Category Archives: Articles

Once again Gainesville’s Fest will be on the last weekend of October, with over 300 bands at over a dozen venues all over downtown Gainesville.

And in pursuit of the good times that that many bands provide comes the other part of the equation that makes the Fest what it is—people from all over the country (and world) who spend the money to come here. A wide variety of people, and they seek their favorite bands, discover new bands, seek out old friends, and find new ones, too. 

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Vanessa Carlo-Miranda [C], UF graduate & co-founder of La Casita, was interviewed by Genesis Lara [L] in October, 2013.

This is the 43rd in a series of transcript excerpts from the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program collection at the University of Florida.

Transcript edited by Pierce Butler.

C: I was born in Puerto Rico and I had a great childhood. My older sister came to study in the States, then I came to the University of Florida, and my younger sister went to FIU. We were very privileged, that we went to a school where they expected women to go to college.

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You are reading the Iguana right now. For some it is a well established practice, for some it is a new or occasional experience.

Here’s some background on the Iguana:

The Gainesville Iguana was first published in October of 1986. During that period the political situation in Central America was very hot, with a proxy war against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government being waged by the Reagan administration. Local political organizing against US policy in Nicaragua was at a high level, as was the anti-apartheid movement and the campaign for UF to divest its holdings in South Africa. Local churches were providing sanctuary for refugees fleeing violence in the homelands of Guatemala and El Salvador, the ongoing battle for abortion rights and woman’s rights in general, the protest of the Trident missile system, health care issues, and the like.

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Lubee Bat Conservancy is excited to welcome everyone to their 13th Annual Florida Bat Festival to be held Saturday, Oct. 21 from 10am to 5pm. Our Flying Giants are ready to dispel the myths and superstitions surrounding these gentle animals.

Admission is $5 for children ages 5-12 (kids 4 and under free) and $8 per adult. The beer garden at Bat Fest is $25 online/$28 at gate (includes festival entry).

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by Ronnie Lovler

Editor’s note: There is a grassroots effort to get more people signed up for Obamacare, stimulated by the cruel efforts of the Trump administration to undercut it. They have shortened the sign-up period by over 50 percent, from three months to six weeks. They have slashed the budget for publicizing the sign up period by 90 percent. They eliminated sign-up on Sundays from midnight to noon, and as they are threatening to cut subsidies for low income subscribers, insurance companies are raising rates to cover their bottom line.

Here’s a link for more background:    <http://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/post/obamacare-rates-increase-45-percent-2018#stream/0>

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The Matheson History Museum is bringing two new exhibits to Gainesville: “Finding the Fountain of Youth” and “Liberating Learning?” Both will be located in the main museum building at 513 East University Avenue.

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Alachua County Library District welcomes New York Times investigative reporter and author Mike McIntire on Saturday, Oct. 21 at 2:30 p.m. to Headquarters Library, 401 E. University Avenue. McIntire will talk about his book, Champions Way: Football, Florida and the Lost Soul of College Sports.

In his book, McIntire painstakingly lays out a damning case that Florida State University (FSU) and its sports program permitted sexual assaults and academic fraud as the price for producing championship football teams.

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Hey all you old Gainesville hands. Who remembers Chambergate and the fight against the Cement Plant?

Well former Gainesville Sun and Florida Times Union reporter Larry Schnell does, and he put them and other juicy memories into an entertaining novel, The Year of the Gator.

The novel reads like Carl Hiassen, but set in Gainesville and with many characters who strikingly resemble actual people we all know who played roles in that period. UF plays an important part in the book, and it opens with a scene in the Alachua County Jail. It is a “satiric tale as the author unmasks the forces in the game of economic development.”

The book is new and available at Wild Iris Books, which is open Fridays from 1-5pm and Saturdays from 1-6pm. See their Facebook page for upcoming expanded hours.

One more reason to go support Erica and Wild Iris Books. 

Wild Iris Books will be closing its doors Dec. 23. For 25 years, we have been your local feminist bookstore and we have loved being a part of your lives. Keeping the store going has taken love and sacrifice but it has also been a source of profound joy and goodness. Being a part of Wild Iris has been one of the most loving and sacred undertakings of our lives. The owners and volunteers have given their hearts and their labor to make sure feminist book-selling had a voice in Florida, but the time has come and we can no longer keep the store afloat.

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By Richard O’Brien
Directed by Jessica Arnold & Shay Smith

Brad and Janet are a simple, engaged couple whose lives get turned upside down by the “sweet transvestite” Frank ‘n Furter, his beautiful creation Rocky, and a household of strange Transylvanians on a stormy night.

