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Weather: Sunny, with a high near 80. Breezy, with a northeast wind 9 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 67. Northeast wind 10 to 13 mph, with gusts as high as 21 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:
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.
Town of Marineland Commission Meeting, 6 p.m. in the main conference room at the GTMNERR Marineland, 9741 N Oceanshore Boulevard, St. Augustine. See the town’s website here.
Flagler Tiger Bay Club Guest Speaker Jamie Foster, Ph.D., Assistant Director, Astraeus Space Institute, University of Florida. Today’s topic: Advancing Human Spaceflight and Strengthening Florida’s Space Ecosystem–how the Astraeus Space Institute is advancing interdisciplinary research critical to space exploration, the role of public-private-academic partnerships in expanding the space economy, what we are learning about how space travel impacts the human body, and behavior. 11:30 a.m. at Hammock Dunes Club, 30 Ave Royale, Palm Coast. $35 for members, $40 for guests.
Story Time for Preschoolers at Flagler Beach Public Library, 11 to 11:30 a.m. at the library, 315 South Seventh Street, Flagler Beach. It’s where the wild things are: Hop on for stories and songs with Miss Doris.
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.
The Palm Coast Democratic Club holds an “After Dark” Recap Meeting (previous daytime business meeting) at 6 p.m. on the third Thursday of each month to accommodate working Democrats. We will meet at the Flagler Democratic Party Headquarters in City Marketplace, 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Suite C214, Palm Coast. Hope you will join us. 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.
Notably: Rick Belhumeur, the Flagler Beach city commissioner, has been on a road trip with his cat Martin halfway across the country for the last few days. He sent in that picture as a “good morning from the cornfields of Minnesota” a few days ago. We needed it. After all the mayhem and losses of the last days, we needed it. It’s not the religious theme I find so appealing, though it’s certainly not not appealing, but the colors, the composition, the Christina’s World feel of it. Other shots were just as restorative.
—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.
October 2025
Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry
Flagler County Drug Court Convenes
Story Time for Preschoolers at Flagler Beach Public Library
Flagler Tiger Bay Club Guest Speaker: UF’s Jamie Foser
Model Yacht Club Races at the Pond in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Palm Coast Democratic Club Recap Meeting
Town of Marineland Commission Meeting
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Flagler County Cultural Council (FC3) Meeting
Friday Blue Forum
For the full calendar, go here.
Here, monks, is the holy truth about pain: birth is pain, old age is pain, illness is pain, death is pain, union with what one does not love is pain, separation from what one loves is pain, not obtaining one’s desire is pain, in summary the five kinds of objects of attachment are pain. Here, monks, is the holy truth about the origin of pain: it is thirst which leads from repression to recurrence, accompanied by pleasure and lust, which finds its pleasure here and there in the thirst for pleasure, the thirst for existence, the thirst for impermanence. Here, O monks, is the holy truth about the suppression of pain and the extinction of this thirst by the complete annihilation of desire, by banishing desire, by renouncing it, by freeing oneself from it, by leaving no room for it. Here, & monks, the holy truth on the path which leads to the elimination of pain is this sacred path, with eight branches, which is called pure faith, pure will, pure language, pure action, pure means of existence, pure application, pure memory, pure meditation
—From the Sermon at Bénarès.
Pogo says
@P.T. (and master Belhumeur)
Beauty and grace; a breakfast feast — amen.
And thank you, God bless you.😺😸😻😺
Pierre Tristam says
Thank you Pogo. Belhumeur texted from Newton Falls, Ohio before dawn this morning, where it was 40 degrees.
Ray W. says
Thank you, Mr. Tristam, for the segment of the Sermon at Benares. It evoked a memory of the first paragraph in Dr. M. Scott Peck’s work of psychology titled The Road Less Traveled. Dr. Peck openly states in the preface, as I recall, that the book is written from a Christian perspective.
Dr. Peck begins:
“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult – once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”
My paraphrase of this opening paragraph is that so long as we fight the fact that life is difficult, life will remain difficult. Once we accept that fact, we can begin to make life less difficult. Life will never be easy. The best we can hope for is a life less difficult than the worst it can be.
As a prosecutor, defense attorneys would approach me from time to time with requests for pre-trial intervention (PTI) plans for their clients.
