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Weather: A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly sunny, with a high near 91. Heat index values as high as 103. Southeast wind around 14 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. Tonight: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 2am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 77. Southeast wind 6 to 10 mph, with gusts as high as 15 mph.
- 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 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.
The Flagler Beach All Stars hold their monthly beach clean-up starting at 9 a.m. in front of the Flagler Beach pier. All volunteers welcome.
Coffee With Commissioner Scott Spradley: Flagler Beach Commission Chairman Scott Spradley hosts his weekly informal town hall with coffee and doughnuts at 9 a.m. at his law office at 301 South Central Avenue, Flagler Beach. All subjects, all interested residents or non-residents welcome. The special guest today: Hollie Harlan, Flagler Beach government’s finance director.
The annual Back to School Jam is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Flagler Palm Coast High School gym, 5500 State Rte 100 E, Palm Coast. Administrators from all of our schools will be on-site to answer questions. There will also be school shirts available for purchase at each school’s booth. District personnel will be on-hand to provide information on various programs and services, including after-school programs. Our Transportation department will be rolling up its booth to address bus schedules and our Food Services team will be available to answer questions about what you need to know about the free breakfast and lunch programs that are available to all students this coming school year. Additionally, dozens of local vendors will be on-hand with information about their youth-focused activities and programs. Be sure to get photos with various mascots and the always popular “Costumers With a Cause” roaming the gym. Food trucks and a bike rodeo will set up behind the gym.
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.
Sunshine and Sandals Social at Cornerstone: Every first Saturday we invite new residents out to learn everything about Flagler County at Cornerstone Center, 608 E. Moody Blvd, Bunnell, 1 to 2:30 p.m. We have a great time going over dog friendly beaches and parks, local social clubs you can be a part of as well as local favorite restaurants.
A pop-up exhibit of paintings by Kiersten Hawkins will be on display at Ormond Memorial Art Museum and Gardens (OMAM), 78 East Granada Boulevard, Ormond Beach, in the museum’s reception gallery July 29th through August 4th. Meet the artist during Ormond Art Walk, Saturday, August 3rd between 3 and 7 pm. Admission to Art Walk is free. Hawkins is a portrait artist working primarily in oils with a focus on full-body portraiture and the use of vibrant colors. She began her painting journey in 2017 out of sheer interest in the craft. She is currently a student at the University of Central Florida, where she is studying Visual Arts and Emerging Media Management. She hopes to continue improving her work and pushing herself to explore her artistic abilities. Hawkins’ paintings will be on display in the reception gallery.
LOL Jax Film Festival at WJCT Studios, 100 Festival Park Ave., Jacksonville. Doors open at 5 p.m. Today: Local comedy films, Local stand-up comedy, filmmaker Q&A and Local music by Deiv.
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. |
Notably: One of the better parts of the many great parts of the Olympics opening ceremony was that sequence that to the obsessed resembled the Last Supper, with that dish of a naked blue man, one or more drag queens and the framing fashion show. The outraged would have you believe it was blasphemy, like when Caravaggio supposedly used a prostitute–a dead prostitute to boot–as his model for the Mary said to have been virgin. “The most enormous crimes and disasters ,” Orwell once told us, “not only fail to excite the big public, but can actually escape notice altogether.” Like, say, Trump speaking about the end of elections. But this: this supposed last supper is all the outrage, like when Rudy Giuliani, while thinking of running against Hillary Clinton in 2000 (for Senate), jumped all over the Brooklyn Museum of Art for exhibiting Renee Cox’s “Yo Mama’s Last Supper,” or for that matter like when M*A*S*H, the original movie, drew flack for its last supper scene, when Painless wanted to kill himself. All wonderful tributes to the last supper, each in its own way. Was the ringing of Notre Dame’s bells for the first time since the fire also blasphemy? I looked for the scene in NBC’s replay, couldn’t find it. I may have somehow missed it, but I wouldn’t put it past NBC to have edited that out. Here’s a little outrage for you: Russia was justly banned from sending its athletes under the Russian flag, as Russian bombs fall on Ukraine. But here was the Israeli delegation under the Israeli flag, ambling down the Seine as Israeli and American bombs continue to raze what’s left of Gaza, where the toll is now verging on 40,000. Nobody’s outraged about that–not the casualties, not the razing, not the dead silence now surrounding it all from American and most of the western media.
—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
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
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.
