Bill Maxwell
The lowdown on old curmudgeons from a proud one
As an opinion columnist, I receive a lot of mail from some very nice folks who wish that I, along with my colleagues, would write (their words) "uplifting," "positive," "compassionate," "neutral," "milder," "inclusive" essays.

Robyn Blumner
Only the rich can afford to buy redemption
As Bill Clinton saw it, Marc Rich had been punished enough. He had spent 17 years in Spain and Switzerland, living high on his millions. But he was unable to return to his homeland, the good ol' U.S. of A., because here he would be called to answer for a 51-count indictment that included accusations of buying oil from Iran while Americans were being held hostage.

Martin Dyckman
If Florida runs out of electricity
TALLAHASSEE -- After what has been happening in California, you'd think that Florida's politicians would drop energy deregulation for some safer pursuit, such as passing an income tax.

Social service overhaul may turn into mess
Jeb Bush takes pride in his willingness to shake up the state bureaucracy, and anyone who doesn't believe it should look at Florida's social service system.

Editorials
The safety of student athletes
John Van Etten, a 16-year-old punter and running back at Countryside High School, has new cause to appreciate the importance of athletic trainers in high school sports. After being hit on his side at football practice a few months ago, he approached the trainer, Mary Connors Gorniak, who quickly diagnosed a spleen injury and had him rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. Says his father: "If she wasn't here . . . John could be dead."

Ready relief
The Suncoast Parkway will indeed spark new development, but the road is desperately needed to relieve the traffic congestion in the fastest-growing area of Tampa Bay.

Letters
Rewrite of gun history is ridiculous
Re: America's gun culture is built on many myths, by Carl T. Bogus, Jan. 28.

Philip Gailey
The tremors of ethnic and class strife continue in India
NEW DELHI -- The hammer of God, as earthquakes are called here, came down on the prosperous state of Gujarat in southern India with devastating force, 7.9 on the Richter scale, equivalent in energy to a 5.3-megaton hydrogen bomb. The confirmed death toll climbed within days to more than 11,000, before rescue operations ended, and the government predicted that the ultimate cost in human life could be three or four times that number when all the rubble is cleared. The United States, which has to cope with hurricanes, earthquakes and flooding, has never known a calamity of this magnitude. We measure the damage of our natural disasters more in property losses than in human life. We are more traumatized as a nation by acts of madness and terror, as in the Oklahoma City bombing and the Columbine high school massacre, than by anything nature inflicts.

Books
The darkness that changes lives
Despite his publisher's wish that he continue to write his popular Boston PI novels featuring the team of Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, Dennis Lehane promised himself he would stop at five. And he did. His sixth novel, Mystic River, is so totally different, fans might be forgiven for wondering if this is the same author.

Family dysfunctions upclose and personal
The Price family isn't any more dysfunctional than yours or mine. Well, maybe a little.

On the edge
THE RESCUE SEASON: The Heroic Story of Parajumpers on the Edge of the World by Bob Drury (Simon and Schuster, $25)

A child in between
"Are you really black and Jewish?" a fellow Yalie once asked. "How can that be possible?" She didn't answer him, but the question was one she had been asking her whole life: "Am I possible?"

Book talk
AUTHOR APPEARANCES: Michael Sterns (Kokopelli & the Butterfly), 2 p.m. today, YMCA, 4411 S Himes, Tampa; 7 p.m. Friday, Barnes & Noble, 11802 N Dale Mabry Highway, Carrollwood and 2 p.m. Saturday, B Dalton, Brandon TownCenter.

Check it out
SOUTHERN BOOK SELLERS' BEST OF 2000: A St. Petersburg poet and a former St. Petersburg journalist are among the winners of the Southeast Booksellers Association (SEBA) Book Awards. Poet Peter Meinke won the poetry award for Zinc Fingers (University of Pittsburgh Press) and New York Times reporter Rick Bragg, who worked at the St. Petersburg Times before joining the New York Times, capped the nonfiction prize for Somebody Told Me (University of Alabama Press). The fiction award went to Tony Early for Jim The Boy (Little Brown); children's prize was awarded to Kate DiCamillo for Because of Winn-Dixie (Candlewick Press).

Memories of love and happiness
In her latest work, The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart (Random House, $23.95), Alice Walker shares her own memories of her daughter's early life: