WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives

Andree Bella | Writer/Reader

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.

Good Morning, People! This is your cosmic curator, Tom Yaroschuk, with a look at the stars for the week of May 11th and the days ahead… 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.

Producer/Host: Patrisha McLean Production Assistance: Tammy Oropesa Music: Jackie Lee McLean Let’s Talk About It: Conversations with Survivors of Domestic Abuse Jolene Miles of Lewiston talks about how Maine’s courts and police enabled her dangerous ex, putting herself, her children, her pets, the general public and also the police at risk. Guest: Jolene Miles Topics include: The dereliction of the courts when it comes to DV. How police fail victims of domestic abuse. How perpetrator rights trump those of the victim in Maine. About the host: Patrisha McLean is the founder/president of Finding Our Voices, the grass roots survivor-powered non profit organization breaking the silence of domestic abuse one conversation and community at a time all across Maine.

Host: Holli Cederholm Editor: 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. This month: This episode of Common Ground Radio is an organic gardening Q&A with MOFGA’s crop specialist, Caleb Goossen. Listeners from around Maine submitted their questions in advance of the show. From soil testing and selecting potting soil for container growing to starting seedlings indoors and out, Goossen covers a wide range of topics related to organic gardening. List of subjects: – Organic gardening – Soil testing – Soil for container gardening – Seed starting and planting dates – Plastic reduction strategies in the garden – Pest management – Garlic planting Guest/s: Caleb Goossen, MOFGA’s crop and conservation specialist FMI: MOFGA’s Seed Planting Calendar — mofga.org/resources/gardening/seed-planting-calendar Starting Garden Seeds Indoors — mofga.org/resources/gardening/starting-seeds-indoors Spring Gardening Resources — mofga.org/spring-gardening Certified organic seedling map — mofga.org/mofga-seedling-map MOFGA’s Gardener Newsletter — mofga.org/newletter-sign-up-gardener MOFGA’s Pest Report and Fact Sheets — mofga.org/farmer-resources/pest-reports 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 lo0ng-time contributor for The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener, which she now edits in her role as content creator and editor at MOFGA.

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Joe Niemczura joins us again this month with an update on the “Maine Resistance Revival Chorus” he’s organizing – and an invitation for you to join them.  Also, upcoming events for kids on Sears Island. 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

Producer/Hosts: Ron Beard and Liz Graves Theme music for Talk of the Towns Theme is a medley from Coronach, on a Balnain House Highland Music recording. Talk of the Towns: Local Community concerns and opportunities This month: – What is the history, mission and current picture of Maine Outdoor School for All? – What are the benefits of learning out of doors? – What is it like to be a grade-school teacher today… what are some of the pressures and expectations they face? – What do teachers say are some of the barriers they face in getting students outdoors to learn? – And how do members of the network help classroom teachers (grades 4-8) overcome those barriers? – What are some of the benefits that teachers report from participation with organizations within the Maine Outdoor Schools for All network? – What is the background and current status of the Act to Support Outdoor School for All Maine Students, introduced in 2023 by State Senator Stacey Brenner Guest/s: Ryder Scott Executive Director, University of Maine 4-H Centers  Kara McCrimmon from Cobscook Institute Anica Miller-Rushing MOSFA Network Coordinator FMI: mosfa.org extension.umaine.edu/4h/camps/ cobscookinstitute.org About the hosts: 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. Liz Graves joined Talk of the Towns as co-producer and co-host in July 2022, having long admired public affairs programming on WERU and dreamed of getting involved in community radio. She works as the Town Clerk for the Town of Bar Harbor, and is a former editor of the Mount Desert Islander weekly newspaper. Liz grew up in California and came to Maine as a schooner sailor.

Host: Peter Neill Producer: Trisha Badger ABOUT THIS EPISODE Bio-regions on Earth are organized into types, then realms, and are further distinguished and mapped for planning, strategizing, developing, and as a tool for protection of the planet. A major trouble with bio-regional mapping is that it neglects nearly 83 percent of the ocean–beyond marine protected areas–leaving the high seas and deep sea unaddressed and vulnerable. WORLD OCEAN RADIO 5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advocacy and education hosted by Peter Neill, lifelong ocean advocate and maritime expert. A catalog of more than 700 episodes offer perspectives on global ocean issues and viable solutions, and celebrate exemplary projects. Available for RSS feed and for broadcast by college and community radio stations worldwide. You will also find this week’s World Ocean Radio episode at Exchange.prx.org, at Audioport.org, WorldOceanObservatory.org where the full catalog of episodes is searchable by theme, and wherever you listen to podcasts.

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Belfast resident Jim Merkel is a filmmaker, engineer, activist, and author of  Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth.   His new film, “Saving Walden’s World”, spans his early personal experience as a military subcontractor and his later studies of three countries where non-capitalist cultures thrive.   The film has been a featured selection at several international film festivals, and it’s coming to the Colonial Theatre in Belfast next week. FMI: Details: savingwaldensworld.org Tickets: colonialtheatre.com/ 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

Host/Producer: Amy Browne A look at some of our news & public affairs programs over the past month — and a pledge drive “thank you” from our team. 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

Producer/Host: R.W. Estela Hi, I’m RW Estela: Since 1991, I’ve been presenting A Word in Edgewise, WERU’s longest-running short feature, a veritable almanac of worldly and heavenly happenings, a confluence of 21st-century life in its myriad manifestations, international and domestic, cosmopolitan and rural, often revealing, as the French say, the more things change, the more they stay the same — though not always! Sometimes in addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives, in this age of vagary and ambiguity, when chronological time is punctuated elliptically, things can quickly turn edgy and controversial, as we search for understanding amid our dialectic. Tune in Monday mornings at 7:30 a.m. for an exciting journey through space and time with a few notable birthdays thrown in for good measure during A Word in Edgewise . . . About the host: RW Estela was raised as a first-generation American in Colorado by a German mother and a Corsican-Basque father who would become a three-war veteran for the US Army, so RW was naturally a military brat and later engaged in various Vietnam-era civil-service adventures before paying his way through college by skiing for the University of Colorado, playing Boulder coffeehouses, and teaching. He has climbed all of Colorado’s Fourteeners; found work as an FAA-certificated commercial pilot, a California-licensed building contractor, a publishing editor, a practitioner of Aikido, and a college professor of English; among his many interdisciplinary pursuits are the design and building of Terrell Residence Library (recently renamed the Terrell House Permaculture Living & Learning Center at the University of Maine), writing Building It In Two Languages (a bilingual dictionary of construction terminology), aerial photo documentation of two dam removals (Great Works and Veazie) on the Penobscot River, and once a week since 1991 drafting an installment of A Word In Edgewise, his essay series addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives — and WERU’s oldest continuous short feature. When pandemics do not interfere, he does the Triple Crown of Maine open-water ocean swims (Peaks to Portland, Islesboro Crossing, and Nubble Light Challenge) and the Whitewater Downriver Point Series of the Maine Canoe and Kayak Racing Organization. RW is the father of two and the grandfather of three and lives with his partner Kathleen of 37 years and their two Maine Coons in Orono.

