Living in South Florida has become unbearable. Here’s why I left for Georgia | Opinion
Moving on
I lived in Homestead for 10 years before moving to Georgia. Although I wanted to experience life in another state, I mainly moved due to the high cost of living in Florida and the inability to find an employer willing to match my salary to my basic needs.
My mother still lives in Homestead, earning minimum wage as a housekeeper for a large resort in Key Largo. Despite the recent increase of Florida’s minimum wage to $14 an hour, many, including my mother, still struggle. Rent is a minimum of $2,000 a month, the price of gas is about $3.10 per gallon and groceries can easily reach $200 per week.
Florida, the proud Sunshine State, full of vacation homes and tourists from all over the globe, has unfortunately become unbearable not only due to its heat but also its cost of living. If the cost of basic necessities continue rising for workers, Florida will lose a significant portion of its undervalued population.
Jessica L. Santana Torres,
Norcross, GA
License to kill?
When did the president of this country become the new James Bond?
Donald Trump showed no respect for any law when he ordered strikes on four boats navigating international waters, just because these boats supposedly carried drugs.
With all the U.S. forces spread out in the area, including Navy, Marines and Coastguard, he could have ordered them to detain the boats, capture the smugglers and recover the shipment, to prove and justify the operation. Instead, he acts like an avenger and simply destroys every piece of evidence, including the lives of people who are not even allowed a trial to prove their guilt or innocence.
Max Blaya,
Pinecrest
Reactions differ
Re: the Oct. 10 op-ed, “The partisan reaction to Trump library.” Miami Dade College Trustee Marcell Felipe’s blatantly partisan defense of his vote in favor of donating land adjacent to the Freedom Tower for a presidential library, conveniently failed to mention that Donald Trump is destroying literally every value of our democracy, rendering the use of that land as a salute to him absolutely unthinkable.
Where to start?
The independence of the Department of Justice; demanding and securing indictments of his political opponents; murder on the high seas under the unsupported guise of drug enforcement; demanding conservative orthodoxy from corporations and universities; using the military against citizens and productive immigrants on the streets of American cities; the high cost of many items due to ill-conceived tariffs; using Gestapo-like tactics to round up undocumented people and deport them without due process. These are just some of the harmful actions the worst president in American history is doing to destroy our country.
These actions rightfully justify the outcry coming from all parts of Miami and around the country, including from critically thinking Hispanics, against this outrageous gift of downtown land. Felipe’s piece mentions none of this.
Edward R. Shohat,
Miami
Street naming
Florida State Rep. Kevin Steele wants to name several roads in or near college campuses after Charlie Kirk, the recently slain conservative activist. I must have missed what Kirk did to deserve this honor.
Is he a war hero? An accomplished scientist? Since when do we honor people for what they believe rather than for what they actually do?
Getting shot does not make one a hero but an unfortunate victim. In our society, there are victims of accidents, natural disasters and gunfire daily. We can feel sorry for them and their loved ones, but I see no reason for all of us to honor their misfortune.
David Halpern,
Miami
Organize or else
President Trump once prophetically said, “We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning.” That’s about the only thing he has ever said that I agree with and unfortunately, he has been steadily winning since he took office.
Democrats better get their collective act together before the mid-term elections (assuming elections are ever held again), or his “winning” will be the end of America as we know it.
Peter M. Brooke,
Doral
Explicit content
No one seems bothered by the song lyrics of Puerto Rican rapper and singer Bad Bunny. The lyrics are laced with crude references to sex, alcohol and drugs.
I have no problem with entertainers from all over the world performing at the Super Bowl halftime, but the lack of decency is offensive. Just because Bad Bunny sings in Spanish (and poorly pronounced Spanish, to boot), doesn’t make it any less offensive.
With so many talented individuals in the world, is this the best the NFL can do?
It’s embarrassing.
Lynn Guarch-Pardo,
Coral Gables
Man of peace?
Does anyone else see the irony in the fact that President Trump, who is waging war on his own population through constitutionally and legally questionable means, was seriously lobbying for a Nobel Peace prize?
In Gaza, he had ample time during this presidency to exert his influence to stop the war and reduce the number of lives lost on both sides. Only as the countdown to the Nobel selection neared did he finally put Netanyahu against the wall.
Thankfully and rightfully, he was not selected for the prize. Someone of noble intent, not someone seeking attention, was awarded.
Have members of the Nobel Committee been added to Trump’s revenge list yet?
Alan Andersen,
Coral Gables
Gift or grift
In the Miami Herald’s Sept. 30 article, “Trump to build high-rise library ‘visible for miles’ after state gifts Miami land,” developer Gregg Covin estimated that the land Miami Dade College owned alongside Miami’s Freedom Tower is “probably worth between $200 million and $300 million on the open market.”
Rather than, for example, selling the land and using the proceeds to award full, four-year undergraduate scholarships to as many as 25,000 deserving young people, the college — whose stated mission is to “serve as an economic, cultural and civic leader for the advancement of our diverse global community” — has chosen to give the land away for free to a man who sees diversity as our enemy, so that he can erect a mausoleum to himself alongside a beacon of freedom to so many.
What a cynical, foolish handout.
Frank Hedin,
Miami
Tariff rebate
The new round of tariffs affecting foreign shipments to the United States is generating billions of dollars to our treasury. President Trump has toyed with the idea of using some of these new riches to give our citizens a rebate, possibly a check for $2,000.
I would, of course, welcome this landfall, but the more I think about it, I would rather see these new riches applied to our national debt, which has grown to more than $37 trillion. If it is allowed to continually grow, it will eventually consume us all and destroy our nation.
Roger Shatanoff,
Coral Gables
Budget hotel
Years ago, a friend said about politicians and honesty: “If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember what you said.” Meaning, if you transact with integrity in the public domain, you do not need to be concerned with the blowback. Governing in the sunshine was supposed to promote that.
Instead, the Trump presidential library has become a wholesale, overnight, surreptitious giveaway for no legitimate reason, without public debate or discussion, to curry favor from those who will only expect and demand more. Besides the library, we’re told there will also be a hotel.
What, no water park or casino?
Bruce Shpiner,
Miami