New College of Florida will soon start taking a scholarly look back at the stampede of “woke” teachings and social consciousness in higher education and politics that prompted protest marches, boycotts and “canceling” of anyone who defied the liberal line or spoke out against this new political correctness on steroids.
Commentary
Superstition-Biases About Black Cats Have Real Effects
This superstition about black cats and other black animals in general has shaped people’s preferences about animals. It’s left its mark on things such as lower adoption rates for black cats and beliefs that black cats are more aggressive. Yet, these biases are unfounded.
Florida’s New Condo Laws Recognize Price of Living on the Beach
Nearly a million Florida condo owners face an important deadline at the end of the year. That’s when a law passed in 2022 requires most Florida condo associations to submit inspection reports for their buildings and to collect money from owners to pay for any needed repairs. Condo owners are reporting that new condominium rules are driving up fees and inducing outrageous assessments.
Looking For Shared Values Beyond All-Or-Nothing Politics
If you want to play the game of politics, here’s step one: Reduce everything to a linear political viewpoint: “right” or “left.” No matter how deep and large and complex that viewpoint is, politicize it, turn it into something that’s either right or wrong. It’s all about winning or losing. But how do we reach a collective state that isn’t competitive? How do we actually live our values rather than simply attempt to impose them—and in the process of doing so, oh so often, completely disregard and violate those values?
Ta-Nehisi Coates on Israel’s Jim Crow-Like Apartheid
Aware of the racism that surrounds him as a Black American, Coates can imagine himself as both Palestinian and Israeli. This generosity of imagination does not prevent critical analysis. His accounts of life in the occupied West Bank underline the reality that Israel has imposed a regime that is effectively based on the subordination and dispossession of Palestinians – and a deliberate attempt, he writes, to deny any possibility of a genuine two-state solution.
12-Year-Old Palm Coast Girl Faces Felony Over Death Threats in Fight Over a Boy
A week after an 11-year-old Virginia boy was sentenced in county court for making a series of threats that disrupted multiple schools for several days running, a 12-year-old Palm Coast girl was arrested on charges of threatening to kill another child in a dispute over a boy, using SnapChat to convey the threats. No school was involved in the latest incident.
Drug Court Graduation During Addict’s Murder Trial Draws Thin Line Between Abyss and Recovery
Four participants in Flagler County’s Drug Court graduated Thursday in a ceremony presided over by Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols, with Retired Judge Terence Perkins, in unique circumstances: the ceremony took place in the same courtroom where a murder trial was ongoing, with the jury deliberating over the fate of a drug abuser and dealer, whose shot of fentanyl killed another man. The juxtaposition of the two events sharpened the thin line between loss and recovery for substance abusers.
Is Marco Rubio NATO’s New Best Friend?
While Rubio has clearly changed his tune on Ukraine to align with Trump, he is not in lockstep with Trump on Nato. In fact, Rubio co-sponsored legislation alongside Democratic senator Tim Kaine, that would make it more difficult for Trump to withdraw from Nato by requiring two-thirds of the Senate to ratify withdrawal.
Why Palm Coast’s Debt Referendum Failed
Palm Coast’s debt referendum failed because it was deceptive and unnecessary. The city has several options to raise new revenue. It refuses to tap them. Enabling debt is not a solution. It’s a pander to the local chamber and private companies seeking to use city taxpayers as collateral for their projects.
How a New Generation of Telescopes Will Probe ‘Unknown Unknowns’
All observatories have a list of science objectives before they switch on, but it is their unexpected discoveries that can have the biggest impact. Many surprise advances in cosmology were driven by new technology, and the next telescopes have powerful capabilities.
On Voltaire’s Birthday, a Look Back at Candide, Tale of Human Folly in Times of Crisis
Voltaire’s Candide, or Optimism (1759) is widely recognised as his masterpiece. A darkly satirical novella taking aim at human folly, pride and excessive faith in reason’s ability to plumb the deepest metaphysical truths, it remains as telling in this era of pandemics and wild conspiracy theories as when first published.
What James Earl Jones Can Teach Us About Activism and Art
James Earl Jones was looking to change the culture. He was trying to change the country’s understanding of what it means to fight – and what a freedom fighter is. Sometimes, activism can be as simple as making art to the best of your abilities – or, as W.E.B. Du Bois wrote, “to use beauty to set the world right.”
Advise and Consent. Just Not to Matt Gaetz.
