The firefighters who saved the majority of the cathedral, which could very well have collapsed without their heroism, now stand as tall and as anonymous as the architects and masons of Notre Dame. They deserve their own Victor Hugo.
Pierre Tristam
Charging 1st Degree Murder for an Overdose Death Is Indefensible
A charge of first-degree murder requires premeditation. Florida’s law charging first degree murder for causing a death by overdose does not. It relies on assumptions and entirely negates the user’s responsibility. The law was intended as a deterrent. But in Florida, overdose deaths have increased sixfold in 25 years. The law beings neither deterrence nor justice in a crisis that will not be solved by sending people to prison for life.
The Baalbek Ruins, Israeli Edition
The city of Baalbek in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley–the City of the Sun–was settled almost 10,000 years ago, and is famous for its long history and its Roman ruins, one of the architectural marvels of the world. To the author, it is wrapped up in memories of childhood and of a father who died decades ago, and now in renewed sorrows as Baalbek was again among Israel’s targets in the last few weeks of bombing.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
The Big Read:
Deconstructing J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Fictions
When J.D. Vance went from calling Trump “America’s Hitler” and calling himself a Nevertrumper to calling him a man of “extraordinary vision” as he accepted the nomination for vice-president, the apparent change was mistaken for the apotheosis of an opportunistic pivot and a betrayal of his memoir’s affective nuances. But it was in fact the reflection and perfection of a skill Vance displayed throughout “Hillbilly Elegy,” where he constructed a persona scaled to a chameleon’s tongue. The book is the Rosetta Stone of the Vance we see today.
Mandatory ECGs for Flagler County’s Student-Athletes: It’s About Life, Not ‘Parental Rights’
For the past few years AdventHealth has made free ECGs a voluntary part of student athletes’ physical. Wednesday evening the Flagler County School Board is voting on whether to make ECGs mandatory. Three board members–Will Furry, Sally Hunt, Christy Chong–are opposed. They say an ECG should be a parent’s choice. They’ve wrapped the issue under the banner of “parental rights,” as if ECGs were the same as masking during Covid, or whether to teach kids sex-ed. Their reasoning is flawed, and may cost lives.
Kamala Harris? Don’t Bet on the Hype.
Kamala Harris followed a script Tuesday. It was a solid, made-for-TV script. It wasn’t a knock-out. Trump lost from own goals, which his flagellant faithful always forgive him. If you’re a Harris fan you probably shouldn’t raise your hopes even with that Swift endorsement. It’s not just the electoral college. It’s an electorate inebriated on phony nostalgia, desperate for a nonexistent fantasy that Trump can nevertheless sell like bibles and steaks.
The “School Choice” Swindle Is Demolishing Public Schools
“School choice” is an orchestrated demolition of public schools and the social contract. The focus-group euphemism masks the thieving of tax dollars to subsidize private schools, transforming what was once an aspiration of fringe Christian and anti-government militants into state doctrine. Flagler County schools are losing close to $11 million this year to “choice.”
Latest Flagler School Board Follies: Hunt Celebrates Mediocrity, Furry Abuses His Seat to Push ‘Endorsements’
“Board member comments” at the Flagler school board have devolved almost always into a disaster, an embarrassment, a circus of ignorance, hypocrisy, stupidity or bigotry, compliments of the board’s trilobites: Sally Hunt, Will Furry and Christy Chong. No wonder they prefer illegal secret meetings. No wonder Colleen Conklin and Cheryl Massaro can’t wait to escape the asylum. The sane ones weren’t there Tuesday to witness the latest drivel from Furry and Hunt, the first illegal, the second just creepy.
Why Is Palm Coast’s Mayor Extending the Red Carpet to ‘Constitutional Sheriff’ Extremists?
A local representative of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association known as CSPOA is asking the Palm Coast City Council and the County Commission to enact ordinances making Flagler a “Constitutional County.” That would be illegal and unconscionable: CSPOA is an anti-government extremist group that seeks to undermine federal, state and court authorities while placing the local sheriff above them all.
Assassination Merch
Medieval pilgrims traded gold for relics such as the alleged thumb of John the Baptist or vials of the alleged blood of Christ from his crucifixion. This will be the first presidential race in history when blood will feature front and center in the Trump campaign’s most iconic image, the candidate bloodied but fist-pumping as an Iwo Jima-flag-like clutch of brawn props him up. Trump is the flag. Trump is America. Welcome to assassination merch.
