Weather: Mostly sunny. A slight chance of showers in the morning, then a chance of showers with a slight chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs in the lower 80s. Temperature falling into the upper 70s in the afternoon. West winds around 5 mph, increasing to north 10 to 15 mph with gusts up to 25 mph in the afternoon. Chance of rain 40 percent. Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy with a chance of showers with a slight chance of thunderstorms in the evening, then mostly clear after midnight. Lows in the lower 60s. Northeast winds 5 to 10 mph. Gusts up to 30 mph, decreasing to 20 mph after midnight. Chance of rain 30 percent.
Today at the Editor’s Glance:
In Court: Circuit Judge Terence Perkins hears several pleas in minor cases.
The Annual George Washington Carver Foundation Auction begins Monday. The purpose of the auction is to raise money to go back into the development of the Carver Center in Bunnell. In order to participate in this auction you must register for a bidder account on this 32auctions website. To register click login in the top right corner and then click “Create an account now” if you have not yet made one. The system will then send you an email with a link to confirm the registration. Your bidder ID will be the first part of your email address. If you would like to change the bidder ID you may go in to account settings and pick a new ID. Please pick a username you don’t mind being displayed publicly. The username of the current bidder will be displayed with the item.
Notably: It is Edward Gibbon’s birth anniversary (1737). Has anyone written history more elegantly and absorbingly? Gibbon has the unfortunate distinction of being a classic, keeping him from a broader readership he should have today, his analysis of the Roman Empire having as much currency today as it did during the Enlightenment, with one difference: Gibbon was among the definers of his age. Today he would be in contrast with ours, when he could say of liberals that they “lamented, rather than arraigned the wild disorders of the times,” and when he could say of Republicans, at least Trump-era Republicans, that “heir careless or criminal violation of truth and justice was covered by the consecrated mask of zeal,” and when he could say of all Americans, who are failing to see how precarious their democracy has become: “A people elated by pride, or soured by discontent, are seldom qualified to form a just estimate of their actual situation.” He would have written the epitaph of populism: ” “Every popular government has experienced the effects of rude or artificial eloquence.” And he would have judged better than any historian, with the exception of Voltaire, how damaging religion can be to civility: “… the enmity of the Christians toward each other surpassed the fury of savage beasts against man.” Or how materialism is corroding our ethics with “the insolent vices of prosperity.” It’s easy to go on. It’s easier to read him: Decline and Fall remains the greatest thriller ever written.
Just as notably: Yesterday we noted the 200th anniversary of Frederick Law Olmstead. Today, it’s Ulysses Grant, the most forgivable drunk America ever knew, and a fabulous writer influenced by his close friendship with Mark Twain: “While a battle is raging one can see his enemy mowed down by the thousand, or the ten thousand, with great composure; but after the battle these scenes are distressing, and one is naturally disposed to do as much to alleviate the sufferings of an enemy as a friend…” Here’s an interesting thought he wrote in the first year of the Civil War: “My inclination is to whip the rebellion into submission, preserving all constitutional rights. If it cannot be whipped in any other way than through a war against slavery, let it come to that legitimately. If it is necessary that slavery should fall that the Republic may continue its existence, let slavery go. But that portion of the press that advocates the beginning of such a war now, are as great enemies to their country as if they were open and avowed secessionists.” And yet he led the most corrupt administration in the nation’s history, with the possible exception of Reagan’s and Trump’s (close calls, between those two: Reagan, who like Grant was not himself corrupt, oversaw it with indifference, while Trump was its every atom). As historian James MacGregor Burns wrote in his now inexplicably out of print American Experiment trilogy, “‘Grantism’ had become synonymous with a degree of corruption and malfeasance unprecedented even by the relaxed standards of nineteenth-century American politics. Some of the scandals were mundane: the Secretary of War resigned when evidence surfaced that he had been involved in selling government con tracts, and the Interior Secretary faced similar charges. Other gaffes were intercontinental: U.S. Minister to Paris Dan Sickles conducted an adulterous affair with the former Queen of Spain, Ambassador Robert Schenck lent his name to bogus western stocks being sold in London, and another political appointee enlivened his consulship in Egypt with duels, drunkenness, and dancing girls. Still other scandals reached right into the White House, as a presidential aide was found to be involved in covering up the bribery of Treasury agents by whiskey manufacturers.”
Now this: Starting today we’re featuring the three student soloists who performed at the Flagler Youth Orchestra’s season-ending Chords Concert at the Flagler Auditorium on April 25. All three are graduating seniors playing in their last concert. They performed pieces of their choosing, backed up by the full Harmony Chamber Orchestra, the FYO’s top ensemble, under the direction of Joe Corporon. Today: Corey Lehnertz performing Saint-Saëns’s Allegro Appassionato op 43.
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.
May 2025
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Second Saturday Plant Sale at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park
American Association of University Women (AAUW) Meeting
Peps Art Walk Near Beachfront Grille
Murder at Shivering Timbers Murder Mystery Dinner Show Fundraiser
RockabillieWillie At City Repertory Theatre
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
Al-Anon Family Groups
RockabillieWillie At City Repertory Theatre
Flagler County Library Board of Trustees
For the full calendar, go here.
The hypothesis, which seems to me the most fertile, is that news and truth are not the same thing, and must be clearly distinguished. The function of news is to signalize an event, the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them into relation with each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act. Only at those points, where social conditions take recognizable and measurable shape, do the body of truth and the body of news coincide. That is a comparatively small part of the whole field of human interest.
–From Walter Lippmann’s Public Opinion (1922).
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