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Weather: Sunny. Highs in the lower 80s. Southeast winds 5 to 10 mph. Thursday Night: Clear. Lows in the upper 50s. Southeast winds 5 to 10 mph.
Today at a Glance:
In Court: Sunbelt Management v. Bryan: A motion to dismiss the defamation case against Ken Bryan, the former Flagler Beach city commissioner (the suit was filed over three years ago, before his election to a three-year term that just ended), is scheduled before Circuit Judge Chris France, at 2:45 p.m. in Courtroom 403 or by Zoom at https://zoom.us/j/3863134515. For background, see: “One Side Says Defamation. The Other Says Intimidation. The Gardens Development Spins-Off a Lawsuit.”
The Palm Coast Beautification and Environmental Advisory Committee meets at 5 p.m. at City Hall, 160 Lake Avenue, Palm Coast.
The Flagler Beach City Commission meets at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall, 105 South 2nd Street in Flagler Beach. Watch the meeting at the city’s YouTube channel here. Access meeting agenda and materials here. See a list of commission members and their email addresses here. See tonight’s full agenda here.
Flagler County Republican Club Trivia Night: 6 p.m. at Jerry’s Village Market Pub and Deli, European Village, Palm Coast. $5 cover charge. Food, fun, drinks, trivia, and more.
Uncouth, an open mic night: Join a unique community of creative artists and performers on Thursday nights from 9:30 to 10:30 p.m. in Lee’s Garage, Carlton Union Building, Room 261A, 131 E Minnesota Avenue, DeLand, for an event featuring the student community of Stetson University. Uncouth is an “open-mic night” where students can perform their poetry, prose, music, and any other ‘artistic’ talents. This is a safe space for students to gather with their peers and enjoy the company of other creative minds.
In Coming Days:
Flagler Pride Weekend: All applications (Vendor, Sponsor, Volunteer, Speaker, Entertainment) for Flagler Pride Weekend are now open until midnight on May 20th, 2023. No late applications will be accepted or considered. Vendors, apply here. Flagler Pride weekend is scheduled for June 10-12, at Palm Coast’s Central Park.
Applications to volunteer at our other recurring 2023 events are also open.
Michael Butler at AAUW: What is Academic Freedom and Why Does It Matter? American Association of University Women Flagler’s April 1 meeting is from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Cypress Knoll Golf and Country Club, 53 East Hampton, Palm Coast. The guest is Dr. Michael Butler, Professor of History
Chair of Humanities, Flagler College. The presentation is $5 to attend, $25 with lunch. Please check the website for more information. “It’s easy to ridicule Florida, or cite ‘Florida Man.’ But the Florida of today is the America of tomorrow,” Butler told Vanity Fair in an article about Gov. Ron DeSantis’s assaults on academic freedom. “If you put these culture wars into context, there’s always a bigger issue at play. This time, it’s 2024, and Florida is being used as a laboratory for policies and practices concerning higher education that will be unveiled at the national level.”
April 15: The University Women of Flagler’s general membership meets at 9:30 a.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn, 55 Town Center Blvd., Palm Coast. Guests are welcome. Cost is $17 if paying by check; $18 if paying through this link. The April 15 speaker is Lt. General Mark Hertling, a retired three star general living in Flagler Beach having had global military and other responsibilities on behalf of the United States, positions on Presidential councils and Boards of Directors, a true winner in the sports arena, and an ace commentator on national television news outlets.
