Gulf Coast Life

Bob Kealing's new book “Good Day Sunshine: How the Beatles Rocked Florida” explores the Beatles time in Florida in 1964, including two performances on The Ed Sullivan Show from a hotel in Miami just weeks after their New York debut.

We get a sense of how Russia’s war on Ukraine is impacting Russian people with Dr. Kathryn Stoner, she is Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law — both at Stanford University — where she is also a Professor of Political Science (by courtesy). Dr. Stoner is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.

Andy Barth spent 35 years as part of the news team at WMAR-TV in Baltimore, beginning as a desk assistant in 1971 and working his way up to being an on air feature reporter, which he spent decades doing before retiring in 2006. Barth produced two feature franchises, one called “Andy At Large” and the other “How Do They Do That?” in which he tried to focus on good news stories. He Mr. Barth recently on the FGCU campus to give a talk called “The Way We Were: The Early Days of TV” so we brought him by the studio while he was on campus to talk about his career, and how the world of TV, and TV news, has changed.

We explore global trends for democracy and authoritarianism with with Michael Abramowitz, President of Freedom House and the former director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Levine Institute for Holocaust Education, and a former national editor and White House correspondent for The Washington Post.

On Thursday, March 30 the Collaboratory in downtown Fort Myers is partnering with the Collier Community Foundation, and the Charlotte Community Foundation, to host a region-wide “On the Table” event with locations in all three counties. The aim is to facilitate conversations between people of all walks of life, on one day and often around meals, to try and generate authentic dialogue between people, some of whom may just be meeting for the very first time, about what issues or problems we’re facing, and how best to try and address those issues or overcome those problems.

While visitors to Koreshan State Park in Estero have often asked whether there was any connection between Cyrus Teed Koresh — the man who founded The Koreshan Unity which called the land home beginning in the early 1800s, and David Koresh — the man who led the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas from the mid 1980s until the group’s fiery demise during an FBI siege gone wrong on their Mount Carmel compound on April 19th, 1993 — the answer was always no, there is no connection between the two and the similarity between their names is purely coincidental. Well, new evidence has come to light that seems to prove there was most certainly a connection of some kind.

We get a preview of the upcoming 2023 Southwest Florida Climate Summit, which is this Wednesday and Thursday, March 15 and 16, at the Collaboratory in downtown Fort Myers. It’s hosted and presented by the Coastal & Heartland National Estuary Partnership (CHNEP) and is open to everyone. WGCU Public Media is sponsoring the summit. The goal is to share knowledge, showcase climate action, engage leadership across sectors, and mobilize collaboration throughout the Central & Southwest Florida region. A variety of experts in different fields who will gather to share dialogue and ideas on how to expand Southwest Florida’s capacity to respond to climate challenges, and to build increased community resiliency.

While many large tracts of land in Southwest Florida have been forever lost to development over the past century or so, quite a bit of it has been preserved thanks to the dedicated efforts of countless people and organizations — and the local, state, and federal elected officials who environmental advocates could convince that wetlands were valuable for their own sake. For example, more than 70% of land in Collier County has been preserved as public land. Think Fakahatchee Strand State Park, Picayune Strand State Forest, Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Big Cypress National Preserve, Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, and the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, just to name a few. We explore some of this fascinating history with the co-authors of the new book, “Enjoyment of the Same: A History of Public Lands in Southwest Florida.”

Model UNs are educational simulations — basically role playing — that teach participating students diplomacy, international relations, and how the United Nations works. At Model UN conferences student delegates deeply study a United Nations member country, research topics of global interest, and work to get resolutions passed on that country’s behalf. They happen around the world at the high school and college level, and this week the Southwest Florida Model UN is happening on the campus of Florida Gulf Coast University, bringing together high school teams from schools around southwest Florida. It’s sponsored by the Naples Council on World Affairs in partnership with FGCU. Today we talk with its Keynote Speaker.

Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed six new trustees at New College of Florida in January and they have already begun radically changing the state’s public honors college. Critics say it all amounts to a conservative overhaul of the small, traditionally progressive college with about 700 students. We talk with a current professor, a current student, and a New College alumnus, to get their reactions to what’s unfolding.