![Supreme Corruption by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com](https://i0.wp.com/flaglerlive.com/wp-content/uploads/supremes.jpg?resize=1000%2C955&ssl=1)
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Weather: A chance of showers, then showers and thunderstorms likely after 11am. Mostly sunny, with a high near 92. Heat index values as high as 103. Southeast wind 3 to 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. Wednesday Night: Showers and thunderstorms likely before 8pm. Partly cloudy, with a low around 76. South wind 3 to 6 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%.
- Daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
- Drought conditions here. (What is the Keetch-Byram drought index?).
- Check today’s tides in Flagler Beach here.
- tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
The Flagler County Contractor Review Board meets at 5 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. Staff liaison is Bo Snowden, Chief Building Official, who may be reached at (386) 313-4027. For agendas and details go here.
Flagler County’s Technical Review Committee Meeting at 9 a.m., first floor Conference Room, at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. The Technical Review Committee (TRC) is a quality control committee that provides technical review of project plans. Staff Liaison is Gina Lemon, 386-313-4067.
The Palm Coast Planning and Land Development Board meets at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall.
Separation Chat, Open Discussion: The Atlantic Chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State hosts an open, freewheeling discussion on the topic here in our community, around Florida and throughout the United States, noon to 1 p.m. at Pine Lakes Golf Club Clubhouse Pub & Grillroom (no purchase is necessary), 400 Pine Lakes Pkwy, Palm Coast (0.7 miles from Belle Terre Parkway). Call (386) 445-0852 for best directions. All are welcome! Everyone’s voice is important. For further information email [email protected] or call Merrill at 804-914-4460.
Bridge and Games at Flagler Woman’s Club, 1 to 4 p.m. at 1524 S Central Ave, Flagler Beach. The Flagler Woman’s Club invites you to come and play Bridge (Progressive and Non-Progressive) or other games. Please be sure to call Susanne at 386-503-1893 to reserve your spot.
The Circle of Light Course in Miracles study group meets at a private residence in Palm Coast every Wednesday at 1:20 PM. There is a $2 love donation that goes to the store for the use of their room. If you have your own book, please bring it. All students of the Course are welcome. There is also an introductory group at 1:00 PM. The group is facilitated by Aynne McAvoy, who can be reached at [email protected] for location and information.
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 9-18, at the Flagler County Public Library: Do you enjoy Chess, trying out new moves, or even like some friendly competition? Come visit the Flagler County Public Library at the Teen Spot every Wednesday from 4 to 5 p.m. for Chess Club. Everyone is welcome, for beginners who want to learn how to play all the way to advanced players. For more information contact the Youth Service department 386-446-6763 ext. 3714 or email us at [email protected]
In Coming Days: July 15: The Flagler County Commission meets in workshop at 2 p.m. followed by a special meeting at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. The commission will discuss the county's capital budget at the workshop, then set a proposed tax rate for next year. The tax rate the commission will set is only a benchmark, and the maximum tax rate it is willing to consider. It may set a lower tax rate by September, when it adopts the final rate. See the documents here, such as they are (the county continues to be stingy with back-up material it shares with the public, as opposed to what it shares with commissioners.) July 16: Identity Theft/Scams/Fraud Workshop at Flagler Woman's Club, 10 a.m. at the clubhouse, 1524 S Central Ave, Flagler Beach. The Flagler Woman’s Club invites you to join us for a workshop on Preventing Identity Theft, Scams and Fraud. Cmdr. Frank Lutz of the Flagler County Sheriff's Office will present. Please call Mary at 386-569-7813 to reserve your spot. |
Notably: The Tour de France is four days from the finish line in Paris. To many of us it makes little sense to watch these cyclists pedaling for hours in what must be unbearably un-aromatic pelotons that produce, as in cricket, only bursts of excitement here and there, and almost always at the finish line. But there’s one reason to watch that never gets old: the sights of France, never dull, always enviable, almost always provoking unbearable cravings for baguettes and Bordeaux. The penultimate stage on July 20 is Saint Emilion in the Bordeaux region. It’s an excuse to go to ABC and splurge on a Saint Emilion. If cyclists are doping, we might as well join them for one stage. “On the way to his second Tour de France victory last year,” Statista reports, “Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard was facing tough questions regarding his pace before he even arrived in Paris. How was he going so fast? How was it possible to be over seven minutes ahead of a cyclist of Tadej Pogačar’s caliber? Some reporters even explicitly asked: “Are you cheating?” Vingegaard completed the grueling 3-week, 3,401 kilometer competition at an average speed of 41.4 km/h (25.574 mph). Given cycling’s deservedly bad reputation, it is perhaps understandable that exceptional performances like that still raise suspicions. As this chart shows (above), the Tour de France has not slowed down since the doping-infested years of the early 2000s. Whether that’s due to super-fast carbon bikes, favorable routing or the use of performance-enhancing substances is a question the sport is not yet fully able to answer.
