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Weather: Patchy fog in the morning. Partly sunny. Highs in the upper 70s. East winds 5 to 10 mph. Friday Night: Mostly cloudy. Lows in the mid 60s. Southeast winds 5 to 10 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. 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.
Town Hall Meeting with Palm Coast Council Member Nick Klufas, 1 p.m. at the Southern Recreation Center, 1290 Belle Terre Pkwy, Palm Coast. It’s a free and public event for which you may sign up here. Through the Strategic Action Plan process–that is, the city council’s goals–each council member has prioritized engaging with Palm Coast residents to foster a stronger community connection and ensure that all voices are heard in shaping the future of the city.
LGBTQ+ Night at Flagler Beach’s Coquina Coast Brewing Company: The monthly LGBTQ+ social for adults is scheduled for every second Friday of the month from 8 to 11 p.m. at Coquina Coast Brewing Co., 318 Moody Boulevard, Flagler Beach. “Come together, make new friends and share some brews. Going strong since Oct 2021! We feature many genres of local LGBTQ+ talent in our community; comedy, burlesque, belly dance, drag, musicians, bingo games, etc. There is never a cover charge but donations are greatly appreciated! When you register, your email is used to keep you up to date on future LGBTQ+ friendly events.
Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony at the Jacksonville Symphony, 7:30 p.m. at Jacoby Symphony Hall, Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts, 300 Water Street, Suite 200, Jacksonville. Saint-Saëns created one of the most unique symphonies ever written by bringing the awe-inspiring power of the concert organ to his Third Symphony. Hear the passionate melodies of the Bryan Concert Organ alongside the full forces of the Symphony in a program that also features Ravel’s use of nostalgia and irony in La valse, and composer Courtney Bryan’s return to Jacksonville for the world premiere of a new work commissioned by Music Director Courtney Lewis and the Jacksonville Symphony. $30-$84. Book 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. |
Editorial Notebook: As I write this the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 30,000. It’s been five months since Israel launched its assault. Put that in a bit of perspective. That’s half the number of American soldiers killed in Vietnam between 1959 and 1975. It is a quarter of the population of Flagler County, a third that of Palm Coast: imagine obliterating the populations of the B, F and C Sections. It is 1.5 percent of the entire population of Gaza before the genocide, or as if the United States had lost 5 million people in a nuclear strike. It is ongoing. The other day Palestinians were swarming around food rucks. Israeli forces opened fire and massacred another 112. It’s not news anymore in the United States. It makes the front pages of the Times or the Post, but otherwise it’s measles and grand juries. The young girl in the Times video below, Dareen, is the only survivor, along with her 5-year-old brother, of an Israeli bombing (a mass killing, really: these terms, air strike, bombing, incursion all seem to veil the intended meaning) that took the lives of at least 47 of her relatives, according to the Times. She says at the end of the video: “Why aren’t we like the other children? I would really like to understand. I would like to understand why they do this to us. Because people can’t live without their parents. It’s the first time my mom and dad haven’t been by my side. Why didn’t I go with them? I really want to go to heaven and talk to them there. Why did this happen to me?”
—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.
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.
Many terms were used to express the relation: Balfour and Cromer, typically, used several. The Oriental is irrational, depraved (fallen), childlike, “different”; thus the European is rational, virtuous, mature, “normal.” But the way of enlivening the relationship was everywhere to stress the fact that the Oriental lived in a different but thoroughly organized world of his own, a world with its own national, cultural, and epistemological boundaries and principles of internal coherence. Yet what gave the Oriental’s world its intelligibility and identity was not the result of his own efforts but rather the whole complex series of knowledgeable manipulations by which the Orient was identified by the West. Thus the two features of cultural relationship I have been discussing come together. Knowledge of the Orient, because generated out of strength, in a sense creates the Orient, the Oriental, and his world. In Cromer’s and Balfour’s language the Oriental is depicted as something one judges (as in a court of law), something one studies and depicts (as in a curriculum), something one disciplines (as in a school or prison), something one illustrates (as in a zoological manual). The point is that in each of these cases the Oriental is contained and represented by dominating frameworks. Where do these come from?
–From Edward Said’s Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient (1978).
Ray W. says
In “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, Pirsig posed the idea that western rational thought had diverged from eastern mystical thought during the age of Greek philosophical growth, particularly through the works of various authors describing the Socratic dialogues.
The dominant theme of Pirsig’s book was that western culture had lost some of the crucial elements inhering in eastern mysticism, i.e., it had not improved via the divergence. His argument was that the loss was to community, to the connectedness of family, to a “quality” of life. This was the same message inhering in many of the scenes depicted in Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.” Mankind’s capacity for inhumanity to man writ large.
