Hi, kids!

It’s time once again to turn a jaundiced eye toward the news and newsmakers of the day who, in my cynical opinion, either contributed to our quality of life or detracted from it in some significant way:

Volusia County Schools: The “Positivity Movement” = Institutional Deception

“The positivity movement is a good thing for our community,” Board member Krista Goodrich said. “Let’s keep it going. Let’s celebrate the achievements that every, student, every teacher, every principal, every district member has done.”

–Volusia County School Board Member Krista Goodrich, as quoted by reporter Jarleene Almenas writing in the Ormond Observer, “Investing in students: Volusia County Schools celebrates its second consecutive ‘A’ grade,” Thursday, August 13, 2026  

In Elenor H. Porter’s 1913 classic Pollyanna, the title character is an eleven-year-old orphan who goes to Vermont to live with her dour Aunt Polly Harrington. 

In what has come to be known as the Pollyanna Principle, the child’s father taught her to focus on “The Glad Game,” a means of developing an overly optimistic outlook based on finding gratitude and positivity in every situation, regardless of how grim the reality may be.

It’s a wonderful work of fiction – and a demoralizing metaphor for what is happening in the cloistered confines of Volusia County District School’s senior administrative offices…

Unfortunately, those of us who live here in the often cruel and competitive “real world” understand that toxic optimism – the pathological compulsion to ignore problems, dismiss failures, and overlook challenges regardless of long-term consequences – leads to a sense of denial.

A self-deception that, regardless of outcome, always paints a rosy picture that furthers the professional progression of those who would otherwise be held accountable – and allows bragging rights for influential insiders – “big shots” with a chip in the game who rely on inflated education scores for their own self-enrichment.

Last week, Volusia County School Superintendent Carmen Balgobin and her coterie of incompetents in the Ivory Tower of Power, interrupted actual educational activities to hold a rah-rah session at Mainland High School again promoting the rank fallacy that the district “earned” two back-to-back “A” grades. 

It even came with a professionally constructed banner which plastered the faces of Superintendent Balgobin and Board Member Goodrich near the school. (I’m not sure what that blatant political/personal self-promotion has to do with an “A” district – especially when you and I paid for the billboard…)  

According to the report, “To be named an “A” for the 2025-2026 school year, the district obtained 66 percentage points; districts that earn 65% or higher are considered an “A” rated district by FDOE, which uses a grading formula based on 12 components. In total, VCS earned 797 points, the highest its ever earned, Balgobin said.”

Since when did 66% “earn” an “A”? 

Where I come from, that equates to a hard “D” – a 1.6 on a traditional 4.0 scale. 

When someone speaks the truth out loud, they are immediately set upon by Superintendent Balgobin and her toadies – marginalized, ostracized, their employers warned that the offenders continued employment might be bad for business – all for refusing to participate in the district’s contrived “positivity movement” – a cheap canard that cloaks mediocrity with the laurels of high achievement.

When “professional education administrators” engage in that level of shameless career protection at the expense of academic integrity, who do you think ultimately loses? 

Sadly, this has nothing to do with learning, measuring educational accomplishment, lauding student effort, or the good work of teachers at the point of the spear who do what they can with what they have. 

Don’t take my word for it, ask any of the talented educators who have fled Volusia County Schools citing a lack of support and respect, inadequate compensation, salary compression, dangerous student behavior, maladministration, targeting, and the overriding emphasis on image over substance.

Trust me.  I’ve received heartbreaking notes from incredibly dedicated teachers and professionals who resigned to teach elsewhere, or left the classroom altogether, disenchanted with a mediocracy in DeLand that rewards sycophants and stooges over competency.

That’s why I find it infernally frustrating that those overcompensated knobs in the Balgobin administration – and her fawning brownnosers on the Volusia County School Board – have the unmitigated gall to feign outrage and attack those who speak truth to power? 

Bullshit.

Fortunately, it appears the times they are a-changin’ based on the outcome of two of three School Board primary races this week.  While current Chair (and champion of the status quo) Ruben Colón won the District 5 race outright, there were major upsets with Dr. Grace Kellermeier routing incumbent Jessie “Whackadoodle” Thompson in District 3, and newcomer Brenda Beery taking 49.61% of the vote over incumbent Jamie Haynes, setting up a run-off in November.

In my view, the primary results spoke volumes about how Volusia County voters feel about the state of our schools and those who oversee the incredibly expensive operation from the Ivory Tower of Power in DeLand.

