This Pride Month, there’s not much to be proud of in people who to this day would rather burn than raise the Pride Flag. It’s about time it replaced all those MIA flags in school yards and at courthouses. LGBTQ victims, unlike the mythical missing, are real, and they’re piling up.
Pierre Tristam
A Memorial Month for Our Rights
Tuesday begins a month of memorial days as we watch our Supreme Court continue to roll back those very rights soldiers died for, trampling them more effectively than any enemy foreign or, for the most part, domestic, ever has.
On Flagler Schools’ Ban List: The Upside of Unrequited, a Review and a Recommendation
Becky Albertalli’s “The Upside of Unrequited,” about a fat girl’s desperate quest for a date after 26 unrequited crushes, is one of 22 titles on Flagler’s ban list, and the last to be considered by a school-based committee at FPC on Thursday.
On Flagler’s Ban List: Elana K. Arnold’s What Girls Are Made Of, a Review and a Recommendation
“What Girls Are Made Of,” Elana K. Arnold’s deconstruction of a 16-year-old girl’s being and nothingness, is one of 22 titles three Flagler County residents want banned from high school libraries. A Flagler Palm Coast High School committee takes up the challenge on Thursday.
My Date With Jerry Springer
In November 1998 I was traveling the country on a year-long assignment and at that point working on a piece on American discourse. I’d chosen Illinois as a prism: the various grounds of the Lincoln Douglas debates at one end and the Chicago-based Jerry Springer Show at the other. Springer agreed to let me hang out with him half a day, interview him and attend his show, thankfully not as a guest.
In Florida, We Are All Child Abusers Now
The Florida Legislature is legalizing a Jim Crow-like system of punishing, demonizing and denying the existence of LGBTQ children. Few sessions of the Florida Legislature provided the legal framework for as much state-sponsored and citizen-empowered terrorism against children as this one.
Behind Mittelstadt’s Firing: ‘An Out of the Closet Lesbian’ Who Refuses to Kiss Chamber’s Ring
The bigoted, vengeful firing of Superintendent Cathy Mittelstadt will deeply stain Flagler County’s reputation for business or great schools: Neither the three school board members nor the chamber of commerce who orchestrated the ouster could find a single reason to fire her, fabrications aside. Malevolence was enough.
The Cabal Against Superintendent Cathy Mittelstadt
Flagler County Superintendent Cathy Mittelstadt is the target of a cabal made up of a clique who claim to speak for a broader mass than they do, and who do so on the flimsiest pretexts and, whispering campaign aside, nonexistent evidence. Yet Tuesday evening, Mittelstadt may well be fired, with no justification.
Challenged in Flagler Schools: John Green’s Looking For Alaska, a Review and a Recommendation
John Green’s “Looking for Alaska,” a novel of adolescence, friendship, loyalty and misjudgments, is among the 22 books so far this school year that a trio of individuals have sought to ban from high school library shelves. A committee meets on March 30 at 3 p.m. at Matanzas High School to decide whether to retain it or ban it.
Sally Hunt Has Problems. The School District Is Paying the Price.
Flagler County School Board member Sally Hunt has a problem with truth. She has a problem with transparency. She has a problem with process. She has a problem with judgment. And she has a problem with the law. She’s also our problem. She’ll either lift this district or drag it down. Right now it’s not looking up.