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February 8, 2002
Editorials
The value of sex education
The Bush administration is proposing to throw more money at abstinence-only sex education. In the budget President Bush intends to send to Congress, he is proposing a 33-percent increase in spending for sexual-abstinence education programs, which would bring the total funding of these programs to $135-million per year. The decision is a political move to appease religious conservatives, but it will have real consequences. Programs that accept these funds are barred from discussing contraception even for the purpose of preventing sexually transmitted diseases. That means some teens may be missing out on a life-saving lesson.
Health cuts for needy
Gov. Jeb Bush's cutbacks in health benefits under the Medically Needy program would make some beneficiary's destitute before they could receive help.
Capitol Notebook: Martin Dyckman
Capital hogwash
TALLAHASSEE -- Seldom have grown-ups spoken such nonsense, at least not when sober, as did members of a Senate committee this week in pushing along a bill (CS for SB 378) to close public utility records to public inspection.
Letters
President was aiming his words at 'axis of evil'
Re: An "axis of evil"? editorial, Feb. 3.
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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