The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Saturday, March 19, 2022

It's the economy... by Adam Zyglis, The Buffalo News. — It’s the economy… by Adam Zyglis, The Buffalo News.

Today at the Editor’s glance: Weather: Patchy fog in the morning. Partly sunny. Highs in the upper 80s. Southwest winds 5 to 10 mph.
Saturday Night: Mostly cloudy with a chance of showers with a slight chance of thunderstorms. Lows in the upper 50s. West winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50 percent.

The Garden Club at Palm Coast presents the Treasures in the Attic Rummage Sale, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Shepherd of the Coast Lutheran Church 101 Pine Lakes Pkwy, Palm Coast.

Palm Coast Historical Society Speaker Series: Andrew Frank lectures on “Making Chief Osceola: The Abolitionists And The Rise Of An American Myth,” 10 a.m. at the Palm Coast Community Center, 305 Palm Coast Parkway NE. Anti-war and abolitionist activists helped promote an enduring series of myths and fabrications about Chief Osceola, who played a pivotal role in the Second Seminole War and died in U.S. military captivity in 1838. Osceola was a focus of debates over Indian wars, Indian removal, and their connections to American slavery.

Native Plant Sidewalk Sale: Out front of Wild Birds Unlimited Nature Shop, 250 Palm Coast Pkwy NE #503, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., as Katie Tripp sells native pollinator plants that birds, bees, and butterflies will love. Please bring CASH or CHECKS to purchase plants. Anyone who purchases from Katie will also receive special WBU discounts to use inside the store. Tripp, the owner of Natural Beauty Native Florida Landscapes. She created her business to educate Floridians about the importance of utilizing native plants and to help residents create wildlife habitat. Katie is an active member of the Pawpaw chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society and a member of the Florida Association of Native Nurseries.

Old Dixie Motel: Jane Gentile-Youd, the frequent critic of county government and county commission candidate, is leading a protest and petition-signing in a call to tear down the Old Dixie Motel from 1 to 2:30 p.m. in front of the motel.

Flagler Reads Together: “Hidden Figures” Movie Matinee, 1 to 4 p.m. at the Flagler County Public Library, 2500 Palm Coast Pkwy NW, on a large screen with real surround sound. Today: The incredible story of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson – brilliant African-American women working at NASA who served as the brains behind the launch into orbit of astronaut John Glen, a stunning achievement that turned around the Space Race. The visionary trio crossed all gender and racial lines and inspired generations.

“The Revolutionists,” by playwright Lauren Gunderson, a comedy about four women during the Terror in the French Revolution, is staged at Palm Coast’s City Repertory Theatre at 7:30 p.m. The Revolutionists propels France’s fight for equality and freedom to modern times with this bold, brave and blisteringly funny new work about feminism, legacy and standing up for one’s beliefs. At The CRT in City Marketplace, 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Suite B207, Palm Coast. Tickets: $20, or $15 for students. Book tickets here. See the preview, “Badass “Revolutionists” Guillotine France’s Reign of Terror in City Repertory Theatre Comedy.”

Notably: It is William Jennings Bryan’s birth anniversary (1860). His last years were a blotch on his reputation–espousing, or at least not rejecting, the admiration of the KKK, prosecuting the Scopes monkey trial. But his previous life had not been so bleak, and had in fact been positively inspiring, down to his stint as Woodrow Wilson’s secretary of state, the furthest he got up the federal government’s ladder despite three runs at the presidency. Further afield, they have such a thing as National Day of Oil in… Iran, and it is today. Sadly, for a civilization with such a heritage, that is what warrants a day of its own. Then again, it’s National Quilting Day in the United States–and the anniversary of the oily-named “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” a reminder that the Bush-Cheney administration was not anywhere more honorable than its next-closest GOP presidency.

More Notably: Yesterday was John Updike’s birthday, eliciting an immoderate effusion of criticism and sentimental weepiness here. Today is Philip Roth’s birthday (1933). A hundred years from now Updike’s Rabbit novels will still be read, but a few more Roth novels, among them The Human Stain, Nemesis, Sabbath’s Theater, American Pastoral, and (for those needing one-handed assistance) Portnoy’s Complaint will still be read, as will Goodbye Columbus, his first book and only short story collection. As misogyny goes, he had plenty of it but not as much as Hemingway’s or even Updike’s: that one wrapped it up more elegantly, and Roth didn’t have Updike’s cruel streak. The Plot Against America was mistaken, he claimed as a critique of the Bush years. It could no longer be mistaken as a proleptic critique of the Trump years. Roth is among those writers who were inexplicably denied the Nobel. He died in 2018.

Now this:

Philip Roth at 70, with David Remnick:

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