Host/Producer: Rhonda Feiman Co-Producer: Petra Hall Technical assistance: Joel Mann & Amy Browne Healthy Options: For Well-being & Being Well This month: – Why is prevention the best medicine when it comes to ticks? Why is it important to keep ticks off of us, to begin with? – What is a tick borne infection?  What is Lyme disease, and other tick-borne illness? – What are the different kinds of ticks, and the diseases they may carry? Do ticks spread bacteria or viruses? – What is a co-infection? – What tick found in Maine, can cause severe to fatal illness in just 15 minutes (!) after a bite? – What is a tick check? What should you do if you find a tick attached to you? What is the safest way to remove a tick?  Where can we send ticks to be identified/tested? – What is a “bullseye rash” and how could it show up differently in men & women? Does everyone get a rash when bitten by a tick? – What type of clothing effectively reduces your chance of getting a tick bite? What is permethrin & how is it used on clothing (NOT your skin)? – What is picaridin & other repellents which ARE applied to our skin? What works/doesn’t work to repel ticks? 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 also had served on the 2022 Federal Tick-Borne Disease Working Group, Access to Care and Education Subcommittee. FMI: EPA info on effective repellents www.epa.gov/insect-repellents www.epa.gov/insect-repellents/find-repellent-right-you University of Maine Tick Lab Protect Yourself from ticks & tick-borne diseases: extension.umaine.edu/ticks/ Tick testing Amherst MA. (tests for more diseases): www.tickreport.com Columbia University Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center www.columbia-lyme.org/ Lyme Disease Association Research, Education, Prevention and Patient Support    lymediseaseassociation.org/ Lyme disease.org Powered by patients. Home of Lyme Times and My Lyme Data: www.lymedisease.org/ Maine Tracking Network: Tickborne Diseases Improving public health with better information data.mainepublichealth.gov/tracking/home TickEncounter  The University of Rhode Island Tick-borne Disease prevention Education web.uri.edu/tickencounter/ 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 wmjonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/110/2/78.pdf PARTICULARLY FOR HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS (& FMI for Clients): LymeCME Free, Evidence-based, AAFP-Accredited Courses that Physicians Can Trust www.lymecme.info/ Invisible International invisible.international/ The Montecalvo Platform for Tick-borne Illness Education is a library of accredited continuing medical education (CME) courses that teach front-line clinicians about diagnosing and treating vector-borne diseases. These courses are free to all users and are accessible to both clinicians and patients online. ****************************************************** Previous HEALTHY OPTIONS PROGRAMS on ticks & Lyme can also be found at: archives.weru.org/healthy-options/2023/05/healthy-options-5-3-23-lyme-disease-tick-borne-illness-and-how-to-be-tick-conscious-to-protect-ourselves/ archives.weru.org/healthy-options/2022/10/healthy-options-10-5-22-the-ticks-are-still-here-what-you-need-to-know/ archives.weru.org/healthy-options/2022/05/healthy-options-5-4-22-yearly-update-on-ticks-lyme-and-tick-borne-illnesses/ archives.weru.org/healthy-options/2021/05/healthy-options-5-5-21-ticks-those-blood-sucking-parasites/ archives.weru.org/healthy-options/2020/06/healthy-options-6-3-20-ticks-and-tick-borne-illnesses/ About the host: Rhonda Feiman is a nationally-certified, licensed acupuncturist practicing in Belfast,

Producer/Host: Donna Loring Other credits: Technical assistance for the show was provided by Joel Mann of WERU, and Jessica Lockhart of WMPG. Music by Ralph Richter, a track called little eagles from his CD Dream Walk. Wabanaki Windows is a monthly show featuring topics of interest from a Wabanaki perspective. This month: The historic and economic roots of global capitalism and its effect on Land acquisition in Colonial Maine & New England We will look at similarities and differences and how capitalism fueled Colonization. We will look at the 1930’s and 40’s. Guest/s: David de Jong is a journalist and author. His first book, Nazi Billionaires, was published in the US and the UK by HarperCollins and is being translated in more than twenty languages. He spent four years reporting from Berlin while researching and writing this book. David previously covered European banking and finance from Amsterdam and hidden wealth from New York for Bloomberg News. He lives in Tel Avi. Professor Harald Prins is a Native of the Netherlands he is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and an Emertus at Kansas State University. FMI: daviddejong.net About the host: Donna M Loring is a Penobscot Indian Nation Tribal Elder, and former Council Member. She represented the Penobscot Nation in the State Legislature for over a decade. She is a former Senior Advisor on Tribal Affairs to Governor Mills. She is the author of “In The Shadow of The Eagle A Tribal Representative In Maine”. Donna has an Annual lecture series in her name at the University of New England that addresses Social Justice and Human Rights issues. In 2017 She received an Honorary Doctoral Degree in Humane Letters from the University of Maine Orono and was given the Alumni Service Award. It is the most prestigious recognition given by the University of Maine Alumni Association. It is presented Annually to a University of Maine graduate whose life’s work is marked by outstanding achievements in professional, business, civic and/or Public service areas. Donna received a second Honorary Doctorate from Thomas College in May of 2022

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark This time of year, wood duck females tend to be sitting on their nests to incubate their eggs for the next month or so until they hatch out in June. 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 naturephenology@gmail.com Hazel Stark lives in Sullivan, 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 naturephenology@gmail.com

Host/s: Leo Hylton Production Coordinator: Daria Cullen Other credits: TECHNICAL SUPPORT – Aaron Pyle and 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: Opening this episode as both student and host, Leo engages in meaningful conversation with Tyler Redskye and Ebony Harper on the hidden histories of trans women. This is part one of a two-part series focusing on the silencing and absenting of trans women in Women’s History Month–and the rest of the year. Guests: Tyler Redskye and Ebony Harper. 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.

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.

Good Morning, People! This is your cosmic curator, Tom Yaroschuk, with a look at the stars for the week of May 4th and the days ahead… 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.

CJ Kenna | Producer + Writer/Reader

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark Now is a great time to seek the giant leaping bodies of sturgeon in one of Maine’s largest rivers. 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 naturephenology@gmail.com Hazel Stark lives in Sullivan, 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 naturephenology@gmail.com

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.