Matt Gaetz is virtually no one’s idea of a qualified nominee. The man is a graduate of William and Mary Law School, a fact that must have the ghost of Thomas Jefferson pulling out his sepulchral hair. He practiced law for less than two years in a civil firm, has no criminal law experience and was briefly suspended for not paying certain administrative fees but was later reinstated.
One More Delusion: Trump Thinks He Can Solve the Middle East.
Donald Trump has promised to end all wars. In his usual impulsive and unpredictable manner, he has pledged to resolve the Ukraine war within 24 hours of taking office and help Israel finish its Gaza and Lebanon operations quickly. Yet the Middle East is a complex place. Given the absence of a Gaza ceasefire, the thin hope of a halt to the Lebanon fighting, Netanyahu’s intransigence and Trump’s pursuance of an “Israel first” policy, the Middle East’s volatility is likely to persist.
The Taliban’s Violent Erasure of Women Through Its ‘Vice and Virtue’ Law
A newly passed “vice and virtue” law is among the most repressive and discriminatory measures ever enacted by the Taliban, an Islamist fundamentalist group controlling Afghanistan. The new law seeks to completely silence women in public. They are prohibited from speaking, singing or praying aloud. The law also attempts to literally erase them from view, ordering women to cover every part of their body and face in public.
Where Florida Went, The Nation Is About to Follow
Goodbye to America defining itself as a Beacon of Hope, the Light of Freedom, or any of that other stuff they told you in 3rd grade: the rule of law, checks and balances, free speech, science-based health care, and son on: we saw it all in Florida. It was just prelude.
Sewage and Fertilizer Threaten Florida Manatee’s Main Food Source, and Survival
Research shows manatees are eating less seagrass – traditionally their primary food source – and more algae than in decades past. This change occurred along Florida’s Atlantic coast during a period of extensive seagrass decline. This represents an emerging threat to the species’ survival.
How Polls Did This Time
Polls’ collective performance, while not stellar, was improved from that of four years earlier. Overall, polls signaled a close outcome in the race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. That is what the election produced: a modest win for Trump. Trump had received 50.1% of the popular vote to Harris’ 48.1%, a difference of 2 points. That margin was closer than Joe Biden’s win by 4.5 points over Trump in 2020. It was closer than Hillary Clinton’s popular vote victory in 2016.
Moby-Dick, The Book for Our Times
We can’t afford permanent enmity or exile from each other. Secession and civil war might be a nice distraction but consumer splurging suggests that’s not in the cards. So for all of us grass-leaved Americans, “Moby-Dick” is the book for us, in this moment, in this whale of whiteness delirium. “Moby-Dick” is our book of revelation.
Federal Judge Bans 10 Commandments from Classrooms
Do the Ten Commandments have a valid place in U.S. classrooms? Louisiana’s Legislature and governor insist the answer is “yes.” But on Nov. 12, 2024, a federal judge said “no.” Litigation over the Ten Commandments is not new. More than 40 years ago, in Stone v. Graham, the Supreme Court rejected a Kentucky statute that mandated displays of the Ten Commandments in classrooms.
It’s an Election Victory. It’s Not a New Era.
Despite the lessons of this history, a new round of doomsayers are ready to write the Democrats’ obituary in 2024. According to one journalist, “Democrats are a lost party. Come January, they’ll have scant power in the federal government, and shriveling clout in the courts and states.” But it’s easy to overstate the enduring impact of an election. Unforeseen events arise that alter the political landscape in unpredictable ways. The party in power often makes mistakes. New candidates emerge to energize and inspire the defeated party.
Israel’s Destruction of Gaza Heritage Sites Aimes to Erase and Replace Palestine’s History
Cultural property has been a target of the Israeli offensive since the beginning of the conflict and, as early as November, the devastation of the cities of northern Gaza far exceeded that caused in the infamous bombing of Dresden in 1945. There are at least 130 sites in Gaza that Israel, as an occupying power, is obligated to protect under international law along with the rest of the area’s cultural and natural heritage. As of 17 September 2024, UNESCO has verified damage to 69 sites.
Gaza Fallout: Arab American Voter Likely Tipped Michigan to Trump
Michigan has the largest population of Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians in the United States, currently numbering more than 200,000. Back during the primary in February 2024, a group called Listen to Michigan organized the uncommitted campaign in the state, promoting it as a way to express dissatisfaction with the Biden administration’s support of Israel’s actions in its conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Recreational Pot Hits Red Wall in Florida, North and South Dakota
The cannabis legalization movement’s primary obstacle is the “red wall,” the 20 states where Republicans have total control of state government and recreational cannabis remains illegal. Another four states without recreational legalization – Kansas, Wisconsin, Kentucky and North Carolina – could be described as “red wall adjacent.” These states have Democratic governors, but Republicans control the state legislatures.