This isn’t the shadowcast of the movie (which you can see over at High Dive); this is the in-your-face rock musical that started it all.

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By Sue Legg
Education Advocacy Chair
Florida League of Women Voter

There’s a war going on, and the ammunition is fake news. Take for example, the charge that educators resist change. Recent history tells a different story. After WWII, everyone was expected to go to high school; most did not before. When I was in high school, the space race put pressure on schools to teach more mathematics. My grandchildren are now taking math courses in middle school that I took in high school. Schools are changing, but not all of it is good.

In Florida, most people believe that public schools do the best job of preparing students for the diverse and complicated world in which they will live. School reform policy, however, assumes that consumer based competition with charter and private schools will make schools even better. In fact, competition in the private consumer sector does make many choices e.g. there are 13 types of cheerios and 189 TV channels most of which none of us has eaten or watched.

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By Brielle Elise, Transformative Coach of Rewild Soul.

As some of us spend our 9-to-5’s sitting and typing our souls (and butts) away, there is, for some, a little voice inside that quietly whispers, “There’s more to this life, isn’t there?” While there are some who feel truly satisfied with how they’re spending their days, there are a few souls out there who, consciously or not, feel a sense of painful complacency accentuated by at least a tiny spark of curiosity or longing for what more there could be.

We feel this as we endlessly dance our thumbs down our phone screens, scrolling through facebook and Instagram feeds, searching for … What exactly? Maybe inspiration, hope, joy, something to laugh at. But what are we really searching for? Honestly, probably distraction from the pain of the mundane life.

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by Carol Mosley

Four families with vast tracts of land are intent on mining phosphate on more than 10,000 acres in Bradford and Union counties. This could be the most important decision these two small counties will make in a generation and may have consequences many generations forward.

The proposed acreage straddles the New River, which runs between the two counties and feeds into the Santa Fe river, bringing the interests of Alachua county directly into the fold. Thousands of acres in the proposed area consist of wetlands, the filters that assure the water quality and tamper the flow of our rivers and streams, and recharge our fragile aquifer.

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Friday, Oct. 13, 6pm
Community Awards Dinner

The Annual Spirit of Pride Community Awards Dinner will officially kick off the Pride Days festivities at 6pm at the Sweetwater Branch Inn, 625 E University Ave. The featured speaker will be Diana Moreno, Assistant Director of UF Multicultural and Diversity Affairs and the Emcee will be Pegeen Hanrahan. Tickets are $50 and may be purchased at the Pride Community Center. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to find out who will receive the 2017 Spirit of Pride Awards and participate in the return of our fabulous silent auction featuring an all-inclusive trip to Cuba for two.

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by Joe Courter

Freaking out a little bit?  Yeah, me too.

World events, local events, it seems to be a blur of crises, of things that seem to be so important and dominate our news, only to be displaced by another. From jaw-droppingly bizarre to downright frightening, it is like a psychological whack-a-mole, only instead of being able to whack the little heads, they are everything from snarling beasts to yapping dogs, seizing our attention then popping out of sight, magically obscured by the next creature, the next crisis of the day.

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ACLC: UF made poor decision to pay some employees and not others

By an anonymous OPS employee at UF

Following the turmoil of Hurricane Irma, I returned to my position as an OPS (temporary or “other personnel services”) employee at the University of Florida to discover that I would not be compensated for the three days of work missed due to the school’s closure.

According to UF’s Human Resources website, OPS employees would not be granted administrative leave due to a natural disaster, while employees classified as TEAMS (technical, executive, administrative and managerial support) or USPS (university support personnel system) would be granted the benefit.

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The Civic Media Center will mark the start of its 24th year with an anniversary dinner at the Matheson Museum on Friday evening, Oct. 20. It is a happy return to the Matheson where the CMC has held a number of successful “SpringBoard” fundraisers in years past.

The dinner features varied food from area restaurants, and great raffle and silent auction items. As an incentive to expand CMC’s collection, donations of current (within the last 5 years) and relevant books will be given a free raffle ticket per book.

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by Gainesville Anti-Fascist Committee

What do you mean by “anti-fascism”?

Political opposition to the violent, nationalistic ideology known as fascism. Fascism, which first appeared in Italy during WWI, emerges during times of economic and political crisis within capitalist economies. Fascist ideology and practice concentrates the worst aspects of society: sexism, racism, obedience to authority, worship of leader figures, violent scapegoating of “others” labelled “outside” of the dominant culture or national identity (immigrants, ethnic minorities, queer and trans folks, people with disabilities).

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