—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.
Contractor Review Board Meeting
Flagler County’s Technical Review Committee Meeting
Separation Chat: Open Discussion
Bridge and Games at Flagler Woman’s Club
The Circle of Light A Course in Miracles Study Group
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 9-18, at the Flagler County Public Library
Palm Coast Planning and Land Development Board
Flagler County Drug Court Convenes
Story Time for Preschoolers at Flagler Beach Public Library
For the full calendar, go here.
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No medievalist would agree, of course, but a twenty-first-century man who is impressed by the rapidity of the change which encompasses him and the relative immobility of medieval society ought to reflect that the art which develops from the Romanesque of Charlemagne’s Aachen to the Flamboyant of fifteenth-century France was revolutionized in five or six centuries; in a period about ten times as long, the first known art, that of Upper Palaeolithic Europe, shows, by comparison, insignificant stylistic change. Further back, the pace is even slower as the long persistence of early tool types shows. Still more fundamental changes are even less easy to comprehend. So far as we know, the last 12,000 years register nothing new in human physiology comparable to the colossal transformations of the early Pleistocene which are registered for us in a handful of fossil relics of a few of nature’s experiments, yet those took hundreds of thousands of years.
–From —JM Roberts, The History of the World (2003).
LoomeD says
Disgusting.
Ray W. says
Thank you, Mr. Tristam. Competitors in the Tour de France may be evolving, i.e., morphing, into faster and faster riders, but as JM Roberts suggested, actual human evolution may be glacial in effect.
2500 years ago, a Greek dramatist was lauded for writing of a society changing from a basis of killing as a legal right into justice-based law provided by juries. Over the centuries, people saw to it that the plays be preserved; justice was that important an idea.
Where are we today? In comment after comment on the FlaglerLive forum, people are blaming one side or the other for the political violence we saw last week, as if they know of what they speak.
My thoughts? There are plenty of bad people out there on both sides.
In a 2022 study over thousands of participants, 32.8% “considered violence to be usually or always justified to advance at least one political objective.”
That means that millions of our fellow citizens, tens of millions, really, think that violence is theirs to dispense in furtherance of any one of the many political schisms that form their thoughts. Young, old, male, female, Republican, Democrat, there are many who fantasize about killing and maiming others to get what they want. Some may think so on a daily basis.
some of the gullible among us reads that the would-be assassin is currently a registered Republican. Hence, Republicans are to blame for the attempt. Other gullible commenters read that the would-be assassin donated $15 to a left-leaning voter registration group a few years ago. Hence, Democrats are to blame for the attempt. Not that much more is known of the deceased shooter.
Pretty thin gruel, but since when does political expediency require adequate nourishment to spread disinformation?
Me? Without more than the existing thin gruel, it strikes possible that this was a crime of opportunity. The shooter, perhaps disaffected like so many millions of others, never had the chance of acting out on his rich fantasy life. Suddenly comes the news to his youthful and not fully developed mind. A presidential candidate, suddenly, is coming to his neighborhood. He has only a few days to develop and refine the singular fantasy of killing a politician of national stature. Any politician will do. He has access to an AR-15, even if he doesn’t own one. He goes out and buys 50 rounds for the assault rifle. Nothing spectacular or complex about that! He drives to the location and gains access to grounds surrounding the stage. Also, easy.
