St. Petersburg Times Online: Opinion

Editorial
Stop the carping
Florida doesn't need Justice Department intervention -- or more partisan sniping from either side -- as it works to ensure a well-run general election on Nov. 5.

Editorial
The right of hotel guests
A conflict is brewing between St. Petersburg police and the operators of small hotels along 34th Street. The operators claim police are ignoring their duty to assist them in ejecting guests who engage in illegal conduct, don't pay their bills or are otherwise disruptive. Some operators are so frustrated that they have started paying undesirable guests to leave. Peter Sharp, president of the local business association, says his group is considering legal action against the police.

Letters
Merit pay works to boost success in our schools
Your Sept. 13 editorial, Illusion of merit pay for teachers started out on a very positive note: "Teachers who work extra hard ought to get extra money." And while I certainly agree with that opening statement, it was your repeated suggestion of state-sponsored deception and disillusionment that left me perplexed.

Columns today
Robert Trigaux
Home-builder survey benefits consumers
Purchased a new home recently in the Tampa Bay area? Thinking of buying one?

Jan Glidewell
What are the odds? City needs a new manager
Idon't know why they make such a big fuss about picking a new city manager in Crystal River.

Gary Shelton
Lightning's fate shadows Vinny's
BRANDON -- You look for something different. A spark, perhaps.

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.