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

June 6, 2000

Martin Dyckman
Court should move on murder case
Crime doesn't get worse than what Joe Elton Nixon did. He kidnapped a woman who was helping him start his stalled car, tied her to a tree with her jumper cables, and burned her beyond recognition. He stole her car and pawned her rings. He confessed to it all on tape, sealing an already ironclad case.

Editorials
Death penalty critic
Gov. Jeb Bush's criticism of the death penalty doesn't make a difference to the system unless, of course, he decides to do something about it.

Pinochet at his people's mercy
When the British government lifted his house arrest and allowed former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet to leave London for Chile, many human rights campaigners felt the decision was a cop-out. The British courts had established that heads of state can be prosecuted for torture and murder, yet here was Pinochet, probably responsible for the deaths of thousands of his own people, avoiding trial and going home.

Lessons to learn from Ybor fire
Many in authority are quick to dismiss the Ybor City fire as a freak culmination of human error and bad luck. Yet the disaster raises questions about the Tampa fire department, the practices of Camden Development, which is building apartments on the site, and the city's ability to manage growth amid the boom in older neighborhoods.  

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.