Notes from the Electronic Cottage 10/6/22: October ’22 Update

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Technology marches on. Here are two recent developments, one of which is pretty amazing amazing but both of which are also disturbing for different reasons. See what you think.

Links referred to in the program:
Holly Herndon: What if you could sing in your favorite musician’s voice? | TED Talk
Chrome’s New Ad Blocker Limiting Extension Platform Will Launch in 2023, Arstechnica
Google delays execution of doomed Chrome extensions, The Register
Chrome Users Beware: Manifest V3 is Deceitful and Threatening | Electronic Frontier Foundation

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 10/5/22: The Ticks Are Still Here- What You Need to Know

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

Healthy Options: For Well-being & Being Well

This month:
TICKS have not gone away even though the season has changed. We speak with our tick specialist, Dr. Beatrice Szantyr on tick awareness, bite prevention, & treatment, Lyme & tick-borne illness.
1. Why are we doing a tick program in the Fall?
2. Do we still need to be vigilant about tick-borne illnesses in the Fall & Winter when the weather gets cool and cold?
3. Do ticks stop spreading disease when the weather is cold?
4. What is the life cycle of ticks throughout the year?
5. What are some preventative techniques we can use to minimize our risk of getting a tick-borne illness?
6. What precautions should hunters in particular take, when out in the woods? And in handling animals?
7. What is permethrin and what are the benefits to using it on our clothes, socks and shoes?
8. What products are useful for putting on our skin to prevent tick bites?
9. What are co-infections?
10. What does clinical diagnosis mean?
11. What is a prophylactic preventative course of antibiotics, and is this a valid and effective strategy to use after a tick bite?
12. If you get a tick bite, how do you remove the tick safely?
13. Should you send a tick to a lab for analysis?

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 served on the 2022 Federal Tick-Borne Disease Working Group.

Websites of Interest:

University of Maine Tick Lab, Protect Yourself from ticks & tick-borne diseases
Tick testing Amherst MA. (tests for more diseases)
Lyme Disease Association, Research, Education, Prevention and Patient Support
Lyme disease[dot]org. Powered by patients. Home of Lyme Times and My Lyme Data
Maine CDC Lyme disease Frequently Asked Questions
Maine Tracking Network: Tickborne Diseases. Improving public health with better information
University of Rhode Island Tick Encounter, Tick-borne Disease prevention Education
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

For clinicians:
LymeCME Free, Evidence-based, AAFP-Accredited Courses that Physicians Can Trust

Previous Healthy Options programs on ticks & Lyme, with links to other websites of interest, can also be found here and here

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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Maine: The Way Life Could Be 10/4/22: Jobs

Producers/Hosts: Jim Campbell and Amy Browne
This series is made possible in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission

Maine: The Way Life Could Be, a series in which we look at challenges and opportunities facing Maine in the lifetimes of people alive today.

This episode:
At the outset of this series, we invited anyone interested to participate in a Zoom call to help us gather information on what folks saw as major challenges facing Maine people during the lifetime of those alive today. One of those challenges involves how we’ll be able to make our livings in the Maine of the near future as traditional industries wane, and as our population grows older.

On today’s program, we’ll be talking with three experts who have studied these questions from a variety of perspectives.

Guests:

Charles Colgan, Professor Emeritus of Public Policy and Management in the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine, and senior fellow at the Center for the Blue Economy in Monterey, California. Colgan served as Chair of the State of Maine Consensus Economic Forecasting Commission from 1992-2010. Prior to his work at USM, he served in the Maine State Planning Office under three governors.

James Myall, an Economic Policy Analyst at the Maine Center for Economic Policy. and author of the Center’s State of Working Maine 2021 report. We began by asking him to describe the purpose of the report and how it was put together.

Andy O’Brien, a longtime Maine journalist who currently serves as Communications Director of the Maine AFL-CIO.

About the hosts:

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.

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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Outside the Box 10/4/22: “Oath of Office”

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 10/1/22: Maine Bats

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn
Host: Hazel Stark

Maine bats are preparing for winter and that means many of our species are heading for a sheltered spot to hibernate.

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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Earthwise 10/1/22: The Color Orange

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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