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Editorial
Get serious about child safety
The latest child-welfare tragedies have exposed, and worsened, the caseload and turnover crisis at Florida's Department of Children and Families. Overburdened and underappreciated, DCF workers can barely do their jobs, and many are deciding instead simply to leave them behind. State lawmakers responded appropriately last month by approving a shift of caseworkers to districts with the greatest needs. But that $2-million plan is no more than a temporary fix. The accelerating stream of tragedies will continue until Gov. Jeb Bush, DCF Secretary Kathleen Kearney and lawmakers put finding and funding a long-term solution at the top of the state's priority list.

Editorial
A dangerous disregard
The Bush administration's defiance of the Constitution in dealing with Americans labeled enemy combatants may have finally met resistance in the courts.

Letters
Governor should avoid primary endorsements
Re: Bush endorsements rile primary opponents, Aug. 8.

 

Columns today
Gary Shelton
Okay, now it's looking like a competition
TAMPA -- Maybe Jon Gruden was right. Maybe it wasn't a competition.

Ernest Hooper
Storytime from prison; artist draws funny lines
The child picks up his book and begins to read to his mother. It is a scene played out in homes throughout the land.

 

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.