Democracy Forum 6/16/23: Public Opinion Polling: Is It Good for Democracy

Host: Ann Luther, League of Women Voters of Maine

The mostly volunteer team at the League of Women Voters – Downeast who plan and coordinate this series includes: Martha Dickinson, Michael Fisher, Starr Gilmartin, Maggie Harling, Lisa Leaverton, Ann Luther, Rick Lyles, Judith Lyles, Wendilee O’Brien, Lane Sturtevant, Leah Taylor, and Linda Washburn.

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

This month:
We’ll talk about whether modern polling techniques have been good for democracy. Is polling a reflection of public opinion; is it shaping public opinion; or is it distorting public opinion? Who is it helping? And how can we be responsible consumers of polling information?

Guest/s:
Ashley Koning, Assistant Research Professor and Director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at the Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
Dan Shea, Chair and Professor of Government at Colby College.

To learn more about this topic:
Public Opinion Polling Basics | Pew Research Center
Two Schools of Polling Are Converging: Reflecting on a Tumultuous Decade | The New York Times, May, 2023
How Public Polling Has Changed in the 21st Century | Pew Research Center Methods, April, 2023
Polls’ Representative Samples Often Merit Skepticism | WSJ, April, 2023
The Polls Were Historically Accurate In 2022 | FiveThirtyEight, March, 2023
Some midterm polls were on-target – but finding which pollsters and poll aggregators to believe can be challenging | The Conversation, November, 2022
Seven Ways to Evaluate a Poll | FiveThirtyEight, August, 2021
Harvard experts weigh the good and bad of political predictions | The Harvard Gazette, November, 2020
The Problems Inherent in Political Polling | The New Yorker, March, 2020
Can We Trust the Presidential-Election Polls? | The New Yorker, March 2020

About the host:
Ann 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. In her work for the League, Ann has worked for greater public understanding of public policy issues and for the League’s priority issues in Clean Elections & Campaign Finance Reform, Voting Rights, Ethics in Government, Ranked Choice Voting, and Repeal of Term Limits. Representing LWVME at Maine Citizens for Clean Elections, she served that coalition as co-president from 2006 to 2011. She remains on the board of MCCE and serves as Treasurer. She is active in the LWV-Downeast and hosts their monthly radio show, The Democracy Forum, on WERU FM Community Radio -which started out in 2004 as an recurring special, and became a regular monthly program in 2012. She was the 2013 recipient of the Baldwin Award from the ACLU of Maine for her work on voting rights and elections. She joined the League in 1998 when she retired as Senior Vice President at SEI Investments. Ann was a founder of the MDI Restorative Justice Program, 1999 – 2000, and served on its Executive Board.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Around Town 6/15/23: Summer Solstice on Sears Island

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Rolf Olsen, Friends of Sears Island  invites the community to a summer solstice celebration on Sears Island (off Rt 1 in Searsport) next Wednesday, 6/21, 5-8 pm

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

BoatTalk 6/13/23: Penobscot Marine Museum

Producers/Hosts: Jon Johansen and Alan Sprague
Engineers: John Greenman, Pepin Mittelhauser, Amy Browne

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

This month:
In depth discovery of the many things Penobscot Marine Museum has to offer.

Guest/s:
Karen Smith, Executive Director of of the Penobscot Marine Museum

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Around Town 6/13/23: Sea Shanties by the Seashore with Rockland Folks Arts

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Kathy Westra Stevens of Rockland Folk Arts joins us to talk about their upcoming event featuring   40 Degrees South – Sea Shanties & Sea Songs from Australia, on Friday, 6/16 at the Sail Power and Steam Museum in Rockland.

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Outside the Box 6/13/23: “Enemies”

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 6/12/23: Of MaJo Keleshian & the Transitions of June . . .

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 6/10/23: Lamoine Atlantic Salmon

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark

Learn about Atlantic salmon, written and performed by Lamoine Consolidated School 6th-grade students, thanks to partnerships with teacher Tiara Woods, Frenchman Bay Conservancy, the Fish Friends program, and Maine Outdoor School. 

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 6/10/23: The Game of Lost-Proofing

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