Opinion: Voters approved smoking ban, so enforce it

Once again, here we go. The public was given a chance to vote for or against the smoking ban, and the voters made a strong statement that they wanted a smoke-free environment in public businesses. Now the lawmakers are listening to some of the businesses that are crying about doing away with smoking.

Besides being healthier for everyone, don't they realize that they will save thousands of dollars every year on the maintenance of their air conditioning system, painting, etc.? It's really sad to think that someone cannot go bowling for a few hours and not smoke.

After we have spent all the money it takes to place something like this on the ballot and then voted for it, we now turn around and take it to committees and spend thousands of more dollars and valuable time talking about how to please everyone. Well, we can't please everyone, and we are wasting time that could be spent on dealing with other issues that are far more important. The larger restaurants have already started to implement the smoking ban and they still have waiting lines, so obviously it has not affected their business.

We have so many important things going on, and our country shouldn't be spending so much time on such topics. People don't want war because people will die -- well, what do they think smoking is doing to the human race?
-- Betty Elsesser, Clearwater

Smoking ban is good for business

Re: Retailers lobby for smoking loophole.

I almost fell out of my chair laughing when I read the remarks of John Berglund, a lobbyist for bowling center operators: "Bowlers would risk injury by running outside in their slippery bowling shoes to grab a few puffs between spares and strikes." You think it might be time to do something about their addiction?

If 71 percent of voters want smoke-free businesses, that will increase business. People who oppose it aren't very good businessmen. That may be the reason so many go under every year.
-- Stephen Di Giacomo, St. Petersburg

What next? Buy-a-grade?

Re: Where all grades are above average, by Stuart Rojstaczer, Feb. 3.

I am absolutely outraged. Professor Stuart Rojstaczer of Duke University admitted he no longer gives grades lower than a B because students would stop signing up for his course and that would hurt his career.

To what greater depths can American universities sink? Are professors in such short supply that Duke must employ Rojstaczer? Of what value are the students he has "educated"? Why not just dispense with the charade of lectures and classes and accept bold-faced bribes from the students? For just a few dollars more than the cost of books and tuition for the class, a student could simply buy the grade. Next, Duke will be in the mail-order degree business.

Why would any parent condone or tolerate such practices? Maybe because they want their kids to seem smart. It is no surprise that our politicians are so riddled with corruption, since they are elected by parents and students who are products of our dumbed-down university system.

Let us hope that after Duke's graduates become doctors, lawyers, judges, accountants and politicians, they get their old university professors as patients, clients and constituents. They will be getting precisely the incompetence and corruption they deserve.
-- Bob Hurt, Clearwater

A professor's courageous admission

Re: Where all grades are above average.

Professor Rojstaczer was a brave warrior for telling us what everyone in the education loop already knew but few will admit or do anything about. Of the 20 industrial nations in the world, the United States ranks near the bottom in overall knowledge. On grade inflation, Professor Rojstaczer wrote, "A's are common as dirt because it's almost impossible for a professor to grade honestly. If I sprinkle my classroom with the C's some student deserve, my future class will suffer from declining enrollments . . . So I don't give C's anymore, and neither do most of my colleagues." It does appear that wherever we are headed in this department we have already arrived.

It is appropriate to tie the column by professor Rojstaczer together with the Times' Jan. 28 story, More grads stagger under burden of student loans -- students may soon decide that a college education is not worth the effort, especially if it takes a dozen years to pay off the loans.

With this in mind, how can the upper managers of universities demand six-digit salaries at the expense of the students?
-- Bill Miller, St. Petersburg

Audit the money-making athletics

Re: Title IX wrestling pit, editorial, Feb. 3.

As someone who has been involved in wrestling as a competitor, a coach and an athletic director for over 50 years I have been keenly interested in the evolution of the Title IX controversy.

Colleges and universities have had more than enough time since the early 1970s to accept and implement Title IX. I fully agree that women students should have their fair share of the athletic budget to support their programs without eliminating men's teams.

Your editorial touches on the problems of the financial excesses of many football and basketball programs. It is no surprise that at "big time" athletic schools the athletic directors are former football or basketball coaches. Any connection?

