Outside the Box 4/14/26: “Saying Yes and No”

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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Around Town 4/14/26: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

Around Town 4/13/26: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

Equality Maine is looking for volunteers to help with Pride and other events across the state, and has launched a Pride 2026 Guide

The American Civil Liberties Union and Indivisible are offering a virtual Train-the-Trainer event on Immigrants’ Rights, next Monday, April 20th.

The Wabanaki Alliance and Penobscot Nation‘s 2026 US Senate Candidates forum will be held at the Indian Island School on Thursday. Doors will open at 5:30 and the event starts at 6pm

This will be the second of three candidate forums to be organized by the Wabanaki Alliance. A forum for gubernatorial candidates was held March 19 before a crowd of more than 150 people. Plans for a forum for US House candidates for the second Congressional district will be announced soon

From the City of Bangor and Maine Department of Transportation:
The Maine Department of Transportation is beginning preliminary work this month on two separate bridge replacement projects along Interstate 95 in Bangor.
The early work on the I-95 bridges over Stillwater Avenue and the Hogan Road bridge over I-95 coincide with other MaineDOT interstate bridge work in the City: the ongoing construction of the northbound and southbound bridges over Broadway, which is scheduled to conclude in spring 2027, and the replacement of the Kenduskeag Avenue bridge over I-95. The two, aging interstate bridges that extend over Stillwater will be replaced with a single span. A median cross-over utilizing the new northbound alignment will be put in place to maintain through-traffic during construction, according to MaineDOT. While some traffic delays will be necessary as the bridge supports are put in place, no extended detours are anticipated. There will be periodic closures of Stillwater Avenue and Exit 186 ramps requiring detours. Access to businesses and the pedestrian path will be maintained at all times. There will be nighttime I-95 lane closures the week of April 13 to accommodate the start of this work. Starting on Monday, April 13, the southbound passing lane will be closed from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. The same lane will be closed on consecutive nights, with the closure scheduled to conclude at 7 a.m. Thursday, April 16. The construction is expected to last about two years.

Theme music: BreakBeat Chemists I, 2015
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License

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A Word in Edgewise 4/13/26: Of Horace, Dryden, & Kate Colby . . .

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.

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Nature Notes: A Maine Naturalist Afield 4/12/26: A Conversation with Seaweed Biologist Amanda Savoie, Part 2

Host/Producer: Glen Mittelhauser

Research scientist Amanda Savoie describes how new surveys are revealing more Arctic seaweed diversity than previously assumed, even in regions once thought to lack suitable substrate. She reflects on the cultural importance of kelp in northern communities, the ecological role of seaweeds as primary producers and habitat-formers, and why documenting coastal biodiversity is critical as warming oceans reshape kelp forests in places like the Gulf of Maine.

More information about Maine Natural History can be found at mainenaturalhistory.org.

About the hosts:
Glen Mittelhauser founded Maine Natural History Observatory (MNHO) in 2003 to fill the need for an organization that specializes in collecting, interpreting, and maintaining datasets for understanding changes in Maine’s plant and wildlife populations.  Glen received his Bachelor’s in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic in 1989 with a focus in the biological sciences and received his Master of Science degree in Zoology (with a focus on ornithology and statistics) from the University of Maine in 2000. Glen was the Managing Editor for Northeastern Naturalist and Southeastern Naturalist for 18 years and has served as external graduate faculty for 3 graduate student committees at the University of Maine.  Glen currently serves on the Baxter State Park Research Committee.

Logan Parker is an Ecologist residing in Waldo County, Maine. Logan started the Maine Nightjar Monitoring Project in 2017 and brought the project (and his passion for bird conservation) to MNHO when he joined the team in 2018. Logan is heavily involved in the ongoing Maine Bird Atlas where he both coordinates and participates in the project’s special species surveys. When “off the clock”, Logan enjoys birding, writing, gardening, and working alongside his wife, Hallee, on their off-grid home in the Maine woods. Logan is also a wildlife photographer and shares photos and field notes through his project, Here In The Wild.

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What’s the Word on Maine Street? 4/11/26

What’s the Word on Maine Street?, hosted by Sarah Pebworth, is a weekly short feature Saturdays at 9:30am looking at local literary and visual arts events and offerings!

About the host:
Sarah Pebworth leads the steering committee for Word—a Blue Hill Literary Arts Festival, founded in 2017 and held each October. She serves on the boards of the Cultural Alliance of Maine and Lawrence Family Fitness Center YMCA. Since February 2023 Sarah has written “Shared Seas and Common Grounds,” a column published in the Penobscot Bay Press’s Weekly Packet. She and her wife Julie Jo Fehrle live in Blue Hill.

Theme music: Ross Gallagher is a bassist who grew up in East Blue Hill, ME, and currently lives between Bath, ME and Brooklyn, NY, where he works with a wide variety of musical artists. Infinite Blues is a cut from his recently released neon night, an excursion into an ambient/electronic musical world built around rhythmic bass ostinatos, clouds of processed looping electronic atmospheres, and melody. By turns both subtle and unapologetically noisy, the songs are a collection of luminous constellations, roved between by a band of texturally minded instrumental improvisers.

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Earthwise 4/11/26: April Showers

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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