Air Date: Week of June 14, 2002

Host Steve Curwood talks with Living on Earth’s Susan Shepherd about the launch of LOE Today, Living on Earth’s new web page.

Transcript

CURWOOD: It’s Living on Earth. I’m Steve Curwood. And coming up, a longing for the lone prairie. But first, Susan Shepherd joins me now. She’s the producer of Living on Earth Today. That’s the new Web Radio Service, a new website for Living on Earth that debuts this weekend. Hi, Susan.

SHEPHERD: Hi, Steve.

CURWOOD: So, along with finding us on a local public radio station, folks can find us any time on their computer now, huh?

SHEPHERD: That’s right. Every weekday on Living on Earth Today we’ll be putting up new stories and new photographs of the kind of quality material people are used to hearing on the show and finding on our website already. So if you go to the website and click on that little sound icon you’ll hear all sorts of new features, as well as the best of the past stories we’ve aired on the show. And we’re also really excited about some specials we’re producing.

CURWOOD: Yeah, you’ve got one on, what, women discoverers?

SHEPHERD: That’s right. We’ve got some great stories about Victorian women discoverers who have gone all over the world. You can imagine them in their long skirts, tramping around the Congo or climbing the Matterhorn.

CURWOOD: In a long skirt?

SHEPHERD: That’s right. And a really good example is this woman named Mary Henrietta Kingsley who was an English explorer. She actually went alone to Africa in the 1890’s, which the Europeans thought was very dangerous. And they were afraid she would come upon a fate worse than death. So, she brought a small dagger to kill herself in case she had to.

CURWOOD: Ooh. Well, why haven’t we heard about these women before?

SHEPHERD: Well, Steve, all of these women broke the rules and stepped out of the norms of their societies. So I think one of the reasons we haven’t heard about them is because a lot of them, when they came home, really faced bad ends. They died lonely and unknown. So if you go to LOE Today though, and listen, you’ll find out everything you need to know about them.

CURWOOD: And along with the new material and these specials, the site also serves as the official library of Living on Earth. Right?

SHEPHERD: That’s right, Steve. If you go to www.loe.org you’ll find all kinds of background information on the stories listeners hear on our broadcast show, and links and extended interviews and all kinds of exciting things. That’s, one more time, www.loe.org for something new every weekday.

CURWOOD: Something new every weekday, huh?

SHEPHERD: That’s right.

CURWOOD: Thanks, Susan.

SHEPHERD: Thanks a lot, Steve.

CURWOOD: Susan Shepherd is producer of Living On Earth Today on our new Web Radio Service, a new website that you can find at www.loe.org. What’s that site? Yeah, it’s www.loe.org.

[MUSIC]