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April 27, 2001
Editorials
For a safer U.S. 19
The Department of Transportation would be wise to make the deadly highway safer by using the money it has to build an overpass at Enterprise Road.
Reject secret hiring
Florida is in grave danger of a historic retreat from the policies of open government that have made the motto "Sunshine State" a metaphor for something infinitely more important than tourism. Under cover of the massive education reorganization effort, some legislators are also proposing secret selection of university and junior college presidents and the next commissioner of education. This outrageous assault on Florida's open-government laws should be defeated not only for its own utter lack of merit but for the inviting precedent it would set for secret hiring in every agency of local as well as state government.
Letters
Florida Forever Program protects our environment
Each year, the Legislature convenes its 60-day session to address the funding needs of our state. This constitutional responsibility for funding Florida's government must be accomplished in a fiscally prudent manner.
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.
© Copyright 2001 St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.
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