Thursday, October 21, 2010

District 8 Candidate Lynda Bell goes head to head with Audubon and NOT in a good way. By Geniusofdespair


As you can clearly hear, Lynda Bell, when Mayor of Homestead, was against having a school named 'Audubon'.

I sent the Lynda Bell video to Audubon of Florida asking for their reaction to it:

It is unfortunate that great public figures are often viewed only by the current norms of behavior. John James Audubon could not use a birding app on his iphone, or search on Wikipedia, or even open a biology textbook to identify the wildlife around him. Audubon was a pioneer. He sacrificed and dedicated his entire life to studying previously unidentified wildlife in never before seen detail, and providing that information to the rest of the world. And while John James Audubon did in fact have to sacrifice individual birds for study, the massive die off of MILLIONS of birds in the Everglades was caused by some of our most recognized local champions. Men such as Broward, Collier and Flagler ditched and drained the Everglades, causing not only death of birds and other wildlife, but near and total extinction of some species. Theodore Roosevelt was an avid hunter, but is now recognized as one of our Nation's greatest conservation heroes. Does this mean that Mayor Bell would be similarly appalled at Counties, Cities, streets, or schools being named after these figures?

Likewise, Audubon as an organization has been fighting for conservation in Florida for well over 100 years. Florida Audubon societies drew attention to the truly upsetting practice of killing hundreds of thousands of birds for fashionable plume hats. When the vast majority of people in south Florida saw the Everglades as a nuisance, a swamp to be overtaken, and nothing more than a hurdle to clear, the Audubon society was there, seeking protections and thinking about the future. Today, we are lucky to live in a world where a leader is dismayed by the killing of an animal for study, and that should be appreciated. However, this should not take away from the brilliant reputation of a great naturalist pioneer whose information has helped recover millions of times over the species he once sacrificed.

Julie Hill-Gabriel
Senior Everglades Policy Associate
Audubon of Florida

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

This just proves she is dumb enough to be a commissioner. In fact, she will make some of the current members look good by comparison.

Med student said...

Lynda doesn't believe in scientific studies. Of any sort. End of story.

It makes me wonder what is her theory of evolution?

Or if she uses the medical benefits resulting from live human medical studies (such as the UM's cancer or pharmaceutical studies)?

Anonymous said...

JJ Audubon had nothing to do with the Audubon Society.

JJ Audubon killed dozens of birds for one portrait.

Some Senior Policy Associate, try reading a book about your hero.

Anonymous said...

Nice pick up, G.O.D. Lynda Bell at her finest, hiding behind a speech that some developer gave her, or maybe Bill Losner who never met an environmentalist he couldn't bash. Bell is a travesty.

Med student said...

I still think Lynda should NOT use anything that has used animals or human to discover a benefit.

NO MAKEUP, meds, or whatever. Nada. No experimenting on lower species.

And Lynda needs to layoff the beef and pork. It is not a pretty process to make the things that show up in the meat department.

Anonymous said...

The real back story is that Bell's arch enemy Judy Waldman and her Villages of Homestead entourage wanted to have the school named as if it were part of the Villages which has its streets named for birds and the main drag through there is named Audubon as is the clubhouse. Lynda would chop off her daughters trigger finger before she would go for anything Judy Waldman supported or was perceived to have initiated. Clearly shades of a Natasha in formation.

Anonymous said...

Burgess and Feldman are the cheeks on either side of the talking a-hole

Anonymous said...

Hmmm. The blond guy looks like he wants to laugh and the dark haired guy looks like he is afraid to
look-up and face her.

Anonymous said...

I am sure than Councilman Burgess was afraid to laugh, but is having a hard time fighting the urge. Dr. Feldman looks very uncomfortable. Bell may actually fit in with the County Commission. Bell would be the replacement for Souto for senseless ranting.

Hayes Bowen said...

Wow... how embarrassing for her. How did she ever get into public office. She clearly has it out for someone associated with the Florida Audubon Society. Why else would someone publicly display such ignorance? Perhaps she should spend some time watching Nat.Geo. or Planet Earth and gain an appreciation for the importance of names like Audubon, Cousteau and the many others who have educated us for generations to come.

Anonymous said...

It is so important that people see and hear the real Lynda Bell. She has tried to re-invent herself to the people of Palmetto Bay and Pinecrest, but the citizens of Homestead know her true colors.
Decide for yourself, go to the archives on the City of Homestead Web site and watch some of the meetings.
Most importantly, I strongly feel that she will come out with a mailing or TV ad saying things that are completly false about Mayor Flinn in the next week. That's her style, attack when you have no defense.
This election is so important, don't ever under estimate what she is capable of doing.
Supporters of Eugene must stand up and be there for him election day at the polls.

Milly Herrera, Hialeah said...

I learned about John J Audubon when in 2007 we started the fight to save Hialeah Park, a listed National Audubon site. Audobon was an American frontiersman of the 18-19th centuries!

http://web4.audubon.org/nas/jja.html

P.S. ~ What I have never been able to forget are the hundreds of lizards and frogs that were sacrificed for the public schools, purchased for students taking biology class, to be sliced open and explore the insides. It was 1976, and anatomy diagrams had long been drawn up. The poor amphibians came in a pail of some biochemical solution of sorts.

Anonymous said...

In my opinion, the video clearly shows that Bell is a person who is not flexible in anyway. There were many people who wanted to name the school after Mr. Audubon.

If the school had been a charter school, which she fought very hard for, the school was to have been named after her.

She was upset that the school board would not cave to her demands and that the school remained a public school rather than a charter school.

Someone should go back and watch all of those videos. I did some time ago. I remember there was a $1,000,000 line of credit that she and the past City Manager took out for the EFBD, using the land that the school bd owned as collateral.
First of all the local bank should have never loaned the money and secondly, Mayor Warren and the other council members knew nothing about it.

The school bd agreed to pay the debt that she had created which was approximately $5,000,000 but refused to pay back the line of credit.

I bet the citizens of Homestead had to eat that one.