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Weather: Partly sunny. Highs in the upper 70s. East winds 5 to 10 mph. Monday Night: Mostly cloudy. Lows in the lower 60s. Southeast winds 5 to 10 mph. See the daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
Today at a Glance:
In Court: The trial of Marcus Avery Chamblin is scheduled to begin this morning with jury selection at 9 a.m. in Circuit Judge Terence Perkins’s courtroom, Room 401 at the Flagler County courthouse. Chamblin, 29, is one of two co-defendants facing first degree murder and attempted second degree murder charges in the 2019 shooting death of of Deon O’Neil Jenkins and the wounding of another man, S.T., as they sat in a car at the Circle K on Palm Coast Parkway early the morning of Oct. 12, 2019. Chamblin’s co-defendant, Derrius Bauer, is to be tried in September. See:
- Marcus Chamblin’s Defense Loses Almost All Key Motions It Sought Ahead of Circle K Murder Trial
- Circle K Murder Trial of Marcus Chamblin Is Set for April 8, With Co-Conspirator’s Trial Soon to Follow
- 2 Arrested in ‘Targeted’ Circle K Murder in 2019 Following Extensive Investigation of 15 Months
- Search Warrant in Palm Coast’s B-Section Suggests Target In Sight in Circle K Murder Investigation
- 2 People Shot in a Car on Palm Coast Parkway, 1 Killed, 1 Wounded, Assailant at Large
2024 Total Solar Eclipse: Palm Coast, Flagler Beach and Bunnell will see a partial eclipse for 2 hours 31 minutes. 61 percent of the sun will be obscured by the moon at the peak. The eclipse in Palm Coast will start at 1:47 p.m., a minute later in Flagler Beach, peak at 3:04 pm., and end at 4:19 p.m. It’ll end a minute earlier in Bunnell. See where and how much of the sun will be eclipsed by zip code here and here. See: “Eclipse Will Peak at 61% of Sun Cover Around 3 PM In Palm Coast, Flagler Beach and Bunnell.”
The Flagler County Library Board of Trustees meets at 4:30 p.m. at the Flagler County Public Library, 2500 Palm Coast Pkwy NW, Palm Coast. The meeting of the seven-member board is open to the public.
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.
The Bunnell City Commission meets at 7 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell, where the City Commission is holding its meetings until it is able to occupy its own City Hall on Commerce Parkway likely in early 2023. To access meeting agendas, materials and minutes, go 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: Remember that? Just about four years ago. The manacled parasols of Golden Lion’s deserted deck in Flagler Beach. I think Cheryl and I were taking a drive during the lockdown, just to get some air and some sights, and saw that sad sight, like a yellow and blue Giacometti, a neutron-bombed “Piazza,” its colors leering with irony, a sky limpid with virus, though we didn’t know then what we know now: outdoors, we would have been fine (if not quite as fine in the crowded spaces of a restaurant, however bedecked.) I imagine that Covid having been the first pandemic in the age of cell phones, there must be two or three billion pictures like this, there must be, or there will be, coffee table books entirely illustrated by the calamity, though who would want that on their coffee table? Maybe conspiracy ideologues who like to page through what they still think was a hoax, and either laugh or feel juiced up for their weekend with the militia klan in Idaho. I see books like Inside the Curve: Stories from the Pandemic, by the photographer Claudi Carreras, published by, of all neo-colonial outfits, National Geographic two years ago. There’s also Silent Cities: Portraits of a Pandemic: 15 Cities Across the World, by Jeffrey and Julie Loria. The Amazon page gives a few illustrations from that one (as National Geographic, ever the stingy imperium, does not). The empty London metro. An empty beach in Brazil. Empty San Marco Square, which to me looks a bit tricked: where the hell are the pigeons? And an empty Lincoln Memorial but for the shadow of Richard Nixon, still in agony.
—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.
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Scenic A1A Pride Meeting
Blue 24 Forum
Acoustic Jam Circle At The Community Center In The Hammock
Flagler County’s Cold-Weather Shelter Opens
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
It’s Back! Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
For the full calendar, go here.
When he enters the territory of which Eutropia is the capital, the traveler sees not one city but many, of equal size and not unlike one another, scattered over a vast, rolling plateau. Eutropia is not one, but all these cities together; only one is inhabited at a time, the others are empty; and this process is carried out in rotation. Now I shall tell you how. On the day when Eutropia’s inhabitants feel the grip of weariness and no one can bear any longer his job, his relatives, his house and his life, debts, the people he must greet or who greet him, then the whole citizenry decides to move to the next city, which is there waiting for them, empty and good as new; there each will take up a new job, a different wife, will see another landscape on opening his window, and will spend his time with different pastimes, friends, gossip. So their life is renewed from move to move, among cities whose exposure or declivity or streams or winds make each site somehow different from the others. Since their society is ordered without great distinctions of wealth or authority, the passage from one function to another takes place almost without jolts; variety is guaranteed by the multiple assignments, so that in the span of a lifetime a man rarely returns to a job that has already been his.
