MiamiHerald.com: Opinion

Lies, damned lies and Cuban ‘diplomacy’

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00 EDT

OUR OPINION: U.N. body’s questions put Cuba in the dock

Clearer path to a degree

Fri, 25 May 2012 17:29 EDT

OUR OPINION: Students will remove hurdles to graduation

The key to smart development

Wed, 23 May 2012 17:19 EDT

OUR OPINION: A Virginia Key oversight board can balance competing interests

Valid exit strategy from Afghanistan

Tue, 22 May 2012 18:28 EDT

OUR OPINION: Time has come to withdraw

Getting it right this time

Mon, 21 May 2012 18:39 EDT

OUR OPINION: Institute sensible grading guideposts for FCAT

Bad deal with little in return

Sun, 20 May 2012 17:06 EDT

OUR OPINION: Postal Service is looking to cut rates for a national direct-mail business which would hurt local businesses

Invest in the community’s goals

Sun, 20 May 2012 00:00 EDT

OUR OPINION: Action required to fulfill One Community One Goal plan to grow and diversify Miami-Dade’s economy

‘Cash Mob’ a creative way to help local businesses

Fri, 18 May 2012 17:24 EDT

OUR OPINION: Young professionals look to ‘cash mob’ to help a small business

FCAT writing fiasco

Thu, 17 May 2012 10:35 EDT

OUR OPINION: A plunge in scores inevitable as state rushes through reforms

Starting over at the Capitol

Thu, 17 May 2012 16:30 EDT

OUR OPINION: Resignation of Gov. Scott’s chief of staff raises questions about buddying up to special interests

Why I’m relieved my daughter won’t be a Gator

Fri, 25 May 2012 17:47 EDT

As many parents know, April can be the cruelest month, breeding college rejection letters from across the land. My daughter Sadie, who’s completed the IB program at Flagler Palm Coast High School, had high hopes. But she was wait-listed at her four top choices, all four out of state. She finally enrolled, to her great disappointment and ours, at the University of Florida. Then last week Grinnell College in Iowa called. Sadie was off the wait list. She was in. Not only that: She was granted a full ride and then some. Just as important: She got her visa out of Florida.

On marriage menu, compromise the main dish

Fri, 25 May 2012 17:46 EDT

It’s not so much a philosophical issue with the Grand Slam. Or a quibble with the basic theory behind Moons Over My Hammy.

New IRS rule scares foreign depositors

Thu, 24 May 2012 18:34 EDT

Florida banks are rightly alarmed over a new IRS reporting requirement because it involves losing job-creating capital that banks lend to small businesses in this state and throughout our country.

One way to fight global warming locally

Thu, 24 May 2012 18:33 EDT

Just as hybrid cars are using advanced engineering to cut gasoline bills, technology can cut the cost of cooling, heating, and lighting America’s buildings.

Faux rage over ‘Ricketts Plan’

Thu, 24 May 2012 18:34 EDT

What a difference four years make.

In Florida, tutoring works

Wed, 23 May 2012 17:10 EDT

For far too long, education in America has ignored the students it is supposed to serve and pandered to the adults who are supposed to help the students. The fights are usually cast as “unions vs. reformers,” or “school choice vs. public schools.”

The coming storm in flood insurance

Wed, 23 May 2012 17:13 EDT

The name Alberto probably doesn’t mean much to someone living in Florida, but it’s a name worth knowing. He is the year’s first tropical storm, which began swirling in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean and skirted the coast more than a week before the “official” start of the hurricane season. He is a reminder of the potential threat Floridians face annually: devastation from tropical storms and hurricanes, and the resulting storm surges and flooding that can threaten people’s lives and continue to wreak economic havoc on the state’s housing market.

Catholics won’t go quietly

Wed, 23 May 2012 17:12 EDT

In a blowout presidential election, a few large issues dominate. In a tight election, a range of smaller concerns — important to strategic constituencies in battleground states — can end up being crucial.

Vulnerable are harmed

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00 EDT

The U.S. House recently voted to increase poverty. Programs that provide a hand up not a handout and have a proven record of poverty reduction were cut. HR 5652 will deny millions access to healthcare by restricting Medicaid and the new healthcare law, and by denying millions of children the Child Tax Credit. The House bill would totally eliminate a program that protects both children and older people from abuse and neglect.

Survival of the fittest

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00 EDT

The mullahs of Iran have stated that it’s their religious duty to eradicate six million Israeli Jews and are developing a nuclear capability for that purpose.