Perhaps our elected representatives on the School Board might want to rethink Superintendent Balgobin’s “Positivity Movement” and focus on real solutions going forward…

Something tells me the current shadow puppetry that is the Volusia County School Board – a majority of malleable shills that enjoy gibbeting anyone who dares speak out against an administration that indulges institutional deception over the future of Volusia County students – is quickly coming to an end.

“The Vilest Primary in the Nation…”

“Top Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, are denouncing a political ad targeting Florida Congressman Randy Fine as antisemitic.

Fine, who represents the 6th District, including the Daytona Beach area and all of Flagler County, is facing four challengers in the Republican primary. His most serious contender is Las Vegas businessman and influencer Dan Bilzerian, who entered the race in April as an opponent of the Iran war.

Bilzerian’s animus toward Fine − who is Jewish − has been front and center throughout the campaign, but appears to have reached a crescendo with his Aug. 14 posting on X of a 2-minute, 25-second ad featuring an attractive nightclub singer mixed with derisive AI-generated images of Fine, attacks on Israel, and, at one point, an appearance by an Adolf Hitler figure, with the lyric: “Should we revisit that Austrian painter’s opinions?”

–Reporter Mark Harper, writing in The Daytona Beach News-Journal, “Antisemitic ad attacks Randy Fine, boosts Hitler’s opinions,” Sunday, August 16, 2026

I’m damn glad the primary election has come and gone – a spectacle one national media outlet called the “most vile primary in the nation.”  It is a relief to know that the flaming shit-heel Dan “Blitz” Bilzerian won’t be representing us in Washington. 

I still can’t believe I wrote the name “Bilzerian” and “representing us in “Washington” in the same sentence…

The avowed antisemite and Holocaust denier Bilzerian was not “one of us.” 

He did not share our values.   

These long-winded screeds of mine originate from Barker’s View HQ located on the eastern periphery of Florida’s 6^th Congressional District, which runs roughly south of Saint Augustine to South Daytona and inland to the outskirts of Ocala, Leesburg, and Sanford.

That makes me another disgruntled constituent of incumbent Congressman Randy Fine, a former member of the Florida House and Senate from Brevard County, who “changed his residence” and won the district 6 seat in a 2025 special election after Mike Waltz was named National Security Advisor by President Donald Trump.

By any metric, Rep. Fine is a personally repugnant and polarizing figure – incredibly outspoken, vulgar, and provocative – with a well-earned reputation for bombastic and hate-filled rhetoric of his own. 

His long history of personal and political controversies include being held in contempt of court in 2024 when a judge determined he made obscene gestures and mouthed curse words during a hearing.

In fact, following the special congressional election, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said of Fine, “He repels people…”

In my view, none of that justifies the vicious antisemitic attack launched by Fine’s carpetbagging opponent ahead of Tuesday’s primary – the self-styled social media influencer, professional hedonist, part-time actor, and Las Vegas resident Dan Bilzerian.

In my view, Bilzerian’s vitriolic video and hate-filled bluster gave our entire region a black eye.   

We can’t catch a break… 

I have a theory that this ground we call Florida’s Congressional District 6 (and 7, for that matter) is forever jinxed by an ancient Timucuan curse laid down by ol’ Chief Tomokie, who got a case of the ass after we ran his people off the land and allowed his once proud statute at Tomoka State Park to fall into utter disrepair.

In turn, the angry Chief doomed us all to shitty governance for a thousand years – setting loose a plague of malignant overdevelopment that is blanketing the land with a pox of zero lot line wood frame cracker boxes, fouling our water, and stressing our terribly inadequate transportation and utilities infrastructure like a swarm of diseased locusts.

Do you have a better explanation for how the celestial bodies might have aligned that saw Dan “King of Instagram” Bilzerian select our backyard to run for Congress? 

Sadly, it’s not much better next door in District 7, where scandal-plagued U.S. Representative Cory Mills – the subject of a House ethics investigation, credible allegations of stolen valor for misrepresenting his military record, accusations of unethical business dealings, reportedly assaulting a girlfriend, and the sexual extortion/stalking of another former girlfriend – shamelessly sought reelection.

Fortunately, he was defeated for the Republican nomination by Ryan Elijah on Tuesday.

In my view, when Bilzerian evoked Adolph Hitler as part of his brutal attack on Congressman Fine’s Jewish faith, it crossed a very bright line.  In my view, his dark and despicable actions denigrate the residents of Florida’s 6^th District and should offend decent people everywhere.

I couldn’t stomach watching the video, but reports indicate it claims Rep. Fine views his constituents as “goyim cattle,” accuses him of “raping kids,” being a “fat jew” and a “shylock,” and refers to him as a “satanic whore” posted over an image of Rep. Fine sprouting horns.  