The irony was that decades after writing the book, Pirsig experienced what had to be one of his greatest losses, arising from the murder of his son, who had travelled west with Pirsig during the travels described in the book; he had been stabbed in a random act of violence in a major U.S. city. He crawled, bleeding, for several blocks before dying on a sidewalk. No one stopped to help or even took the time to call for help.
Kennan says
Nice piece Pierre. Facts and perspective is what we need. Alas I’m afraid it’s falling on deaf ears and even worse extremely clouded eyes.
I had the not so wonderful experience of watching the dog and pony show, we call the State of the Union address last night. Going into it I knew Joe Biden had to be if not appear strong, both physically and mentally, but I also knew that if he didn’t say enough about the genocide in Gaza, he was dead. It was not surprising to me, that he mentioned the invasion of Ukraine, and how important that is, because it is but only mentioning Gaza from the perspective of Israel, October 7 and the fleeting footnote to the suffering of innocent Palestinians caught in the throes of something that is not a war. A terrorist
Act perpetrated that was countered by a declared war by Israel, attempting to put optics forward that would make people think that it was necessary to kill so many innocent people.
Let me be frank. So many Americans are so woefully ignorant about what’s happening in the Middle East that it’s frightening. It doesn’t help that the media is helping push a false narrative to make Israel look like the victim. How do they do this you ask? Well, it’s quite simple. They lie. The New York Times was just exposed and finds egg on their face for making up a story about rape by Hamas against Israeli women and men. A made up story, by a fake reporter, with no journalistic experience whatsoever.
People are seeing what they see in real time all over the world. It’s undeniable and Benjamin Netanyahu knows it. The IDF knows it. Israelis know it. Oh, and by the way, the United States knows it. America supplies, the weapons, the missiles, the planes, and above all the money. Our money, our tax, dollars hard at work, killing, innocent civilians!
I don’t know why this bothers me so much. We started all this in 1948. The first Nakba was initiated, 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes and their homeland, simply by virtue of the fact that because the Bible said that the Jewish people were there first, this automatically gave them the right to steal someone else’s land. All this happened within a breath of the end of the holocaust. As unbelievably disgusting as that was, it seemed perfectly fine for the oppressed and horrifically treated Jewish people in the wake of the holocaust to *Now become the oppressors. The epitome of hypocrisy. 75 years later here we are witnessing the most disgusting act of murder in the 21st-century. I do not take these words lightly! Tell me I’m lying.
All human beings deserve the same treatment and rights. Regardless of color, creed, religious affiliation, although I will say quite freely in that religion more often than not is the problem itself. It seems to divide more than it brings together. Tell me I’m lying.
In closing, I will that the Jewish people never deserved the treatment and death that besieged them in the holocaust. Horrible, but for someone like Benjamin, Netanyahu, and Israel, or anybody for that matter to fall back on the holocaust and use it as a wedge point to garner support for what they are doing now is disgusting. It’s not right, it’s inhumane and it exposes certain people for the animals they are.
The USA talks a good game, but Biden, Blinken, and anybody else that thinks this is OK it’s complicit and a war criminal.
Pogo says
@Another friend of perfect is better than something…
…read this — and think:
On Israel, Trump Is Even Worse Than Biden
Donald Trump and his MAGA cult of Christian nationalists would never force Israel to accept a ceasefire — or a Palestinian state.
https://theintercept.com/2024/03/04/trump-biden-israel/
ASF says
Israel WAS the primary victim of October 7th.. That massacre of innocent Jewish civilians (most of them who were Left-leaning Jews who felt sympathy for the Pakesitnians)–in the middle of an already existing ceasefire–was the worst single atrocity perpetrated against Jews in one fell swoop since the Holocaust.
It also brought war and destruction upon the people of Gaza–some of whom, I am sorry to say, were and are NOT so completely blameless. We know that some Palestinian civilians helped militants drag Israeli hostages deep inside Gaza, have been holding Israeli hostages captive in their own homes, have jeered and spit at Israelis/Jews (both dead and alive) immediately during the events of October 7th. They have been continuing to wreak terrorist attacks agiasnt innocent Israeli citizens (who have been bombarded by Palesttnian rockets shot into Israel 24/7), even as those same Palesitnian are presenting thesmelves to the wold as completely helpless and benign total victims. The head of one Israeli soldier was found in a freezer in an ice cream shop in Gaza by IDF forces, after some inncient Pakesitnians” tried to sell it online for $10,000.
It’s “too little, too late” for the media, Human Rights Organizations and world governments not assigning much, if any, accountability for the humanitaran crisis in Gaza to the parties most responsible for it–the Palestinians own leadership, especially Hamas.