Visas for all

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00 EDT

I read with dismay the May 23 article Mariela Castro tops US visit with transgender talk, about Raul Castro’s daughter traveling to California to lead a panel at a conference organized by the Latin American Studies Association and meet with San Francisco’s lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual community.

Increase public transit

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00 EDT

As the incredible amount of road expansion, flyovers, bridges and concrete monstrosities continues to rise over Miami-Dade County from south to north, I’m convinced that the mission of the MDX is to see how much land it can pave over and how many more tolls it can collect.

No connection

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00 EDT

Add social ineptitude to Gov. Scott’s other attributes. Just because someone made a lot of money, does not mean that person is qualified to run a state. Sadly, all of us who knew better will continue to pay the price for the blunder of those who put him in office.

Silence in the face of violence

Fri, 25 May 2012 17:31 EDT

Almost a month ago, a Coral Gables travel agency chartering flights to Cuba was firebombed. The agency had recently helped facilitate the pilgrimage of hundreds of Cuban-American Catholic worshipers and others to Cuba to participate in a papal mass.

Schools undercut

Fri, 25 May 2012 17:30 EDT

Re the May 20 column by Myriam Marquez, State shares blame for school woes: Marquez honestly addresses how thoughtless, imbalanced and inconsistent the state’s leadership has been since declaring an all-out assault on public education. Her question “Is the point to strengthen public schools or to destroy them?” needs a definitive answer.

We’re overbuilt

Fri, 25 May 2012 17:30 EDT

Re the May 22 letter The goal: more water conservation: You cannot tell existing homeowners to limit water-sprinkler use while building more homes, each having showers, dishwashers, sprinklers, etc.

Five dictators with mommy issues

Fri, 25 May 2012 17:31 EDT

The Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud, who was very close with his mother, once remarked that “people who know that they are preferred or favored by their mother give evidence in their lives of a peculiar self-reliance and an unshakeable optimism which often seem like heroic attributes and bring actual success to their possessors.”

How super-PACs will keep the presidential race clean

Thu, 24 May 2012 18:32 EDT

Strangely enough, the 2012 presidential campaign, expected to be the dirtiest in modern memory, may end up being relatively clean.

Our love of driving is decelerating

Wed, 23 May 2012 17:22 EDT

Good news for Memorial Day weekend: Since peaking at a national average of $3.93 on April 5, the price of regular gasoline has fallen almost 25 cents per gallon. That’s like a $25 billion tax cut for consumers. In fact, gasoline is cheaper now than it was a year ago at this time. Futures markets are signaling further possible declines.

NAACP follows Obama’s lead

Tue, 22 May 2012 17:54 EDT

When leaders lead, especially on difficult social issues that demand the end of an injustice or the expansion of liberty, people will follow. The NAACP’s resolution supporting marriage equality is the most important sign yet that President Obama’s public support of it had the power to change hearts and minds.

In Romney, Mormons see path to Christian mainstream

Mon, 21 May 2012 18:01 EDT

During the 2008 presidential primary race, evangelical stalwart Mike Huckabee darkly hinted that Mitt Romney might believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers. This time around, Romney is the featured graduation speaker at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. What changed?

Are polls now less reliable?

Sun, 20 May 2012 00:00 EDT

When you get a call on your cellphone from an unfamiliar number, do you answer it? If the person on the other end of the line immediately tries to assure you they’re not trying to sell you anything, do you believe them? If they tell you they’re conducting a public opinion survey that will only take a few minutes of your time, do you go ahead and start sharing your views on religion, gay marriage, the economy and the upcoming election?

Five myths about independent voters

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00 EDT

Forty percent of all registered voters are independents — the highest figure since Gallup started keeping track half a century ago. Since 2008, 2.5 million voters have left the two major parties to become independents, which is now a larger group than registered Republicans or Democrats. Let’s address some of the misconceptions about this growing and influential bloc of voters.

Wiping moderates off the map

Fri, 18 May 2012 17:37 EDT

Journalists in Washington and other places have reported for at least the past year and a half on the so-called end of the moderate in Congress. I’ll be the first to admit that there are fewer moderate members of Congress than there were in the last Congress. And after Election Day, there may be fewer still.

Hail to our newest campus: Useless State

Sat, 26 May 2012 00:00 EDT

At a time when Florida’s 11 state universities are financially gasping, the Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott are throwing $50 million away on a whimsical new school that might as well be called Useless State.

Fat cat urged to bankroll anti-Obama hatefest

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00 EDT

Joe Ricketts has decided not to spend $10 million on hate. Good call.

