Earthwise 1/7/23: Twelfth Night

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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The Cosmic Curator 1/7/23

Good Morning People!
And a very Happy New Year to all.
This is your Cosmic Curator, Tom Yaroschuk with a look at the stars for today January 7th.

Last night, we had a brilliant full moon in the sign of Gemini.
Full moons bring the energy of illumination.
And this one falls on the day celebrated as the Epiphany, when the Three wise men arrived at the new born Christ child. Its also Known as 12th night. Spiritual Traditions hold that this period is full of illuminating energies that can penetrate the mystery of life to answer the big questions – why are we here and just what are we supposed to be doing…

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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Conversations from the Pointed Firs 1/6/23: Samaa Abdurraqib

Host:Peter Neill
Producer: Trisha Badger
Music by Casey Neill

Conversations from the Pointed Firs is a monthly audio series with Maine-connected authors and artists discussing new books and creative projects that invoke the spirit of Maine, its history, its ecology, its culture, and its contribution to community and quality of life.

This month: Samaa Abdurraqib

Guest/s:

SAMAA ABDURRAQIB is the Executive Director of the Maine Humanities Council, a position she has held since 2021. Before MHC she taught in the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program for three years at Bowdoin College, teaching courses on Muslim memoir, Islam and feminism, and representations of violence against women in literature and film. Samaa left Bowdoin in 2013 and, after teaching a semester at the University of Southern Maine, left the academia to begin a career in Maine’s nonprofit world. From 2013 through 2015, Samaa joined the staff at the ACLU of Maine as a reproductive justice organizer. After that grant funded position ended, Samaa joined the staff at the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence, where she worked for five years supporting domestic violence advocates across the state through training, technical assistance, and policy work. Since March of 2021, Samaa has been working at the Maine Humanities Council and serves as the organization’s Executive Director. Samaa’s love of Maine’s natural landscape is what inspired her to shift careers and root herself in Maine. She tries to spend as much time as she can outside birdwatching, hiking, and kayaking. One of the most fulfilling roles Samaa has held is being a volunteer leader for Outdoor Afro, a national organization committed to (re)connecting Black people to the outdoors and connecting Black people to each other through the outdoors. Samaa received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s English Department in 2010. She is a published poet and nature writer.

About the host:
Peter Neill is founder and director of the World Ocean Observatory, a web-based place of exchange for information and educational services about the health of the ocean. In 1972, he founded Leete’s Island Books, a small publishing house specializing in literary reprints, the essay, photography, the environment, and profiles of indigenous healers and practitioners of complimentary medicine around the world. He holds a profound interest in Maine, its history, its people, its culture, and its contribution to community and quality of life.

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Change Agents 1/5/23: Black women in Black Churches, Civil Rights Movement to the present.

Producer/Host: Steve Wessler

Change Agents: Conversations with Advocates and Social Justice Advocate on WERU FM

This month:
Examining the role of Black women in Black Churches from the Civil Rights Movement to the present.
1. Black women in churches have played a major role in the civil rights movement.
2. Black women in the south during the civil rights movement who worked for state, county or city governments did not press coverage because if they did, they might be fired from their job.
3. Black women’s remarkable role in civil rights efforts were not known by many white people.

Guests:
Cheryl Townsend Gilkes. She recently has retired from teaching at Colby College where she was the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor Emerita African American Studies and Sociology Presidential Liaison and Advisor.

About the host:
Steve Wessler will soon will be starting his 28th year of working on human right issues. He founded the Civil Rights Unit in the Maine Attorney’s Office in 1992 and led the Unit for 7 years. In 1999 he left the formal practice of law and founded the Center for the Prevention of Hate. The Center worked in Maine and across the USA. He and his colleagues worked to reduce bias and harassment in schools, in communities, in health care organization through workshops and conflict resolution. The Center closed in 2011 and Steve began a consulting on human rights issues. For the next 5 years much of his work was in Europe, developing and implementing training curricular for police, working in communities to reduce the risk of hate crimes, conflict resolution between police and youth. He has worked in over 20 countries. In late 2016 he began to work more in Maine, with a focus on reducing anti-immigrant bias. He continues to work in schools to reduce bias and harassment. Wessler teaches courses on human rights issues at the College of the Atlantic, the University of Maine at Augusta and at the School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in northern Virginia.

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Around Town 1/5/23: Mainers Join Call to Close Guantánamo, Rally in Augusta January 14th

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

This week:
With so much happening in the world right now, a coalition of local groups want to make sure Mainers don’t forget about prisoners still being held at Guantanamo. Mary Kate Small, one of the organizers, fills us in on what they have planned, which includes a protest at Augusta Armory on January 14th.

FMI re the event:
Mainers Join Call To Close Guantánamo

FMI re the organizers:
Frank Panopoulos, Witness Against Torture, Detainee AttorneyPeace Action Maine
PAX Christi Maine
Witness Against Torture

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.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 1/5/23: Will Quantam Computing Change the World?

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

In the Dec. 19, 2022 print issue of the New Yorker, one article trumpeted “The Future of Everything: How Quantum Computing will Change the World – Eventually.” That’s quite an assertion but just what is quantum computing and how might it change the world? Here’s one way.

Here’s the digital version of the article 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.

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Maine Currents Returns! 1/3/23: Will Maine Industrialize Sears Island for “Clean” Energy?

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

This month: We’re kicking off 2023 with a topic that I suspect we may be spending a lot of time on this year, the pending decision on where to build a staging facility for off-shore wind power turbines in this area. Theoretically, 3 different sites are being considered: Eastport, Sears Island or Mack Point in Searsport, but some of those close to the project suspect that developing Sears Island is the real goal of the ME DOT.

Guests:
Steve Miller, Islesboro Islands Trust
Rolf Olsen, Friends of Sears Island
Becky Bartovics, Sierra Club Maine

FMI
Islesboro Islands Trust
Maine Chapter of the Sierra ClubFriends of Sears Island Offshore Wind Project Resources page
Study of Searsport to Support and Develop Offshore Wind, State of Maine, Governor’s Energy Office
Maine DOT Offshore Wind Port Advisory Group (OSWPAG)
Governor Mills Announces Assessment of Mack Point Terminal in Searsport to Support Growth of Renewable Energy Industry in Maine, Office of Governor Janet Mills, March 2020
SEARS ISLAND WETLAND ENFORCEMENT CASE SETTLED, EPA, 11/13/1996

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 and Maine Currents, she 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 the First Place 2017 Radio News Award from the Maine Association of Broadcasters.

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Outside the Box 1/3/23: “Rights, Not Wrongs”

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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