Earthwise 5/6/23: The Merry Month of May

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.

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Justice Radio 5/4/23: Ending the War on Drugs In Maine

Hosts: Charlotte Warren and Zoe Brokos
Production Coordinator: Daria Cullen
Other credits: TECHNICAL SUPPORT – Emma Reynolds | MUSIC – Samuel James
Justice Radio is a WMPG production

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

This week: Hosts Charlotte Warren and Zoe Brokos and special guest Winifred Tate, Professor of Anthropology at Colby College and the Director of the Maine Drug Policy Lab, as they explore the need to decriminalize the possession and use of drugs as a public health approach.

Guest/s:
Dr. Winifred Tate, Professor of Anthropology at Colby College and the Director of the Maine Drug Policy Lab

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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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 5/4/23: Independence of Cyberspace Redux

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

 

About the host:
Jim Campbell has a longstanding interest in the intersection of digital technology, law, and public policy and how they affect our daily lives in our increasingly digital world. He has banged around non-commercial radio for decades and, in the little known facts department (that should probably stay that way), he was one of the readers voicing Richard Nixon’s words when NPR broadcast the entire transcript of the Watergate tapes. Like several other current WERU volunteers, he was at the station’s sign-on party on May 1, 1988 and has been a volunteer ever since doing an early stint as a Morning Maine host, and later producing WERU program series including Northern Lights, Conversations on Science and Society, Sound Portrait of the Artist, Selections from the Camden Conference, others that will probably come to him after this is is posted, and, of course, Notes from the Electronic Cottage.

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Healthy Options 5/3/23: Lyme disease & tick-borne illness, and how to be tick-conscious, to protect ourselves

Host/Producer: Rhonda Feiman
Co-Producer: Petra Hall

Healthy Options: For Well-being & Being Well

This month:

Where are ticks found & how can we identify the ticks we may find, in their different life cycles? What size are they right now?
What is Lyme disease and why is it often difficult to diagnose- and treat?
What are co-infections? What are the different illnesses which are showing up now?  What is Anaplasmosis, Babesiosis, Borrelia, Alpha-gal, & Powassan Virus?
What are the ways that we do treat tick diseases? Is there an effective way to prevent Lyme after a tick bite? Is using a single dose of antibiotics a valid and effective strategy to use right after a tick bite?
Why should we not wait if we have symptoms after a tick bite? What are symptoms we might experience?
What does clinical diagnosis mean?
What are some preventative techniques we can use to minimize our risk of getting a tick-borne illness?
What kinds of clothing, and repellent, are effective to try to prevent tick bites?
What is permethrin and what are the benefits to using it on our clothes, socks and shoes?
How do we check for ticks? Why do a tick check and why is it a good idea to shower after we’ve been outside?
Why should we check our pets for ticks? What about people who come visit and may bring ticks?
If you get a tick bite, how do you remove the tick safely? What might we do next? How long does a tick have to be imbedded for it to be able to transmit disease?
Should you send a tick to a lab for analysis?
Do we have decisive testing for tick diseases? Are there any vaccines yet?

Guest/s:
Dr. Beatrice Szantyr, Internist and Pediatrician who lectures on Lyme disease and related tick-borne disorders in Maine and nationally, to both professional and community groups. She is an active member of the Maine CDC Vector Borne Disease Work Group, and a member of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society.  Dr. Szantyr also had served on the 2022 Federal Tick-Borne Disease Working Group, Access to Care and Education Subcommittee. 

Additional Information:
EPA info on effective repellents
www.epa.gov/insect-repellents
www.epa.gov/insect-repellents/find-repellent-right-you

University of Maine Tick Lab
Protect Yourself from ticks & tick-borne diseases:
extension.umaine.edu/ticks/

Tick testing Amherst MA. (tests for more diseases):
www.tickreport.com

Lyme Disease Association
Research, Education, Prevention and Patient Support   
lymediseaseassociation.org/

Lyme disease.org
Powered by patients. Home of Lyme Times and My Lyme Data:
www.lymedisease.org/

Maine CDC Lyme disease Frequently Asked Questions
www.maine.gov/dhhs/mecdc/infectious-disease/epi/vector-borne/tick-messaging.shtml

Maine Tracking Network: Tickborne Diseases
Improving public health with better information
data.mainepublichealth.gov/tracking/data-topics/tickborne-content

University of Rhode Island Tick Encounter
Tick-borne Disease prevention Education
web.uri.edu/tickencounter/

This article is brief enough for a patient to bring to a doctor’s visit for them to consider:
The Management of Ixodes scapularis Bites in the Upper Midwest
wmjonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/110/2/78.pdf

For clinicians:
LymeCME
Free, Evidence-based, AAFP-Accredited Courses that Physicians Can Trust
www.lymecme.info/

Previous Healthy Options programs on ticks & Lyme, with links to other websites of interest, can also be found at:
archives.weru.org/healthy-options/2022/10/healthy-options-10-5-22-the-ticks-are-still-here-what-you-need-to-know/
archives.weru.org/healthy-options/2022/05/healthy-options-5-4-22-yearly-update-on-ticks-lyme-and-tick-borne-illnesses/
archives.weru.org/healthy-options/2021/05/healthy-options-5-5-21-ticks-those-blood-sucking-parasites/
archives.weru.org/healthy-options/2020/06/healthy-options-6-3-20-ticks-and-tick-borne-illnesses/

About the host:
Rhonda Feiman is a nationally-certified, licensed acupuncturist practicing in Belfast, Maine since 1993. She primarily practices Toyohari Japanese acupuncture, using gentle and powerful non-insertion needle techniques, and also utilizes Chinese acupuncture and herbology. In addition, Rhonda is a practitioner of Qi Gong and an instructor of Tai Chi Chuan in the Yang Family tradition.

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Outside the Box 5/2/23: “The Johns Family”

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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The Essential Rhythm 4/30/23: Crab vs. Crab

Producer/Host: Sarah O’Malley

This episode describes the concept of life history strategy, and highlights findings from a paper that investigated the impact of introduced intertidal crabs (Carcinus maenus, European green crabs and Hemigrapsus sanguineus, Asian shore crabs) on Atlantic rock crabs (Cancer irroratus). The study demonstrated that the rock crab life history strategy of living in the intertidal zone for the first two years of its life is no longer adaptive in areas with introduced crabs, as green crabs and shore crab readily prey on young rock crabs.

Griffen, B. Riley, M. 2015 Potential impacts of invasive crabs on one life history strategy of native rock crabs in the gulf of maine Biol invasions 17: 2533-2544

About the host:
Sarah O’Malley is an ecologist, naturalist and science communicator passionate about deepening her listeners’ experiences with the natural world. She teaches biology and sustainability at Maine Maritime Academy and is currently collaborating on a guide book to the intertidal zone in the Gulf of Maine.

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