Editorials
Stumbling on Stauffer
The government agencies charged with cleanup of the Stauffer Superfund site are again blasted for their inadequate efforts. Officials should be alarmed.

Editorial Notebook: Martin Dyckman
Abolishing regents ignores history
One of Florida's peculiar problems is that it is governed by a lot of people who have no personal memory of Florida's history or have chosen to ignore what they should remember. That leads to the sort of collective amnesia evident in the impending abolition of the Board of Regents.

Letters
Levels of viciousness are irrelevant
The recent central article in the Perspective section, Not all murderers are the monsters who should face death (Jan. 7), is lunacy in itself, and I am surprised it was published.

Guest columnists
Greenspan’s market medicine has choked the economy
Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan's relentless attack on the stock markets has helped put us in an economic mess.

Community colleges deserve more respect
Community colleges are the Rodney Dangerfields of higher education. They get no respect. A national news magazine, in an article about higher education, once dismissed community college students as "not ready for prime time."

Books
The house presidents call home
How would you like to live in a mansion with 132 rooms, filled with gilded French furniture and priceless paintings?

Check it out
GOOD SHOW:This year's Whitbread Awards, celebrating their 30th anniversary, have been given to Matthew Kneale's historical fiction English Passengers (best novel), Zadie Smith's White Teeth (first novel), John Burnside's The Asylum Dance (poetry) and Lorna Sage for Bad Blood: A Memoir (biography).

Book Talk
LIVE AT THE LIBRARY: Frederick Busch, award-winning author of 24 books including last fall's short story collection Don't Tell Anyone, will kick off the Live at the Library series at the Tarpon Springs Library, 138 E Lemon Street, Tuesday at 3 p.m.

Twofer doesn't add up
When an author has done nearly everything -- the creation of more than 60 novels as well as screenplays, teleplays and children's books -- he might be tempted to try something gimmicky. Alas, it might not work.

Great beginnings