Host/s: Charlotte Warren Production Coordinator: Daria Cullen Other credits: TECHNICAL SUPPORT – Aaron Pyle | MUSIC – Samuel James Justice Radio is a WMPG production Justice Radio: Tackling the hard questions about our criminal legal system in Maine. This week: Host Charlotte Warren and special guests Representatives Lydia Crafts and Nina Milliken talk about drug policy in Augusta and Maine taking a public health response to substance use disorder by passing LD 1975. Guests: Maine State Representatives Lydia Crafts and Nina Milliken 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.

Producer/host: Amy Browne This month’s team of reporters and editors from The Maine Monitor:  Kate Cough, Rose Lundy and Stephanie McFeeters — and a cameo by Emily Bader (from a March interview that aired on Around Town)   They talk about some of the stories they’ve been working on, including issues at assisted living facilities in Maine, yellow flag laws, lack of attorneys for families whose children have been taken into DHHS custody, climate change and some of the issues facing the coast after the recent storms, pharmacy closures across the state.     (See links below)   This new program will air on the 1st Thursday of every month.   In June we’ll be talking about election season in Maine.  If you have questions or comments about primaries or elections related issues in the state, please email them to news@weru.org by 5/30 if you would like them to be possibly addressed on the June program.  Let us know your first name and where you’re from.   FMI: themainemonitor.org/ themainemonitor.org/how-we-investigated-maine–assisted-living-facilities/ themainemonitor.org/antipsychotics-usage-nursing-homes/ themainemonitor.org/lack-of-attorneys-child-removals/ themainemonitor.org/washington-county-behind-in-removing-weapons/ themainemonitor.org/seawall-road-washed-out/ themainemonitor.org/the-unstoppable-ocean/ themainemonitor.org/machias-dike-debate/ themainemonitor.org/portland-rising-sea-adapting/ themainemonitor.org/maine-pharmacy-closure-trend/

Producer/Host: R.W. Estela Hi, I’m RW Estela: Since 1991, I’ve been presenting A Word in Edgewise, WERU’s longest-running short feature, a veritable almanac of worldly and heavenly happenings, a confluence of 21st-century life in its myriad manifestations, international and domestic, cosmopolitan and rural, often revealing, as the French say, the more things change, the more they stay the same — though not always! Sometimes in addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives, in this age of vagary and ambiguity, when chronological time is punctuated elliptically, things can quickly turn edgy and controversial, as we search for understanding amid our dialectic. Tune in Monday mornings at 7:30 a.m. for an exciting journey through space and time with a few notable birthdays thrown in for good measure during A Word in Edgewise . . . About the host: RW Estela was raised as a first-generation American in Colorado by a German mother and a Corsican-Basque father who would become a three-war veteran for the US Army, so RW was naturally a military brat and later engaged in various Vietnam-era civil-service adventures before paying his way through college by skiing for the University of Colorado, playing Boulder coffeehouses, and teaching. He has climbed all of Colorado’s Fourteeners; found work as an FAA-certificated commercial pilot, a California-licensed building contractor, a publishing editor, a practitioner of Aikido, and a college professor of English; among his many interdisciplinary pursuits are the design and building of Terrell Residence Library (recently renamed the Terrell House Permaculture Living & Learning Center at the University of Maine), writing Building It In Two Languages (a bilingual dictionary of construction terminology), aerial photo documentation of two dam removals (Great Works and Veazie) on the Penobscot River, and once a week since 1991 drafting an installment of A Word In Edgewise, his essay series addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives — and WERU’s oldest continuous short feature. When pandemics do not interfere, he does the Triple Crown of Maine open-water ocean swims (Peaks to Portland, Islesboro Crossing, and Nubble Light Challenge) and the Whitewater Downriver Point Series of the Maine Canoe and Kayak Racing Organization. RW is the father of two and the grandfather of three and lives with his partner Kathleen of 37 years and their two Maine Coons in Orono.

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Tarak Kauff, an 82 year old former Army paratrooper and member of Veterans for Peace, with information about their  Walk for Peace & Plant, Justice & Democracy from Maine to Washington DC FMI:  peacewalk2024.org and  veteransforpeace.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

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.

Good Morning, People! This is your cosmic curator, Tom Yaroschuk, with a look at the stars for the week of April 27th and the days ahead… 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.

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Jace from Out in the Open joins us to talk about their upcoming Drag & Burlesque show (public welcome), which will be followed by a Queer Performance Art and Drag Summit for the LGBTQ+ community.  To register, buy tickets, or lean more go to: www.weareoutintheopen.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

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Guest:  Joe Niemczura of the new Maine Resistance Revival Choir, based in Waldo County. 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

Producer/Host: Steve Kahl Power for the People: Energy education and solutions for Mainers and Maine communities This month: Comparing hybrids, plug-ins, and full EVs. Performance and maintenance of EVs. Price and demand for EVs. Guest/s: Barry Woods, Senior Director of eMobility, Revision Energy About the host: Steve Kahl is Professor of Science at Thomas College where he teaches environmental and energy courses and advises the student sustainability club. He writes the monthly ‘Sustainability Minute’ email which is distributed to over 1,200 readers. He is a member of the Quarry Road Recreational Area board of directors where he is advocating for a net-zero energy new welcome center. He has advised the board of WERU on the current plan for the station to become 100% solar powered in 2020. Steve is a member of the Green Campus Coalition of Maine, the working group of sustainability directors at Maine college campuses. Steve’s past positions include Sustainability Director at Unity College where he developed a plan for the college to become 100% solar powered and earned the college the prestigious STARS Gold ranking with the American Association of Sustainability in Higher Education. Before that, he was Director of Environmental and Energy Strategies for the James Sewall Company of Old Town where he led a Maine Technology Institute research project that found that Maine could be 79% solar powered if all suitably-oriented rooftops had solar PV panels. Prior to moving home to Maine, he was a member of the Energy Commission in Plymouth NH where he was obtained funding for the renovation of a town office building to net-zero energy and the installation of 160 KW of solar PV panels on town properties included a major PV array at the sewage treatment plant that offsets 40% of its electrical costs. In his own home, he has installed two air-source heat pumps to completely eliminate heating oil, a hybrid hot water heater to reduce his water heating costs by 70%, and insulated the basement and attic to further reduce energy consumption and increase comfort. He would like to install rooftop solar panels but so far his shade trees that also produce maple syrup each year have convinced him otherwise. However, he has solar panels on his summer place at the lake and hasn’t paid for any electricity there since 2011. Steve has a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from the University of Maine.

