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Editorials
Taking away college
By not allowing learning disabled children to use devices to help them show their knowledge, they might fail the tests that would take away their chance to get into college.

Forgotten promise of election help
Assurances of state and federal help with the cost of replacing Florida's faulty punch-card voting machines have evaporated quicker than the lead in the 2000 presidential contest. The Legislature had promised $16-million this year, but when the House revealed its budget recently, it contained no money for voting machines or other election improvements. Meanwhile, in the U.S. Senate, a bill that would pay states $6,000 per precinct to update their voting machines has been hung up on a partisan political disagreement.

Real reasons to reject Pickering
The nomination of Charles Pickering Sr. to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is the first major test of President Bush's attempt to put his mark on the federal judiciary. Liberal groups are fiercely opposing Pickering's nomination, citing his personal opposition to abortion and putting an ugly spin on his civil rights record. Some critics have tried to cast him as an unreconstructed segregationist. Pickering doesn't deserve this kind of smear, but neither does he deserve a seat on a federal appeals court.

Letters
Principal acted as an advocate for his students
I find the ouster of John Nicely as principal of Tarpon Springs High School symptomatic of the problems that make meaningful school improvement in Florida impossible. School improvement has become an issue of power and control, not student advocacy and the nurturing of lifelong learners. Nicely did what any caring administrator would do in applying the rules in a manner that demonstrated the school's desire to see students succeed, not fail. When students see teachers and administrators working as their advocates, not guardians of institutional nonsense, they respond with positive behaviors and increased academic interest.

Bill Maxwell
No pity for speeders caught in 'traps'
An old woman happens upon an injured cobra. She brings the reptile to home and nurses it back to health. One day, it bites her. With her dying breath, she asks: "Why did you bite me after all I did for you?" The unrepentant snake replies: "Hey, lady, you knew I was a cobra before you brought me home."  

Columns today
Howard Troxler
Voters can learn from watchdog's utility bite
You might recall that there has been an attempt in this year's Legislature to raise your local telephone rates. I am happy to report that the scheme seems to be in trouble.

Bill Maxwell
No pity for speeders caught in 'traps'
An old woman happens upon an injured cobra. She brings the reptile to home and nurses it back to health. One day, it bites her. With her dying breath, she asks: "Why did you bite me after all I did for you?" The unrepentant snake replies: "Hey, lady, you knew I was a cobra before you brought me home."

Ernest Hooper
Everlasting love, Goody Goody and growing old
The first time Nina Marie Webb saw Arthur Ballard was on a Valentine's Day eight decades ago. 

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.