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Bill Maxwell
Residents can change life in Midtown
The best local news I have read this year was a recent article reporting that the St. Petersburg Police Department and the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office had teamed up to seriously go after drug pushers in Midtown. Apologists -- who claim to "understand" why able-bodied, perfectly healthy, young black men sell drugs on the streets -- are sure to complain about aggressive police action.

Editorial
Judge should have known better
What was Hillsborough County Circuit Judge Richard Nielsen thinking when he forced a 16-year-old to represent himself in court? Juveniles in Florida are entitled to a lawyer. The defendant, Juan Carlos Elias, whose family is Puerto Rican, clearly showed he had trouble understanding the rules and language of court procedure. What teenager wouldn't? Nielsen showed poor judgment and a striking inability to balance competing rights.

Editorial
Rivers threatened
Though Gov. Jeb Bush and state DEP Secretary David Struhs claim to care, they have done little to protect three of the state's rivers -- Ichetucknee, Santa Fe and Suwannee.

Letters
Manufacturing deserves help from tariffs
Re: How President Bush stumbled on steel, by David Ignatius, May 20.

 

Columns today
Robert Trigaux
Hole in 401(k) safety net widens by the day
Having lived and worked many years in Manhattan and Washington, I'm all too familiar with the pitches made by our nation's urban panhandlers.

Ernest Hooper
Worthy benefit; easing housekeeping's burden
It's not too often the competing local papers write about each other, and lately I've been finding fault with the Tampa Tribune stories that have mentioned the Times.

Howard Troxler
Voters' will swept aside for officials' 'principle'
The sheriff and the clerk of court of Pinellas County, Everett Rice and Karleen DeBlaker, must be proud.

Bill Maxwell
Residents can change life in Midtown
The best local news I have read this year was a recent article reporting that the St. Petersburg Police Department and the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office had teamed up to seriously go after drug pushers in Midtown. Apologists -- who claim to "understand" why able-bodied, perfectly healthy, young black men sell drugs on the streets -- are sure to complain about aggressive police action.

John Romano
Rays' hint to Hall: It's time to grow (mentally)
ST. PETERSBURG -- It is only a hunch, mind you, but the Rays have a pretty good idea where Toby Hall's problems began.

 

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.