To me, PTIs were useless if the defendant was incapable of completing the plan for whatever the reason. Some people will promise to do things and then do anything to avoid doing what they promised to do. I didn’t want to offer a PTI and then come back two or three months later and have to reprosecute the case because the defendant couldn’t complete the terms of the agreement. So most of the time I denied requests for PTIs.
But not always. I sought to limit my offers of PTI agreements to those who proved to me that they could complete a simple goal within a short but set period of time.
I began telling the defense attorneys that their clients had two weeks from that day to obtain a particular book of my choosing, read it through, and submit to me a (by my 30 year old recollection) 250 word essay about the meaning of the book.
Most often, I assigned The Road Less Traveled. On occasion, I assigned Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Neither are short reads.
I don’t know how often I asked for the essays. Perhaps a hundred. Perhaps more. Perhaps less. I no longer have the folder in which I kept the essays.
But the responses from the defendants were extremely positive. One wrote a cover page to his essay, in which he described how he went to the New Smyrna library to check out the book. The librarian told him that all of their six copies of the book had been checked out. The defendant then bought the book. After he read it, he bought five more and gifted them to the library. He already knew that he was going to get the PTI because he had met the conditions I had set for him, so he didn’t need to write what he wrote, but he said the book had become that important to him that he felt the necessity of enabling others to read it too.
I agree with Dr. M. Scott Peck that among all of the possible truths available to us, there exist “great” truths.
Opposing the hateful among us, the vengeful among us, the violent among us, that is a “great” truth.
Opposing the liars among us, the lie launderers among us, the opportunists who lie for economic or political gain among us, this too is a “great” truth.
As for the editorial cartoon depicting the Pope being assailed by hate personified and by lies personified, a number of news outlets recently reported about the Pope’s discussions with visiting U.S. Bishops who had traveled to Rome to speak of “stories and fears of our immigrant sisters and brothers from across our country”, in which discussions the Pope encouraged them to “strongly” speak out against the manner of treatment towards immigrants dealt out by the current administration.
On September 30th, Pope Leo spoke:
“Someone who says I am against abortion but I am in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”
Is this, too, a “great” truth?
Make of all of this what you will.
Me?
In response to the Pope’s statement about pro-life, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the she “would reject there was inhumane treatment of illegal immigrants in the United States under this administration.”
Each of us can determine for ourselves whether Ms. Leavitt is lying or not.
I maintain the position that I have taken for a long time.
If in 1985, forty years ago, a child is carried across our border at the age of three, that child is incapable of forming the mental intent of whatever type to commit what our federal legislature defines as a minor misdemeanor crime of unlawfully crossing the border (remember, it is a civil offense, not a criminal offense, to remain in the country without documentation).
If in the ensuing forty years that child who was incapable of committing any crime at the age of three earns a high school diploma and works her way through college, is that evidence that she is pursuing the American dream?
If in the ensuing forty years that child becomes a member of a church family and participates in church activities, is that evidence that she is a positive addition to her faith, her family and her community?
If in the ensuing forty years that child marries and has a family is that evidence that she will likely never engage in criminal activity?
If in the ensuing forty years she creates and grows her own business to employ others, is that evidence that she is a positive economic addition to the American society?
If after forty years she is detained at the door of her business and thrown to the ground and cuffed without court order, is she the type of immigrant that Pope Leo is talking about?
If she is hustled off to a detention facility and then moved thousands of miles away from the only home that she has known, from her family, from her church, from her business, is that the type of government action that Pope Leo says his Bishops should oppose?
If she is deported without a hearing to a country she has never seen, to a country in which she has no family or resources, is that the type of government activity, the type of cruelty, the type of hate, the type of lies, that Pope Leo is speaking out about?
Let’s face facts.
Should an undocumented immigrant who is the worst of the worst be detained, no one will oppose deportation.
But many of the best of the immigrants among us are being swept up in their driveways and hustled away without access to legal recourse despite their never having committed any crime at all.
Hence the question:
If the most gullibly stupid among us applaud the deportation of people who are better than they are, what does that say about us?
It strikes me that a lesser percentage of a plurality of the American people have decided that the current administration has permission from them to delegate a portion of the administration’s limited political powers to those who personify political hate and to those who personify political lying? The best of our undocumented immigrant population is paying a huge price for that decision.