and recycled? We know where water is distributed on the planet down to the fraction of a percentage. We know that water is finite in volume and its utility is constant. What happens when we pollute water? What happens when there is no water? We discuss all things water this week on World Ocean Radio.

WORLD OCEAN RADIO
5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advocacy and education hosted by Peter Neill, lifelong ocean advocate and maritime expert. A catalog of more than 700 episodes offer perspectives on global ocean issues and viable solutions, and celebrate exemplary projects. Available for RSS feed and for broadcast by college and community radio stations worldwide. You will also find this week’s World Ocean Radio episode at Exchange.prx.org, at Audioport.org, WorldOceanObservatory.org where the full catalog of episodes is searchable by theme, and wherever you listen to podcasts.

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BoatTalk 7/9/24

Producers/Hosts: Alan Sprague & Jon Johansen
Engineers: Pepin Mittelhauser, Matt Murphy

BoatTalk is the call-in show for people contemplating all things naval.

About the hosts:
Alan Sprague is a retired boat carpenter and a volunteer at WERU for over thirty years. He and the late Mike Joyce started Boattalk in 2003 and Alan carries on.

Jon Johansen is the editor and roving reporter for the Maine Coastal News. He is Chairman of the Board of the Penobscot Marine Museum, President of Maine Built Boats, President of Maine Lobster Boat Racing, and Director of the International Maritime Library in his spare time.

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Outside the Box 7/9/24: “Having Too Much”

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.

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