St. Petersburg Times Online: Opinion

Bill Maxwell: What had changed was Bill Maxwell
In several columns I filed as the 2002 visiting professor at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas, I expressed a renewed love of teaching. Several readers, two of them university professors, asked me to explain the transformation from loathing classroom teaching to loving it again.

Editorial: Delay airport decision
The City Council should give Mayor Baker some time to work out his plan for Albert Whitted Airport so he can bring it to St. Petersburg residents and the council for consideration.

Editorial: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street
Challenged to honor the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. by renaming Ninth Street after the slain civil-rights leader, the St. Petersburg City Council took the half-way course in 1987. After heated arguments on both sides of the issue, the council used both designations for the street, and to make sure no one was pleased, it shortened the name to ML King on street signs. (The city added the title Dr. in 1992.)

Editorial: Attitude shift in death penalty
Illinois Gov. George Ryan has drawn political ire because his death row commutations were so sweeping and were issued as he left office under an ethical cloud. His action has drawn national notice, however, because of the extent to which he fits an emerging American profile on the death penalty. Ryan thinks death is a just punishment, but he can't reconcile the prospect of executing innocent and disadvantaged people.

Letters: Managing growth is a top priority for Gov. Bush
Re: An uncertain future for DCA, Jan. 7.

Columns today
Ernest Hooper: Candidates agree: Ybor needs a broader appeal
I went to the Ybor City Chamber of Commerce's mayoral debate at the Columbia Tuesday and heard candidates wax eloquently about Tampa's esteemed historical district.

Howard Troxler: Bitterness prolongs case against Scientology
Our own local version of the O.J. Simpson case -- meaning that it is undignified, nearly out of control and taking way too long -- is the civil lawsuit pending against the Church of Scientology by the estate of Lisa McPherson.

Robert Trigaux: Eckerd waits for the perfect customer
Here's Eckerd Corp.'s vision of its ideal drugstore customer.

Bill Maxwell: What had changed was Bill Maxwell
In several columns I filed as the 2002 visiting professor at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas, I expressed a renewed love of teaching. Several readers, two of them university professors, asked me to explain the transformation from loathing classroom teaching to loving it again.

Gary Shelton: Devil is in the details
Imagine the devil and Warren Sapp. Some of you may have to strain harder than others to make the connection.

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.