January 11, 2001
Editorials
Chavez failed on ideology
Was it charity or exploitation? Only former labor secretary-designate Linda Chavez and Marta Mercado -- the illegal immigrant from Guatemala who spent the better part of two years in Chavez's home doing chores and receiving occasional payment -- know for sure. Even so, Chavez's nomination may have survived this ambiguous relationship had it not been for her ideological hostility to some of the laws a labor secretary must enforce.
Keep the kids healthy
Pinellas County's shortfall in matching funds should alert state lawmakers to the need to keep the Healthy Kids program doing what it was intended to do.
Don't reward judge with secrecy
The mole hunt ordered by Pinellas-Pasco Chief Judge Susan Schaeffer offers the chance to pause and bring perspective to the scandals at the Hillsborough County Courthouse. Thanks to the law and to the peculiar way the Hillsborough courthouse works, both judges who left in disgrace last year had the benefit of leaving on their own terms. Schaeffer should weigh the damage secrecy causes to public trust in the judiciary before ruling on whether to seal a third judicial misconduct case.
Letters
It's humans' duty to control our own population
I'm responding to two letters, Put Interests of humans first and Develop the oil resources (Jan. 3), which both argue for development of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They seem to feel that human beings are way more important than any other species on Earth and that the needs of modern man are more important than environmental protection.
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.
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