Category Archives: June 2015

94.7 WGOT-LP moves ahead with studio plans

Posted on May 20, 2015 by | Leave a comment

By Fred Sowder, WGOT board member

Nearly a year and a half after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted a request for WGOT-LP, the Civic Media Center’s radio project, to move up the dial to its own frequency, plans have been coming together for a physical broadcast studio space. WGOT is partnering with Sweetwater Organic Coffee for this studio space. Board member Dave Drobach adds, “We are excited to have a physical studio and expand to a 24-hour LP-FM signal!”

Although the FCC has granted us our own frequency, the location of the tower (near I-75 and NW 39th Avenue) and power (100 watts) will not be changing because of current definitions of low power FM (LPFM) radio.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Articles, June 2015

Tagged , ,

“The Gap” showing on May 28 in Alachua

Posted on May 20, 2015 by | Leave a comment

“The Gap” is a short documentary describing the difficulties of people unable to obtain health care. Made in Gainesville by Jordanna Goldman and Christopher Cogle, M.D. it is being used by Florida Chain in its statewide campaign to have Florida accept funds for Medicaid expansion. It was shown at the Civic Media Center by the Alachua County Labor Coalition. It will be shown again on May 28 at 6:30 p.m. at the County Library, 14913 NW 140th St, Alachua. It will be followed by a discussion of what action to take.

Probably for no better reason than their resistance to Obamacare, Governor Rick Scott and the Republican-controlled House of Representatives have refused to allow Florida to accept funds from the Federal Government which would cover almost one million people without health insurance. They are largely people who work but don’t earn enough to qualify for Obamacare subsidies or are unemployed and looking for jobs.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Articles, June 2015

Tagged , ,

Peace Poetry Contest and Peace Scholarship announce winners

Posted on May 20, 2015 by | Leave a comment

Peace PoetryJP 1 peace scholarship winnersVeterans for Peace held their sixth annual Peace Poetry contest reading/reception on May 9. There were 225 poems submitted from all K–12 schools in Alachua County, and 34 winners were chosen. The students read their poems in front of 150 guests and received a gift certificate to a local bookstore and a book, which included all of the winning poems. This year Veterans for Peace also awarded three $500 scholarships to 3 students — Manuela Osorio (pictured), Catalina Cardenas (pictured), and Michelle Nelson —entering or attending college who have demonstrated leadership in peace and social justice causes. Musicians Lauren Ann Robinson and Bill Hutchinson performed at the event. Photos by Deborah Hendrix.

Leave a comment

Posted in Articles, June 2015

Tagged , , ,

Tombstone display honors Iraq, Afghanistan fallen soldiers

Posted on May 20, 2015 by | Leave a comment

11074393_10206199526854367_7752921689650873715_nVeterans for Peace will be displaying more than 6,827 tombstones from dawn on May 23 through dusk on Memorial Day on Eighth Avenue just east of 34th Street as part of their Memorial Day Weekend event to remember those who have died in the wars in Afghanistan since 2001 and in Iraq since 2003.

The tombstones will line the street along Eighth Avenue just east of 34th Street, where the Solar System Walk is located. This is the ninth year VFP has set up the display, and in 2008 we had to cross over to the North side of Eighth Avenue due to the continuing number of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Veterans for Peace feel that these losses cannot be adequately understood with facts and figures alone. The visual impact of the tombstones conveys the reality of these numbers.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Articles, June 2015

Tagged , , , ,

Kenneth “Kenito” Weeks, 1943–2015, peace activist

Posted on May 20, 2015 by | Leave a comment

Kenneth_WeeksKenneth “Kenito” Weeks died April 17 at his home in Gainesville, after a two-year cancer battle. Born in Washington, DC in 1943, he had been a Floridian since 1960 and resident of north Florida since 1978.

Kenito considered himself to be a citizen of the world, and he was involved in the struggles for peace and justice, civil rights, the labor movement, and the environmental and anti-war movements for decades. He was recognized by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the ACLU, and the Nature Conservancy for his dedication, and was a life member of the Sierra Club. He was an active member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the Labor Party of Alachua County Committee of 100, the Industrial Workers of the World, and the United Farm Workers.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Articles, June 2015

Tagged ,

Abby Goldsmith, Rest in Power

Posted on May 20, 2015 by | Leave a comment

Abby.forObituaryAbby Goldsmith died peacefully on Monday, April 27, 2015 at her home after a brief illness, surrounded by family and friends.

