WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives
Audio archives of spoken word broadcasts from Community Radio WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill (weru.org)
Locally produced radio magazine on cultural & community events & people. Every Wednesday from 4:00 – 4:30 PM
Producer: Jim Campbell; Host: Amy Browne
From the WERU Archives: Art and Science
How did Paul Sullivan get started in music? What are some alternative voting systems that might provide propostional representation more effectively? How do you mathematially divide something fairly among four or more people with no one feeling slighted?
Guests:
Paul Sullivan, Composer and Musician, River Music, Brooklin, Maine
Alan D. Taylor, Professor of Mathematics, Union College, Schenectedy, NY
Producers/Hosts: Amy Browne & Meredith DeFrancesco
The annual conference of the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers is currently taking place in Bar Harbor. Activists have been marching and rallying outside the conference for the past 2 days—expressing their concerns about the potential impacts of what they describe as a regional Free Trade zone comparible to NAFTA, called “Atlantica.”
The concept of “Atlantica” is the brainchild of the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies, a Nova Scotia based economic and social policy think tank.
Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians has called Atlantica “part of a corporate-driven scheme to further integrate Atlantic Canada’s economy with the United States, with potentially disastrous results.”
Activists from the areas impacted have become concerned in recent years that the annual Governors & Premiers conferences are serving as a private forum for industry representatives and policy makers to plan the implementation of Atlantica, free of public participation. Although there is no official mention of Atlantica on the agenda for the conference, the items that do appear–such as “harmonization” of policies for trucking and building an east-west expressway to improve trade– are in keeping with the Atlantica concept which touts “The importance of being connected to emerging international networks in a globalizing world”
Today we bring you voices from the rally held outside the Bar Harbor club Monday morning, followed by a comment from a representative of Governor Baldacci’s office:
We’ll bring you further coverage of the meetings on RadioActive Thursday afternoon at 4p.m. and will archive our recordings of the meetings
themselves on our website www.weru.org , along with a list of websites where you can find more information
FMI: www.maineatlanticawatch.org, www.canadians.org, www.atlantica.org,
Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Contributor: Judith Lawson
We’ve been on hiatus for a few months—preempted by the Youth Radio Crew’s summer program. But we’re back to our regular schedule now: this weekday edition of Voices airs every Tuesday from 4-4:30, and Weekend Voices is on Saturday afternoons from 3-4.
Next month a Bioneers conference will be held in Maine for the first time.
Founded in 1990, the Bioneers mission is to promote practical environmental solutions and innovative social strategies for restoring Earth’s imperiled ecosystems and healing our human communities. Today we’ll hear from organizer Ted Regan, interviewed by fellow Bioneers member and first time Voices reporter, Judith Lawson
FMI: kindledinme.com
Executive Producer & Host: Amy Browne
Contributors: Bill Phillips, Peter Rottman, Meredith DeFrancesco, Helen York, Andy Buckley
Segment 1: Health care in America produced by Bill Phillips and Peter Rottman
Guest: Dr. Peter Millard, physician, the Family Medicine Residency Program at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Maine
How do health outcomes in the United States compare with those in other modern, industrialized democracies? How do health care costs in the U.S. compare? How are health care expenditures in the U.S. currently allocated?
Segment 2: We’re celebrating 20 years of great community radio this month by counting back the years in the station’s history. Today we’re remembering 2001 with a RadioActive program from August of that year, produced and hosted by myself, Amy Browne and Meredith DeFrancesco with assistance from Helen York and Andy Buckley. This archived episode of RadioActive featured coverage of the groups “Let Cuba Live” and “Pastors for Peace” as their caravan converged at the Maine/Quebec border with medical supplies that they hoped to get through to Cuba via Canada, in defiance of the U.S. embargo. Features “play by play” coverage of the civil disobedience that ensued.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
TOPIC: Rebroadcast of two environmental programs from 1998: Environmental Notebook and A Wildlife Journal (as part of WERU’s 20th Anniversary “Hear Again” series)
Why may boycotts of rainforest wood products be counterproductive? What are some other economic appraoches to helping to preserve rainforests? What benefits do spiders have ecologically?
GUESTS:
Professor Richard Jagels, Univesity of Maine
Dr. Daniel Jennings (retired) U.S. Forest Servcie
Cynthia Jennings, Orono Public Library
Laurie Rose, Orono Public Library
Executive Producer: Amy Browne
Producer: Marge May
Host: Ann Luther, Co-president, League of Women Voters of Maine
Topic: Part of the on-going monthly “Democracy Forum” series. Today: Corporations and Democracy
Private vs public: what’s appropriate for the public sector, what’s appropriate for the private sector?
What would be the function of government if everything possible were privatized? Why is it important to consider in a democracy? What spheres have been privatized, considered or debated to be privatized? Are there appropriate safeguards and oversight in place to protect against corruption? What are the reform proposals?
Guests:
Paul Verkuil is a litigator, counselor, businessman and scholar. He is Professor of Law at Cardozo Law School, Yeshiva University, and Senior Counsel at the law firm of Boies, Schiller & Flexner. In addition to his current roles, he has served as Dean of the Cardozo and Tulane Law Schools and President of the College of William & Mary. He has written numerous books and articles on public law issues, including his most recent book, Outsourcing Sovereignty: Why Privatization of Government Functions Threatens Democracy and What We Can Do about It. You can read more about his background at the website for BSF LLP or at the website for Cordoza School of Law.
Si Kahn is a singer, songwriter and activist. He is executive director of Grassroots Leadership, where their goal is to put an end to abuses of justice and the public trust by working to abolish for-profit private prisons. Si is the author of the book, The Fox in the Henhouse: How Privatization Threatens Democracy. You can read more about him and his work at www.sikahn.com.
Producer/Host: JIm Campbell
Topic: Interview with and readings by Janwillem van de Wetering (recently deceased) from the WERU Archives
What were some of the formative influences on van de Wetering’s writings? What is the central point in all of his fiction writings? How did his living in Maine affect his writing?
Producer/Host: John Greenman, with assistance from Hugh Curran
Topic: Tanzania: An interview with Jaffar Mjasiri, Journalist, Tanzania Standard Newspapers, during his recent visit to Maine
How concerned are the people of Tanzania about ecological degredation to Mt Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti Plains What is the cultural/religious makeup of the population? How concerned are developers about protecting the country as it’s being developed?
FMI: Jaffar Mjasiri, jmmriha@hotmail.com