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Weather: Mostly cloudy. Cooler with highs in the mid 60s. North winds 5 to 10 mph. Sunday Night: Partly cloudy. Lows in the lower 50s. North 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:
Notably: This being January 4, my father Fouad’s birthday–he would have been 98–I would normally write a few lines about him, maybe about the difficulty of writing a few lines as I am now a third older than he was when he died, as his age and mine begin to blend toward that line when we’ll all be as dead as Tolstoy (“One step beyond that boundary line which resembles the line dividing the living from the dead lies uncertainty, suffering, and death,” he wrote in War and Peace. “And what is there? Who is there?- there beyond that field, that tree, that roof lit up by the sun? No one knows, but one wants to know. You fear and yet long to cross that line, and know that sooner or later it must be crossed and you will have to find out what is there, just as you will inevitably have to learn what lies the other side of death.”) But after Ubu Roi‘s latest stunt yesterday, maybe a few words about Teresa Carreño might be more uplifting, Teresa Carreño about whom none of us would have heard a thing had it not been for record labels like Grand Piano’s 2013 recording, “Rêverie,” or Carla Rodriguez’s 2009 recording, which may have been among the first in this country of this Venezuelan composer and pianist of the 19th century (1853-1917). She might put you in mind of European romantics with a touch of Caribbean airs. A Caracas girl, her father, a composer’s son, was finance minister and her first piano teacher, though he “realised soon enough that he was not able to keep up with his daughter’s rapid progress as a pianist, and also given the fact that Teresa presented her own compositions for piano as early as the age of six.” That’s from the liner notes of the Grand Piano recording. Not a mystery why, as opposed to who, was her maopr teacher: Louis Moreau Gottchalk, the great Caribbean composer whose sounds you could hear in her works. She dedicated her first composition to him, “The Gottschalk Waltz.” She was off to concerts in New York, Paris, London, Havana, performing before Rossini and Liszt, meeting Charles Gounod and Camille Saint-Saëns, taking lessons from Anton Rubinstein. She had four husbands, three children she kept, one she gave away, her life mirrored in her compositions: “This is typical of her work: very often, the melodies start out with one idea, digress from it, return to it, elaborate it, add diverse accompaniments, clothe it in different harmonies or move it to distant tonalities. The musical setting will reach out and become richer; often, one has trouble figuring out which parts best to follow in listening. all of this is not an artificial counterpoint, but a fascinating game with the possibilities the piano has to offer as regards the unfolding of rich chord and linear progressions.” Doubtful that John Updike had heard of her, or gotten into Venezuela much, before writing his condescending piece about the country after a brief visit in 1981 (he wrote Brazil, one of his unreadable novels, after a week there). Let the Venezuelan speak for herself.
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.
January 2026
Flagler County Commission Morning Meeting
Beverly Beach Town Commission meeting
Nar-Anon Family Group
Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 10-18, at the Flagler County Public Library
Flagler Beach Library Writers’ Club
Flagler Beach Planning and Architectural Review Board
Palm Coast City Council Meeting
Bunnell Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board
Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry Evening Hours
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy
For the full calendar, go here.
It is depressing to stand in the gloom of a shabono, the palm thatch overhead infested with giant insects, the Indians drooping in their hammocks, their eyes diseased, their bellies protuberant, their faces and limbs besmirched with the same gray-brown dirt that composes the floor, their possessions a few brown baskets and monkey skins. Their lives are not paradise but full of anxiety-their religion a matter of fear, their statecraft a matter of constant, nagging war. To themselves, they are “the people” (Yanomami); to others, they are “the killers” (Waikás).
–From John Updike’s “Venezuela for Visitors” (1981).
Jim says
From ABC News:
“”We’re going to be running it with a group, and we’re going to make sure it’s run properly. We’re going to rebuild the oil infrastructure, which will cost billions of dollars. It will be paid for by the oil companies directly. They will be reimbursed for what they’re doing, but that’s going to be paid,” Trump said.
Later, a U.S. official told ABC News what it would look like for the U.S. to “run” Venezuela.
The official said top Trump officials will continue to diplomatically engage with those remaining in the Venezuelan government, that the administration will engage with oil executives to begin oil expansion in the country and that the U.S. military will remain postured and ready, and that the oil embargo would remain in effect.
President Donald Trump said the leader of the Venezuelan opposition doesn’t have the “respect” of the country to govern following the ousting of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
“I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country. She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect,” Trump said.
Trump also announced the U.S. will “run the country” as it transitions into new leadership.
“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said. “And it has to be judicious, because that’s what we’re all about. We want peace, liberty and justice for the great people of Venezuela.””
Here is what the United States is doing:
1. Kidnapping the sitting president of another country by the use of military force. Is he a bad guy? Yes. Is he an illegitimate president? Yes. Did he need to be removed from office? Yes.
2. Taking over the oil reserves of Venezuela. That is what we’re after. The oil. It’s out in the open.
3. Attacked another country who we’re not at war with without any declaration of war (kind of like Russia/Ukraine).
4. Ignoring the elected president as the obvious replacement because “she’s not respected”. That’s not what the people of Venezuela are saying but why should their opinions matter?
