The Cosmic Curator 3/25/23

This is your Cosmic Curator, Tom Yaroschuk, curating the planetary positions across the zodiac for today Saturday March 25th and the week ahead.

Well folks, we here in the West, mark the New Year as January first. There’s no real astrological reason for that. Its just another cold winter day. But in India, where astrology is woven into the web of everyday life, the New Year begins on the first day of Spring. That makes sense. Right? The equinox arrives and daylight and darkness are equal; hence forth daylight grows to its apogee on the Summer Solstice on June 21st.

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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Earthwise 3/25/23: The Phoenix

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 3/23/23: Creating Windows Not Bars – Reentry

Producers/Hosts: Linda Small and Mackenzie Kelley
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 Linda Small and Mackenzie Kelley talk with special guest Bruce Noddin, Founder of the Maine Prisoner Re-Entry Network (MPRN), about their goal to reduce Maine’s recidivism rate and the barriers, challenges, and needs for successful reentry into society by Justice impacted people and their families when they return to their home communities.

Guest/s:
Bruce Noddin, founder of the Maine Prisoner Reentry Network (MPRN)

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 3/23/23: Negative Options Marketing

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Ever heard of “negative option marketing?” While you may not recognize the term but we all run into it every day on the web. Same for Dark Patterns. The Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has certainly heard of practice and they don’t like it at all. Here’s why.

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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Relationship Rewind 3/21/23: Natural Born Killers

Host: Alli Williamson, Youth Educator and Advocate at NextStep Domestic Violence Project
Helpline: 1(800) 315-5579
Music credit: Brandon Nelson, local musician donated theme music for the show.

Relationship Rewind: Rewinding relationships in popular media and breaking down behaviors based in power, control, and abuse.

This episode:
The relationship between Mickey Knox and Mallory Wilson Knox in the movie Natural Born Killers.
-Unhealthy behaviors in relationships
-How media normalizes these behaviors
-The impacts of these messages about relationships on young people

Guest/s:
Coyote, 29 year old young person who, while watching the movie “Natural Born Killers,’’ noticed how the massive amount of violence surrounding the couple’s relationships seemed to be glorified and sensationalized.

About the host:
Alli Williamson is the youth educator and advocate for NextStep Domestic Violence Project based in Hancock and Washington County, ME. She teaches young people from Kindergarten to College about what power and control looks like in friendships and relationships, what resources are available to support those experiencing this, and how we can work to make our schools and communities safer and more equal spaces where abuse may be less likely to happen.

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Outside the Box 3/21/23: “Sixth Extinction”

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 Nature of Phenology 3/18/23: Sea lampreys

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark

The ecosystem importance of this fish where they are native cannot be overstated.

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]

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