Quincy Jones, Epic Transformer of America’s Sounds
Quincy Jones transformed our understanding of musical arrangement. His work spanned decades and genres, from jazz and pop to hip-hop and film scoring. He worked with pop icons like Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin, and also collaborated with lesser-known artists such as Lesley Gore and Tevin Campbell.
How Blue Cable Called It
Switching between CNN and MSNBC for election coverage on election night was instructive to watch how the networks that have exhibited a visceral hatred for Donald Trump since he came on the political scene described the trajectory of the evening.
Why So Many People Voted for Trump
For many people, especially those leaning left, Donald Trump’s disqualifications to be president seem obvious. Why did so many people vote for Trump again, they wonder, and how did he win not just the Electoral College vote this time but the popular vote as well?
Flagler and Gomorrah
The outcome of local elections will affect us at least as much as anything that happens nationally. With that in mind it’s worth taking stock of our local political landscape post-apocalypse, because it’s a whole lot better than Gomorrah and, ironically, almost entirely Republican.
America’s Glass Ceiling Remains
Gender wasn’t the main reason Kamala Harris lost. But it was a factor that contributed to her lack of support, especially when you compare her performance with Joe Biden’s in the same places and with almost all of the same voting groups he won in 2020. Gender was part of the campaign landscape in many different ways this election.
Trump’s Comeback Looks a Lot Like Andrew Jackson’s
Trump has survived by – consciously or not – following the example of another American president who created a political party in his own image and used it to rule almost unchecked: Andrew Jackson, whose portrait Trump hung in the Oval Office during his first term.
The Deep Sea’s Potential Gold Mine, As Long As We Don’t Mine It
Deep-sea animals possess unique genes that allow them to live in an environment unlike anything else on Earth, with its intense cold, crushing pressure and total darkness. The essential role of deep-sea life in the functioning of Earth’s systems may be far greater than previously understood. Unfortunately, deep-sea ecosystems are under threat from seabed mining for minerals.
Tips for Surviving Election Day
No matter what, we all need some tips for surviving the shouting, the demonstrating, the tantrum-throwing, the reality-denying, and the lawsuits, which are the habitual response of our fellow citizens when they don’t get their way. Here you go.
America’s Disappearing Dairy Farms
While the number of dairy farms has fallen, the average herd size – the number of cows per farm – has been rising. Today, more than 60% of all milk production occurs on farms with more than 2,500 cows. This massive consolidation in dairy farming has an impact on rural communities. It also makes it more difficult for consumers to know where their food comes from and how it’s produced.
Why Ancient Mesopotamians Would Have Used A Sheep’s Liver to Predict Donald Trump’s Election Odds
According to 4,000-year-old Babylonian instructions that have survived to this day, every crease on the liver has a meaning, and cuneiform tablets discovered in modern-day Iraq explain how to interpret them. Armed with this knowledge, it’s supposedly possible to calculate the answer to any question, so long as it is yes or no, by adding up the number of positive or negative signs and seeing which comes out on top.
Behind the Desperate Attempt to Defeat Abortion-Rights Amendment: GOP’s Contempt for Women’s Autonomy
DeSantis knows the majority of Floridians — like the majority of Americans — support a woman’s right to choose whether to have a baby, and he’s so scared Amendment 4 will pass he’s resorting to using every dirty trick in the patriarchal book to stop it. Like Donald Trump, he despises women, for whose right to determine what happens with their own bodies is nothing short of obsessive.
Threatening ‘The Enemy Within’ with Force: The Danger to Americans
Former President Donald Trump has declared that there is “the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within, and the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous,” with past actions suggesting he would use the military to suppress opposition at home. For that reason, in a time of increasing political polarization, military educational institutions are focusing even more explicitly on the oath military members take to the Constitution, rather than to a person or an office.
Is America Ready for a Woman President?
Stereotypes have long hindered female candidates, casting them as emotional, weak and sensitive. But research shows that voters in the U.S. increasingly see women leaders as synonymous with political leadership – and as more effective than men politicians. This transformation reflects a broader change in what voters expect in political leaders. They are now more likely to see a woman candidate as a better “fit” for public office.
Why Trump Beat Harris By 312 Electoral Votes
Monday-morning-quarterbacking Democrats’ mistakes is a dead end. It wouldn’t have mattered what Harris did or who the Democrats ran. The result would have been the same. Trump didn’t make this moment. It was made for him, in no small part by liberalism’s abdication. The more liberalism projected self-loathing without a hint of pride in country or redemptive hope for it, the more it ceded the ground to “a bottom-up populist revolt” let by a strongman who reflects their belief: America’s democratic moment is over.