Behind the Smear of Palm Coast Mayoral Candidate Peter Johnson
Peter Johnson, a candidate for Palm Coast mayor, has been the target of the most vicious slander in Flagler County in this year’s election. The claim has been spread through an alleged screenshot of an alleged slur he used, but all the evidence gathered so far points to a fabrication intended to defame Johnson and peddled by discreditable operatives, among them one of Johnson’s opponents in the mayoral race.
Trump Is No Longer the Greatest Danger to the Country. Biden Is.
Biden has a choice: certain defeat and a Trump win, or stepping aside and letting Democrats take the only kind of gamble that gives them at least a competitive chance to win in November, with either California’s Gavin Newsom or Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer at the top of the ticket–and with Whitmer clearly the better of the two. If the Democratic Party allows Biden to dig in, the party loses all legitimacy going forward.
The Write-In Fraud
Two people who have zero intention to run campaigns have filed to run as write-ins, closing two Flagler County Commission races to 51 percent of the electorate in cynical maneuvers to benefit Ed Danko and Kim Carney in their respective races, against Pam Richardson in one and Nick Klufas and Bill Clark in the other. The write-in fraud takes advantage of a loophole in the law that enables anyone, without paying a dime or showing any intention to campaign, to be a write-in, thus closing otherwise open primaries.
Flagler County’s Beach Protection Tax: Right Idea. Wrong Execution.
The county has the right idea: we need a new tax to pay for expensive beach protection, or we’ll lose the beach. But the county’s execution is hurried, the plan is poorly thought-out, it is riddled with holes and inconsistencies, and it has included zero public participation and zero preparatory discussions with other governments. That’s a recipe for failure, deservedly so: the county is taking the public and its sister governments for granted, if not punting to the cities to do the heavy lifting.
Brendan Depa’s Sentence: Neither Vengeance Nor Mercy. Only Humane Justice.
On May 1 Circuit Judge Terence Perkins will sentence Brendan Depa on a charge that carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. The punishment will be nowhere near that: the sentencing guidelines don’t call for it, the incident doesn’t warrant it, and Perkins is not a hanging judge. The question is whether he will impose any prison time, and whether reason and justice, not mercy or vengeance, will prevail.
Why Is Palm Coast Backroom-Dealing Tax Incentives with a Private Company?
Palm Coast is in the middle of a secret deal with an Atlanta-based company called DC Blox, which bought 34 acres in Town Center for $3.3 million last fall. It plans to build a data center there to land several undersea internet-data cables, by way of Flagler Beach. The city and the county are cooking up some kind of tax incentive with the company. We don’t know how much. We don’t know for how long. Presumably, we’ll find out only when the deal is sealed.
Arrogance and Contempt in Palm Coast Council’s Election-Year Dash for New City Manager
The Palm Coast City Council’s rush to hire a new city manager mere months from an election that will turn over two, possibly three seats, shows mistrust of the acting manager, contempt for voters and the new council they’ll choose, and pathological arrogance on the part of current council members. The mayor knows better.
To Win in November, Recreational Pot in Florida Must First Defeat Reefer Madness
Now that the Florida Supreme Court has cleared the proposal to legalize recreational pot for the November ballot, the drug of choice among those who want to defeat the proposal is going to be disinformation. So it’s worth having a look at what we’ve learned from other states that have inhaled.
The Firing of Palm Coast City Manager Denise Bevan Is Indefensible
Setting aside fairly raised implications by two city council members of sunshine-law violations, there were inexcusable elements of brutality, arbitrariness, and sexism in the firing of Palm Coast City Manager Denise Bevan last week, none of which should be swept past by claims that it’s over and done with, that we should move on. Those claims only benefit the firing’s orchestrators and reward the ill manner of it all. They explain nothing. Explanations are due.
Legal Or Not, Only Immigrants Can Save America
The United States avoided a recession largely because of a surge in immigration, and its economic output is expected to be $7 trillion higher over the next 10 years largely because of immigration–legal or not: the Congressional Budget Office doesn’t distinguish between the two. As native-born fertility declines and Americans age, the country cannot afford to close its borders. Those immigrants at the border aren’t an invasion. They’re not a crisis. They’re a lifeline: theirs and ours.
Tom Joad, the Voice of a Better America, Has Been Silenced
From the Book of Ruth to Eugene Debs to Tom Joad in Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath,” the voice of solidarity spoke a communion with needs and pains greater than one’s own, a willingness not only to walk in the other’s shoes, but to be the shoes–to be the soles–when the other has none. It was once the voice of America. We have lost that voice as blame and judgment have replaced solidarity and grievances about what we think we’re losing snuff out protest on behalf of those not lucky enough to have something to lose.
