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

July 3, 2000

Editorials
Preventing AIDS in Africa
Worse than any flood, any famine, any war, AIDS is laying waste to the people of sub-Saharan Africa. In a statistic so daunting it can barely be fathomed, the United Nations has predicted that half of all 15-year-olds in the worst-hit countries in Africa will die of AIDS, even if by some miracle the rate of infection is slowed. An entire continent of adults is dying of a disease that's eminently preventable. And while much of the West wrings its hands over how such poor countries will ever afford anti-retrovirals, such as AZT, medical professionals in Africa know the solution there is much more complicated.

Lowering gas prices
The government could take the politically expedient way out by cutting the gas tax, but promoting fuel efficiency would be the most responsible way to go.

Letters
Courtesy and careful driving grow scarce
Re: A note to Pinellas' drivers: Try being nice, by Howard Troxler, June 26.  

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.