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Weather: Mostly sunny with a 20 percent chance of showers. Highs in the lower 80s. North winds 10 to 15 mph with gusts up to 25 mph. Wednesday Night: Mostly clear. Lows around 60. North winds 10 to 15 mph, diminishing to around 5 mph after midnight.
- Daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
- Drought conditions here. (What is the Keetch-Byram drought index?).
- Check today’s tides in Daytona Beach (a few minutes off from Flagler Beach) here.
- Tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
General Election Early Voting is available today in Bunnell, Palm Coast and Flagler Beach from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at five locations. Any registered and qualified voter who is eligible to vote in a county-wide election may vote in person at any of the early voting site, regardless of assigned precinct. According to Florida law, every voter must present a Florida driver’s license, a Florida identification card or another form of acceptable picture and signature identification in order to vote. If you do not present the required identification or if your eligibility cannot be determined, you will only be permitted to vote a provisional ballot. Don’t forget your ID. A couple of secure drop boxes that Ron DeSantis and the GOP legislature haven’t yet banned (also known as Secure Ballot Intake Stations) are available at the entrance of the Elections Office and at any early voting site during voting hours. The locations are as follows:
- Flagler County Elections Supervisor’s Office, Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell.
- Flagler County Public Library, 2500 Palm Coast Pkwy NW, Palm Coast.
- Palm Coast Community Center, 305 Palm Coast Parkway NE.
- Palm Coast’s Southern Recreation Center, 1290 Belle Terre Parkway.
- Flagler Beach United Methodist Church, 1520 South Daytona Avenue, Flagler Beach.
See a sample ballot here. See the Live Interviews with all local candidates below.
Palm Coast Mayor Cornelia Manfre Mike Norris Palm Coast City Council Ty Miller, Dist. 1 Jeffrey Seib, Dist. 1 Ray Stevens, Dist. 3 Andrew Werner, Dist. 3 Backgrounders Manfre’s and Norris’s Final Clash Temper and Temperament at Tiger Bay Forum Stevens and Werner Sharpen Differences |
River to Sea Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) meets at 9 a.m. at the Airline Room at the Daytona Beach International Airport. The TPO’s planning oversight includes all of Volusia County and the developed areas of eastern Flagler County including Beverly Beach and Flagler Beach as well as portions of the cities of Palm Coast and Bunnell, with board member representation from each of those jurisdictions. See the full agendas here. To join the meeting electronically, go here.
Separation Chat, Open Discussion: The Atlantic Chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State hosts an open, freewheeling discussion on the topic here in our community, around Florida and throughout the United States, noon to 1 p.m. at Pine Lakes Golf Club Clubhouse Pub & Grillroom (no purchase is necessary), 400 Pine Lakes Pkwy, Palm Coast (0.7 miles from Belle Terre Parkway). Call (386) 445-0852 for best directions. All are welcome! Everyone’s voice is important. For further information email [email protected] or call Merrill at 804-914-4460.
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 9-18, at the Flagler County Public Library: Do you enjoy Chess, trying out new moves, or even like some friendly competition? Come visit the Flagler County Public Library at the Teen Spot every Wednesday from 4 to 5 p.m. for Chess Club. Everyone is welcome, for beginners who want to learn how to play all the way to advanced players. For more information contact the Youth Service department 386-446-6763 ext. 3714 or email us at [email protected]
 Keep Their Lights On Over the Holidays: Flagler Cares, the social service non-profit celebrating its 10th anniversary, is marking the occasion with a fund-raiser to "Keep the Holiday Lights On" by encouraging people to sponsor one or more struggling household's electric bill for a month over the Christmas season. Each sponsorship amounts to $100 donation, with every cent going toward payment of a local power bill. See the donation page here. Every time another household is sponsored, a light goes on on top of a house at Flagler Cares' fundraising page. The goal of the fun-raiser, which Flagler Cares would happily exceed, is to support at least 100 families (10 households for each of the 10 years that Flagler Cares has been in existence). Flagler Cares will start taking applications for the utility fund later this month. Because of its existing programs, the organization already has procedures in place to vet people for this type of assistance, ensuring that only the needy qualify. |
Metro diary: On Monday I was driving on Palm Coast Parkway from the early-voting site at the public library to the Community Center when, stopped at the half-hour red light at the Parkway and Cypress Point, I saw this woman approaching the southeast corner, from the east on the Parkway, in pinkish red, dancing as if there was no tomorrow (she may have been onto something). She was in another world, headphoned, but entirely dancing to this one: her own little flash mob. As she got to the corner a man who had just crossed the street toward her direction, without skipping a beat he may or may not have been hearing, started dancing with her, twirling her, dipping her. They did this for a minute, then they hugged, then they said goodbye, and she crossed one way and he went on the other: a magical little interlude that gave everyone at the light something to smile about on an unsmiling day and not a little of the urge to just hop out and join them. Metropolitan areas are filled with moments like these. The New York Times for decades on Sundays has been running a feature called “Metropolitan Diary,” where readers send in their little anecdotes from city streets, subways, bathroom stalls, in prose or in verse, like this one called “A Piano in Bryant Park” from last Sunday:
Elegant ebony grand in afternoon sun,
awkwardly balanced on cobblestone,
amid benches, fountains, a great square of lawn.
