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February 15, 2002
Editorials
JQC needs more openness
As the agency responsible for ridding Florida of unethical and unfit judges, the Judicial Qualifications Commission has a sensitive and difficult assignment that it has carried out with varying degrees of enthusiasm since its creation 47 years ago. Overall, it has done good work. But on some occasions (notably, the early stage of a serious Supreme Court scandal) it has been suspected of coddling errant judges; on others, it has cashiered judges for offenses that hardly seemed career-ending. Most recently, its recommendation of a mere reprimand for Hillsborough Circuit Judge Robert Bonanno inspired an impeachment investigation by the House Committee on Judicial Oversight, whereupon Bonanno resigned.
Kids who did the right thing
We all hear plenty about the sorry state of American youth. They're spoiled, doped-up, selfish and lazy. Then along come Javarious Jones and Oscar Carter, 13-year-old Tampa boys who found $4,000 cash by the road, and turned it in to their school principal.
A vote against schools
A vote for vouchers for everyone is a vote against public schools, and the House leaders who are trying to push the bill should be punished.
Letters
Rep. Farkas seeks to ease costs of health insurance
I have read with interest your lambasting of Rep. Frank Farkas in regard to his sponsoring of legislation that will make a lower cost group health insurance policy available to employers. I don't think that you have adequately focused on the problem he is trying to solve.
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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