Editorials
Water challenges
Swiftmud should ease up temporarily on pumping limits for Tampa Bay Water, and it should also require strict water conservation measures.

Motor-voter methods need repair
Revelations about Florida's election system mess just keep piling up. The newest chapter involves widespread bungling -- or intentional disregard -- of the motor-voter law.

Thurmond’s power play
You might find it hard to believe that Strom Thurmond could have a son too young and inexperienced for any job this side of Kids & Kubs outfielder. But the 98-year-old U.S. senator is using his muscle to have his 28-year-old (and only three years out of law school) son nominated and confirmed as South Carolina's top federal prosecutor.

Letters
Loss of control undermines teaching
Re: Newcomers find toll of teaching is too high, Jan. 21.

Bill Maxwell
Does a local black revolutionary have a chance to become mayor?
Omali Yeshitela, the 59-year-old president of the National People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, is running for mayor of St. Petersburg. He assures all interviewers that he is not in the race simply to air his ideas and positions on issues. He says he believes he can win, that he can overcome Rick Baker's money and political clout, that he can more than compete with former City Council members Kathleen Ford, Larry Williams and the rest of the pack.

Martin Dyckman
Civil service workers deserve more than they’re getting
TALLAHASSEE -- State employees do a lot of work that you might do only if desperate. Such as guarding, feeding and cleaning up after prisoners and mental patients who wouldn't mind killing them and often try. Or going face-to-face with irate parents suspected of child abuse. They're always understaffed, but you know who gets the blame when some con busts out or some child dies. Between the lousy pay and the belly-aching politicians, they are treated like dirt.

Robyn Blumner
Reno was not a protector of immigrants’ basic rights
Now that it is all but certain John Ashcroft will be the new attorney general, most progressive public interest groups are in mourning. But not all. Advocates for immigrants are breathing a tentative sigh of relief. For them, the departure of Janet Reno is a welcome turn -- her reign of error has come to an end.

Books
Food for thought on black America
The nice thing about How to Make Black America Better, an anthology edited by Tavis Smiley, is that it has enough points of entry that readers at every level can learn something.

A novel for Cleveland fans
There's a perfectly good story inside Mark Winegardner's new novel, Crooked River Burning.

Men want to look good, too
What was on Hannibal's mind as he drove his elephants over the Alps? Looking good, apparently, because on Hannibal's head was a wig, which he wore into battle to cover his lack of locks.

Children’s books
SICK OF EACH OTHER, by William Steig (HarperCollins, $14.95)

Book Talk
SPIRITUAL POETRY: New Jersey Rainbow Poets is sponsoring a religious poetry contest open to everyone with a grand prize of $1,000.

Check it out
FRIDAY IS GROUNDHOG DAY: Local author Barbara Birenbaum has published her second story-within-a-story (the first was Amazing Bald Eaglet), just in time to teach kids of all ages about Groundhog Day, Feb. 2.

Great beginnings
"She used to sell her kisses for caramels; her lips went for long licks of licorice and her touch for tangerines and tutti-frutti."