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Weather: Increasing clouds, with a high near 82. Southwest wind 3 to 7 mph. Wednesday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 55. Light and variable wind becoming northwest 5 to 8 mph after midnight. Winds could gust as high as 17 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:
Separation Chat, Open Discussion: The Atlantic Chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State hosts an open, freewheeling discussion on the topic here in our community, around Florida and throughout the United States, noon to 1 p.m. at Pine Lakes Golf Club Clubhouse Pub & Grillroom (no purchase is necessary), 400 Pine Lakes Pkwy, Palm Coast (0.7 miles from Belle Terre Parkway). Call (386) 445-0852 for best directions. All are welcome! Everyone’s voice is important. For further information email [email protected] or call Merrill at 804-914-4460.
Flagler Cares is in the midst of its Second Annual “Keep the Holiday Lights On” campaign. The health and social care coordinating organization is inviting residents and businesses to support local families in need of a modest financial bridge to keep their power on this holiday season. This initiative encourages neighbors to help neighbors by sponsoring homes to ensure struggling families can keep their lights on through December. The goal is to sponsor 100 homes at $100 per home, covering one month’s electric bill for families who might otherwise face utility cut-offs during the holidays. Supporters are welcome to contribute any amount to help brighten the season for their fellow residents. Donations can be made now through the end of the year on the “Keep the Holiday Lights On” webpage at www.flaglercares.org/holiday. Check donations may also be mailed or dropped off at Flagler Cares, 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Suite B302, Palm Coast, FL 32164. As homes are sponsored, donors can watch the campaign’s progress online as homes on the page light up — a symbol of the community’s shared compassion and care.
Notably Serendipitous: One does not often, if at all, think of Kingsport, that city on Tennessee’s far eastern snout that caused Bob Dylan to leave it with a sheriff on his tail, though it was in its shroud of Kodak-factory chemical fumes that I spent my first summer on American soil in 1978. It was my first landing spot, my first experience of America. It was strange, it was a bit depressing, it was at times pretty awesome, especially when I rode the Interstate, which to a 13-year-old just exiled from Lebanon seemed like a magic carpet that happened not to leave the ground. The town of 55,000 people seemed much larger, though even then its downtown was dying, its malls briefly sucking the life out of it (they’re now dying in turn). My late uncle lived there. A few years later my Updike binge began, and Updike more than Kingsport became my guide to the United States and my way around and into and out of the American language. There could not possibly be a connection between Updike and Kingsport. But how there was! Flipping through the Selected Letters of John Updike, just released, I came across this footnote: “All of Updike’s published books by Knopf, until 1976, were composed, printed and bound by Kingsport Press of Kingsport, Tennessee. The company also printed its own type manuals.” I was there two years too late, and of course i’s gone now. I just glimpsed this message on Facebook: “Any photos of the Kingsport press? My dad started working there at 20 years of age and retired from there when Québecor shut it down!” Then this: “My brother crossed the picket line to get his job and was the head computer programmer. He worked there till it closed.” Someone posted the photo and postcard below. And someone wrote: “I still have my Papaws tool box from there.” We’re lives of heartbreak. I just looked at the back of Picked-Up Pieces, Updike’s second collection of essays, published in 1975, and sure enough: “This book was composed, printed, and bound by Kingsport Press, Inc., Kingsport, Tennessee.” By the time Problems, the 1979 collection of stories, rolled off the presses, the work had moved to American Book-Stratford Press, Inc., in Saddle Brook, New Jersey. Not the same.
XXX
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.
December 2025
Palm Coast City Council Meeting
Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 10-18, at the Flagler County Public Library
Food Truck Tuesday
Flagler Beach Library Writers’ Club
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
‘Annie,’ at Limelight Theatre
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy
Contractor Review Board Meeting
Flagler County’s Technical Review Committee Meeting
Separation Chat: Open Discussion
Flagler County Industrial Development Authority Meeting
The Circle of Light A Course in Miracles Study Group
Palm Coast Planning and Land Development Board
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
For the full calendar, go here.
Dear Alfred:
Welcome back, and thanks for the man in the fur hat.
First off, let me thank you, Kingsport, Mr. Jacobs, or whoever is footing the bill, for the glorious present of the three Kingsport type manuals;† I love looking through them, though a little weary of reading that America does not repel the past. Actually, with all the variety of type before me, I appreciate anew how well my books have been designed by Knopf. Thank you, thank you on all counts. I don’t know when I have received something in the mail that made me so happy.
–From a John Updike letter to Alfred Knopf, the publisher, September 25, 1962.
Laurel says
We are a country made up of immigrants. We shame ourselves with this administration.
Kyoshin says
They need to be legal immigrants the ones here iligaly are just gaming the system and I’m not just talking about people from south America. My great great grand parents came here legally. Poland for example is doing it the right way.
Laurel says
Kyoshin: “Illegally.”
Many are here with green cards and seeking asylum. That’s legal. Trump’s ICE is waiting outside courtrooms snatching up people, in front of their children, trying to make their assigned court dates. That’s shitty.