DOA: Behind the County’s Clumsy Push to Defund School Deputies
Whichever way you look at it, the Flagler County Commission’s and its administrator’s letter to the school district calling for a plan to defund the county’s portion of money for school deputies was clumsy, terribly timed, and an unnecessary invitation to political grandstanding in an election year. Deputies aren’t going anywhere, nor is the county’s funding. But nor should this be another invitation for the School Board to consider harebrained ideas like arming staffers.
Jimmy Carter in Hospice Is Still Better than Trump in White House
Biden is old. He’s slow. He’s forgetful. He trips all over the place, he’s in hiding, and the Democratic Party is a pitiful band of backbenchers who couldn’t give us a more convincing alternative. For all that, compared to Trump he’s still the only credible choice, if it’s a republic we still want.
School Board’s Christy Chong’s ‘Cause’ Letter to Fire Attorney Is a Tissue of Fabrications, Petty Grievances and Cluelessness
The six “causes” Flagler County School Board member Christy Chong listed as reasons to fire attorney Kristy Gavin come nowhere near “just cause” as defined in Gavin’s contract. Rather, they’re petty, inaccurate, gossipy and falsified grievances that have more to do with Chong being out of her depth, her embarrassment, her hatred for the press and her contempt for transparency and the public than anything to do with the quality of Gavin’s work in nearly two decades of representing the board.
Florida’s Sunshine Law Is Dying
The battle, mostly lost, is not those individual exemptions to the Sunshine Law. It’s the totality of what’s been lost over the years: a presumption of openness has been replaced by the reverse, thanks to an unspoken but very effective bureaucracy of secrecy by process. The secrecy isn’t explicit. Most of your average government gatekeepers would never think of themselves as suppressing information. But the rules they have in place, allowing them to delay, obfuscate, censor and charge a ton of money before they comply, amount to the same thing: secrecy as standard operating procedure.
In Free Florida, the Dictionary Is Dangerous to Your Children
A few people who call themselves parents but are really frustrated bullies who want everyone else to lead the miserable lives they do, at least when they’re not engaging in threesomes, have successfully made black holes of Florida’s school and classroom libraries and further marginalized slews of children whose one solace might have been that one book.
Elise Stefanik’s Immoral Compass, and Ours
When Rep. Elise Stefanik grilled then-Harvard President Claudine Gay about her “moral clarity” about genocide and bullying on campus, Israel was in its eighth week of the most genocidal assault on Palestinians in the history of Arab-Jewish wars predating even the creation of Israel in 1948. None of it was relevant to Stefanik, because when Israel is the subject matter, there are no two sides to the story. There are no interpretations. There is no discussion. None permissible, anyway. There is only dogma. Anything else is heresy.
A Note To My Grandson
Well dear Felix, this is the day chosen for you–as so much has been since before your conception, as almost everything will be for the next dozen years, as most things will be after that–to be born into this, not quite our world: you arrived as scheduled a little after 7 this morning, your time.
My Father’s Crèche
Taking down Christmas decorations can be difficult when they serve as buffers to memories as painful to remember as one is grateful not to have forgotten them, especially as we age: my father has been dead nearly 50 years, but that chasm of time disappears in the still-vivid hammer sounds of the crèche he built us every Christmas, and the joys of my mother’s New Year’s Day parties before lives became war zones.
The Immoral Gamble of ‘Shopping’ for Health Insurance
Between high premiums, deductibles, co-pays, co-insurance, other out-of-pocket costs, and the enduring myth that Americans still get to choose their own doctor, health insurance has become a maze of forced costs and limited options based on impossible choices you shouldn’t have to make. Obamacare has failed. Private insurance is often an overpriced, over-subsidized racket. Medicare alone remains the only viable solution with universal application.
A Poisoned Tree Grows in St. Augustine
An 18-year-old migrant faces an aggravated manslaughter charge for the death by heart attack of the sheriff’s deputy who arrested him on a resisting charge, while the migrant was on a sidewalk eating dinner and speaking to his mother by phone at his motel in St. Augustine. The death of the deputy was a tragedy. The charge against the migrant compounds it with a miscarriage of justice in the making.
The Kissinger Delusion
This man’s death, way overdue–Kissinger lives to be 100 but Hank Williams, born the same year, dies at 30?–is a tragedy only in one sense: despite the copious and undisputed record about one of the most brutal men of the 20th century, Kissinger is still garnering bootlicking tributes. The tragedy is that America does not learn. It rinses the blood and repeats.
Zealotry Takes the Gavel at the Flagler County School Board
It’s an indication of the Furry-Chong-Hunt majority’s churlishness that the school board member with the most experience, the most education, the most legislative, parliamentary and institutional knowledge by far (Colleen Conklin, who is in her last year), is being passed over as chair on Tuesday for Will Furry, her polar opposite in every respect, and a rookie.
