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Weather: Sunny. A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs in the lower 90s. South winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent. Tuesday Night: Mostly clear. A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms in the evening. Lows in the upper 60s. Chance of rain 20 percent. See the daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
Today at a Glance:
The Flagler County School Board meets at 3 p.m. in workshop to go over the items on its upcoming school board meeting two weeks hence. The board meets in the training room on the third floor of the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. Board meeting documents are available here.
The Palm Coast City Council meets at 6 p.m. at City Hall. For agendas, minutes, and audio access to the meetings, go here. For meeting agendas, audio and video, go here. Another Citizenship Academy class graduates. The council approves a state grand enabling the city to design the four-laning of Old Kings Road south of Palm Coast Parkway. See the full agenda here.
The Bunnell Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board meets at 6 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. The board consists of Carl Lilavois, Chair; Manuel Madaleno, Nealon Joseph, Gary Masten and Lyn Lafferty.
The Flagler Beach Library Writers’ Club meets at 5 p.m. at the library, 315 South Seventh Street, Flagler Beach.
Flagler Beach’s Planning and Architectural Review Board meets at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall, 105 S 2nd Street. For agendas and minutes, go here.
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy, 8 p.m. at Cinematique Theater, 242 South Beach Street, Daytona Beach. General admission is $8.50. Every Tuesday and on the first Saturday of every month the Random Acts of Insanity Comedy Improv Troupe specializes in performing fast-paced improvised comedy.
 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: Watching Bill Maher’s New Rule segment–“Quiet on Set”–from mid-April, the one about the abuse of child actors morphing into the supposed hypocrisy of criticizing Ron DeSantis for Ron DeSantis’s criticism of Disney supposedly sexualizing children and as long as we’re at it, what about drag queen story hour, I got the impression Maher was taking a kitchen-sink approach to a series of subjects that repeats the rankest old prejudices: it’s one thing to point out the child-screwing at Nickelodeon and the rehiring of a molester by Disney. No one would ever doubt that child-entertainment factories, though probably not nearly as much as churches, have their predators. But to then immediately go to drag queen story hour puts the two on the same plane of aberration, which they most definitely are not. The whole idea of drag queens is to normalize something that, to my way of thinking, is as unremarkable as different color hair or eyes, but for the alleged sexual element that only the phobes–the dragophobes, the honomphones, the sexophobes, basically all the Savonaralas of the world–obsess about. The connection Maher made between predatory studios and the “hypocritical” of DeSantis was dishonest enough: DeSantis did not go after Disney’s predators. He went after Disney as a business. He may have had a pont doing even that much. But that’s not what Maher was referring to. He stretched his claim for a laugh and a little shock value in defense of DeSantis. Worse: Maher’s segue from child predators to drag queens is the very same bigotry of equating, say, gay teachers with pedophiles. You’d think we were over that by now. Not Maher. He wants his laughs. He went on: “Maybe it’s time to admit that sometimes, drag queen story hour is more for the queen than the kids.” Says who? “Sure, kids love a clown, but does the clown have to have tits?” Not only is the joke vulgar. Not only is it drag panic. But it happens to be its very own kind of piggish sexism. Why the hell should a clown not have “tits”? But that was the bend of the whole segment: set ups for laughs soldered by a little convention-busting shock. It was shallow. It was bigoted. It was poorly informed. And unlike Jon Stewart or John Oliver, there was zero informational value. Maher reverses what Oliver and Stewart do. For the latter two, the laughs are incidental, or at least the lubricant byproduct of their riffs and outrage. For Maher, the punch line comes first. Everything else is contrived to that end, whether it stuffs a circle peg into a square or not. In “Quiet on Set,” it was all squares and round pegs.
—P.T.
Now this: Video: Bill Maher’s Quiet on Set
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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.
Once he became Pope Alexander VI, Vatican parties, already wild, grew wilder. They were costly, but he could afford the lifestyle of a Renaissance prince; as vice chancellor of the Roman Church, he had amassed enormous wealth. As guests approached the papal palace, they were excited by the spectacle of living statues: naked, gilded young men and women in erotic poses. Flags bore the Borgia arms, which, appropriately, portrayed a red bull rampant on a field of gold. Every fete had a theme. One, known to Romans as the Ballet of the Chestnuts, was held on October 30, 1501. The indefatigable Burchard describes it in his Diarium. After the banquet dishes had been cleared away, the city’s fifty most beautiful whores danced with guests, “first clothed, then naked.” The dancing over, the “ballet” began, with the pope and two of his children in the best seats.”
–From William Manchester’s A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an Age (1992)..
