Weather: Partly cloudy. A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs in the mid 90s. South winds around 5 mph, becoming southeast with gusts up to 20 mph in the afternoon. Chance of rain 20 percent. Monday Night: Partly cloudy. A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms in the evening. Lows in the mid 70s. Southeast winds 5 to 10 mph with gusts up to 20 mph, becoming south after midnight. Chance of rain 20 percent.
Today at the Editor’s Glance:
In Court: No felony docket today.
The Flagler County Commission meets at 9 a.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 E. Moody Boulevard, Building 2, Bunnell. It is the first regular meeting of the commission since broadly reported revelations that Joe Mullins, the current commission chair, on at least two occasions attempted to abuse his authority as an elected official to get out of speeding tickets, threatening the job of one of the troopers who pulled him over along the way. Fellow-Commissioner Dave Sullivan, who routinely defends Mullins (as does fellow-Commissioner Donald O’Brien) said he was not interested in taking the chairmanship away from Mullins, and Mullins himself, of course–who is in a re-election battle–is not resigning either chairmanship or his position as commissioner on his own, but continuing to dissemble both those encounters with law enforcement and many other other issues. At the meeting., SMA Healthcare is expected to make a presentation regarding its first months at Access Flagler, the mental health and behavioral health facility it opened with county backing in Bunnell earlier this year. Commissioners are also expected to approve funding for the design of a new fire station on the west side of the county, among other items. Access meeting agendas and materials here. The five county commissioners and their email addresses are listed here.
See:
- Joe Mullins Falsely Claims 2 Associations of Retired Cops Support Him, Drawing Sharp Disavowals
- As Joe Mullins Draws National Embarrassment Over Troopergate, Pennington Trounces Him in Straw Poll
- ‘I Run the County,’ Commissioner Joe Mullins Tells FHP; A Trooper Calls Him ‘Belligerent’ and ‘Disrespectful’
- ‘If You Get Out of This Car You’re Going to Jail,’ Troopers Warned Joe Mullins in Confrontational Stop
- Again Ticketed for Speeding, Flagler Commission Chairman Joe Mullins Again Begs for Favor
- Palm Coast Fire Chief on Joe Mullins: a ‘Wrecking Ball’ who ‘Disgraces the Hard Working Men and Women of Flagler County Fire Rescue’
- Joe Mullins Falsehoods, Mischaracterizations, Misleading and Baseless Statements: A Fact-Check
The Beverly Beach Town Commission meets at 6 p.m. at the meeting hall building behind the Town Hall, 2735 North Oceanshore Boulevard (State Road A1A) in Beverly Beach. See meeting announcements here.
Nar-Anon Family Groups offers hope and help for families and friends of addicts through a 12-step program, 6 p.m. at St. Mark by the Sea Lutheran Church, 303 Palm Coast Pkwy NE, Palm Coast, Fellowship Hall Entrance. See the website, www.nar-anon.org, or call (800) 477-6291. Find virtual meetings here.
Notably: On this day in 1571 the Ottomans completed their conquest of Cyprus, that spear-beaked hound of an island in the eastern Mediterranean that gave the world the word “copper” (where it was first mined around the beginning of the second millennium before the common era). It is not twice the size of Delaware, not even once, when considered in its separate parts: Cyprus has since the 1974 been a split island, the northern third occupied again by latter-day Ottoman Turks (who ravaged the Greek Orthodox churches in the region, to make a point, as Christians so often had against their mosques, and who expelled some 30,000 Cypriots from their homes), the southern end belonging to cypriots. An attempted coup on the island, the join Cyprus to Greece, precipitated the Turkish invasion. That war ended swiftly a few days later, but resulted in the permanent partition of the island, with a United Nations force ostensibly keeping the peace since. In 1983 the Turkish zone declared itself independent, calling itself Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Only Turkey, a NATO member, by the way, recognized the new entity. Let’s not only focus on the grim side of Cyprus–which, not so incidentally, was a haven for fleeing Lebanese during Lebanon’s civil war (1975-1990), often proving the only way for some of us to get out. I vaguely remember my mother discussing her taking a boat from Jounieh, on th Lebanese shore, for the 12-hour trip to Larnaca, the Cypriot town that became a household name in Lebanese Christian homes, then a plane to Europe. So as not to focus only on the grim side of Cyprus, let’s mention Kemal Belevi, a wonderful find among the lesser-known contemporary composers and performers, whose guitar duos Naxos issued in a great recording in 2020. “Kemal Belevi’s music is steeped in the colours and atmosphere of the eastern Mediterranean, absorbing many influences from Greece, Turkey, and the Middle East,” the album’s liner notes By Graham Wade state. “His aim as a composer is ‘to create beautiful music’, based on fine melodies and appropriately scintillating rhythms.” And so…
Now this: Kemal Belevi’s “Suite Chypre,” Wade writes, “was written when the composer attended the Île de Ré Guitar Festival in France in July 2001 when a guitar ensemble was enhanced by a cello, inspiring Kemal Belevi to return home and compose this suite. Lapta refers to a small village situated in the Kyrenia Mountains a little way from the north Cyprian coast. Thus the work is
evocative of both mountains and the sea.” Here’s the Elegie, from Suite Chypre, “dedicated to the composer’s mother who died in 1959 at the age of 41. After a poignant introduction a tremolo theme takes up the song, followed by a recapitulation of the first section”:
Flagler Beach Webcam:
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.
August 2025
Nar-Anon Family Group
Palm Coast Charter Review Committee Meeting
Bunnell City Commission Meeting
Palm Coast City Council Workshop
Flagler County School Board Information Workshop
Flagler County Affordable Housing Committee Meeting
Book Dragons, the Kids’ Book Club, at Flagler Beach Public Library
Free Know Your Rights Workshop for Renters by Community Legal Services at Flagler Cares
NAACP Flagler Branch General Membership Meeting
Flagler County School Board Meeting
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy
For the full calendar, go here.
The totalitarian state hoped to remake Soviet man himself by changing the very structure of his beliefs and values through control of the press, education, and propaganda. This extended down to a human being’s most personal and intimate relations, those of the family. The young Pavel Morozov, who denounced his parents to Stalin’s police, was for many years held up by the regime as a model Soviet child. In Mikhail Heller’s words, “The human relations that make up the society’s fabric–the family, religion, historical memory, language become targets, as society is systematically and methodically atomized, and the individual’s close relationships are supplanted by others chosen for him, and approved by the state.”
–From Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man (1992).
G A says
There is only one solution to this whole mess that the republican party has created in this county. Vote all democratic…all the way down the ballot. It should be obvious to even the most dense of you that they could care less about YOU It’s always all about THEM. If you finally finally FINALLY see that, congrats! There may be hope for the human race yet.
James says
Again, I don’t know why I feel compelled to comment here but…
Dude most of these folks have one foot in the grave and the other on the banana peal… forget it.
Save yourself before it’s too late. Before you look at the partisan, dysfunctional mess this place is and laugh and joke to yourself… well, if I ever heard anyone say they’d like to live forever, you can honestly reply… “have you ever lived in FL.”
And then sadly realize to yourself you weren’t really joking… who would.
Just my opinion.