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Editorial
Snowmobile damage
In winter, nearly 1,700 snowmobiles roar into Yellowstone National Park on the typical weekend day, filling the air with noxious fumes and a dreadful racket. The carbon monoxide pollution is so bad that fresh air has to be pumped into offices to protect park employees' health. As for noise, winter visitors to Old Faithful will hear the drone of snowmobiles 95 percent of the time. The traffic disrupts wildlife patterns as well, putting further strain on the delicate balance between human and environmental needs.

Editorial
Security, with a catch
The homeland security legislation's potential benefits are years away, but the special-interest provisions sneaked into the bill could do immediate harm.

Letters
Leaders should forget about more gambling
Gov. Jeb Bush and House Speaker Johnnie Byrd should forget legalized gambling. What's the real cost of casino gambling? Today, Americans wager an astounding amount, more than $400-billion a year, and that's just on legal gambling. The church and the state used to rail against gambling; now the churches sponsor bingo and 36 states run lotteries. About 10-million fellow Americans now have gambling-addiction problems that break up families and create poverty. Cities with major gambling "attractions" report elevated crime rates, low-wage jobs and high-priced real estate.

 

Columns today
Mary Jo Melone
For once, justice was blind -- colorblind
This is a day to feel good about the jury system.

Gary Shelton
A Packer now, a Buc forever
In the moments before the game, the familiar eyes will grow cold.

 

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.