The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Friday, December 15, 2023

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Weather: Mostly cloudy. Highs around 70. East winds 15 to 20 mph with gusts up to 30 mph. Friday Night: Mostly cloudy. Near steady temperature in the lower 60s. East winds 10 to 15 mph with gusts up to 25 mph. See the daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.

Today at a Glance:

Free For All Fridays with Host David Ayres, an hour-long public affairs radio show featuring local newsmakers, personalities, public health updates and the occasional surprise guest, starts a little after 9 a.m. after FlaglerLive Editor Pierre Tristam’s Reality Check. Guests include Flagler Beach City Manager Dale Martin, the Home Builders Association’s Annamaria Long, and Toby Tobin, who will discuss why “you cannot afford to be anti-growth,” in David’s words. See previous podcasts here. On WNZF at 94.9 FM and 1550 AM.

The Blue 24 Forum, a discussion group organized by local Democrats, meets at 12:15 p.m. at the Palm Coast Community Center, 305 Palm Coast Parkway NE. Come and add your voice to local, state and national political issues.

 Christmas in Bunnell: The Bunnell Elves have been working for months to grow the event and make the night special for our community and surrounding communities. JB King Park 300 Citrus St., Bunnell, FL 32110 starting at 5 p.m., with Food trucks, music, entertainment, games, crafts, petting zoo, train, Christmas characters, Florida snow, AND Santa and Mrs. Claus plus much more. FREE but for the cost of food. The JB King parking lot will be used for handicap parking; the gate will be monitored to allow access only to those with a State issued decal.  Event parking will be available at the lot of the old Police Department located on Old Moody Boulevard (pictured below) and at the Government Services Building (pictured below).  There will be shuttle service running from the Government Services Building to a drop off location near the event.

Shop With a Cop: Sheriff Rick Staly and the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office host Shop With A Cop event tonightat 6:30 p.m. at the Palm Coast Wal-Mart. The event focuses on providing holiday presents for needy children in Flagler County. Approximately 130 local children will be paired-up with a Deputy Sheriff, other local law enforcement officers or COP volunteers and taken on a shopping spree, not only buying gifts but building bridges between children and local law enforcement. Each child will be given a $200 gift card to spend.  Don’t be alarmed by all the flashing lights and sounding sirens.

Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center: Nightly from 6 to 9 p.m. at Palm Coast’s Central Park, with 55 lighted displays you can enjoy with a leisurely stroll around the pond in the park. Admission to Fantasy Lights is free, but donations to support Rotary’s service work are gladly accepted. Holiday music will pipe through the speaker system throughout the park, Santa’s Village, which has several elf houses for the kids to explore, will be open, with Santa’s Merry Train Ride nightly (weather permitting), and Santa will be there every Sunday night until Christmas, plus snow on weekends! On certain nights, live musical performances will be held on the stage.

In Coming Days:

Dec. 16: Artie Gardella Book-Signing: Personal trainer Artie Gardella – “Artie G” a local senior fitness specialist in Volusia and Flagler County for the past two decades, is holding a book-signing for his first title, “Because You Have a Bucket List,” at 11 a.m. at St Thomas Episcopal Church, 5400 Belle Terre Parkway, Palm Coast. Details here.

Dec. 23: Culmination of toy drive for Toys for Tots at AW Custom Kitchens, European Village, starting at 11 a.m. A drawing for all eligible participants will take place at 2 p.m. Anyone who will have donated toys for the drive will have a chance to win various items, including a 65-inch 4K Smart TV, an Apple iPad, a pair of Apple Air Pods, and gift cards from the co-sponsors of the event. Fifty such cards have been donated. With proof of a voucher, donors also will receive a free hot dog, a free drink, a free popcorn, a free cotton candy, and a free snow cone. There will be a variety of fun things to do such as a bouncy house for children in thanks to the community for its generosity. See details here. 

Notably: Among those born yesterday are the French poet Paul Eluard and the poet of the skies Jimmy Doolittle, who led the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, plus Shirley Jackson, she of “The Lottery” (I recently read in a Gibbon footnote a prelude to “The Lottery”: “In the year 1306, in the woods of Luneburg, some wild people of the Vened race were allowed to bury alive their infirm and useless parents”), Don Hewitt, creator of CBS’s 60 Minutes, and of course a few scores of millions of others. But I should’ve noted the most important birthday of all: our own Jane Mealy, doyenne of Flagler Beach and Flagler County politics: she has been a Flagler Beach City Commissioner since 2006, she’s never lost an election, and with Colleen Conklin’s departure from the school board scene next year, she may be the last true Democrat on a major elected board in the county (the Mosquito Control Board not included). I am not counting Sally Hunt among Democrats anymore. She’s in a party by herself. But Jane Mealy, born the year of Guadalcanal (another current school board reference), of “The Little Prince” and of FDR’s last full year in office, remains one of our strongest, most knowledgeable and hard-working elected officials–she’s always spent entire days preparing for meetings, researching items beyond the prepared materials–with convictions never in doubt. I should have marked the occasion in yesterday’s briefing. But it’s never too late to light birthday candles, though Mealy had to spend most of her birthday in the grips of the city commission’s very long meeting. Happy Birthday Jane Mealy.

—P.T.

Now this: The new Caglecast is here:

 

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We are sure there will be no hesitation. The time has come to cease trifling with Andrew Johnson. This man, who reeled into the Presidency; who has debased his high office by unseemly and indecent demonstrations; who has surrounded himself with the worst members of the worst phase of Washington life; whose retinue consists of lobbyists, Rebels, and adventurers; who has polluted the public service by making espionage honorable, and treachery the means of advancement; who has deceived the party that elected him, as well as the party that created him; who has made his own morbid and overweening vanity the only rule of his administration; who has sought to entrap illustrious servants of the people into ignominious evasion of the law, and who now claims to break that law with impunity- this most infamous Chief- Magistrate should be swept out of office. LET HIM BE IMPEACHED!

–From a New York Tribune editorial, Feb. 24, 1868.

 

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