Ray W. says
When Jerome Powell speaks as Chairman of the politically independent Fed, he projects the voice of a rotating team of Fed economists mainly selected from the various regional Fed boards. This year, Thomas Barkin, President of the Richmond Fed, serves on that team.
Yesterday, President Barkin commented on inflation while visiting Columbia, South Carolina, per a Reuters correspondent.
“‘I still have the weight going toward inflation … It’s a stubborn road back … It doesn’t mean you won’t get it back. It just means it takes a while … to corral price setters into believing they don’t really have a chance’ for aggressive increases.”
To me, just who are the “price setters” he references? Are they other members of the Fed panel that seeks internal consensus on Fed inflation policy? Are they influential corporate boards that set aggressive pricing policies that some decry as “price gouging”? If the latter, is Publix one of the “price setters” that Barkin sees as aggressive?
The reporter wrote that Barkin still sees a strong American economy, but the economy needs a slowdown to throttle inflation, though not that rapid of a slowdown.
“‘If the economy does cool, it doesn’t need to be as painful’ as the sharp slowdown seen from 2007 to 2009, for example, [Barkin] said.”
To me, the dozen or so lending rate increases implemented by the Fed to tame inflation are intended to cool an overheating economy triggered by the massive infusion of unfunded stimulus money injected into the national economy by both administrations in response to the pandemic.
The national economy seesawed after the pandemic’s onset. First it rapidly cooled. Economists warned of job losses leading to recession and possibly depression. Congress panicked and coughed up nearly $6 trillion in unfunded stimulus funds. Economists almost universally shifted to predictions of inflation followed by job losses and recession. Then the national economy rapidly overheated. Inflation appeared and accelerated. Economists repeated their recessionary predictions. At one time, nearly 100% of economists saw recession as unavoidable.
The “pestilential” partisan members of faction who comprise a significant part of the FlaglerLive commenting community began interpreting the situation as “Bidenflation”, which was not entirely wrong. Thae situation was and is better and more accurately described as “Trudenflation” because both administrations bore, and bear, nearly equal responsibility for the inflation, though the best explanation is “pandemic inflation.” The Fed, arguably belatedly, repeatedly raised lending rates, intending to cool the overheated national economy.
After a long and winding road, here we are. Inflation is down, year over year, which is the favored Fed evaluative tool. Job growth remains strong. The unemployment rate remains low. The main statistical tool that is significantly imbalanced is the posted job openings figure.
The Fed now assesses the statistical likelihood of onset of recession through the end of 2025 as 30%, down from nearly 100%.
Optimistically, President Barkin cited a number of positives on the labor front, including last year’s rise in immigration.
It appears to me that President Barkin shares my repeated comments on the importance of more immigration to the health of our national economy.
Ed P says
Would it also be a valid observation if we mentioned the almost 11 million “reported”boarder encounters since Covid. Reported because the real number is elusive and we will never know if it’s much greater.
The astronomical amount of funding spent to initially feed, house, disperse, and care for these people is staggering. Think about it, more people than the entire state of Michigan, our 10th most populated state.
Then add the rapid long term ballooning of supply and demand for basic services such as housing and food. Inflationary?
Little if any mention or discussion of the economic sea change of this magnitude. It’s real and yet it is politically incorrect to factor it in?
Laurel says
Hubby and I shopped at both Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s today. Whole Foods used to be nicknamed “Whole Paycheck.” Now it is owned by Amazon, and isn’t quite as whole as it used to be, but still very good on that front. Guess what? We found ourselves buying more there today as many of the items we like were actually cheaper than Publix. Organic strawberries cheaper. Organic cabbage cheaper (!). Organic apples cheaper (and a lot tastier!). Organic peppers much cheaper. The vegetables are gorgeous! Many 365 brands cheaper than name brands. The rest of the stuff is simply favorites that cannot be found in other stores. Publix has too much junk food. Nearly a whole isle is devoted to Keebler crap.
Trader Joe’s has specific items we like, like their cereal, which is healthier and cheaper than Publix. We get some frozen foods, but the labels must still be read. They had a kick ass frozen pizza that is as good as any $20 pizza at a restaurant.
So, my belief is that the food inflation was started by Covid, and continued by corporations.
Laurel says
Absolutely this is a fear! I said this years ago: The white male has been the apex here from the get-go. Now, he feels it slipping away, and Trump, with far right support, is all over it, pushing the narrative on the MAGAs. What the MAGAs don’t understand, even the young ones, is that diversity has been slowly accepted over the years, and the young accepting people do not want to go backwards (neither do a lot of us old folks).