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Weather: Mostly sunny. Highs in the upper 60s. North winds 5 to 10 mph. Thursday Night: Partly cloudy in the evening, then becoming mostly cloudy. Lows in the lower 50s. North winds 5 to 10 mph. See the daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
Today at a Glance:
Drug Court convenes before Circuit Judge Terence Perkins at 10 a.m. in Courtroom 401 at the Flagler County courthouse, Kim C. Hammond Justice Center 1769 E Moody Blvd, Bldg 1, Bunnell. Drug Court is open to the public. See the Drug Court handbook here and the participation agreement here.
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. 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: I miss voices like that of Edward Said, author of Orientalism, of Culture and Imperialism, of Covering Islam and of quite a bit more. I remember when the American press went bonkers after someone snapped a picture of him throwing stones at Israel from the Lebanese side of the Lebanon-Israeli border, or wherever it was that Israel’s imperious incursions decided the border was at the time. “Edward Said Accused of Stoning in South Lebanon.” Stoning. Stoning! That’s how the stoned headline writer at the Columbia Spectator, the newspaper of the university where Said taught, put it. Not as stupid as a Jordanian newspaper’s headline: “Said v. Israel.” I don;t recall the Onion’s headline, but it must have been terrific. In a 2013 Onion article headlined “Expansive Obama State Of The Union Speech To Touch On Patent Law, Entomology, The Films Of Robert Altman,” we read: “’This is a crucial speech for the president, and that is exactly why he will use this as an opportunity to thoroughly address Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism while also discussing the often complex taxonomic specialization involved with various subspecies of moths and butterflies,’ said White House aide Louis Fererra.” Back to the more Dour Spectator: “Unaware of news photographers at the time, Said released an official statement two days later in an attempt to explain his actions that have angered many Israelis,” the article read. “According to the statement, Said and his family had spent the day visiting the notorious El-Khiam prison, where members of the Lebanese resistance force were “tortured and incarcerated in appalling conditions.” After speaking to former prisoners who “spoke of their harrowing experiences,” Said and his family drove to Kafr Killa, the border village, where Israel maintains a military post. Members of the crowd near the border, Said wrote, were throwing stones merely to “see whether in this disputed area they could reach the barbed wire.”
—P.T.
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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.
January 2026
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
“Turtle Trail Artists of Flagler County,” at Expressions Art Gallery
Al-Anon Family Groups
‘Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill,’ the Billie Holiday Story, at City Rep Theatre
Flagler County Library Board of Trustees
Flagler County Commission Evening Meeting
Nar-Anon Family Group
Bunnell City Commission Meeting
For the full calendar, go here.
And lastly, most important, humanism is the only, and I would go so far as to say, the final resistance we have against the inhuman practices and injustices that disfigure human history. We are today abetted by the enormously encouraging democratic field of cyberspace, open to all users in ways undreamed of by earlier generations either of tyrants or of orthodoxies. The worldwide protests before the war began in Iraq would not have been possible were it not for the existence of alternative communities across the globe, informed by alternative news sources, and keenly aware of the environmental, human rights, and libertarian impulses that bind us together in this tiny planet. The human, and humanistic, desire or enlightenment and emancipation is not easily deferred, despite the incredible strength of the opposition to it that comes from the Rumsfelds, Bin Ladens, Sharons, and Bushes of this world. I would like to believe that Orientalism has had a place in the long and often interrupted road to human freedom.
–From Edward Said’s 25th anniversary edition preface to Orientalism, originally published in 1978.
Pogo says
@FlaglerLive
Regarding today’s cartoon — what’s new?
As far as the tragic events unfolding in today’s world, does any sane person think electing an American Netanyahu (Trump, DeSantis), or any Christian Crusader Republican Party politician, is a solution (remember, I said sane)?
Related
As stated
https://www.aljazeera.com/
As stated
https://www.haaretz.com/
As stated
https://www.bbc.com/
As stated
https://www.france24.com/en/
As stated
https://www.spiegel.de/international/
Elsewhere:
Germany To Permanently Deploy Troops for First Time Since World War II
https://www.newsweek.com/germany-will-deploy-troops-first-time-since-world-war-ii-1853409
FlaPharmTech says
Pogo, most agreed. But I’m biting my nails and more trying to keep up the fight. The orange thing is like the creature on the wing. Where in Palm Coast can we of like mind meet?
Pogo says
@FlaPharmTech
For myself, this will have to do. DeSantis’ ambitions are a smoldering heap, but his tyranny over the unfortunate people of Florida is undiminished.
In my almost 70 years in Florida, the Republican Party has changed from a minority to a majority because of the success of the national civil rights movement and the white flight and general backlash against racial equality in law. Many hereditary privileged, bigoted, and their ilk, in the Democrats simply became Republicans; for years, they didn’t bother to even change registration, except to run for office.
The Democratic Party is a salon for fortunate dilettantes with genuine, even authentic, good intentions and motives — and the only actual hope of most people. They are opposed by a shamelessly illicit enterprise funded by vast hereditary wealth, enabled by the enormous institutional power of every edifice of wealth and authority, pandering to jingoism, nativism, xenophobia, homophobia, religious fanaticism, and additionally, every sort of unhinged paranoia, narcissism, and hypocrisy. On top of all that come the selfish spoilers who make perfect the enemy of good.
I’ve absolute confidence that the Republican regime has stooges in any and all activities they oppose. I see no purpose in advertising to people who constantly engage in malign intimidation, retaliation, and revenge.
But thanks for the question.
James says
Monte certainly exhibits the unique artistic stylings of his father.