Maine Currents 9/21/16

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Studio Engineer: Joel Mann

Maine Currents-Independent local news, views and culture

Today our multi-partisan panel of area residents once again meet to discuss upcoming the elections, the candidates and lying in politics, and we take calls from listeners

Guests:
Betsy Garrold (Green Party); Renee Trust (Libertarian Party); Ken Gleason (Democratic Party); Tim Wilson (“3rd degree Berner”/ Sanders supporter now supporting Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party). Absent this week: Dave Gulya, the regular Donald Trump supporter on the panel.

Maine Currents 9/14/16

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Studio Engineer: Joel Mann

Today on “Maine Currents” we focus on ways local people are plugging into larger movements to create positive change. Guests Tracey Hair and Larry Dansinger report back from their trip to the World Social Forum in Canada this summer, we talk about the “End Violence Together” rally and march and events marking the anniversary of the Occupy movement in Bangor this coming weekend, as well as last weekend’s Wabanaki Solidarity with Standing Rock rally, and we invite listeners to call in with question and with their own stories of working to create positive change.

Guests:
Tracey Hair started working at HOME Inc in 12 years ago. For a brief time she worked in partnership with HOME at a homeless charity located in Harlem. She lived and worked in Harlem doing street outreach, handing out sandwiches and serving food from a pop up food pantry. In addition to street outreach, Tracey taught basic computer skills to undocumented and low-income women in the Bronx. She have since returned to HOME Inc here in Orland where she currently serves as Acting Director. In addition to working with homeless people, Tracey has spent time advocating for Immigration Rights for same sex couples and is also a member of the Board of St Francis Community / Mandala Farm where she lived and worked for two years. Mandala Farm is a homeless shelter where homeless people live and work together in community. FMI: http://www.homemmausa.org/

Larry Dansinger used to work with Resources for Organizing and Social Change and still volunteers with the group. Besides attending the most recent World Social Forum this summer in Montreal, Larry helped to organize a Social Forum here in Maine in 2006 and hopes there will be another in Maine soon. Larry was also active in the Occupy Bangor’s camp next to the Bangor Public Library in 2011 and is helping to plan a 5th anniversary event there on Saturday 9/17/16, 10-11:30 am (followed by a potluck) at the park next to the Bangor Public Library.
FMI: https://www.facebook.com/OccupyBangor/?fref=ts

Mary Ellen Quinn is the Co-coordinator of Pax Christi Maine and one of the organizers of the “End Violence Together” rally and march that will be taking place in Bangor on Saturday, 9/17/16 from 1-4pm at West Market Square (rain location: Columbia Street Church). FMI: https://www.facebook.com/events/1031435066943636/

Maine Currents 9/7/16

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Studio Engineer: Joel Mann

Our multi-partisan panel of area residents returns to debate Question 1 on Maine’s ballot this November (“Do you want to allow the possession and use of marijuana under state law by persons who are at least 21 years of age, and allow the cultivation, manufacture, distribution, testing, and sale of marijuana and marijuana products subject to state regulation, taxation and local ordinance?”).

Panelists: Renee Trust, Dave Gulya, Betsy Garrold and Tim Wilson talk about the issue with proponent Alysia Melnick, Esq., Political Director for “Yes on 1 Yes to Regulate and Tax Marijuana in Maine”. Don Christen, found of the Maine Vocals, joins us to talk about why some supporters of marijuana legalization do not support Question 1. Listeners call in and join the discussion.

FMI:

maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/upcoming/
www.regulatemaine.org/
www.facebook.com/RegulateMJinME/
www.facebook.com/MaineVocals/?fref=ts
mevocals.weebly.com/

Maine Currents 8/31/16

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Studio Engineer: John Greenman

Hal Crowther and Robert Shetterly debate “voting for the lesser of two evils” and listeners weigh in on that, and on recent news about Gov. LePage’s behavior.

