Today at the Editor’s glance: Weather: Mostly cloudy. Showers likely with a slight chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs in the upper 80s. Southeast winds 10 to 15 mph with gusts up to 25 mph. Chance of rain 70 percent. Wednesday Night: A slight chance of thunderstorms. Showers. Lows in the mid 60s. South winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90 percent.
Florida House Rep. Paul Renner, the Palm Coast Republican and Speaker-of-the-House designee, is the featured speaker at today’s Flagler Tiger Bay Club lunch meeting, at Hammock Dunes Club, 30 Avenue Royale, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. (not, as previously advertised, at Channel Side). Renner will be discussing how Florida can best utilize newly available federal transportation funding for our state, regional, and local projects from the Biden infrastructure bill. He will also review the results of the 2022 Regular Session of the Florida Legislature. The event is sold out.
Flagler Reads Together: Book Discussion, “The Personal Librarian,” on the extraordinary life of Belle da Costa Greene of J.P. Morgan as co-written by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. This is a brilliant piece of historical fiction that weaves through one woman’s life telling the story of how she denied her true identity in order to protect herself and her family from racial persecution. 2:45 p.m. at the Flagler County Public Library, 2500 Palm Coast Pkwy NW, Palm Coast.
Flagler County Parks and Recreation Advisory Board meeting, 10 a.m. at the Government Services Building, 1st Floor Conference Room, 1769 E. Moody Blvd.,, Bldg. 2, Bunnell. The agenda is here.
Notably: today is the birth anniversary of Akira Kurosawa (1910), one of the greatest film directors of the 20th century–grandest seems more fitting, in the John Huston sense. He’s best known for “The Seven Samurai,” a story well known everywhere this side of the Milky Way, and “Rashomon,” the film still studied in law schools, about the fallibility of eyewitness testimony. Less known, undeservedly so, is “Dersu Uzala,” from 1975, a co-production between Kurosawa’s Japanese producers and the Russian government during Brezhnevian days of thaw. The film is based on the memoirs of Vladimir Arsenyev, a Russian surveyor of the vast Russian Steppe at the turn of the last century, when Arsenyev met Dersu the trapper. Dersu was a Siberian Mongol who, to put it anachronistically, lived entirely off the grid. Dersu became the captain’s guide, not just geographically. The film is the story of a friendship as deep as it was spare in words. It was shot in Russia and is in Russian. It may not seem like the time to patronize anything Russian. Kurosawa may have said the opposite. This is the time to know who the Russians are, what the Russian soul truly is. Arsenyev’s memoirs, which owe a lot of their natural lyricism to Turgenev, have been published before, but never in their full original text until last November, when a French publisher issued the original manuscript translated by Yves Gauthier. You’ll need neither Russian nor French, nor even Netflix or Hulu, to watch the full movie, subtitled and in letterbox format, below. It’s worth the two and a half hours.
The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
May 2025
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
Al-Anon Family Groups
RockabillieWillie At City Repertory Theatre
Flagler County Library Board of Trustees
Nar-Anon Family Group
Bunnell City Commission Meeting
For the full calendar, go here.
“I heard consent in his voice, and I hauled myself up and kissed the side of his neck, searching with my tongue and my nose for the largest blood source there. A moment later, I bit hard into the side of his neck. He convulsed and I held on to him. He writhed under me, not struggling, but holding me as I took more of his blood. I took enough blood to satisfy a hunger I hadn’t realized I had until a few moments before. I could have taken more, but I didn’t want to hurt him. He tasted wonderful, and he had fed me without trying to escape or to hurt me. I licked the bite until it stopped bleeding. I wished I could make it heal, wished I could repay him by healing him. He sighed and held me, leaning back in his seat and let- ting me lean against him. “So what was that?” he asked after a while. “How did you do that? And why the hell did it feel so fantastic?”
–From “Fledgling,” by Octavia Butler (2005).
C. J. says
“Palm Coast Republican and Speaker-of-the-House designee, is the featured speaker at today’s Flagler Tiger Bay Club lunch meeting….The event is sold out. ” Says it all…no interaction with the diverse voting public of Flagler County and Palm Coast at large.
Jack Howell says
I find the cartoon interesting. None of the depicted Senators can rattle Justice Brown’s responses to their moronic questions. Senator Hawley is an embarrassment to government and to the people of Missouri who elected him as a US Senator. None of them are in the same league as this well-educated, intelligent, classy, and articulate Justice. She is more than qualified to serve on the Supreme Court.
Kelsey says
Nothing like what Cavanah had to put up with all the fake lies and claims from the democrats
NotWoke says
She was nominated because she was a black woman, per Biden’s promise to Clyburn, but is strangely unable to define what a woman is.
