Editorials
Social Security untruths
President Bush's Social Security commission fosters needless insecurity. But while his push for privatization is at best premature, some small adjustments now would help.

A drug test to watch
The United States has exported its drug-war mentality to other nations through heavy-handed persuasion and intimidation, and every year we scrutinize our handiwork. An annual report issued by the State Department comments on the drug enforcement efforts of other countries. In it, nations that don't follow the U.S. model of zero tolerance and are experimenting with alternatives to a punitive approach to the drug problem are lectured in a patronizing, we-know-better-than-you tone.

Letters
People, not coyotes, are the problem
Re: Coyotes slink in to stay, July 22.

Olympic vision
Ed Turanchik, the man trying to bring the 2012 Summer Olympics to the Tampa Bay area, may change the landscape of Tampa's downtown through his plans to better the city and attract the Olympic committee.

Bill Maxwell
We have no leaders to save our black men
"Young black men have become the most gullible creatures on the planet."

Margo Hammond
Studs Terkel is what characters are made of
At first I thought the gravelly voice on my answering machine, a voice right out of a bad 1930s gangster flick, was someone doing an imitation of Studs Terkel, and a pretty good one at that. But, no, it was the real thing. I had been trying to get through to Studs for weeks, leaving messages at the Chicago Historical Society, where the 89-year-old writer and radio commentator has an office. I wanted to talk to him about his latest book of interviews, which concentrates on the author's most intriguing subject yet: death.

Philip Gailey
Memories cultivated in my aunt's garden
HOMER, Ga. -- Once upon a time, this land I am walking on was a farm where we did back-aching work in the lazy heat of summer. Now, fields that once bloomed white with cotton have grown thick with pine and hardwood, except in a few spots where my siblings and nieces and nephews have built their houses. The house where I grew up has stood empty for years, deteriorating badly. My mother, who turned 89 this month, lives with her only sister, my Aunt Thelma, in a small but comfortable house just up the road from the homestead. Both are widows with heart problems. They have everything they need, including each other.

Martin Dyckman
Huge voter database left in familiarly questionable hands
TALLAHASSEE -- A certain heresy had taken root in southern France early in the 13th century. The Crusaders who set out to exterminate it had no time to spare for separating the guilty from the innocent. "Kill them all," the knights cried. "The Lord will know his own."