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Weather:
Today at the Editor’s Glance:
The Saturday Flagler Beach Farmers Market is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. today at Wickline Park, 315 South 7th Street, featuring prepared food, fruit, vegetables , handmade products and local arts from more than 30 local merchants. The market is hosted by Flagler Strong, a non-profit.
Gamble Jam: Musicians of all ages can bring instruments and chairs and join in the jam session, 2 to 5 p.m. . Program is free with park admission! Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area at Flagler Beach, 3100 S. Oceanshore Blvd., Flagler Beach, FL. Call the Ranger Station at (386) 517-2086 for more information. The Gamble Jam is a family-friendly event that occurs every second and fourth Saturday of the month. The park hosts this acoustic jam session at one of the pavilions along the river to honor the memory of James Gamble Rogers IV, the Florida folk musician who lost his life in 1991 while trying to rescue a swimmer in the rough surf.
Grace Community Food Pantry, 245 Education Way, Bunnell, drive-thru open today from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The food pantry is organized by Pastor Charles Silano and Grace Community Food Pantry, a Disaster Relief Agency in Flagler County. Feeding Northeast Florida helps local children and families, seniors and active and retired military members who struggle to put food on the table. Working with local grocery stores, manufacturers, and farms we rescue high-quality food that would normally be wasted and transform it into meals for those in need. The Flagler County School District provides space for much of the food pantry storage and operations. Call 386-586-2653 to help, volunteer or donate.
Tree of Lights, a Musical Celebration of Christ’s Birth, at the Flagler Playhouse, 301 E Moody Blvd, Bunnell. $15 admission. Dec. 9 and 10 at 7 p.m., Dec. 10 and 11 at 2 p.m. Tree of Lights is a holiday celebration for the whole family. Using contemporary versions of traditional carols and narration, the story of the birth of the Christ child comes to life. The Green Room is a one-of-a-kind farm-to-table dinner theatre that celebrates the merging of local arts and agriculture. Formed as a 501c3 charitable organization, its mission is to enhance the culture of our community by supporting, encouraging, and showcasing local artists and agriculture through the presentation of high-quality theatrical productions paired with first-class farm-to-table cuisine. It will be the first dinner theatre in the country to operate solely farm-to-table. All proceeds from the Tree of Lights will be used to support the Green Room’s acquisition of it’s own performance space.
Fantasy of Lights at Palm Coast’s Central Park: The Rotary Club of Flagler County hosts its 17th Annual Fantasy Lights Festival at Central Park in Town Center, through Dec. 30, 6:30-9 p.m. each night. Fantasy Lights is free self-guided walking tour around Central Park with over 50 large animated light displays, festive live and broadcast holiday music, holiday snacks and beverages. A favorite for the kids is Santa’s House and Village with a collection of elf houses festively painted and nestled among the lights, warm fire to roast marsh mallows or create smores, and encircling the village is Santa’s Merry Train Ride. See the full brochure here and the nightly schedule of events https://flaglerlive.com/wp-content/uploads/Fantasy-Lights-Program-2022_FINAL.pdf#page=7
For more information, please contact Bill Butler at 386-986-3760 or 386-445-0598 or email: [email protected].
World Cup: This should have run today, not yesterday: The Daily Briefing mistakenly jumped the gun on Saturday’s matches yesterday, thus ignoring the Brazil-Croatia matchup (Croatia stunned Brazil on penalty kicks to advance) and the Argentina-Netherlands match (ditto for Argentina, yet again beating the Netherlands, a rivalry going back to the heartbreaking loss of the Dutch at the 1978 World Cup final in Buenos Aires, in overtime.) So, to repeat today’s two quarterfinal matches: At 10, magnificent Morocco goes up against Portugal, a fiercer Portugal now that the unbearable Ronaldo was benched. At 2 p.m., the match that could have the value of a final: England and France. Both teams are coming off big wins, even a joyful win for France. The last time they played was a friendly in 2017, which France won, 3-2. From the Sporting news: “England have won 17 of their 31 international matches against France, dating back to May 1923. The two teams have met twice in the World Cup, with England winning both encounters: the first a 2-0 victory during England’s glorious 1966 campaign, and the second a 3-1 group-stage win over Les Bleus at the 1982 World Cup. Recent meetings between England and France have largely gone the way of Didier Deschamps’ team, with the last competitive fixture a 1-1 draw in the group stage of the 2012 European Championships.”