–From Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities (1972).
Ray W. says
Re, “Invisible Cities.”
Such is the life of a reporter on the city government beat. Each story is the same, yet each story is completely new.
Ray W. says
To carry further the theme of repetitive newness, I expect gasoline prices to rise even further in coming weeks.
Mexico has six fully operational oil refineries, with a combined processing capacity of roughly 1.35 mbpd (million barrels of crude oil per day). A seventh refinery is coming online, with a processing capacity of up to 340k bpd.
Mexico’s crude oil production capacity has been steadily dropping. In 2008, Mexico produced an average of 3.165 mbpd. In 2022, it extracted, on average, 1.944 mbpd.
The Mexican government announced recently that its total refining capacity should be 1.7 mbpd by the end of 2024. That means almost all of Mexican crude oil extracted can go to its domestic refineries.
Mexico’s oil ministry announced in March that it was cutting exports of crude oil by 436 kbpd; it canceled existing contracts for the export of Maya crude by 122 kbpd, Isthmus crude by 247 kbpd, and Olmaca crude by 67 kbpd. Much of those types of oil were being exported to U.S. refineries. Industry journals are reporting that in the recent years Mexico had favored exporting crude oil for the economic benefits of incoming foreign currency, but that Mexico is now going to focus on domestic gasoline inventories for advantageous lower gasoline pricing for Mexican citizens. The next presidential election in Mexico occurs on June 2, 2024. Is it possible that political gain is driving Mexico’s export position?
American oil refiners will have to import crude oil from other sources located further away to meet demand and make up the difference for the lost Mexican oil. While American energy companies are extracting a record 13.2 mbpd on average, that is not enough to meet our current demand for just under 20 million barrels worth of crude oil products per day.
The next closest crude oil exporter is Venezuela. The U.S. is not on good diplomatic terms with that government. And, Maduro’s government is claiming neighboring lands to the east of Venezuela’s borders, lands that are rich in oil reserves, yet relatively unexploited. The U.S. is opposing the threatened land grab. But the way of the world today trends towards authoritarianism and the concurring issue of the settling of border disputes by force. One of our own political parties is abandoning the Ukraine to aggression and Maduro is watching and listening.
Our next closest large crude oil supplier is Nigeria.
Middle Eastern oil tankers can no longer safely traverse the Suez Canal, so shipping costs for that type of oil have increased, as tankers are routed around the South African Cape. Panama Canal tanker traffic is constricted by lack of water from extreme long-term drought.
Russia crude oil exports are dropping because tanker owners can no longer reliably obtain insurance coverage, due to U.S. and EU sanctions.
International crude oil prices are rising for many different reasons.
When OPEC+ initially voluntarily cut crude oil production by a total of seven million barrels per day in February 2021, when Russia invaded the Ukraine and the West initially imposed sanctions on Russian oil exports, American gasoline prices shot up to over $4 per barrel. The current administration pumped crude oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, selling it on the open market for an average of $95 per barrel, in an effort to reduce gasoline prices. When prices dropped below $80 per barrel, we began restocking the SPR. Yes, we are profiting about $16 per barrel from the transaction. The current administration has a price point of no more than $79 per barrel to buy oil to restock the SPR. We have stopped restocking our SPR because prices are above that threshold. As an aside, we can pump no more than 3 million barrels per month back into the SPR, so it will take some time to stock it back to pre-OPEC+ levels, even if prices drop below $79 per barrel.
One day, every FlaglerLive reader will internalize that fact that crude oil is an international commodity. When Houthis fire missiles on tanker traffic, prices rise. When Russia attacks the Ukraine, prices rise. When OPEC+ voluntarily cuts production, prices rise. When Mexico decides to focus on its domestic gasoline supplies, to the detriment of export contracts, prices rise. When an oil refinery explodes due to malfunction, prices rise. When extreme heat dominates Texas weather for a month, reducing refinery efficiency, prices rise. When refineries shift production to summer gasoline blends, prices rise. This is capitalism. The fact that foreign governments and domestic energy producers are willing to manipulate capitalism for national and personal gain affects us all.
