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Weather: Mostly cloudy in the morning, then partly sunny with a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs in the mid 70s. Northeast winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent. Monday Night: Mostly cloudy. Lows around 60. Northeast winds 5 to 10 mph.See the daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
Today at a Glance:
The Flagler County Commission meets at 9 a.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 E. Moody Boulevard, Building 2, Bunnell. Access meeting agendas and materials here. The five county commissioners and their email addresses are listed here. Meetings stream live on the Flagler County YouTube page.
The Beverly Beach Town Commission meets at 6 p.m. at the meeting hall building behind the Town Hall, 2735 North Oceanshore Boulevard (State Road A1A) in Beverly Beach. See meeting announcements here.
Nar-Anon Family Groups offers hope and help for families and friends of addicts through a 12-step program, 6 p.m. at St. Mark by the Sea Lutheran Church, 303 Palm Coast Pkwy NE, Palm Coast, Fellowship Hall Entrance. See the website, www.nar-anon.org, or call (800) 477-6291. Find virtual meetings here.
 Keep Their Lights On Over the Holidays: Flagler Cares, the social service non-profit celebrating its 10th anniversary, is marking the occasion with a fund-raiser to "Keep the Holiday Lights On" by encouraging people to sponsor one or more struggling household's electric bill for a month over the Christmas season. Each sponsorship amounts to $100 donation, with every cent going toward payment of a local power bill. See the donation page here. Every time another household is sponsored, a light goes on on top of a house at Flagler Cares' fundraising page. The goal of the fun-raiser, which Flagler Cares would happily exceed, is to support at least 100 families (10 households for each of the 10 years that Flagler Cares has been in existence). Flagler Cares will start taking applications for the utility fund later this month. Because of its existing programs, the organization already has procedures in place to vet people for this type of assistance, ensuring that only the needy qualify. |
Notably: Every once in a while I struggle through one of Plato’s non-Republic dialogues, especially the more obscure ones, at least to see what I’m missing in What Must Always Be Known. Most of the time I come away disappointed, partly by my stupidity, because three quarter of the exchanges pass so far above my head that Fire Flight could catch them and fly them to Halifax hospital’s trauma unit, and partly by Socrates’ unbearableness: the guy really was a prick. There’s no way around it. A funny prick, a smart prick, a mind-twisting prick, but a prick nonetheless, and judging from the number of times his interlocutors call him a prick, if in not so many words (Plato being a prick and a prude), Plato knew it, and loved to point it out. Callicles calling him out in the Gorgias is priceless, so is Voltaire in his article “Angel,” in his Questions on the Encyclopedia: “Socrates, as we know, had a good angel. But it must’ve been the bad one that drove him. Only a very bad angel would have a philosopher running from house to house to tell people, by questions and answers, that the father and the mother, the tutor and the child, are all ignorants, are all imbeciles. The guardian angel then has all sorts of trouble keeping his ward from the hemlock.” So I’ve been trying to make my way through the Euthydemus, a very funny riff on sophists that really should be a pleasure to read especially in our ecology of Foxes and Carlsons. But I’ve had a rough time. So as I usually do when a book seems a bit more impenetrable than usual, I turn to Goodreads, that hyper-democracy of reading that would have driven Plato up his cave walls, and where I’m always rewarded. I found this, by one of the readers: “I fear other readers may also find this extended satire on Sophism longer than strictly necessary. In order to help busy people make better use of their time, I offer this new translation, where I have taken the liberty of abridging and modernizing the dialogue in a few places:
EUTHYDEMUS: My brother and I are the greatest philosophers in the world. Ask us anything.
CLEINAS: Like what?
EUTHYDEMUS: Okay, here’s your starter for ten. Is a thing the same as itself, or is it a different thing?
CLEINAS: Huh?
SOCRATES: [whispers] You’re supposed to say it’s the same as itself.
CLEINAS: Ah… it’s the same as itself.
EUTHYDEMUS: I shall demonstrate to you that you are wrong. Consider a door. Do you maintain that it is always a door?
CLEINAS: I do, of course.
EUTHYDEMUS: But what about when it is ajar?
[General applause for EUTHYDEMUS’s brilliant philosophical insight]
EUTHYDEMUS: I’ll let my brother do the next one.
DIONYSODORUS: Why do elephants paint their toenails red?
CLEINAS: I do not know.
DIONYSODORUS: It is so that they can hide in cherry trees.
CLEINAS: But, I have never seen an elephant in a cherry tree?
DIONYSODORUS: Proves it works then!
[More applause]
CRITO: Are these clowns real philosophers?
SOCRATES: Hey, you’re smarter than you look.
—P.T.
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Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
Al-Anon Family Groups
For the full calendar, go here.
They talked about the past, really always about the past.
Even the future seemed like something gone and done with when they spoke of it. It did not seem an extension of their past, but a repetition of it. They would agree that nothing remained of life as they had known it, the world was changing swiftly, but by the mysterious logic of hope they insisted that each change was probably the last; or if not, a series of changes might bring them, blessedly, back full-circle to the old ways they had known. Who knows why they loved their past? It had been bitter for them both, they had questioned the burdensome rule they lived by every day of their lives, but without rebellion and without expecting an answer. This unbroken thread of inquiry in their minds contained no doubt as to the utter rightness and justice of the basic laws of human existence, founded as they were on God’s plan; but they wondered per-petually, with only a hint now and then to each other of the un-casiness of their hearts, how so much suffering and confusion could have been built up and maintained on such a foundation.
—From Katherine Anne Porter’s “The Old Order” (1944).
Pogo says
@Lest we forget
https://www.google.com/search?q=socratic+method
Elsewhere, a ray of hope, thank you, Florida Senate President Kathleen Passidomo:
“Are Florida Republicans breaking from DeSantis? Divide grows as GOP ‘wish list’ fades
John KennedyCapital Bureau | USA TODAY NETWORK – FLORIDA…”
“…A long lineup of failures
In the Legislature, efforts appear dead that would:
Ban cities from removing Confederate monuments or putting up Pride flags.
Enact new workplace restrictions on the use of personal pronouns.
Impose term limits for all county commissioners.
Let 18-year-olds acquire rifles, shotguns and AR-15s.
Require driver licenses to display a person’s gender at birth, not how they identify…”
“…Florida Senate President Kathleen Passidomo: A significant stop sign
Senate President Kathleen Passidomo has emerged as a significant stop sign, with the Naples Republican showing no interest in the hard-right agenda advanced by the Florida Republican Party…”
https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/politics/2024/03/04/supermajorities-florida-legislature-dont-help-republican-wish-list/72805649007/
And a bitter cup, from the usual prick(s):
“Legislation for Toxic Secret chemical 1,4-dioxane dies in Florida House
Local lawmakers hoped to regulate the allowable amount of the chemical, which has been found in drinking water in Seminole County
By Kevin Spear | [email protected] | Orlando Sentinel…”
“…Florida legislation to prevent a repeat of Seminole County’s unpublicized mass exposure to the toxic chemical 1,4-dioxane has been largely ignored by the House of Representatives and appears to have no chance of passage…”
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2024/03/03/legislation-for-toxic-secret-chemical-14-dioxane-dies-in-florida-house/
Something of value:
Elect Debbie
https://www.debbieforflorida.com/