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Weather: Sunny. Highs in the upper 70s. North winds around 5 mph, becoming east in the afternoon. Friday Night: Mostly clear in the evening, then becoming partly cloudy. Lows around 60. Southeast winds around 5 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 Daytona Beach (a few minutes off from Flagler Beach) here.
- Tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
Free For All Fridays with Host David Ayres, an hour-long public affairs radio show featuring local newsmakers, personalities, public health updates and the occasional surprise guest, starts a little after 9 a.m. Today: Rep. Sam Greco and Airport Director Roy Sieger. See previous podcasts here. On WNZF at 94.9 FM, 1550 AM, and live at Flagler Broadcasting’s YouTube channel.
The Friday Blue Forum, a discussion group organized by local Democrats, meets at 12:15 p.m. at the Flagler Democratic Office at 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Suite C214 (above Cue Note) at City Marketplace. Come and add your voice to local, state and national political issues.
Flagler Outreach Brings Social Service Providers to Cattleman’s Hall, 1 to 4 p.m. at Flagler County Fairgrounds, 150 Sawgrass Road, Bunnell. Flagler County Health and Human Services Department is hosting its annual “Flagler Fall Outreach,” which includes all manner of social services providers who will have free information, as well as immediate assistance with things like free food. In addition to Flagler County Human Services, the following agencies/services will be available:
- Grace Community Food Pantry
- Flagler County Free Clinic
- Family Life Center
- Daytona State Fresh Start Program
- Daytona State TRiO
- Flagler OARS
- Flagler Cares
- DCF
- Early learning Coalition
- Foundations to Freedom
- Division of Blind Services
- Florida Bureau of Braille and Talking Book Library
- Florida Department of Health-Minority/Community Health
- Volusia Flagler Coalition for the Homeless
- Loads of Smiles
- Flagler County Senior Services
- Florida Legal Services
- Disability Solutions
- The Sheltering Tree
- Salvation Army
- Alpha Women’s Center
- The Trail Program
- SHINE
- Easterseals
- Seniors vs. Crime
- Epic Behavioral Healthcare
- Flagler County Drug Court Foundation
- Flagler County Emergency Management
- Flagler County Housing Services
- Flagler County Schools FIT Program
- Flagler County Health Department – WIC (Women, Infants, and Children)
- Boys & Girls Club Volusia/Flagler
‘The Drowsy Chaperone,’ at St. Augustine’s Limelight Theatre, 11 Old Mission Avenue, St. Augustine, 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, $35. When wealthy widow, Mrs. Tottenham, hosts the wedding of the year, she gets a lot more than a write-up in the society pages. This magical piece of meta-theatre and playful, heartfelt parody of the 1920s musical comedy features a chirpy jazz age score by Tony-winning collaborators. Book here.
Notably: According to Google’s wondrous Ngram, which measures the incidence of words and phrases over time, going back to the 19th century (if you haven’t used half your workday on the site, you’re cheating yourself), the phrase “leader of the free world” was born around 1950, a couple of years before the leader of the free world congratulated Edward Teller for developing the kind of bomb that could obliterate civilization. “This great American, young and virile leader of the free world,” Patricia Carrigan wrote from Ann Arbor in a Jan. 3, 1964 letter to the editor published in the New York Times 12 days later (such, such were the mails), in reference to the recently slain JFK. William Safire used the phrase in his Political Dictionary. A biography of Eisenhower by Louis Calambos was subtitled “Becoming the Leader of the Free world.” There’s also this available on Amazon: Leaders of the Free World: A U.S. Presidents Word Search: A Fun and Educational Puzzle Journey Through America’s Presidential History, these days right above a t-shirt imprinted with “Ukraine… Leader of the free world,” which may be closer to the mark. The economist keeps referring to the US president as “the leader of the free world,” apparently without The Economist’s trademark wryness. But it may be time to retire the phrase. Whatever the current president is leading, and it isn’t much, it isn’t the free world, and whatever the free world is anymore, it has, maybe with the exception of a few Nordic tracts, been Americanizing the word “free” in the worst sense–the police state sense, making France, Britain, Germany (not to mention Hungary and Poland) seem like Orwellian kindergartens. Meanwhile the phrase gets more popular as it gets less true. Look at the graph. Its use keep zooming up, though not as fast as “Make America Great Again” since its re-birth in 2015. Somehow Ngram doesn’t recognize its use during the Reagan years. The two phrases make a good couple. I doubt Patricia Carrigan is thrilling to either though. The phrases are not themselves epitaphs yet, but they are our civilization’s.
