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Weather: Areas of fog in the morning. Sunny. Highs in the mid 80s. South winds 5 to 10 mph. Friday Night: Partly cloudy in the evening, then becoming mostly cloudy. Lows in the lower 60s. South winds around 5 mph.See the daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
Today at a Glance:
Presidential Primary Early Voting is available today from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at four locations. Any registered and qualified voter who is eligible to vote in a county-wide election may vote in person at the early voting site. According to Florida law, every voter must present a Florida driver’s license, a Florida identification card or another form of acceptable picture and signature identification in order to vote. If you do not present the required identification or if your eligibility cannot be determined, you will only be permitted to vote a provisional ballot. Don’t forget your ID. A couple of secure drop boxes that Ron DeSantis and the GOP legislature haven’t yet banned (also known as Secure Ballot Intake Stations) are available at the entrance of the Elections Office and at any early voting site during voting hours. The locations are as follows:
- Flagler County Elections Supervisor’s Office, Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell.
- Flagler County Public Library, 2500 Palm Coast Pkwy NW, Palm Coast.
- Palm Coast Community Center, 305 Palm Coast Parkway NE.
- Flagler Beach United Methodist Church, 1520 South Daytona Avenue, Flagler Beach.
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. Rep. Paul Renner will sum up the legislative session and talk about all that bacon her brought home in his last year as Speaker of the House. 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.
Caryl Churchill’s ‘Vinegar Tom,’ at City Repertory Theatre, 160 Cypress Point Parkway (City Marketplace, Suite B207), Palm Coast, 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, 3 p.m. on Sunday. $15-$30. Book tickets here. From Director John Sbordone’s program notes: Caryl Churchill’s VINEGAR TOM, written in collaboration with the Monstrous Regiment Theatre Company, uses the hunt for witches in the 17th century, as stool to investigate the subjugation of women in a male dominated society. The lessons of the past, though more blatant than the present, are reflected in many aspects of our own society. Churchill, a leading feminist writer in Britain for over 50 years, explores the free spirited Alice, the subservient Susan, the caged in Betty, the destitute Joan and the ever helpful Ellen in the context of their repressive environment. She uses modern techniques such as the episodic scene to convey the pervasiveness of the subjugation without absorbing the audience in emotional crisis. She asks us to observe the behaviors without getting lost in their melodrama. One technique establishes these goals graphically. The songs are intended to covey a contemporary commentary on the behavior of the past. CRT is proud to present this daring exploration and thankful to Benjamin Beck for composing the compelling music to accompany our efforts.
 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. |
Notebook: I’m with the guy in the video below. We used to go to Disney pretty often until a few years before Covid. We were seasonal pass holders. We stopped, more out of wear and tear than cost at the time, thinking we could try again in a few years. We haven’t, and haven’t had the desire to: Disney, already a gentrified experience back then, is neo-feudalism now: if you’re not in the earning brackets of the nobility, you’re indebting yourself to go there. Disney has no disincentive to stop raising prices. The market of wealthy spenders is ever-expanding–not in the United States, but worldwide. So if the U.S. is tapped out of suckers willing to spend $250 for a night at what Disney calls its budget resorts, there’s always the Brazilian, Argentine and the rest of the Latin American market, which has the double advantage of sending suckers here in our winter (such as it’s been anymore), their summer. Europeans are getting a bit shy about visiting the United States, places like the gunshine state especially: they don’t want to be blown away at random. But Asians still seem willing to risk it. So Disney isn’t about to run out of a customer base willing to be robbed blind. Still: our son Luka, being an employee on Disney property (but not a Disney employee: he’s with Mars), gets a few free Disney passes among his perks. He got us a couple. We thought we’d celebrate Cheryl’s birthday there one of these weekends. No deal. You have to “reserve” to go into a park. And all the “reservations” for those specialty tickets are booked until the days of 100 degree heat. Disney is not for Floridians anymore. At least not those with Mar-a-Lago zip codes. We can always look forward to the splash pad at Holland Park. I hear it’s reopening soon. Or maybe Wawa. That’s always an experience. Incidentally, I think the pilgrimage to Mecca, a pilgrim-tourist destination since well before Muhammad, is experiencing the same Disney syndrome.
—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.
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
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.
In the realm of Saddam Hussein kitsch, it is hard to compete with Babylon. The Iraqi leader found the squat, khaki-colored nubs of earth and scattered stacks of bricks left over from one of history’s glorious empires somehow lacking, far too mundane to represent the 2,500-year sweep of Mesopotamian history that was to be reborn through his rule. So he ordered one of the three original palaces rebuilt. Never mind that nobody really knows what the imposing palaces looked like. Nor did Mr. Hussein pay much heed to the fact that the archaeological world cried foul — deriding his project as Disney for a Despot — because he was violating their sacred principle of preserving rather than recreating. But as with many moves by Mr. Hussein, the end result garnered great populist appeal and hence he will probably have the last word on the fate of the famous ruins. The name Babylon rang with deep significance for Iraqis long schooled in their role as descendants of the people who more or less invented civilization. What remained here was little more than rubble, however, because the prize pieces had long since been carted off to European museums. Once the $5 million replica was finished, though — at lightning speed, with construction crews working in three shifts toward the end — everybody could see that it was a palace.