Somehow, in what has repeatedly been described as a failure to secure buildings outside a perimeter, he uses a recently purchased ladder to climb onto the roof of a building that has law enforcement personnel inside. With a clean line of sight to his target, he shoots repeatedly into a crowd, wounding a candidate and killing and wounding others.
Was it a crime against the Trump candidacy? Not enough solid information to conclude that right now, but a crime against a candidate does not automatically mean it is also a crime in support of another candidate.
.
Was it a crime in support of the Biden candidacy? Not enough information to conclude that right now.
Was it a crime of opportunity? Not enough information to conclude that right now, either, but if it was, the likelihood that it was committed to further some political advantage drops. If the shooter was willing to kill a candidate, any candidate, but only if the candidate were to come within a 20-mile radius of his home, such a factor would radically change the narrative.
If we were to lessen the focus on policy schisms driving political violence and increase the focus on those perhaps many among us who await the opportunity to commit political violence, then the emphasis should be on just how many disaffected potential shooters are really out there.
In a story about a 2022 survey mentioned above, the author also wrote:
“Some groups were much more likely than others to endorse political violence: Republican and MAGA-supporting Republicans in particular; those who endorse QAnon, the white supremacy movement, Christian nationalists and other extreme right-wing organizations and movements; and firearm owners — but only by a small margin, unless they owned firearms, had bought firearms during the COVID pandemic or regularly carried loaded firearms in public.”
If the study is accurate, it does not prove that only Republicans endorse political violence. Far from it. It does find that certain subgroups of Republicans are more susceptible to the idea that political violence might be OK for them. Consider another quote from one of the authors of the study:
“In most cases, participants who were more supportive of political violence were also more willing to commit it themselves. Here’s one example: 8.8 percent of firearm owners who regularly carried loaded firearms in public, but only 0.5 percent of owners who never carried, thought it very likely or extremely likely that, at some time in the future, they would shoot someone to advance a political objective.”
I have long argued that we are still in the early years of a movement towards an age of political violence. Some three and a half years ago, a Flagler County Republican politician took to the airwaves to ask when would it be time to start beheading Democrats?
Before that radio comment, I almost never commented on the FlaglerLive site.
Just over two weeks ago, a Republican candidate for Lt. Governor told rally attendees that “some people need killing.” In between the two instances of incitement to murder, the leader of the Project 2025 movement commented that political violence could occur if liberals opposed his proposed policies. Our governor told supporters that if he were elected president, he would slit throats upon taking office. Our wounded candidate previously promised a bloodbath if he is not elected. There are many more instances of incitement to violence by so-called conservative politicians.
I suppose that many readers already know I am a Hegelian. Hegel, just after the turn of the 19th century, wrote his famous Hypothesis-Antithesis-Synthesis Trinity. Any hypothesis introduced by one group into a society-wide conversation automatically triggers an antithetical idea. It is the clash between the two groups that leads to societal change, i.e., the Synthesis.
I don’t propose to tell anyone which of the two groups hypothesized first that political violence directed towards its opponent was desirable, but to me it is easy to understand that the other side immediately reacted and proposed its own version of political violence directed towards their opponents. Today, a third of our adult population thinks it acceptable to engage in violence against each other and we are nowhere near to achieving the final Synthesis. Leaders of one political party routinely propose acts of violence towards perceived opponents.
In my opinion, we are not yet at a crescendo of political violence; we have decades to go. Civil war peeps over the distant horizon. We are sailing toward that horizon. The once unthinkable now beckons. The most gullible among us think that civil war will benefit society. In their rich fantasy life, they think that we all can engage in a violent pivot and emerge unscathed. Perhaps they need to read more about the Spanish Civil War and its many excesses.
That the first casualty of this rising wave of political violence was the capacity of so many of the gullible among us to exercise the intellectual rigor necessary for reasoned thought is the crime that will haunt us all.