Don Addis Editorial Cartoons E-mail a letter to the editor

April 29, 2000

Editorials
A fragile freedom
While Iranians have felt a loosening of political and cultural restraints, there have been recent signs of resistance and renewed repression from the hard-liners.

End insurance discrimination
If there's one thing more repugnant than insurers, as late as the 1960s, charging black Floridians more than whites for already-overpriced burial insurance, it's evidence that some insurers still are.

Letters
Judicial system too often shows gender bias
I agree with the conclusion in Mary Jo Melone's April 23 column 1 degree of separation from justice that the verdict for Valessa Robinson was inadequate. Melone also questioned but did not answer the reason for the substantially lower degree of guilt for Valessa Robinson compared to the two males involved in the murder. Valessa's jail time will be much less than the 25 years and death penalty given to the two males.

 

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.