Gulf Coast Life

Delta Blues guitarist, bassist and vocalist Anthony “Big A” Sherrod performed live in studio while in Southwest Florida for a Big A & The All Stars concert at Florida Gulf Coast University earlier this month. We’ll hear music and conversation from Sherrod along with Delta Blues documentarian, organizer and advocate Roger Stolle.

We learn about the Immokalee Foundatin's Mentor Program, which pairs volunteer mentors with students whose interests align with their expertise. The nonprofit has been supporting and educating students in the small, rural, mostly agricultural community about 25 miles east of Naples since 1991.

Project 2025 is not an entirely new concept. The Heritage Foundation has published what it calls Mandate for Leadership policy blueprints since 1979. The first one preceded the first Reagan administration. Over the decades they have outlined what conservatives hope to see out of a Republican administration, if that’s who wins the election. But, Project 2025 has a different tone and nature — and is far more detailed when it comes to exactly what policies it’s calling for, and just how they can be achieved.

President Joe Biden announced, Sunday, he’s dropping out of the presidential race and has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, instead. We get reaction and explore what’s next for the Democratic party in a conversation with Founding Director of the Institute for Youth and Justice Studies at Florida Gulf Coast University, Sandra Pavelka, Ph.D., and Interim Chair of the Democratic Party of Lee County, Jim Rosinus.

In an unexpected and unprecedented move, last month, Governor Ron DeSantis vetoed $32 million dollars in state grants for more than 600 arts and culture organizations throughout Florida. We hear from Molly Rowan-Deckart with the Alliance for the Arts in Fort Myers, Elysia Dawn with United Arts Collier, and arts reporter Tom Hall about how local arts and culture organizations are coping with the lost funds and about the economic impact of the region’s arts and culture industry.

When it comes to the ways global climate change impacts the world’s oceans things like melting ice caps and glaciers, and what’s called thermal expansion — that’s when water takes up more volume as its temperature goes up — are probably what first come to mind. Or how increased water temperatures impact sea life, like recent, widespread coral bleaching events off Florida’s coast and around the world. Or even how changes in temperature and salinity can alter ocean currents, which are crucial for regulating global climate and weather patterns. But, an overlooked aspect of this story is how increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases the acidity — or the pH level — of the world’s oceans.

Internationally renowned psychosexual therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer died, July 12 at the age of 96. In remembrance, we listen back to our 2018 interview with Dr. Ruth ahead of her visit to Fort Myers to attend Florida Repertory Theatre’s production of a play about her life titled “Becoming Dr. Ruth.”

Bonaventure Bondo is an environmentalist and climate activist based in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He is the founder and national coordinator of the Youth Movement for the Protection of the Environment. It’s a youth organization working in the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss in the DRC. His efforts focus on protecting forests, promoting renewable energies, defending the rights of local communities, and campaigning against the exploitation of fossil fuels in the Congo Basin Rainforest.

Players Circle Theater is hosting a production of a new one-man musical drama titled “A Man of the Decade: An Evening with John Lennon.” Ahead of opening night, July 12, we talk with actor, playwright and musician Randy Noojin, who wrote and stars in the show, along with Players Circle Theater co-founder and artistic director Bob Cacioppo.

Katherine Stewart is an investigative reporter and author whose work focuses on issues around religious liberty, politics, policy, and education. Her work appears in the New York Times op ed, on NBC, in the New Republic, and in the New York Review of Books. In her latest book, "The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism" Stewart lays out how the Religious Right in the United States has portrayed itself as a social movement focusing on cultural issues, but is actually a well-organized political movement that has evolved into a Christian nationalist movement that seeks to gain political power and to impose its vision on all of society.