The Essential Rhythm 4/23/23: Next Wave Species Introductions

Producer/Host: Sarah O’Malley

This episode summarizes a 2019 study on the interactions of European green crabs and Asian shore crabs. Researchers found that in rocky intertidal habitats on the southern New England, when shore crabs and green crabs overlap, green crab density goes down significantly. They identified key behavioral differences between juveniles of the two crab species that likely explain this observed effect. 

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.

The Nature of Phenology 4/22/23: Turkeys Mating

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark

This time of year, male turkey heads and necks transform into vivid shades of blue, red, and white. They puff up their feathers, lower their wing tips, fan their tails, and gobble in the early hours looking for mates.

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]

The Cosmic Curator 4/22/23: Good News, Bad News…

This is your Cosmic Curator, Tom Yaroschuk, with a look at the stars for today April 22nd.
Well folks, Today is an amazing day. In fact, according to Vedic astrology, it’s one of the most auspicious days of the year…

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.

Democracy Forum 4/21/23: Ballot Questions: Whose Initiatives Are They?

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, Maryann Ogonowski, emerita, Lane Sturtevant, Leah Taylor, and Linda Washburn.

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

This month:
Ballot Questions: Whose Initiatives Are They?
We’ll talk about the citizen initiative process in Maine: the sheer number of them, the money behind them, their strengths and shortcomings, home-grown vs. “from away.”
How does the initiative process work, and how is it working for Maine?
Can ordinary citizens can still run a ballot question?

Guest/s:
Shenna Bellows, Maine Secretary of State
Todd Donovan, Professor of Political Science, Western Washington University

To learn more about this topic:
As Abortion Measures Loom, GOP Raises New Barriers to Ballot Initiatives | The Pew Charitable Trusts, February, 2023
Missouri House Passes Bill Making It Harder for Voters To Amend State Constitution – Democracy Docket, February, 2023
Policy Matters: Ballot initiatives – Press Herald, November 17,2022
League Study On Maine’s Citizens’ Initiatives And People’s Veto Referenda, Fall, 2020
Initiatives without Engagement: A Realistic Appraisal of Direct Democracy’s Secondary Effects, Joshua J. Dyck & Edward L. Lascher, Jr., Jr., 2019
Democracy Forum – Citizen Initiatives: The Devil’s in the Details, April 19, 2019
Initiative and Referendum Overview and Resources | NCSL
Citizen Initiatives & Peoples Veto | Maine Secretary of State
Citizens as Legislators: Direct Democracy in the United States, Todd Donovan and Shaun Bowler, 1998

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.

Justice Radio 4/20/23: From Our Perspective: Voices of the Directly Impacted

Hosts: Marion Anderson
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: Host Marion Anderson and special guest talk about their experiences of being incarcerated and the barriers in place when returning to their families and communities that begs the question, Have we lost our Humanity?

Guest/s:
Anonymous guest

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.

Around Town 4/20/23: Maine Jewish Film Festival

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

This week:
The Maine Jewish Film Festival  is holding statewide showings of  FOUR WINTERS  this month to commemorate Yom HaShoah, the Day of Holocaust Remembrance.   Carolyn Swartz, Executive Director of the Maine Jewish Film Festival joins us today with the details.

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.

Notes from the Electronic Cottage 4/20/23: Understanding AI 4

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

As we continue our series on Artificial Intelligence, we begin in this segment to look at some of the possible implications of the potential arrival of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), or even Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI), on us humans.

Link for Vernor Vinge’s 1993 presentation on “The Coming Technological Singularity” mentioned today.

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.