Kudos to columnist Bea Hines| Letters to the Editor

As a longtime Miamian, I have followed Bea HInes’ column ever since I wasa young adult. I look forward to reading her thoughts every Sunday. I wasso proud that she was recently the recipient of the Royal Palm Award, as she very well deserves it for her longtime community columns.

I have admired her over the years as she is such a professional, positive and religious person.

I had the great honor and pleasure of asking to meet her, and it happened! I was so touched to have been able to have lunch and meet her in person. We need more Ms. Hines in our lives. She has touched my life forever.

Thank you, Ms. Bea.

Dee Savarino Lear,

Kendall

All smoke?

The expression “the cream always rises to the top” sometimes used to describe circumstances where the most accomplished people emerge from the crowd is not absolute. With an embarrassing display of dysfunction by the Republican majority in the U. S. House, starting with former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ouster, the fractious GOP rejected an unprecedented number of speaker candidates whose ideologies were out of alignment with certain factions within the conference.

After quashing bids by three prominent House members, Republicans finally settled on Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana, a known ally of ex-President Donald Trump and an active participant in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

Handing the speaker’s gavel to a known election denier who opposes providing support to an ally fighting to defend democracy (Ukraine) should send a message to the electorate that in the Republican Party, cream is not the only substance that can rise to the top.

Jim Paladino,

Tampa

Stand in wonder

When holding press conferences, why is it that politicians, bureaucrats and other government officials seem to require a group of people to stand around them or in the background and never say a word?

These people are obviously paid by taxpayers, so shouldn’t they be doing their respective jobs?

Larry Solomon,

West Kendall

Home wrecked

Sondra Berlowe’s comments about the expected demolition of the Alfred Browning Parker home in her Oct. 17 letter, “Don’t destroy this gem” are on target. Destroying a historic design of this magnitude is a travesty. Nothing can replace it once it’s gone.

This is happening not due to ignorance, but because of greed on the part of the buyer and inaction on the part of our local elected officials, who have thrown their hands in the air instead of standing up to Tallahassee and protecting our historic structures.

Shame on them.

Lynn Guarch-Pardo,

Coral GablesGOP’s illness

Re: the Oct. 24 Herald online op-ed, “‘Sickness in our society.’ DeSantis stokes division with immigration and Hamas comment.”

“I see Harvard students signing letters supporting Hamas terrorists who are decapitating infants and raping women,” DeSantis said, during a stop on the campaign trail as he runs for president. Actually, his vision is distorted. Not one student made such a statement.

According to the op-ed, “Gauging expressions of patriotism is a complicated matter but the type of conservatism that DeSantis and Trump represent draws a line in the sand.”

That is not conservatism; it is radicalism. As to the closing metaphor, it is far too weak.

Harold A. Maio,

Fort Myers

Orwellian policies

Gov. Ron DeSantis says that all Palestinians are antisemites. He therefore condemns the nearly one million Palestinian Christians and more than a thousand Palestinian Christians in Gaza.

Many Christian groups (Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Friends) are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and criticizing Israel’s actions against Palestinian civilians. Many Jews and Jewish groups are protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza as well.

I’ve read the Palestinian student group’s “tool kit.” It calls for protests, not violence. True, it calls Hamas “the resistance.” Words, not actions, are being banned.

If this group is banned, will all groups calling for a ceasefire, a two-state solution and protection of Palestinian civilians be banned? What has happened to democracy in Florida?

DeSantis is doing his best to dismantle freedom of speech, especially political speech, right to privacy, right to protest, intellectual freedom, freedom of religion and voting rights, all in his authoritarian drive for power.

Floridians are “free,” DeSantis says, but some are freer than others.

Maxine Long,

Coral Gables

Blanket ban

Gov. DeSantis has decided to ban student groups that support Palestinians.

Will he be attempting to ban those outside the university system who ask questions that may not fit within his political advancement goals as well?

Will he, for instance, condemn or attempt to ban someone like me, who asks others to review why Israel’s current and historical actions have increased, rather than limit the increase of extremist groups like Hamas?

Will he ban anyone who finds empathy with people who have been caged in what some have described as an open-air prison?

Will he try to silence all voices, so people cannot honestly evaluate the totality of what is happening?

Sid Kaskey,

South Miami

Equal time

In response to the Oct. 24 letter, “Sexism, still,” Florida Girls State was first held in 1947 and is sponsored annually by The American Legion Auxiliary (ALA). A female high school third-year student from any school who accepts the competitive challenge should contact an ALA unit at any local American Legion Post to become a program candidate. Details available at alafl.org/programs/girls-state.

American Legion Post 31, South Miami, was the proud sponsor of high school junior Martin Seales, who was elected 2023 governor by the Boys’ State candidates. We encourage juniors, especially from our Miami-Dade County public high schools, to consider candidacy in the Girls or Boys State, an honor of significance and learning on a college application.

Don Deresz

adjutant, Post 31,

American Legion,

South Miami

Media failed

When will anyone representing the Fourth Estate find the courage to ask our congressional Republicans, Mario Díaz-Balart, Carlos Giménez and Maria Elvira Salazar, why they continue to support ex-President Donald J. Trump? Is there any journalist in South Florida who will ask them whether they were ordered to install Rep. Mike Johnson as speaker of the House?

In 2020, Johnson wrote in an email to his colleagues, “President Trump called me this morning to express his great appreciation for our effort to file an amicus brief in the Texas case on behalf of concerned Members of Congress.”

For Díaz-Balart, Giménez and Salazar to scream, “communism” to their followers, then walk in lock-step with an authoritarian like Trump, is simply a hypocrisy that cannot be tolerated.

Joanne Tomarchio,

Miami