The Royal Academy of Arts had organized the exhibition in conjunction with Saatchi, and it drew large crowds in the fall of 1997 when shown in London. Protests there mainly concentrated on a large image called Myra (1995), made up of many tiny handprints of children configured to depict the face of a notorious child-killer, Myra Hindley, one of the so-called Moor Murderers. Because that case was unknown in the United States, the picture caused no offense here. Following a visit to Berlin in 1998, the exhibition was scheduled to open at the Brooklyn Museum on October 2, 1999. Other novelties in this show included Damien Hirst’s dead sharks and also pigs suspended in glass cases filled with formaldehyde solution; Jake and Dinos Chapman’s mixed media “sculpture” of many naked girls with pig snouts and penises protruding from their faces; a version of the Last Supper by Sam Taylor-Wood with a topless woman standing in the place of Jesus [“Wrecked”]; the bust of a man made entirely from his own frozen blood; an open cow’s head on which freshly introduced maggots fed daily; and Jenny Savile’s huge female nudes with vast virtuoso surfaces. All told, there were close to one hundred works by forty-two artists. Death, sexuality, and the body were frequent motifs. Did it resemble a freak show? It came close.
–From Michael Kammen’s Visual Shock: A History of Art Controversies in American Culture (2006).
Independent Me says
The August 3rd political cartoon … is this the best you can come up with. How juvenile.
I vote for the right candidates for my family and our well being. The same values that I expect will allow my fellow citizens to prosper.
I do not mindlessly vote only for a political party at all costs. Unlike the sheep that vote for the most popular or the the seemingly nicest or because they are in a party.
Wake up and vote for candidates that are willing to follow the will of the people while insuring we take care of the weak.
Laurel says
I love the “nuts” part of the cartoon. Just juvenile ole me.
Laurel says
“Pizza pizza!” Good one!😆
Ray W. says
Last year, worldwide EV sales, including hybrid EV vehicles, rose to 14,200k light trucks and cars.
For context, in 2019, U.S. total light vehicle sales were 16,961k. In 2020’s pandemic year, total U.S. sales dropped to 14,479k. Last year, 15,503k light vehicles were sold.
Is it reasonable to argue that EV sales of all types of light vehicles are now approaching the sum of the U.S. total for all sales?
Nissan is the leader of the Japanese EV market; it recorded 117,785 EV sales in 2023, up 29% over the previous year (Nissan did not sell hybrid vehicles in Japan last year). Total Japanese sales in 2023 for all types of electric light duty vehicles was 493,535 vehicles. Nissan’s most popular seller (not available in the U.S.) is the Sakura, a car designed for Japanese city residents. I have posted about this car before.
Sakura base specifications:
Range: 112 miles.
Weight: 2,400 lbs.
0-60: 8.6 seconds.
Torque: 144 ft/lbs.
Price range: $15,395-$19,400.
My point? If a manufacturer matches design specifications to consumer wants, any vehicle will sell. Manufacturers who are attempting to sell in today’s U.S. market, with some exceptions, are catering to higher end desires from a small pool of buyers. Average prices are still above $40k. Any manufacturer that attempted to cater to the young single city dweller, the young college student attending classes in her hometown, the young childless married couple looking for a second car, and it offered an option that cost between $15k and $19k, depending on options, would likely find a significant willing buying marketplace. We just don’t really have many options like the Sakura here.
Make of this what you will. Critiques are welcome. Criticisms are welcome. Better or more comprehensive comments are desired.
Ed Pape says
Is it even possible to profitably produce an automobile in the United States under $20,000 ? If net profits of US auto manufactures hovers between 5-6.6 % of revenue, how could they cover just fixed costs making $1000- $1300 per vehicle regardless of how many they can sell. Regulations both safety and mileage requirements are constraints.
If we allow foreign competitors to sweep in and fill this void, the economic realities could cripple the US auto industry.
Finally, these low end vehicles are usually not compliant to North American regulations.
Laurel says
Not to mention, that at no time, from age 14 to age 72, would I ever want a car that took 8.6 seconds to get from 0 to 60! When I step on the gas, I want to go! That has gotten me out of quite a few tights situations.
Ray W. says
Hello Laurel,
You are right, of course. There has always been a wide range of ICE choices for those among us who want to go, as you put it. But until you’ve driven an electric car, you can’t say that you know what instantaneous throttle response it. Electric motors have the same amount of torque at 1 rpm as they have at 500 rpm. No throttle lag.
