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Weather: Sunny, with a high near 72. Northeast wind 11 to 14 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 63.
- 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 Daytona Beach (a few minutes off from Flagler Beach) here.
- Tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
Drug Court convenes before Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols 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 Palm Coast City Council meets in a closed-door session at City Hall at 3 p.m. to discuss whether to accept or reject a settlement offer in the lawsuit challenging the city’s referendum on a charter amendment that would essentially end voters’ say on city borrowing and leasing beyond a certain level. See the details of the offer here: “Settlement Offer Gives Palm Coast Council Chance to Pull Embattled Debt Referendum from the Ballot.”
Model Yacht Club Races at the Pond in Palm Coast’s Central Park, from noon to 2 p.m. in Central Park in Town Center, 975 Central Ave. Join Bill Wells, Bob Rupp and other members of the Palm Coast Model Yacht Club, watch them race or join the races with your own model yacht. No dues to join the club, which meets at the pond in Central Park every Thursday.
Palm Coast Concert Series: 6 to 8 p.m. at The Stage in Town Center, 1500 Central Avenue, Palm Coast. The United States Navy’s popular band “Pride”. They will be playing top 40/ pop music. This free event is for all ages.
 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: The graph above is a little surprising, if not suspicious. Are Americans really more politically engaged than the French? by that much? Higher than Canada’s? Lower than Mexico’s? Turnout rates alone raise further questions. In 2020 turnout for the presidential election in the United States, though very high relative to previous elections, was just 62.8 percent overall, if calculated by eligible voters–the more correct way to calculate turnout. Among registered voters, turnout was 94 percent. But that’s an artificial figure. In France in 2022, overall turnout was 65.7 percent. If you take turnout among the registered, the figure rises to 72 percent. But the disparity only underscores French engagement: a far greater proportion of the French electorate is registered, compared to the American electorate. That alone suggests more interest in politics there than here. In Mexico, the turnout rate was 66 percent at the last national election, though somehow only 63.4 percent of those registered turned out. Among democracies (excuse me, among republics), the United States is a middling voting nation, well below the majority of nations that hold elections, with Uruguay at the top, followed by Turkey, Peru, Indonesia and Argentina, which also suggests that turnout does not equate to quality governance. See the curious graph below.
—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.
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
Flagler County Beekeepers Association Meeting
Nar-Anon Family Group
Bunnell City Commission Meeting
Palm Coast City Council Workshop
Book Dragons, the Kids’ Book Club, at Flagler Beach Public Library
NAACP Flagler Branch General Membership Meeting
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy
For the full calendar, go here.
Michael Podhorzer, a senior adviser to the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., which invested deeply in expanding Democratic turnout in 2020, suggests that the two parties now have irreconcilable beliefs about whose votes are legitimate. “What blue-state people don’t understand about why the Big Lie works,” he said, is that it doesn’t actually require proof of fraud. “What animates it is the belief that Biden won because votes were cast by some people in this country who others think are not ‘real’ Americans.” This anti-democratic belief has been bolstered by a constellation of established institutions on the right: “white evangelical churches, legislators, media companies, nonprofits, and even now paramilitary groups.” Podhorzer noted, “Trump won white America by eight points. He won non-urban areas by over twenty points. He is the democratically elected President of white America. It’s almost like he represents a nation within a nation.”
–From Jane Mayer’s “The Big Money Behind the Big Lie,” The New Yorker, Aug. 9, 2021.
Pogo says
@Eliminate the Electoral College
Period.
Oops, too late. America almost survived.
And so it went — until it didn’t.