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Letters
Frivolous suits threaten quality of our health care
Doctors are leaving the state of Florida due to the unaffordable medical malpractice insurance. Insurance rates are skyrocketing due to a civil justice crisis in Florida manifested by an abundance of frivolous lawsuits filed by unscrupulous personal injury attorneys. The problem has become so bad that the Florida Medical Association is keeping track of doctors leaving the state.

Letters
Campaign mailbag
Voters have been forced to sift through the campaign mail and decide what's junk and what's worth keeping in an effort to find the best candidate to vote for today.

 

Columns today
Mary Jo Melone
Attacking the spirit when a mind needs repair
Citrus County Circuit Judge Ric Howard operates by his own moral compass. Mercy is nowhere on it.

Ernest Hooper
A salute to the Big Apple, free lunch and a wager
Honora Berninger scoffs at the notion New Yorkers aren't friendly.

Jan Glidewell
Remember past year's experiences and vote
Heard enough about 9/11 yet?

Gary Shelton
Who's panicking about defense? Not Kiffin
TAMPA -- The old coach hobbled through the corridor, his shoulders slouched from the weight of the disappointment.

 

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.