Category: Voices & Weekend Voices

Guest Producer: Marge May   Guest Host: Ann Luther, League of Women Voters of Maine

Topic:  Constitutional Checks and Balances and the Separation of Powers

How does the Constitution provide for checks and balances and the separation of powers?   How it is supposed to work?

What has been the history of concentrated executive power in modern times?  What are some of the methods used by the Executive branch to increase its power?  What are some recent examples of the way that each of these concepts has been used to concentrate extraordinary executive power?
·    Secrecy  ·  Inherent powers  ·   Political appointments & the civil service  ·   Signing statements ·   Unitary Executive theory

Is the Legislative branch institutionally weakened by the forces of modern politics?  Are the Constitutional protections adequate to modern reality?  What can citizens do?

Guest: Charlie Savage won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his Boston Globe coverage of Presidential signing statements.  He recently joined the staff of the New York Times.  He is the author of the book, Takeover:  The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy, which has just come out in paperback.
Neil Kinkopf teaches constitutional law, criminal law, legislation and civil procedure at Georgia State University College of Law.  He is co-chair for the issue group on Separation of Power and Federalism at the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.  During the Clinton Administration, Professor Kinkopf was a special assistant in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, where his practice focused on issues of presidential power.

FMI: www.acslaw.org ; www.lwvme.org

Executive Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Contributing Producer: Debbie Wildey

Topic: Earth Day Everyday Part Two (Part One April 22): Today’s show is about personal empowerment…  practical lifestyle choices, Maine resources, and encouragement to help address the increasingly urgent warnings and challenges facing Earth and each one of us.

What are some more sustainable practices that help feed ourselves?   How does permaculture work?   What are ways to improve the ecological footprint of our mode of transportation?  How can we save money and at the same time make our existing homes more sustainable and energy efficient?  How much garbage on average are we generating and how can we approach zero personal waste?

GUEST: Jim Merkel, founder of the Global Living Project and author of Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth. Jim speaks and gives workshops on ecological footprinting and deeply sustainable lifestyles. www.radicalsimplicity.org

Executive Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Contributing Producers: Cathy Jacobs, Jim Fisher

Topics:  Jamilla Levasseur with an update on the MOVE 9 parole hearings (FMI: onamovemaine@gmail.com);  Nigel Chase, Director of Planet Pan and Chair of the 2008 Pan Festival talks with interviewer Cathy Jacobs about Pan Festival events that will be taking place in Blue Hill the weekend of May 2nd-4th, 2008.  Carl Chase, Maine’s father of steel pan music and director of Flash in the Pans joins Jim Fisher on the Detritous Files to talk about making steel pans out of 55 gallon steel drums. (FMI: http://www.peninsulapan.org/index.html)

In lieu of the second half hour of Weekend Voices this week, we bring you the national program “Making Contact”, co-produced by WERU Volunteer (and current grad student studying journalism at UC Berkeley) Abigail Curtis: On this edition, “America, America,” we go to the streets of Richmond, California where Jairo’s story takes place. We’ll hear how a life altering event could force him to hang up his cleats and choose between the game he loves and the people he loves.
This show has been a special collaboration between National Radio Project and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Thanks to student producers, Abigail Curtis and Angélica Marín who wrote and edited this show under the guidance of independent media producer and UC Berkeley journalism lecturer, Claire Schoen.

Featuring:
Orlando Ramos, Richmond High School principal; Diego Garcia, Richmond Sol soccer league manager; Jairo, wants to play professional soccer; Veronica and Domingo, Jairo’s parents; Daniel Bravo, Daisy Merida and others, Kids from the Richmond Sol soccer league.

Credits: Executive Producer: Tena Rubio
Producer: Andrew Stelzer
Associate Producer: Puck Lo
Intern: Elena Botkin-Levy

FMI: www.nationalradioproject.org

Executive Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Contributing Producer: Debbie Wildey

Topic: Earth Day Everyday (Part One): Two contrasting visions of Earth’s future and our potential role in these visions. An analysis and closer look at environmental solutions that are commonly espoused and why others are not.

What are ecological footprints and where can we find tools to measure our personal environmental impact?
How do we analyze green-tech solutions that are being marketed to us?
What is the difference between measuring a product’s carbon emissions vs. its complete life-cycle assessment?
What is the role of environmental offsets?
How can our diets impact the global environment and how can we work to understand their affects on the sustainability, biodiversity, and natural areas of Maine?

GUEST: Engineer and Volunteer Jim Merkel. He was recently Sustainability Coordinator at Dartmouth College and is the founder of the Global Living Project and author of Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth and the Spanish version Simplicidad Radical.

FMI:
The Global Living Project:  www.radicalsimplicity.org
Ecological Footprint Quiz :  www.myfootprint.org
ADA Vegetarian Position Paper and Food Guide: www.eatright.org/cps/rde/xchg/ada/hs.xsl/advocacy_933_ENU_HTML.htm

Executive Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Topic:  Keynote speaker Linda Faillace, author of Mad Sheep: The True Story Behind the USDA’s War on a Family Farm”, speaking at the Food For Maine’s Future Conference in Unity, Maine on April 5th, 2008.   Her book, and her keynote, describe in poignant detail her family’s tragic encounter with the USDA’s bureaucracy.

FMI: www.foodformainesfuture.org

Executive Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Contributing Producer: Jim Fisher

Topics: Segment 1: Passamaquoddy activist David Moses Bridges speaking at the 2008 Maine Water Symposium: Who Owns Maine’s Water, on March 29th, 2008. David Moses Bridges, along with others, has been fighting to protect Passamaquoddy Bay from development for Liquidified Natural Gas facilities.

The symposium was sponsored by the Alliance for Democracy and the Water For Life Campaign and co-sponsored by the Maine Fair Trade Campaign and Maine’s Chapter of the Women’s League for Peace and Freedom.

FMI: www.defendingwaterforlifeinmaine.org

Segment 2:  The upcoming 2008 Peninsula Pan Festival in Blue Hill.  Al Abrahamson, President of Peninsula Pan discusses the origins of Pan Music in Blue Hill and the 2008 Pan Festival with interviewer Jim Fisher.

FMI: http://www.peninsulapan.org/panfest/

Executive Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Topic: Internationally renowned author and activist Maude Barlow speaking at the 2008 Maine Water Symposium on March 29th, 2008.  Barlow’s most recent book is Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water  She is also co-founder and National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians

The 2008 Maine Water Symposium was sponsored by The Alliance for Democracy and The Water for Life Campaign, and co-sponsored by the Maine Fair Trade Campaign and Maine’s Chapter of the Women’s League for Peace and Freedom.

FMI: www.defendingwaterinmaine.org ,www.canadians.org

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Contributing Producer: John Greenman

Topics:  The 1st Annual Comic Arts Festival in Belfast; WERU’s 20th Anniversary Celebration plans and volunteer opportunities

Guests: Mike Hurley, Belfast Comic Arts Fest;  Matt Murphy, Renee Johnson, WERU