Tag: Maine

Maine Currents 9/19/17

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Audio recorded by John Greenman

Activist and author George Lakey on “Building a Movement: the Big Picture Vision for the Climate”

George Lakey’s keynote at the Sierra Club of Maine’s “Maine Grassroots Climate Action Conference” on Saturday, September 16th on the topic of “Building a Movement: the Big Picture Vision for the Climate”. He recently retired from Swarthmore College where he was Eugene M. Lang Visiting Professor for Issues in Social Change. While there he wrote his 9th book “Viking Economics: How the Scandinavians got it right and how we can, too:” after interviewing economists and others in the Nordic countries. All of his books have been about change and how to achieve it.
As a young adult Lakey lived in Norway and worked there as well as in Denmark and Sweden. On returning to the U.S. he alternated academic positions with founding and leading organizations working for justice and peace. Later he returned to the global stage to found Training for Change. George Lakey has led over 1500 social change workshops on five continents. He received the Martin Luther King, Jr., Peace Award and the National Giraffe Award for Sticking his Neck out for the Common Good.

FMI:
www.facebook.com/George-Lakey-1721380654783824/
www.sierraclub.org/maine


Maine Currents- independent local news, views and culture, every Tuesday at 4pm on WERU-FM and weru.org

Maine Currents 8/29/17

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Bangor City Council votes to recognize Indigenous People’s Day and approves a proposal “Urging the United States Congress to enact a Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax and Dividend”

We take you to last night’s meeting of the Bangor City Council to listen in on the testimony from tribal council member Maulian Dana Smith, Chief Kirk Francis and others, and the council’s discussion and vote on these two issues. On today’s program you’ll also hear Maulian Dana Smith’s testimony in support of Indigenous People’s Day at Bangor’s Government Operations Committee Meeting earlier in the month, and some background on the Carbon Dividend issue from a 2015 edition of this program.

Special thanks to the folks at www.townhallstreams.com Some of the audio in today’s program was recorded by them and used with their permission.


Maine Currents- independent local news, views and culture, every Tuesday at 4pm on WERU-FM and weru.org

Coastal Conversations 8/29/17

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel

Maine coastal and ocean issues: Fisheries History at Penobscot Marine Museum

-Penobscot Marine Museum’s fisheries exhibit and events and the role of museums in helping people understand about complex fishing industry issues
-National Fishermen’s photo archives from the Post World War Two era, donated and on display at Penobscot Marine Museum, illustrate over 60 years of fishing industry changes in Maine and the Nation
-Port Clyde Fresh Catch founder and long time fisherman Glen Libby, described the changes he has seen in 40 years of fishing, including changes in technology and fish populations that led him and others to start the nation’s first community supported fishery.

Guests:
Cipperly Good, Penobscot Marine Museum
Glen Libby, Port Clyde Fresh Catch
With thanks also to Jessica Hathaway, National Fishermen Magazine

Maine Currents 8/15/17

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Contributing producers: Carolyn Coe, Denis Howard

Segment 1: Bruce Gagnon on Korea, BIW and the US “Pivot to the Asia-Pacific”

Maine-based peace activist Bruce Gagnon spoke in Deer Isle on August 3rd about what’s being called the US “Pivot to the Asia-Pacific”. Gagnon has traveled to South Korea and worked with peace activists there and elsewhere in the region who oppose US military bases in their countries. He has also made the connection with the destroyers being built here in Maine at Bath Iron Works and has been arrested for civil disobedience at BIW. Although he spoke before President Trump’s recent comments about “fire and fury” in North Korea, Gagnon’s views on the region provide insight not heard in the mainstream media. He is a senior fellow at the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, and is a member of the “Working Group for Peace and Demilitarization in Asia and the Pacific” a consortium of acclaimed scholars sharing a focus on the region. (Recorded by Carolyn Coe, edited by Amy Browne)

UPDATE: We contacted Bruce Gagnon this week for a comment following the escalation of tensions in the region after he spoke in Deer Isle. Here is his response:
“In a new report, published by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, missile experts (including Ted Postol from MIT) write that North Korea does not have the rocket capability that Washington and the corporate media are claiming. They state, “The Hwasong-14 does not currently constitute a nuclear threat to the lower 48 states of the United States. The flight tests on July 4 and 28 were a carefully choreographed deception by North Korea to create a false impression that the Hwasong-14 is a near-ICBM that poses a nuclear threat to the continental US. The Hwasong-14 tested on July 4 and 28 may not even be able to deliver a North Korean atomic bomb to Anchorage, Alaska.”

The US to this day refuses to sign a peace treaty with North Korea – thus the war legally continues. On July 27, 1953 the US signed an Armistice (ceasefire) with North Korea but that is it. Thus the continuous US-South Korean war games right along the North Korean border must make Pyongyang wonder – is this the real thing? Did the Pentagon decide to invade us for real this time like they have done in Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Granada, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Yemen?

Embedded deep beneath North Korea’s mountainous zones are some 200 varieties of minerals, including gold, iron, copper, zinc, magnesite, limestone, tungsten, and graphite. Some of these stockpiles are among the largest in the world, and North Korea, a tiny and cash-strapped nation, frequently uses them to bring in additional revenue — no matter the laws against doing so.
The total value of these minerals lies somewhere between $6 trillion and $10 trillion. Could much of this war hype be a plan to grab their resources?

In the end I think it important to say that North Korea is really a foil – the US does not fear NK which only has 4 nuclear warheads while the US has 6,800 of them. Clearly the demonization and scare campaign around NK is intended to justify the US military ‘pivot’ of 60% of Pentagon forces into the Asia-Pacific to be aimed at China and Russia – the real prizes that Washington has on the regime change list.”


Segment 2: WERU’s Denis Howard talks with Peter Alexander about his new rock opera “One Way Trip To Mars” — opening at the Waterville Opera House on August 24th. Tune in to hear what went into creating the project and get a sneak preview of the music!


Maine Currents- independent local news, views and culture, every Tuesday at 4pm on WERU-FM and weru.org

Maine Currents 8/8/17

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Maine Storytelling

On July 26th WERU held our 3rd annual Maine storytelling event at the Alamo Theatre in Bucksport, as part of that town’s Wednesday on Main summer series. The theme this year was “My Maine: The State as Experienced by Local Storytellers”. Today we bring you Act 2 which featured Amy Roeder, John & Katie Greenman, Brook Ewing Minner and Naomi Graychase.

**The stories told by Brook Ewing Minner and Naomi Graychase were edited for length for the purposes of fitting into the Maine Currents time slot, but unedited versions of both of their stories are included here along with the archive of the Maine Currents show. The first file (below) is the complete show. The 2nd is Brook Ewing Minner’s unedited story and the 3rd is Naomi Graychase’s unedited story**


Maine Currents- independent local news, views and culture, every Tuesday at 4pm on WERU-FM and weru.org