Category Archives: March 2018

Rent party/Jam session: Apr. 14, 5-8pm
Civic Media Center

Benefit Concert: Sat., April 28
Hardback Café

By Fred Sowder
WGOT Station Manager

It’s been months in the making, but thanks to the patience and kindness of donors, listeners, and volunteers, WGOT is getting its studio together at the Civic Media Center for regular use beginning this summer. A finished studio will finally allow WGOT to present live programming featuring news, interviews, great new music, and more. Through the magic of Skype, we should also soon be able to take phone calls from listeners and guests.

These accomplishments can only continue to happen with your support.  Like most radio stations, WGOT has regular monthly expenses such as rent and utilities as well as other rights fees that allow us to bring you the latest music across genres in addition to in-depth news and analysis such as Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman and The Thom Hartmann Program. All of our local hosts and other members do so without payment or other compensation, so we are forever grateful for their steadfast service. However, your support, financially or otherwise, is vital for us to continue bringing you a compelling mix of local and national music and talk programs 24 hours a day.

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by Joe Courter

Please, if you live in the City of Gainesville, do not ignore the upcoming election on March 20. Voters on the Eastside (District 1) will have two races on their ballot, the rest of the City but one race, but who we elect and what they prioritize is important.

Everyone registered to vote can vote in the At-Large race. It features two candidates, the incumbent, Harvey Budd, against challenger Gail Johnson.

Harvey has a long and solid history in Gainesville. He is an accountant by trade and has been active in the community as a property owner and Plan Board member. He has been on the Commission for one term, during which he has tried to be a financial watchdog and seeker of compromise. He is a good guy and has served well, but it is his luck in this wave election to have Gail Johnson step in to run for his seat.

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by Panagioti Tsolkas

In January, activists across Florida celebrated Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday with a renewed commitment to struggle alongside those among the most exploited members in our society: the prison slaves.

Over 150 organizations across the country issued statements of support for Florida prisoners. Some carried banners in their local MLK parades or dropped banners off overpasses for thousands to see. Others handed out flyer, pasted posters and pushed out social media.

It was said by many, including Angela Davis on her visit to Tallahassee, that had King not been assassinated as he joined underpaid workers in Memphis, Tennessee, fifty years ago, he would most certainly have been in Florida supporting the prisoners of Operation PUSH.

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Here’s a big note of appreciation to the brave and powerful students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. They took the adversity that was thrown at them and exemplify the adage of speaking truth to power. Seeing Emma Gonzales speak at that rally, all that fierce power and raw emotion, I was in awe.

Likewise seeing Cameron Kasky go face-to-face at the CNN town meeting with Marco Rubio and not back down; wow. I hope this issue will resonate across the country, and not only to the youth. I hope that adults recognize that they need to have this young generation’s back as they fight for a saner future. It is the least we can do, as we are the generations on whose watch this madness has developed.

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Friday, April 13, 6:30-9pm
Working Food, 219 NW 10th Ave.

Save the date: on Friday April 13, the Civic Media Center will be holding the 2018 version of its SpringBoard fundraiser. This event is timed to give the CMC a boost as the summer approaches, with its higher utility costs and diminished population in town.

This year the event will be held at a new and exciting location, Working Food at 219 NW 10th Ave. This large meeting hall (and large parking lot) is one of three new additions in the block of NW 10th Ave., joined by the restaurant Afternoon and Cypress & Grove Brewing. The event will run from 6:30 to 9pm.

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by James Thompson

So many in our community cringed at the reporting of criminal histories and arrests of Gainesville City Commission candidates by the Gainesville Sun. But we cannot expect corporate media to do the job of progressive advocacy journalism. That is what publications like this one, and voices like ours, are for.

Andrew Caplan is a capable and hardworking political beat reporter, and the Sun Editor-in-Chief Doug Ray is socially engaged and accessible. But I’m not surprised at the racial and gender tone deaf reporting, imaging, and editing that went into the piece (“City Candidates’ Records Spotty,” Gainesville Sun, Feb. 10, 2018).

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Clarence Sears [S], FBI KKK infiltrator, was interviewed by Ryan Morini [M] in August, 2015.

This is the 46th in a series of transcript excerpts from the UF Samuel Proctor Oral History Program collection.

Transcript edited by Pierce Butler

Content note: This interview includes offensive racial slurs, repeated intact here for historical accuracy.

S: I’m 87 years old. Lived in Jacksonville all my life. Was in the Air Force at the end of World War II. Went to Jacksonville University and the University of Florida. I had a career with the railroad. I was a train director, something like a dispatcher. Worked at night, talking to crews on the trains. I spent 45 years doing that.

M: Where did you grow up in Jacksonville?

S: On the north side, in a working class community. I was a Baptist. I’m a Unitarian now.

M: Your father was from Boston?

S: He was a Catholic from Boston. He died when I was nine. I was really raised by my Baptist mother.

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By Kate Ellison

People are worried about a proposed Phosphate Mine spanning the New River in Bradford and Union Counties. Residents of Alachua County are affected, because this mine is just north of where the New River meets the Santa Fe flowing along Alachua County’s border with these two rural counties. Additionally, water underground knows no borders.