Host: Peter Neill Producer: Trisha Badger ABOUT THIS EPISODE This week on World Ocean Radio we’re sharing some methods and means to make small and large changes that can have effects on the climate and sustainability challenges that are caused in large part by the consumer choices we make every day. WORLD OCEAN RADIO 5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advocacy and education hosted by Peter Neill, lifelong ocean advocate and maritime expert. A catalog of more than 700 episodes offer perspectives on global ocean issues and viable solutions, and celebrate exemplary projects. Available for RSS feed and for broadcast by college and community radio stations worldwide. You will also find this week’s World Ocean Radio episode at Exchange.prx.org, at Audioport.org, WorldOceanObservatory.org where the full catalog of episodes is searchable by theme, and wherever you listen to podcasts.

Host: Brianna Cunliffe Description: Climate & Community continues our conversation with Raney Bench, Executive Director of the Mount Desert Island Historical Society, about “Landscape of Change”, a nationally-recognized collaboration between the Historical Society, Schoodic Institute, the MDI Biological Laboratory, A Climate to Thrive, Acadia National Park, and College of the Atlantic that documents the scope, scale and speed of climate change on Mount Desert Island, and allows community members to develop a common understanding of the impacts on the place they call home. Learn more at mdihistory.org/landscape-of-change .   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.

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Update on Sears Island development and LD2266, with Nickie Sekera and Chris Buchanan FMI Email: protectwasumkik@proton.me www.facebook.com/groups/1136530394222369 https://allianceforsearsisland.org/ friendsofsearsisland.org/ www.islesboroislandstrust.org/ www.sierraclub.org/maine 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

Producer/Host: R.W. Estela Hi, I’m RW Estela: Since 1991, I’ve been presenting A Word in Edgewise, WERU’s longest-running short feature, a veritable almanac of worldly and heavenly happenings, a confluence of 21st-century life in its myriad manifestations, international and domestic, cosmopolitan and rural, often revealing, as the French say, the more things change, the more they stay the same — though not always! Sometimes in addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives, in this age of vagary and ambiguity, when chronological time is punctuated elliptically, things can quickly turn edgy and controversial, as we search for understanding amid our dialectic. Tune in Monday mornings at 7:30 a.m. for an exciting journey through space and time with a few notable birthdays thrown in for good measure during A Word in Edgewise . . . About the host: RW Estela was raised as a first-generation American in Colorado by a German mother and a Corsican-Basque father who would become a three-war veteran for the US Army, so RW was naturally a military brat and later engaged in various Vietnam-era civil-service adventures before paying his way through college by skiing for the University of Colorado, playing Boulder coffeehouses, and teaching. He has climbed all of Colorado’s Fourteeners; found work as an FAA-certificated commercial pilot, a California-licensed building contractor, a publishing editor, a practitioner of Aikido, and a college professor of English; among his many interdisciplinary pursuits are the design and building of Terrell Residence Library (recently renamed the Terrell House Permaculture Living & Learning Center at the University of Maine), writing Building It In Two Languages (a bilingual dictionary of construction terminology), aerial photo documentation of two dam removals (Great Works and Veazie) on the Penobscot River, and once a week since 1991 drafting an installment of A Word In Edgewise, his essay series addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives — and WERU’s oldest continuous short feature. When pandemics do not interfere, he does the Triple Crown of Maine open-water ocean swims (Peaks to Portland, Islesboro Crossing, and Nubble Light Challenge) and the Whitewater Downriver Point Series of the Maine Canoe and Kayak Racing Organization. RW is the father of two and the grandfather of three and lives with his partner Kathleen of 37 years and their two Maine Coons in Orono.

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.

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark These birds are nesting between April 20th and July 15th in open places so you might be able to notice their nesting behavior from afar. 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 naturephenology@gmail.com Hazel Stark lives in Sullivan, 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 naturephenology@gmail.com

Host: Peter Neill Producer: Trisha Badger ABOUT THIS EPISODE This week on World Ocean Radio we’re discussing a recent trip to Lisbon, Portugal to attend the Economist Ocean Summit. One such conversation we participated in was on the topic of regulation–those systems and structures that frame best practices and are designed to control abuse. Regulation is conflicting and contradictory, especially when most regulatory decisions are followed by time-extending litigation. What if we could redefine regulation as an incentive to succeed? What if regulation could become a motivating context to advance change, rather than a backwards impediment to progress? We’ll explore this and more. WORLD OCEAN RADIO 5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advocacy and education hosted by Peter Neill, lifelong ocean advocate and maritime expert. A catalog of more than 700 episodes offer perspectives on global ocean issues and viable solutions, and celebrate exemplary projects. Available for RSS feed and for broadcast by college and community radio stations worldwide. You will also find this week’s World Ocean Radio episode at Exchange.prx.org, at Audioport.org, WorldOceanObservatory.org where the full catalog of episodes is searchable by theme, and wherever you listen to podcasts.

Host: Peter Neill Producer: Trisha Badger ABOUT THIS EPISODE What are the five areas of our collective existence here on earth where the ocean matters most? If we are looking for a context to drive motivation and action, we have in our view the necessary clear focus through these absolutes–water, energy, food, health, and exchange–that can guide us toward a sustainable future, with the ocean at our center. WORLD OCEAN RADIO 5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advocacy and education hosted by Peter Neill, lifelong ocean advocate and maritime expert. A catalog of more than 700 episodes offer perspectives on global ocean issues and viable solutions, and celebrate exemplary projects. Available for RSS feed and for broadcast by college and community radio stations worldwide. You will also find this week’s World Ocean Radio episode at Exchange.prx.org, at Audioport.org, WorldOceanObservatory.org where the full catalog of episodes is searchable by theme, and wherever you listen to podcasts.

Host/s: Catherine Besteman and Linda Small Production Coordinator: Daria Cullen Other credits: TECHNICAL SUPPORT – Aaron Pyle and 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: First episode in a 3-part series focused on surviving harm and the relationship between accountability, healing, and justice, in relation to our criminal legal system. Join hosts Linda Small and Catherine Besteman as they talk with special guest Aswad Thomas of the Alliance for Safety and Justice, about what crime survivors actually want. Guests: Aswad Thomas of the Alliance for Safety and Justice 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.

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.

Host/Producer: Amy Browne FMI: www. greatpondtrust.org www.mainesalmonrivers.org/events www.disasterassistance.gov , 1-800-621-3362  or go to a FEMA office.   In Hancock County the FEMA office is in Ellsworth at the Moore Community Center, and in Washington County there is now a FEMA office at UMaine Machias.  9-5, Monday thru Saturday www.maineinitiatives.org/ www.weru.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

Host/Producer: Amy Browne National Park Service planned burns at Acadia National Park FMI:  www.nps.gov/acad/planyourvisit/conditions.htm   Ellsworth Arbor Commission’s Arbor Day event FMI:  email arborcommission@ellsworthmaine.gov www.tacf.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

Andree Bella | Writer/Reader

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.

