by Jessica Newman
When we think of a bat here in Gainesville, we think of the little guys we see right before dusk who could be confused for a small bird or even a large bug. But on Saturday, Oct. 29, locals will have the opportunity to see a fruit bat with a wingspan of more than five feet (the largest bat species in the world) right here at home, thanks to the Lubee Bat Conservancy’s Annual Bat Festival.
Posted in October 2011
by Fernando Figueroa, Gainesville SDS
Eighty members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and their allies participated in a march in Gainesville on Sept. 16 against annual tuition hikes planned by administrators at the University of Florida (UF). Administrators say they will raise tuition by 15 percent or more each year through 2019.
Posted in October 2011
by Michael Canney, Co-Chair of the Green Party of Florida
Progress Energy’s nuclear plant at Crystal River (CR-3) is one of more than 100 aging US reactors approaching the end of their life spans. Engineered to run for 40 years, CR-3 was supposed to begin decommissioning in 2014, when its federal license expires, but the nuclear utilities persuaded the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to create a fast-track relicensing process for the old reactors, postponing the expensive decommissioning process and allowing old nukes to generate power & profits for another 20 years.More than 60 old reactors already have rubber-stamp license renewals from the NRC, and four reactors in Florida are set to receive them, including Crystal River, which has been offline since September 2009 when cracking and delamination problems were discovered in the concrete and steel containment vessel.
Posted in October 2011
The cooler nights are upon us, soon to be followed by cooler days and cold nights. Here is your opportunity to make sure that nobody goes without such a basic necessity as a coat this winter.
The Alachua County Coalition for the Homeless and Hungry, Inc. (ACCHH), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is collecting new and clean, gently used outerwear such as coats, jackets, sweatshirts and sweaters. Gloves, mittens, scarves, hats, sleeping bags, tents and blankets are also welcome. All shapes and sizes are needed, but the need is greatest for LARGE and EXTRA LARGE adult sized coats and jackets.
Bring your clean, gently used coats to the Alachua County Housing Authority, 703 N.E. 1st St. in Gainesville between 9am and 4pm, Monday through Friday. Coats will be accepted now through March 1, 2012. All donated coats will be distributed free of charge through Coalition member agencies to local people in need.
Posted in October 2011
By Richard K. MacMaster
Thirty Gainesville religious leaders signed a letter to Publix supermarket executives urging them to meet with representatives of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and discuss the possibility of paying an additional penny per pound for tomatoes. They made the letter public in a press conference at City Hall on July 28 and on the day after Labor Day announced it to state-wide supporters in front of Publix’s corporate headquarters, at the prayer service culminating the CIW’s recent two hundred mile bicycle “Pilgrimage to Publix.” But local residents may not understand why these clergy are pressing their friends at Publix to do the right thing.
Posted in October 2011
by Joe Courter
Once again this year the Alachua Conservation Trust and the Civic Media Center are joining forces for an Oktoberfest celebration at the Prairie Creek Lodge. The event will be on Friday evening October 14th from 5:30pm until 10pm and beyond the good people from both organizations, as well as the food and liquid refreshment, we will have the added pleasure one of Florida’s best singer/songwriters, Sam Pacetti, who will be in concert at 8pm. Sam is a real treasure as a human being, a St Augustine Florida native who learned guitar style from the famed Gamble Rodgers as a young man, and has continued to grow and develop his talents, in recent years living in Virginia but now back in Florida and working on a new CD.
Posted in October 2011
by Leah Cohen, Gainesville Food Day Co-Coordinator
The nation will celebrate Food Day on Oct. 24. Gainesville communities and organizations are planning so many activities that they couldn’t all fit in one day. Events will kick off Oct. 15 with a fair food panel discussion and film at the Civic Media Center, sponsored by the CMC, Florida Organic Growers, the Citizen’s Co-op and the Agricultural Justice Project. Students at Morning Meadow Preschool and Kindergarten and Heart Pine School will plant fall gardens the week leading up to Food Day. Check out www.gainesvillefoodday.org for information on other events.
Posted in October 2011
By Jessica Newman
While many are familiar with the Red Scare days of the McCarthy Era, few know about the infamous Johns Committee, named after State Senator Charley Johns, Florida’s very own anti-communist, anti-homosexual regime.
“Behind Closed Doors,” a documentary produced by UF graduates Allyson A. Beutke and Scott Litvack, tells this haunting story of a committee that targeted people in academic institutions, public restrooms and bus stations. And while Florida State University and the University of South Florida attempted to prevent the Johns Committee from harassing its professors, the University of Florida and its president at the time, J. Wayne Reitz, actually cooperated outright with the committee, feeding it with tips and ratting out its own personnel.
Posted in October 2011
by Rob Brinkman
A perfect storm of ecological, human and climatic catastrophe is brewing in Alberta, Canada. The mining of Canadian Tar Sands and plans to pipe the resulting toxic brew to the Texas Gulf Coast for refining and likely export will mean, in the words of world-renowned climatologist Dr. James Hansen, “game over” for efforts to stabilize Earth’s climate.
Posted in October 2011
The following is part of an interview that Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman did with Michael Moore after he visited the Occupy Wall St. demonstrations. A full transcript is available at www.democracynow.org.
