Editorial: More moral equivocation
Cardinal Bernard Law has done enough damage to the Roman Catholic Church that he needn't look for ways to further erode his moral credibility. That he would allow the Boston Archdiocese to consider using the bankruptcy laws to blunt the torrent of sex-abuse lawsuits is offensive on every front. Bankruptcy would give Law the chance to abuse the victims yet again. Church leaders need to think beyond power and money and about the real pain they caused.

Editorial: Considering race
Much is at stake as the U.S. Supreme Court again looks at affirmative action, but a university should be allowed to seek diversity if it is to serve its mission faithfully.

Letters: Be cautious about military recruiters
Re: Schools shouldn't be wary of military recruiters, by Philip Gailey, Dec. 1.

Bill Maxwell: A lingering sense of place
SAN ANGELO, Texas -- As a Floridian and a person of the South, I have a keen sense of place and an understanding of the concept of a sense of place.

Martin Dyckman: The New Pork Choppers
Florida voters have been acting of late like the Iowa farmers who were advised in the 1890s to "raise less corn and more hell." We may not raise much corn here, but we have been raising a fair crop of hell. I am referring to the ballot initiatives we voted for last month despite -- or more likely because of -- the prospect that several of them would make the governor and the bosses of the Legislature hold their breath and turn blue.

Philip Gailey: States suffer pains of the widening financial crisis
The nation's governors have something in common with the top management of United Airlines: Both are struggling with a widening financial crisis largely of their own making and pleading for help from Washington. United appears headed for a crash landing in bankruptcy court. Governors are bracing for their own hard landing. In both cases, there will be casualties, from lost jobs to sharp cuts in state spending.

Robyn Blumner: Justice Powell's decision revisited
"Get Powell." In 1985, this was the message -- the challenge -- blazoned on office doors around the American Civil Liberties Union's Reproductive Freedom Project.