Good Morning, People! This is your cosmic curator, Tom Yaroschuk, with a look at the stars for the week of April 20th and the days ahead… 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.

Host: Ann Luther, League of Women Voters of Maine Production Assistance: Joel Mann The mostly volunteer team at the League of Women Voters – Downeast who plan and coordinate this series includes: Martha Dickinson, Claire Fox, Ruth Eveland, Michael Fisher, Claire Fox, Starr Gilmartin, Maggie Harling, Ann Luther, Rick Lyles, Judith Lyles, Wendilee O’Brien, Kathy Stark, Leah Taylor, and Linda Washburn. Democracy Forum: Participatory Democracy, encouraging citizens to take an active role in government and politics This month: We’ll talk about the Maine Clean Election Act — public funding for candidate campaigns– as we move through our third decade. How does our program work in Maine? What have been its benefits and disappointments? How do publicly financed elections fit into the practical landscape for campaign finance reform considering the current legal environment? What trends are we seeing in Maine and nationally? Guest/s: – Anna Kellar, Executive Director, Maine Citizens for Clean Elections www.lwvme.org/lwvme-staff – Ian Vandewalker, Special Counsel, Democracy, Brennan Center for Justice www.brennancenter.org/experts/ian-vandewalker To learn more about this topic: 1. RFK Jr.’s VP Pick and the Dangers of Self-Funded Campaigns | Brennan Center for Justice, Ian Vandewalker, March 2024 www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/rfk-jrs-vp-pick-and-dangers-self-funded-campaigns 2. Maine considers expanding clean elections law to county candidates | Public News Service, February, 2024 www.publicnewsservice.org/2024-02-21/campaign-finance-reform-money-in-pol/maine-considers-expanding-clean-elections-law-to-county-candidates/a89001-1 3. Small Donor Public Financing Explained | Brennan Center for Justice, Mariana Paez and Ian Vandewalker, June 2023 www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/small-donor-public-financing-explained 4. 2023 Study Report on the MCEA | Maine Ethics Commission www.maine.gov/ethics/sites/maine.gov.ethics/files/inline-files/2023%20MCEA%20Study%20Report.pdf 5. MCEA Candidate Participation 2022 | Maine Ethics Commission www.maine.gov/ethics/sites/maine.gov.ethics/files/inline-files/2022%20MCEA%20Overview%20for%20VLA.pdf 6. Fight Over Clean Elections Act Won’t Be Over Anytime Soon And May Have Consequences In November | Maine Public, June 2018 www.mainepublic.org/politics/2018-06-27/fight-over-clean-elections-act-wont-be-over-anytime-soon-and-may-have-consequences-in-november 7. What is the Maine Clean Elections Law?, MCCE video explainer and fact sheet, www.mainecleanelections.org/cleanelections 8. Cleaning House? Assessing the Impact of Maine’s Clean Elections Act on Electoral Competitiveness | Maine Policy Review, 2012 digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1081&context=mpr 9. Maine “Clean Elections” Initiative, Question 1 (2015) – Ballotpedia ballotpedia.org/Maine_%22Clean_Elections%22_Initiative,_Question_1_(2015)#MCEA 10. Amplifying Small-Dollar Donors in the Citizens United Era | Common Cause www.commoncause.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/CT_SmallDonorDollar_Report_WEB.pdf 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.

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Ann Luther, host of the Democracy Forum (today at 4pm) with what’s happening on the show this month, and federal assistance from FEMA and the SBA.   FMI:  www.lwvme.org FEMA’s helpline 1- 800-621-3362 www.sba.gov/disaster or 800-659-2955 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

Host: Brianna Cunliffe Description: Climate & Community speaks with Raney Bench, Executive Director of the Mount Desert Island Historical Society, about “Landscape of Change”, a nationally-recognized collaboration between the Historical Society, Schoodic Institute, the MDI Biological Laboratory, A Climate to Thrive, Acadia National Park, and College of the Atlantic that documents the scope, scale and speed of climate change on Mount Desert Island, and allows community members to develop a common understanding of the impacts on the place they call home. Learn more at mdihistory.org/landscape-of-change .    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.

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Matt Murphy’s here with an invitation to join WERU at a community event in Bucksport on Saturday. 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

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Community events this week, and road conditions in Belfast during mud season, 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

Producer/Host: R.W. Estela Hi, I’m RW Estela: Since 1991, I’ve been presenting A Word in Edgewise, WERU’s longest-running short feature, a veritable almanac of worldly and heavenly happenings, a confluence of 21st-century life in its myriad manifestations, international and domestic, cosmopolitan and rural, often revealing, as the French say, the more things change, the more they stay the same — though not always! Sometimes in addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives, in this age of vagary and ambiguity, when chronological time is punctuated elliptically, things can quickly turn edgy and controversial, as we search for understanding amid our dialectic. Tune in Monday mornings at 7:30 a.m. for an exciting journey through space and time with a few notable birthdays thrown in for good measure during A Word in Edgewise . . . About the host: RW Estela was raised as a first-generation American in Colorado by a German mother and a Corsican-Basque father who would become a three-war veteran for the US Army, so RW was naturally a military brat and later engaged in various Vietnam-era civil-service adventures before paying his way through college by skiing for the University of Colorado, playing Boulder coffeehouses, and teaching. He has climbed all of Colorado’s Fourteeners; found work as an FAA-certificated commercial pilot, a California-licensed building contractor, a publishing editor, a practitioner of Aikido, and a college professor of English; among his many interdisciplinary pursuits are the design and building of Terrell Residence Library (recently renamed the Terrell House Permaculture Living & Learning Center at the University of Maine), writing Building It In Two Languages (a bilingual dictionary of construction terminology), aerial photo documentation of two dam removals (Great Works and Veazie) on the Penobscot River, and once a week since 1991 drafting an installment of A Word In Edgewise, his essay series addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives — and WERU’s oldest continuous short feature. When pandemics do not interfere, he does the Triple Crown of Maine open-water ocean swims (Peaks to Portland, Islesboro Crossing, and Nubble Light Challenge) and the Whitewater Downriver Point Series of the Maine Canoe and Kayak Racing Organization. RW is the father of two and the grandfather of three and lives with his partner Kathleen of 37 years and their two Maine Coons in Orono.

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.

Good Morning, People! This is your cosmic curator, Tom Yaroschuk, with a look at the stars for the week of April 13th and the days ahead… 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.

