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Weather: Partly cloudy. Highs around 60. West winds 10 to 15 mph. Friday Night: Brrrr: Mostly clear. Lows in the upper 30s. West winds 5 to 10 mph. See the daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
Today at a Glance:
The Cold-Weather Shelter known as the Sheltering Tree will open tonight: The shelter opens at Church on the Rock at 2200 North State Street in Bunnell as the overnight temperature is expected to fall to 40 or below. It will open from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. The shelter is open to the homeless and to the nearly-homeless: anyone who is struggling to pay a utility bill or lacks heat or shelter and needs a safe, secure place for the night. The shelter will serve dinner and breakfast. Call 386-437-3258, extension 105 for more information. Flagler County Transportation offers free bus rides from pick up points in the county, starting at 3 p.m., at the following locations and times:
- Dollar General at Publix Town Center, 3:30 p.m.
- Near the McDonald’s at Old Kings Road South and State Road 100, 4 p.m.
- Dollar Tree by Carrabba’s and Walmart, 4:30 p.m.
- Palm Coast Main Branch Library, 4:45 p.m.
Also: - Dollar General at County Road 305 and Canal Avenue in Daytona North, 4 p.m.
- Bunnell Free Clinic, 4:30 p.m.
- First United Methodist Church in Bunnell, 4:30 p.m.
The shelter is run by volunteers of the Sheltering Tree, a non-profit under the umbrella of the Flagler County Family Assistance Center, is a non-denominational civic organization. The Sheltering Tree is in need of donations. See the most needed items here, and to contribute cash, donate here or go to the Donate button at this page.
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. Today: Palm Coast Mayor David Alfin, County Commission Chair Andy Dance and Bunnell City Manager Alvin Jackson. On WNZF at 94.9 FM and 1550 AM.
The Ultimate Mermen, The Ultimate Disney Tribute Band, 7 p.m. at Flagler Auditorium, 5500 State Road 100, Palm Coast. Kids only $5.Adult tickets a bit more. Book here. The Little Mermen are the ultimate Disney tribute concert for Disney fanatics of all ages. The band’s repertoire covers nearly a century of musical canon, including favorites from The Little Mermaid, Mary Poppins, Frozen and Encanto. The group performs in full costume with band members dressing up as characters from the films. They tour nationally, having recently shared festival stages with Stevie Nicks, Green Day and Joan Jett. The Little Mermen invite you to be their guest for a magical experience jam-packed with nostalgic fun & rockin’ sing-alongs!
The Bach Festival Continues: The annual Bach Festival on WKCR runs uninterrupted, commercial free, 24 hours a day, until Dec. 31 at 11:59 p.m. It is accessible online here. No app, no hassles. Just click on “Listen.” WKCR is the radio station of Columbia University. It has been producing the Bach festival since 1980, with students and guests hosting. And if 170 hours aren’t enough, the 89th Annual Bach Festival at Rollins College (it’s been going strong since 1935) begins February 2 and runs through March 3, under the artistic direction of John V. Sinclair. Concerts will include performances by the 160-voice Bach Festival Choir and Orchestra, and guest soloists. It’s presented by the Bach Festival Society of Winter Park. See every concert here, with some of them free and open to the public, but you must reserve ahead of time. See: “Putting Bach Back in Christmas.”
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:
Byblos: Christmas keeps coming. Today the mail brought the latest Library of America volume, Speeches and Writings by Frederick Douglass finally in one, authoritative, unprecedented 950-page edition. Many an LOA volume contains some of these speeches here and there, especially in the exceptional four-volume Civil War anthology of period writings and the slightly less exceptional one-volume anthology of Reconstruction writings (putting Southerners on par with the Union of Reconstruction was a mistake: reflect their words, their enduring bigotry, but don’t give it so much repetitive play, especially since we’re once again submerged in it today), but there has never been a collection of Douglass’ writings like this by any publisher at any time. It is edited by David Blight, who in 2019 won the Pulitzer for his biography, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (Simon & Schuster), which would make a nice companion to the LOA volume. So here they all are, the famous speeches (“What To the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”) and the many not so famous but no less stirring (“The Proclamation and a Negro Army,” from February 1863, “Give Women Fair Play” (1888), “Haiti Among the Foremost Civilized Nations of the Earth,” 1893, and so many more: about 100 pieces in all, including, of all things, a little piece of fiction called “The Heroic Slave,”about Madison Washington, who in 1841 led an insurrection aboard the slave-trading ship Creole. It’s not too late to catch up on your forgotten gift: send this to friends and lover, but don’t waste your time and money sending it to our two high school libraries: the volumes would be banned. At least there’s always the county library, a sanctuary library of there ever was one in this town. Thank you Holly Albanese.
—P.T.
Now this: “Lessons of the Hour is a poetic meditation on the life and times of Frederick Douglass, the ten-screen film installation proposes a contemplative journey into Douglass’ zeitgeist and its relationship to contemporaneity. The film includes excerpts of Douglass’ most arresting speeches and allusions to his private and public milieus.” See the installation here, and watch below:
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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.
April 2026
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
“My Fair Lady,” at Daytona Playhouse
Al-Anon Family Groups
“Godspell,” at the Limelight Theatre
Free Tax Preparation Services in Flagler County
Flagler County Commission Morning Meeting
Beverly Beach Town Commission meeting
Nar-Anon Family Group
For the full calendar, go here.
We are not, in this case, dealing with men in their natural condition, but with men brought up in the exercise of arbitrary power. We are dealing with men whose ideas, habits and customs are entirely different from those of ordinary men. It is, therefore, quite gratuitous to assume that the principles that apply to other men apply to the Southern murderers of the negro, and just here is the mistake of the Northern people. They do not see that the rules resting upon the justice and benevolence of human nature do not apply to the mobocrats, or to those who were educated in the habits and customs of a slave-holding community What these habits are I have a right to know, both in theory any in practice. I repeat: The mistake made by those who on this ground object to my theory of the charge against the negro, is that they overlook the natural effect and influence of the life, education and habits of the lynchers. We must remember that these people have not now and have never had any such respect for human life as is common to other men. They have had among them for centuries a peculiar institution, and that peculiar institution has stamped them as a peculiar people. They were not before the war, they were not during the war and have not been since the war in their spirit or in their civilization, a people in common with the people of the North. I will not here harrow up your feelings by detailing their treatment of Northern prisoners during the war. Their institutions have taught them no respect for human life and especially the life of the negro. It has in fact taught them absolute contempt for his life. The sacredness of life which ordinary men feel does not touch them anywhere. A dead negro is with them a common jest.
–From Frederick Douglass’s “The Lessons of the Hour,” Jan. 9, 1894.
Pogo says
@Dixie Zombies, like all Florida’s old-timers, e.g., flying roaches and bullet riddled traffic signs
Confederate monument protection bill filed in Senate
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/650548-confederate-monument-protection-bill-filed-in-senate/
Mr. Douglass, any thoughts?