She was born in Meriden, CT, July 21, 1945 to Dr. Henry and Ingeborg Alberty Caplan.

Her activism commenced with protesting the War in Vietnam and she was arrested and handcuffed in front of her young children on trumped up charges that were soon dismissed. Consequently, she became an anarcho-syndicist and, in 1971, moved with her then partner to Florida; they aimed for Jacksonville but by navigational error ended up in Gainesville. Always wearing black, the color of anarchists, she was known as “Black Abby”.   Then, wishing to change the world but becoming disheartened by the disorganization of anarchists, she changed political philosophies several times and settled in as, and forever remained, a Marxist.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Articles, June 2015

Tagged

A proposal for a livable wage for Alachua County workers

Posted on May 20, 2015 by | Leave a comment

by the alachua county labor coalition

Throughout the nation, a movement has been fomenting around the need for a living wage. Thousands of workers have gone on strike, politicians have stumped, and large companies such as McDonalds and Walmart have given token raises; but little has been done in Florida to make a living wage a reality. In Alachua County, a coalition of religious organizations, businesses, labor unions, and economic justice activists have come together to make a tangible change for Alachua County workers. Our ambitious goal is to have the 10 largest employers in the County pay a Living Wage by 2020. We aim to enforce Article X, Section 24 of the Florida Constitution, which is currently being scorned by many of our elected officials.

All working Floridians are entitled to be paid a minimum wage that is sufficient to provide a decent and healthy life for them and their families, that protects their employers from unfair low-wage competition, and that does not force them to rely on taxpayer-funded public services in order to avoid economic hardship.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Articles, June 2015

Tagged , , , ,

Looking back: Kent State revisted

Posted on May 20, 2015 by | Leave a comment

by Joe Courter

What follows is an article from the Iguana in April 1995, Vol 9, #7 we’re publishing as part of an occasional series of “look-backs.” It was published on the 25-year anniversary of the killings at Kent State.

May 4th 1995 will mark the 25th anniversary of the 1970 killing of four students at Kent State University by soldiers of the Ohio National Guard. As someone who was a college freshman in the spring of 1970; and active in the anti-war activities that were happening at my campus in southwestern Michigan, these killings had a profound personal impact; they were students of my age doing what I would have been doing had I been there at Kent State. That United States armed and trained soldiers would shoot and kill students made me realize how much the government hated the anti-war movement, and this increased my resolve to oppose the U.S. policy which turned young men into killers, be they soldiers in Vietnam or Ohio. Or Mississippi, where only ten days after the Kent killings, two students were killed at Jackson State in a protest of both the war and the Kent State shootings.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Articles, June 2015

Tagged

History and the people who make it: David Barsamian

Posted on May 20, 2015 by | Leave a comment

Transcript edited by Pierce Butler

This is the 27th in a series of transcript excerpts from the collection of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida.

David Barsamian was interviewed by Paul Ortiz [O] and Matthew Simmons [S] in 2014.

B: I was born in Manhattan in 1945. My parents were from Turkish Armenia. They came to the United States in 1921. They were refugees from one of the major genocides of the twentieth century: the Turkish massacre of the Armenians, which began in 1915.

So growing up in New York, I was bilingual, bicultural, very much part of a different culture while being at the same time a hundred percent American, whatever that means: eating hot dogs, playing stickball in the street, punch ball, basketball, off the point, all these street games, box ball.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Articles, June 2015

Tagged , , , ,

Judge’s recommendation threatens Silver Springs

Posted on May 20, 2015 by | Leave a comment

by karen ahlers

Despite evidence that Florida’s iconic Silver Springs would be further degraded from the over-pumping of groundwater and increased nutrient pollution, an Administrative Law Judge has recommended approval of a permit for the massive cattle operation, Sleepy Creek Lands (formerly known as Adena Springs Ranch). The Judge’s ruling is the result of a legal challenge by Sierra Club, St. Johns Riverkeeper, and two citizens, Jeri Baldwin and Karen Ahlers. Florida Defenders of the Environment also supported this challenge as an Intervener.