Keep in Mind: FEMA has extended the deadline into January for Flagler County Hurricane Ian survivors to apply for federal disaster assistance: The Federal Emergency Management Agency has extended the deadline until January 12. The Disaster Recovery Center is in a large tent located near the arena in the center of the fairground’s property, 150 Sawgrass Road, Bunnell. Hours of operation are 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Disaster Recovery Centers serve as FEMA’s local outreach offices to provide disaster survivors with information from it, as well as from Florida state agencies and the U.S. Small Business Administration. Survivors can get help applying for federal assistance and disaster loans, update applications and learn about other resources available. Survivors can apply for disaster assistance at disasterassistance.gov, by calling 800-621-3362 from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern Time, or by using the FEMA mobile app. Those who use a relay service such as video relay service (VRS), captioned telephone service, or others, will need to provide FEMA the number for that service. Those who have insurance are encouraged to file a claim for damages to homes, personal property, and vehicles before applying for FEMA assistance. FEMA cannot duplicate other sources of assistance may have been received.
Notebook: Is there a more poorly engineered, more aesthetically grim, less modern, intuitive and safe intersection in the Volusia-Flagler region than the no longer new intersection of I-95 and I-4, with offshoots to SR 92 and 400? Who designed this thing? Who was so blind as to build it? It’s what gives American transportation its bad names, who American roads, compared to European ones, are like ruts and, come to think of it, why American cars will never compete with German or Italian style, or Korean and Japanese efficiency. It’s all in that intersection. The vastness of space allows for engineering indulgence to such a point that the purpose of the intersection is lost in its poor design, its single turning lanes that suddenly, belatedly turn to two, too late to have prevented chronic backups, its merging lanes that get tangled with each other, this one going this way, that one going that. It’s a wonder visitors manage to make it to their destinations. It takes us poor semi-natives months to figure it all out without crashing.
Now this: Nell Scovell: It never occurred to me that women couldn’t be funny
Flagler Beach Webcam:
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Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Acoustic Jam Circle At The Community Center In The Hammock
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
For the full calendar, go here.
We are, then, at least at the beginning of a new beginning. It may be true, as the philosophers, the divines, and some politicians say, that there is no sense of purpose in the country. But how does a vast, continental nation of 180,000,000 get a sense of purpose without assertive political leadership? It can get it in a shooting war; sometimes purpose rises out of a great religious renaissance; but neither exists in America today. Accordingly, political leadership, bringing the intellectual and political communities of the nation together to define the new problems of a new age, is necessary. This will not produce faith, but it can produce purpose, and the chances are that if the destiny of the nation were expressed in moral terms from the pinnacle of the government the people would follow it. Maybe the pessimists are right: Easter in American may be just a new hat or the beginning of the major-league baseball season. But religion, if it is no longer a powerful faith, is at least still a powerful symbol, especially when it speaks hopefully, as it does at Easter, of new beginnings.
–From An April 17, 1960 column by James Reston in The New York Times.
Ray W. says
Thank you, Mr. Tristam, for Reston’s commentary on new beginnings.
I am reminded of the closing paragraph in James Parker’s John Milton’s Hell, published in the Atlantic’s January/February 2022 issue.
“Because Milton’s theology and perhaps his soul demanded it, Satan had to be reduced. Imagination gone aerial in the gulf of blindness — it had to be brought back under the eye of God. What Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in his notes on Paradise Lost, calls ‘the alcohol of egotism’ had to be resisted. Satan journeys vastly through the void, wings beating; having reached the Garden of Eden, he assumes for his first encounter with Eve the form of a toad. Ithuriel and Zephon, angelic bouncers on the orders of Gabriel, are not deceived: Ithuriel gives the toad a poke with his spear. Stung by the spear tip, Satan ‘as when a spark / Lights on a heap of nitrous powder,’ flares up into his own satanic nature, his own shape. He is revealed. The angels step back, ‘half amazed / So sudden to behold the grisly King.’ Only half amazed. The devil, wings folded, cut down to size.”
Did Georgia voters, angelic bouncers bearing the spear of Ithuriel, prick the toad? Was the “alcohol of egotism” resisted? Has America, half amazed, all beheld one political party cut down to size?