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Editorial: Tampa needs a stormwater tax
Tampa Mayor Dick Greco is rectifying an old problem with his proposal for a citywide stormwater tax. Few things are as important to a crowded, waterfront city as the capacity to drain stormwater from the streets safely. The City Council should support the tax and reassure residents in different parts of town that a fair process will determine what work gets done.

Editorial: Almost courageous
A panel assessing Florida's higher education needs raised some important issues but ignored the system's need for increased state funding.

Letters: Military duty can help our country and our youth
Re: When the military is a family matter, Nov. 27.

 

Columns today
Mary Jo Melone: The 'rights' of the few don't do right by manatees
Go figure this one: We give pigs constitutional protections in Florida, but when it comes to the manatee, we start talking like we're about to be overrun by Bolsheviks.

Christopher Goffard, Tamara Lush: Reality of justice shocks students
They've seen Law & Order and The Practice, Ally McBeal and JAG, television shows where justice gallops at breakneck speed between commercials.

John Romano: Phillies' big statement may be a costly lesson
Did you notice the Rockies, and the Marlins too, bribing the Braves to take Mike Hampton off their hands? Did you catch the Dodgers and Cubs getting together to swap heartaches? Did you see the size of Mo Vaughn's belt?

 

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.