There are people who ride motorcycles. Others prefer F-350s. There are city dwellers who don’t need a range of 600 miles out of a BEV. They just might buy a microcar as a second vehicle for daily driving and chores. Their second car is enough for longer trips.
Ray W. says
Hello Ed Pape:
It’s a city car, which is a specific model in Japan. These are not low-end vehicles; they are a specific class of car that targets a specific demographic, complete with excellent build quality.
I looked up on the Edmunds site the lowest priced battery electric vehicle (BEV) for sale in America, by MSRP:
Nissan Leaf: $28,140.
Mini Electric Hardtop: $30,900.
Tesla Model 3: $38,990.
The question is not whether a car can be manufactured for sale in the U.S. for under $16,000, the question is whether it is possible to manufacture an electric vehicle for less than $28,140, that meets the needs of a niche demographic. That is the current bottom threshold for current models here. That range between $16k and $28k gives a lot of leeway for American manufacturers to step into a new class.
Old people remember Honda’s first offering in America. A microcar with a 360cc two-cylinder air-cooled engine, the 1969 N360 was also considered a microcar class vehicle. It actually sold fairly well and is the predecessor to the Civic. Top speed? 65 mph. Weight? 1,119 lbs.
Don’t tell me it can’t be done. It has been done, over and over again. Kia started with microcars and slowly built a following. Hyundai started with microcars, too. Toyota, VW, and Nissan did not start with luxury vehicles. Volvo and Saab started with niche products that initially sold well in snowy climes. Suzuki never did really catch on, but its initial niche market was the micro-Jeep class. Mitsubishi tried to expand into the compact truck class, but that didn’t last.
Could a $22,000 microcar entry-level offering that qualifies for the $7000 BEV rebate, if it were to still exist at time of product launch, find an opening in the vast American marketplace?
Ray W. says
The latest issuance of the EIA’s “This Week in Petroleum”, dated July 31, reveals the following selected data points:
The four-week average production, as of July 26: 13.300 mbpd.
Last year’s rolling four-week average: 12.250 mbpd.
The four-week average of crude oil imports: 6.906 mbpd.
Last year’s rolling four-week average: 6.523 mbpd.
The four-week average of crude oil exports: 4.267 mbpd.
Last year’s rolling four-week average: 3.958 mbpd.
Make of it what you will.
Me? Time after time, one after another of a portion of the many FlaglerLive commenters has proclaimed that we became energy independent a few years back. We are not energy independent. We haven’t been for decades. We are a net energy exporter, when you add in natural gas and electricity exports. We consume roughly 20 million barrels of crude oil products per day. This includes synthetic plastics, greases, oils and other lubricants, gasoline, diesel fuel, kerosene, jet fuel and a myriad of other petroleum-based products.
Let’s face it. Crude oil in an international commodity. If a refinery owner in Philadelphia can obtain crude oil at less cost from Nigeria, or the North Sea, or from Libya, as opposed to buying from the Permian Basin in West Texas, do you think the refinery owner will buy American oil? If a Seattle area refinery owner can buy Canadian tar sands oil cheaper from the newly opened pipeline’s terminus in Vancouver, as opposed to buying from North Dakota’s Bakken shale oil formation, do you think that the refinery owner will buy the North Dakota oil?
Maybe two years ago, a commenter railed against America’s declining refinery outputs of gasoline. I looked up the EIA data on purchases by American energy companies of gasoline from abroad. In 2021, a tanker filled with Byelorussian gasoline made its way to the U.S. Somehow, the east European refinery was able to sell gasoline at a price low enough to make transport of the gasoline to the U.S. economically feasible.
The world is extracting over 100 million barrels of crude oil per day. Over 8 billion people are consuming, in one way or another the by-products of that oil. It is an enormously complex task to synchronize the extraction, the refining, the transport, the storage, and the final distribution of that much product.
Yes, America is now producing and exporting more crude oil than ever before, more natural gas than ever before. But no one president can ever direct every facet of such an enterprise. It takes an international marketplace to navigate all the shoals and currents of a capitalist-based system.
If any presidential candidate claims (promises) that he or she can lower the prices of gasoline if elected, please don’t show yourself to your fellow readers as a gullible commenter. Don’t fall for the political distortion. As I used to tell my clients, if anyone told me they could predict anyone else’s future, I wouldn’t trust them. If they told me they could predict MY future, I would wonder what they wanted from me.