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June 11, 2001
Editorials
Cut greenhouse gases
With greenhouse gases getting worse, the hopeis for President Bush to take up the debateand offer some leadership at home and abroad.
A breath of air for sale
It was bound to happen. First came bottled water, then designer mulch. Now they're charging for air in some chichi shops and salons. At Joffrey's Coffee Bar in Ybor City, a 5-minute hit of oxygen costs $5. "You get a natural high from breathing in this oxygen," says Jane Bajor, part-owner of O2express, the company that supplies Joffrey's oxygen. That must explain why people in the pink of health would sit around in business suits with breathing tubes strapped to their noses.
Revisit the drinking age
Jenna and Barbara Bush, the president's 19-year-old twin daughters, are having to answer to state authorities in Texas for a "youthful indiscretion" of the sort for which their father was famous. Barbara, who attends Yale University, received a misdemeanor citation for possessing alcohol, and her sister Jenna, who was with her at a Mexican restaurant and bar in Austin, was cited for trying to obtain a drink with a fake I.D.
Letters
FDLE policy on gun database is limited by law
Your June 5 editorial (Don't purge pawned-gun data) completely mischaracterized the position of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement regarding the statewide stolen property recovery (pawnshop) database and that database's impact upon local law enforcement agencies. Let me be clear: FDLE did not "cave" to the National Rifle Association's "pressure" in making its decisions on how to implement the statewide database. We simply followed the clear indication of existing legislative policy on the current issue of firearms.
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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