Weekend Voices 8/29/09

Executive Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Contributing Producers: Eric T. Olson, Jim Campbell, Carolyn Coe

Segment 1: The Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine held an event commemorating the 64th anniversary of the two nuclear bombings of civilian populations in Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945 and Nagasaki on August 9. Eric T. Olson brings us some of the sounds from the event, which took place outside the Bangor Public Library on August 6th, 2009. Several members of the Peace and Justice Center participated.
Center Coordinator Ilze Petersons introduced the program. FMI about the Hiroshima/Nagasaki commemoration and the Unforgettable Fire slide show is available at www.peacectr.org.

Segment 2: When people walk up Main Street in Belfast, Maine, population about 6700, as they look into the window of the Old Professor’s Bookshop, they may find themselves imagining that they’ve somehow been transported to Harvard Square or Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley or Greenwich Village or some other large urban area with a large population and many universities.

In the shop windows, they’ll find themselves looking at displays of books focused on things like the French Revolution; or The Dynamics of Color from artistic, scientific, and psychological perspectives; or the History of Islam; or the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln, who, oddly enough, were born on the same day.

The WERU listening area is blessed with many fine independent bookstores but there is only one that divides its interior space into two categories: “What Is” and “What Matters.”

Jim Campbell stopped in to find out what why those categories and what brought such a store to Belfast. He talks with George Siscoe, the Old Professor of the Old Professor’s Bookshop.

Segment 3: Carolyn Coe reports on CodePink’s meeting with members of the Palestinian Legislative Council. This was recorded just prior to Obama’s speech in Cairo in early June of this year, in which he said “So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.” FMI: www.gazafreedommarch.org

Leave a Reply