St. Petersburg Times Online: Opinion

Editorial
Refuges and refreshments
It took only one trip to Sand Key Park for new Pinellas County Administrator Steve Spratt to decide the county was missing the boat in some of its parks.

Editorial
An erosion of rights
In ruling that random drug testing in schools is constitutional, the Supreme Court is encouraging the indiscriminate violation of student privacy.

Letters
Shortage of pharmacists felt at Free Clinic
In a June 2 article featured in the career section of the St. Petersburg Times, Pharmacy crunch places grads in demand, a representative of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacies said that "as of January, chain drugstores had 6,503 vacant pharmacy positions... " The impact of that shortage is also felt locally with the number of pharmacists available to volunteer at the St. Petersburg Free Clinic.

Columns today
Sara Fritz
For sake of argument, she's right
WASHINGTON -- The first time someone described Ann Coulter as a "right-wing telebimbo," she was stunned and maybe a little hurt. But now she wears it as a badge of honor.

Gary Shelton
U.S. men's tennis: RIP, fellas
Once, they roamed the earth, thick and plentiful.

Howard Troxler
Tax vouchers' quick start should not impede need for scrutiny
A lot of attention has been paid to Florida's school voucher program that moves kids out of "failing" public schools, and also to the "McKay Scholarship" program that pays for disabled kids to attend private school.

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.