Penobscot Bay podcast

On November 21, 2015, Rockland poet Kendall Merriam visited WRFR's studio and read three poems and the introduction to his 1980s work Medvedb's Journal

The reading starts with the recenty written "Bear Dance" a poetic tribute to Merriam's long time friend the late Gunnar Hansen. This is followed by a reading of Hansens introduction to Merriam's book "Medvedb's Journal". It is entitled Medved dances. Next: "An open Poem to ISIS" written in Thomaston in 2015. Followed by "At the cafe" written in paris in 2013.

Medved's Journal was published by Blackberry Books of Nobleboro Maine

A reviewer at the Bollard wrote:

"I suppose one would call Medvedb’s Journal a novel, though there’s no plot, hardly any dialogue, and really only one character: Medvedb, a very horny, schizophrenic poet who thinks he’s both a bear and the president of the United States."

On May 23rd the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held a two hour virtual meeting of the Maine Ocean Energy Task Force to discuss next steps for reviewing energy giant Statoil's plan to deploy four deepwater wind turbines 12+ miles off Brunswick, Maine. The meeting was followed at 3pm by this 25 minute public conference call in which BOEM officialo Aditi Mirani led a question and answer session about the meeting and about where the Statoil plan presently stands

Part 3 of May 20, 2010 meeting at Rockport Opera House, Rockport Maine. 50 Minutes Long. Topics: Plan for windfarm on Camden Hills's Ragged Mountain, and a question and answer session, including Des Fitzgerald of Principle Power about his company's offshore windmill designs

Emperors are known for many things, but only an amazing emperor - the Emperor Penguin- lays eggs. Find out how and why in this fascinating book by Brenda Z. Guiberson, illustrated by Joan Paley. Read to you by Kalen Darney, on WRFR Community Radio's Penobscot Bay Report for September 3, 2009

On June 15, 2009 Maureen Bornholdt of the federal Office of Offshore Alternative Energy Programs gave this 40 minute keynote speech to the participants of Energy Ocean 09, at the Samoset Resort in Rockport Maine.

Bornholdt describes how her office (a branch of the US Interior Department) has been given the mandate of rationalizing the exploitation of alternative ocean energy in federal and US EEZ waters. To that end she and her staff have put together a Framework to guide the granting of leases, easements and rights of way for renewable energy on the Outer Continental Shelf.

Bornholdt's talk was followed by a lengthy Q & A session, that is being uploaded seperately.

Today's 30 minute podcast reviews an recent article by Kim Lincoln of Village Soup's Rockland Herald Gazette on the interim results of an investigation by OPEGA, Maine's Office of Program Evaluation & Government Accountability, into the wrongdoings of Maine state prison officials, including Warden Jeffery Merrill and assistant corrections commissioner Denise Lord. Interlaced with a few choice excerpts of Jimi Hendrix music

Regrettably, the Legislature voted a few days ago to terminate the OPEGA investigation and leave it up to Maine Department of Corrections to investigate themselves. In their words:

"...allow the Department of Corrections to address these questions in continuing the cultural change work it has initiated in a more deliberate, coordinated and accelerated fashion. OPEGA, the Government Oversite Committee and/or the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee would receive periodic updates from the Department on the status of its cultural change efforts and the results achieved. In this way, the Department would be held accountable to pursue necessary change."

Uh huh. 'held accountable'? Magnusson, Merill and Lord must have laughed all the way back to their prison fastness.

See recent meeting minutes about the maine state prison review at

http://www.maine.gov/legis/opega/GOC/GOC_meetings/Current_handouts/5-22-09/Meeting%20Summary-Tab%201.pdf

In this week's 24 minute long edition of the weekend roundtable, I talk about, and play an excerpt of, our band of grassroots activists hectoring Big Green, Big Government and Big Trade outside the governor's mansion in Augusta, Maine. The latest skirmish in our fight to keep the western third of 940 acre wild Sears island from being turned into railyard and container port, and the estuary's nursery shoals from being blasted and dredged to let container ships come close to the island.

Learn the important difference between the old "New England Sierra Club chapter" that protected Sears Island through state and federal courts in the 1980s and early 90s, and the present day "Maine Sierra Club Chapter" that received an award for signing off on the dismemberment plan

So we go to Augusta on a hot May 22nd to challenge the Governor's Sears Island "environmental award" ceremony! Nature was on our side: way too hot to close the mansion's windows. Attendees at the Governor's Sears Island whackers award ceremony could hear our power bullhorned taunts and imprecations, and could see the coffined Rachel Carson speaking from the grave and the ghost, too of Sierra club founder John Muir, who gave Sierra Club a Rubber Duck award for "quack environmentalism".

The Kennebec Journal WBZ TV and Maine Public Radio came across from the ceremony and got the straight scoop from us.

This week's Weekend Roundtable features a caller commenting on Maine's continuing use of torture in its prisons. He describes his own experience being put in sensory deprivation conditions during his incarceration for a marijuana offense. He also describes how difficult it is to get training at vocational schools in Maine if you are an ex-con. He also mentioned the protest against torture that took place at the Maine state prison's gate See photo.

Today's podcast is fifteen minutes 30 seconds long