St. Petersburg Times Online: Opinion

'The best of all worlds'
USF President Judy Genshaft's plan to give real autonomy to the university's St. Petersburg campus deserves a chance to succeed.

Gore and Bush, get negative
Oh my. Those mean old Republicans are running "negative" ads about Al Gore. Imagine that. The Republican National Committee is airing an ad that raises questions about Gore's credibility on campaign finance reform and mocking his tendency to exaggerate. The ad uses video clips of the vice president visiting a Buddhist temple in California where money was raised for the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign in 1996. It also shows Gore, in a television interview, suggesting that he helped create the Internet.

More lawyers are not needed; more teachers are
We have four areas vying for a new law school. Why aren't these same areas vying for a teachers' college -- a school where the students are taught how to teach, how to correct the errors in the textbook, how to get their students interested in learning? School districts are practically begging for good teachers, but I haven't heard anyone beg for a lawyer. Scholarships are given for football, basketball, etc., so why can't the universities give teaching scholarships? I'm sure we need teachers much more than athletes, and they would give much more back to our country: educated children. And it couldn't ever be better than that.

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.

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