Sherry says
Simply because Kavanaugh wasn’t convicted of sexual abuse doesn’t mean he is completely innocent. There were at least THREE “very credible” accusations against him! The same Republicans who put trump (another man accused by several women of sexual abuse) into office rammed through Kavanaugh’s appointment even though the multiple accusations against him were NOT thoroughly investigated!
We must never forget. . . READ this thoroughly:
Christine Blasey Ford
What she said
Dr. Blasey came forward in an interview published by The Washington Post on Sept. 16, saying that Judge Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when she was about 15 at a party in suburban Maryland in the early 1980s.
She described a drunken Judge Kavanaugh pinning her on a bed, trying to take her clothing off and covering her mouth to keep her from screaming. “I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” the newspaper quoted her as saying. “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.”
Her background
Dr. Blasey, 51, is a research psychologist at Palo Alto University in Northern California, who also goes by her married name, Ford.
[Read our profile of Dr. Blasey]
At the time of the alleged assault, she was a student at Holton-Arms School, a private girls’ prep school in Bethesda, Md. He was a student at Georgetown Preparatory School, an elite Jesuit school in suburban Washington.
Her account was also detailed in a confidential July 30 letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
The Post interview included quotations from Dr. Blasey’s husband and her lawyer, and it described a therapist’s notes from 2012 in which she spoke of the attack.
She also took a polygraph examination in August. The retired F.B.I. agent who conducted the examination, Jerry Hanafin, said the results showed “no deception indicated” — in effect, “she was being truthful.” Her lawyers released a copy of the polygraph report on Wednesday.
What happened next
The report resulted in the delay of the Judiciary Committee’s vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination the week it was published.
Dr. Blasey’s lawyers, Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, have said that since she went public with her story, she has been subjected to death threats, had her email hacked and had to leave her home.
The committee’s Republican leadership has retained an Arizona prosecutor specializing in sex crimes to help question Dr. Blasey about the allegations in a hearing on Thursday.
Ms. Ramirez said in an interview published in The New Yorker on Sept. 23 that during the 1983-84 school year at Yale University, when she and Judge Kavanaugh were freshmen, he exposed himself to her during a drinking game in a dorm suite.
A small group of students sat in a circle and people selected who had to take a drink, she recalled, saying she was chosen frequently. She became drunk, she said.
Suddenly, Ms. Ramirez said, she saw a penis in front of her face. One man told her to “kiss it,” she told The New Yorker. As she moved to push it away, she said, she saw Judge Kavanaugh standing, laughing and pulling up his pants. Raised a Catholic, Ms. Ramirez was “embarrassed and ashamed and humiliated,” she said.
Her background
Ms. Ramirez, 53, was a student of sociology and psychology at the time. She arrived at Yale from Shelton, Conn., the daughter of a telephone company lineman and a medical technician. She attended a coed Catholic high school, St. Joseph, that was predominantly white but had a number of minority students, including Ms. Ramirez, whose father was Puerto Rican.
Ms. Ramirez is now a registered Democrat who lives in Boulder, Colo., with her husband, Vikram Shah, a technology consultant. She has worked with a domestic violence organization and joined its board in 2014. She also works for the Boulder County housing department.
Important details
Ms. Ramirez said she told few people about the episode at the time. She and Judge Kavanaugh were not close friends, but they crossed paths, including at Yale and at a wedding in 1997.
What happened next
More than 2,200 Yale women have signed a letter of support for Ms. Ramirez; a similar letter has been circulating among Yale men.
A lawyer for Ms. Ramirez has written to the Judiciary Committee saying that his client would be “willing to cooperate” and tell her story under certain terms.
On Wednesday, Ms. Swetnick accused Judge Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct at parties while he was a student at Georgetown Preparatory School in the 1980s. Her allegation was conveyed in a statement posted on Twitter by her lawyer, Michael Avenatti.
Ms. Swetnick said she observed Judge Kavanaugh at parties where women were verbally abused, inappropriately touched and “gang raped.”
She said she witnessed Judge Kavanaugh participating in some of the misconduct, including lining up outside a bedroom where “numerous boys” were “waiting for their ‘turn’ with a girl inside the room.” Ms. Swetnick said she was raped at one of the parties, and she believed she had been drugged.
Her background
Like Judge Kavanaugh, Ms. Swetnick, 55, is from the Washington suburbs. She grew up in Montgomery County, Md., graduating from Gaithersburg High School in 1980. She attended the University of Maryland, according to a résumé for her posted online, The Times reported.
She has held a variety of public and private sector jobs in Washington. Her résumé and her lawyer’s statement say she has held several government clearances, including with the State Department and the Justice Department.
Important details
Ms. Swetnick said in her statement that she had attended at least 10 house parties in the Washington area from 1981 to 1983 where Judge Kavanaugh and Mr. Judge, his friend, were present. (Mr. Judge has denied the allegations in her statement.)
