The end of Santa’s Enchanted Forest is the end of a Miami tradition | Opinion
Santa’s gone
Santa’s Enchanted Forest had been a Miami Christmas tradition for years. Mainly held at Tropical Park, it featured stomach-flipping rides, funnel cakes, music, a surfing Santa display and a giant light-up tree.
Now, Santa’s Enchanted Forest is gone forever. RIP.
Paul Bacon,
Hallandale Beach
Seeking consensus
President Donald Trump has had nearly nine years since he first promised to replace the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), but there’s still no unified Trumpcare proposal. Constant threats to repeal or dismantle the ACA have created uncertainty for insurers and consumers alike.
The ACA succeeded in making insurance available and in protecting people with preexisting conditions from discrimination by insurers. It struggles with affordability and complexity; issues that plague the U.S. healthcare system.
The Affordable Care Act’s future depends not on partisan victories, but on a willingness to move past politics and find common ground in the shared goal of affordable, accessible health care for the people it was meant to serve, Americans, the real victors.
Enid Garber,
Palmetto Bay
Lesson plan
Dear teachers of Florida,
Now that you are mandated to teach the history of communism, why not consider these components: a thinker is not responsible for the crimes a regime commits in their name (Karl Marx); victims of capitalism and anti-communism far outnumber victims of communism — think slavery.
Also, think of the million people killed in Indonesia for allegedly being communists, or the tens of thousands killed in Argentina, Chile and Brazil for a similar reason.
And please be honest about Cuba: it is a state-capitalist system (with the military making the most money).
Susanne Zwingel,
Miami
Trump owns this
More than 252 Venezuelans expelled to El Salvador under President Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy suffered systematic and prolonged torture and abuse, including sexual assault, during their detention. The Trump administration knew it was sending people to a place they could be tortured and could face life-threatening risks. This is similar to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal during the Iraq War.
Beatings followed Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem’s visit, after the prisoners shouted demands to be freed and that they were not criminals nor terrorists. Noem’s high-profile visit proved the administration’s awareness of the abuses. These abused people were mostly asylum seekers from the authoritarian regime of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro and likely have no criminal record.
Who will be next? Where are the thousands of ICE detainees who just disappeared?
None of them have been convicted of a crime. Voting for Republicans will continue this crime against humanity.
Ray Allen,
Fort Myers
Fiber is best
The Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program provides federal funding for grants to states for broadband infrastructure, digital adoption and use activities, and workforce and economic development. Florida’s allocation for this program is more than $1.1 billion, funded through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
That plan, however, has been changed multiple times. There is new guidance from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to force states to allocate funds to satellite and fixed wireless. We all know fiber is the best option for fast, reliable service to Florida. With the new guidance, many communities will get inferior, more expensive service instead of the best option. I have worked with AT&T; I know fiber is Florida’s best option.
Our state has waited long enough for fast, reliable internet service, yet it still continues to wait. NTIA must give us the funds and allow Florida to use fiber as the first choice.
Glenda Abicht,
Miami
Income loss
Miami Herald reporter Max Klaver’s Nov. 14 report, “Miami millennials earned $3,000 less at age 27 than Gen X did, data shows. Why?” stated that the “income drain” was born around the time of the Great Recession (about 2008).
Paychecks during my career as a Miami-Dade County Public School teacher provide evidence that this loss of income phenomena was occurring in my profession as far back as the 1990s. Astonishingly, annual cost-of-living increases were much higher than our annual pitiful raises, until we were actually losing money. Many teachers sought additional means of employment or supplemented their income with a cottage industry.
I recall a school board meeting in which one member was amazed that the schools superintendent had completed bargaining with our teachers’ union to accept a two percent raise and subsequently provided administrators with a roughly four percent raise.
These days, the average teacher can’t even afford to live comfortably, buy a home, or a new car. Furthermore, private charter schools pirate the retirement money of their teachers, especially when they quit. Disgusting and probably unlawful.
Don Deresz,
Miami
Cost of living
Re: the Nov. 10 Miami Herald editorial, “It keeps getting harder to live in South Florida. Is it flooding — or cost of living?” The editorial didn’t consider the “pandemic effect.” We had a flood of inbound people from areas of the country that had shut down due to COVID-19.
“Normal” life and jobs were available here. When it became clear that the pandemic was under control and over, fear subsided and the country reopened. Some people then chose to leave. This was always a foreseeable and predictable behavior.
Robert E. Panoff,
Pinecrest
Immigrant health
According to the Nov. 12 story, “Immigrants with health conditions may be denied visas under a Trump directive,” people applying for visas must pass an examination by a doctor? And visa applicants must prove they can pay for health care?
What about the millions of people who crossed the border during the Biden administration? Were they all examined?
Unlikely. Yet, when they have a medical emergency, we will be providing them with free care because the hospital must take them and doctors must see and treat them.
Most of those who crossed the border will probably not work for an employer that will provide them with health insurance. Certainly, they cannot prove they can pay for health care.
Why were they allowed in?
Susan Manley,
West Kendall
Finding peace
When the weight of understanding the variety of news sources descends upon me, I question my readiness to understand it. After sorting through the various sources, I have come to understand that truth matters more than authority and that ignorance is wielded as power in today’s world.
However, we must understand that peace is not in the decrees or treaties, nor in the hands of any political organization. Instead, war lies in the mundane, irrational choices that produced this unnatural manmade solution.
The solution for peace lies in a collective moral awakening achieved by a leader who speaks for all the people, not just a few.
Bill Silver,
Coral Gables
A just response?
Are family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances steeped in Trump Devotion Syndrome and MAGA madness harassing you with bizarre rants about the Democratic sweep in leadership and down ballot positions on Election Day, Nov. 4?
Here’s how to respond: move forward firmly, lean on your right arm, make sure they are paying attention and declare: “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”
Paul Doell,
Miami
Best defense
The lead article in the most recent edition of Miami Dade College’s MDC News is headlined, “Defending Democracy in the Americas,” regarding a recent program held there.
Why doesn’t the college defend democracy by starting at home, that is, by not trying to transfer an important and valuable piece of property for a presidential library without letting the citizens of the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County weigh in?
Stewart Merkin,
Miami