Etymologically: According to etymologist Allen Read in his 1963 American Speech, the word “ok” first appeared in print in the United States on this day in 1839, in an issue of the Boston Morning Post. Oddly, the following year, it was picked up as a nickname for Martin van Buren during the presidential election, as in Old Kinderhook, also attributed to Democrats’ O.K. clubs that year. OK as we understand it, according to the OED, was a derivative of oll korrect, “humorous alteration of all correct.” The OED goes on, as it invariably does (thankfully: why else do we read the OED, other than to disinfect from atrocious writing in FlaglerLive?) “Other suggestions, e.g. that O.K . represents an alleged Choctaw word oke ‘it is’ (actually the affirmative verbal suffix -okii ‘indeed, contrary to your supposition’), or French au quai , or Scottish English och aye , or that it derives from a word in the West African language Wolof via slaves in the southern States of America, all lack any form of acceptable documentation.” OK? It was also–and this, to its great and inexplicable discredit, the OED does not mention–the name of our favorite Korean grocery store when I was growing up in Sunnyside, N.Y., in Queens, at the corner of 42nd Street and 43rd Avenue: OK Food. It began as a tiny bodega (an anachronism, when applied to a Korean grocer), then started expanding east and west, devouring what had been a tiny antique shop, then a laundromat, which forced me do trudge down a few more blocks to wash the family’s laundry every week, as we did not have a washer-dryer in our otherwise delightful walk-up on 42nd. Around that time, CBS’s programming signature was the OK sign, as I recall. And now that OK hand gesture is categorized as a hate symbol of white nationalism.
—P.T.
Now this: A Day With John Dekermenjian, Lebanon’s Greratest Pick-Up Artist.
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.
December 2025
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Scenic A1A Pride Meeting
Friday Blue Forum
Acoustic Jam Circle At The Community Center In The Hammock
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Kwanzaa Celebration
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Peps Art Walk Near Beachfront Grille
Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
For the full calendar, go here.
For the book banners, this was never just about the books. The free public library as we know it in the United States, as a public good, as a hallmark of liberal democracy, was not always thus. The idea of a free library open to all is one that was long fought for and won by ordinary people—not just by philanthropists or the library professionals, but women’s clubs of the 1890s that raised funds, WPA workers who brought libraries by horseback and wagon to rural Americans in the Depression, and Black student activists who risked arrest to desegregate public libraries in the 1960s. Today, libraries stand as a visible, tangible representation of how government can improve daily life, in ways both big and small, though most remain primarily locally funded. In many towns and cities, the free public library remains the only true third place—meaning not the home or work, a concept conceived of by sociologists that has now often been coopted by corporations like Starbucks—a space open to anyone and meant for everyone, from all parts of the community.
–From “Conservatives Are Trying to Ban Books in Your Town. Librarians Are Fighting Back,” by Melissa Gira Grant, The New Republic, March 16, 2023.
Pogo says
@FlaglerLive
There you go with all your thinking and writing — stimulating thoughts and questions in other minds. You don’t fool me. I see what you’re about; you would have everyone thinking.
Damn, it happened again! Another question forced its way into the world because of you:
who rebuilt the library of alexandria after the fire
https://www.google.com/search?q=who+rebuilt+the+library+of+alexandria+after+the+fire
Questions need answers, and will have them:
The Story of the Library of Alexandria Is Mostly a Legend, But the Lesson of Its Burning Is Still Crucial Today
“…Alexandria is, in that telling, a cautionary tale of the danger of creeping decline, through the underfunding, low prioritization and general disregard for the institutions that preserve and share knowledge: libraries and archives. Today, we must remember that war is not the only way an Alexandria can be destroyed…”
https://time.com/5912689/library-of-alexandria-burning/
Laurel says
Never seen a baby in handcuffs before. Think they’ll fit?
Pogo says
@What’s next — body doubles and spider holes?
Once upon a time, in Floridanam, the name of the capital was changed to Ho desanti$ Minh City, to celebrate the defeat of the woke mouse that had been pooping on the white go-go boots worn on The Long March of the Dear Leader to $ell her fat red book. The fat read book was carried everywhere by the Dear Leader to gather green lettuce$. The Dear Leader was made to weep by nosey mice watching her gather the lettuce$. So her friend$ made a law to $hield her from being followed:
“,,,Citing an increase in public records requests for the governor’s travel schedule, Florida legislators are advancing a bill that would shield from the public any information about how and where Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state officials go. The bill would impose the first-ever public records exemption for the transportation records held by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the agency that handles the governor’s security. The exemption would take effect retroactively, prohibiting anyone from scrutinizing how DeSantis has used his state travel in the past and as he prepares for a likely campaign for the Republican nomination for president…”
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article273473455.html#storylink=cpy
J8K says
OK!