Daily Briefing

Flagler Woman’s Club 1st Responders Chili Challenge at Veterans Park, EDGES: A Song Cycle, at City Repertory Theatre, Blue Spring Manatee Festival, consumer confidence, Fran Lebowitz, Art Buchwald on Ronald Reagan.

Gladys Knight in concert at Flagler Auditorium, Edges: A Song Cycle, at City Repertory Theatre, Mozart, Vivaldi and Handel at Jacksonville Symphony, the resurgence against DEI.

The Flagler Beach City Commission meets, Neil Simon’s ‘The Sunshine Boys,’ at Daytona Playhouse, oranges from Florida to Arizona, The Simpsons’ Prediction for 2024.

One-Stop Help Night at Flagler Cares, Flagler Village, Flagler Tiger Bay hosts Gloria Herndon, Joint workshop of local governments, Harry Belafonte and Norman Jewison and the art of cultural appropriation.

The school board has a trio of meetings, first to talk about its next attorney, but with a good deal of secrecy, “The Kitchen Witches” at Limelight Theatre, Rabelais’ great perhaps.

The Flagler County Beekeepers Association meets, the Bunnell City Commission meets, Clay Jones on DeSantis’s and Haley’s wishy-washiness, the Cedars of Lebanon through the ages and by drone.

EDGES at City Repertory Theatre, Great Organists at Stetson, Mid-Century Modern Combo at Jacksonville Symphony, Jo Koy laughs it up at the Peabody, the little libraries of Mesa and Saul Bellow’s Clara.

EDGES: A Song Cycle, at City Repertory Theatre, Whitney Houston Tribute at Flagler Auditorium, Neil Simon’s ‘The Sunshine Boys,’ at Daytona Playhouse, the poetry of Gary Snyder, and the cold-weather shelter opens again tonight.

A Free Bobby Jo Valentine Community Concert at St. Thomas Episcopal, how Americans view race, how Shelby Steele viewed Obama and defined the age of white guilt.

Nature Walks with Urban Forester Carol, Clay Jones on the Yemen attacks, a warmer day than the last two days’ freeze, Neolithic Orkney, Carhenge in Nebraska, Benjamin Constant on liberty.

The cold-weather shelter opens again tonight. The Palm Coast Planning and Land Development Board and the Contractor Review Board meet, Separation Chat, coffee culture from Yemen to the Enlightenment to Starbucks.

The cold-weather shelter opens tonight, the Palm Coast City Council takes up the revised technical manual for builders, revisions designed to minimize flooding problems, the age of self-promotion, a few lines from Saul Bellow’s “The Old System.”

Courts, schools and most government offices are closed in observance of Martin Luther King Day, a few thoughts about the American sermon, and Octavius Brooks Frothingham’s idea of hell.

Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village, the 37th Annual Manatee Festival in Crystal River (it’s just a drive across the state), Aaron Copland’s “Billy the Kid” and those album covers.

Keep Palm Coast Clean: a Litter-all, all-volunteer effort to clean up the city, Gamble Jam, the American Association of University Women’s monthly meeting, Malamud’s “Angel Levine” in the Briefing’s periodic Storytime.

Qualifying period for Flagler Beach and Bunnell municipal elections end today, Indiana Jones at the public library, LGBTQ+ Night, what Voltaire had to say about the murders of OxyContin pills.

The Flagler Beach City Commission takes up a significant annexation proposal, all about bats at the Whitney Lecture Series, the baguette through the ages.

The Public Safety Coordinating Council meets, qualifying for the municipal elections in Flagler Beach and Bunnell continues, Separation Chat, Happy Birthday, Brian McMillan, in praise of Jimmy Carter, but not Woodrow Wilson.

The Palm Coast City Council talks roads, food and Florida Park Drive, the Flagler County School Board, unfortunately, meets, as does the county’s planning board, assuming it can muster a quorum, on gas giants.

Trial week, the County Commission takes on the evictions at Bulow RV park, qualifying week for the elections in Flagler Beach and Bunnell, lack of trust in institutions, why democracies need an unlovable press.

Florida Winter Volleyball Festival in Daytona Beach, Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village, Israel’s expulsion end game in Gaza, Benny Morris on the expulsions of 1947.

The Volusia Latin Festival and Three Kings Festival in Deltona all day, Sunshine and Sandals Social at Cornerstone, The Flagler Beach All Stars hold their monthly beach clean-up, catching up with Robert Caro at 88, and his LBJ biography still in the works.

First Friday in Flagler Beach, the great divide in the United States (and Afghanistan), a recap of 2023’s biggest news stories on WNZF’s Free For All Fridays, Robert Goldstein in court.

On the birth of Baby Felix and the meaning of life, scientists in 1967 predict the 21st century to Walter Cronkite, Nathaniel Hawthorne on “the infant was worthy to have been brought forth in Eden.”

