Gulf Coast Life

Stuart Eizenstat met Jimmy Carter when he was running for Governor of Georgia in 1970 and remained a central figure of Carter’s team until he left the White House in 1980. During President Carter’s administration Eizenstat served as Carter’s Chief Domestic Policy Adviser, and throughout his career and life Ambassador Eizenstat remained a close advisor to President Carter. We speak with him about his career in politics and the changes he's witnessed over the decades, and about his longtime colleague and friend Jimmy Carter.

January 18th marks the opening reception of an exhibition at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery titled “David BRADSHAW & William S. Burroughs: Propagation.” The exhibition will feature never-before-seen works reflecting the artistic collaboration between the late, legendary Burroughs and internationally acclaimed painter, sculptor, and sharpshooter Bradshaw. We delve into the exhibit in a conversation with David Bradshaw and Bob Rauschenberg Gallery Director Jade Dellinger.

How different news stories are presented by various news sources is rarely uniform. Different news outlets have different takes, or present different aspects of a story or highlight different facts about it, and this shapes what consumers of that news take away from the story. Add the internet and social media algorithms and you wind up with what are referred to as "filter bubbles" where, depending on which news sources you pay attention to, different people develop fundamentally different understandings of the same events or stories. We learn about AllSides Technologies, whose team uses various methods to estimate the perceived political bias of news outlets and then presents different versions of similar news stories from sources they’ve rated as being on the political right, left, or center, with a mission to show readers news outside their filter bubble and illustrate media bias.

The 2024 nesting season is being described as "steady" even though several storms disrupted hatching success. Southwest Florida’s beaches faced multiple wash-over events, including Tropical Storms Debbie & Francine, and Hurricanes Helene & Milton. On Keewaydin Island in Collier County approximately 43% of nests were lost to impacts from these storms. Overall, there were 425 nests on the island (almost all loggerhead turtles) and about 242 of them were successful. Monitors from the Conservancy of Southwest Florida estimate that 14,975 hatchlings made it to the Gulf from nests just on Keewaydin Island. We talk with someone who has been keeping tabs on sea turtles in southwest Florida for decades.

Players Circle Theater is mounting a production of playwright Joshua Harmon’s multi-award-winning play “Admissions.” The family drama explores themes of race, diversity and privilege. We explore the play in a conversation with Players Circle Theater’s Bob Cacioppo, Carrie Lund Cacioppo and Harvey Evans.

The three thousand sheriffs in this country wield a tremendous amount of power, have little accountability, and are difficult to remove from office. The Highest Law in the Land explores more about this seemingly untouchable office.

In January of 1742, while sailing around waters south of Florida in search of Spanish vessels to "sink, burn or destroy" the British Royal Navy’s HMS Tyger ran aground at Garden Key in what’s now Dry Tortugas National Park. What unfolded after the Tyger ran aground at Garden Key is a fascinating narrative that is compiled in a new paper published in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology titled “Hunting HMS Tyger, 1742: Identifying a Ship-of-the-Line in Dry Tortugas National Park” co-authored by Andrew Van Slyke & Joshua Marano. To get a sense of the Tyger and its crew's story, and the archeological efforts that go into this kind of identification, we talk with the team lead for the HMS Tyger identification effort.

Our annual music review takes a look back at some of the great music featured on Gulf Coast Life Arts Edition in 2024, including a new album from the rock band Rosaline, new solo music from Southwest Florida-based musician Caleb Vilca, Tampa-based blues/roots musician Damon Fowler, and Delta Blues musician Anthony “Big A” Sherrod.

Naples resident Joanne Huskey lived abroad for decades as part of a diplomatic family – her husband Jim was a U.S. Foreign Service officer for almost 30 years. And their time overseas intersected with some historic events: they were in China when the Tiananmen Square massacre happened in 1989; and they were in Nairobi, Kenya when the U.S. Embassy there was bombed in 1998. Throughout her time abroad, her efforts were always aimed at "Promoting intercultural understanding and education." She joins us to talk about her life promoting intercultural understanding and the need for more of it in today’s world.

Players Circle Theater in Fort Myers is currently performing Tom Dudzick’s holiday play, “Greetings,” through Dec. 22. We explore the show in a conversation with director Ted Wioncek III, and cast members Carrie Lund Cacioppo and Douglas Rees.