Weather: Mostly clear. Highs in the lower 80s. Lows in the lower 50s. See the daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
Today at a Glance:
67th Annual Cracker Day at County Fairgrounds, 150 Sawgrass Road, Bunnell, all day. Admission is $20 per person, which includes a BBQ meal as long as you pay cash. Enjoy a BBQ Lunch, Bull Riding, Steer Riding, Steer Saddlin’, Sack Races, Jackpot Barrel Racing, Chute Doggin’, Ribbon Ropin’, Chicken Chase, Pig Chase, Boot Race. Bring your friends and family for the Flagler County Cattlemen’s Association Cracker Day. It’s a Rain or Shine Event.
Annual Spoonbills & Sprockets Cycling Tour: One of the nation’s most iconic roadways, Spoonbills & Sprockets returns for the 11th year in 2023, on April 1. Heading into the new decade of this ride, it’s revitalized and ready to be your most memorable experience as you cycle 15, 37, 62 or 100 miles along the A1A Scenic Byway. Why A1A? No other stretch of highway reaches deeper into America’s history than the A1A Scenic & Historical Coastal Byway. Register here. This iconic 72-mile stretch of A1A along the coastline of St. Johns and Flagler counties is filled with recreation, adventure, nature and scenic beauty. Florida’s Historic Coast has been part of American history for 500 years, and we’re excited to share a look at one of the nation’s greatest destinations with you. The Friends of A1A is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection, preservation, promotion and enhancement of the A1A All-American Road. Based on core values of transportation and safety, responsible, managed development, beautification of the scenic highway and surrounding communities, education and community outreach, and economic development and tourism, we strive to make our communities better, safer and more beautiful for residents and visitors to the A1A Scenic Byway.
The Saturday Flagler Beach Farmers Market is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. today at Wickline Park, 315 South 7th Street, featuring prepared food, fruit, vegetables , handmade products and local arts from more than 30 local merchants. The market is hosted by Flagler Strong, a non-profit.
Grace Community Food Pantry, 245 Education Way, Bunnell, drive-thru open today from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The food pantry is organized by Pastor Charles Silano and Grace Community Food Pantry, a Disaster Relief Agency in Flagler County. Feeding Northeast Florida helps local children and families, seniors and active and retired military members who struggle to put food on the table. Working with local grocery stores, manufacturers, and farms we rescue high-quality food that would normally be wasted and transform it into meals for those in need. The Flagler County School District provides space for much of the food pantry storage and operations. Call 386-586-2653 to help, volunteer or donate.
Peps Art Walk, noon to 5 p.m. next to JT’s Seafood Shack, 5224 Oceanshore Blvd, Palm Coast. Step into the magical vibes of Unique Handcrafted vendors gathering in one location, selling handmade goods. Makers, crafters, artists, of all kinds found here. From honey to baked goods, wooden surfboards, to painted surfboards, silverware jewelry to clothing, birdbaths to inked glass, beachy furniture to foot fashions, candles to soaps, air fresheners to home decor and SO much more! Peps Art Walk happens on the last Saturday of every month. A grassroots market that began in May of 2022 has grown steadily into an event with over 30 vendors and many loyal patrons. The event is free, food and drink on site, parking is free, and a raffle is held to raise money for local charity Whispering Meadows Ranch. Kid friendly, dog friendly, great music and good vibes. Come out to support our hometown artist community!
‘Bonnie and Clyde, the Musical,’ at Daytona Playhouse: March 29, 30, April 4, 5, 6, 12, 13 at 7:30pm, March 31, April 7, 14 at 2:00pm. Tickets: $25, $24 and $15 depending on age. Book here. When Bonnie and Clyde meet, their craving for excitement and fame send them chasing their dreams. Forced to stay on the run, the lovers resort to robbery and murder to survive. As the infamous duo’s fame grows bigger, the end draws nearer in this exciting musical.
In medias res: It’s become automatic. Or really it’s always been so in a country bred for paranoia in its politics, as Richard Hoftsadter taught us. Crack? The CIA did it. Covid? The Chinese did it. Biden? The deep state, the illegal votes, the Arawaks did it. Bridge collapse? The migrants at the border did it. NPR reported: “Andrew Tate, an online influencer with 9 million followers on X who has been indicted on human trafficking and rape charges in Romania, claimed without evidence that that the ship had been “cyber-attacked” in a post viewed 13.4 million times. […] Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has been ordered to pay $1.5 billion to the families of victims of the Sandy Hook elementary school mass shooting, which Jones has falsely claimed was a “false flag,” amplified Tate’s baseless suggestion to his own 2.2 million X followers, saying “A cyber-attack is probable. WW3 has already started.” […] Other online accounts, many also carrying subscription checks on X, suggested the disaster was linked to their own pet hot-button issues, from the war in Gaza to a vaccine-related “medical emergency” to corporate diversity policies.” We can only be surprised that Agenda 21, the United Nations, something French and anything Muslim or gay isn’t connected to the disaster yet, though it was heartening to learn how quickly emergency responders shut down traffic on the bridge. But “that octopus of paranoia,” in Philip Roth’s phrase (in Operation Shylock) is all a tradition as old as Cotton Mather. “[T]he Islamist’s paranoia extends to a kind of thwarted narcissism,” Martin Amis wrote in the aftermath of 9/11. The observation was too limiting, though he’s written enough for us to know that he wasn’t absolving the West.
—P.T.
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Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
For the full calendar, go here.
A final characteristic of the paranoid style is related to the quality of its pedantry. One of the impressive things about paranoid literature is the contrast between its fantasied conclusions and the almost touching concern with factuality it invariably shows. It produces heroic strivings for evidence to prove that the unbelievable is the only thing that can be believed. Of course, there are highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow paranoids, as there are likely to be in any political tendency. But respectable paranoid literature not only starts from certain moral commitments that can indeed be justified but also carefully and all but obsessively accumulates “evidence.” The difference between this “evidence” and that commonly employed by others is that it seems less a means of entering into normal political controversy than a means of warding off the profane intrusion of the secular political world. The paranoid seems to have little expectation of actually convincing a hostile world, but he can accumulate evidence in order to protect his cherished convictions from it.
–From Richard Hofstadter’s The Paranoid Style in American Politics,in an excerpt from its original version as a Harper’s essay in November 1964.
Ray W. says
Or, as Wittgenstein wrote, one of the most difficult things in life is to not fool oneself.
One of my most commonly employed writing styles is to simply write whatever thoughts tumble from my mind, in a form of free association. I then start looking up what I wrote, step by step. I often find that ideas, concepts, beliefs, etc., are factually incorrect, intellectually wrong, emotionally charged. If I can incorporate the corrections from what I learn into the body of the comment, I keep going. If I can’t, I delete the possible comment. I am not immune from conspiratorial thinking, yet I try to avoid posting videos of a bound and gagged president in the bed of a vehicle during political campaign season.
I await the denunciation by a certain unprincipled and “pestilential” FlaglerLive commenter of those in his partisan party of choice who engage in murderous rhetoric. All of us should oppose and reject those who promise to slit throats if elected to the presidency, to crush vermin, to advocate for the beheading of Democrats. As I recently commented, a so-called conservative candidate for statewide school board leadership in North Carolina posted a number of comments on social media calling for the assassination of former President Obama and President Biden. A candidate for school board leadership?
Laurel says
And this is how we “Make America Great Again.” Hate half of your fellow American citizen. Divide and conquer.