Brightline was doomed from the start<\/p>\n
Brightline is a simple idea whose execution was never going to work. A high-speed train from Miami to Orlando. But where exactly does it go? (\u201cBrightline admits \u2018substantial doubt\u2019 it can avoid insolvency,\u201d May 5)<\/a><\/p>\n Does it get the customer to locations of value? Can Brightline passengers walk to their ultimate destination after exiting the train facing\u00a0 the heat, humidity and rain that is Florida?<\/p>\n Can they move around their destination city easily and at less expense without their own vehicle once they get there?<\/p>\n Evidently and ultimately the answer was no.<\/p>\n \u2014 Peter Stephens, Orlando<\/p>\n Overheated summer reflects Florida\u2019s future<\/p>\n It\u2019s been sunny and warm, with a cool breeze. April and May\u2019s weather seems Edenic, as if Florida is luring us forward towards the burning abyss of July, August, September and at least the first half of October. There is nothing really funny about a Florida summer except that people stay every year and live through it. But the sweltering, sticky, oppressive facepalm of summer doesn\u2019t make the other seasons more palatable.<\/p>\n Instead, prior to and after summer, we dread what\u2019s to come: dead grass, slick, sweaty skin, dank humidity that calls forth reptiles, hurricanes that topple trees onto the roofs of cars or send them like torpedoes through picture windows of houses.<\/p>\n Although violated by carpetbaggers and turned into an ecological brothel for tourists, Florida still has some preserved land (that politicians are always trying to turn into golf courses), some protected wildlife, some unpolluted rivers, streams, lakes. Not many. But some. Lake Apopka was actually restored.<\/p>\n Floridians seem intent, however, on creating their own personal version of hellfire.<\/p>\n Summers in Florida would not be so hot if lawmakers were not so greedy; developers not so persistent; if land and wildlife weren\u2019t paved for roads, parking lots and housing developments. Our governor made a deal with a fertilizer company to pave some Polk County roads with radioactive waste,<\/a> phosphogypsum, a cancer causing chemical, which the media called \u201ccontroversial.\u201d<\/p>\n Lethally lethargic, Florida summers rob us of the will to care.<\/p>\n \u2014 Elizabeth Randall, Lake Mary<\/p>\n ACA was a political failure<\/p>\n The Sentinel\u2019s Sunday headline reads \u201cMillions dropping health insurance.\u201d\u00a0 As the New York Times article included, \u201cCongress failed to extend the generous subsidies that had become a defining feature of the Affordable Care Act.\u201d<\/p>\n Let us recall how President Barack Obama sold the ACA:<\/p>\n 1. The ACA would not add a dime to the deficit.<\/p>\n 2. The trillion-dollar cost of the ACA would be covered by implementing cost savings in Medicare, eliminating Medicare and Medicaid fraud; a new long-term care plan which Medicare recipients would be eager to buy, and more.<\/p>\n 3. He claimed the average eligible family would save $2,500 per year in the health insurance costs.<\/p>\n The reality: A large number of ACA recipients receive \u201cgenerous\u201d subsidies from the taxpayer \u2014 a direct contradiction to Obama\u2019s often-repeated promise.<\/p>\n Question: What do you get when you mix medical care with politics? Answer: Politics.<\/p>\n \u2014 Robert Anderson, Winter Park<\/p>\n Jolly has right priorities<\/p>\n