A violent homicide isn’t hazing

Sat, 05 May 2012 21:40 EDT

Eleven of the 13 people who allegedly participated in killing Florida A&M drum major Robert Champion have been charged with “a hazing resulting in death,” a low-grade felony. The two others are accused of misdemeanors.

Zimmerman charge will be hard to prove

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 00:00 EDT

It will be astonishing if George Zimmerman is convicted of second-degree murder for shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

Stimulus spending for party animals

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 00:00 EDT

In a new twist on stimulus spending, the government’s General Services Administration laid out more than $822,000 for a rocking mega-party at a gambling resort near Las Vegas.

Surprise — lawmakers turn down free drug test offer

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:00 EDT

Among its dubious achievements this year, the Florida Legislature passed a law authorizing random drug tests for state workers.

The Rush-Muffin feels the heat

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:33 EST

M rs. Limbaugh’s diary:

Stadium plan a 'bifurcated rip-off'

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 12:29 EST

The Dolphins will seek a new state law that could increase bed taxes in both Miami-Dade and Broward, and would allow Broward officials to send its revenues across the county line to help renovate the football stadium. This is what you call a bifurcated rip-off.

The remote control that revolutionized our ‘fat assets’

Sat, 26 May 2012 23:00 EDT

We are gathered here today to memorialize a man who revolutionized our lives.

Goofy GOP plans against Obama’s re-election

Tue, 22 May 2012 18:40 EDT

I , too, sing America.

Some harsh sentences prove unjust

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00 EDT

So the people got sick of it, all those criminals being coddled by all those bleeding heart liberal judges with all their soft-headed concern for rights and rehabilitation. And a wave swept this country in the Reagan years, a wave ridden by pundits and politicians seeking power, a wave that said, no mercy, no more.

Don’t blame the Dems for hyper-partisanship

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00 EDT

And another one bites the dust.

Serendipity in Obama’s timing on gay marriage

Sat, 12 May 2012 00:00 EDT

So apparently, Barack Obama is finally done evolving.

A pertinent question amid U.S. justice system’s revolving door

Tue, 08 May 2012 17:41 EDT

I promised Russell I would ask you something.

Trayvon ‘killed by a stereotype’

Sat, 05 May 2012 21:41 EDT

I don’t care about George Zimmerman’s MySpace page.

Don’t blame the Bible

Tue, 01 May 2012 18:10 EDT

Sometimes, people hide inside the Bible.

Hold politicians accountable for education

Sat, 19 May 2012 13:14 EDT

The FCAT writing fiasco is not a failure — it’s an opportunity to slow down and get things right. But you do have to wonder, after a decade of increasing education standards and accountability, is the point to strengthen public schools or to destroy them?

Another attack on immigrants in the name of fighting voter fraud in Florida

Sat, 12 May 2012 15:22 EDT

Attention Nora Arce, Hugo Cohen, Lorna Clarke, Cheryes Jerome, Carmen Rodriguez, Keith Seymour, Paul Tien and Byron Vassell. If you’re a U.S. citizen and aren’t dead or moved out of state, you are among thousands of registered voters the state claims as “verified non U.S. citizens.”

Marco Rubio, Dreamers and political calculations

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 19:14 EDT

Marco Rubio has cut the Dream Act baby in half, but unlike Solomon’s biblical baby, this 21st century version can survive, maybe even morph into an American citizen.

Is Braman a bully or a reformer?

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 10:40 EDT

As an independent voter, I’m not one swayed by partisan slates of candidates during elections.

Church’s good works, Cuban cardinal’s bad calls

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 00:00 EDT

It will take “patience and decisiveness.” So says the pope about changing Cuba’s 53-year-old Marxist dictatorship.

On ‘inspirational messages’ in public schools what’s the point?

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 21:32 EST

Dear Lord, why is the Florida Legislature calling prayer by any other name? Inspirational messages?

The art of eating our own

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 19:49 EST

Ask Pepe Croqueta — Miami’s Everyman — about some guy named Jorge Perez donating $35 million in cash and art to a public museum that will bear Perez’s name, and Pepe will say, “But this guy is a Perez cualquiera,” a popular Cuban saying when one has a common surname.

Obama reneges on secrecy pledge

Mon, 21 May 2012 18:02 EDT

There were no cameras around to record whether President Obama was winking when, on his first full day in office, he signed an executive order and two presidential memorandums declaring that “every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known.”

