Beach business second to health
Many Miami businesses want the beaches, soiled by a massive sewer leak, reopened for the long July 4 holiday weekend. But beach business should come second to public health. Miami-Dade officials should keep the beaches closed until the sewage is safely collected and verifiably harmless to the miles of windswept beaches along the Atlantic coast.

Getting away with crime
The Violence Policy Center, an emerging force in the gun control movement, lost its Web site for three days last week to unknown hijackers who boasted profanely on screen of their success.

Insurance fairness
Our insurance commissioner's efforts to right the wrongs of charging black customers unfairly shouldn't stop with American General Corp.

Florida Crackers, a vanishing breed
Last weekend, while checking on wooded property I own in Levy County, I visited a friend I had not seen in two years. He, his wife, three adult children and four grandchildren live in the same three-bedroom, dog-trot house that has been in the family since the 1920s.

Focus more on the good aspects of Eckerd College
With the reporting in the June 23 paper on Eckerd College's endowment crisis (Trustees gave lax financial oversight), the good name of my alma mater is once again smirched. Just as it was when the investment scheme failed several years ago, and just as it was when the College Harbor and College Landings deals were exposed, Eckerd College is being looked at by the Times in the worst light.