On the eve of the primary, the video had been viewed over 1.4 million times.

For his part, Rep. Fine reposted the video and explained: “It is unheard of to share an opponent’s television commercial. But I want you to watch it. Every second. Celebrating Hitler. Having horns grow out of the heads of Jews. Showing me violently assaulted.

“And if this appeals to you, I don’t want your vote. We have a choice on Tuesday: either to embrace the kind of Nazism that led to the Holocaust or to repudiate this filth, and reaffirm American values and character.”

At the end of the day, Randy Fine won the Republican nomination with 59.95% of the vote.

Appallingly, Bilzerian’s bullshit resonated with 16,773 of our neighbors in District 6… 

In Florida’s United States Senate race, Angie Nixon, a theatrically angry state representative from Jacksonville and avowed member of the Democratic Socialists of America (a radical offshoot of the Democratic party who, among other anti-American objectives, seeks to replace capitalism with communism dressed in a ‘social equality’ costume) will now face Republican Ashley Moody in the US Senate general election.

You read that right: A self-professed socialist is the Democratic candidate to represent Florida in the United States Senate.

Komrade Nixon received the vote of 16,531 registered Democrats in Volusia County…   

Look, I’m not some handwringing Henny Penny, but the quality and character of some high-profile candidates for various local, state, and federal offices around our region is downright scary.   

In my view, the juvenile antics of candidates and their supporters across the spectrum of local races – verbal and physical swipes at polling places, asinine “sign wars,” ad hominem attacks by attack dogs more focused on character assassination than the issues facing my family and yours, massive campaign contributions from all the right last names, etc. – could well explain the abject apathy that resulted in the abysmal voter turnout on Tuesday…

In the aftermath, I find it hard to believe that some of these disgraceful candidates – and the back-alley tactics they employ – represent the very best we have to offer?

At the risk of sounding like the curmudgeonly ‘boomer’ I am, that causes me grave concern for what will remain of our venerated system of governance – the greatest representative democracy in the world – and what the future holds for my grandchildren and yours.

As Plato warned, “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferior…”

Quote of the Week

“Beachside residents and business owners in Daytona Beach are pushing for a big change. They want to break away from the city and be annexed into Ormond Beach.

The group said the beachside has been neglected for too long, and members believe Ormond Beach could do a better job addressing blight and improving the area.

This would have to be approved by both cities, but the group said it wants Ormond Beach to take over the beachside from Daytona Beach Shores to the Ormond Beach line along A1A.

If residents get their way, Daytona Beach would essentially no longer have a beach.

“We’re done waiting for great moments. We’re just done,” said Louie Louizes, owner of Ocean Avenue Gallery.

“We want to leave. We don’t want to be Daytona, that part of Daytona. We would rather be Daytona beachside in Ormond,” Daytona Beach resident Sonja Sailor said.” 

–WFTV-9 reporters Demie Johnson, “Daytona Beach residents push to join Ormond Beach due to ‘neglect,’” Wednesday, August 19, 2026

Wow…

Even if this push doesn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of coming to fruition – the Daytona Beach City Commission, Volusia County Council, the Convention and Visitors & Visitors Bureau, and its funding source, the Halifax Area Advertising Authority – should take the sentiment very seriously…

According to WFTV’s disturbing report, “In January, 9 Investigates exposed concerns about millions of dollars in unspent Daytona Beach community redevelopment agency, or CRA, funds intended to address blight.

We found the Main Street district had $11 million budgeted for projects, but only one had been approved. In another district, $279,000 went toward staff salaries, leaving only $21,000 for improvement projects.

“You have to almost rage on social media to get them to do anything. And all of a sudden, they may show up and paint a curb or put lights up around something, but it’s just a Band-Aid,” Louizes said.

We asked the City of Daytona Beach whether it would ever give up its beachside but have not received a response.”

In my experience, a non-response to pointed questions can be just as telling as a direct answer – because it often signals that something is being withheld – or that the problem being explored is more significant than it appears… 

One would have thought Mayor Derrick Henry would have learned that difficult lesson by now.

According to a recent unscientific survey taken by the City of Daytona Beach Shores, some 65.7% of respondents supported a charter amendment dropping the association with “Daytona Beach” from the beachside municipality’s name and rebranding with the local vernacular, “The Shores.”

In my view, a neighboring community seeking to disassociate themselves – along with a grassroots movement to secede from the City of Daytona Beach by desperate area merchants and frustrated residents – is not something the Chamber of Commerce set can (or should) easily dismiss.

