St. Petersburg Times Online: Opinion

Editorial: Police Department solutions
St. Petersburg police Chief Chuck Harmon's situation is like Lou Piniella's in one respect. Everybody has an opinion on what is wrong with the Police Department and the Devil Rays. In fact, a few members of the Council of Neighborhood Associations have told Harmon that if he doesn't run the department the way they say, they're going to demand that the Sheriff's Office take over policing the city.

Editorial: Desperate measures
Merciless cuts to the university system have spurred the presidents of two Florida schools to draft a contract that demands financial support from the state in return for good performance.

Letters: Unwise cuts will add to future budget burdens
Re: Lawmakers abandon our old, ill and poor, April 10.

Columns today
Howard Troxler: Officials' desire to toe the tax line spirals into absurd obsession
There's a common theme at work here.

Robert Trigaux: Dr. Florida's prescription: creating a vision for cities
What does the Tampa Bay region want to be when it grows up?

Gary Shelton: It's a crying shame for Mattiace
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- The magic had long since left him. Len Mattiace was mortal again.

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.