Democracy Forum 7/15/22: Taxation without Representation: Should DC be a State?

Host: Ann Luther, League of Women Voters of Maine

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

Taxation without Representation: Should DC be a State?

What rights of self-determination do DC residents now enjoy?
How are their rights now constrained?
What are the obstacles to DC statehood?
What is the history?
What is the racial justice aspect to this issue?
Against the backdrop of Maine’s own struggle for statehood and the Missouri Compromise, why should Maine people care?

Anne Anderson, Chair of the League of Women Voters DC Full Rights Committee
Chris Myers Asch, Visiting Instructor of History, Colby College, and co-author of the book, Chocolate City, A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital

To learn more about this topic:

League of Women Voters of the District of Columbia – YouTube
With Liberty and Justice for All (Except DC) | League of Women Voters, May 2022
The Case for Statehood – DC History Center, with links to other great resources
DC Statehood Explained | Brennan Center for Justice, March, 2022
epublicans Used to Back DC Statehood. What Changed? – The Atlantic, David Graham, June, 2021
The Long Fight for DC Statehood – JSTOR Daily, Livia Gershon, February, 2021
When Adding New States Helped the Republicans – The Atlantic, Heather Cox Richardson, September, 2019
Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital by Chris Myers Asch and George Derek Musgrove, 2019
On the Road with the DC Statehood Toolkit, League of Women Voters of DC, November 2017

The mostly volunteer team at the League of Women Voters – Downeast who plan and coordinate this series includes: Martha Dickinson, Starr Gilmartin, Maggie Harling, Ann Luther, Judith Lyles, Wendilee O’Brien, Maryann Ogonowski, Pam Person, Lane Sturtevant, Leah Taylor, Linda Washburn

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.

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Awanadjo Almanack 7/15/22: “Nature and Flip-flops”

Producer/Host: Rob McCall
Production Assistance: Rebecca McCall

About the host, Rob McCall:

Born in the Black Hills of South Dakota, grew up in Oregon and Illinois. Father was a Scots-Irish preacher, mother a Yankee Congregationalist tracing her ancestry back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Father taught him about Scripture, mother taught him about Nature.

Bachelor of arts in philosophy, bachelor of divinity in American religious history, graduate studies in education, doctor of ministry in congregational studies, certified in elementary education, tree fruits and entomology.

Worked as an elementary school teacher, tree and landscape contractor, church sexton, orchard manager, chimney sweep, ambulance driver, musician. Began second career as a preacher at age 40. Served as minister of the First Congregational Church of Blue Hill, Maine 1986 – 2014. He is currently chaplain of the Brooklin Fire Department.

Since 1992 has published the weekly Awanadjo Almanack which is broadcast to midcoast Maine and on the web at WERU-FM and appears in a number of publications. His writing has also appeared in Yankee, Down East, Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors, Island Journal and elsewhere.

His first book, Small Misty Mountain, was published in 2006 by Pushcart Press and distributed by W.W. Norton. Publisher’s Weekly called it “by turns inspiring and infuriating.” His second book, Great Speckled Bird, followed in 2012. His third book, Some Glad Morning, was released in October 2020.

Passions include wild plants and animals, and traditional fiddle tunes. Married for 53 years to Rebecca Haley, artist and singer. Father of two, grandfather of two.

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Common Ground Radio 7/14/22: Farmers and Stress

Producers/Hosts: Caitlyn Barker, Holli Cederholm
Editing: Clare Boland

Common Ground Radio is an hour-long discussion of local food and organic agriculture with people here in the state of Maine and beyond.

The July episode of Common Ground Radio explores the issue of farmers and stress. Host Caitlyn Barker speaks with Abby Sadauckas, a farmer in southern Maine and member of the University of Maine Cooperative Extension Farm Coaching Team and MOFGA Farmer Programs Director Ryan Dennett. Topics include land access, financial stability, mental health and many others. A variety of relevant resources are also provided.