—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.
May 2025
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Second Saturday Plant Sale at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park
American Association of University Women (AAUW) Meeting
Peps Art Walk Near Beachfront Grille
Murder at Shivering Timbers Murder Mystery Dinner Show Fundraiser
RockabillieWillie At City Repertory Theatre
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
Al-Anon Family Groups
RockabillieWillie At City Repertory Theatre
For the full calendar, go here.
It’s almost refreshing, then, when one is faced with the ugliest and yet most honest face of Western apathy, the face that knows full well the scale and severity of the horror but believes it to be absolutely justified, absolutely necessary. I know this face, too. It appears on talk shows and atop opinion pieces stating, euphemistically or not, that the same world in which you can buy avocados all year round and your iPhone keeps getting more powerful and you never have to live in fear of an occupying force obliterating your family with missiles is the world in which an insignificant group of people you’ll never meet simply have to die. And whatever disgust this equation, laid bare, might inspire, many know it to be true. This is the world we’ve created, a world in which one privileged sliver consumes, insatiable, and the best everyone else can hope for is to not be consumed. It is not without reason that the most powerful nations on earth won’t intervene to stop a genocide but will happily bomb one of the poorest countries on the planet to keep a shipping lane open.
–From Omar el Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (2025).
Pogo says
@One day (soon) when the entire planet is prostrate to trump’s choices
… the last despairing, starving, and dying wretches will not likely have many words on the arts, literature, science, philosophy, etc — or even wonder — what was more important than preventing trump from happening to the entirety of the human race. Even those living with their family in Oregon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_El_Akkad
Anyway, do something that matters: a gesture to sanity, human decency — everything now disappearing…
As stated
https://joshweil.us/
Skibum says
A real question from a Trump supporter: ‘Why do liberals think Trump supporters are stupid?’
THE SERIOUS ANSWER: Here’s what the majority of anti-Trump voters honestly feel about Trump supporters en masse:
That when you saw a man who had owned a fraudulent University, intent on scamming poor people, you thought “Fine.” (https://www.usatoday.com/…/trump-university…/502387002/)
That when you saw a man who had made it his business practice to stiff his creditors, you said, “Okay.” (https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-hotel-paid-millions…)
That when you heard him proudly brag about his own history of sexual abuse, you said, “No problem.” (https://abcnews.go.com/…/list-trumps-accusers…/story…)
That when he made up stories about seeing Muslim-Americans in the thousands cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center, you said, “Not an issue.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/donald-trumps…/)
That when you saw him brag that he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and you wouldn’t care, you exclaimed, “He sure knows me.” (https://www.usatoday.com/…/president-donald…/4073405002/)
That when you heard him relating a story of an elderly guest of his country club, an 80-year old man, who fell off a stage and hit his head, to Trump replied: “‘Oh my God, that’s disgusting,’ and I turned away. I couldn’t—you know, he was right in front of me, and I turned away. I didn’t want to touch him. He was bleeding all over the place. And I felt terrible, because it was a beautiful white marble floor, and now it had changed color. Became very red.” You said, “That’s cool!” (https://www.gq.com/story/donald-trump-howard-stern-story)
That when you saw him mock the disabled, you thought it was the funniest thing you ever saw. (https://www.nbcnews.com/…/donald-trump-criticized-after…)
That when you heard him brag that he doesn’t read books, you said, “Well, who has time?” (https://www.theatlantic.com/…/americas-first…/549794/)
That when the Central Park Five were compensated as innocent men convicted of a crime they didn’t commit, and he angrily said that they should still be in prison, you said, “That makes sense.” (https://www.usatoday.com/…/what-trump-has…/1501321001/)
That when you heard him tell his supporters to beat up protesters and that he would hire attorneys, you thought, “Yes!” (https://www.latimes.com/…/la-na-trump-campaign-protests…)