5. Installing a regime that will be friendly (subservient) to the United States – keep that oil flowing, baby!
This is Making America Great Again. Except we’re pariahs to the western world for this and all the other actions by the Trump administration.
This is the guy who said said he was the “peace president”. After all, he’s stopped 7,8, 9 (more???) wars in the first few months of his administration. Why, there are so few wars because of Trump, I guess he felt obligated to start one…..
We went into Venezuela to stop drug boats coming into the USA. We’ve killed 115 people in the process. But, now, I didn’t hear anything about drugs. It’s about the oil.
It will be years, if ever, before the United States will be able to condemn another dictator for his actions against other countries. All they’ll do is throw this episode back in our faces.
And for those who think the End justifies the Means, we haven’t reached the end yet. Stay tuned. It’s not going to be as beautiful as you may think.
Laurel says
Trump doesn’t give a damn about drugs, he lied about Venezuela, which was sending cocaine elsewhere and not here, and not fentanyl, and pardoned former Honduran President Juan Hernandez, who was convicted of drug trafficking. According to the Washington Post, Trump granted clemency to 100 people accused of Drug related crimes. Trump has had 115 people killed without any due process, and most of all, without any evidence of his claims left behind. So that ain’t it.
Yeah, oil companies would love to have Venezuelan oil, but Trump wants more than that. He wants their minerals, and wants to put in place a loyal sycophant as the Venezuelan President, to kowtow to him. Then, he can start putting his banners around the country, and rebranding history there too.
More than that, he wants to tear apart the U.S. Constitution, break down law and order, break down Maritime Law, and dissolve the laws between countries that we have worked on since World War II ended. He wants to be an authoritarian leader of the western countries, and our spineless political parties had better wake up, NOW!
He is in bad shape with the American people, and he knows that Presidents become more popular during a war (why bother with the Constitutional requirement that starting a war with another country needs to be approved by Congress). Hard to find a bigger distraction. You can’t write this much corruption into a best selling novel.
Oh, and by the way, releasing the Epstein files? Our law was broken there, too, by the Attorney General of the United States, no less, who kowtows to Trump. But it’s just children. Small sacrifices, for big promises you’re not going to see.
North kai says
Wow liberals are funny as hell you guys say no king yet defend a actual dictator while the Venezuelan people are cheering and thanking America for what we did question if America did wrong wouldn’t there people be upset and not happy of which they are and strategically it makes perfect sense why get the oil from across the other side of the world if we can get it from our own neck of the woods and the new government is an ally I see a win
Skibum says
What in the actual hell are you talking about??? I haven’t seen even one comment from anyone on here who is defending Maduro’s actions. His dictatorial presidency is of a foreign country, and all of the negative comments that I have read are related to OUR president’s actions, OUR rule of law. How you got your mind so twisted up to somehow surmise that negative comments against the convicted felon in the WH amounts to defending Maduro is beyond me!
The U.S. has a Constitution, which our felon president likes to ignore. The U.S. has statutory laws which our felon president likes to ignore. The U.S. has three co-equal branches of government, the other two being Congress and the federal courts, which the felon president likes to ignore.
I understand it must be difficult for the uneducated maga mush brains which our felon president says over and over again that he loves, (I wonder why) to grasp the significance of complete sentences and complex ideas. If it is too hard for you to keep up, you might want to try reading the comments over and over again until the words sink in and a lightbulb illuminates their correct meaning before uttering gibberish.
But then you sound as though you supported that “just another normal tourist day” at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 when the maga mob or rioters stormed the grounds and beat and injured more than 140 law enforcement personnel who were protecting member of Congress and V.P. Pence, so if that is true I don’t expect much sanity or enlightened wit to be forthcoming anytime soon.
Dennis C Rathsam says
Thanks to America, and our great president TRUMP, for freeing the good people of Venezuela.
Pogo says
Skibum says
DRUMph can now proclaim his new, inglorious title, South American Oil King. Very appropriate for someone who has always been a greasy SOB.
Skibum says
“If you are like many Americans who are questioning the legality of attacking Venezuela and kidnapping its president, remember that we are talking about a highly corrupt and demented leader who is a known criminal, who has been using his high office to make billions for himself, who has manipulated elections to stay in power, who uses his military against his own citizens, and who protects his corrupt friends and punishes his political enemies. The president of Venezuela has done bad things too.”
The convicted felon’s military invasion into Venezuela is just the kind of thing we should expect from a president who has the highest level of unfavourability of any president in U.S. history, and who is doing anything and everything to distract Americans from the current unaffordability crisis in our economy, his protection of sexual perverts like himself who have a history of sexual abuse, some of whom prey on little girls, and the fact that millions and millions of Americans are now facing double and triple the cost of health insurance, if they are able to afford it at all.
That is NOT what anyone, including republicans, voted for!
Skibum says