Passers-by circle it cautiously, as they would
a fallen meteor. Its shiny keys synthetic, out of place
among the earthy greens and browns of the park.
Now a pianist, hair cinched back in a bun,
regal bearing, lowers her hands, begins.
A soprano, in white silk, sings
the still-fresh words of Walt Whitman,
launches them into summer air, where they mix
with the honks and sirens of Forty-second Street.
A duet of city and song, urban harmony
that ruffles senses as it soothes souls.
The sky darkens — storm clouds from the west
Jane Jacobs would say that it’s scenes like these–not the broad avenues and parkway designs of a Robert Moses–that make a city, and she would be right. We have them too, if we look hard enough, if we wait long enough–as our traffic lights seem to insist we should–but it’s too much of a chore, too much like glimpsing a shooting star. When it happens, it’s more an event than an urban routine. That alone tells you were are not yet a city, and our Moses-like designs may well keep us from becoming one. But the dancing girl will keep trying.
—P.T.
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The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
Al-Anon Family Groups
For the full calendar, go here.
Dear Diary:
On July 20, 1969, I was driving a yellow cab. I was on the evening shift and I had live coverage of the moon mission on the radio.
At 10:30, I was driving a fare up Sixth Avenue. I knew Neil Armstrong was about to walk on the moon, and I didn’t want to miss it.
We were near 50th Street. A large TV screen showing NBC’s live coverage had been set up in front of the Time-Life Building. I pulled over, double-parked and shut off the meter.
My passenger looked perplexed.
“We have a chance to catch history and I am not going to miss it,” I said. “Do you want to join me?”
He stared at me for a beat.
“The ride is on me,” I said.
That was enough. We got out and walked over to the Time-Life Building. Nearly an hour passed while we stood there, two strangers watching a man walk on the moon.
–John G. Singer, from the New York Times Metropolitan Diary column, Aug. 11, 2019.
Ray W, says
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports:
“An audit uncovered 20 noncitizens out of 8.2 million registered voters in Georgia, according to findings announced by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Wednesday.
“Nine of those 20 noncitizens cast ballots several years ago, before ID verification checks were in place, while the other 11 were registered by never actually voted, the audit showed. Election officials canceled their voter registrations and reported them to district attorneys for potential prosecution …
“‘This is the most comprehensive citizenship check ever conducted in the history of Georgia, if not the most comprehensive check ever conducted in the United States,’ said Raffensperger, a Republican. ‘Georgia is a model when it comes to preventing noncitizen voting.'”
Make of this what you will. Me? We don’t know from the report if the nine who cast ballots several years ago all voted for democrats or all voted for republicans or a mixture of the two. Maybe they all voted in local races and never marked the egg for any presidential candidate in 2020.
Ray W, says
Thank you once again, Mr. Tristam.
“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” Nietzsche.
Ray W, says
The Times reports that an unnamed Whitfield County, Georgia woman used a voting machine touchscreen to select her choices before having her ballot printed. She reviewed her printed ballot and realized that she had chosen a wrong candidate in one race. She sought out a voting official who helped her invalidate her first printed ballot. She selected her choices correctly and printed out a second ballot, which she then cast. Only one ballot was cast.
A Facebook user, calling the woman a “friend of mine”, posted the story, but the poster falsely claimed that the woman had tried voting several times with the machine changing the candidates between parties. Another poster then shared the story.
Faster than you can say Haitian immigrants are eating cats or dogs, Marjorie Taylor Green picked up the story, stating: “This is exactly the kind of fraud we saw in 2020 and it cannot be tolerated.” Her X post was shared 3.5 million times.
Ms. Greene then joined Alex Jones on his livestream to continue fostering the false claim.
The false claim soon reached tens of millions of views.
In an effort to counter the false claims, Georgia elections officials released their account of what happened, which generated nine comments and 12 shares.
Make of this what you will. Me? Misinformation and disinformation laundering is a scourge on our society.
Ray W, says
George Will, of the Post, is one of the more established American conservative columnists. Today, his column’s headline reads: “If Demography is Destiny, Bring On Immigration. We’re Going to Need It.”