FlaglerLive | May 17, 2013
The Benghazi story is a bogus scandal. IRS targeting of conservative groups and the Justice Department’s hacking of reporters’ phones is not. The Obama presidency is getting derailed, and that’s without going down the path of even more serious scandals Washington and the electorate are accepting as business as usual.
Pierre Tristam | May 12, 2013
Receiving a condolence note about my mother sent in error by the hospice company caring for her should have been disturbing. It was merely disappointing–for not being true.
FlaglerLive | May 3, 2013
The proposed $1.23 million county acquisition of the old Memorial Hospital property in Bunnell reveals, especially in its fine print, its secrecy until now and gun-to-the-head May 6 deadline for commissioners to sign off on it, hurried deal-making that profits the sellers while exposing taxpayers to huge uncertainty and costs.
FlaglerLive | April 21, 2013
Between the Boston bombing and the Senate’s rejection of gun-control legislation, the moral is that “terrorism” is unacceptable violence, but the 30 daily murders by gun is quite acceptable. So gun-worship’s perversions live on.
FlaglerLive | April 13, 2013
It was that the death rattle. You’ve heard it. We’ve all heard it if we live south of the Mason-Dixon Line. This one broke the silence of a perfect Palm Coast afternoon. But an investigation proved to be a succession of decapitated assumptions.
FlaglerLive | April 10, 2013
Larry Eugene Mann was executed at Starke state prison Wednesday evening at 6 p.m. by lethal injection. I traveled to Starke with a Catholic Church group to witness the vigils–pro and con–outside the prison grounds.
FlaglerLive | April 9, 2013
An electronic-textbook company called CourseSmart lets teachers track whether and how their students are reading assigned textbooks, allowing them to tack on “engagement index” scores to the students’ performance. It’s the latest form of intrusion in private habits driven more by marketing and gimmickry than good intentions.
Pierre Tristam | April 7, 2013
Employers’ presumptions on workers’ behavior on and off the job have more in common with the inquisition or police states than with the bill of rights. Transgressors are routinely humiliated, silenced, censured or fired over speech or behavior companies should have no right to police.
Pierre Tristam | March 31, 2013
Several years ago around Christmas I was standing at a Walmart checkout counter with my son when a stranger behind me felt compelled to make me his homophobia’s bosom buddy. “What’s wrong with that?” I told him. “My son is gay.” My son was 2 at the time.
FlaglerLive | March 24, 2013
Florida is quick on the trigger to ban Internet cafes, which have never killed anyone, but is doing nothing to rein in the state’s worship of guns, while 191 people have been killed by firearms in this state alone since the Newtown massacre.
Pierre Tristam | March 17, 2013
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war, but as Iraq and Afghanistan have been lost, the focus of memorials has shifted from wars to the cult of the soldiers, while victims of war are as always passed over in silence.
FlaglerLive | March 13, 2013
76-year-old Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires is the first-ever South American pope, the first non-European pope in a millennium, and the first-ever pope to name himself Francis (Francis I), after St. Francis, patron saint of the poor.
FlaglerLive | March 7, 2013
Israel’s transportation ministry gave in to Israeli colonists’ demands that they not have to ride buses with Palestinians, and started two segregated bus lines for Palestinians only.
FlaglerLive | February 16, 2013
Making a return trip to England to celebrate a brother’s 50th birthday, after a 34-year absence, is occasion for reflection about the meaning of time, an unlikely vacation and the most seductive sounds of a train announcer anywhere in the world.
FlaglerLive | February 10, 2013
In twice calling for a return of school prayer in the last three weeks, Flagler County School Board member John Fischer did so not from good will but out of angry resentment for “special interests” and “political correctness” that he claims are standing in the way of “our rights.” He is offensively wrong, and the school board should resist his call to prayer.
FlaglerLive | February 3, 2013
The Flagler County School board this week will debate adoption of a new security plan that includes adding armed cops in elementary schools. The approach would be costly, ineffective, and more emotional than intelligent. Smarter approaches–and far greater priorities–abound.
FlaglerLive | January 27, 2013
Labor union membership has been in precipitous decline since 1980, along with with a decline in job security, workers’ wages and benefits, and Americans’ standard of living. It’s not a coincidence, though the vilification of labor unions continues.
FlaglerLive | January 20, 2013
We’ve admitted that these immigrants aren’t going away. Let’s admit our co-dependence, let’s restore their dignity, and America’s, and admit that illegal immigration is as American as apple pie, if not as American as empanadas.
Pierre Tristam | January 13, 2013
The NRA’s Wayne LaPierre is proposing having an armed guard in every school. That’s insane, because it’s not enough: teachers, principals, librarians, counselors, bus drivers should all be armed, and of course children, too, should be armed.
Pierre Tristam | January 6, 2013
When John Swartz was arrested for flipping off a cop, he sued, and appears headed for a win–as he should: rude expression is not a crime, and the obscenity is far surpassed by that of cops exercising arbitrary authority over bruised egos.
FlaglerLive | December 30, 2012
Florida’s new law legalizing red-light cameras ensures that state coffers are on the take. But it does not address the fundamental problems with spy-and-snap cameras. There are innumerable reasons to ban them. There’s only one reason to keep them, and it’s a slimy one: money.
Pierre Tristam | December 26, 2012
Rather than cheat Christmas by limiting it to December 25, WKCR’s annual BachFest is a 240-hour celebration of the holiday through the music of Johan Sebastian Bach. It’s also a front seat at the Creation.
FlaglerLive | December 23, 2012
When the author’s father died at an assisted living facility in Palm Coast two years ago, paramedics had to be called in to take care of his aunt’s panic attack. What followed illustrates our first responders’ routine and largely unheralded heroism.
Pierre Tristam | December 16, 2012
Florida’s gun-worship is part of a lethal, juvenile romance for guns and a national disease that doesn’t hesitate to lock and load the words “gun” and “hobby” in the same chamber while vilifying those who’d imply a connection with the consequences.
Pierre Tristam | December 6, 2012
Between a nameless, homeless woman killed on I-95 Wednesday evening and Kate Middleton’s pregnancy, only one of those two items is news. Our media’s pornographic interest in royal exhibitionism ensures that it’s the wrong one every time.
FlaglerLive | December 2, 2012
Israel likes to claim that Palestinians deny Israel’s right to exist. the reality is the opposite. Israel has spent the last six decades denying Palestinians’ right to exist in fact, going as far as denying them their history and identity. The UN vote for Palestinian statehood begins to right the injustice.
Pierre Tristam | November 25, 2012
A reporter is fired after only reluctantly mentioning that a city councilman refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance in the latest example of ignorance replacing the very values the Pledge stands for, values that apply especially for those who choose to sit it out.
FlaglerLive | November 18, 2012
The secret, undemocratic way the Palm Coast City Council went about picking its latest unelected member is the latest disturbing example of a council’s contempt for the public, and of the maneuverings of a manager with a Donald Trump complex.
FlaglerLive | November 11, 2012
Many of Tuesday’s 176 popular referendum that passed speak of a more tolerant, more freedom-loving nation. Except in Florida, where the Legislature’s 11 proposals put the state at odds with national trenbds–and the Florida Legislature at odds with the people it claims to represent.
FlaglerLive | November 4, 2012
On Fox News, Hurricane Sandy’s aftermath was replaced with endless and largely manufactured claims of an Obama cover-up of the attack on the American consulate in benghazi. Fox’s latest Swiftboat attack on the president foundered.
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