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March 4, 2002
Editorials
Too many anti-openness bills
Legislators have figured out two ways to roll back open-government this year. Claim any bill will fight terrorism or protect privacy, and boom, it's on the fast track. Even terrible ideas such as Rep. Rob Wallace's measure to drive the government contracting business behind closed doors, or Sen. Buddy Dyer's to criminalize the use of a person's name without his or her written consent.
Energy honesty
National energy policy should be based on a more honest debate, including disclosure of the interests that influenced the vice president's task force.
Letters
FCAT has sent our schools into test-driven lunacy
As I prepare my students for the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, I think of all those legislators and our governor who daily espouse their compassion for kids, when what I see in front of me is test-driven lunacy. Simply put, policymakers are dead wrong to think FCAT is good for our kids or their education.
Columns today
Howard Troxler
Unity kept off balance could benefit Clearwater
CLEARWATER -- There are two interesting story lines about Clearwater's upcoming city election on March 12.
Sara Fritz
Big business likely to lose 401(k) battle
WASHINGTON -- Nobody expected President Bush to break ranks with big business, especially so early in his administration.
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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