Sleepy Creek Lands and its owner, Canadian billionaire Frank Stronach, are seeking a permit to pump 1.46 million gallons a day from the already-stressed Floridan Aquifer for the first phase of a multi-phase beef operation near Silver Springs and the Ocklawaha River Aquatic Preserve. The proposed project has created uproar from concerned citizens throughout the state.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Articles, June 2015

Tagged , , , , ,

Activist Dezeray Lyn speaks on justice for Palestine, June 3

Posted on May 20, 2015 by | Leave a comment

On Wednesday, June 3, at 7pm, the Civic Media Center and Students for Justice in Palestine will welcome guest speaker Dezeray Lyn. She will give a report back from two months in the occupied Palestinian Territories.

Dezeray Lyn has been a long-time community organizer around issues of animal rights, houselessness, and economic injustice. After watching Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza during last year’s “Operation Protective Edge,” which left thousands of Palestinians dead, many of them children, Dezeray co-founded Block the Boat Tampa, to contribute to the ongoing Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement making Israel pay an economic cost for its human rights violations, atrocities, and occupation of Palestine.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Articles, June 2015

Tagged ,

Juneteenth Celebration: Saturday, June 20

Posted on May 20, 2015 by | Leave a comment

The Alachua County Library District invites the community to celebrate 150 years of freedom and commemorate the end of slavery at the 8th Annual Juneteenth Celebration on Saturday, June 20, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Cone Park Branch Library, 2801 E. University Avenue. This year marks the 150th anniversary of Juneteenth, a day or recognition and celebration of the end of African American slavery in the United States. This spirited community event features music, exhibits, food, refreshments and door prizes.

This celebration shares the history of Juneteenth from June 19, 1865, when the news that the Civil War had ended and all slaves were free finally reached Galveston, Texas. That was two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Annual Juneteenth celebrations began in Texas and slowly spread across the country. In 1980, Texas became the first state to establish Juneteenth as an official state holiday. Currently, 36 states recognize Juneteenth as a holiday or day of special observance.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Articles, June 2015

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Which banners are illegal?

Posted on May 20, 2015 by | Leave a comment

IMG_1118 IMG_1119

by joe courter

Soon after the City closed the Bo Diddley Plaza for construction March first, green screening went up around it. Fine. Then recently, the banners shown in the photo to the top right went up: 6 feet high, 10 feet wide, and 75 of them ringing the Plaza. You’d think there would be a city code about such tacky, ugly visual pollution. I guess not if the City does it.

At bottom right is the Coffee Shop banner the Rad Press Cafe had in front of the CMC. Had. City Codes Enforcement came by and said it had to go or they’d be fined. The Rad Press Cafe had just reopened and the sign was helping draw people in. This is beyond absurd. I mean, really!

(By the way, Rad Press Cafe is open 10 to 6, Monday thru Saturday, great teas and coffee. Good food. Lots to read. Internet. But no banner. Check them out.)

Leave a comment

Posted in Articles, June 2015

Tagged , , ,

June 2015 Gainesville Iguana

Posted on May 20, 2015 by | Leave a comment

june 15 iguana coverThe June 2015 issue of the Gainesville Iguana is now available online, and it’s got lots of good stuff (Bernie Sanders, an oral history interview with David Barsamian, a Florida Legislative update from FL NOW, a Sleep Creek Lands/Adena Springs report, and more!). You can also pick the issue up at any of our distribution spots, which you can find here.

Leave a comment

Posted in Articles, June 2015

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

From the publisher: History, stories and change

Posted on May 20, 2015 by | Leave a comment

joe-WEBby Joe Courter

According to my dictionary, history is “a branch of knowledge that records and explains past events.” Since obviously there is a whole lot going on all the time everywhere, some selectivity is involved in what make the cut. Similarly, within what gets recorded are different points of view of the same events. As time passes, the culture will adopt certain versions as the accepted history.

In 1991 and ’92, the historical narrative of Columbus being a heroic explorer became moderated when the legacy of enslavement and slaughter crept in. Just recently the suppressed history of the Armenian genocide came to the fore as the hundred year anniversary forced Turkey to face up to what took place (see the David Barsamian oral history on page 14 for more on this).

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Articles, June 2015

Tagged