Producer/Hosts: Ron Beard and Liz Graves Theme music for Talk of the Towns Theme is a medley from Coronach, on a Balnain House Highland Music recording. Talk of the Towns: Local Community concerns and opportunities This month: – What are the elements of the sauna experience and culture? – What are the traditions in sauna and what are the growing edges, such as portable saunas and links to cold water swimming? – What led Garrett Conover to research and write his book, Sauna Magic? Guest/s: Jackie Stratton, Cedar Grove Sauna, Montville Jeneve Parish, Rest Day Sauna, Monson Gail Gladstone, Selkie Sauna, Bar Harbor Garrett Conover, author of Sauna Magic, Maine Authors Publishing, 2019 FMI: maineauthorspublishing.com/sauna-magic/ www.cedargrovesauna.com www.cedargrovesauna.com www.selkiesauna.com About the hosts: 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. Liz Graves joined Talk of the Towns as co-producer and co-host in July 2022, having long admired public affairs programming on WERU and dreamed of getting involved in community radio. She works as the Town Clerk for the Town of Bar Harbor, and is a former editor of the Mount Desert Islander weekly newspaper. Liz grew up in California and came to Maine as a schooner sailor.

Producer/Host: R.W. Estela Hi, I’m RW Estela: Since 1991, I’ve been presenting A Word in Edgewise, WERU’s longest-running short feature, a veritable almanac of worldly and heavenly happenings, a confluence of 21st-century life in its myriad manifestations, international and domestic, cosmopolitan and rural, often revealing, as the French say, the more things change, the more they stay the same — though not always! Sometimes in addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives, in this age of vagary and ambiguity, when chronological time is punctuated elliptically, things can quickly turn edgy and controversial, as we search for understanding amid our dialectic. Tune in Monday mornings at 7:30 a.m. for an exciting journey through space and time with a few notable birthdays thrown in for good measure during A Word in Edgewise . . . About the host: RW Estela was raised as a first-generation American in Colorado by a German mother and a Corsican-Basque father who would become a three-war veteran for the US Army, so RW was naturally a military brat and later engaged in various Vietnam-era civil-service adventures before paying his way through college by skiing for the University of Colorado, playing Boulder coffeehouses, and teaching. He has climbed all of Colorado’s Fourteeners; found work as an FAA-certificated commercial pilot, a California-licensed building contractor, a publishing editor, a practitioner of Aikido, and a college professor of English; among his many interdisciplinary pursuits are the design and building of Terrell Residence Library (recently renamed the Terrell House Permaculture Living & Learning Center at the University of Maine), writing Building It In Two Languages (a bilingual dictionary of construction terminology), aerial photo documentation of two dam removals (Great Works and Veazie) on the Penobscot River, and once a week since 1991 drafting an installment of A Word In Edgewise, his essay series addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives — and WERU’s oldest continuous short feature. When pandemics do not interfere, he does the Triple Crown of Maine open-water ocean swims (Peaks to Portland, Islesboro Crossing, and Nubble Light Challenge) and the Whitewater Downriver Point Series of the Maine Canoe and Kayak Racing Organization. RW is the father of two and the grandfather of three and lives with his partner Kathleen of 37 years and their two Maine Coons in Orono.

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. Airs the first Friday of every month from 4-5pm. Online at pointedfirs.org. This month: This month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs host Peter Neill sits down with Siri Beckman, visual artist, wood engraver, printmaker, painter, and now author, with “The Prints of Siri Beckman: Engraving a Sense of Place.” Beckman, born in Chicago, Illinois, moved to Maine in 1975, and was called to wood engraving quite by accident, and has been practicing the art form for more than forty years. Beckman’s early wood engravings are strongly influenced by her surroundings and daily life in the Maine fishing town of Stonington where she lived. She recently moved to Bath, Maine, where she continues to maintain her studio. 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.

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark They form in depressions in the forest floor and are large enough to last for a few months, but small enough that they tend to dry out by mid-summer. As a result, vernal pools have no fish in them. This lack of a key predator population makes them a perfect place for amphibians to breed. 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 naturephenology@gmail.com Hazel Stark lives in Sullivan, 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 naturephenology@gmail.com

Host: Carrie Clark (she, hers) Youth Educator and Advocate at NextStep Domestic Violence Project. NextStep 24/7 Helpline: 1(800) 315-5579 Music credit: Megan Light and Nathan Spears, local musicians, donated theme music for the show. Relationship Rewind: Rewinding relationships in popular media and breaking down behaviors based in power, control, and abuse. This episode: Discussing unhealthy behaviors in relationships shown in the The School of Rock. Discussing how media normalizes these behaviors. Discussing the impacts of these messages about relationships on young people. Guest/s: Kaysie (she, her). About the hosts: Alli Williamson (she, her) is the youth educator and advocate for NextStep Domestic Violence Project based in Hancock and Washington County, ME. She teaches young people from Kindergarten to College about what power and control looks like in friendships and relationships, what resources are available to support those experiencing this, and how we can work to make our schools and communities safer and more equal spaces where abuse may be less likely to happen.

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.

Host/Producer: Amy Browne FMI:   Cleveland Jewish News, “KeyBank Purchases $15 Million in Israel Bonds, Doubles Investment,” November 15, 2023 April 15 Coordinated Economic Blockade to Free Palestine Jewish Voice for Peace, “Israel Bonds” US Campaign for Palestinian Rights: US Military Funding To Israel Map   Woodlawn Trails, Barn & Museum clean up day 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

CJ Kenna | Producer + Writer/Reader

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark While these birds are small and adorned with various subtle shades of brown and a pale eyebrow, they are anything but inconspicuous this time of year as males belt out long, beautiful songs that will stop you in your tracks. 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 naturephenology@gmail.com Hazel Stark lives in Sullivan, 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 naturephenology@gmail.com

Producer/Host: Patrisha McLean Production Assistance: Tammy Oropesa Music: Jackie Lee McLean Let’s Talk About It: Conversations with Survivors of Domestic Abuse Guest: “Bethany” Topics include: PFA violations being ignored DA Dismissals of DV over and over again Children traumatized by DV About the host: Patrisha McLean is the founder/president of Finding Our Voices, the grass roots survivor-powered non profit organization breaking the silence of domestic abuse one conversation and community at a time all across Maine.

Host/Producer: Amy Browne   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

Host/s: Leo Hylton Production Coordinator: Daria Cullen Other credits: TECHNICAL SUPPORT – Aaron Pyle and 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: Leo interviews Laura Ligouri (Executive Director), and Kholi Pepani (Assistant Director of the Healing Racial Trauma Initiative) from the Mindbridge Center about what a healing-centered approach to racial trauma and violent extremism might look like. “To change hearts and minds, we must first learn to access them.” Guests: Laura Ligouri, Executive Director, Mindbridge Kholi Pepani, Assistant Director of the Healing Racial Trauma Initiative, Mindbridge FMI: www.mindbridgecenter.org/ www.mindbridgecenter.org/healing-centering-hrti 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.