Someday (if we are lucky enough to survive that long), the world will look back–just as we did as regards the years leading up to the rise of the Nazis in the mid 20th century–and wonder at how we, once again, let Anti Semitism rule over reason. The hateful propaganda that starts with Jews at its convenient epi-center never ends with Jews as its only victims.
Kennan says
Wow, do I got a hold your hand through this one too? I was gonna let this one go, but nah. The obtuse nature of some of the comments previously leave me no choice. In case you missed it the first time. Terrorism is a tactic. Nobody condones what Hamas did on October 7, 2023, but if you think what’s happening now is necessary, you are misinformed, brain, dead, or evil. As I’ve said before. This could’ve been handled by special forces, both US and Israeli. That’s how you handle a tactic. With the counter tactics. Not a war. Benjamin Netanyahu knows this. He calls this war so that his ultimate endgame comes to fruition. The Netanyahu lead military turned off all electricity, shut all water off even before the bombing campaign began.
Imagine 911. 19 Saudi Arabian’s getting planes, take the twin towers down, more terrorist, or hiding out in say: New Jersey, and we decide the most effective way to get them is to just blow up New Jersey. Do you think we do that? No, we wouldn’t, that’s what Netanyahu is doing. Not a war, and the most ridiculous military tactic ever. We don’t even know what how much liters he’s gotten , but we do know that about 40,000 civilians have been killed more than half women and children, they are now starving. Children are starving in hospitals. 500,000 could die of famine before it’s all over. Netanyahu in the IDF haven’t even begun the bombing campaign that they have planned for RAFA.
Some other genius said that Trump would be worse. Yes he would, he would be a lot worse. But guess what? Biden is president now. I voted for Biden. I’m a Democrat and I’m disgusted. Trump is a career criminal but Biden is a murderer. Even if he ended this tomorrow, it would be too late. Netanyahu is laughing at him, and Biden continues to make excuses.
Please stop conflating Palestinians with hummus, and using the holocaust as a wedge point is absolutely ridiculous. The holocaust with a stain on our history, but it does not apply to *Now. I am not an antisemite simply because I question the way Israel is handling the situation, but if you think this is OK, what’s happening now? You are a racist. Full stop. There is a tremendous difference between Jews and Israelis. Many Jews in this country, and all over the world condemn the way that Netanyahu and the IDF are handling an operation that can only be called a genocide. I am an American by birth, but a human being by choice. It’s time for certain people to get their heads out of their asses, open their eyes, and called this what it is. genocide and a humanitarian crisis.
ASF says
I love how presumed “Human Rights Advocates” and “Anti-Zionists” fall all over themselves repeating phrases like , “Yeah, October 7th was pretty bad BUUUUUTTTTT (definite emphasis on the but)…Here’s why Israel is the real genocidal monster.
If any other nation had experienced what Israel did on October 7th there would be no “buts” of any kind tolerated–especially from an ally. Other suppoedly “Free Democratic Nations” would not be butting dictatorially into their affairs, demanding that they conduct their defensive response (which didn’t even begin until after a month following the massacre o October 7th)– and only AFTER the civilians braying for the blood of Jews were warned to get out of the line of fire.
It is Hamas that brought this war on both the Israelis and the Palestinians.
It is Haams that isrefusing to account for the status of the hostages, let alone refusing to release them’
it is the Pakesitnian forces that continue to shoot rockets into Israel 24/7 and commit terrorist attacks against Israelis, even during their much referred to Holy days of Ramadan.
It is Hamas that is using its own populace as Human Shields and using hospitals, schools, shelters and residential homes as places to stash (and mistreat) innocent civilian hostages, store their weaponry and operate their military tactics out of–including, the launching of their rockets which land in their own backyards and take out Palestinian civilians (who are then described as being “victims of Israeli airstrikes”.)
It is also Hamas that is stealing the aid that Israel lets into the Gaza Strip and which the current US government delusionally places the onus of responsibility on getting into the mouths of the people who scream their intent to slaughter all Jews, Allah willing. It certainly never seems to be the responsibility of the Palestinian governments to get that aid into the mouths of their own people–nor does it seem to be the job of UN /UNWRA personnel, some of whom we know are actively enabling members of Hamas.
Anyone listening to Hamas casualty statistics would have to believe that the IDF are the worst shots in the world since, according to the illiberal press who routinely quote Hamas ministry reports as though they are media manna from Heaven, only manage to take out “innocent Palestinian civilians” and almost never males of Militant age or militants themselves. We know that’s a lie because it makes no sense at all…and because we have ben told that israel has exaggerated all those reports of terror tunnels for terrorists to hide in (even though the IDF have published video and pictures of the tunnels for all to see.)
Open YOUR eyes. And try to remove the beam inside them that is the residual fall out from the splintering effect of your own personal prejudices.