The Sunday New York Times Magazine recently featured an article on the emerging USF football program. The real story was about the futility of major football programs chasing the elusive pot of gold that bowl games pay out. If the truth were known, the vast majority of major football and basketball programs spend millions on coaches, fancy hotels, air fare for everyone remotely connected to the programs and scholarships, and still lose money.

When athletic directors realize that they are "in the red," they eliminate men's teams such as swimming, gymnastics and wrestling. Often their justification for this action is Title IX and that "those teams don't make money." Perhaps these athletic directors are just incompetent administrators.

Several steps in the right direction would be to have an impartial auditing of the Division I football and basketball programs. Just where does all the TV money go? Who makes the money? The NCAA should cut the size of major football teams and their coaching staffs. Also, the NCAA and the TV networks, who are major contributors to the problem, should devise a formula that determines a certain percentage of the payoff to be set aside for women's programs and minor men's sports. Movement in this direction would broaden the opportunity for real students, young men and women, to participate in intercollegiate athletics.
-- John Wynne, Dunedin

Clearing the record on Title IX

Re: Title IX wrestling pit.

As a former college wrestler still active in his sport and a longtime subscriber to the Times, I was frustrated to see your newspaper's editorial regarding Title IX. Not only was it hopelessly naive, but it also contained several simple factual errors.

1. The commission did not vote to recommend a "reasonable variance" for the enforcement of proportionality. The vote to change proportionality to a 50/50 split with a 2-3 percent variance resulted in a 7-7 tie vote. The result of the vote will be included in the commission's final report with no recommendation.

2. While I would never discount the importance of money in college athletics, money has nothing to do with enforcing the proportionality quota in Title IX. It's only about head count. If it were only about money, Marquette University would not have had to drop its wrestling program to meet the proportionality quota, because the program was nonscholarship and existed solely on alumni donations. If it were only about money, Kansas State University would not be fielding a women's rowing team in the middle of the Great Plains to meet the proportionality quota. (There is no men's rowing team at Kansas State.)

3. To say that Title IX has not disadvantaged male athletes is simply untrue. Close to 200 college wrestling programs have been dropped over the past 20 years, while the total number of high school wrestling participants has stayed roughly flat over that same time, and the number of Florida kids participating in high school wrestling has grown exponentially.

Robyn E. Blumner wrote a terrific column calling for some sensibility in the enforcement of Title IX (Proportionality in athletic programs, a social construct, should be banished, Jan. 12). It's a shame that your editorial board could not follow her lead.
-- Dan McDonald, Tampa

A missed chance for charity

Opportunity lost: Sunday, Jan. 26, 2003. The stadium was opened to the fans of the Tampa Bay Bucs to welcome them home.

What a perfect opportunity to ask each fan for a $1 donation to benefit many different charities. It would have been cheerfully given by 65,000 fans.
-- Evelyn Petrich, Largo

Bucs should have given back

I think that all the Bucs fans that braved the cold weather and stood in line for hours to get into the stadium to welcome the team back should have at least received a small token of appreciation. For instance, a small football on a key chain saying, "Thank you, Bucs fans," could possibly cost them about a dime apiece to manufacture. I'm sure that would have pleased the fans. Cheapskates!

P.S. I thought with all the money the fans give them, they'd give something back.
-- Jim Perna, Spring Hill

A refreshing act of kindness

Re: A surrey for Handy, Feb. 5.

In this day of the greedy, self-absorbed American it is so very refreshing to see two real role models for the youth of this country. Steve Foss and Bill Hancock epitomize the caring for other creatures that really binds us together as a society. I'd want these two guys as friends long before anyone associated with the likes of Ye Mystic Krewe. Kudos to them for being what the world is really all about.
-- Richard De Berry, Gulfport

Share your opinions

Letters for publication should be addressed to Letters to the Editor, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731.

They can be sent by e-mail to letters@sptimes.com or by fax to 893-8675.

They should be brief and must include the writer's name, address and phone number. Please include a handwritten signature when possible.

Letters may be edited for clarity, taste and length. We regret that not all letters can be published.

Back to Opinion

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright

From the Times
Opinion page