And Another Thing!

“Eid: “If you notice any other state/city you visit that has beachside (it) is always the most beautiful!

“Why is Daytona Beach so neglected? We all know we are lacking entertainment and food and beverage. People aren’t going all the way to Daytona Beach with nothing to do.

“We are all going to hear the same story — Daytona Beach has a stigma, it is burned out, in need of improvement. The city of Daytona Beach needs a master plan.”

— Jonathan Eid, owner of the Daytona Beach Plaza Resort & Spa, speaking during a private meeting of hoteliers in September 2021, focusing on the “…decrepit state of Daytona’s core beachside,” as quoted by The Daytona Beach News-Journal, October 3, 2021  

Well, that didn’t age well…

Last week, long-suffering beachside residents and merchants learned that after sitting vacant since Hurricane Ian in September 2022, the historic Plaza Hotel and Spa is no closer to reopening than it was four-years ago.  

Following a recent meeting between city officials and owner Jonathan Eid, it was determined that the iconic Seabreeze Boulevard beach access tunnel will be closed to vehicle and pedestrian traffic until further notice… 

Sounds like it’s going to be a lean end-of-summer for those whose livelihoods depend on beach access and a lively tourist trade.   

According to a report by Sheldon Gardner writing in The Daytona Beach News-Journal, “City and county officials met with Plaza Resort property owner Johnathan Eid and his contractor the morning of Aug. 14 before making the decision, according to Daytona Beach city government spokeswoman Susan Cerbone.”

“Officials carefully considered the importance of maintaining public access to the beach and explored every reasonable effort to keep the approach open,” Cerbone said. “Ultimately, however, the need to protect beachgoers and construction workers took precedence.”

We lost.

Perhaps most disturbing, last week WFTV-9 investigative reporter Demie Johnson broke the news that “…the owner of a Daytona Beach landmark property collected more than $20 million dollars in insurance payments after Hurricane Ian, yet the city says no permits have been pulled for repairs.”

Say what?

Now, members of the Plaza Homeowners Association have expressed concerns regarding the financial management of the association.  According to WFTV, “Unit owners are asking the city to make efforts to gain entry to the building to do its own inspection because they believe it’s a public safety concern that’s in need of emergency repairs.”

In addition, “Jonathan Eid told 9 Investigates over the phone that there were no individual unit owners; they only own air space to individual units. He has not agreed to do a sit-down interview to explain further.”

Disturbing…

I don’t know about you, but I find it shocking that for the past four-years Daytona Beach city officials have allowed the beachside’s century old signature resort to stagnate – a shuttered behemoth at the very epicenter of our core tourist area – apparently accumulating code, health, and safety violations which (finally) resulted in the hotel being declared “non-compliant” last week.

According to media reports, Mr. Eid has hired a new contractor and refreshed a building permit to complete necessary repairs, and Daytona Beach officials say the city plans to “expedite” the application review so work can “move along quickly.” 

Geez.  Let’s hope so.

In 2021, during the same meeting where Mr. Eid made his critical comments regarding the blight, neglect, and stagnation that has effectively destroyed a world-famous tourist destination, Jim Berkley, former general manager of the Hilton Daytona Beach Oceanfront Resort, said the revitalization of Daytona’s beachside “…will take unified efforts from the city. The conversations that I’ve had with the city I was told we didn’t have the resources, staff, or equipment. There is a disconnect.”

I found Mr. Berkley’s professional assessment eerily similar to the findings of the long-ignored 2013 comprehensive analysis of Volusia County tourism marketing efforts which determined:

“There is no unified countywide plan to support the improvement of the tourism product, notably the beachside of Daytona Beach.  There needs to be a concerted effort involving county, city, and business leadership to upgrade the beachside of Daytona Beach.  This is a significant weakness in remaining competitive as a destination.”

What’s changed?

I mean, other than the fact fed-up beachside business owners and residents are now actively trying to disincorporate the World’ Most Famous Beach and be annexed into Ormond Beach…     

Perhaps the Daytona Beach City Commission should determine what senior staff meant when they told hoteliers that the deterioration of our core tourist area – a.k.a. the product – is due to a lack of “resources, staff, and equipment,” especially considering unanswered concerns about CRA spending.

Only then can responsible officials reorient priorities, eliminate redundant positions, engage with placemaking experts, and focus all available assets on the true revitalization of our downtrodden beachside while there’s still something left to worry about…

That’s all for me.  Have a great weekend, y’all!