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February 7, 2002
Editorials
Jury as decisionmaker
Florida legislators should change the jury's role from adviser to decisionmaker in sentencing a defendant to death, which would help to relieve the appellate system.
Good pick for faith-based agenda
For speaking his mind about Florida government's budgetary indifference to poor people, Jim Towey was given the pink slip by angry Republican senators. After his confirmation was rejected in 1995, he left the job of secretary of Health and Rehabilitative Services and government altogether. Then he created a private group dedicated to helping people age with dignity. In 2000, he held a remarkable gathering of government leaders, jurists and business people aimed at sparking a spiritual awakening.
County needs four better years
Hillsborough County Commissioners are entering the election season with few positive accomplishments to show the voters. The county has no transit plan or strategy to finance health care. Growth management is an afterthought, and the commission nearly ran off the county administrator. When board members aren't sniping among themselves, they're snapping away at critics -- the public, the business community, other local governments. No wonder people who attend the public hearings are asked not to ridicule commissioners by name.
Letters
Pension fund's Enron purchases merit no criticism
In your Feb. 3, article, Enron: The Florida Connection, you attempt to imply that somehow the state pension fund was influenced to buy Enron stock by the governor or other recipients of Enron campaign donations. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the five-plus years that I have been executive director of the fund, not a single one of the board's trustees has ever even hinted that we buy or sell a specific stock or bond or hire or fire a money manager.
Perspective
Taking jobs, alienating customers
For weeks Americans have been told that the outsourcing of high-tech jobs is good for our economy. So said Greg Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in a recent report signed by President Bush. So, too, writes Thomas Friedman of the New York Times in articles praising the rise of call centers in India used for everything from making airline reservations and reading medical X-ray films to providing tech support for American computer firms.
Philip Gailey: Democrats fall off campaign finance reform wagon
Well, what do you know. Soft money is back, and it's making hypocrites of all those Democrats who fervently championed the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law, not to mention those Republicans who objected to the law's restrictions on issue advocacy.
Bill Maxwell: Who is for the farm worker?
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is touting legislation to improve the lives of Florida's 300,000-plus farm workers, who endure institutional and systemic injustices each day in our fields and groves and their personal lives.
Robyn E. Blumner: For some defendants, an American gulag
In Bernard Malamud's masterpiece The Fixer, inmate Yakov Bok was subjected to psychological torture in a Soviet gulag through the humiliations of constant shackling and repeated strip searches.
© Copyright 2001 St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.
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