When prices rise enough over a long enough time, American energy extractors hire drillers to horizontally drill new shafts in old wells in the Permian Basin, but only so long as prices are high. If prices drop too low, drilling slows down. Capitalism at work. The gullible among us think that one candidate or another can control drilling. They can’t. The marketplace controls drilling.
American energy companies have become accustomed to large profits reaped from high crude oil prices. OPEC+ has taught them that so long as they limit their own drilling, OPEC+ will voluntarily restrict production to artificially maintain the higher prices. We could be producing so much more oil. We have the extra drilling rigs. During the Obama drilling boom, over 2000 rigs were in operation at one time. During the Trump and Biden years, the number was and is seldom above 800.
If American energy companies drill too much, prices might drop, and profits might plummet. The number of U.S. drilling rigs in operation right now is 621, down from 624 last week. It was 748 a year ago. I ask the many gullible FlaglerLive commenters to tell us all that American energy companies are doing their best to lower gasoline prices. Just over 2000 drilling rigs in operation at the peak of the Obama drilling revolution and 621 today? It was very seldom above 800 during the Trump years and it barely hit that two years ago during the Biden administration.
Only a fool claims that gasoline prices are dependent on presidential policies. Yet, the gullible among us might soon climb every tall building in Flagler County to shout from the rooftops that it is the administration’s fault that gasoline prices are rising.
Ray W. says
Mexico’s current combined refining capacity is 1.35 mbpd, not 1.35 kbpd. Poor proofreading. My apologies.
Pogo says
@Elsewhere, for the record
As stated
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-04-08/ty-article/guernica-editor-who-published-israeli-writers-coexistence-essay-resigns/0000018e-bce5-df26-a99e-fcff51e00000?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=Content&utm_campaign=daily-brief&utm_content=757a2c21a6
Re, “Invisible Cities.”
Often, during years of being a security-keeper (and peacekeeper) in places of confinement, the explanation for minor to terrible violence, frequently, was someone’s boredom — but I doubt boredom and/or tedium (Mr. Robert’s poignant last letter a remarkable exception) ever appeared in a report; or on a grave.
Are we not entertained?
ASF says
Israel bashing seems to be becoming a regular feature of Flaglerlive.
Pierre Tristam says
Unfortunately, “bashing” is not enough: the criticism in these pages is too understated. Either way, the “bashing” will continue as long as Netanyahu’s Israel continues to be the mass-murdering, genocidal, atrocity-lusting nation it has been in Gaza for the past six months. What are we up to, 32,000? Well past the death toll in Dresden. Can we have a Tokyo? Curtis LeMay must be orgasming in his grave, wishing he was an adviser to Israelis.
Dennis C Rathsam says
Your forgeting all the raping, & killing & the captive people held by Hamas. Isreal didnt ask for this war Hamas did….They should have been more carefull for what they asked for! Washington didnt stop until the Brittish serendered, WW1 didnt stop, ww2 didnt stop until they got the job done! The enemy serendered! Whats different here Pierre, Germans, Italians, French, Brittish & Americans were killed in World Wars, along with countless other nationality,s. War sucks, we all agree. But dont piss on my leg, & tell me its raining!
Ray W. says
As usual, Dennis C. Rathsam can’t comprehend the obvious. Each indigenous Palestinian tribe, Jewish or Muslim, contains within it an ultra-right-wing extremist element that is politically strong and willing to viciously and vengefully slaughter in the name of extremist religious beliefs. Dennis C. Rathsam arbitrarily chooses one and says FlaglerLive commenters who do not accept his limited view are wrong. Until he accepts the fact that both sides are in the business of vengeful murder, Dennis C. Rathsam will always be right and wrong at the same time, at least on this issue.
Back to the basics:
Winston Churchill, in his first volume of his history of WWII, assesses his perceptions of the major difference between the first and second world wars. He asserts that, despite the carnage and bloodshed of WWI, the warring nations emerged relatively morally intact. “[T]he main fabric of European civilisation remained erect at the close of the struggle. … Vanquished and victors alike still preserved the semblance of civilised states.”
Churchill’s assessment of the moral damage of WWII? “… [E]very bond between man and man was to perish. Crimes were committed by the Germans, under the Hitlerite domination to which they allowed themselves to be subjected, which find no equal in scale and wickedness with any that have darkened the human record.”
