Don Addis Editorial Cartoons

July 20, 1999

Editorials
Keep transit committee on track
Politicians have a method for dodging tough decisions. They appoint a committee. That 99 people were appointed to consider a new transit tax in Hillsborough County shows how deeply public opinion is split over billion-dollar proposals for new roads, buses and commuter rail.

Marijuana-killing fungus too risky
Whoever first said "the cure is worse than the disease" could have been talking about Florida's history of trying to eradicate one environmental problem by creating a bigger one.

The sadness and the joy
As Americans again grieve with the Kennedys, they should remember the happiness that the three people onboard the plane -- John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn and her sister Lauren -- brought to those who knew them.

Letters
Let's remove visual clutter from our roads
Re: Area challenges billboards' survival, July 11.  

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.