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

July 11, 2000

Editorials
False defense
Clinton's missile defense system is against a false threat, technologically unfeasible, an unwarranted investment, and could spark a nuclear arms race.

Gotcha! You're uninsured
The people's business as practiced by Florida's Legislature shouldn't be a gigantic game of "Gotcha!," but all too often it is. The latest example is the so-called glitch in an insurance bill that may deny thousands of small business people the right to buy affordable health insurance before August of next year. Insurance Commissioner Bill Nelson says that's not what the Legislature intended and is insisting that insurance companies observe a liberal interpretation of the law. But at least one is refusing to issue new policies to any otherwise eligible one-employee group that wasn't already insured by that company or another. Others are considering whether to limit applicants to basic policies that might not be their best buys.

Good delay for Stauffer cleanup
With its credibility on the line, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made the right choice when it agreed to delay court approval of the Stauffer Chemical Superfund site cleanup plan.

Letters
Interstate driving isn't the same as navigating on 19
Re: Left lane is no place for slowpokes, by Bill Maxwell, July 5.  

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.