This is an opportunistic, irreversible decision by landowners with long range implications for our shared environment. People in outlying counties are waking up and need our support.

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Sunday-Tuesday, April 8-10
Emerson Alumni Hall, UF

You are invited to join an exploration of lifeways motivated by desire for human and ecological health, harmony, pleasure, community, and sovereignty at the 67th annual conference of the UF Center for Latin American Studies.

Over the past century, people and places across Latin America have been shaped by national and international efforts toward “development,” conceived as economic growth and assimilation of western institutions and lifestyles. Concomitant loss of biological and cultural diversity, together with increasing environmental degradation, provoke reappraisal of radically diverse paths toward wellbeing.

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ReZist is ninety minutes of Roy Zimmerman’s original songs – a funny and forceful affirmation of Peace and Social Justice.

Roy’s songs have been heard on HBO and Showtime, and his videos have garnered tens of millions of views. He has recorded for Warner/Reprise Records. He’s shared stages with Bill Maher, Ellen DeGeneres, Holly Near, Robin Williams, Arlo Guthrie, John Oliver, Kate Clinton and George Carlin, and tours the country constantly with his wife and co-writer Melanie Harby.

See Roy and hear his funny songs on peace and justice on Tuesday, March 20 at 7:30pm at The Midnight, 223 South Main St. in Gainesville. Suggested donation is $15. ReZist is presented by the Civic Media Center. Advance tickets are available through Eventbrite.

By Michele LeSure, WGOT Underwriting Coordinator

WGOT-LP, the Civic Media Center’s low power radio station, has reached another milestone, and adding talk programming such as The Thom Hartmann Program and local and live music programs such as Gainesville Grooves and Jimmy Rocks are just the beginning.

National award-winning shows such as Democracy Now!, Alternative Radio, and Afropop Worldwide are longtime components of our weekly schedule. Our music is diverse, featuring indie rock, jazz, and more. Consider us the college radio station UF doesn’t have.

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Veggie Fermentation Workshop
Saturday, March 17, 10am-1pm
Working Food Center, 219 NW 10th Ave.

Join the Working Food Center for their seasonal vegetable fermentation workshop. If you’ve ever wondered about making your own sauerkraut, kimchi and other vegetable ferments, this is the class for you. 

A little bit of education on why this stuff is so good for you, with a lot of hands on demonstrations where YOU will chop, salt, brine and pack your own ferments. You’ll take home several jars of tasty, bubbly ferments good for the belly, good for soul, and perfect for sharing.

Tomato Bootcamp
Sunday, March 18, 10am-1pm
Grow Hub 2802 NE 8th Ave.

It’s not easy to grow tomatoes in the south. Our humidity, heat, pest and disease pressure can wreak havoc in the garden. This fun three-hour workshop will let you in on the secrets to successfully growing tomatoes in the south. From seed starting to seed saving, we’ll do it all. Topics to be covered are how to start from your own seeds, variety selection, basic maintenance and care (i.e. trellising techniques, suckering, pruning), saving seeds, and breeding your own varieties.

Light snacks and refreshments will be available. Feel free to bring your own, too, as we will be together over the lunch hour. If you have a folding chair, bring it. If plants are ready, we will be selling tomato plants. Bring cash, check or credit cards. Suggested donation of $15-25 to help cover costs.

**REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED** Please visit Working Food’s Facebook page or website at workingfood.org for more information and to register. D

Veterans for Peace Gainesville announces its 9th Annual Alachua County Peace Poetry Contest, where all students, grades K–12, are encouraged to submit one original poem focusing on the idea of peace and social justice.

The deadline for submitting a poem to the contest is April 6, 2018.

Last year, more than 240 students submitted poems, and the winners were invited to read their poems aloud at the Peace Poetry Reading, where they were presented with their awards. Two winners read their poems at the Veterans for Peace Winter Solstice Concert in December in front of more than 350 attendees.

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Gainesville Veterans for Peace Chapter 14 announces its fourth annual Peace Scholarship Program for the spring of 2018.

They are awarding three college scholarships of $750 each to high school seniors, college students or adults in Alachua County who have a commitment to activities involving social justice and peace, conflict resolution and/or nonviolent social change.

Veterans for Peace created these scholarships to give financial support to students who are planning careers in pursuit of a world of social justice and equity.

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Wednesday, April 11, 7pm
Civic Media Center, 433 S. Main

by Joe Courter

Take three editors and more than 30 writers (all women) and what you will come up with is a book that (we think) is a fascinating look at the experiences of women traveling and working in Latin America.

CMC Board Member Ronnie Lovler and UF alum Elizabeth Holli Wood are two of the contributors to this book that pays homage to what we as women can do, and our ability to share our experiences. Their  writings demonstrate this in Alone Together: Ties of Sisterhood and Solitude in Latin America.

Lovler and Holli Wood will read excerpts from their book in an event on Wednesday, April 11, at 7pm at the CMC.

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The March issue of the Iguana is now available and you can access it here! If you want to get your hands on a hard copy, check out our distro locations here.