-Farmers and stress
-Resources available to farmers
-Mental health and farming

Guests:
Abby Sadauckas, co-owner of Apple Creek Farm and member of the University of Maine Cooperative Extension Farm Coaching Team.
Ryan Dennett, Farmer Programs Director, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association

FMI:
MOFGA Farmer Resources Labor Movement: labor-movement.com
Labor Movement
Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network
Maine Farmer Resource Network
211 Maine
Farm Aid Farmer Resource Network
Maine Farmland Trust
Land For Good

About the hosts:

Holli Cederholm has been involved in organic agriculture since 2005 when she first apprenticed on a small farm. She has worked on organic farms in Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Scotland and Italy and, in 2010, founded a small farm focused on celebrating open-pollinated and heirloom vegetables. As the former manager of a national nonprofit dedicated to organic seed growers, she authored a peer-reviewed handbook on GMO avoidance strategies for seed growers. Holli has also been a steward at Forest Farm, the iconic homestead of “The Good Life” authors Helen and Scott Nearing; a host of “The Farm Report” on Heritage Radio Network; and a long-time contributor for The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener, which she now edits in her role as content creator and editor at MOFGA.

Caitlyn Barker has worked in education and organic agriculture on and off for the last 17 years. She has worked on an organic vegetable farm, served on the Maine Farm to School network, worked in early childhood education and taught elementary school. She currently serves as the community engagement coordinator for MOFGA.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 7/14/22: Summer Encore 6- Understanding Algorithms

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Algorithms are a big part of our lives these days, though many of us may not be aware of that fact. More and more, though, regulators are attempting to make those who are using algorithms to make decisions that affect our lives in important ways – who should get a mortgage, how much should someone pay for car insurance, etc. – to explain how those algorithms work. The problem is that those who use algorithms often don’t actually know how they work. And, surprise, neither do the software engineers who designed them. What? Listen up.

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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Talk of the Towns 7/13/22: How Municipalities Maintain Roads

Producer/Host: Ron Beard
Theme music for Talk of the Towns is a medley from Coronach, on a Balnain House

Talk of the Towns: Local Community concerns and opportunities

For the most part, you can get there from here, thanks to the dedication of those who take care of our road systems. At the town level, that might be a whole public works department or to a road supervisor with a budget to contract for services. In conversation with representatives of Ellsworth and Tremont, we learn how they take care of their roads… plowing and potholes in the winter and repaving and other projects in the summer and fall.

-Description of Ellsworth and Tremont’s road systems and annual cycle of maintaining roads
-Are their best practices or “science” that you follow in maintaining or rebuilding roads?
-How do you share responsibilities for any State Roads with Maine Department of Transportation?
-How is your town adapting to the increased frequency and intensity of rain storms and other weather?

Guests:
Lisa Sekulich, Public Works Director, City of Ellsworth
Jesse Dunbar, Town Manager, Town of Tremont

About the host:
Ron Beard is producer and host of Talk of the Towns, which first aired on WERU in 1993 as part of his community building work as an Extension professor with University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Sea Grant. He took all the journalism courses he could fit in while an undergraduate student in wildlife management and served as an intern with Maine Public Television nightly newscast in the early 1970s. Ron is an adjunct faculty member at College of the Atlantic, teaching courses on community development. Ron served on the Bar Harbor Town Council for six years and is currently board chair for the Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor, where he has lived since 1975. Look for him on the Allagash River in June, and whenever he can get away, in the highlands of Scotland where he was fortunate to spend two sabbaticals.

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BoatTalk 7/12/22 (Originally aired July 2015)

Producers/Hosts: Mike Joyce, Alan Sprague

l’herimone, jellyfish

Guest: Steve Rappaport, Ellsworth American

About the hosts:

Alan Sprague a.k.a. Flounder of the Soul Show, has been a programmer at WERU since the glaciers receded. For thirty years at community radio he has worked his way from being an unpaid volunteer to being an unpaid volunteer today, and he says he’s worth every cent of it. In 2003 he and Mike Joyce started the monthly call-in show Boattalk which has become a boating related show without piers (pi). Mike and Alan met many years ago while both were working at the Hinckley Company. Alan was the head service carpenter at the Hinckley skunkworks called Bass Harbor Marine or sometimes Kibbee’s Kennels. He worked there for nearly thirty years and saw yachts of stories to tell yawl. As part of Boattalk they organize the annual WERU Boattalk Cruise in late June for a fun pot-luck trip up Somes Sound, America’s former fiord. Quite cunning Mike and Alan are to work a free scenic boat trip with fine food for themselves.

Mike Joyce bio to follow

Jon Johansen bio to follow

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Outside the Box 7/12/22: “The Great Replacement”

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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