Don Addis Editorial Cartoons E-mail a letter to the editor

Editorial: Organic food's rotten deal
A sleazy political favor for one farmer undermines the credibility of USDA food labels and endangers the integrity of the $10-billion organic food industry.

Editorial: Freedom from scrutiny
Buried in last year's Homeland Security Act is a dangerous provision that puts vital public safety information out of public reach. The law creates an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act for information on critical infrastructure submitted to the government by private industry.

Editorial: A paternal injustice
Attention, divorcing fathers: According to the Florida Supreme Court, you may be on the hook for child support payments even if you find out after the divorce that the child is not yours. A January decision by the high court forces a man whose former wife misled him about their child's paternity to continue support payments as though the child were biologically his.

Letters: Dismantling state library devalues Florida heritage
Since Gov. Jeb Bush's recommended budget for fiscal year 2003-2004 was made public late last month, a number of professional organizations, as well as scholars, journalists, library leaders, educators and concerned citizens, have expressed dismay over the proposed elimination of the Florida State Library, effective July 1, 2003. If this proposal is approved by the Legislature, the state library's priceless collection of nearly 1-million documents representing the history and heritage of all Floridians will be in jeopardy. The governor's plan calls for transfer of the collection to Florida State University, but FSU President T.K. Wetherell has said that the university lacks adequate space to house the collection, not to mention staff and funds to maintain it. In fact, FSU is in line for a $17.6-million cut in state funds.

 

Columns today
Robert Trigaux: Corporations start to listen as shareholders find their voices
Once upon a time, a giant stepped on a small mound of ants. The thick-skinned giant barely noticed the ants, who were too small and too few to convince such a large foe to move on.

Sara Fritz: Where is Bush's plan to reform Medicare?
WASHINGTON -- Have you heard about the president who was surprised when Congress rejected his health care reform proposal because his advisers drafted it in secret?

 

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.