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Editorial
Bad Boys vs. manatees
In Florida, headlines about manatees are routine. If the lovable sea cows aren't in the news because of their popularity with tourists and wildlife lovers, they're at the center of some controversy or court battle about whether the government is doing enough to protect the ancient and endangered species.

Editorial
Bowen's school secrets
Pinellas School Board attorney John Bowen should not be allowed to secretly advise schools about rescinding attendance permits that let 26 children go to school with their school-employee parents.

Letters
Tampa Bay isn't perfect, but it is a great host
Re: The RNC tour bus will bypass these sights, by Mary Jo Melone, Aug. 6.

 

Columns today
Howard Troxler
Ah, politics: where all things good are scorned
This is the level of our politics. I am in receipt of a protest from the Republican Party of Florida because I praised our new secretary of state -- a Republican -- for common sense and compromise.

Robert Trigaux
Of greed and $6,000 shower curtains
In the 1980s we learned all about $700 toilet seats ordered by the military. Then we heard how Miami savings and loan executive David Paul had a thing for gold-plated plumbing in his executive restroom.

John Romano
It'll be a great day for baseball, if anybody cares
A flotilla awaits in McCovey Cove. Rafts, surfboards, canoes. Some dinghy for everyone. They paddle back and forth in the water beyond the rightfield fence at Pacific Bell Park anticipating the next Barry Bonds blast.

 

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.