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Editorial: Cities as partisan prizes
Florida Democratic chairman Scott Maddox has pledged to rebuild the party by promoting new political talent, but his sizeable investment in city politics this year may promote something else. It likely will escalate the bidding war between Democrats and Republicans over jobs that are, by local charter, nonpartisan.

Editorial: The onset of war
The war in Iraq is reasserting American military superiority, and our postwar commitments in Iraq and beyond should reassert our democratic ideals.

Letters: Citizens can serve nation by staying involved
It's impossible to drive on any area roads these days without seeing bumper stickers and flags declaring patriotism and reaffirming American ideals. Unfortunately true patriotism requires more investment in time and energy than slapping a decal on your back window.

 

Columns today
Mary Jo Melone: Teens cling to a lifeline as budget knives loom
The words are posted up on one wall of the lunchroom of the cramped and noisy Tampa Marine Institute:

Christopher Goffard, Tamara Lush: Tampa Uncuffed: Hearing could end Al-Arian's confinement
Sami Al-Arian could find out today if he has to remain in jail while awaiting trial.

Eric Deggans: Networks scramble to cover first salvos
Initially believing the night would be quiet, the nation's TV networks scrambled Wednesday to cover the first airstrikes in Baghdad that signaled the start of hostilities in Iraq.

 

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.