Around Town 3/8/24: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

We talk with some of the folks involved with the College of the Atlantic’s production of  Graupel, an accumulation of time, place, sculpture, and performance taking place tonight and Saturday night at COA. 

 

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.

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

Justice Radio 3/7/24: Participatory Defense

Host/s: Charlotte Warren and Zoe Brokos
Production Coordinator: Daria Cullen
Other credits: TECHNICAL SUPPORT – Sarah Johnson | MUSIC – Samuel James
Justice Radio is a WMPG production

Justice Radio: Tackling the hard questions about our criminal legal system in Maine.

This week: Join guest host, Craig Williams, Maine Hub Leader for Participatory Defense of the National Council of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, with team members Janet Drew, and Sarah Johnson, as they talk about Participatory Defense and their work in Maine for the National Council.

Guests: Participatory Defense team members, Janet Drew and Sarah Johnson.

FMI: 
www.nationalcouncil.us/reimagining-communities/participatorydefense

About the hosts:
The Justice Radio team includes:

Leo Hylton is currently incarcerated at Maine State Prison, yet is a recent Master’s graduate, a columnist with The Bollard, a restorative and transformative justice advocate and activist, a prison abolitionist, and a Visiting Instructor at Colby College’s Anthropology Department, co-teaching AY346 – Carcerality and Abolition.

Catherine Besteman is an abolitionist educator at Colby College. Her research and practice engage the public humanities to explore abolitionist possibilities in Maine. In addition to coordinating Freedom & Captivity, she has researched and published on security, militarism, displacement, and community-based activism with a focus on Somalia, post-apartheid South Africa, and the U.S. She has published nine books, contributed to the International Panel on Exiting Violence, and received recent fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations.

MacKenzie Kelley is a formerly incarcerated woman in long term recovery. She is a teachers assistant for inside-out courses through MIT. MacKenzie works at the Maine Prisoner Reentry Center as a reentry specialist, peer support and recovery coach. She is the program director for Reentry Sisters, a program designed to assist women reentering the community from prison.

Zoe Brokos (she/her) is the executive director of the Church of Safe Injection, a comprehensive harm reduction program that operates in Southern and Central Maine. Zoe is a person who uses drugs, a mom, a wife, and has led harm reduction programs in Maine for 15 years. She is part of the Maine Drug Policy Coalition, sits on the board of Decriminalize Maine and joined Justice Radio to promote compassionate conversations and drug user-led advocacy efforts that focus on evidence-based, public health responses to the housing and overdose crises in Maine.

Marion Anderson: Before joining The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls in January of 2022, Marion worked as a harm reductionist, housing navigator, certified intentional peer support specialist, CCAR recovery coach, and a re-entry coach for a diverse range of non-profit organizations.

Charlotte Warren is a former State Representative. She served on the Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee for eight years – six as the house chair. Warren previously served on the Judiciary Committee and as the house chair of Maine’s Mental Health Working Group and the house chair of the Commission to Examine Reestablishing Parole. Previous to her time in the legislature, Charlotte served as Mayor of the city of Hallowell.

Linda Small is the founder and executive director of Reentry Sisters, a reentry support organization specializing in a gender-responsive and trauma-informed approach for women, serving Maine and beyond. She is a Project Coordinator for the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition. Linda serves on the Maine Prison Education Partnership board at UMA and the New England Commission for the Future of Higher Education in Prison through The Educational Justice Institute at MIT.

Climate & Community 3/7/24: The U.S. Military’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Host: Tanvi Koushik
 
Description: Climate & Community covers the greenhouse gas emissions of the U.S. military, with the Pentagon’s carbon footprint surpassing that of many countries. Key international climate agreements including the Kyoto Protocols and the Paris Agreement exclude the obligation for countries to reduce their military emissions. We spoke with Lisa Savage of Maine Natural Guard, a group that invites Mainers to connect the dots between militarism and climate change. Lisa is an activist, grandmother, and retired teacher who emphasizes the need to continue building awareness around U.S. military emissions, and the need to stop the war machine.
 
Johannah, Brianna, Tanvi, Gus, Corey, and Beth are the team at A Climate to Thrive, a nonprofit working to build a model of community-driven, solutions-focused climate action. Since its origins around a potluck table as concerned neighbors gathered to take action on climate change, A Climate to Thrive, or ACTT, has been supporting solutions on Mount Desert Island and beyond since 2016. Learn more at www.aclimatetothrive.org.

Around Town 3/7/24: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

Upcoming events and Maine news from 100 years ago today.

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.

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

Healthy Options 3/6/24: Advocating for the care needs and rights of elders in nursing homes & assisted living facilities

Host/Producer: Rhonda Feiman
Co-Producer:
Petra Hall
Technical assistance: Joel Mann & Amy Browne

Healthy Options: For Well-being & Being Well

This month:

-What does an elder advocate do?
-What are the steps that are needed to create a plan in the event that you or a family member require medical care in a health care facility such as rehab/or a nursing home?
-What could go wrong when you (or a family member) need advanced care in a facility and are being discharged from a hospital?
-Are you required to go to a nursing home that a hospital discharge planner suggests?
-What are your legal rights when being faced with a hospital discharge that attempts to place you or a loved one in a substandard care facility?
-How can you evaluate the quality of a health care facility? What is a good strategy to help you or a loved one be admitted to a good quality health care nursing home?
-What are some legal documents necessary as part of a long term plan for health care? Why should you discuss this plan with a lawyer?
-What is the difference between standard Medicare plans and supplemental policies (Medigap), and Medicare Advantage plans? Why is it important to understand these differences and why do standard Medicare supplemental plans offer more flexibility and allow for more treatment options?
-What are some creative options to avoid isolation as one ages?
-What should you do for yourself or a loved one to create an  “aging in place” environment?

Guest(s): Elder Advocate Jack Halpern, founder and chairman of MyElder.
myelder.com
myelder.com/blog/
www.instagram.com/bigjackhalpern  (and Facebook)

Previous Healthy Options programs on related subjects:
Healthy Options 12/6/23: Brain Health and Aging Well
Susan Wehry, M.D., geriatric psychiatrist and director of AgingME, on healthy aging, being resilient and engaged as we age, how to handle “dementia worry” (anxiety one might have, about fearing a dementia diagnosis), and how to counter the impacts of severe isolation & loneliness which arose acutely throughout the pandemic, and is still being experienced by many people- including those with dementia.
archives.weru.org/healthy-options/2023/12/healthy-options-12-6-23-brain-health-and-aging-well/

“The Gift of Caring: Saving Our Parents from the Perils of Modern Healthcare,” about how the current health care delivery model is ill-equipped to provide comprehensive, person-centered care to seniors, and how many treatable conditions and symptoms are dismissed as “just old age.” The discussion highlights specific tools that we can use to help prevent these mistakes and what we need to know to achieve healthy aging.
archives.weru.org/healthy-options/2017/08/healthy-options-8217/

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.

Around Town 3/6/24: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

Legislative public hearings scheduled for today 

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.

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

Outside the Box 3/5/24: “Oz Revisited”

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.

Around Town 3/5/24: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

FMI re the events mentioned today:
To learn more about peregrine falcons at Acadia National Park: go.nps.gov/peregrine
Southwest Harbor Library:  swhplibrary.org/
Witherle Memorial Library in Castine:  witherlelibrary.net  
League of Women Voters’  “Quick Guide” to the primaries: www.lwvme.org

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.

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