Condemn Palestinians’ Genocidal Rhetoric–and Israel’s Genocidal War
There’s unquestionably some river-to-the-sea anti-Semitism out there. It should be and is being denounced. But conflating all criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism is itself a form of bigotry that places Palestinian lives beneath contempt and Israeli policy above reproach, even as swaths of Gaza in November 2023 look like Dresden in February 1945 and anti-Palestinian rhetoric in media and government continues to be indistinguishable from the vilest racism.
In Gaza, Fighting Atrocities with Atrocities Compounds the Indefensible at Civilians’ Expense
Israel hasn’t won a war since 1967, and even that proved to be the untenable occupation and low-grade war it has faced for decades. It’s not about to win against Hamas. Hamas knows this. Israel knows it. Civilians are paying. Civilians alone will lose, as revenge substitutes for strategy and both sides perpetrate war crimes.
At Root of Palm Coast’s Affordable Housing Crisis: We Got Our Own. Screw the Rest.
We have a housing crisis in Palm Coast. Too few houses, too few apartments, discriminatory zoning and homesteading laws that make the problem worse. We who live in our sprawling, property-tax-sheltered single-family houses not only see these laws as entitlements. We want the door to more development closed behind us. We got our own. Screw the rest. So just when we need it most, affordable housing is becoming a dirty word.
Even A Great Superintendent Can’t Fix a Clueless School Board
If you think the appointment of LaShakia Moore as superintendent will make a difference, think again. Moore’s biggest job will be to run interference to save what’s left of this district from the Huns, because the problem was never with the administration or the ranks. It’s with the majority of a board that doesn’t know its role, doesn’t know its limits, and doesn’t know education from flip-flops.
Flagler Schools Have a ‘Subgroup’ Problem. It’s Not Blacks. It’s Not Even Students.
It is now so routine to reduce individual students to cogs among subgroups enslaved to the expectations of standardized testing that our educators have lost sight of their purpose. The state’s transformation of education into a dehumanizing machinery is to blame. So is the Flagler County School Board’s emphasis on running the district as a business, and now branding its superintendent a “CEO.” The individuality and dignity of students is lost to a damaging bottom-line mentality.
In Palm Coast Sheep, Not Chicken, May Safely Graze
The Palm Coast City Council’s rejection of a pilot program that would have allowed chickens in a handful of backyards is disappointing. But the council since its earliest days has tended to run the city more as a homeowners association bound to conformity and the somnolence of residents out to pasture rather than as a vibrant city welcoming of differences, innovation, young and working people.
Florida’s Magical Negro History Standards
We now have the Magical Negro elevated to an entire curriculum. It’s Florida’s African American History standards. The standards are an excellent illustration of what American history looks like through white eyes, and how whites are the best thing that ever happened to Black people, who apparently should worship the Middle Passage down the chains of their ancestry.
Yes, There Is a Free Lunch
Step back a moment and take stock of the paradox. On one hand a community can and should take pride in its willingness to rally for those in need. On the other hand, there should not be such things as food drives–not in a country that presumes itself wealthy and civilized. There should not be food insecurity, period. Basic nutrition is a human right, as ought to be universal food assistance where necessary and free school meals whether necessary or not.
Un-Achieving Brown v. Board of Education
It took 69 years, but today the U.S. Supreme Court took its revenge on Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark case that cracked the door a smidge to desegregating schools. It did so in a vengeful, cynical decision re-inventing color-blindness in an America where only whites wear the blinders.
On EVs, Palm Coast and Flagler County Choose Backwardness
Flagler County, this self-deluded mecca of economic development, is not only an electric vehicle charging station desert. It is actually hostile to electric vehicles. It is sending a loud and shrill message to tourists and forward-looking businesses and the residents they’d bring along: we like to fossilize. Progress is elsewhere.
Flagler School Board Cocks Its Next Folly: Arming Employees
Next Tuesday, the Flagler County School Board will vote on whether to arm some school employees. The board will vote yes, on zero evidence and without asking any of the right questions, because as is becoming routine with this board, when it is offered a chance between right and wrong, it chooses wrong.
Why Will Furry Is Demolishing the Flagler Youth Orchestra
Flagler County School Board member Will Furry’s posturing about the Flagler Youth Orchestra has nothing to do with the FYO, of which he knows nothing and has no interest. It has to do with FYO’s director’s last name–Tristam–and Furry’s willingness to sacrifice a star district program over his vindictiveness for FlaglerLive.
