In suing the New York Times on behalf of Florida’s state-run pension fund for the paper’s supposedly “biased” editorial coverage of Israel, the state of Florida (and Attorney General James Uthmeier) are asking the wrong question.
Instead of asking whether the New York Times is biased, state officials should ask themselves why Palm Beach County is putting $350 million more of its funds into Israel bonds, an investment that yields a lower rate of return than 10-year U.S. treasuries.
Why should our public funds be used to prop up a foreign government?
Given the current genocide as identified by numerous human rights organizations, the investment is not only morally unconscionable — it is fiscally irresponsible.
— Randy Fair, Wilton Manors
Outstanding opinions
What terrific commentary (by Scott Maxwell, Florida hid insurance industry’s lies — and tried to stop us from revealing them).
We need to know the facts and actions that go on behind the scenes that affect our lives. The people of in Florida have to endure sufficient adversity without being taken advantage of by deceitful insurance companies and our own Republican-controlled government.
Thank you, Scott, for telling the story so comprehensively and clearly!
— Penny Morey, Boca Raton
Wild animals are not props
As someone who has spent more than four decades rescuing and advocating for animals, I find the new capybara interactive exhibit in Fort Lauderdale profoundly disturbing.
We need to stop pretending that putting wild animals in captivity and charging people to touch, feed, photograph and interact with them is harmless because the animals are “cute.” It isn’t. Capybaras are wild animals. They did not evolve to live in commercial venues surrounded by strangers reaching for them.
They are not toys or Instagram props. They can’t consent to becoming someone’s business model. And the notion that “they seem happy” is not an ethical standard. An animal’s inability to complain in a language humans understand does not mean we have the right to exploit it.
We should teach children that wild animals deserve our respect, not that if we pay enough money we are entitled to access their bodies and their lives. Wild animals do not belong in commercial entertainment venues simply because humans find them irresistible. Our community should demand better.
— Jennifer Cohen, Davie
Not kind to animals
Fort Lauderdale has been down this road before, and apparently learned nothing.
Capybara Café trucks wild animals to a commercial building every day so that its paying customers can take “selfies” with them. Calling it “cute” does not change what it is: wild animals subjected to constant human contact with little ability to retreat.
Why was this business allowed to open in Fort Lauderdale?
John McCall/South Florida Sun Sentinel
In 2019, dozens of protesters gathered at Fort Lauderdale City Hall to protest a planned petting zoo at the Galleria mall. It never opened.
A provision in the city code §6-13(a) prohibits keeping wild animals “for display or for exhibition purposes, whether gratuitously or for a fee.” Wildlife encounters are also not a permitted or conditional use in the B-3 zoning district where the café is located.
Sound familiar? Several years ago, residents fought SeaQuest’s plan to open at the Galleria, with the same zoning problem. The city approved it anyway and it was sued, and SeaQuest never opened.
Wild animals should not spend their days surrounded by strangers and constantly being touched with nowhere to escape simply for our amusement.
Fort Lauderdale should have learned this lesson the first time.
— Ana Campos, Fort Lauderdale
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