The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Thursday, April 18, 2024

clay jones — From Clay Jones: “If Iran’s intention was to cause serious damage to Israel, then we have nothing to fear from them. If they were trying to hit valuable targets [April 13], then they really suck at warfare. But the thing is, they probably weren’t trying to hit anything of value, including lives. Sure, Israel with the support of the United States is very good at defending themselves, but are they so good that they can prevent over 300 Iranian missiles and drones from doing any damage? Maybe? Israel claims 99 percent of the drones and missiles were intercepted. I believe Iran wanted to make a statement without going to war. Recently, Iranian proxies were hitting U.S. targets in the Middle East without taking any lives. After one of their attacks killed three American servicemembers, the attacks stopped. April 13’s attacks started with drones, thought to be slow-moving Shahed-136 models, which took hours to travel from Iran to Israel. This was either to confuse radar systems or to telegraph the attack and give Israel and the US time to shoot them down. There was also a barrage of ballistic and cruise missiles that coincided when the drones were hitting, but none hit their targets. It’s believed that Iran wanted to attack Israel in a way to inflict little damage while making a huge spectacle. It seems they succeeded.”

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Weather: Mostly sunny. Highs in the upper 80s. South winds 5 to 10 mph. Thursday Night: Partly cloudy. Lows in the lower 60s. See the daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.

Today at a Glance:

Drug Court convenes before Circuit Judge Terence Perkins at 10 a.m. in Courtroom 401 at the Flagler County courthouse, Kim C. Hammond Justice Center 1769 E Moody Blvd, Bldg 1, Bunnell. Drug Court is open to the public. See the Drug Court handbook here and the participation agreement here.

The Florida Inland Navigation District holds a public outreach meeting, ahead of its board meeting Friday in Bunnell, at 6 p.m. at the Palm Coast Community Center, 305 Palm Coast Parkway NE. (Friday’s meeting will be held at the Hilton Garden Inn Palm Coast, 55 Town Center Blvd.) On Thursday evening, the outreach provides an opportunity for the commissioners and staff to meet and discuss waterway-related issues with local public officials, community leaders and the public. The event is free and open to all members of the public.

Story Time for Preschoolers at Flagler Beach Public Library, 11 to 11:30 a.m. at the library, 315 South Seventh Street, Flagler Beach. It’s where the wild things are: Hop on for stories and songs with Miss Doris.

Notably: Before Atticus Finch there was Clarence Darrow, the criminal defense lawyer every boy (back when girls were told they couldn’t be lawyers) wanted to grow up to be, assuming the boy wanted to be a lawyer, assuming the boy wasn’t growing up in a Republican household, assuming the boy’s parents didn’t consider the working class scum or cheer at every report of skull-cracking at labor strikes, assuming they weren’t fans of the death penalty. Today is Darrow’s birthday anniversary (1857 ). “Defender in a hundred or more murder trials,” his New York Times obituary would read 80 years later, “no client of his had ever died on the gallows or electric chair. He had built up a reputation for himself as a friend of labor and of the downtrodden. His oratory and his philosophy made him known to millions. A kindly, homely personage who dressed in the certainty that clothes do not make the man, he went through life declaring himself an agnostic. But three years ago he declared he no longer had any doubts. He proclaimed himself a materialist whom it had taken fifty years to find out that there is nothing after death.”

—P.T.

Now this:

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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.

December 2024

Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center

Wednesday, Dec 25

6:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center

Central Park in Town Center

Thursday, Dec 26

6:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center

Central Park in Town Center

No event found!

For the full calendar, go here.

The Sergeant’s eyes, on the other hand, flamed like wildfire. He angrily demanded an accounting of what had happened in the third of a century since he had laid down his arms. Promises had been made to him; he had expected a nobler America and, for himself, a more purposeful career than the pursuit of lost causes: Adlai Stevenson, John Kennedy, Bob Kennedy, Martin Luther King — all of them irretrievably, irredeemably, irrevocably gone. So the Sergeant felt betrayed. He hadn’t anticipated that his country would be transformed into what it has become, nor his generation into docile old men who greedily follow the Dow-Jones average and carry their wives’ pocketbooks around Europe. As in most dreams, his wrath was implied, not said, but the old man’s protestations were spoken. Indeed, that is how each nightmare ended, with me talking myself awake. Then I would lie in darkness, trembling beneath the sheet, wondering who was right, the uncompromising Sergeant or the compromiser he had become. Here was the ultimate generation gap: a man divided against his own youth. Troubled, I saw no way to heal the split. Kilroy had returned, and this was his revenge. It was ironic. For years I had been trying to write about the war, always in vain. It lay too deep; I couldn’t reach it. But I had known it must be there. A man is all the people he has been. Some recollections never die. They lie in one’s subconscious, squirreled away, biding their time.

–From William Manchester’s Goodbye, Darkness. (1980)

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