Guest bios:

Rob Shetterly graduated in 1969 from Harvard, with a degree in English Literature. He was active at that time in the Civil Rights and the Anti-Vietnam War movements.
He moved to Maine in 1970. For twelve years he did the editorial page drawings for The Maine Times newspaper, and illustrated National Audubon’s children’s newspaper, and more than 30 books.
Rob’s paintings and prints are in collections all over the U.S. and Europe. For the past 10 plus years he has been painting the Americans Who Tell the Truth portrait series. The exhibit has been traveling around the country since 2003. In 2005, Dutton published an award-winning book of the portraits by the same name.
The portraits have given Rob Shetterly an opportunity to speak with children and adults all over this country about the necessity of dissent in a democracy, the obligations of citizenship, sustainability, US history, and how democracy cannot function if politicians don’t tell the truth, if the media don’t report it, and if the people don’t demand it.
He has engaged in a wide variety of political and humanitarian work with many of the people whose portraits he has painted – including environmental and social justice activists and whistleblowers. Since 1990, he has been the President of the Union of Maine Visual Artists (UMVA), and a producer of the UMVA’s Maine Masters Project, an on-going series of video documentaries about Maine artists. He has received numerous awards and honors. FMI: www.americanswhotellthetruth.org

Hal Crowther has also received many awards and much critical acclaim for his work. Hal is a critic and essayist who lives in North Carolina and spends summers here in Maine. He is the author of An Infuriating American: The Incendiary Arts of H.L. Mencken which was published 2014. He is also a former syndicated columnist, screenwriter and newsmagazine editor, at both Time and Newsweek. His most recent collection of essays, Gather at the River, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle prize in criticism. Crowther’s essays have been published in many magazines and newspapers, from Granta to the New York Times, and included in many anthologies, including the 2014 Pushcart Prize volume for The Joys of Obsolescence. Author and scholar Kirkpatrick Sale has praised Hal Crowther as “the best essayist working in journalism today”. FMI: www.halcrowther.com

Maine Currents 8/24/16

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Studio Engineer: John Greenman

Our multi-partisan group of area residents once again join us to continue our discussion of the upcoming elections.

Guests: Renee Trust (Libertarian), Dave Gulya (Republican/Trump supporter), Ken Gleason (Democrat/Clinton supporter) and Betsy Garrold (Green/Stein supporter).

Maine Currents 8/17/16

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Audio recorded by: Matt Murphy

Grab a cold drink and a comfortable seat – we’ve got another hour of great local storytelling for you this week! First you’ll hear 2 stories that were told at our Maine Summertime stories event at the Alamo Theatre in Bucksport last month by local storytellers Naomi Graychase and Amy Roeder. In the 2nd half of the show Roger Sprague – a Belfast resident who was born in that town in 1929 will share some memories and reflect on some of the changes he’s seen over the years.
We start at the Alamo Theatre.

Maine Currents 8/10/16

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Engineer: John Greenman

Today our multipartisan panel of guests returns to Maine Currents. We’ve been meeting once or twice a month since last spring to talk about the upcoming elections and some of the issues that will be on the ballot here in Maine in November. This is the first time we’ve met since the Republican, Democratic and Green Party conventions, so we start off by checking in for everyone’s reactions.

Guests:
Betsy Garrold – Supporter of Dr. Jill Stein, Green Party
Ken Gleason – Hillary Clinton supporter
Dave Gulya – Donald Trump supporter
Renee Trust – Libertarian / undecided re nominee Gary Johnson
Tim Wilson- Bernie Sanders supporter

Maine Currents 8/3/16

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Audio recorded by Matt Murphy

Some of the stories from the “Maine Summertime Stories” event held at the Alamo Theatre in Bucksport last week, cosponsored by WERU-FM, Wednesdays on Main and Northeast Historic Films/Alamo Theatre. Local storytellers featured today: Arielle Greenberg, Jonathan Fulford, Nolan Ellsworth, Sandra Dillon and Cara Oleksyk. Amy Browne emceed. (Part 2 will air on 8/17/16)

http://www.oldfilm.org/content/alamo-theatre
https://www.facebook.com/alamotheatre/?fref=ts
https://sites.google.com/site/bucksportswednesdayonmain/
https://www.facebook.com/bucksportwom?ref=hl