After 10-year ride, R.I.P. ‘CSI: Miami’

Mon, 14 May 2012 22:05 EDT

If this were an episode of CSI : Miami, David Caruso would look grimly into the camera. “The only thing dead around here,” he’d say, pausing a beat to whip off his omnipresent sunglasses, “is my show!” Then the TV screen would fade to black with the news that CSI: Miami has been canceled after 10 seasons.

Death of a tyrant

Mon, 07 May 2012 18:17 EDT

When the Marxist Sandinista party he had helped found was driven from power in Nicaragua, it understandably took Tomas Borge some time to adjust to the new realities. Accustomed to local journalists gravely listening to his addlebrained theories on economics as if their lives and liberty depended on it — which, of course they literally did — he was quite unprepared when a reporter broke in with a rascally question during a radio interview.

When R2D2 and C3P0 go to war

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 18:52 EDT

As a little kid I worried a lot, about everything from marauding robot armies laying waste to Americans with death rays (which I saw in a terrifying old sci-fi movie called Target Earth) to the prospect of starving hordes of old people ravaging the countryside after Social Security broke down (which I heard in an even more terrifying Barry Goldwater campaign speech). My father’s inevitable response to my regular heebie-jeebie attacks was, “Don’t worry, it’ll never happen.”

Today Show’s ‘dirty editing’ of 911 call in Trayvon Martin case

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 18:10 EDT

When The Washington Post discovered reporter Janet Cooke had made up a story about an 8-year-old heroin addict, it printed a 14,000-word investigation of what happened by its ombudsman. “She was a one-in-a-million liar,” admitted Post executive editor Ben Bradlee.

Don’t rush to judgment in Trayvon Martin killing

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 18:11 EDT

I’ve read tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of words on the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, the South Florida teenager whose shooting death last month at the hands of a neighborhood watch volunteer has become a national symbol of continuing American racism. But in all those words, there are three that haven’t come up that seem worth remembering to me: Duke lacrosse team.

Local sports franchises take the prize

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 19:12 EDT

It’s looking like a great season for the Miami Marlins. The first game hasn’t even played, but already they’ve won an important and hotly contested championship, wresting the title of Most Swinishly Arrogant Sports Franchise in South Florida away from the Miami Heat.

Belated Valentine to Fidel (but not from me)

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 18:23 EST

Chalk up another victory for the greeting-card cartel: Valentine’s Day now goes on for weeks, months, even decades — at least when it comes to the American left and the Castro brothers. The sweet nothings (the phrase has never been more literally appropriate) just never end.

Major advancements needed in Haiti

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00 EDT

Re Jacqueline Charles’ May 14 article, Wreath , new government mark Martelly’s first year at helm in Haiti: While the piece provides an accurate overview of contemporary Haitian governance, it doesn’t mention a few key insights regarding the implications of these events.

Higher taxes

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00 EDT

All those Democrats who can’t wait for the Bush tax cuts to expire so they can soak the rich are in for a big, unpleasant surprise.

Vulnerable are harmed

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00 EDT

Survival of the fittest

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00 EDT

The mullahs of Iran have stated that it’s their religious duty to eradicate six million Israeli Jews and are developing a nuclear capability for that purpose.

Visas for all

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00 EDT

Finding forgiveness in unlikely places

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00 EDT

Last month, a court in The Hague found former Liberian president Charles Taylor guilty of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in fueling a 10-year bloody conflict in Sierra Leone. The verdict capped a trial that itself had dragged on for years and had been punctuated by moments of sensationalism, such as Wikileaks revelations and the testimonies of supermodel Naomi Campbell and actress Mia Farrow.

Five dictators with mommy issues

Fri, 25 May 2012 17:31 EDT

Honoring service, sacrifice on Memorial Day

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00 EDT

Memorial Day is our nation’s commemoration of the sacrifices made by those whose lives were on the line for the freedoms we hold sacred. Whether our veterans survived their military service, or were lost on the field of battle, our country owes each of them, and their families, a debt of gratitude.

Disco was so much more than just a fad

Fri, 25 May 2012 17:35 EDT

As news of the deaths of Disco Queen Donna Summer and the Bee Gees’ Robin Gibb circulated the entertainment world, the passing of the two disco icons carried a particular and personal sting for Miamians.

Miami Archbishop: Gay marriage devalues all marriages

Fri, 25 May 2012 17:48 EDT

In this particular battle in our nation’s “culture wars,” the two opposing sides are fighting about the understanding of man and his relationship to truth and reality.

5/25/12

Thursday, May 24