St. Petersburg Times Online: Opinion

Letters
Court was right in Pinellas case on term limits
Re: Voters' will swept aside for officials' "principle," column by Howard Troxler, May 29.

Editorial
For the kids' sake
Department of Children and Families chief Kathleen Kearney's bunker mentality does a disservice to the children her department is trying to protect.

Editorial
For the kids' sake
Unless Gov. Jeb Bush makes some changes as his special panel suggests, the Department of Children and Families will continue to be "underfunded, understaffed, underappreciated and overworked."

Columns today
Robert Trigaux
Corporate ads: Attack of the drones
Brace yourself for a new smorgasbord of area corporate advertising awash in pithy phrases and feel-good imagery. Wachovia Corp., the banking giant we still know in Florida under its old "First Union" name, this week kicked off its first ads as a merged company, starting with a pitch aimed at corporate clients. Related ads hit the Florida market in November.

Howard Troxler
What would Baker say if he spoke?
I dreamed I ran into the honorable mayor of St. Petersburg, Rick Baker, at the hot dog stand.

Jan Glidewell
Highway designers would fit in nets icely
If ever a situation cried out for the sentence, "Get the net!" this one probably does.

John Romano
Title IX: evil or equalizer? Just ask your daughters
What is the proper gift for a well-intended act of legislation nearing its 30th anniversary? Derision? Scorn? How about taking it to court?

Ernest Hooper
Kudos to athletes; tip of hat to Pepin's
The room was decorated with green, gold and white balloons. It was filled with the sounds of hip-hop, the smell of Spanish chicken and the smiles of eight Chamberlain High graduates as they mingled with well-wishers.

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.