Host: Brianna Cunliffe Description: Climate & Community speaks with Doug Hylan, Chair of the Brooklin Climate Response Committee, about the committee’s initiatives, impacts, goals, and challenges, with a special focus on interconnection issues, power outages, and potential energy savings. Learn more about this initiative at www.brooklinmaine.com/directory/climate_response/climate_response.php   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.

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Haley Blake joins us with upcoming events at the Wilson Museum in Castine. FMI: www.wilsonmuseum.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

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.

Andree Bella | Writer/Reader

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark The next time Maine will experience a total solar eclipse will be 55 years from now, so this could be a once in a lifetime opportunity for many. 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 naturephenology@gmail.com Hazel Stark lives in Sullivan, 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 naturephenology@gmail.com

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.

Good Morning, People! This is your cosmic curator, Tom Yaroschuk, with a look at the stars for the week of April 6th and the days ahead… 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.

Host: Corey McVay   Description: Climate & Community breaks down electricity bills and all of the different charges that are a part of them, specifically for Versant Power customers. Distribution, transmission, stranded costs, conservation, and supply rates are explained and tied to the larger energy transition. Central Maine Power and Versant Power both have “Understanding Your Bill” sections on their websites, linked here: www.cmpco.com/understand-your-bill1 www.versantpower.com/residential/my-bill/understanding-your-bill/    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.

Producer/Host: R.W. Estela Hi, I’m RW Estela: Since 1991, I’ve been presenting A Word in Edgewise, WERU’s longest-running short feature, a veritable almanac of worldly and heavenly happenings, a confluence of 21st-century life in its myriad manifestations, international and domestic, cosmopolitan and rural, often revealing, as the French say, the more things change, the more they stay the same — though not always! Sometimes in addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives, in this age of vagary and ambiguity, when chronological time is punctuated elliptically, things can quickly turn edgy and controversial, as we search for understanding amid our dialectic. Tune in Monday mornings at 7:30 a.m. for an exciting journey through space and time with a few notable birthdays thrown in for good measure during A Word in Edgewise . . . About the host: RW Estela was raised as a first-generation American in Colorado by a German mother and a Corsican-Basque father who would become a three-war veteran for the US Army, so RW was naturally a military brat and later engaged in various Vietnam-era civil-service adventures before paying his way through college by skiing for the University of Colorado, playing Boulder coffeehouses, and teaching. He has climbed all of Colorado’s Fourteeners; found work as an FAA-certificated commercial pilot, a California-licensed building contractor, a publishing editor, a practitioner of Aikido, and a college professor of English; among his many interdisciplinary pursuits are the design and building of Terrell Residence Library (recently renamed the Terrell House Permaculture Living & Learning Center at the University of Maine), writing Building It In Two Languages (a bilingual dictionary of construction terminology), aerial photo documentation of two dam removals (Great Works and Veazie) on the Penobscot River, and once a week since 1991 drafting an installment of A Word In Edgewise, his essay series addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives — and WERU’s oldest continuous short feature. When pandemics do not interfere, he does the Triple Crown of Maine open-water ocean swims (Peaks to Portland, Islesboro Crossing, and Nubble Light Challenge) and the Whitewater Downriver Point Series of the Maine Canoe and Kayak Racing Organization. RW is the father of two and the grandfather of three and lives with his partner Kathleen of 37 years and their two Maine Coons in Orono.

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Topic: FEMA assistance available for Maine residents in coastal counties for damages and losses from the January 9th to 13th storm. FMI: disasterassistance.gov 1-800-621-3362 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

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Kyle Walton, Director of the Colonial Theater in Belfast, joins us to talk about their fundraiser coming up on Saturday 4/13, featuring Maine humorist Tim Sample. FMI:  www.colonialtheatre.com 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

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Eclipse Day tips and reminders. 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

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Kyle Walton, Director of the now non-profit Colonial Theater in Belfast, with an invitation to a  fund raiser with Tim Sample on Saturday, 4/13/24. FMI:  colonialtheatre.com 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

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Chris Battaglia of Torchlight Media with an invitation to stop by and check out their new space in Belfast. FMI: email: torchlightmaine@gmail.com www.torchlightmaine.com Instagram: @torchlightme 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

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Topic: Searsport resident Chris Buchanan reports on misperceptions about the Governor’s Sears Island dunes bill that citizen lobbyists are encountering among their representatives in Augusta. FMI:  FB page: Protect Wahsumkik Email: protectwahsumkik@protonmail.com 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

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.

Host/Producer: Amy Browne 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

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Sears Island, upcoming events. 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

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.

Good Morning, People! This is your cosmic curator, Tom Yaroschuk, with a look at the stars for the week of March 30th and the days ahead… 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.

Producer/Host: Amy Browne A discussion between reps from local environmental groups that are often on the same side on issues.  On the topic of industrializing Sears Island, a 940-acre undeveloped island in Searsport, the groups are split. Today they sit down together and explain their positions, and learn where they agree — and where they don’t. Guests: Francis Eanes, Maine Labor Climate Council Steve Miller, Islesboro Islands Trust Jack Shapiro, NRCM Rolf Olsen, Friends of Sears Island Links and events that were mentioned by guests or callers: https://allianceforsearsisland.org/about/ friendsofsearsisland.org www.searsport.maine.gov www.mcht.org/story/a-community-embraces-sears-island/ www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/display_ps.asp?ld=1895&PID=1456&snum=131 FB page: Protect Wahsumkik Email: protectwahsumkik@protonmail.com maineaflcio.org/news/legislature-advances-compromise-strengthen-labor-wage-standards-offshore-wind 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.

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Sears Island, upcoming events. 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

Host/s: Catherine Besteman Production Coordinator: Daria Cullen Other credits: TECHNICAL SUPPORT – Aaron Pyle and 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: Hosts Linda Small and Mackenzie Kelley, and special guests, Darlene George and Shawn Libby, continue the conversation about their extraordinary community service work from inside the Maine Department of Corrections while serving longer sentences in the carceral system. Guests: Darlene George, Consultant for CEPP (Center for Effective Public Policy) and currently housed at the Maine Correctional Center for Women. Shawn Libby, Peer Leader, Recovery Coach, Master’s degree student in Youth Development, and currently incarcerated at the Maine State Prison. 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.