That when you heard him tell one rally to confiscate a man’s coat before throwing him out into the freezing cold, you said, “What a great guy!” (https://www.independent.co.uk/…/donald-trump-orders…)
That you have watched the parade of neo-Nazis and white supremacists with whom he curries favor, while refusing to condemn outright Nazis, and you have said, “Thumbs up!” (https://www.theatlantic.com/…/why-cant-trump…/567320/)
That you hear him unable to talk to foreign dignitaries without insulting their countries and demanding that they praise his electoral win, you said, “That’s the way I want my President to be.” (https://www.huffpost.com/…/trump-insult-foreign…)
That you have watched him remove expertise from all layers of government in favor of people who make money off of eliminating protections in the industries they’re supposed to be regulating and you have said, “What a genius!” (https://www.politico.com/…/138-trump-policy-changes…)
That you have heard him continue to profit from his businesses, in part by leveraging his position as President, to the point of overcharging the Secret Service for space in the properties he owns, and you have said, “That’s smart!” (https://www.usnews.com/…/how-is-donald-trump-profiting…)
That you have heard him say that it was difficult to help Puerto Rico because it was in the middle of water and you have said, “That makes sense.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/the-very-big-ocean…/)
That you have seen him start fights with every country from Canada to New Zealand while praising Russia and quote, “falling in love” with the dictator of North Korea, and you have said, “That’s statesmanship!” (https://www.cnn.com/…/donald-trump-dictators…/index.html)
That Trump separated children from their families and put them in cages, managed to lose track of 1500 kids, has opened a tent city incarceration camp in the desert in Texas – he explains that they’re just “animals” – and you say, “Well, OK then.” (https://www.nbcnews.com/…/more-5-400-children-split…)
That you have witnessed all the thousand and one other manifestations of corruption and low moral character and outright animalistic rudeness and contempt for you, the working American voter, and you still show up grinning and wearing your MAGA hats and threatening to beat up anybody who says otherwise. (https://www.americanprogress.org/…/confronting-cost…/)
What you don’t get, Trump supporters, is that our succumbing to frustration and shaking our heads, thinking of you as stupid, may very well be wrong and unhelpful, but it’s also… hear me… charitable.
Because if you’re NOT stupid, we must turn to other explanations, and most of them are less flattering.
– Adam-Troy Castro
(To all who agree with its content, I ask that you PLEASE SHARE IT on your own post, and ENCOURAGE OTHERS to do the same.)
Bill w says
Treasonous cowards are working to put your tax dollars in their pockets. Pray for the millions suffering from this incompetent Nazis crimes against humanity. This diaper wearing pedo is a colossal moron who should be in prison. Look forward to this cockroaches end.
Batman says
What if…
Ford and GM supply chains are disrupted to the point that they both go bankrupt?
Who would be in a position to gain the most?
Can it be? That there’s no need to think on it? It’s just THAT obvious?
Skibum says
I thought this might be appropriate for the latest political cartoon:
Ed P says
Holy electric vehicles Batman,
Ford and GM have incurred significant losses in their electric vehicle divisions in 2024.
Ford reported losses of 5 billion. GM’s EV was not profitable overall.
Since when does the left believe high stock prices and massive profits are important?
Those evil corporations don’t pay enough taxes, gouge the public and enslave their employees. Is the left simply looking for a new talking point to vilify the administration?
Way too transparent.
How quickly we forget that some claimed inflation was due to corporations gouging.
Batman says
Ed P. Trump is a shark.
Trust your common sense… get out of the water… stop swimming with the sharks.
Sherry says
@Skibum. . . You, Sir, have even outdone yourself! An astounding argument! Thank You!
Skibum says
Sherry, I cannot take credit for what is in my last post, because the original author, who I agree did a bang up job, posted it on FB and requested others share far and wide what he had written… so I did just that.
Kennan says
Skibum, well done, my friend. Character counts, but unfortunately for too many not so much. You just hammered everyone with some truth bombs. Thank you.
Sherry says
Thanks Skibum, I sent that post to my email list. CHARACTER MATTERS! Fly the Canadian Flag!