–From “Hussein’s Babylon: A Beloved Atrocity,” by Neil MacFarquhar, The New York Times, Aug. 19, 2003.
I Just Love Flagler Beach says
Re: Disney
AND the extra $80 fee the “haves” pay to jump the line on all the rides, while all us peons stand and watch. No way would I subject myself.
Pogo says
@P.T.
Your take on Disney is on the nose — its owners, and patrons, own the world; the rest of us just live here and work for them.
@Neil MacFarquhar, The New York Times, Aug. 19, 2003. (and P.T. for bringing him to readers)
Thank you.
The phrase “the founding fathers” that the white Christian Right holds in its mouth like a plug of Red Man chew, and spits in the eye of the actual historical record of those remarkable people (the founders), seems to me, to be much the same as the difference between the pile of money that has taken its place, and the actual antiquity in Babylon.
Moreover, America the beautiful is rapidly becoming, if not already accomplished, the Babylon of this epoch. Irony?
And so it goes.
Ray W. says
Thank you, Mr. Tristam, for today’s Notebook column.
Perhaps a few FlaglerLive readers can still recall the several comments a few months ago by people gullible enough to believe that Disney’s stock prices had fallen solely because of its stance on the Don’t Say Gay bill. Disney’s stock at the time of the comments had hit a five-year low of $79.33 on October 27, 2023. Yesterday’s stock valuation was $112.06, a rise of 41% over the past four and a half months.
And maybe a few readers can recall my subsequent comment, posted after reading the several comments by the gullible among us and after my then having read a few industry journal articles about Disney’s decision to engage in a long-term revamp of its theme park ticketing policies and prices; it was presented that Disney had some time ago decided to implement pricing changes in order to lessen guest perceptions of park overcrowding. Disney decided to focus on raising a variety of theme park prices, on limiting perquisites, and on eliminating freebies. In essence, Disney’s park management decided to focus on the experiences of wealthier patrons by reducing overcrowding in hopes of increasing profits. The YouTube documentary attached to the Notebook entry reflects the extent of the changes caused by the implementation of these new practices.
Since the most gullible among FlaglerLive commenters seem to be particularly stubborn in their adherence to fantastical thinking (no, Mr. Tristam is not a “reprobate” because he writes a column on economic importance of immigration), perhaps some history might prove helpful.
Disney is a conglomerate of many interlocking subsidiary corporations. Walt Disney Studios consists of Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures. Disney owns ABC, Disney Channel, ESPN, Freeform and National Geographic. Its streaming services include Disney+, Start, ESPN+, Hulu and Hotstar. Disney owns theaters and has merchandising and music divisions. There are separate cruise line, hotel and theme park subsidiaries. In all, “conglomerate” is a very accurate word for such a widespread company. Yet, the gullible among us insist that the fall in Disney stock prices was solely due to Florida’s war on woke.
More history is important for context. When Disney announced its new streaming division on November 19, 2019, the stock rose that day by 7.32% to $148.29. This was 30 months or so before Florida’s earliest stages of its war on woke. By March 8, 2021, Disney stock price had peaked at $197.16. On January 21, 2022, just before the March passage of the Don’t Say Gay bill, Disney stock plummeted to $138.63, after a “poor earnings report.” On November 19, 2022, upon news of unexpected streaming video services losses, the stock again precipitously fell to $95.01 (the other two major streaming services companies also reported unexpected losses and their stocks fell to even greater losses). As noted above, Disney stock eventually hit rock bottom 11 months later before rebounding.
Does every FlaglerLive reader remember my repeatedly posted message that James Madison, in the last paragraph of Federalist Paper #37, wrote of his warning against the “pestilential” among us, the widespread “pestilential” partisan member of faction? While Madison lauded the virtuous among his generation who had set aside party faction to fashion the proposed Constitution, he also bemoaned the fact that the “pestilential” partisan member of faction would always exist. Hence, the need for checks and balances in the proposed Constitution, in order to contain forever the extent of damage that could be wrought by the gullible partisans among us who would always attempt to mislead and misinform in the name of faction.
Let’s face it. Disney is a huge international conglomerate that derives profits from a wide slice of many types of consumers. Its stock valuations depend on perceptions of a wide variety of investors, not just the partisans among us.
When Disney announced its streaming services, stock prices skyrocketed. Investors jumped in to take advantage. When overall corporate earnings fell short of expectations, the price fell. When streaming revenue announcements also fell short of expectations, stock prices fell again. Disney revamped its park experiences by raising prices, and the stock is rapidly climbing. Or, according to the gullible among us, Disney stock valuations reflect Florida’s war on woke. I suppose that a tiny amount of short-term stock price changes can be attributed to the legislation, but the far better argument is that Disney stock prices hinge on its overall business practices. As I have long argued, a valid argument must give way to a good argument and a good argument must give way to a better argument. Disney’s long-term strategy did not produce the expected amount of profit and stock prices tanked. Disney has been tinkering with its pricing models and stock prices are rising.
Can it be argued with validity that the war on woke has hurt Florida far more than it ever hurt Disney? Please throw in a comment or two.