Producer/Host: Amy Browne A discussion of Governor Mills’ recent announcement that undeveloped Sears Island in Searsport  is the state’s preferred location to build an offshore wind terminal. What do people who have worked to protect the island from threats in the past think about this proposal? For the guests who were part of the planning process, what are your feelings about that? If not Sears Island, where? Guests: Steve Miller, Islesboro Islands Trust Jack Shapiro, NRCM Francis Eanes, Maine Labor Climate Council Becky Bartovics, Maine Chapter of the Sierra Club Rolf Olsen, Friends of Sears Island Chris Buchanan, Searsport resident Links and events that were mentioned by guests or callers: www.islesboroislandstrust.org/ www.nrcm.org/ www.mainelaborclimate.org/ friendsofsearsisland.org www.sierraclub.org/maine https://allianceforsearsisland.org/about/ www.mcht.org/story/a-community-embraces-sears-island/ www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/display_ps.asp?ld=1895&PID=1456&snum=131 FB page: Protect Wahsumkik Email: protectwahsumkik@protonmail.com maineaflcio.org/news/legislature-advances-compromise-strengthen-labor-wage-standards-offshore-wind 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.

Host: Brianna Cunliffe   Description: Climate & Community covers the Brooklin Climate Response Committee’s Neighbor-to-Neighbor Home Visit Program, which supports community members in seizing opportunities to decrease their emissions, save money, and improve comfort in their spaces. We speak with Island Institute Fellow Grace Carrier on the challenges and opportunities of climate work that starts right here at home. Learn more about this initiative at www.brooklinmaine.com/directory/climate_response/climate_response.php   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.

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Upcoming events. 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

Producer/Host: Steve Kahl Power for the People: Energy education and solutions for Mainers and Maine communities This month: Status and maintenance of the Versant grid. Solar PV and other renewables as a challenge for the Maine grid. The status and source electricity for the separate northern Maine sub-grid. Guest/s: Judy Long, Senior Manager of Communications. David Norman, Manager for Regulatory Support. FMI: versantpower.com About the host: Steve Kahl is Professor of Science at Thomas College where he teaches environmental and energy courses and advises the student sustainability club. He writes the monthly ‘Sustainability Minute’ email which is distributed to over 1,200 readers. He is a member of the Quarry Road Recreational Area board of directors where he is advocating for a net-zero energy new welcome center. He has advised the board of WERU on the current plan for the station to become 100% solar powered in 2020. Steve is a member of the Green Campus Coalition of Maine, the working group of sustainability directors at Maine college campuses. Steve’s past positions include Sustainability Director at Unity College where he developed a plan for the college to become 100% solar powered and earned the college the prestigious STARS Gold ranking with the American Association of Sustainability in Higher Education. Before that, he was Director of Environmental and Energy Strategies for the James Sewall Company of Old Town where he led a Maine Technology Institute research project that found that Maine could be 79% solar powered if all suitably-oriented rooftops had solar PV panels. Prior to moving home to Maine, he was a member of the Energy Commission in Plymouth NH where he was obtained funding for the renovation of a town office building to net-zero energy and the installation of 160 KW of solar PV panels on town properties included a major PV array at the sewage treatment plant that offsets 40% of its electrical costs. In his own home, he has installed two air-source heat pumps to completely eliminate heating oil, a hybrid hot water heater to reduce his water heating costs by 70%, and insulated the basement and attic to further reduce energy consumption and increase comfort. He would like to install rooftop solar panels but so far his shade trees that also produce maple syrup each year have convinced him otherwise. However, he has solar panels on his summer place at the lake and hasn’t paid for any electricity there since 2011. Steve has a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from the University of Maine.

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.

Producer/Host: R.W. Estela Hi, I’m RW Estela: Since 1991, I’ve been presenting A Word in Edgewise, WERU’s longest-running short feature, a veritable almanac of worldly and heavenly happenings, a confluence of 21st-century life in its myriad manifestations, international and domestic, cosmopolitan and rural, often revealing, as the French say, the more things change, the more they stay the same — though not always! Sometimes in addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives, in this age of vagary and ambiguity, when chronological time is punctuated elliptically, things can quickly turn edgy and controversial, as we search for understanding amid our dialectic. Tune in Monday mornings at 7:30 a.m. for an exciting journey through space and time with a few notable birthdays thrown in for good measure during A Word in Edgewise . . . About the host: RW Estela was raised as a first-generation American in Colorado by a German mother and a Corsican-Basque father who would become a three-war veteran for the US Army, so RW was naturally a military brat and later engaged in various Vietnam-era civil-service adventures before paying his way through college by skiing for the University of Colorado, playing Boulder coffeehouses, and teaching. He has climbed all of Colorado’s Fourteeners; found work as an FAA-certificated commercial pilot, a California-licensed building contractor, a publishing editor, a practitioner of Aikido, and a college professor of English; among his many interdisciplinary pursuits are the design and building of Terrell Residence Library (recently renamed the Terrell House Permaculture Living & Learning Center at the University of Maine), writing Building It In Two Languages (a bilingual dictionary of construction terminology), aerial photo documentation of two dam removals (Great Works and Veazie) on the Penobscot River, and once a week since 1991 drafting an installment of A Word In Edgewise, his essay series addressing issues affecting our day-to-day lives — and WERU’s oldest continuous short feature. When pandemics do not interfere, he does the Triple Crown of Maine open-water ocean swims (Peaks to Portland, Islesboro Crossing, and Nubble Light Challenge) and the Whitewater Downriver Point Series of the Maine Canoe and Kayak Racing Organization. RW is the father of two and the grandfather of three and lives with his partner Kathleen of 37 years and their two Maine Coons in Orono.

CJ Kenna | Producer + Writer/Reader

Producers: Hazel Stark & Joe Horn Host: Hazel Stark It’s goldeneye courtship display season! And there are fourteen unique moves they do. 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 naturephenology@gmail.com Hazel Stark lives in Sullivan, 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 naturephenology@gmail.com

Host/Producer: Amy Browne The Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife is trying to get the word out about who will need to take the course — and how to do that — ahead of boating season.   FMI:  www.maine.gov/ifw   The League of Women Voters of Maine’s book discussion on Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World  on Wednesday, March 27th from 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm via zoom.  You can find more information and register to attend at 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

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.

Good Morning, People! This is your cosmic curator, Tom Yaroschuk, with a look at the stars for the week of March 23rd and the days ahead… 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.

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Guest: Harald Bredeson,  Program Director at Grow Smart Maine.  The Creating Community: Farming and Housing webinar will be held on Tuesday the 26th from 4:30 – 6pm.  For more information or to register: growsmartmaine.org/blog/forums/webinar-creating-community-farming-and-housing/ And tune in to Coastal Conversations today at 4! 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