Consistently Wrong Pollsters Try Again in 2024
Pollsters have spent the years since 2020 experimenting with ways to induce hard-to-reach voters to participate in surveys and testing statistical techniques to improve accuracy. But expert opinion is mixed on whether polling outcomes are due for a repeat of 2020, which a professional association of pollsters called the most inaccurate in 40 years.
Why Does Donald Trump Tell Such Blatant Lies?
Politicians who lie can gain a strategic advantage. If you can successfully embellish the truth or construct a new reality, this often tends to be more interesting and engaging than the complicated truth. The truth may be a bit dull and uninspiring; the lie can be whatever you want it to be. You know what your audience wants to hear. When it comes to lying in politics, Donald Trump is in a class of his own. According to the Washington Post, he made 30,573 false or misleading claims in his four years as president.
Inaccuracy of Terms: ‘Arab-Israeli Conflict’
Is “Arab-Israeli conflict” an accurate reflection, given that the active participants are no longer just Arabs and Israelis? Should we retire that term for good now that the conflict has widened, drawing in the United States and Iran – and potentially Turkey and others in the coming years?
The 14th Amendment’s Backstop Against Subversive Legislatures
Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election not only failed, but some of them also rested on a misreading of the U.S. Constitution. Trump claimed that the Constitution allowed state legislatures to directly choose a slate of electors without a popular vote. He was wrong. There was a safeguard already in place – and it remains today, defending against this approach being used to subvert the 2024 presidential election. It’s the 14th Amendment.
Don’t Stereotype Voters Without Children
Politicians and others often use the word “childless” as an umbrella term for people who do not have children. This doesn’t capture some important nuances. Large-scale demographic data show that there are many types of nonparents – and each has its own set of political priorities.
Free School Meals Are On the Rise. Trump Would Change That.
Donald Trump’s administration made multiple attempts to weaken the nutritional quality of school meals despite evidence supporting their benefits for students. For example, they rolled back expectations that kids would be served more whole grains and stalled efforts to decrease sodium levels. Project 2025, a package of policy proposals authored by people closely tied to Trump’s 2024 presidential bid – but that the campaign has sought to disavow – calls for cuts in federal spending that helps fund universal free school meal programs.
Florida Politicians Owned by Polluters: A Database Helps Show How
Vote Water recently rolled out what it calls its “Dirty Money Project.” It’s a searchable database to track donations to Florida politicians from polluting industries such as Big Sugar and the rest of the agricultural industry, the phosphate miners, the major utilities, the developers and even the sneaky “polluter PACs” — committees that function as cash machines and get significant funding from these industries.
Trump’s Attack on Overseas Voters: Factually Wrong, Politically Dangerous.
Donald Trump’s Truth Social post about overseas voters in late September and Republican efforts to undermine those voters are factually wrong and politically dangerous. There are lawsuits in several states designed to disenfranchise American citizens abroad. These are citizens who may have gone to enormous lengths to carry out their duties by asking for and sending in election ballots, often at substantial personal expense and faced with substantial barriers.
Speech Codes at Flagler School Board and Palm Coast Council Are Now Illegal, Thanks to Moms for Liberty
A decision by the federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, controlling law in Flagler County, invalidates local governments’ speech codes that prohibit public speakers from addressing individual members of elected boards, or citing employees by name, or quoting from school library books, no matter how racy, or speaking offensively, which is considered a point of view. But rules against disruption and obscenity remain. The question is: will local governments correct their rules accordingly?
Harris and Trump on Crime and Justice
Though crime and criminal justice policy are central issues in many elections, that’s not true in 2024. Surveys show that relatively few American voters rank crime as their most important concern. Yet both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris say they take those problems seriously.
How the Government Can Stop Political ‘Churches’ From Exploiting Tax Exemption
Some groups that aren’t churches or associations of churches want to be designated that way to avoid the scrutiny being a charitable organization otherwise requires. At the same time, some other groups that should qualify as churches may have difficulty doing so because of the IRS’ outdated test for that status.
Harris and Trump on LGBTQ Rights
A March 2024 survey by independent pollster PRRI found that 68% of voters will take LGBTQ rights into consideration at the polls. Fully 30% stated that they would vote only for a candidate who shares their views on the issue. It is no coincidence, then, that LGBTQ rights issues feature prominently in the party platforms.