Every bond between man and man in Palestine has perished, but the question is when did it perish? During the Nakba, 75 years ago? When IDF soldiers went from house to house in a village distant from the fighting, throwing grenades into Palestinian homes and firing anti-tank rockets into a crowded village mosque, slaughtering hundreds, before the fledgling Israeli government ordered the mass expulsion of 11,000 Palestinians into Jordan, never to be allowed to return to their homes? The IDF commander, when later interviewed by a Jewish historian, stated he did what he did because he felt Israel needed to be purged of Palestinians! During the untold numbers of depredations by the worst of each side ever since?
In assessing the status of the Middle East, is it the height of buffoonery for Dennis C. Rathsam to assert that anything started just six months ago, that Hamas alone asked on that date only and not before for what it is getting? Is it far more historically accurate to assert that the vengeful violence started at least two thousand years ago? Have both sides been asking for what they are getting ever since?
Don’t piss on FlaglerLive readers’ legs, Dennis C. Rathsam, and tell them it’s raining. Hitler announced to the world his vision of a Thousand-Year Reich, a vision in which all other nations would service the Aryan people. And you equate Hamas with Hitler’s WWII.
ASF says
UPDATE: On Monday, April 8, 2024, Hamas rejected the latest in a series of ceasefire/hostage release proposals made to them, under the direction of Antony Blinken and other Arab parties like Qatar and–in this latest–Egypt.
Any acknowledgement of that?
Pierre Tristam says
You don;t have to convince me of Hamas’s evil. What you refuse to see is that Israel is no better.
ASF says
Your drawing such a flase equivalencies between Israel and Haams is very telling.
Israel is letting aid convoys in through their borders and giving the Palestinians prior warnings of its military movements despite that posing a risk to Israeli citizens and soldiers.
Hamas is using its own people as Human Shields, stealing the aid coming into the Gaza Strip and only consenting to SELL some of it to Palestinian citizens (hence, the starving) while refusing to account for the life or death status of the hostages they took on October 7th–all while rejecting all ceasefire options laid at their feet thus far.
There is no equivalence.
Ray W. says
I am opposed to you, ASF. I am opposed to murderous Israeli religious extremist settlers. I am not opposed to Israel, which has every right to defend itself up to point of crossing into barbarism.
Let’s be clear. For the last six months, you have attempted to present yourself as a voice of reason, a person who thinks that there can ever be anything good coming from the slaughter committed in response to slaughter. In a good/better/best, bad/worse/worst world, the only intellectually accurate way to describe the continuing horror coming out of the region since October 7, 2023, is to conclude that one side can be less bad than the other, nothing more. It can never qualify as a good thing to slaughter either Israelis or Gazans. You keep attempting to pass yourself off as a good person when you state that the Palestinian people deserve what is happening to them. You are not good when you type such things. The word good is denied to all who attempt to portray anything that is happening in that forsaken region as deserving. The only words that can apply are bad, worse and worst. I could see you arguing that Hamas is worse than the IDF, but only if you also argue that the IDF is still pretty bad. At least you would be more accurately portraying the situation. Millions are people are starving, yet you still argue that Israel is right.
Learn how to think. Become a less bad person.
ASF says
How many of those “murderous Israeli settlers” do you think are attacked by murderous Palestinians every single day?
It amazes me how hard some people work to justify Palestinian terrorism and the Palestinians’ own apartheid and genocidal agendas while laboring equaling as hard to demonize the Israelis for everything they to do to defend themselves…and the one majority Jewish nation in existence. That, in itself, speaks volumes.
By the way, all Arab polls taken in the region indicate that a majority of Palestinians would not only vote for Hamas as their chosen leaders if elections were held but that they also approve of what Hamas did on October 7th.. That. also, speaks volumes about a politically incorrect truth that the same people mentioned above seem to go out of their way ignore.
Note that the people of Israel are not thronging the streets in celebration of dead Palestinians although the reverse is all too often true–including on October 7th..
What’s really quite sad is how some people are graciously willing give dead Jews their due but not so much Jews who dare to do what it takes to survive.
Sherry says
Thank you so much, Ray W.! Why is it that people like Dennis and ASF refuse to acknowledge that, like most things in life, the honest truth can be found in the “middle”?
Simply because Netanyahu (for years) financially propped up Hamas with millions of dollars. . . until they became emboldened enough to carry out their absolutely horrific attack. . . does not mean Israel is righteous in their even more horrific revenge against the innocent children and women of Palestine. Hamas is clearly a terrorist organization that has taken over the Gaza strip. Hamas wants Israel gone! Israel wants the Palestinian people gone. There is NO completely “innocent” side here!
Unless and until Israel steps up and does all in its power to stop killing/protect/feed/shelter/cloth innocent Palestinians, they are now committing genocide. . .”full stop”!