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Weather:
- 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:
9/11 Tribute Climb at Hammock Beach Resort: The community and media are invited to the Annual 9/11 Memorial Tribute Climb on September 11 at Hammock Beach Golf Resort & Spa. This year’s event is a two-part tribute—a ceremony at 8:15 a.m., followed by the climb at 8:46 a.m.—ensuring everyone can participate in remembrance, whether or not they choose to climb. Details here.
Flagler County Government Tax and Budget Hearing: The Flagler County Commission holds the first of two public hearings at b5 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell, on its 2025-26 property tax rate and budget. The hearing includes consideration of a special assessment, or tax, for the barrier island to raise revenue for beach protection. The tax would be set at zero next year, but would be a placeholder for an actual levy the following year. The inclusion of the special assessment on residents’ tax bills, even at zero, has been controversial.
The Flagler Beach City Commission meets at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall, 105 South 2nd Street in Flagler Beach. Watch the meeting at the city’s YouTube channel here. Access meeting agenda and materials here. See a list of commission members and their email addresses here.
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.
Evenings at Whitney Lecture Series hosted by the University of Florida Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience at 6 p.m. (Note the new time.) “Little Particles for Big Diseases”. Dr. Jamal Lewis, Associate Professor J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Florida, will be the speaker. In this talk, Dr. Lewis will focus on two particulate systems currently under development in his lab, which attempt to control critical cellular and humoral mediators that cause conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis [RA] and autoimmune autism. Current paradigms for the treatment of autoimmune diseases (e.g., RA) are woefully inadequate, often missing the mark on desired physiological responses and not targeting the root cause of the disease. Predictably, novel approaches to re-establish immune homeostasis in patients afflicted by autoimmune conditions are now under intense investigation. This free lecture will be presented in person at the UF Whitney Laboratory Lohman Auditorium, 9505 Ocean Shore Boulevard, in St. Augustine. Those interested also have the option of registering to watch via Zoom live the night of the lecture. Go here to register to watch online. It’s a free lecture. See previous lectures here.
The Palm Coast Democratic Club holds its monthly business meeting at noon at the Flagler Democratic Party Headquarters in City Marketplace, 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Suite C214, Palm Coast. This gathering is open to the public at no charge. No advance arrangements are necessary. Call (386) 283-4883 for best directions or (561)-235-2065 for more information. For further information, please contact Palm Coast Democratic Club’s President Donna Harkins at (561) 235-2065, visit our website at http://palmcoastdemocraticclub.org/ or Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/palmcoastdemclub/permalink
Juxtapositions: This is how the UK Independent reported the Trump administration’s mass assassination of a boatload of suspected drug dealers: “Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has said that the United States has the authority to kill suspected drug smugglers after President Donald Trump ordered the blowing up of a Venezuelan boat that was thought to be carrying 11 drug dealers. Trump said that the United States carried out a strike on 11 supposed “terrorists” from a Venezuelan gang. Many legal experts question the authority under which the president can carry out such strikes. But Hegseth spoke to reporters on Thursday saying it had the authority to do so. “We have the absolute and complete authority to conduct that,” Hegseth said.” And here’s how Jules Verne in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea describes Aronnax’s encounter with a “savage” somewhere near a Pacific island, where the Nautilus is stuck on a reef: “I could easily have knocked down this native, who was within a short length; but I thought that it was better to wait for real hostile demonstrations. Between Europeans and savages, it is proper for the Europeans to parry sharply, not to attack.” (In an early Jules Verne draft that never made it to press, the natives swarm the Nautilus’ Nemo electrifies the ship’s surface, and 100 natives are massacred in one zap. Instead, this is how Nemo reacts when Aronnax tells him of the swarm: ““Savages!” he echoed, ironically. “So you are astonished, Professor, at having set foot on a strange land and finding savages? Savages! where are there not any? Besides, are they worse than others, these whom you call savages?”) One more juxtaposition: I came across these lines in Samuel Morison’s History of the United States around the same time as I prepared this Briefing, they were too hilarious not to include here: “Washington organized his army in line regiments, each one coming from a specific state; and the states were supposed to keep these filled. But Americans were not then-nor are they now a military people. They were eager for a fight, but not for sustained warfare.” This in a nation, Morison well knew, that had been involved in close to 200 wars and armed conflicts when he was writing in 1965, not least of them Vietnam. But nations are primarily myths.
—P.T.
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.
September 2025
9/11 Tribute Climb at Hammock Beach Resort
Flagler County Drug Court Convenes
Model Yacht Club Races at the Pond in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Palm Coast Democratic Club Meeting
Flagler County Government Tax and Budget Hearing
Flagler Beach City Commission Meeting
Evenings at Whitney Lecture Series
Florida Ethics Commission Meeting
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Friday Blue Forum
For the full calendar, go here.
To his subsequent sorrow,
Fulbright agreed.
The cold war was still frigid in 1964; few men on the Hill were ready to urge a soft answer to Communist wrath. But there was one: Wavne Morse of Oregon. On the night after the second Tonkin Gulf incident Morse had a call from someone in the Pentagon. The caller had heard that the senator was going to fight the President’s resolution. He suggested that the senator ask two questions. First, he should insist upon seeing the Maddox’s log, it would show that the destroyer had been much closer to the shore than civilians realized. Second, he should demand to know the ship’s mission; it had been far from innocent. The next morning Morse studied the wording of the resolution and con eluded that it was unconstitutional. Only Congress could declare war, he pointed out to Fulbright. This measure would give blanket approval to the waging of war by the chief executive with no war declaration. Ful bright reminded him of the Formosa and Middle East resolutions. Morse said they had been unconstitutional, too, but they had been more justifi able than this one. The crises which inspired them had been subject to quick solutions. Not so this one, the struggle in Vietnam seemed interminable, and this open-ended license would allow the President to intervene any time he saw fit. The wording was far too general, Morse said.
–From William Manchester’s The Glory and the Dream (1974).
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