Posted in October 2011
You might not know it by reading the Gainesville Sun but the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in New York City are entering their third week. Thousands of people have joined in with hundreds arrested and mounting reports and evidence of police brutality. As we went to press, more than 700 protesters were arrested for shutting down the Brooklyn Bridge. Since events are changing rapidly we’ve included a few online resources for you to follow (facing page). The Occupy Together solidarity movement is growing with actions taking place/developing in hundreds of cities —including Gainesville (see box). The letter below by Arun Gupta, editor of The Indypendent in NYC (www.indypendent.org), was posted by Naomi Klein on her site www.naomiklein.org.
Posted in October 2011
by Jenny Brown, Labor Notes
The story line from Postal Service management is simple and apocalyptic: The public is emailing and paying bills online, and the loss of revenue is bankrupting the post office. It will default on payments in November. Next year it won’t be able to gas up vehicles or pay workers.
The solution, management says, is for Congress to let it break union contracts, lay off 120,000 workers, eliminate Saturday delivery, close 3,500 post offices and 200 processing plants, slash benefits, and contract out work. In other words, destroy the service in order to save it. Continue reading
Posted in October 2011
In His Own Home is a documentary about the March 2010 shooting of an unarmed disabled black graduate student by campus police at the University of Florida and the failure of the administration to address the racism and overmilitarization of its police force. It tells the story of Kofi Adu Brempong, a Ghanaian graduate student, disabled by childhood polio, attacked by a campus SWAT team’s bungled response to a 911 call from a neighbor. It is the story of campus police who continued to employ the officer who had cruised through town, throwing eggs at black neighborhoods in Gainesville, and who shot Kofi point blank, but was fired only recently after he roughed up a white student driving a Mercedez. It is about students whose protests led the administration to drop fake charges against Kofi and whose continued activism challenges police brutality. Continue reading
Posted in November 2011
By Juan Cole
The real scandal around the endowment by the Koch brothers of two chairs at Florida State University is that state universities now have to seek such outside money and accept strings. The reason they have to do so is that many state legislatures have chosen not to have state universities any more. At many “state universities” the state contribution to the general operating fund is less than 20 percent, falling toward 10 percent. Continue reading
Posted in September 2011
by the Rural Women’s Health Project
In Florida, every county has the “Secure Communities” program. “Secure Communities,” or S-Comm, is a euphemism for law enforcement taking on the role of immigration officers, verifying the legal status of everyone brought in for questioning or charges, even women who are the victims of domestic violence or those who are victims of other crimes. Continue reading
Posted in September 2011
By David Meggyesy and Dave Zirin
In 1987 Tex Schramm, then general manager of the Dallas Cowboys, told Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), “Gene, here’s what you have to understand: we’re the ranchers and you’re the cattle, and we can always get more cattle.” Schramm’s statement perfectly reflects the arrogance of NFL owners and how they view player-employees and the collective bargaining game. It has been pointed out many times that the major sports leagues reflect the structure and operations of major corporations. In corporations, employees are essentially viewed as exploitable commodities and replaceable parts. It’s the same for professional athletes. Continue reading
Posted in September 2011
transcript edited by Pierce Butler
This is the fourth in a continuing series of excerpts from transcripts in the collection of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida. A lifelong civil rights activist, Dan Harmeling still lives in Gainesville. He was interviewed by Marna Weston on February 13, 2009. Continue reading
Posted in September 2011
Stop the Machine! Create a New World! What is the machine? Corporatism and militarism. What new world is possible? One in which people’s needs are more important than corporate profits, in which we unite our struggles for jobs, education, housing, healthcare and human rights, in which we are freed to implement solutions for a peaceful, just and sustainable world.
October 2011 marks the 10th anniversary of the US’s invasion of Afghanistan. On Oct. 6, individuals and organizations that promote peace and justice will join together in the October 2011 Movement in Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC. Hundreds of organizations around the country are involved in the planning of this peaceful and sustained occupation, which they hope will turn into our Tahrir Square, Cairo or the next Madison, WI.
Gainesville is organizing a group; for more info on travel information and the local plan, contact John Fullerton with Gainesville Veterans for Peace at jfullerton3@cox.net.
For more info visit www.october2011.org.
Posted in September 2011
“It took over 4 1/2 years to win this case!” said Cisco Torres.
Judge Philip Moscone signed and filed an order dismissing charges against Francisco Torres late Thursday, August 18th. Cisco was the last former Black Panther member facing charges in this 1971 case about the killing of a SF Police Sergeant. In 1973 several of the men were brutally tortured by police in Louisiana to elicit false confessions. The case was dismissed in the 1970s, but charges were filed again in January of 2007 against eight former Black Panthers. They all resisted this renewed repression. Charges against Ray Boudreaux, Richard Brown, Hank Jones, Richard O’Neal and Harold Taylor were previously dismissed for insufficient evidence. Herman Bell and Jalil Muntaqim plead to greatly reduced charges, receiving time served and probation.
Posted in September 2011
By Joe Richard
About 6 months ago, I had the incredible good fortune to be offered a plane ticket to Madison, Wisc., to participate in the massive protests and union mobilizations which had only recently begun there. I’d been following developments closely, and with the popular revolution having just toppled Hosni Mubarak in Cairo only days before, it seemed like workers in the US had finally caught the bug of popular resistance. I loaded a backpack full of flimsy Florida cold weather clothing, notebooks and pens and flew out the next day. I was an outside agitator on the way to cause as much trouble as I could for Gov. Walker. Continue reading
Posted in September 2011