Democracy Forum 4/16/21 Divided We Stand: Can diversity be our strength?

Host: Ann Luther, League of Women Voters of Maine

Key Discussion Points:
Whether this is one of the most divided moments in American history.
How have these fractured moments come up in our prior history?
What role is the emergence of multiracial democracy playing in this current divisive moment?
What role has race played in the divisions of the past?
Can a polity come back from such serious fragmentation?
How have we gotten past it before, or have we?

Guests:
David Blight, Sterling Professor of History, of African American Studies, and of American Studies at Yale University, and the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, among many other books and articles.

Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of Sociology and African-American Studies at Colby College. She is also an ordained Baptist minister and the assistant pastor for special projects at the Union Baptist Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

To learn more about this topic:
“Three Great Revolutions: W. E. B. Du Bois, African American Women and Social Change,” Cheryl Gilkes in the Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 2016.
“America is exceptional in the nature of its political divide,” Pew Research Center, November, 2020.
“How can America heal from the Trump era? Lessons from Germany’s transformation into a prosperous democracy after Nazi rule,” Sylvia Taschka in The Conversation, January, 2021.
“Appomattox and the Ongoing Civil War,” David Blight in The Atlantic, April, 2015.
“Multiracial Democracy Is 55 Years Old. Will It Survive?,” Adam Serwer in The Atlantic, January, 2021.
Anchor of the Soul, a documentary about Black history in Maine, 1994
“W.E.B. Du Bois’ Visionary Infographics Come Together for the First Time in Full Color,” wherein his pioneering team of black sociologists created data visualizations that explained institutionalized racism to the world, Smithsonian, 2018
Life of a Klansman: A Family History in White Supremacy, Edward Ball, 2020

Prerecorded on 4/14/2021 using Zoom technology.

The mostly volunteer team at the League of Women Voters – Downeast who plan and coordinate this series includes:

Martha Dickinson, Michael Fisher, 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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Dawnland Signals 4/15/21: Maine’s efforts to fully comply with the ICWA

Producers/Hosts: Maria Girouard, Esther Anne
Engineer: Jeffrey Hotchkiss

Critical conversations of truth, healing, and change in the Dawnland

Honoring the Indian Child Welfare Act: Maine’s efforts to fully comply with the ICWA

-Truth Commission’s third recommendation for Maine to improve staff ICWA training
-The importance of educating about the history that led to the ICWA
-What citizens can do to support the ICWA

Guests:
Norma Saulis, Penobscot, ICWA Coordinator for Aroostook Band of Micmacs; Martha Proulx, Maine Office of Child and Family Services and ICWA Liaison; Xi Chen, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Maine Attorney General.

About the hosts:

Esther Anne, is a Passamaquoddy from Sipayik who lives on Indian Island and serves on the Wabanaki REACH Board of Directors.

Maria Girouard, Penobscot from Indian Island, is Executive Director of Maine-Wabanaki REACH, a statewide organization working toward truth, healing, and change in the Dawnland. Maria is a tribal historian with a Master’s Degree in History from the University of Maine and a special interest in the Maine Indian Land Claims. Maria has devoted years to community organizing, environmental stewardship and activism, and growing food in tribal communities.

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Notes from the Electronic Cottage 4/15/21: Retraction Watch and Filter Bubble

Producer/Host: Jim Campbell

Previously, we looked at the CRAAP test, a way to evaluate how credible we find information on the web to be. But what about scientific information as it appears in original journal articles. Many scientific articles are difficult for lay people to understand. Even with peer review, scientific articles can go out of date or later prove to be inaccurate. How can we know if scientific articles are still accurate? Retraction Watch can help. But even with the CRAAP test and Retraction Watch, we still have another information problem on the web, “filter bubbles.” Here’s why.

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Talk of the Towns 4/14/21: Reimagining Indigenous-Settler Relations

Producer/Host: Ron Beard

Reimagining Indigenous-Settler Relations through the lens of The Gatherings, published by University of Toronto Press in 2021

What were the intentions for The Gatherings…what difference has participation in The Gatherings made in your life?

What did you learn about how to develop honest, respectful relationships among Natives and Non-Natives who were part of the Gatherings?

What led to the writing of the book? What was the process like?

What do non-Natives need to know about the experience of Natives and “the houseguests from hell” who arrived to colonize North America in the 1600s, including the Doctrine of Discovery.

We are broken… separated from the Earth and from one another as children of the Earth. What lessons from the Gatherings, and the work since, might help us reconnect?
…continued…
Where can listeners learn more to help reimagine Indigenous-Settler Relations?
(including Wabanaki Windows with Donna Loring and Dawnland Signals, with Maria Girouard and Esther Anne—both on WERU

Guests:
Shirley Hager is a retired Associate Extension Professor with the University of Maine. She organized the Gatherings under the auspices of the Center for Vision and Policy. She served as principal author of the book on the Gatherings, working with 13 other Native and non-Native co-authors.

Miigam’agan, Mi’kmaq (MIG A MAW), resident of Esgenoopetitj, Burnt Church Reserve, New Brunswick, her life work has been devoted to revival of Wabanaki Culture, Among other roles, she is Elder in Residence at St. Thomas University in Frederickton, providing support to First Nations students.

Marilyn Keyes Roper lives in Northern Maine on traditional Maliseet land, contributing her skills as Volunteer Administrative Assistant of Aid for Kids and works with Wabanaki people as an ally.

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 4/13/21: mostly proposed new whale rules, last part of ask leroy

Producers/Hosts: Mike Joyce & Alan Sprague

Key Discussion Points:
a) ask Leroy part two
b) zoom boattalk
c) whales and lobster traps

guests:
Zack Klyver Blue Planet Stratagies
Jack Merrill Cranberry Isles Lobsterman
Jon Johansen roving reporter

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

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