Ms. Swetnick said she saw Judge Kavanaugh drinking “excessively” at parties and engaging in “abusive and physically aggressive behavior toward girls, including pressing girls against him without their consent, ‘grinding’ against girls, and attempting to remove or shift girls’ clothing to expose private body parts.”
Judge Kavanaugh’s response
In a statement issued by the White House, Judge Kavanaugh said there was no truth to the claim. “This is ridiculous and from the ‘Twilight Zone,’” he said. “I don’t know who this is and this never happened.”
Judiciary Committee aides confirmed that they were examining Ms. Swetnick’s declaration. But the committee’s Republican chairman, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, told reporters that he did not expect to find anything.
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, another Republican on the committee, said he would “not be a participant in wholesale character assassination that defies credibility.”
A fourth accusation surfaces
Judge Kavanaugh faced another accusation after an anonymous letter, dated Sept. 22, was sent to Senator Cory Gardner, Republican of Colorado.
In the letter, a woman said her daughter had witnessed Judge Kavanaugh drunkenly push her friend, a woman he was dating, up against a wall “very aggressively and sexually” after they left a bar one night in 1998.
Jim says
Remember when trump’s nominee Amy Comey-Barrett couldn’t name the 5 rights guaranteed by the first amendment? How embarrassing.
Sherry says
We must never forget yet another “Republican” Supreme Court justice “Clarence Thomas” had a “credible” complaint of “sexual harassment” against him by Anita Hill. . .please read this thoroughly and really “think” about this pattern:
In 1991, President George H. W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas, a federal circuit judge, to succeed retiring Associate Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Senate hearings on his confirmation were initially completed with Thomas’s good character being presented as a primary qualification for the high court because he had only been a judge for slightly more than one year. There had been little organized opposition to Thomas’ nomination, and his confirmation seemed assured[14] until a report of a private interview of Hill by the FBI was leaked to the press. The hearings were then reopened, and Hill was called to publicly testify.
Hill said on October 11, 1991, in televised hearings that Thomas had sexually harassed her while he was her supervisor at the Department of Education and the EEOC. When questioned on why she followed Thomas to the second job after he had already allegedly harassed her, she said working in a reputable position within the civil rights field had been her ambition. The position was appealing enough to inhibit her from going back into private practice with her previous firm. She said that she only realized later in her life that the choice had represented poor judgment on her part, but that “at that time, it appeared that the sexual overtures … had ended.”
According to Hill, Thomas asked her out socially many times during her two years of employment as his assistant, and, after she declined his requests, he used work situations to discuss sexual subjects. “He spoke about … such matters as women having sex with animals and films showing group sex or rape scenes,” she said, adding that on several occasions Thomas graphically described “his own sexual prowess” and the details of his anatomy. Hill also recounted an instance in which Thomas examined a can of Coke on his desk and asked, “Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?
Sherry says
NEXT. . . Regarding Clarence Thomas. . . the ONLY justice to disagree about releasing presidential records to the Jan. 6th committee. . .
He DID NOT recuse himself from that decision!
Now. . . this just broke yesterday. . . Take a read of the (QANON sounding) emails Clarence Thomas’ wife Virginia (Ginni) sent to trump “Chief of Staff” Mark Meadows just after the election President Biden WON. . . please read this thoroughly as you will likely not see this on FOX :
Days after the 2020 election, conservative activist Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was sending White House chief of staff Mark Meadows some weird stuff.
“Make a plan,” Thomas texted on November 19. “Release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down.”
“Do not concede,” she wrote on November 6. “It takes time for the army who is gathering for his back.” The day before, she also sent over a passage going around far-right circles at the time: “Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition.”
They also show the extent to which the Supreme Court Justice’s wife has adopted the language of the far-right and the QAnon conspiracy. “Watermarked ballots in over 12 states have been part of a huge Trump & military white hat sting operation in 12 key battleground states,” she wrote two days after the election. Will Sommer of the Daily Beast noted that Thomas’s focus on watermarked ballots as a way to catch voter fraud is “big in QAnon,” as is the idea of “military ‘white hats’ (in other words, good guys).” Thomas also sent Trump’s top aide a video from a frequent InfoWars guest regarding Quantum Financial System, “an idea of a mythical money system that will bring on a sort of right-wing utopia,” as Sommer explains.
For his part, Meadows — who reportedly coordinated many White House efforts to try and overturn the election — was receptive to the conspiracy-laden missives. “This is a fight of good versus evil,” Meadows wrote back. “Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues.” Meadows’s attorney claims that “nothing about the text messages presents any legal issues.”
Virginia Thomas, who was at the Stop the Steal rally on January 6, has previously denied that her activism influences her husband’s decisions on the Supreme Court.