Damari Barnes in court, Waste Pro changes its pick-up schedule this week in unincorporated Flagler, the Code Enforcement Board flexes its muscles, The Flagler County Republican Club meets, on the word cachinnate, and on doubt.

The Palm Coast City Council takes on controversial items, including Old Kings Village near Polo Club West and the Cascades development in Seminole Woods. Ted Koppel on journalism, Robert Fisk on terrorism.

Americans’ top 10 New Year resolutions (exercising is at #2), Jimmy Stewart on Carson, how the Romans gave us January 1, and Clay Jones opens 2024.

New Year’s Eve in Flagler Beach beginning at 8 p.m. and culminating with fireworks, The Cold-Weather Shelter opens, The Bach Festival draws to its close soon, between Zionism and anti-Semitism.

TJ Schultz memorial at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Palm Coast, the Cold Weather Shelter opens, ice harvesting and trading from the middle ages to 19th century Boston and Calcutta, trap, neuter and release’s controversies.

The Ultimate Mermen, The Ultimate Disney Tribute Band, 7 p.m. at Flagler Auditorium, the Cold Weather Shelter opens tonight, Palm Coast Mayor David Alfin, County Commission Chair Andy Dance and Bunnell City Manager Alvin Jackson look to 2024 on Free For All Fridays, Frederick Douglass as never before published.

Marking the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act, but with a reminder of Elizabeth Kolbert’s Sixth Extinction, the Bach Festival continues, and the workweek remains at low simmer.

Catch the final days of the Fantasy Lights in Town Center, the 10 days of Bach continue with the Magnificat, the history and ideological uses of Hagia Sophia, and a few words from Orhan Pamuk.

A day for gold bricking and Bach, a few words on love, kindness, greed and rapine from John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, and a few sharply drawn lines rom Clay Jones.

More Bach for the day, Christmas day coronations, when the arrogance of power married messianic presumption, John McGahern’s attempt to shine a few fantasy lights.

The perfect night for Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center, the Bach Festival returns, John Eliot Gardiner on the creator of Music in the Castle of Heaven.

The toy drive for Toys for Tots culminates today at European Village, the Saturday Flagler Beach market, an analysis of the massacre of civilians in Gaza and Robert Fisk on the siege of Beirut.

A special call-in Christmas show on Free For All Friday, the competency and a bond hearing in the case of Vergilio Aguilar Mendez, the Blue 24 Forum, loneliness in its many forms on the approach of Christmas.

Drug Court convenes for the last time this year, the Democratic Women’s Club meets, remembering Edward Said at the Lebanon-Israel border, and the time he put “the Rumsfelds, Bin Ladens, Sharons, and Bushes” in one breath.

The Palm Coast Planning Board meets, Kerri Huckabee is in court for a pre-trial, Stevie Wonder sings, Joe Biden’s poll numbers continue to sink, in no small part due to Gaza.

The Flagler County School Board holds a pair of meetings, the Palm Coast City Council meets, voting on a few land-use or development issues, what Americans worry about when it comes to their health.

Kids Count Director Norin Dollard at an Americans United for Separation of Church and State talk, The County Commission decides the fate of the Planning Board’s Heather Haywood, firing Santa and James Bennett on the state of the New York Times.

Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village’s Holiday Night market, a Message of Joy at Palm Coast United Methodist, the great cat massacre of the Macquarie Island, and in eighteenth century Paris.

Artie Gardella Book-Signing, The Saturday Flagler Beach Farmers Market, denying Palestinians the right to exist, Piers Morgan vs Bassem Youssef Round 2.

It’s Christmas in Bunnell this evening, with a big event that includes vendors, music and Florida snow, Jane Mealy’s birthday, the Blue 24 Forum meets at the Community Center, the new Caglecast is a Trump Christmas Special.

Holiday Sunset Concert at the Palm Coast Amphitheater, The Flagler Beach City Commission meets, Rajah Shehadeh on the separation wall, over a thousand years of unchanging disinformation.

The trial of Jerome Malerba on charges of stalking an underage girl and illegally using a computer continues before Circuit Judge Terence Perkins, Separation Chat, Open Discussion, too many people are postponing visits to the doctor, Janice Joplin and Barbara Ehrenreich.

The Palm Coast City Council has a long workshop agenda to close out the year, the Flagler County Planning Board, on Joyce Carol Oates’s Black Water and Chappaquiddick.

It’s trial week in felony court, including the case of the 54-year-old Palm Coast man and convicted felon arrested in February following a standoff with sheriff’s deputies at his house, the Bunnell City Commission meets, memories of the Dog River.

City Repertory Theatre’s Holiday Cabaret, a fund-raiser for the Flagler Playhouse, final day, the 18,000 dead of Gaza and the 18,000 dead of Lebanon in 1982, compliments of the IDF.

The Palm Coast Boat Parade and its 100 boats, City Repertory Theatre’s Holiday Cabaret, American Association of University Women (AAUW) Monthly Meeting, Gideon Levy on the latest Nabka and the American press’ new Gaza blind spot.