Many, many immigrants had to get here first before they could become legal citizens. I’ve come across Cuban homemade boats on south Florida beaches. You should take a trip to Miami sometime, which has a large, legal population of Cuban Americans.
American citizens are hiring immigrants, and these immigrants pay taxes but cannot collect on them without citizenship.
The people I’ve been exposed to are not gaming the system, as you say. My guess is you know none, but insist on passing on the bullshit fed to you.
No thanks, keep your fork.
Sherry says
Laurel! Laurel! Laurel!. . . Simply loving the “No thanks, keep your fork” quip!!!
How appropriate . . especially on “Thanksgiving”!! Hoping you don’t mind if I use it from time to time. Priceless! LOL! LOL! LOL!
Skibum says
Wonderful. So enlightening! Just come to America legally… wow!
Hello!!! Your great grandparents came to America legally in what decade? I bet it was the early part of the 20th century. Certainly many decades ago, when the U.S. actually had an immigration system that wasn’t broken, that Congress has ignored and refused to fix for many, many years so immigrants could continue to come here LEGALLY without all of the delays, all of the roadblocks put in place and years and years of waiting for simple answers about their immigration applications.
There have been numerous bills before Congress to fix what is broken, but too many republicans consistently refuse to help fix the known problems because they would rather keep immigration as a political talking point without lifting a finger to fix what has become a nightmare for those wanting to come to America “legally”.
Just last year before the most recent presidential election, some republicans and democrats in Congress came together and agreed on a bipartisan fix to the most serious immigration issues, and it had enough support to actually pass and become law, except for the orange terror who became president in November’s election. He didn’t want Biden to have a “win” on immigration, and he wanted the republicans in Congress to have no part in any immigration fix, so he cajoled enough of the republicans to defeat the bipartisan legislation.
So you can sit there and repeat all you want about how people should come here legally, when the reality is the republicans have made it near to impossible to do so for years, and it is not getting fixed anytime soon. That is why we have so many undocumented people doing what they need to do to find a better life. It is as simple as that.
Pogo says
@Footnotes and other brain drippings
Thousands of US hazardous sites are at risk of flooding because of sea level rise, study finds
https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-sea-level-rise-toxic-sites-flooding-f1bb62bcfb15c34fe0fa1a495a7479a5
Welcome to the Peoples’ Republic of Floriduh
https://www.bing.com/search?q=superfund+sites+in+florida
BillC says
Or how about this… at the end of the Thanksgiving parade when Santa appears, ICE agents race out and arrest Santa mid ho-ho-ho, charge him as an illegal alien, drag him out of the sleigh and force him face down into the street, zip-tie his hands behind his back then throw him into the open door of a black van that speeds away to the horror of the children…
Sherry says
Oh come now Bill C. . . trump would love it! Now, if that Santa had any shade of skin other than lily white, he and his racist Maga followers would love it even more!
Happy Thanksgiving “ALL”!!!
BillC says
Pardoning turkeys is what Trump does best, he has a history if it.
Sherry says
The overwhelming majority of judges adjudicating trump’s NO DUE PROCESS/Cruel and Unusual deportation tactics are ruling against ICE practices thank goodness! This from Politico:
The Trump administration’s bid to systematically lock up nearly all immigrants facing deportation proceedings has led to a fierce — and mounting — rejection by courts across the country.
That effort, which began with an abrupt policy change by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on July 8, has led to a tidal wave of emergency lawsuits after ICE’s targets were arrested at workplaces, courthouses or check-ins with immigration officers. Many have lived in the U.S. for years, and sometimes decades, without incident and have been pursuing asylum or other forms of legal status.
At least 225 judges have ruled in more than 700 cases that the administration’s new policy, which also deprives people of an opportunity to seek release from an immigration court, is a likely violation of law and the right to due process. Those judges were appointed by all modern presidents — including 23 by Trump himself — and hail from at least 35 states, according to a POLITICO analysis of thousands of recent cases. The number of judges opposing the administration’s position has more than doubled in less than a month.
In contrast, only eight judges nationwide, including six appointed by Trump, have sided with the administration’s new mass detention policy.
Courts, increasingly aware of the one-sided rejection of the administration’s policy, have grown exasperated by the deluge of litigation that has flooded their dockets. Some have made a partial accounting of the sheer volume of rulings against the administration. But even those don’t capture the breadth of rulings against the administration revealed on dockets across the country.
“The Court is unable to remain current on all new case authority supporting the Court’s conclusion, given the continued onslaught of litigation being generated by [the administration’s] widespread illegal detention practices,” U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder, a California-based appointee of Bill Clinton, wrote in a Nov. 21 ruling.
U.S. District Judge Hala Jarbou, a Michigan-based Trump appointee, described receiving more than 100 cases herself before another 97 detainees filed a joint lawsuit pleading for release. Judges have assailed the administration for defying the law and suggested the unprecedented interpretation of the law could subject millions of people to detention, even if they have lived in the country for decades without incident.
Laurel says
I wrote here early on that the Trump admin would be in court all the time. Now, when baby doesn’t get his way, he flies to the Supreme Court, which may side with him, as a political, activist court.